HALEY DIDN'T GET THE OSCAR
BUT HE WON THE HEARTS OF
MILLIONS AROUND THE WORLD!!

Best Actor winner Kevin Spacey is already doing a movie with Haley Osment.   A Shoe-in for next year's Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor?   What an incredible combination! (AP)

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Oscar 2000 became the longest Academy Awards ever, but the most exciting in years.    It also turned into a beauty pageant-- an American Beauty pageant, as the darkly funny look at skewed suburbia snagged a field-best five statuettes Sunday night, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Kevin Spacey) and Best Director (Sam Mendes).

 "This is the highlight of my day, I hope it's not all downhill from here," said Spacey echoing his infamous opening shower from the movie.  He won his second oscar edging The Hurricane's Denzel Washington humiliating the predictions given by The Wall Street Journal. Steven Spielberg stepped out to pass the Best Director prop, appropriately enough, to his DreamWorks protégé, Sam Mendez , an acclaimed theater director but only a rookie filmmaker.  Warren Beatty accepted the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award for his producing career but his wife Annette Bening failed to win for American Beauty losing the Best Actress Award to lead Hilary Swank of Boys Don't Cry.  Angelina Jolie's take as the troubled youth in Girl Interrupted landed her Best Supporting Actress honors while Phil Collins took the golden guy for "You'll Be In My Heart" from Disney's Tarzan, winning over Blame Canada that was well-orchestratedly performed onstage by Robin Williams cutting the foul language.

The most awaited, if not the most important category however, was for the Best Supporting Actor where the 11-year old Haley Joel Osment, the youngest nominee ever, faced the legendary actor Michael Caine and Hollywood's no. 1 actor Tom Cruise.  This is what everybody talked about even before the nominations came out so it was no surprise that it also grabbed all the news headlines in tv or in print when it was all over.  It was a race it deemed too close to call.  In the end, the Oscar went to the veteran, Michael Caine.  This, still and all, goes down as the tightest competition ever as Caine nosed out Osment but by narrowest margin in the history of the Academy.

Caine, teary-eyed as he went up the stage, got the only heartfelt standing ovation of the night.  Suitably, the veteran actress Judi Dench, last year's Best Supporting Actress but more popularly known as 007's boss, presented the award to him.  Caine should have won another award for delivering the most sensible speech of the night.  He said that the term "And the Oscar goes to…" is indeed most appropriate than the traditional "And the winner is…" in this category.  "I do not feel like a winner," he honestly said, referring to the very high caliber of nominees in this category. 

Michael Caine, who already lost in his 3 nominations before wished that the other nominees would alsobe a survivor like him. He deserved another award for delivering the most sensible speech that night. (AP)

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"I hope you all get the chance to experience what I'm feeling tonight-- what it's like to be a survivor," said Caine, who had lost in his 3 nominations before finally bagging one.  This year was undoubtedly the toughest but he came through and he simply wished that his competitors would have the same resilience that helped him stay and be successful in the business.

The audience clapped as Caine rayed each of the nominees.  He said Tom Cruise shouldn't feel sorry he lost.  "You have Tom Cruise, whose part price would have gone down so fast if he had won this," Caine joked.  "Tom, do you have any idea what a supporting actor makes?"  He said he's never heard of Michael Duncan before but he credited him for his paramount performance in The Green Mile which is also nominated for Best Picture.  He also said, "You have Jude Law who'll be a good actor no matter what happens."  However the loudest applause was for Haley, "And Haley… Haley Osment… When I saw you, I know I was out of it," was Caine 's precise words.

Haley Joel Osment, the boy with a millennial soul, was a big hit from the time he arrived at the Shrine Auditorium, waiving to his fans and flashing a wide smile.  Every tv coverage tried to get to him.  "I'm excited just to be here," he said.  Asked about what he will do with all his earnings, he said he's saving it for college.  He said he his eye is on Yale University.  Is he a good student?  "I try to be," he said.  If you didn't know, he has always been a straight A student.

He was also asked before the ceremony started about his chances in actually winning the Oscar, he said he can't comment since he hasn't even seen the movies of his Oscar rivals.  It's true, Haley doesn't know what he's up against.  Literally.  Three of the movies of his rivals are R-18 and the fourth one is PG-13.  "I definitely would like to see the other actors in my category but it turns out that's going to be a couple more years down the road when I actually see these movies," he said.  "It's probably for the better to wait to see things that are not appropriate for my age."  Haley knew however that the names alone of his rivals are enough reason for him not to win.  "People like Tom Cruise obviously have a lot of name recognition, so that puts a little favor in their corner," Osment said

Osment's young age clearly became a factor against him.  The kid factor now questions the fairness of the members of the Academy especially when, Duncan, an Academy Award member, openly said to the Wall Street Journal before Oscar night that he didn't vote for Haley "because 5 years from now, when he gets pimples nobody will talk about him anymore."  This irrational statement ignited a public rage against Duncan and all the members of the Academy (most of whom are over 50), who thought the same way.  Duncan exhibited what a big idiot he really is.  He has no business speculating what will happen to Haley in the future.  He's only business is to judge who among the nominees best performed in a particular movie.  But it also becomes clear now that he shouldn't have any business with the Academy too.  Wilson Hutton was more fair when he said Haley is too young to win an Oscar.  "Osment's Oscar win is too premature, but he does play the most convincing kid I've seen on film," he confessed.

