72nd Academy Awards
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The 72nd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored films released in 1999 and took place on March 26, 2000, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST. During the ceremony, the AMPAS presented Academy Awards (commonly referred to as Oscars) in 23 categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by husband-and-wife producing team Richard and Lili Fini Zanuck and was directed by Louis J. Horvitz. Actor Billy Crystal hosted the show for the seventh time. He first presided over the 62nd ceremony held in 1990 and had last hosted the 70th ceremony held in 1998. Three weeks earlier in a ceremony at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California held on March 4, the Academy Awards for Technical Achievement were presented by host Salma Hayek.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
American Beauty won five awards, including Best Picture.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Other winners included The Matrix with four awards, The Cider House Rules and Topsy-Turvy with two, and All About My Mother, Boys Don't Cry, Girl, Interrupted, King Gimp, My Mother Dreams the Satan's Disciples in New York, The Old Man and the Sea, One Day in September, The Red Violin, Sleepy Hollow, and Tarzan with one. The telecast garnered almost 47 million viewers in the United States.
Winners and nomineesEdit
The nominees for the 72nd Academy Awards were announced on February 15, 2000, at 5:38 a.m. PST (13:38 UTC) at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California, by Robert Rehme, president of the academy, and the actor Dustin Hoffman.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> American Beauty received the most nominations with eight total; The Cider House Rules and The Insider tied for second with seven nominations each.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
The winners were announced during the awards ceremony on March 26, 2000.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Sam Mendes was the sixth person to win Best Director for his directorial debut.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Best Actor winner Kevin Spacey became the tenth performer to win acting Oscars in both lead and supporting categories.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> By virtue of her father Jon Voight's Best Lead Actor win for 1978's Coming Home, Best Supporting Actress winner Angelina Jolie and Voight became the second father-daughter Oscar acting winners.<ref name="Father-Daughter">Template:Harvnb</ref> At the age of 11, Haley Joel Osment became the second-youngest actor to receive a nomination in Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Sixth Sense, after Justin Henry was nominated in the same category for 1979's Kramer vs. Kramer at the age of 8.
AwardsEdit
Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger (Template:Double dagger).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Honorary AwardEdit
- To Andrzej Wajda in recognition of five decades of extraordinary film direction.<ref name="BaltimoreSun Oscars">Template:Cite news</ref>
Irving G. Thalberg Memorial AwardEdit
- Warren Beatty<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Films with multiple nominations and awardsEdit
Template:Col-beginTemplate:Col-1-of-2 The following 17 films received multiple nominations:
The following four films received multiple awards:
| Awards | Film |
|---|---|
| 5 | American Beauty |
| 4 | The Matrix |
| 2 | The Cider House Rules |
| Topsy-Turvy |
Presenters and performersEdit
The following individuals presented awards or performed musical numbers.<ref name="PresentersandPerformers">Template:Harvnb</ref>
Presenters (in order of appearance)Edit
Performers (in order of appearance)Edit
Ceremony informationEdit
In view of the new millennium, the academy sought to both shorten the telecast and give the ceremony a new look.<ref name="Inside Oscar 2">Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name="Zanuck">Template:Harvnb</ref> HusbandTemplate:NdashandTemplate:Ndashwife producers Richard D. Zanuck and Lili Fini Zanuck were recruited to oversee the production of the 2000 ceremony.<ref name="Inside Oscar 2" /> AMPAS President Robert Rehme explained the decision to hire the Zanucks saying, "With this new producing team in place, I look forward to a whole new perspective."<ref name="Inside Oscar 2" /> This marked the first occurrence that a woman was tapped for producing duties at the Oscars.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Despite Richard and Lili's promises to make changes to the ceremony, they hired actor and veteran Oscar host Billy Crystal to host the ceremony for the seventh time.<ref name="Inside Oscar 2" />
