2002 Fidelio Film Awards
Nominations

February 9, 2003

The nominations have been announced and it looks like there is going to be some stiff competition this year.

What film will win the coveted Best Dramatic Feature Award?  25th Hour is Spike Lee’s 3rd film to receive a Best Feature nod, and Bamboozled won Best Comedic Feature in 2000.  Todd Haynes’ beautifully filmed Far From Heaven leads the nominations with 10.  The Hours is hailed as “the most complex film of the year.”  And while Minority Report is loads of fun and by far the best of the big budget, will a genre film win for Best Drama?  Finally, we have Polanski’s Holocaust epic on survival, The Pianist.  While Hollywood sure doesn’t, the Fidelio Film Awards judge the art, not the artist.

This leads to the next big question: Could there be another Picture/Director split like back in 1999 when Eyes Wide Shut won Best Dramatic Feature and Spike Lee won Best Director for Summer of Sam?  Will there be a Pianist/Hours split?  Or how about a Hours/Far From Heaven split?  Steven Spielberg is the best of the big budget film—his thought provoking Minority Report could earn him his first win. 

Most of the great screenplays this year were adapted, except for Far From Heaven in the Original category.  Secretary and Personal Velocity didn’t make it into the adapted category, and The Hours and Minority Report are the front-runners.  Will the most complex screenplay win, or Spielberg’s sci-fi epic, which expanded on Philip K. Dick’s short story?

Far From Heaven seems like a shoe in for Best Cinematography.  But Punch Drunk-Love was labeled as “Kubrick-esque” and Eyes Wide Shut did take home this award.  Rodrigo Prieto also did 8 Mile this year, but got the nomination for 25th Hour. 

Let’s hope the $100 million personal project of Martin Scorsese can at least pick up something.  All that money went toward the sets, so Gangs of New York could earn a win for Best Art Direction/Set Design.  There’s also the stunning visual sets of Minority Report and realistic the WWII setting of The Pianist.  And again, let’s not forget the very colorful Far From Heaven.

The Best Actor category, as usual, is very competitive.  While Daniel Day-Lewis plays one of the most deviant bad guys to hit the screen in years, will that be enough for a win in such a flawed film as Gangs of New York.  Adrien Brody dropped between 20-30 pounds for the last third of The Pianist, and his dedication could earn him the win.  While Nicholson hands in a better performance than in his Oscar winning As Good As It Gets, it seems as though he doesn’t have much of a chance.  Although Robin Williams plays a very off-key character in One Hour Photo, Dennis Quaid turns in the performance of his career in Far From Heaven.  While other awards so far this year seem to think Quaid is a supporting character in the film, the fact that the story not only revolves around Julianne Moore, but also Quaid, garnered him the Best Actor nomination.

While last year there wasn’t much competition is the Best Actress category, 2002 proves to be another drag ‘em out down and dirty fight like back in 2000 when Ellen Burstyn beat out Best Picture Dancer in the Dark favorite Bjork.  The front-runners this year are Nicole Kidman—in her 2nd nomination—for her emotionally straining performance as Virginia Woolf, and her co-star of The Hours, Julianne Moore.  But Moore is nominated for her lead in Far From Heaven.  The surprise win could go to newcomer Maggie Gyllenhaal for her emotionally disturbing performance in Secretary.

Samantha Morton is up for her second nomination for Spielberg’s Minority Report—she won for playing a mute in Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown.  Rosario Dawson gets a nod for her role in Spike Lee’s 25th Hour—she was also in his He Got Game.  It could be Kathy Bates’ comedic performance in About Schmidt that takes home the award.

Terence Blanchard is up for his 3rd nomination this year (previously nominated for Bamboozled and The Caveman's Valentine) for Best Score, but may lose again—this time to Philip Glass for The Hours.  Glass did the haunting score of Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters and has also worked on Kundun and The Truman Show.

This year the Fidelio Film Awards have dropped the Most Overrated Category and is trying to phase out the Worst.  The point of these awards, and this site in general, is to promote good films.  And fortunately, since Fidelio’s Film Central Services is now based in New York City and has access to more of the independent scene, Fidelio is not forced to sit through so much Hollywood garbage anymore because there’s nothing better to see.  But since he did happen to see the terrible films nominated, we’ll have one more year of the Worst category to try and say to Hollywood, “Stop making this big budget crap.  We want story and character and intelligent scripts.”

The winners will be announced in Mid-March 2003.
 

