Have your party at Best Director: The Academy traditionally awards the Best Director trophy to the individual who helms the Best Picture winner. Last year was one of those rare exceptions. Steven Spielberg took home the statue for directing Saving Private Ryan, which was subsequently upset in the Best Picture cate- gory by Shakespeare In Love. If I were a betting man, I would have to wager that we will not see a similar split this year. First-time director Sam Mendes, the English Jew who drew raves for his direction of Cabaret on Broadway and now for his debut feature film, American Beauty, has so wowed his colleagues that he has already taken home a Golden Globe and the Directors Guild's top honor. SinCe the inception of the Directors Guild's Awards in 1949, only four DGA winners have not gone home with Oscar. If there are any surprises in this category, it will result from the Academy entirely snubbing American Beauty in favor of another contender, likely The Cider House Rules, and offering its highest honor to its director, Lasse Hallestrom. Mendes remains the strong favorite. Best Picture: Let's put aside the films that will not win Best Picture. Most pundits were surprised to see The Green Mile even make the final five. By not garnering a nomination for Best Director, this rather lengthy film's chances to win the top prize are slirri to none — and slim just left the room. Although The Insider's direct hit against big tobacco is surely a popular message within Hollywood, the film has had trouble building an audience, even after the nomina- tions were announced. Although The Sixth Sense has been widely praised for its unforgettable and unpredictable ending — and don't tell me you saw it coming — Oscar rarely warms up to thrillers, especially ones that are considered "commercial." The studios with the two leading contenders in the Best Picture contest battled to the finish last year in this same category. DreamWorks' Saving Private Ryan was the odds-on favorite, but was stunned by what many considered to be an overly aggressive marketing campaign on behalf of the ultimate winner, Miramax's Shakespeare In Love. While Miramax would love to pull another upset, its feel-good film The Cider House Rules has been virtually shut out of the kudos count the entire season. In DreamWorks' American Beauty, we have a film that has completely captured the imagination of Hollywood for its eerie assault on American suburbia. And after winning the Golden Globe for Best Drama, this disarmingly modest tragicomedy strongly solidified its front-runner status. 111 ABC will broadcast the 72nd Annual Academy Awards, hosted by Billy Crystal, 8:30 p.m. Sunday, March 26, preceded at 8 p.m. with a live Oscar preview show. JTA pho to courtesy Sony Pictu res CI ders that he did not commit. The film was denied several major nominations over just how true-to-fact the picture was, but the brouhaha has not affected the appreciation for Washington's performance. The actor took home the Golden Globe for.his depiction of Carter. If Washington is denied the statue in favor of another nominee, it would surely fall to another previous Oscar winner, Kevin Spacey. His portrayal of the rebellious subur- banite Lester Burnham was so textured that he has always been seen as a serious Oscar contender. With Spacey taking home the Screen Actors Guild trophy late in the Oscar derby, most prognosticators are calling this race a toss-up. Joan Gruffudd and Nia Roberts are the lead characters in Paul Morrisons Oscar-nominated "Solomon and Gaenor.” Jewish-Welsh `Romer And Juliet' O ne of the films nominated for this year's Oscars stemmed from an exhibit — and a filmmaker's instinct. Until he saw a historical display on life in South Wales several years ago, Paul Morrison never knew that Jews had lived among the Welsh working class -- let alone that there were riots against Jews there in the early part of the 20th century. But the writer and director of Solomon and Gaenor, nominee for this yen r's Oscar for Best Foreign Film, says that once he learned the history, he knew that the 1911 clash between tough Welsh miners and immi- grant Jewish shop owners would provide a perfect back- drop for a love story "I just had the image of the black-coated Jew from Eastern Europe and these chapel-going Welsh miners," says Morrison, who lives in London. "The juxtaposition of cultures. Both of them being Old Testament people." The result is Romeo and Juliet -- with a Jewish twist. The film, scheduled to be released in the United States in August, focuses on the love affair between the Jewish, Yiddish-speaking Solomon (Joan Gruffudd) and the Christian, Welsh-speaking Gaenor (Nia Roberts). Both families, while portrayed sympathetically, are depicted as provincial in their desires to keep the lovers apart. Gaenor's family belongs to a strictly Protestant community — in one scene, Gaenor is cast out of the community in a display worthy of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. By contrast, Solomon, who lives in a neighboring val- ley, is the son of religious, immigrant shopkeepers and dreams of opening up his own establishment. Uneasy with his Jewish background, Solomon hides his Jewish immi- grant identity, claiming to be of English background. In addition to Solomon and Gaenor's religious strug- gles, class and gender weigh heavily on the film. For Gaenor's brother Crad — a poorly educated, physi- cal man who is willing to use violence to protect Gae.nor — Solomon is an outsider, not just because he's Jewish but even as an Englishman who doesn't work in the mines. "In North London, its experienced as a Jewish film. In Wales, it's experienced as a Welsh film," says Morrison, who also is a trained psychotherapist The film features dialogue in Welsh, English and Yiddish. The other nominees for the Best Foreign Film are Spain's All About My Mother, the Nepalese Caravan, France's East West and Under the Sun from Sweden. - .1.1.1•1•111¢ 4 The Perfect Place for *Bridal Showers *Baby Showers *Retirement I-Office Parties WAll Special Occasions Customized Menus Southfield: 248-35 I -2925 29244 Northwestern Hwy. St. Clair Shores: 810-498-3000 23722 Jefferson at Nine Mile Detroit: 313-965-4600 400 Monroe in Greektown ❑ — Peter Ephross, Jewish. Telegraphic Agency INTERNATIONAL NEWS PLUS 372 Oullette Avenue • Windsor, Canada 3/24 2000 89