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Sunday, Mar. 17, 2002 - 11:23 p.m.

A Beautiful Man Mind

I can say, unequivocally, that A Beautiful Mind is the best movie of 2001. It beats all the others in contention.

Russell Crowe had a much better performance in a leading role than any of his competitors. No one came close to the job Jennifer Connelly did in her supporting role. Ron Howard's directing tops all others; the film editing stands alone; the makeup outdoes Moulin Rouge and Lord of the Rings; the music resonates more than that of Harry Potter and Monsters, Inc.; and the screenplay, adapted from the biography of John Nash with the same name, easily outdoes that for Shrek and the others.

I went to see A Beautiful Mind today at a small theater on tiny Main Street, Atlantic Highlands, the kind of town that could be in pictures. Walking along the sidewalk toward the theater, I looked at all the parents storming the doors with dozens of screeching children and said to Casey, "Good thing we're not going to see Ice Age."

It was another superb performance by Russell Crowe, who annoys me somewhat but seems to be growing on me. He's certainly not at the level of Nicholas Cage, who agitates me to no end, but there's just something about Crowe that rubs me the wrong way, to put it horribly. But I'll admit, he did a great job. Better, I'd say, than he did in Gladiator, a performace I thought was mediocre, especially by Academy Award-winning standards.

I watched 60 Minutes tonight during which Mike Wallace interviewed the real John Nash and his wife, Alicia. I could see the resemblance, not so much in the appearance (other than the white hair and sagging face of a 73-year-old man and an actor made up to look like a 73-year-old man), but in the voice and mannerisms. And in the photos of a young John Nash, there was enough to accept Crowe in the role. And Connelly looks like a young Alicia's sister -- what great casting on appearance there.

Until 60 Minutes, I was unaware of the criticism that has surfaced in recent weeks. I find the whole Oscar conspiracy angle interesting, considering the movie's about a paranoid schitzophrenic who believes he's deciphering secret codes in major national publications and uncovering a Russian conspiracy. But hey, it's art, and there's always some artistic and literary license taken with such projects.

So I walked out of the theater convinced that none of the other nominated movies can touch A Beautiful Mind, which my sister once called A Beautiful Man when we passed a movie poster with a large picture of Crowe's face.

And with the Academy Awards one week from tonight, I have seven days to get out and see the other nominated films since it's been a down year for me as far as seeing movies goes. Out of everything nominated in the major categories, I've seen only Shrek, Monsters, Inc., Harry Potter, Pearl Harbor, and the grossly undervalued The Royal Tennenbaums.

So, in case you didn't get it, the whole beginning to the entry was sarcasm.

But I still say A Beautiful Mind is the best movie I've seen in a while.

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