The Oscars: "Chicago" Is Chic

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Streep might get some sympathy for losing out on a Best Actress nomination for "The Hours"; voters can use this entry to reward her in either film, or both. "Chicago" moved Zeta-Jones out of the mannequin class and into the Actors Studio. Moore, by our lights, is stronger in "The Hours" — subtler, less judgmental of her character — than in "Far from Heaven." But there are no losers here. For once, it really is a honor to be nominated.

HOPE: Moore
THINK: Streep

BEST SCREENPLAY ADAPTATION

Bill Condon, "Chicago"
David Hare, "The Hours"
Ronald Harwood, "The Pianist"
Peter Hedges, Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz, "About a Boy"
Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman, "Adaptation"

This wouldn't be the first time that a Screenplay Oscar went to someone who didn't write the movie he was nominated for. (Check IMDb for awards on "The Brave One" and "The Bridge on the River Kwai.") This year does set a precedent, though: a fictional character has never before been nominated. Charlie Kaufman had the pleasure of hearing his imaginary brother Donald's name mentioned this morning as co-writer of "Adaptation." The Academy says that, in the event "Adaptation" wins the Adaptation award, only one statuette will be given. Will Kaufman get even one for his outlandishly egocentric deconstruction of Susan Orlean's "The Orchid Thief"?

Screenplay adaptations go to writers who have done exalted drudge work: locating the drama in sprawling material (as Hare did); keeping the good lines from a sparkling comic novel (as the "About a Boy" trio did with Nick Hornby's novel); instilling spine and suspense in a one-man Holocaust-survival story (Harwood); and solving a famously intractable property (Bill Condon, "Chicago" — it helped that directed Rob Marshall kept saying all the razzle-dazzle elements of the movie were in the script). It's an honorable group, with no immediate front-runner. So the film that wins in this category may well be the film that wins Best Picture.

HOPE: five-way tie
THINK (after several coin flips): Condon

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Pedro Almodvar, "Talk to Her"
Alfonso Cuarn, Carlos Cuarn, "Y Tu Mam Tambin"
Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, Kenneth Lonergan, "Gangs of New York"
Todd Haynes, "Far from Heaven"
Nia Vardalos, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"

Here's the most international bunch of screenwriters since the mid-50s and the first flush of foreign-film eclat, when Federico Fellini, Cesare Zavattini and Jean-Paul Sartre were nominated, and a French short with no dialogue ("The Red Balloon" won Best Screenplay of 1956). This year's nominees include a Spaniard, two Mexican brothers, a Greco-Canadian, an indie auteur and a former TIME movie critic! That's Jay Cocks, who nurtured "Gangs of New York" for decades, midwifing his pal Marty's obsession.

I wish them all well. But Vardalos pulled off a genuine "Rocky" here: like Sylvester Stallone, she wrote a script and insisted she play the lead. Hollywood likes that kind of long-shot moxie, and the $240 million "MBFGW" grossed on a $5 million budget.

HOPE: Cocks & Co.
THINK: Vardalos

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

"Ice Age"
"Lilo & Stitch"
"Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron"
"Spirited Away"
"Treasure Planet"

The hard job this year was to make an animated film and not be nominated. This year two films achieved that distinction: "Stuart Little 2," which was (a) a mix of live action and animation, and (b) an expensive flop; and "The Wild Thornberries," another Nickelodeon feature cartoons that got no respect. Didn't deserve much either.

Hayao Miyazaki is the one master represented here, and "Spirited Away" the one animated feature that sailed with the magic the form is capable of. The favorites would be the CGI "Ice Age" and the more traditional "Lilo," but in a year when neither Pixar nor the DreamWorks computer team released a feature, Miyazaki's tale of a ghostly bath house has a chance. Well, I can dream (in Japanese), can't I?

HOPE: "Spirited Away"
THINK: "Ice Age"

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

"Bowling for Columbine"
"Daughter from Danang"
"Prisoner of Paradise"
"Spellbound"
"Winged Migration"

Stop the presses: no Holocaust movie in this category this year! (But there are Jews-in-WWII films in eight others, so it's not as if Oscar has forgotten its favorite genre.) We usually tell you to vote by subject for Best Documentary. Here are four of this year's topics for discussion:

"Daughter from Danang": an Amer-Asian woman is reunited with her Vietnamese mother after 22 years.

"Prisoner of Paradise": the story of Italian WWII soldiers brought to the U.S. as Prisoners of War.

"Spellbound": kids in the national Spelling Bee.

"Winged Migration": birds in flight (from the "Microcosmos" people).

Then there's "Bowling for Columbine." Michael Moore's essay on American gun love won nine best-documentary prizes from outlying critics' societies, and oodles of awards at international film festivals. But just as the New York Film Festival blackballed "Columbine" from its 2002 fete, the main critics' groups — New York, Los Angeles and the National — went out of their way to award engaging but pedestrian documentaries like "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" and "The Cockettes," neither of which received even a nomination here. These were basically ABC votes: Anything But "Columbine."

Will a similar anti-Moore sentiment infect the Academy? The film isn't so much anti-gun as antiwar — and bracingly, rambunctiously opposed to U.S. military adventures in foreign climes. Oscar voters may not have the balls to reward "Columbine" in on a night in late March when, in all likelihood, American will be dumping its own arsenal on the Iraqi people. But whether or not he wins, Moore ought to get working on another contentious documentary. He could call it "Bombing for Baghdad."

HOPE: "Bowling for Columbine"
THINK: Aaah, "Bowling for Columbine"

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM

"El Crimen del Padre Amaro" / "The Crime of Father Amaro," Mexico
"Hero," China
"The Man Without a Past," Finland
"Nowhere in Africa," Germany
"Zus & Zo," Netherlands

Each year we rant against this category's nomination process (each country's film industry chooses one contender, then a small group of Academy members whittles the list down to five). And each year, they deserve it!