01 March 2005	Tuesday	19 Muharram 1426

HOLLYWOOD, Feb 28: Clint Eastwood's boxing drama, "Million Dollar Baby", on Sunday dealt a knockout blow to Martin Scorsese's lavish biopic, "The Aviator", snatching the coveted best picture and best director Oscars.

In a historic bout between two Hollywood heavyweights, the story of a female fighter mortally wounded the biography of Howard Hughes, which started out as the favourite to win top honours but ended up with five mostly minor Oscars.

The 30-million-dollar "Million Dollar Baby" also won Hilary Swank the second best actress Oscar of her career as well a best supporting actor gong for veteran movie star Morgan Freeman.

"I'm just lucky to be here, lucky to still be working," Eastwood, 74, said as he became the oldest recipient of the directing Oscar that should finally seal his reputation a respected director, as well as a movie tough guy.

"I'm just a kid, I've got a lot of stuff to do yet," he said, thanking his "crack geriatrics team" that helped earn his film a total of four Oscars. Scorsese's spectacular 110-million-dollar recreation of the world of eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes won five Oscars, including best supporting actress for Australian Cate Blanchett.

The big-budget studio film, "Aviator", won a leading 11 nominations but the independent "Million Dollar Baby" came out of nowhere in the last stages of the Oscars race and tugged on the heartstrings of Academy voters.

Eastwood's triumph sent the five-time Oscar nominated movie legend Scorsese, 62, home empty-handed again, reinforcing his image as an Oscars Outsider in spite of having made such films as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Mean Streets. But Eastwood - speaking backstage after his Oscar win, holding a statuette in each hand - stressed his respect for Scorsese. "I was a bit disappointed when they started creating competition between Marty and myself... I have the greatest respect for him and the films he's done over the years, including 'The Aviator.'"

DOUBLE WINNER: Swank, 30, joined an elite club of double Oscar-winners and became the first woman in history to win an Oscar for playing a boxer. "I don't know what I did in this life to deserve all this," Swank said as she received her award for her role as pugilist Maggie Fitzgerald.

"I'm just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream. I never thought this would ever happen," she said, referring to her humble upbringing. The actress also poked fun at herself for famously forgetting to thank her husband Chad Lowe when she won her first best actress Oscar in 2000 for "Boys Don't Cry."

In a rematch of her 2000 Oscar victory, Swank beat Annette Bening, nominated as best actress for playing an aging stage diva in "Being Julia," who also lost her 2000 nomination for "American Beauty" to Swank.

BEST ACTOR: As the Hollywood heavyweights duked it out, former stand-up comedian Jamie Foxx, 37, walked off with the male acting award for his electrifying performance as soul legend Ray Charles in "Ray."

He beat out illustrious company in the category, including Hollywood megastar Leonardo DiCaprio, nominated for "Aviator," Johnny Depp for "Finding Never land, Eastwood for "Baby" and Don Cheadle for "Hotel Rwanda".

Foxx thanked his late grandmother, who brought him up, for his success. "She was my first acting teacher. She told me: 'Stand up straight, put your shoulders back, act like you've got some sense'. When I acted like a fool she would whup me."

FLYING START: "The Aviator" got off to a flying start at the 77th annual Academy Awards with Blanchett's win of the best supporting actress statuette for her feisty turn as screen legend Katharine Hepburn.

It also picked up awards for best art direction, costume design, cinematography and film editing, but later saw its wings clipped in the key categories. "This is just an indescribable surprise and honour," said the 35-year-old Blanchett as she collected her first Oscar. "The longevity of her career is inspiring to everyone," she said of Katherine Hepburn, who died in 2003.

Veteran star Morgan Freeman, 67, won the best supporting actor Oscar, the first Academy Award of his long career despite three earlier nominations, for his role as a tough ex-boxer opposite Swank and Eastwood in "Baby."

