Oscars 2003: 'Chicago' vs. 'New York'

With Streep AWOL from the Best Actress rundown, the statuette will be contended by Golden Globe winners Kidman and Zellweger, Moore and two moderate surprise nominees, Salma Hayek for essaying monobrowed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo and Diane Lane, who steamed things up as an adulteress wife in Unfaithful.

Newman and Reilly (who also costarred in The Hours and Gangs of New York) will face off with Golden Globe winner Chris Cooper for his scene-swiping turn as a orchid-poaching oddball in Adaptation; Ed Harris for his turn as an AIDS-stricken poet in The Hours and Christopher Walken for playing Leonardo DiCaprio's daddy in Catch Me If You Can.

Up for Supporting Actress: Streep, Moore, Zeta-Jones Latifah and About Schmidt's Kathy Bates.

Fresh off his Golden Globe win, Scorsese will try to snap his 0-for-4 Oscar mark in the Best Director slate. He's up against another storied, but statuette-less Hollywood vet, Polanski, along with a couple of stage directors gone celluloid, Chicago's Marshall and The Hours' Stephen Daldry. The eyebrow-raising fifth slot is filled by Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almod�var, whose Talk to Her was not submitted by Spain for Best Foreign-Language Film consideration.

Almod�var also registered a Best Original Screenplay nod. He'll square off against the Gangs gang of Jay Cocks, Steve Zaillian and Kenneth Lonergan, Far from Heaven's Todd Haynes, My Big Fat Greek Wedding's Nia Vardalos (the sole nod to the year's biggest box-office shocker) and Y Tu Mam� Tambi�n's brotherly tandem of Carlos and Alfonso Cuar�n. (Like Almod�var, the Y Tu Mam� nod is seen as a make-good--the critically hailed film, eligible in the foreign-language category last year, was passed over by Mexico.)

Meanwhile, another brotherly tandem of sorts leads the Best Adapted Screenplay race. Both Charlie Kaufman and his fictional twin Donald were nominated for Adaptation. As far as we know, neither Bill Condon nor David Hare got an assist from a make-believe sib for their adaptions of, respectively, Chicago and The Hours, both of which were nominated, as were Ronald Harwood's script for The Pianist and Peter Hedges and Chris and Paul Weitz's take on About a Boy. (If the Kaufmans win, the Academy says it will only present one trophy, engraved with Charlie's name, at the Oscar ceremony.)

Also making bids for Academy Award glory: Michael Moore, whose polarizing Bowling for Columbine is up for Best Documentary Feature and the late, great cameraman Conrad Hall. Hall, who died last month of cancer, received a posthumous nod for his Road to Perdition work.

Disney is well represented in the Best Animated Feature category, snagging three of the five slots with Lilo & Stich, Treasure Planet and the Japanese import Spirited Away. DreamWorks' Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and Fox's Ice Age fill out the category. (Despite all the blather about how CGI animation is going to usurp traditional hand-drawn 'toons, Ice Age is the only all digital contender.)

And here's a phrase we never thought we'd write: Eminem picked up his first Oscar nomination, as a songwriter, for "Lose Yourself" from his 8 Mile soundtrack. He's up against a couple of rock icons-- U2 ("The Hands That Built America," Gangs of New York), Paul Simon ("Father and Daughter," The Wild Thornberrys Movie)--as well as the Broadway team of John Kander and Fred Ebb, who picked up a nod for their tacked-on Chicago song, "I Move On." Rounding out the Best Song category is the tune "Burn It Blue" from Frida.

Meanwhile, two subplots to play out come Oscar night involve a couple of notable no-show possibilities. Polanski, up for directing honors, is a still a fugitive for a 1978 statutory rape rap in California and will likely be MIA from the festivities. And Peter O'Toole, selected earlier this month as a recipient of an Honorary Oscar, has indicated he won't be around to collect because he sees the award as a consolation prize.

Aside from the boffo showings by Chicago and Gangs, The Hours clocked in with nine total nominations and The Pianist hauled in seven. The Lord of the Rings, whose first installment, The Fellowship of the Ring led the way last year with 13 nods, saw its second episode, The Two Towers tally six nominations, mostly in technical categories. Frida and Road to Perdition also totaled six apiece.

Gere and Streep were easily the biggest snubs, but they weren't alone. Many considered Dennis Quaid a shoo-in for Best Supporting Actor for his career-remaking role in Far from Heaven, but it didn't happen. His costar, Patricia Clarkson, was also blanked in the Supporting Actress race, as was White Oleander's Michelle Pfeiffer. Frida's Alfred Molina had his Oscar dreams dashed, too.

Leonardo DiCaprio failed to register for either Gangs or Catch Me If You Can; neither did Academy fave Tom Hanks for Road to Perdition or Catch Me. Both those films, considered long shots for a Best Picture nod, failed to see such a nomination materialize. Other would-be Best Picture candidates like About Schmidt, Adaptation and Far from Heaven also came up empty in that category. Likewise, About Schmidt's Golden Globe-winning duo of Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor were skipped over for Best Adapted Screenplay. Best Director hopefuls like Payne, Adaptation's Spike Jonze, Two Towers' Peter Jackson, Road to Perdition's Sam Mendes and perennial player Steven Spielberg (who helmed both Catch Me and Minority Report last year) won't have to worry about renting tuxes.

Spider-Man, the top-grossing flick of 2002, didn't exactly wow the Academy types. The web-slinger netted just two nominations, for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound.

Most Oscar categories are whittled down by specific wings of the the 5,600-member Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. All members are eligible to vote for Best Picture nominees and the full Academy gets to weigh in on the final Oscar ballot.

The diamond anniversary edition Academy Awards, hosted by Steve Martin, will air live from Hollywood's Kodak Theater on ABC March 23 at 8:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. PT. E!'s live pre-Oscar coverage begins at 7 a.m. ET/4 a.m. PT.

Here's a quick look at the major races:

Best Picture:

• Chicago


• Gangs of New York


• The Hours


• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers


• The Pianist

Best Actor:

• Adrien Brody, The Pianist


• Nicolas Cage, Adaptation


• Michael Caine, The Quiet American


• Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York


• Jack Nicholson, About Schmidt

Best Actress:

• Salma Hayek, Frida


• Nicole Kidman, The Hours


• Diane Lane, Unfaithful


• Julianne Moore, Far from Heaven


• Ren�e Zellweger, Chicago

Best Supporting Actor:

• Chris Cooper, Adaptation


• Ed Harris, The Hours


• Paul Newman, Road to Perdition


• John C. Reilly, Chicago


• Christopher Walken, Catch Me If You Can

Best Supporting Actress:

• Kathy Bates, About Schmidt


• Julianne Moore, The Hours


• Queen Latifah, Chicago


• Meryl Streep, Adaptation


• Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chicago

Best Director:

• Stephen Daldry, The Hours


• Pedro Almod�var, Talk to Her


• Rob Marshall, Chicago


• Roman Polanski, The Pianist


• Martin Scorsese, Gangs of New York

Best Original Screenplay:

• Far from Heaven


• Gangs of New York


• My Big Fat Greek Wedding


• Talk to Her


• Y Tu Mam� Tambi�n

Best Adapted Screenplay:

• About a Boy


• Adaptation


• Chicago


• The Hours


• The Pianist

Best Foreign-Language Film:

• El Crimen del Padre Amaro, Mexico


• Hero, China


• The Man Without a Past, Finland


• Nowhere in Africa, Germany


• Zus & Zo, The Netherlands

Best Animated Feature:

• Ice Age


• Lilo & Stich


• Spirt: Stallion of the Cimarron


• Spirited Away


• Treasure Planet

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