2003-04

It's a Wonderful Night for Oscar! Oscar, Oscar! Who Will Win?

[RETROSPECTIVE, 2023-03-13]

It's been fun looking back at my own personal history with the Academy Awards over these last twenty years, placing those moments in time when certain revelations about how the showbiz awards cycle – or indeed, the filmmaking process itself – started clicking with me. While movies had always captured my attention and imagination from a young age, I have to cite this specific Oscars telecast on the leap-year Sunday in February of 2004 as an especially formative experience.

This was my first Oscars. Prior to this year, it had been a vague concept with no context, one that I was merely aware of through archival snippets used for their TV ads and from hearing the oft commandeered phrase "and the Oscar goes to..."

I never had any inclination to stay up on a school night to watch such a program. Movie-going was a treat that I only enjoyed a few times a year, and usually for family fare that would never come within a whiff of this prestigious ceremony.

But this year I was curious. I have Jack Sparrow to thank for that.

In July of 2003, my family was camping in Stowe, Vermont. On a particularly rainy night we sought refuge in a tiny mom-and-pop cinema (four screens, each no bigger than your living room wall) which just so happened to be showing Pirates of the Caribbean. Flash forward seven months and I notice in the Entertainment section of The Toronto Star that Johnny Depp is nominated for Best Actor at the upcoming Academy Awards. Not that I felt particularly attached to the movie, but I suddenly had an atypical vested interest in seeing outcome of this category.

Oh, there's also one other movie my younger brother and I got out to see that holiday season; A quaint, little production you may have heard of called Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. I noticed that it was in the running for many awards too, and I even snipped out the prediction checklist from the newspaper (that's right, print media) to keep track of them.

I remember the opening reel of Billy Crystal being spliced into scenes from various movies, and I remember laughing throughout even though I hadn't seen most of them (Michael Moore being stomped by an oliphant got the biggest guffaw). His song-and-dance comedy patter had a way of getting me to giggle even though I lacked the film industry knowledge to get the jokes. There's a reason Crystal has hosted more times than any comedian currently alive; He had a stage presence and a genial mode of "let's not take this too seriously" that struck a perfect balance between lightheartedness and classiness that no host since has managed to replicate (Hugh Jackman comes closest). Crystal was the platonic ideal of an Oscar Host.

Delightful as his opening set was, I wasn't here for him. I decided that I would stay awake just until they got to Johnny Depp's category, and then I'd go to bed. Poor little teenage Nate had no idea that would be one of the last categories announced, but I was determined to make it until then.

As each category was introduced (and subsequently awarded to Peter Jackson's Middle Earth opus), I started picking up on the multitude of elements that went into making this movie magic. Some curiosities were immediately answered ("Oh, so art direction means, like, sets and stuff") while new questions were raised ("Wait, didn't they already give an award for Sound? What's Sound Mixing?")

By the time they got to Best Actor at nearly midnight, I was exhausted and little bit confused as to why some other guy ended up winning. "Who is this Sean Penn fellow?" But at that point I was all in on seeing LOTR complete its historic sweep.

This evening really was an origin story of sorts. Besides sparking an enduring fascination with a glitzy annual tradition, the 2004 Oscar broadcast fundamentally shifted the way I engage with and think about film, forever and for the better.

BEST PICTURE ✅

Will win: Return of the King

BEST DIRECTOR ✅

Will win: Peter Jackson, Return of the King

BEST ACTOR ❌

Will win: Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean

[Did win]: Sean Penn, Mystic River

BEST ACTRESS ✅

Will win: Charlize Theron, Monster

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR ✅

Will win: Tim Robbins, Mystic River

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS ❌

Will win: Marcia Gay Harden, Mystic River

[Did win]: René Zellweger, Cold Mountain

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY ✅

Will win: Lost in Translation

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY ✅

Will win: Return of the King

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE ✅

Will win: Finding Nemo

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM ✅

Will win: The Barbarian Invasions

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE ✅

Will win: The Fog of War

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY ❌

Will win: Cold Mountain

[Did win]: Master and Commander

BEST FILM EDITING ✅

Will win: Return of the King

BEST ART DIRECTION ✅

Will win: Return of the King

BEST COSTUME DESIGN ✅

Will win: Return of the King

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE ✅

Will win: Return of the King

BEST ORIGINAL SONG ✅

Will win: "Into the West" from Return of the King

BEST SOUND MIXING ❌

Will win: Master and Commander

[Did win]: Return of the King

BEST SOUND EDITING ✅

Will win: Master and Commander

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS ✅

Will win: Return of the King

BEST MAKEUP ✅

Will win: Return of the King

BEST ANIMATED SHORT ❌

Will win: Boundin'

[Did win]: Harvey Krumpet

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT ✅

Will win: Two Soldiers

BEST DOCUMENTARY, SHORT SUBJECT ❌

Will win: Asylum

[Did win]: Chernobyl Heart

Post-Oscars Analysis

Final score: 18/24

Not bad for an Oscar rookie, but context is everything. Zero thought went into those predictions I made on the spur of the moment back in 2004. I simply guessed LOTR to win almost every category it could.

I've been chasing the elusive perfect score ever since...