The wins by Foxx and Freeman marked the first time since 2002 - when Halle Berry and Denzel Washington won the top acting Oscars - that black actors have featured so prominently in the winner's line-up.

Asked about the rare double honors to black performers, Freeman said: "It shows Hollywood is continuing to make history. Things change. Life goes on." "Baby" trounced fellow best picture contenders "Ray," which won two of its six nominations; "Finding Neverland", the story of "Peter Pan" writer J.M. Barrie, which took one Oscar from its seven nods; and the bittersweet road movie "Sideways," which also scored one statuette from its five nominations.

In other categories, the Spanish film "The Sea Inside," from director Alejandro Amenabar, won the prestigious best foreign language film Oscar for his movie about a tetraplegic, played by Javier Bardem

Uruguayan composer Jorge Drexler's "Al Otro Lado Del Rio" from "The Motorcycle Diaries" won best song after becoming the first Spanish-language song ever nominated for an Oscar.

The superhero film, "The Incredibles", was named best animated feature, beating out "Polar Express" and "Spider-Man 2," which won tthe best visual effects Oscar

This year's Oscars ceremony, hosted by irreverent comedian Chris Rock, was given a facelift in a bid to woo new viewers and boost flagging television ratings, but while the format changed the show was light on surprises as all the predicted favourites won. -AFP

Scorsese Lives up to Oscar Jinx

Ever the Oscars bridesmaid but never the bride, legendary US filmmaker Martin Scorsese has proven that his Academy Awards jinx is as powerful as ever. The 62-year-old cinematic legend, the maker of classics including 1976's "Taxi Driver" and 1990's "Good Fellas," lost out Sunday on the best director and best picture awards to fellow Tinseltown titan Clint Eastwood.

His biopic about billionaire Howard Hughes garnered five Oscars, but lost out in the key categories to Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby." Scorsese has now got a perfect zero-for-seven Oscar nominations score, having gone home empty-handed following five best director nods and two screenplay nods over the past 15 years.

Eastwood, 74, who won a best director statuette and a best picture Oscar as a producer of "Baby," downplayed the struggle between him and Scorsese for the top honours.

"I was a bit disappointed when they started creating competition between Marty and myself," he said backstage, holding an Oscar in each hand. "I have the greatest respect for him and the films he's done over the years, including 'The Aviator'," he said.

When asked whether he thought he deserved the Oscars, Eastwood quoted a line from his 1992 film "Unforgiven," for which he won a best director Academy Award. "'Deserves got nothing to do with it.' You never know. There are a lot of great movies that have won the award, and a lot of them that haven't," he said.

While Hollywood stars trip over each other to work with the New York-based Scorsese, the 5,808 Los Angeles-based voters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are clearly not as enthusiastic.

Best supporting actress victor Cate Blanchett, who played Katharine Hepburn in "The Aviator," praised her director from the Oscars stage Sunday, saying: "I hope my son will marry your daughter."

Scorsese also went home empty-handed when he was nominated for directing "Raging Bull" (1980); "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988); "Good Fellas" (1990); and 2002's "Gangs of New York." Earlier this month, Scorsese said he would be happy to finally win but said that an Oscar victory can complicate a director's work. -AFP

Eastwood - Oldest Director to Win Honour

Clint Eastwood's best director Oscar for "Million Dollar Baby" marks the end of a decades-long struggle to be recognized as a serious filmmaker rather than merely an iconic tough guy.

At 74, snagging the second Academy Award for directing of his career makes him the oldest winner of the coveted prize and confirms him as one of Hollywood's most talented, and most unconventional, filmmakers.

Still, he declared himself "just a kid" with plenty more to achieve in the movie industry, adding: "I am lucky to be here and lucky to be still working." After half a century in Hollywood, Eastwood is best known around the world for his steely-eyed roles in films such as "Dirty Harry" and as the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's 1960s "spaghetti westerns".

"People keep harking back to 'Dirty Harry,' but that was (more than) 33 years ago, and I've just changed," Eastwood, who has directed 25 movies and produced 20, complained to one interviewer.

