AND THE OSCAR SHOULD GO TO...MY PICKS

If Best Picture means the film that has the "most bests," then Chicago wins. It certainly wins all the post-production awards - for editing and sound editing. The screenplay is the most clever, combining songs and images in a way that didn't make us wince and in fact never dragged (except arguably during Bill Reilly's song Mr. Celophane.) Renee Zellweger does a fabulous job, as does Catherine Zeta-Jones as supporting actress (although if Nicole wins for The Hours, I could live with it. Nicole is really the Best Actress out there right now. She can do anything.) Richard Gere was so good that the audience in the theater I was in actually applauded his little tap dance scene. Cinematography is great here - very difficult lighting and blocking to deal with all throughout. Staging and costumes were great. All of it was brought together, kept moving and entertaining by Rob Marshall.

Chicago gets the distinction of being the only film nominated this year that didn't bore me or insult me at some point.

Films that absolutely bored me in endless hours of self-indulgent directing or sheer skillless meandering included:
-LOTR: The Two Towers ("Good grief! Not another twenty minutes of talking trees..."),
-The Pianist ("Adrien, time to emote!...Okay, now, emote!..Adrien? ADRIEN!!!"),
-Gangs of New York ("Yawning through the nausea."),
-The Hours ("NO! I don't care what you say. I am not killing myself or becoming a lesbian. So lay off already!.")

Films that particularly insulted me included:
-The Road to Perdition for Hypocritical Catholics,(Which is, You Know, Probably All of Them) Who Have Rosaries in One Pocket and Handguns in the Other,
-Far from a Well Thought Out Story But Enough For a Propagandist Heaven
-Bowling for the NRA Makes Any Distortion of the Truth Permissable
-Punch Drunk Audience Trying to Figure Out What Emily Watson Was Smoking When She Accepted This Role
-About Enough of Kathy Bates

Overlooked in the awards:
- Jude Law was fabulously creepy in the otherwise unfortunate Road to Perdition. He totally out-acted Forest Gump. You know, the guy who always plays the Tom Hanks character?
- The animators in LOTR: Towers deserve something for making us fall in love with Gollum despite his slimey-ness.
- Franka Potente, that cool chick in The Bourne Identity. She shouldn't beat out Zeta-Jones for Supporting Actress, but she should have gotten a nod, at least. If only her character at hinted at lesbian tendencies she might have had a chance.
- Minority Report for screenplay...or director? Am I the only one who liked this film?

But, it's no use. Scorsese will get Director. The Hours will get screenplay. Bowling Over Columbine will win the Doc. Daniel Day Lewis will get actor (and then will gut the statue on national television...)...it's all so tiresome.