Now, before you say it, I know the Oscars don’t represent merit as much as good marketing (although they sometimes just happen to also represent merit). However, they entertain me nonetheless, and I never miss them. At the very least they allow me to relive and discuss the movies of the past year, and I love to talk about movies.

Here are some of my picks. I have yet to see The Pianist and Road to Perdition (probably this weekend for both), so I still reserve the right to change my mind.

* denotes a movie I haven’t seen
italics denotes my pick

Actor in a leading role
*Adrien Brody
Nicolas Cage
*Jack Nicholson
*Michael Caine
Daniel Day-Lewis. His performance was by far the best thing about Gangs of New York.

Actor in a supporting role
Chris Cooper. As the smart redneck in Adaptation, he truly transformed himself and was brilliant.
Ed Harris. I’d love to see him get an Oscar nod (this is his third nomination), but this wasn’t his most challenging role and Cooper deserves it more.
*Paul Newman
John C. Reilly
Christopher Walken. Chris is the coolest guy around, but his performance was simply adequate, and I didn’t think very challenging.

Actress in a leading role
Salma Hayek. She was great and gosh-darnit, I like her.
Nicole Kidman. She did all right.
*Diane Lane
*Julianne Moore
Renée Zellweger. She did all right too.

Actress in a supporting role
*Kathy Bates
Julianne Moore. Good for her. A challenging role, and she availed herself of it quite well. She might win, too.
*Queen Latifah
Meryl Streep. Should have been nominated, if anything, for the Hours, not Adaptation.
Catherine Zeta-Jones. I thought she did a better job than Zellweger.

Art Direction
Chicago
Frida. Narrowly over The Two Towers.
Gangs of New York
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I loved the look of Edoras, the horsepeople’s city, but otherwise this installment wasn’t as strong as the first in terms of design.
*Road to Perdition

Cinematography
Chicago
Far from Heaven
Gangs of New York. Among the ones here, I’ll go for Gangs, but Frida should have been nominated and won.
*The Pianist
*Road to Perdition

Costume Design
Chicago
Frida, hands down over the other nominees.
Gangs of New York
The Hours
*The Pianist

Directing
Chicago
Gangs of New York
The Hours
*The Pianist
Talk to Her
Hmm. Usually this is highly correlated with the Best Picture award, which I guess is bad news for The Two Towers. I wasn’t highly impressed by any of these, but I’ll give it to Chicago… although I think its genius resided most in its editing.

Documentary Feature
Bowling for Columbine
*Daughter from Danang
*Prisoner of Paradise
*Spellbound
*Winged Migration
Okay, in all fairness I only saw Bowling, but I think it was an important film, even if overstated and slightly exploitative, and I hope it gets the award.

Editing
Chicago
Gangs of New York
The Hours
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
*The Pianist

Makeup
Frida
The Time Machine
Frankly, neither really impressed. There was just more of an effort made for TTM.

Music (Score)
Catch Me if You Can. The only one I noticed. I still think The Lord of the Rings score was great, but they won that last year. Obscenely perhaps, this is John Williams’ 42nd nomination.
*Far from Heaven
Frida
The Hours
*Road to Perdition

Best Picture
Chicago
Gangs of New York
The Hours
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
*The Pianist
Honestly, I don’t think either of the four I’ve seen deserved the Best Picture award, but then again, I can’t think of anything else in 2002 that did. However, I know the reason why I had misgivings about TTT was the liberties it took with the book. In all fairness, though, if you look at it as a movie, it was to me the most entertaining, epic and probably least forgettable of the nominees.

Animated Short
*The Cathedral
*The ChubbChubbs!
*Das Rad
Mike’s New Car
*Mt. Head
Lemme explain. I sincerely hope that Mike’s New Car does NOT get this award. It wasn’t any good. You know how whenever Stephen King writes anything, they make it into a movie? In the same way, whenever Pixar makes anything, it gets automatically nominated. This did not deserve a nomination, especially when you think of all the other animated shorts made with love and talent, by filmmakers who could truly benefit from an Oscar nod.

Visual Effects
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. One word: Gollum.
Spider-Man
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
About a Boy. This movie deserves so much more attention than just one Oscar nomination, but this is a good category.
Adaptation. Slightly clever, but self-satisfied, masturbatory and utterly annoying. But it’ll probably win.
Chicago
The Hours
*The Pianist

Writing (Original Screenplay)
Far from Heaven
Gangs of New York. Come on. Unidimensional guy loses dad. Unidimensional guy wants revenge. Unidimensional guy gets it. THREE HOURS FOR THAT?
My Big Fat Greek Wedding. A close runner-up.
Talk To Her
*Y Tu Mama También