Lost in Translation, Bill Murray
Image credit: Lost in Translation: Yoshio Sato

LISA SCHWARZBAUM'S OSCAR PICKS

BEST ACTOR Bill Murray Murray's improvisatory tragicomic gracefulness in ''Lost in Translation'' is a marvel of serious, grounded poise. How many languages do I need to speak to drive home the point: Give this man the Oscar he has deserved since ''Rushmore''!

BEST ACTRESS Charlize Theron An amazing makeup job helps -- but doesn't account for -- the bruised ferocity of Theron's uncanny performance as ''Monster'''s prostitute/serial killer/woman in love. Big acting? Yes, but the exact size of the complicated real woman she plays.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Tim Robbins If Sean Penn is ''Mystic River'''s furnace, Robbins shows a mature appreciation for the importance of kindling, shrinking his own dimensions in this drama of big sorrows to show, beautifully, how psychic damage can turn a man to wood.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Shohreh Aghdashloo In the heavyhearted family tragedy ''House of Sand and Fog,'' the nevermore unknown Aghdashloo lofts every scene she's in, gentle and authoritative as a wife who has cast her lot with a bewildering new country.

BEST SCREENPLAY -- ORIGINAL ''Lost in Translation'' ''Best Original'' is precisely the right praise for Sofia Coppola's cool, bracingly wise story (how does she know so much, with such style, so young?!) of tenuous connections between men and women in a jet-lagged world.

BEST SCREENPLAY -- ADAPTED ''The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King'' The written language of J.R.R. Tolkien is its own adventure; the three screenwriters honor the source with their sensitive shaping of the epic for eye and ear.

Originally posted Feb 27, 2004 Published in issue #753 Feb 27, 2004 Order article reprints
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