Page 26 - FOYER_Cannes 2001

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BERLIN • LOSANGELES • MILAN • FOYER • CANNES • TOKYO • LONDON DIARY
...ANDTHENTHERE
The 73rd Awards of the American Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences (the Oscars to you and me) were full of surprises - up to a point. The show didn’t overrun, although at a lean three hours it was the most boring ceremony in recent memory. Steve Martin was amusing, but his best gags were ad-libbed and usually at the expense of the guests. When special honouree Ernest
Lehman, the veter- an 81-year-old scriptwriter, fin- ished his emotive acceptance speech, Martin quipped, “At the beginning of the evening Mr Lehman was 24.”
The presen- ters, the usual
round-up of Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Hopkins, Morgan Freeman, John Travolta, Sigourney Weaver, Catherine Zeta- Jones etc etc were flat and po-faced.
But what of the awards them-
selves? There were certainly surpris- es, particularly when Marcia Gay Harden, co-star of Ed Harris’s Pollock, beat Judi Dench, Kate
Hudson, Frances McDormand and Julie Walters for Best Supporting Actress. Nobody saw that one com- ing. Ed Harris, the film’s director, star and best actor nominee lost to Russell Crowe for Gladiator which, nominated for 12 Oscars, only took home five statuettes, allowing room for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Sir Anthony Hopkins and Dino De Laurentiis; Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones; Liz Hurley; Russell Crowe and Julia Roberts; Halle Berry; Benicio Del Toro and Marcia Gay Harden; Steven Soderbergh