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Oscar Picks by FFWD Staff Julie Pithers: BEST MOVIE: The Matrix. It didn’t make Keanu act – and it made the kids think. BEST ACTOR: Ed Norton. The scene where he beats himself up in Fight Club is every work-a-day, company man’s dream come true. This, even though the movie could have easily been, Friends the Movie: Chandler Bing’s Revenge. BEST ACTRESS: I will go with Annette Bening. Bening made a twitchy, materialistic real estate agent into a poignant, funny, sorry sight in American Beauty. WORST MOVIE: Easy. It’s a pet peeve of mine that people think TV can translate to film. Hopefully my personal sacrifice of going to see Mod Squad will result in the end of that horrible era. But somehow I sense I will be frog marched to the cinematic extravaganza of Charlie’s Angels this summer. I hope I get chicken pox that day. Richard Zywotkiewicz: BEST MOVIE: The Cider House Rules BEST ACTOR: David Thewlis, Besieged BEST ACTRESS: Sarah Polley, Guinevere WORST MOVIE: Your Friends and Neighbours (BONUS) MOST UNDERRATED FILM OF THE YEAR: Eyes Wide Shut Jaime Frederick: BEST MOVIES: Limbo – Why is John Sayles continually neglected by the Academy at Oscar time? Hmmm... maybe it's because the stalwart independent director has always been so outspoken in his disdain for Hollywood, the studio system, and all the crap it produces, even while he doctors their lousy scripts (e.g. Apollo 13) to make them halfway passable for audiences (and to make money to finance his own, independently produced pictures). He's in top form with Limbo, an affecting story with an unusually literary script, finely nuanced performances, crisp cinematography by the legendary Haskell Wexler, and a perfectly ambiguous conclusion that no Hollywood film would ever risk The Limey – Steven Soderbergh is another underappreciated American maverick but this 1999 release should have, at the very least, received a nomination for its editing, and Soderbergh's use of footage of Terence Stamp from Ken Loach's Poor Cow, cut almost seamlessly into this uncommonly touching story of an ex-convict (Stamp, thirty years later) in search of an elusive past. The Limey is a melancholic revenge film with a very artful twist, and as one of Soderbergh's last four films (including Schizopolis, Out of Sight, and, last week's Erin Brockovich), it shows he's possibly the most vibrantly creative force to be reckoned with in American filmmaking at this time. BEST ACTOR: David Strathairn for Limbo BEST ACTRESS: Mary-Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Vanessa Martinez, both for Limbo WORST FILM: Maxwell's Demon - It hurts to give the raspberry award to a locally produced feature, but this is easily one of the most pretentious, synergistic plagiarisms I've seen in years. Outright laughable in all the wrong places. Po', po' po-mo.

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