For Your Consideration: 25 Things The Academy Got Right In The 2000s

A scene from Fernando Meirelles’ “City of God.”

11. 4 nominations for “City of God”
A fifth commendable lone director slot came with Fernando Meirelles’s nomination for “City of God,” which warrants its own commentary in that it came with three additional nods - cinematography (César Charlone), editing (Daniel Rezende) and screenplay (Bráulio Mantovani). The year prior, the film was submitted as Brazil’s entry to the foreign language film category, and didn’t even get a nomination (as noted at #22 of the snubs list), making these four nominations read like a classy apology from the Academy for their foreign language committee’s idiocy.

10. “The Fog of War”‘s win for best documentary
After snubbing him completely for 1988’s doc classic “The Thin Blue Line” (and arguing that it wasn’t actually a documentary), as well as 1997’s “Fast, Cheap and Out of Control” and 1999’s “Mr. Death,” the Academy came to their senses in 2003 and honored Errol Morris for “The Fog of War.” The film - which documents former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara - challenged mainstream assumptions of war, and in the Academy rewarding it, challenging our assumptions that they were incapable of rewarding great documentaries.

9.  Roman Polanski’s win for for best director
It’s such a strange thing to think back to that night when Polanski shocked everyone by winning the best director Oscar over favorites Martin Scoscese (“Gangs of New York”) and Rob Marshall (“Chicago”).  Though personally I question whether his work in “The Pianist” was the year’s best (Todd Haynes’ work in “Far From Heaven” would have had my vote, but then again he wasn’t nominated), you have to admire the Academy’s ability to separate the man from his art.  Can you imagine him winning today and an Academy audience cheering it on (watch the standing ovation when he wins here)?  While I obviously don’t agree with what Polanski did, it’s hard to argue that the man didn’t deserve this honor for his career efforts (he’d never won) if not for “The Pianist” itself.

8. The animated feature winners
Since it’s inception in 2002, the animated feature category - while maddeningly keeping animated films out of the best picture race - has consistently rewarded deserving, innovative work here, from the four Pixar titles mentioned earlier (and thankfully, not a fifth in “Cars”), to Nick Park and Steve Box’s “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” and Hayao Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away.”  “Away” even managed to deservedly nab the award against heavyweight studio fare like “Ice Age,” “Lilo & Stitch,” and “Treasure Planet.” While the overall nominees have been somewhat puzzling in this category (“Surfs Up” over “The Simpsons Movie”? “Bolt” over “Waltz With Bashir”?), the winners have pretty much all been on the mark.

7. 6 nominations and 3 wins for “Pan’s Labyrinth”
Though it lost out on the foreign language film Oscar (to “The Lives of Others,” which was quite deserving in itself), Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” still managed to defy Academy tastes by taking the second most wins of any film in 2006 (after “The Departed”) and third most nominations despite being a very dark, foreign-language fantasy film. The Academy deserves a pat on the back for rewarding its cinematography (Guillermo Navarro), makeup (David Martí and Montse Ribé), and art direction (Eugenio Caballero and Pilar Revuelta) over more favored Hollywood fare.

Eminem in a scene from Curtis Hanson’s “8 Mile.”

6. “Lose Yourself”‘s win for best song
I remember being certain that with mediocre songs from the “Chicago” team, U2 (from “Gangs of New York”), and Paul Simon (from “The Wild Thornberrys Movie”) in the running, Eminem’s anthem from “8 Mile” did not stand a chance.  But when Barbara Streisand of all people read his name at the 75th Oscars, it was one of most pleasant surprises in recent Oscar history.  The first hip-hop song ever nominated, let alone a winner (though Three 6 Mafia joined that wee club three years later), “Lose Yourself” started a six year trend of the Academy expanding their tastes in this category after a decade of limiting themselves to either musical numbers from animated films with the occasional “My Heart Will Go On.”

5. 4 nominations for “Far From Heaven”
Let’s just get this out of the way: “Far From Heaven”‘s snubs for best picture, director, supporting actor and actress, costume design, and art direction are all woeful shames. But in another take-what-we-can-get inclusion on this list, let’s half-heartedly commend the Academy for not completely screwing it up and giving the film nominations for four of its greatest achievements: Julianne Moore’s performance, Todd Haynes’s screenplay, Edward Lachman’s cinematography, and Elmer Bernstein’s score.

4. Indies and foreign films in the screenplay categories
Formerly mentioned screenplays for “City of God,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” and “Far From Heaven” included, the screenplay categories have shockingly done way more good than bad over the past decade. Just look at this list of nominees: “You Can Count On Me,” “Ghost World,” “Memento,” “The Royal Tenenbaums,” “Y Tu Mama Tambien,” “The Barbarian Invasions,” “American Splendor,” “Vera Drake,” “Before Sunset,” “The Squid and the Whale,” “The Savages,” “Away From Her,” “Frozen River.” While none of these deserving films could manage a best picture nomination, at least we got to see them recognized as screenplay nominees.

3. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”‘s win for best original screenplay
2. “Talk To Her”‘s win for best original screenplay
An extension of the previous entry, these two wins - for Charlie Kaufman in 2004 and Pedro Almodovar in 2002 - marked my two of my favorites of the 2000s, giving Oscars to two of the greatest cinematic storytellers of our time.  Up against heavyweight best picture nominees like “The Aviator” and “Gangs of New York,” the Academy opted to reward the truly deserving instead (watch Kaufman’s speech here)

1. 2007 in general
If you’re wondering why a lot of obvious awards and nominations from the 80th Oscars, which recognized the best of 2007, have yet to get much mention, here’s the deal: There were probably more examples from this year when I drew up an initial list than all of the other years combined.  While it’s certainly not perfection - I could have done without Diablo Cody’s screenplay win, not to mention this was also the year “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” and “Persepolis” didn’t make the foreign language shortlist - 2007 has a lot going for it.  First off, the acting winners - Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Javier Bardem and Tilda Swinton - are the classiest and most deserving bunch of winners an Oscar night may have ever seen (it could have been even more so had Julie Christie won, but maybe that’s just me).  Then there’s “The Bourne Ultimatum"s deserving sweep of the techincal categories, Robert Elswit’s cinematography win for “There Will Be Blood,” outside-the-box nominees like Sarah Polley’s screenplay nod for “Away From Her” and Viggo Mortensen’s actor nod for “Eastern Promises,” and the three Oscars the Coen brothers took home for writing, directing and producing “No Country For Old Men.”  And then, of course, after almost being disqualified because of the endlessly silly category rules, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová‘s win for best original song for their “Falling Slowly” from “Once” (watch their performance and win here).  Call me crazy, but I think this is probably the closest we’re going to ever come to an Oscars that truly rewarded the year’s best, and thus the entire year deserved top billing on this list.

“For Your Consideration” is a weekly column by indieWIRE Associate Editor Peter Knegt. Check out his previous editions:

For Your Consideration: The 50 Most Despicable Oscar Snubs of the 2000s
For Your Consideration: Assessing The Major Oscar Categories
For Your Consideration: Oscar’s Gay Tendencies
For Your Consideration: 11 Underdog Performances
For Your Consideration: History Repeats as Major Foreign Films Left Off Academy List
For Your Consideration: 10 Things The Fall Fests Told Us About Awards Season