Oscar's Winners And Losers

Peter Bart, editor in chief of Weekly Variety and Daily Variety, thinks Oscar has come up with an especially interesting list of nominees this year. Just after the nominations, Bart and CBS This Morning Co-Anchor Mark McEwen mulled over the year's winners and losers.

[For a full list of Oscar nominees, see The Official 71st Academy Awards Web Site.]

One of the biggest names missing from the list, Bart says, is actor Jim Carrey. He didn't get a nomination for The Truman Show. "Which is a shame," comments Bart. "He took the biggest chance, in a way. I mean, I was tending to root for the guys that take the big chanceÂ… These are interesting and curious nominations, in many ways."

On the other hand, Life Is Beautiful, nominated for best picture, did very well for Roberto Benigni, who is up for best director and best actor for the film about a father and son imprisoned in a World War II concentration camp.

"Good for him!" comments Bart. "It was an extraordinary picture. It's always fascinating when Hollywood expresses itself in these nominations, because so many of the big pictures, by Hollywood's standards, [like Armageddon] never get noticed."

Other best actor nominees were Tom Hanks, a two-time winner; Ian McKellen of Gods and Monsters, Nick Nolte of Affliction, and Edward Norton of American History X.

It is "rather extraordinary," says Bart, that Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line, both movies about World War II, did not kill each other off in the nominations.

In a surprise, The Thin Red Line picked up seven nominations, a triumphant return to the movies for director Terrence Malick, who hadn't made a film in two decades.

In the end, though, Bart says Saving Private Ryan has an edge over The Thin Red Line, because Ryan "is so heralded, seen by more people. Even in the Academy. I'd be surprised if it didn't win all the marbles."

But, Bart points out, strange things happen at the Oscars. For example, he says, in 1982, Gandhi won the trophy for best picture against competition that included the box-office phenomenon E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.

Bart calls the dominance of Shakespeare in Love, with 13 nominations, "a delicious surprise." The movie, about a young Shakespeare and his muse, "has so much energy and pizzazz," Bart says, adding that Oscar nominations are "the biggest shot in the arm in the world" at the box office for films like Shakespeare in Love, Elizabeth, and The Thin Red Line.

Still, some of Bart's favorites were not nominated, including actor Jeremy Davies of Saving Private Ryan, whom Bart calls "the conscience of the picture. I gather they wrote his role as he went along. Terrific! I'm sorry to see someone like that ignored ithe nominations."

Meanwhile, Oscar nominees and friends were celebrating around the globe.

In Benigni's hometown of Vergaio, a small village in Tuscany, his parents toasted their son and the phenomenal recognition his movie received.

"I told him the night of the premiere: 'Dearest Roberto, this is the most beautiful film you've made'," said his father, Luigi, a farmer who spent two years in a German labor camp during World War II.

"This is one of those films that you make because you fall in love with it and are desperate to do," said McKellen, who portrayed a tormented director of 1930s horror movies in Gods and Monsters.

Hanks' reaction to the Oscar nod: "To be nominated is a very special honor. To be nominated for Ryan...all the more. I am, of course, very delighted. I am also very proud."

Director Steven Spielberg said of Ryan's nominations: "I think this is a tribute to the veterans. It's important that before this century is out, ample recognition is paid to the veterans who saved the world."

A few bits of trivia about the new Oscar nominees:

• It was a big day Down Under with three Australians getting nominations: Geoffrey Rush, supporting actor, Shakespeare in Love; Peter Weir, director, The Truman Show; and Cate Blanchett, actress, Elizabeth.
• Veteran actor James Coburn got his first nomination in his long career for supporting actor in Affliction.
• Two actresses are nominated for portrayals of Queen Elizabeth I this year. Supporting actress nominee Judi Dench has the role in Shakespeare in Love, while Cate Blanchett plays the monarch in her younger years in Elizabeth.
• The record for nominations (14) stands, with Titanic last year and All About Eve in 1951. The most wins for a single film is 11, held by 1959's Ben-Hur and Titanic last year.