Drama leading up to Oscars ceremony both on, off screen

LOS ANGELES -- The year of the fantasy film. The year of the musical. The year of the black actor. The year the Oscars came home to Hollywood. The year of badder blood than usual among competing studios.

There was plenty of drama on screen and off in the weeks leading up to today's Academy Awards. Squaring off for best picture are "A Beautiful Mind," "Gosford Park," "In the Bedroom," "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" and "Moulin Rouge."

Much has been made of the nominations for Halle Berry in "Monster's Ball," Will Smith in "Ali" and Denzel Washington in "Training Day," the first time in 29 years that three blacks were cited in lead-acting categories.

Adding to the black presence, past Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg returns as the ceremony's host, while Sidney Poitier, the only black to win a lead-acting Academy Award, receives an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement.

Berry and Washington seemed to have better chances of winning than Smith, generally considered a longshot in a field that includes powerful performances from past Oscar winners Washington and Russell Crowe, nominated for "A Beautiful Mind."

"I would feel much better if this category were at the Grammys," said Smith, who started his career as a rap singer. "I feel like I'd have a much better chance if this were the rap category."

"Moulin Rouge" brought the movie musical back to critical favor, becoming the first song-and-dance film to earn a best-picture nomination in 22 years.

The film also earned a best-actress nomination for Nicole Kidman.

'Going to have fun'

Kidman said she would love to do another movie musical but that it would be hard to imagine without director Baz Luhrmann and co-star Ewan McGregor, "because the three of us are like triplets."

On Oscar night, "we're all just going to have fun," Kidman said. "Win or lose, we're going to have fun."

Likewise, Berry said she planned to keep her mind on the things within her control -- not the awards outcome, but how she will dress.

"It sounds a bit shallow, but I'm focusing on that part of it, because the other part isn't up to me," Berry said. "But what I wear that night is up to me."

With a leading 13 nominations, "The Fellowship of the Ring" elevated the generally overlooked fantasy genre to serious awards contention.

The blockbuster also lifted New Zealand director Peter Jackson to something close to the status of George Lucas as he turned out the original "Star Wars" trilogy. Jackson shot all three chapters of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy epic simultaneously, with part two due out at Christmas and part three coming in late 2003.

Past films set in mythical worlds often had an air of campiness that generally precluded awards consideration. "Lord of the Rings" has the benefit of Tolkien's literary stature, plus commitment from the filmmakers to treat their world of hobbits, wizards and elves seriously.

'It's an outrage'

Then there was the always stiff awards campaigning, which turned uglier as Universal Pictures complained that rivals were secretly bad-mouthing its best-picture nominee, "A Beautiful Mind," a film biography of schizophrenic math genius John Nash.

Universal claimed there was an orchestrated campaign against the film, citing news and Internet reports that "A Beautiful Mind" leaves out some unflattering aspects of Nash's life. But no evidence has surfaced that other studios were involved.

"It's an outrage that we would be fingered. We don't do negative campaigning," said Tom Rothman, studio chairman at 20th Century Fox. "I'm trying hard to do what my mother always told me. Take the high road. It should all be about the movies."

The Oscars ceremony returns to Hollywood for the first time in 42 years after taking place at venues elsewhere around Los Angeles. The ABC broadcast will originate from the Kodak Theatre, a block from where the first Oscars were handed out in 1929.