THE OSCARS

 

 

Nemo finds Oscar for animated feature

Denise Robert spoke to CTV's Ben Mulroney on the red carpet before the festivities got under way. The pair were looking calm and cool under the glare of the bright lights. In fact, one of Mulroney's questions to the unflappable Arcand was "What can we do to excite you?" "A round of golf with Tiger Williams," Arcand replied with a broad smile. The Barbarian Invasions was nominated for best foreign language film -- Arcand's third nomination in the category after The Decline of the American Empire in 1986 and Jesus of Montreal in 1989. The Barbarian Invasions also earned Arcand a nomination for best screenplay. A best-picture win for The Lord of the Rings would be the first ever for the fantasy genre, generally overlooked by Oscar voters who favor heavy drama over otherworldly stories. Only a handful of fantasy or science-fiction tales have earned best-picture nominations, among them The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the first two Lord of the Rings installments, The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Also competing for best picture: Lost in Translation, a comic drama of oddball friendship between Americans in Tokyo; Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, a rousing Napoleonic naval adventure; Mystic River, a brooding thriller about three childhood friends reunited as adults by a murder investigation; and Seabiscuit, the uplifting story of the underdog Depression-era racehorse. Charlize Theron was up for best actress as serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster. Sean Penn, long viewed as the best-actor favourite for his role as a vengeful father in Mystic River, faced fresh competition from Johnny Depp as a punch-drunk buccaneer in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Depp won last weekend's Screen Actors Guild Award over Penn, while Bill Murray as a washed-up actor in Lost in Translation also was a strong competitor for best actor. The Triplets of Belleville's Belleville Rendez-Vous, by Quebec composer and jazz guitarist Ben Charest, was up for best original song.

Toronto-born composer Howard Shore was nominated for best score for Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, as well a Finding Nemo found its way to the Oscar podium Sunday night, winning the Academy Award for best animated feature. The child of divorcing corporate parents Walt Disney Co. and Pixar Animation Studios, Nemo was one of the smash hits of 2003, taking in $340 million US in ticket sales. The lushly animated film tells the story of a father fish looking for his little son, who struggles to make his way back home to the ocean. Finding Nemo, which was up against Disney's Brother Bear and Sony Pictures Classics' made-in-Montreal The Triplets of Belleville, was in the lineage of such hits as Toy Story, A Bug's Life and Monsters, Inc. But amid the film's success, the family behind it was fragmenting, with Pixar chief Steve Jobs breaking off negotiations with Michael Eisner-led Disney. Eisner, in turn, has been under attack for his management of the company he has led for 20 years, which recently was the target of a takeover bid by cable giant Comcast. The winning moment at Kodak Theatre could have been awkward, but director Andrew Stanton simply credited the "extraordinary filmmaking environment at Pixar" as well as Dick Cook, the chairman of Walt Disney Studios. Presenter Robin Williams alluded to the Disney-Pixar breakup before the award was announced, saying that with Eisner losing Pixar, "all you're going to have left is basically a Muppet and a waterslide." The filmmakers populated their animated water world with a school of clever characters -- the clown fish Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks), the blue tang fish Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a trio of sharks and a surfing turtle, among them. Two more Pixar-Disney features are upcoming under the current contract: The Incredibles, due out later this year, and Cars, slated for release next year.