Production of the ceremony was reported to be far more ambitious and extravagant than previous ceremonies.<ref name="High Times">Template:Harvnb</ref> Art director Bob Keene designed an ambitiously technological stage design for the telecast that used a floor adorned with flashing lights and several 35 foot columns consisting of high-definition video monitors stacked atop each other.<ref name="High Times" /> The columns were used to display images of previous Oscar appearances as presenters took the stage, nomination packages, and reaction shots of the acting nominees as the winner was being announced.<ref name="Oscar stage design">Template:Harvnb</ref> Because of serious technical challenges concerning movement, lighting, and overheating, Keene and his production design team tested the stage at ABC Prospect Studios before installing it at the Shrine Auditorium.<ref name="Oscar stage design2">Template:Harvnb</ref>
Several other people were involved in the production of the ceremony. Actor Peter Coyote, who served as announcer for the telecast, was often seen before commercial breaks live behind the stage.<ref name="Oscar stage design" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Musical directors Burt Bacharach, Don Was, and Rob Shrock composed a techno-pop soundtrack that substituted for a live orchestra during most of the ceremony.<ref name="Inside Oscar 2"/><ref name="Music2">Template:Harvnb</ref> In addition, Bacharach rounded up musicians that included Garth Brooks, Queen Latifah, and Dionne Warwick to perform a medley of songs previously nominated for Best Original Song.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Choreographer Kenny Ortega supervised the "Blame Canada" musical number.<ref name="BCSP">Template:Harvnb</ref>
Box office performance of nomineesEdit
At the time of the nominations announcement on February 15, the combined gross of the five Best Picture nominees was $521 million with an average of $104 million per film.<ref name=BoxOfficeOscars>Template:Cite news</ref> The Sixth Sense was the highest earner among the Best Picture nominees with $278.4 million in domestic box office receipts.<ref name=BoxOfficeOscars/> The film was followed by The Green Mile ($120.7 million), American Beauty ($74.7 million), The Cider House Rules ($20.7 million), and finally The Insider ($26.6 million).<ref name=BoxOfficeOscars/>
Of the top 50 grossing movies of the year, 37 nominations went to 11 films on the list.<ref name="boxofficemojooscars">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Only The Sixth Sense (2nd), The Green Mile (13th), The Talented Mr. Ripley (26th), and American Beauty (27th) were nominated for directing, acting, screenwriting, or Best Picture. The other top 50 box office hits that earned the nominations were Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1st), Toy Story 2 (3rd), The Matrix (5th), Tarzan (6th), The Mummy (8th), Stuart Little (11th), and Sleepy Hollow (20th).<ref name="boxofficemojooscars"/>
Missing paper ballotsEdit
Nearly two weeks before Oscar voting was finished, AMPAS reported that 4,000 of the ballots mailed to Academy members were missing. The bags that carried the ballots were mislabeled as third-class mail.<ref name="MissingBallots">Template:Harvnb</ref> On March 6, 2000, 1,000 of the ballots were discovered at a US Postal Service regional distribution center in Bell, California.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In response to affected members, AMPAS sent replacement ballots sealed in yellow envelopes, and extended the voting deadline by two days to March 23.<ref name="MissingBallots2">Template:Harvnb</ref>
Oscar statuettes theftEdit
On March 10, 2000, 55 Oscar statuettes were stolen from a Roadway Express loading dock in Bell, California.<ref name="MissingBallots2" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In the event the stolen awards were to be still missing during the festivities, AMPAS announced that R.S. Owens & Company, the manufacturer of the awards would produce a new batch of the golden statuettes.<ref name="StolenOscars">Template:Cite news</ref> Nine days later, 52 of the stolen statuettes were discovered in a trash bin at a Food 4 Less supermarket located in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles by a man named Willie Fulgear.<ref name="StolenOscars2">Template:Harvnb</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> For the safe recovery of the stolen statuettes, Roadway Express rewarded Fulgear with $50,000, and the academy invited him and his son Allen to the ceremony.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Two Roadway Express employees, truck driver Lawrence Ledent and dock worker Anthony Hart, were arrested for the theft of the Oscars. Both men pleaded no contest. Ledent served six months in prison and Hart received probation. A third man who was Mr. Fulgear's half-brother was initially charged with the crime, but police dropped those charges after Mr. Fulgear divulged that they were estranged from each other.<ref name="StolenOscars2" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Three years later, one of three remaining missing Oscar statuettes was discovered during a drug bust at a mansion in Miami, Florida; the other two have yet to be found.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Critical reviewsEdit