He made his mark as a serious filmmaker in 1993, when he won the best director Oscar for the brutal and terrifying western "Unforgiven," which was also named best picture.

That was the first time that Eastwood - whose action films were dismissed as overly macho and bloodthirsty, despite their frequently offbeat tones - had been considered for a major award.

Last year, his thriller "Mystic River," about three old friends reunited by the murder of a child, garnered six Oscar nominations - including best picture and best director - and won two prizes, but Eastwood himself went home empty-handed. And even after four previous Oscar nods for directing and the huge success of "Unforgiven" and "Mystic River," Eastwood battled to win funding for "Million Dollar Baby," which was nominated for seven Oscars and won four - best director, best picture, best actress for Hilary Swank and best supporting actor for Morgan Freeman.

Only after knocking on door after door did Eastwood persuade Warner Brothers to put up half the money for the film, splitting the risk equally with production company Lakeshore Entertainment.

"It was turned down by a lot of people," Eastwood told The New York Times. "I wasn't coming in with a .44 Magnum and doing the old genre thing. In my old age, I'm looking for things that interest me a little more."

Eastwood's win for "Million Dollar Baby," the story of a determined female boxer played by Swank, should at last seal his reputation as a heavyweight director. The movie is not as much about boxing, he says, as it is about the relationship between Swank's character and her ageing trainer, played by Eastwood.

"It's a love story that just happens to take place on the periphery of the boxing world - a father-daughter love story," he said. "It was a wonderful adventure," Eastwood said as he collected the director's award. "To make a picture in 37 days, it takes a well-oiled machine."

Eastwood made his directorial debut in the 1971 thriller "Play Misty for Me," in which he also starred. He is renowned for his relaxed directorial style and movie trademarks, including the gritty and often dark themes of his films, the working-class backgrounds of his protagonists and a freeze frame after the last scene over which the credits roll.

A relaxed director who never yells the traditional commands "action" and cut," Eastwood instead just says "OK" to order the cameras to roll and "That's enough of that shit" when he wants them to stop. But his easygoing approach works: His movies are routinely made at record speed and come in under budget.

LIST OF WINNERS

PICTURE: "Million Dollar Baby"

DIRECTOR: Clint Eastwood for "Million Dollar Baby"

ACTOR: Jamie Foxx for "Ray"

ACTRESS: Hilary Swank for "Million Dollar Baby"

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Morgan Freeman for "Million Dollar Baby"

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Cate Blanchett for "The Aviator"

FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM: "The Sea Inside" (Spain)

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: "The Incredibles"

DOCUMENTARY: "Born Into Brothels" by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Alexander Payne/Jim Taylor for "Sideways"

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Charlie Kaufman/Michel Gondry/Pierre Bismuth for "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"

SONG: "Al Otro Lado Del Rio" from "The Motorcycle Diaries"

ORIGINAL SCORE: Jan A.P. Kaczmarek for "Finding Never land"

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Robert Richardson for "The Aviator"

SOUND: Scott Millan/Greg Orloff/Bob Beemer/Steve Cantamessa for "Ray"

SOUND EDITING: Michael Silvers/Randy Thom for "The Incredibles"

FILM EDITING: Thelma Schoon maker for "The Aviator"

VISUAL EFFECTS: John Dykstra/Scott Stokdyk/Anthony LaMolinara/John Frazier for "Spider Man 2"

ART DIRECTION: Dante Ferretti/Francesca Lo Schiavo for "The Aviator"

SHORT FILM: "Wasp" by Andrea Arnold

SHORT ANIMATED FILM: "Ryan" by Chris Landreth

MAKEUP: Valli O'Reilly/Bill Corso for "Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events"

COSTUME: Sandy Powell for "The Aviator"

SHORT DOCUMENTARY: "Mighty Times - The Children's March" by Robert Hudson/Bobby Houston.