Who Will Oscar Go Home With This Year?

After last week’s column of looking at the road not taken by the Academy Awards and mulling over some of the nominations that could have been, but weren’t, we’ll follow up on the promise to look at the major nominees and discuss who deserves to stride to victory Sunday night. This year, the race for Oscar glory is more heated and wide open than in recent memory (no one film hit double-digits in number of nominations), thus making your office Oscar pool rather difficult to win, but hopefully making for an intriguing broadcast. Without further ado, let’s look at our contestants.

Best Actor: Russell Crowe (The Insider), Richard Farnsworth (The Straight Story), Sean Penn (Sweet and Lowdown), Kevin Spacey (American Beauty) and Denzel Washington (The Hurricane). Nary an undeserving member in the bunch, each actor brings something unique to the table, whether it’s Farnsworth’s earthiness, Penn’s eccentricities, or Crowe’s physical and emotional immersion. However, for me it’s between Spacey’s fumbling father and Washington’s volatile pugilist… with Washington coming out a hair ahead (and that’s probably because I still think he should have won for Malcolm X!).

Best Actress: Annette Bening (American Beauty), Janet McTeer (Tumbleweeds), Julianne Moore (The End of the Affair), Meryl Streep (Music of the Heart) and Hilary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry). When American Beauty was first released, I initially felt Bening’s work in it was largely overlooked. That has since changed. Now, many feel she may win the trophy, so I find myself, though still fond of her performance, leaning towards McTeer or Swank for my pick. Swank’s is the more daring role for sure, but McTeer’s — in which the British-born stage actress plays an impetuous, very Southern American mom — perhaps requires almost as much of a reshaping of her every fiber.

Best Supporting Actor: Michael Caine (The Cider House Rules), Tom Cruise (Magnolia), Michael Clarke Duncan (The Green Mile), Jude Law (The Talented Mr Ripley) and Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense). Again, my sentiments are torn between two of the nominees. In particular here, the battle is between the young Osment, a wonder in The Sixth Sense, and Cruise, who shocked audiences (at least those who actually saw Magnolia) with his portrayal of a vitriol-spewing self-help peddler. I’m leaning towards Cruise, who, for a major motion picture superstar, is still vastly underrated as an actor.

Best Supporting Actress: Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense), Angelina Jolie (Girl, Interrupted), Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich), Samantha Morton (Sweet and Lowdown) and Chloe Sevigny Boys Don’t Cry). A really tough category, with Jolie being the only one with an out-and-out flashy role. Keener stole the show in her film, and Morton evoked memories of silent film starlets gone by, but since I didn’t side with Osment above, I may have to go with his co-star, Collette, whose wealth of feelings was shattering in a film that was surprisingly full of emotional depth.

Best Director: Lasse Hallstrom (The Cider House Rules), Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich), Michael Mann (The Insider), Sam Mendes (American Beauty), and M. Night Shymalan (The Sixth Sense). My two favorites from 1999 (actually three) — Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia) and the Wachowski Bros., Larry and Andy (The Matrix) — are nowhere to be found here, so my affections are torn between first-timer Mendes and relative newcomer Shymalan. It’s a toss up, but I’m fond of Shymalan’s Hitchcockian twists and a sly story construction that would have made the Master of Suspense proud.

Best Picture: American Beauty, The Cider House Rules, The Green Mile, The Insider and The Sixth Sense. Finally, which of these five films should receive the evening’s biggest honor? Though The Cider House Rules seems to be gaining momentum, and The Sixth Sense was the most seen, I’m leaning towards the dark and difficult American Beauty, which refused to sugarcoat the problems of the inhabitants of a typical American suburb, remaining disturbingly truthful not only to the struggles of a middle-aged father, but those of his wife, their daughter, their friends, their neighbors… It’s not an easy film, but it’s definitely one of 1999’s best.