May the Best Picture Win!

Oscar season officially began on February 13, 2001, with the much-anticipated announcement of the 73rd annual Academy Award nominations in Beverly Hills, California, by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Now, after weeks of hype, hype, hype, and even more hype, the ceremonies are over, the winners have been announced, the non-winners can kvetch in the privacy of their limos, and we can all spend a little more time doing what we love most -- reading.

Below is a list of original source material for this year's nominees, as well as some great books on the movie industry.

O.K. You Mugs
by Luc Sante
O.K. You Mugs is a collection of essays where writers present their takes on Hollywood actors. It’s got John Updike perceiving Doris Day, Greil Marcus paying sincere tribute to the underwelming career of J.T. Walsh, and punk singer/songwriter Patti Smith appreciating the cinematic skill of Jeanne Moreau (“No one can smoke a cigarette like Jeanne Moreau”). Only real writers can get under the skin of Hollywood, and this book presents some intriguing close-ups. Here are many legends shot as you may not have seen them before, including show biz icons like Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Mitchum, and Elmer Fudd…reimagined by snarky authors not on the studio payroll. Perfect.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
by Ang Lee
Have you not seen this movie? Run, don’t walk to the theater. Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Foreign Film, Best Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, Cinematography, Original Score, Original Song, Film Editing, and Costume, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” plainly is not your run-of-the-mill martial arts action picture. In fact it is a dream of fluid motion, deep romance, and noble heroism. Who would have expected this from Ang Lee, the director of such comedies of manner as “Sense and Sensibility,” “Eat Drink Man Woman,” and the classic “Ice Storm?" This well-illustrated book documents the making of this incredible film, including scenes shot in the Gobi desert -- scenes that had to be postponed due to rain. Rain in the Gobi desert?!

Chocolat
by Joanne Harris
Joanne Harris wrote the novel upon which the charming film, “Chocolat” (nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actress (Juliette Binoche), Best Supporting Actress (Judi Dench), and Best Adapted Screenplay)), was based. Both the novel and the film are exquisite. Chocolat tells the story of a Mayan priestess who arrives with her daughter at a tranquil, rural French village in the 1950s and begins liberating the cozy, repressed inhabitants with her specially created chocolate concoctions. Arch-conservative values bump up against sheer Epicurean pleasure. Guess which wins.

Mike Nelson's Movie Megacheese
by Michael J. Nelson
Mike Nelson is no connoisseur of fine cinema. He made that more than starkly obvious as head writer for 10 seasons and on-air host for five seasons of the cult TV sensation “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” Mike is all about mocking schlock, and frankly there is no one better qualified to do the job. As he himself says: “…For me, not writing about bad movies is not an option. Or rather, not not writing about bad movies isn’t not an option. I guess what I’m saying is that not failing to not not write about bad movies isn’t not a lack of being an option.” Whatever, Mike. In Movie Megacheese he berates the Baldwins, “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” the Batman movies, and oh so much more. Hilarious.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?
by Ethan Cohen, Joel Cohen
The Coen Brother’s latest release, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” is up for an Oscar for screenplay. No wonder. These guys consistently deliver high-minded cinematic fare, and yet their movies are so offbeat, they seldom garner the Best Picture nods. (Surely the hick comedy “Raising Arizona” should have swept the awards show in 1987). “O Brother” is typical Coen Bros. entertainment, a mix of Homeric myth and old country blues trope that somehow, crazily, resonates with the American spirit. This screenplay (nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay -- presumably from Homer's The Odyssey) is nicely illustrated, so readers get the full impression of George Clooney’s star turn as Ulysses Everett McGill, a Dapper Dan man if ever there was one. Also, don’t miss the brilliant soundtrack.

