The 73rd Annual Academy Award Nominations came out today. The nominees for Best Motion Picture are Chocolat; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Erin Brockovich; Gladiator; and Traffic. I've only seen the middle three, so I'll only comment on them. Crouching Tiger is a great foreign film and lots of people adore it. But when you get down to it, the story is not all that great, although maybe that's why there's a Best Screenplay category.

Gladiator has the same problem. Great period piece and cinematography and action, but only average story. I have no idea why Gladiator was nominated other than it made a lot of money. Erin Brockovich is the best movie of the three. Still, it's also not a movie people will remember fondly 20 years from now. Coming back full circle, Crouching Tiger is the closest of the three to being considered a classic in 20 years. But I'm rooting for Erin Brockovich.

For Best Director we have Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot), Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Ridley Scott (Gladiator), and two for Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich, Traffic). Director is one of those that is hard to pick unless you know what to look for. Unfortunately, that's not me. I guess I can try to imagine the movie if someone with lesser skills were directing. Considering that, I would then have to say that Crouching Tiger would have been an awful movie with a lesser director. Not to say that Chow Yun Fat or Michelle Yeoh aren't good actors, but that movie didn't need good actors more than it needed a good director.

The nominees for Best Actor are Javier Bardem (Before Night Falls), Russell Crowe (Gladiator), Tom Hanks (Cast Away), Ed Harris (Pollock) and Geoffrey Rush (Quills). Hmm, I've only seen Russel Crowe and Tom Hanks. Out of the two I was more impressed with Tom Hanks as Cast Away was just about him. I like Ed Harris but I didn't see Pollock. Russell Crowe is a bit overrated as an actor, in my opinion.

On to Best Actress. We have Joan Allen (The Contender), Juliette Binoche (Chocolat), Ellen Burstyn (Requiem for a Dream), Laura Linney (You Can Count on Me) and Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich). This one is easy since I've only seen Erin Brockovich. Strange that this year only three of the actor nominees are from Best Picture candidates. Guess it goes to show that there weren't any runaway movies last year.

For Best Supporting Actor and Actresses we have ten people who were in films I did not see, and I saw 57 movies last year. You know there are all these other categories -- Best Screenplay, Music Score, Song, Cinematography, Editing, Make-Up, Visual FX, Costumes, Art Directrion, etc -- and most people dont' care about who gets those awards. Sure, if you're in the industry or at least pay close attention you'll probably be interested. But there are all these categories that have been added over the years and the televised show has gotten very long and that's with 30 seconds of showing the miscellaneous awards scrolling quickly up the screen.

And then there are the Golden Globes, the MTV Awards, People's Choice Awards and a bunch of other organizations that have their own movie awards. It seems like every group wants their own awards so that they can have an excuse to put on a show and attract some stars. Ah well, every industry is like that. There are several sets of gaming awards or computer awards or sports awards or music awards. It just seems rather banal to me and I'm just being negative today.