No, not Christmas, it's Oscar time! With an abundant amount of fantastic films that were released this year, the 75th Academy Awards are sure to be an intense night. Leading the nominations is "Chicago", the successful hit version of the Tony-award winning Broadway musical, with 13 "jazzy" nominations including Best Actress (Renee Zelwegger), Best Supporting Actress (Catherine Zeta Jones), Best Director (Rob Marshall), and Best Picture. Queen Latifah also managed to snag a Best Supporting Actress nom along with her costar Zeta Jones. Rap stars at the Oscars? Who would have known? Although Chicago is the "big cheese" this year, "Gangs of New York" was not far behind, which received 10 nominations including Best Actor (Daniel Day Lewis), Best Picture, and a Best Director nod for the long-dissed and unrecognized Martin Scorsese. Hopefully, it won't be a pity Oscar for this highly acclaimed director. Will this be his year after having a 0-4 record of misses in that category? Well, the competition is pretty stiff as Scorsese is up against directors of films "The Hours", "Chicago", "Talk to her", and the outstanding Holocaust epic "The Pianist". Also racking up the nominations was "The Hours" with nine. Any MIA's this year? Well how about Richard Gere's performance in "Chicago", or Tom Hanks" in "Road to Perdition" and "Catch me if you can" that did not get recognized? Even without these outstanding performances in place, the nominees in each category have all achieved excellence. .
Let's get an in depth overview of this year's noms, shall we? Contending for the highly anticipated award of the night, which is of course Best Picture, we have the screen adaptation of "Chicago", a traumatic story of a Jewish "artiste": "The Pianist", Scorsese's "Gangs of New York", the 2nd edition to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, "Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers", and the Virginia Wolfe story of Michael Cunningham's "The Hours".