[maquiladora]

It's a not a statistical thing really. The NYFCC Best Picture winner hasn't been an Oscar winner since 1993 (Schindler's List). They like going for arty alternatives rather than Oscar friendly movies, but when they do go for commercial, big movies (very very very rare, and its happened this time) then it's a sign that ROTK is so well loved by critics that, well, it's just about unstoppable, like Schindler's List was.

[Maigret]

Did you happen to see Ebert's show last night? I rarely watch it, but caught it just as they 'pre' reviewed ROTK. The dippy younger guy says he wasn't a Tolkien fan - no surprises there - but he said that now having seen the whole trilogy the first two make so much more sense and as a complete film, he really liked it.

Ebert said basically the same thing, very good review for ROTK and that all together the films were 'legendary' filmmaking.

[baseballfanjm]

The only thing that was really against "Return of the King" is that it is a fantasy. Never has a sci-fi or fantasy film won Best Picture. The last, before the Lord of the Rings films, to even get a nod was "Beauty and the Beast". But the Lord of the Rings trilogy of books is so revered that that may not really matter.