The show received a positive reception from most media publications. Television critic Monica Collins of the Boston Herald praised producers Richard and Lili Fini Zanuck for overseeing a show that was "clean, snappy, high-gloss and very well produced." She also quipped that host Billy Crystal did not need to save the show this time because "everything seemed to come together.<ref name="72nd Oscar ratings">Template:Harvnb</ref> The San Francisco ExaminerTemplate:'s Wesley Morris wrote "the show was downright hip, more so than it's been in decades." He also gave high marks for the "techno-chic" production elements from the music and stage design.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Columnist Paul Brownfield of the Los Angeles Times raved that "the 72nd annual Academy Awards telecast was hipper than in years past, sleeker in look and edgier in tone." He added that Crystal was "the perfect antidote to the entire evening's self-serious posturing."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Some media outlets were more critical of the show. John Carman of the San Francisco Chronicle lamented that despite being solid and tidy, "the show never quite managed the big surprises, sloppy excesses and emotional highs we hope to see."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Pittsburgh Post-Gazette television critic Rob Owen criticized the uneven pacing of the ceremony writing that the telecast "started slowly – 20 minutes of Billy Crystal's spoofs and singing that weren't as funny as his past Oscar intros – and never got up to speed."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Caryn James of The New York Times remarked that "the four-hour show turned into a zombie." She also stated that the telecast was bloated with too many tributes to Hollywood's past.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Ratings and receptionEdit
The American telecast on ABC drew in an average of 46.52 million viewers over its length, which was a 3% increase from the previous year's ceremony.<ref name="LA Times Oscar Ratings" /> An estimated 79.11 million total viewers watched all or part of the awards.<ref name="LA Times Oscar Ratings" /> The show also drew higher Nielsen ratings compared to the previous ceremony with 29.64% of households watching over a 48.32 share.<ref name="TVB Oscars">Template:Cite news</ref> It also drew a higher 18Template:Ndash49 demo rating with a 19.86 rating over a 39.34 share among viewers in that demographic.<ref name="TVB Oscars" />
In July 2000, the show received nine nominations at the 52nd Primetime Emmy Awards.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Two months later, the ceremony won one of those nominations for Louis J. Horvitz's direction of the telecast.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
"In Memoriam"Edit
The annual "In Memoriam" tribute, presented by actor Edward Norton, honored the following people.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>
- Sylvia Sidney - Actress
- Jim Varney - Actor
- Ernest Gold – Composer
- Ruth Roman - Actress
- Henry Jones - Actor
- Robert Bresson – Director
- Desmond Llewelyn - Actor
- Allan Carr – Producer
- Mario Puzo – Screenwriter
- Rory Calhoun - Actor
- Frank Tarloff – Screenwriter
- Marc Davis – Animator
- Hedy Lamarr - Actress
- Victor Mature - Actor
- Garson Kanin – Screenwriter
- Roger Vadim – Producer/Director
- Mabel King - Actress
- Oliver Reed - Actor
- Albert Whitlock – Special Effects
- Ian Bannen - Actor
- Abraham Polonsky – Screenwriter
- Dirk Bogarde - Actor
- Lila Kedrova - Actress
- Edward Dmytryk – Director
- Charles 'Buddy' Rogers - Actor/musician
- Madeline Kahn - Actress
- George C. Scott - Actor
See alsoEdit
- 6th Screen Actors Guild Awards
- 20th Golden Raspberry Awards
- 42nd Grammy Awards
- 52nd Primetime Emmy Awards
- 53rd British Academy Film Awards
- 54th Tony Awards
- 57th Golden Globe Awards
- List of submissions to the 72nd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
ReferencesEdit
BibliographyEdit
External linksEdit
- Official websites
- Academy Awards Official website Template:Webarchive
- The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Official website Template:Webarchive
- Oscar's Channel Template:Webarchive at YouTube (run by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences)
- News resources
- Analysis
- 1999 Academy Awards Winners and History Template:Webarchive Filmsite
- Academy Awards, USA: 2000 Template:Webarchive Internet Movie Database