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© St. Petersburg Times, published March 25, 2003
Michael Moore's rant against President Bush turned out to be the easiest thing to predict about Sunday night's 75th annual Academy Awards.
Even the expected, such as Chicago being named best picture of 2002, managed to seem unexpected after the film lost prizes for lead acting, directing and screenplay.
The Pianist made me believe for a few minutes that Chicago really didn't have it coming.
I would like to see proof that anyone in an Oscar pool picked The Pianist trifecta of best director Roman Polanski (over Gangs of New York's Martin Scorsese and Chicago's Rob Marshall), best actor Adrien Brody (over four previous Oscar winners), and Ronald Harwood's best original screenplay (over Adaptation and The Hours). Each winner was deserving. None was expected.
The late gold rush by The Pianist capped one of the most volatile, entertaining Oscar nights in recent years. (Too bad TV viewership dropped by 15 percent from last year's bloated extravaganza, which ABC is attributing to the war.)
Here are highlights that Oscar watchers may have overlooked while puzzling over their ballots:
DIVERSITY RULES: After historic results for Asian cinema in 2001 (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's four awards) and African-Americans last year with the lead-actor sweep by Halle Berry and Denzel Washington, the academy turned its attention to Spanish-language cultures.
Two prizes went to Frida, a biography of artist Frida Kahlo that, although mostly in English, was steeped in Mexican culture, including Elliot Goldenthal's Oscar-winning, flamenco-flavored musical score. Another measure of respect for Frida was its selection for the best makeup award, chiefly for actor Salma Hayek's unibrow look, over the more elaborate sci-fi disguises of The Time Machine.
The most dramatic breakthrough for Spanish-language films came with Pedro Almodovar's best original screenplay Oscar for Talk to Her (Habla con ella). Almodovar, a previous winner for best foreign language film (All About My Mother) became the first screenplay Oscar winner for an entirely Spanish script.
Only three non-English screenplays had previously won Academy Awards: the French films A Man and a Woman (1966) and The Red Balloon (1956), and Italy's racy 1962 comedy,Divorce, Italian Style. All were original works.
All adapted screenplay winners in Oscar history were written in English, although a few, such as Missing and Traffic, included foreign language dialogue with subtitles.
The influence of Hispanic films was felt in other ways Sunday as well. Hayek, a nominee for best actress, made a strong impression as a presenter. A version of the nominated song Burn It Blue, from Frida, was sung beautifully in Spanish by Lila Downs and Caetano Veloso.
The song was introduced by 24-year-old actor Gael Garcia Bernal, whose film Y Tu Mama Tambien wasn't eligible in the foreign language film category because Mexico submitted El Crimen del Padre Amaro for consideration. Bernal made the evening's first direct reference to war in Iraq:
"The necessity for peace in the world is not a dream; it is a reality," Bernal said in English. "If Frida was alive she would be on our side, against war."
YO, OSCAR ROCKS: Another culture finally noticed by the academy was the hip-hop scene, most dramatically when Barbra Streisand announced Eminem's Lose Yourself from 8 Mile as the year's best original song. The mercurial rapper didn't attend the ceremony, leading to the first televised occasion since 1953 when an Oscar-winning song wasn't performed on the show.
The selection of Lose Yourself was the most dramatic break from Oscar music tradition since Isaac Hayes won for Theme from Shaft in 1972, after nearly a half-century of "moon-June-spoon" songwriting. Hayes' funk paved the way for disco (Last Dance, 1979), synth-pop (Take My Breath Away, 1987) and top 10 musicians (Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John) to win Oscars.
Eminem also became the latest rap musician to impress as an actor in his 8 Mile debut. One of the first rappers crossing over to films and television, Queen Latifah, was a best supporting actress nominee for Chicago and delivered a sultry duet with Catherine Zeta-Jones on I Move On, a best song nominee from that film.
Host Steve Martin, co-starring with Latifah in the comedy hit Bringing Down the House, fondly referred to her onstage as "sequel money."
BEST OSCAR SURPRISE: Upset winners aside, the shocker was that the show didn't last until Monday morning. Academy president Frank Pierson pledged that the show would end by midnight Eastern Standard Time, and he delivered.
The 3 1/2 hour show was the leanest in years, nearly an hour shorter than last year's record-setting 4 hour, 23 minute running time.
How'd they do it?
First, the 45-second time limit on acceptance speeches was enforced except in extraordinary circumstances, such as Brody's surprising win and eloquent acceptance. Not many winners adhered to the new rules about thanking only five people and not using notes, but they were generally quick about it.
If they weren't, the microphone would simply drop into the stage as an unmistakable hint that time had expired.
Pierson and producer Gilbert Cates also eliminated the use of film clips for each of the acting nominees, saving about 20 minutes overall. More time was saved by skipping Eminem's song.
The 75th anniversary was appropriately noted with past winning actors dating to 93-year-old Luise Rainer (The Good Earth, The Great Ziegfeld) scattered through the audience, then posed onstage for a group tribute. Some, such as Mickey Rooney and Ernest Borgnine, were used by Martin as punch lines. Rapid-fire film clips of past winners and a memorial to deceased artists moved briskly.
Everything the academy tried to streamline the show worked. Now let's see it do that again.
WORST OSCAR SURPRISE: For the first time in my life, I missed more Oscar predictions than I hit, picking winners in 10 of 24 categories. That was one fewer than St. Petersburg Times marketing director Ed. Cassidy, a voting academy member whose predictions were included in Sunday's Oscar preview.
Cassidy, like his deciding pick of Nicole Kidman as best actress, won by a nose.