Madsen and Faux Chicago Nominated for Oscars

By Scott Smith in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 25, 2005 5:41PM

One of the great things about living in Chicago is that you’re not required to get up at the butt crack of dawn to see the Oscar nominations announced on live TV. Chicagoist leisurely sipped its morning coffee at 7:30 AM as this year’s nominees were rudely woken by their friends at 5:30 West coast time.

One nominee who was probably awake already was Chicagoan Virginia Madsen who received an expected nomination in the supporting actress category for Sideways. She’s probably a lock for the win for three reasons: 1) the film itself will be shut out of most of its other nominations (adapted screenplay being a possible exception if Million Dollar Baby doesn’t become a favorite for best picture) and 2) with Paul Giamatti being robbed of a best actor nomination, this will be the only opportunity that voters will have to recognize the film’s all-around excellent performances.

Chicago also features heavily in the Visual Effects nominations. Some computer pixels and the city of Toronto were nominated for their powerful portrayal of Chicago in 2035 in the movie I, Robot while a Loop El train’s understated cameo performance as a New York City train car in peril was recognized for its work in Spider-Man 2.

Though we’re hearing the same old refrain from many that this was a lousy year for movies, some great work and overlooked performances did get recognized.

To the surprise of no one, Jamie Foxx picked up a nomination for Ray but his more nuanced performance in Collateral shed some light on a film that’s been sadly overlooked this year. Hotel Rwanda nailed two acting nominations and a best original screenplay nod as well. Also, Charlie Kaufman’s head trip script for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the always-brilliant Kate Winslet saved that film from undeserved mainstream obscurity (though we predict it will eventually be recognized as Jim Carrey’s finest performance and Kauffman’s most consistent work since unlike most of his other scripts, he bothered to put the same effort into the third act as he did the rest). Lastly, the producers of Finding Neverland ought to be sending Johnny Depp a thank you note for its seven nominations as it was the strength of his performance that brought that film its due.

Other than the snubs for the work of Giamatti and Michael Mann’s direction on Collateral, the lack of enthusiasm for Kinsey’s subject matter (and occasional gay undertones?) meant it received only a polite nod for Laura Linney’s performance; we still have yet to see a cartoon get nominated* for best picture though The Incredibles really seemed to have a shot this year; and in the battle of 70s dramatic television actors Alan Alda’s nomination for being in M*A*S*H all those years ago won out over James Garner’s work in The Rockford Files (ok, so it was actually The Aviator and The Notebook but let's be honest with ourselves here). One final note in the wait-till-next-year category: Michael Moore’s failed attempt to bring Fahrenheit 9/11 to the small screen right before the election locked him out of the best feature documentary as Academy voters didn’t believe the film was worth risking the controversy that would result in giving it a best picture nomination. But really, this is good news for Moore as F9/11 showed that great anger can make great art and better news for Mike Spurlock's Super Size Me.

For anyone else who considers Oscar Night to be the real Super Bowl, consider joining us online on February 27th as we’ll be live blogging during the ceremony and waiting to hear host Chris Rock make the ABC censors cry.

* Er...nominated again, we mean. Thanks, Justin.