As an avid movie fan, I found this year’s Academy Awards particularly interesting.
For the first time ever, a fantasy film– The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King—shattered the long-standing glass ceiling that confined such films to technical categories like Sound Editing and Special Effects. Instead, it went all the way, clinching both Best Director and Best Picture.
Kudos to the happy Hobbits, elegant Elves, gruff-looking Dwarves, wise Wizards, and humble Humans who brought Middle-earth (or, as we call it in this dimension, New Zealand) to life. And, of course, massive credit to Peter Jackson, who– once a George Lucas-ian nobody– spent nearly a decade turning Tolkien’s highly revered (but let’s be honest, stupendously dense and slow-paced) tome into cinematic magic.
That said, I can’t help but feel a tiny bit disappointed that Bill Murray didn’t take home Best Actor for Lost in Translation. His performance was brilliant—subtle, melancholic, and deeply human. But at least the film didn’t go home empty-handed, with Sofia Coppola winning Best Original Screenplay.
As for her speech, let’s just say her on-stage aloofness was either due to a terminal case of bashfulness or she was still mentally recovering from her ill-fated role in The Godfather Part III.
Either way, not a bad night for film history.