Surprise! Beauty and Taste Rule Oscars
After all the prebroadcast glitches ? the stolen Oscars, the missing mail, that notorious Wall Street Journal poll ? the 72nd Academy Awards were long, a bit dull and astonishingly tasteful. Ashley Judd kept her underpants under wraps, Haley Joel Osment didn't cry when he lost Best Supporting Actor to Michael Caine, and even Cher dressed, by her own admission, "like a grown-up," although she did get tangled up in the train.
And for all the talk that this was the hardest field to handicap in years, there were no jaw-droppers among the major awards. American Beauty took the lion's share, with five: Best Picture, Best Director (Sam Mendes), Best Actor (Kevin Spacey), Best Cinematography (Conrad L. Hall) and Best Original Screenplay (Alan Ball). The Cider House Rules walked away with two, for Best Adapted Screenplay (John Irving) and Best Supporting Actor (Michael Caine). Sure, Hilary