The nominees were ...
... when they should have been ...
And the Oscar went to ...
American Beauty. It's not surprising that, confronted with the vivid and provocative work of such writer and director newcomers as Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman, Alexander Payne, Paul Thomas Anderson, and David O. Russell, the Academy should have wound up nominating such more-or-less conventional films as The Cider House Rules, The Green Mile, and The Insider, and the crowd-pleasing shocker The Sixth Sense, but that it should give the Oscar to perhaps the most unconventional of the nominees, American Beauty, was a hopeful sign. (One not fulfilled by the Academy's choices in years to come, however.) We can only speculate what Louis B. Mayer or Darryl F. Zanuck would have made of a film that spends a long time watching a plastic bag swirl in the breeze. The film also took awards for Kevin Spacey as best actor, Sam Mendes's debut as a film director, Alan Ball's screenplay, and Conrad L. Hall's cinematography. Even at the time, however, some critics found the film's tone a bit too acrid, and its treatment of women grating, an opinion that has become more widespread as time passes.
... when it should have gone to ...
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| Magnolia |
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