	Best of 2002 Best Dramatic Feature 25th Hour Far From Heaven The Hours Minority Report The Pianist Best Comedic Feature About Schmidt Igby Goes Down My Big Fat Greek Wedding Punch-Drunk Love Secretary Best Director Michael Moore Bowling for Columbine Todd Haynes Far From Heaven Stephen Daldry The Hours Steven Spielberg  Minority Report Roman Polanski The Pianist Best Original Screenplay Scott Silver 8 Mile Todd Haynes Far From Heaven Krzysztof Kieslowski , Krzysztof Piesiewicz Heaven Mark Romenek One Hour Photo M. Night Shyamalan Signs Best Adapted Screenplay David Benioff 25th Hour Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor About Schmidt David Hare The Hours Scott Frank, Jon Cohen Minority Report Ronald Harwood The Pianist Best Cinematography Rodrigo Prieto 25th Hour Newton Thomas Sigel  Confessions of a Dangerous Mind Edward Lachman Far From Heaven Pawel Edelman The Pianist Robert Elswit Punch-Drunk Love Best Editing Eric Zumbrunnen  Adaptation Stephen Mirrione  Confessions of a Dangerous Mind James Lyons Far From Heaven Peter Boyle The Hours Michael Kahn Minority Report Best Art Direction/Set Design Peter Rogness/ Mark Friedberg Far From Heaven Alessandro Alberti et al./ Dante Ferretti Gangs of New York Ramsey Avery et al./ Alex McDowell Minority Report Sebastian T. Krawinkel/ Allan Starski The Pianist Sue Chan/ William Arnold  Punch-Drunk Love Best Actor Jack Nicholson About Schmidt Dennis Quaid Far From Heaven Daniel Day-Lewis Gangs of New York Robin Williams  One Hour Photo Adrien Brody The Pianist Best Actress Julianne Moore Far From Heaven Nicole Kidman The Hours Kyra Sedgwick Personal Velocity Maggie Gyllenhaal Secretary Diane Lane Unfaithful Best Supporting Actor Barry Pepper 25th Hour Cedric the Entertainer Barbershop Dennis Haysbert Far From Heaven Ed Harris The Hours Ryan Phillippe Igby Goes Down Best Supporting Actress Rosario Dawson 25th Hour Kathy Bates About Schmidt Drew Barrymore Confessions of a Dangerous Mind Claire Danes Igby Goes Down Samantha Morton Minority Report Best Special Effects Minority Report The Pianist Spider-Man Star Wars: Episode II-Attack of the Clones Best Song "Lose Yourself"--Eminem 8 Mile "The Hands That Built America"--U2 Gangs of New York Best Score Terence Blanchard 25th Hour Rolfe Kent About Schmidt Elmer Bernstein Far From Heaven Philip Glass The Hours Danny Elfman Spider-Man Worst of 2002 Worst Feature Deauces Wild Rules of Attracton Slackers Windtalkers XXX Worst Director Christophe Gans Brotherhood of the Wolf Roger Avery Rules of Attraction Rob Cohen XXX Randall Wallace We Were Soldiers John Woo Windtalkers Worst Original Screenplay Stéphane Cabel, Christophe Gans  Brotherhood of the Wolf James Kearns John Q David H. Steinberg  Slackers John Rice, Joe Batteer  Windtalkers Rich Wilkes  XXX Worst Adapted Screenplay Jay Wolpert The Count of Monte Cristo Hillary Seitz Insomnia Roger Avery Rulesof Attraction Randall Wallace We Were Soldiers Summary of 2002 Nominations Best of 2002 10 Far From Heaven    7 The Hours    7 Minority Report   7 The Pianist   6 25th Hour    5 About Schmidt   3 Gangs of New York    3 Igby Goes Down    3 Punch-Drunk Love   2 8 Mile    2 Confessions of a Dangerous Mind    2 One-Hour Photo   2 Secretary    2 Signs    1 Spider-Man   1 Adaptation   1 Barbershop   1 Bowling for Columbine   1 Heaven   1 My Big Fat Greek Wedding   1 Personal Velocity   1 Star Wars:Episode II-Attack of the Clones   1 Unfaithful Worst of 2002 3 Rules of Attracton 3 Windtalkers 3 XXX 2 Brotherhood of the Wolf 2 Slackers 2 We Were Soldiers 1 The Count of Monte Cristo 1 Deauces Wild 1 Insomnia 1 John Q