Osment was acknowledged by everybody.  He looked cute in the wide seat his little body hardly filled-up, dapper in his formal suit, caught smiling by the camera once too often  "I see dead people," Oscar host Billy crystal proclaimed (in citation  to Haley's famous line in the Sixth Sense) in his subtitle clipfest opening where he was hallucinating through a silent-movie dinner with Charlie Chaplin before entering the stage.   As soon as he faced the star-studded audience, he sang to Haley, "People who see dead people… Are the spookiest people in the world…"

"Eleven years old-- I've had movies in development longer than that," said Crystal when he later introduced the breathtaking kid.  There was a thunderous applause from a star-studded standing-room-only audience the moment Haley stood onstage.  Haley took a bewildering look around the stage before voicing his faux nervous relief: "To look out at all these beautiful people and to realize… you're all alive." 

Osment then honored the great child actors through the years like Mark Lester who is, believe it or not,  enough to be his great-grandfather to Richie Rich, Macaulay Culkin, who could very well be his big brother.
 

Haley won a 8 awards and a total
16 nominations worldwide for
The Sixth Sense, only his first major
film debut.   He is a big winner
as far as everyone is concerned. (AP) 

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The Sixth Sense did not win any Oscar but that's no surprise although it did get a lot of nominations.  Except for Osment, nobody expected the movie it to get any nominations.  All the reviews about talked about Haley's excellent performance and all hoped that he gets nominated despite his young age but nobody suggested that the Sixth Sense be nominated, more so for Best Picture.  In fact it is because of the movie that everyone became worried Osment won't even get a nomination. 

"If you retain nothing else from the paranormal thriller The Sixth Sense (and with a film of this caliber, that's not likely), then remember these three words: Haley Joel Osment.  For they're going to be associated with a lot of big things -- things like Oscar nominations, which this phenomenal eleven-year-old actor sorely deserves this year but will not likely get due to the Academy's aversion to horror movies starring Bruce Willis. " the 11th Hour Magazine Review published before.

Everyone knew that The Sixth Sense is a very good movie but it is not a film aimed to get an Oscar nomination.  That's why everyone was surprised it got 6 nominations including Best Picture.   Only then did you hear people say that it deserved all the nominations.  We didn't have a lot of special effects in the movie.  Haley was our special effects, " says director M. Night Shyamalan.  "He embodies that whole other world of ghost.  It's all in the delivery.  Whatever he says, you believe it utterly.  You picture everything that might be in the room that you can't see."  Shyamalan recalled Haley didn't even have to audition.  "Once he read for the part, it was over.  We knew he was our kid.  He was that just good," he said.  And everyone agrees. 

"Haley is the keystone of the film.  Even with all its other virtues, the film wouldn't have worked as well as it does without someone of his ability.  No male child actor has ever won an Oscar before but Haley definitely deserved one." commented Kent Johnson of the San Francisco Chronicle. "Haley Joel Osment's name should be first in the credits.  It's his movie and he nails an extremely difficult role and striking not a single false note," was what most critics repeated over and over which brings to question why was he nominated only as a supporting actor? Ask anyone who saw the movie and he'll tell you Bruce Willis was the one who was supporting Osment!  "Willis couldn't even hold his own opposite Osment," says FilmHead. 

India protested that The Sixth Sense came empty handed because director M. Night Shyamalan is an Indian.  Shyamalan, who was a first-time director like Sam Mendez was also nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay.

Oscar 2000 will be remembered not only for the tightest competition ever, for the protest  or as the longest Oscar ever but also for the stolen statuettes, missing envelopes and the anti-abortion demonstration against Michael Caine.  A large crowd gathered just outside the Shrine just as Caine was delivering his speech.  They protested his turn as an ether-addicted abortion doctor in  Cider House Rules.   Poor Caine took a glimpse of the protestors and saw those blood stained placards that read "Shame on Caine!"  Surely, actors have played more fiendish roles than that like murderers or even the devil himself but nobody complained.

Next year's Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor already seemed to be decided upon this early.  Word's out that Kevin Spacey is already doing a movie with Haley Osment.  Takers, anyone?

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