Before Night Falls
by Reinaldo Arenas
A shockingly personal/political memoir from one of the most visionary writers to emerge from Castro's Cuba, recounting Arenas' stunning odyssey -- from his poverty-stricken childhood through his suppression as a writer and imprisonment as a homosexual, to his flight to America and subsequent life and death in New York. Nominated in the Best Actor category for this year's Oscars, Javier Bardem has been garnering rave reviews for his portrayal of Arenas in Julian Schnabel's visually lavish film version.

Wonder Boys
by Michael Chabon
Grady Tripp is a middle-aged philanderer -- with a penchant for pot and failed marriages -- who's unable to complete the long-awaited follow-up to his award-winning novel. His brilliant student James Leer is a troubled young writer obsessed with Hollywood suicides and prone to fabrication and petty thievery. In their odyssey through the streets of Pittsburgh, Grady and James are joined by Grady's pregnant mistress, his hilariously bizarre editor, and an achingly beautiful student lodger. The result is a wildly comic, poignantly moving, and ultimately profound search for past promisess, future fame, and a purpose to Grady's life. The film version has been nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Requiem for a Dream
by Hubert Selby
In this searing novel first published in 1978, two young hoods, Harry and Tyrone, and a girlfriend, fantasize about scoring a pound of heroin and getting rich. But their heroin habit gets the better of them, and Harry's mother's addiction (played memorably by Ellen Burstyn, who has been nominated in this year's Oscar's Best Actress category) to diet pills lands her in a state mental hospital. A harrowing, vivid, unflinching fever of a novel, from the writer who brought us Last Exit to Brooklyn.

Jackson Pollock: An American Saga
by Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith
Not specifically referenced in Ed Harris' "Pollock" (which received two Oscar nominations for Best Actor (Ed Harris) and Best Supporting Actress (Marcia Gay Harden)), but undoubtedly a source, this is a rich, sprawling landmark biography of one of the most compelling figures in all of American culture; a brilliant and explosive "portrait of the artist," intimately detailed, abundantly illustrated (with more than 200 photographs from Pollock's life and work, many of them never before published), and filled with new information and eloquent insights. Reading it may not necessarily improve your understanding of his paintings, but at least it will allow you to pretend to.

At Home with the Marquis De Sade
by Francine Du Plessix Gray
While "Quills" is a good example of how truth can be reduced to pure misinformation for the sake of mass entertainment, regardless of Geoffrey Rush's Oscar-nominated performance, reading At Home with the Marquis de Sade may correct the problem. While also not to be confused with a line of quality decorating books beginning with the prepositional phrase "At Home with ...," Gray's biography presents an unparalleled portrait of the Marquis de Sade and the two women who endured his peculiar genius: Renee Pelagie de Sade, his adoring wife, and his powerful mother-in-law, Madame de Montreuil. Drawing on thousands of pages of letters exchanged by the married couple, few of which have been published before in English, Gray explores in the fullest historical and psychological detail what it was like to be married to one of the most maverick spirits of modern history. Gray brings to life two remarkable women and their complex relationship to Sade as they dedicated themselves to protecting him from the law, curbing his excesses, and ultimately confining him, while also conjuring up the extravagant hedonism and terror of late eighteenth-century France.

The Reel World: Scoring for Pictures
by Jeff Rona
Is your garage band headed nowhere fast? Wanna be the next Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer, or Mark Isham? Then The Reel World may be your first important step to a more lucrative future. Written by one of Hollywood’s top up-and-coming composers, this how-to guide takes you inside the world of creating music for film and television. Focusing on the composer’s key concerns: ensuring musical aesthetics, using the most effective technology and techniques, and understanding the business side of things, The Reel World is packed with case studies and insider’s tips. And because of the collaborative nature of film and TV scoring, you’ll learn how to nurture positive relationships with music editors, directors, producers, recording engineers, musicians, music executives -- and even your own agent! So a few years down the road, when you're accepting your Oscar for Best Original Score, you can thank Jeff Rona, your mother, and BookSense.com.

For further reading, visit Books on Film.