The 2000 "Snubbie" Awards

You may be asking yourself, "Self, just what are the Snubbie Awards?" Well, they are an award chosen by me (Andrew) to honor the movie, or performer that should have won the Oscar. Also there are several honorary Snubbies for movies that weren't even nominated. The great thing about Snubbies, is I give an explanation for why each film won (something I wish the Academy would do sometimes).

This Year's Snubbie "Winners"

Best Motion Picture:

Traffic - This was one of the finest movies in recent years, It was haunting, and yet ended with a note of hope. This movie definitely was more powerful than Gladiator which simply confirmed the Academy's love of period epics (all the way back to Ben-Hur and Ghandi"). These are usually the movies that they love at the time and make fun of five years later, Gladiator will be no different. Plus, why should the movie with the Best Director, and Best Screenplay win the Academy's top honor?

Best Actor:

Tom Hanks, Cast Away - Sure, I know he's won twice before, but he gave one of the most incredible performances in movie history, in a movie that could have used a better ending (but you can't hold that against him). Hanks was literally the "best unsupported actor" for the entire second hour of the film, his only co-star: a volleyball. Russell Crowe lacked emotional depth to his performance as Maximus, the would-be-Emperor. This award went to him because people liked The Insider last year, not for this performance.

Best Supporting Actress:

Kate Hudson, Almost Famous - She should have followed in mommy's footsteps on Oscar Night, but was robbed by Marcia Gay Harden, who was good, but let's face it, the movie was pretty bad. Hudson's character in Almost Famous (a film that may as well have been called Almost Ignored as far as the nominations were concerned) is a Band-Aid named Penny Lane, who goes from funny, to emotional in an enviably fantastic way.

Best Costume Design:

Tim Yip, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - Who were they kidding picking Gladiator for costume design. These costumes were probably already gathering dust in the back of the Universal costume closet until Janty Yates picked them up. Tiger however, showed originality and creativity, while recreating some beautiful Chinese garbs.

Best Visual Effects:

Hollow Man - As far as I was concerned, this movie was pretty bad (it was still better than the other movie I saw that week, Keanu Reeves in The Watcher"). However, the effects were, I thought, stunning. The technicians melted away Kevin Bacon to a skeleton, and then nothing at all, but I thought the best was the water fight.

Best Animated Short Film:

"Rejected" - Only because it has a much cooler name than "Father and Daughter".

Honorary Snubbies

Since technically I can only give Snubbies to movies that were nominated, it seems necessary to also honor the ones who were cheated out of even a nomination.

  • Best Picture: Almost Famous deserved at least a nomination, it was much better than Chocolat, and it had an incredible cast, as well as an Oscar winning screenplay.
  • Best Actor: Jim Carrey. OK, so he wasn't in anything great this year, but that didn't stop Russell Crowe. Carrey still deserves it from The Truman Show and Man On The Moon.
  • Best Actress: Helen Hunt take your pick, Cast Away, Pay It Forward, and What Women Want three great movies (not to mention the atrocious Dr. T and the Women). She was fabulous in Pay It Forward as the single mom, struggling to bring her son up right.