I have now seen four of the five nominees for Best Picture, and plan to see _The Thin Red Line_ tomorrow night. This will be the first time I'll have seen all five before the awards, let alone after. Personally, I am rather amazed at how many times _La Vita E Bella_ has been called overrated in this listserv, especially when nothing of the kind has been said of _Shakespeare in Love_, which I found extremely overrated. The story of that film was really stale, enlivened by good writing, acting, costume design, and music, but the plot was still dead tired, and here it is nominated for more Academy Awards than any other picture this year. I thought Geoffrey Rush was much more memorable in _Elizabeth_ (although, take into account that I only saw it last night, with maybe half a dozen other people in the theatre) than in _Shakespeare in Love_. Anbyway, excluding _The Thin Red Line_ for the time being, my own personal ranking for the nominees are (with one and two so close they are difficult to rank): 1. La Vita E Bella 2. Elizabeth 3. Saving Private Ryan 4. Shakespeare in Love I must say though, that I thought all were reasonably good films, and this year all of the nominees were things I had been interested in seeing before they ever got nominated, which does not happen (with me) very often. That may have to do with the fact that I'm one of the youngest people on the list and my tastes have changed a great deal since I started college. Scott =============================================================================== Scott Andrew Hutchins http://php.iupui.edu/~sahutchi Oz, Monsters, Kamillions, and More! "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."--Noam Chomsky ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite