Bring on the Oscars

By RUSSELL BAILLIE entertainment editor

The triumph of The Return of the King at yesterday's Golden Globes has made Peter Jackson and his Lord of the Rings team clear favourites for Oscar glory.

At the awards ceremony in Los Angeles, The Return of the King was named best dramatic picture ahead of its likely Oscar competition, Cold Mountain, Mystic River and Master and Commander. Jackson also won best director.

Collecting his award, Jackson apologised for his famously dishevelled appearance.

"I think I dropped the standard on the red carpet coming in. I didn't realise that seven years on this movie would end up turning me into a hobbit.

"There are so many people down in New Zealand I should thank," he added.

"But I won't get the New Zealand phone book out, don't worry."

The results of the Globes - once famously described by comedian Robin Williams as "foreplay for the Oscars" - indicates the movie should take the big prizes on February 29.

That's not just because of its four out of four wins - it also won best soundtrack and best original song - but by how its competition fared.

Cold Mountain, an American Civil War epic, had eight nominations but came away with just one win, for Renee Zellweger as best supporting actress.

Russell Crowe's Master and Commander and Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai failed to win at all.

The first two films in the Tolkien trilogy, Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, won six Oscars in technical categories at the 2002 and 2003 ceremonies. But best picture and best director honours eluded them.

This year the Oscar campaign by the trilogy's backer, New Line - which went into high gear after last year's disappointments - would seem to be paying off.

The Golden Globes are voted by the 90 or so members of the Los Angeles-based Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group with a reputation of being in the pocket of the movie studios, the stars and agents. But when it comes to predicting Oscar best picture winners the Globes have been on the money.

While the members just might have liked The Return of the King the best, the first two in the trilogy had six Golden Globe nominations but no wins.

Yesterday's successes show the voters have not been out-schmoozed by New Line's competition.

That includes heavyweight awards campaigners such as Miramax's Harvey Weinstein, whose Cold Mountain is now looking like an Oscar also-ran despite its prestige cast. Miramax has had best picture Oscar nominations for the past 12 years.

The Return of the King still faces some challenges for the best picture Academy Award.

Films usually need support in the main acting categories to win the big prize and the biggest Oscar voting bloc is the actors.

The trilogy has had only one Oscar supporting actor nomination so far and when the 2004 nominations are announced early tomorrow morning (New Zealand time) it's unlikely any will figure.

But it appears the voting actors don't think much of The Return of the King's likely Oscar competition.

The Return of the King cast is among the nominees in this year's Screen Actors Guild awards, which will be announced a week before the Oscars, and Cold Mountain's only nomination is Zellweger's supporting performance.

If acting muscle is the way to a best picture Oscar then Mystic River would seem to be The Return of the King's biggest rival, with three-Globe winner Lost in Translation also figuring.

Mystic River director Clint Eastwood may have lost to Jackson at the Golden Globes but his gritty drama won both the best actor in a drama for Sean Penn and best supporting actor for Tim Robbins.

Then there is the sentimental old-Hollywood factor. This helped Eastwood win best picture and best director for Unforgiven in 1993.

However, in a year of movie spectacles, if the performance-powered Mystic River took the Oscars for best picture or best director ahead of Return of the King or Peter Jackson, it would be one of the biggest Oscar upsets in years.

Herald Feature: Lord of the Rings