And the Oscar goes to...

Through overlong speeches and peace signs, tearful thank-you's and clever witticisms, the 75th Academy Awards Ceremony alternately awed and annoyed through its three and a half hour broadcast. With artists abusing the stage as a slightly inappropriate political platform and winners rambling about peace, their mothers, and life in general, the 2003 Oscars ceremony was certainly memorable.

In fact, this year's Academy Awards was one of the most exciting ceremonies in years, with several surprise winners and a select few shocking actions. Best Actor winner Adrien Brody passionately kissing stunned and disconcerted presenter Halle Berry takes the award for greatest moment of the evening, but Brody quickly detracted from his splendid moment by babbling on in traditional winner style.

Host Steve Martin broke up the drone of actors', producers', and crews' similarly boring speeches with quips refreshingly concerning everything but the war. Unfortunately, Bowling for Columbine director Michael Moore was not so tactful upon his Best Documentary win, proceeding to disobey all proscribed Academy regulations in a no-holds-barred anti-Bush, anti-war barrage, with the rest of the category's nominees behind him in a show of support. He made a great speech and a great point… but it was neither the time nor the place and as he finished in a wave of audience booing, he seemed more self-important than world-concerned.

Show antics aside, and onto the actual awards, Chicago was the big winner this year, by a landslide. This large-scale motion picture credited with bringing musicals back in style— although Moulin Rouge was similarly endorsed last year— won Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress (a very pregnant Catherine Zeta-Jones), along with a horde of technical and artistic awards. The Pianist, the haunting story of a Holocaust-era pianist, came in a close second in terms of big awards, with a surprise Best Director win for charged sexual offender director Roman Polanski (most believed the Academy would avoid such a controversial award), a Best Adapted Screenplay win over Chicago and the above-mentioned Best Actor win for Adrien Brody.

The Hours's Nicole Kidman won Best Actress, the only award for this touted screen adaptation of Virginia Woolf's masterful novel. Salma Hayek's ambitious project, the critically acclaimed Frida, swept up two smaller awards, Best Original Score and Best Makeup, as did Best Picture nominee The Lord of the Rings for Sound Editing and Visual Effects.

The complete list of winners is as follows:

Picture: "Chicago."
Director: Roman Polanksi, "The Pianist."
Actor: Adrien Brody, "The Pianist."
Actress: Nicole Kidman, "The Hours."
Supporting Actor: Chris Cooper, "Adaptation."
Supporting Actress: Catherine Zeta-Jones, "Chicago."
Original Screenplay: "Talk to Her," Pedro Almodovar.
Adapted Screenplay: "The Pianist," Ronald Harwood.
Animated Feature: "Spirited Away."
Animated Short Film: "The ChubbChubbs!"
Art Direction: "Chicago."
Cinematography: "Road to Perdition."
Costume: "Chicago."
Documentary Feature: "Bowling for Columbine."
Documentary (short subject): "Twin Towers."
Film Editing: "Chicago."
Foreign Language Film: "Nowhere in Africa," Germany.
Live Action Short Film: "This Charming Man (Der Er En Yndig Mand)."
Makeup: "Frida."
Original Score: "Frida."
Original Song: "Lose Yourself" from "8 Mile," Eminem, Jeff Bass and Luis Resto.
Sound: "Chicago."
Sound Editing: "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers."
Visual Effects: "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers."

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