Quizzical Error

In the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, they offer "The Great American Oscar Quiz," stating: "We'd like to stump the Academy... and all its many fans, with a pop quiz of Oscar-themed trivia."

Well, they certainly stumped me on Question #5:

What was the only film in which two performers were Oscar-nominated for playing the same role?

Here I thought there were two films in which two performers were Oscar-nominated for playing the same role: Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart in Titanic and Dame Judi Dench and Kate Winslet (again!) in Iris. Boy do I feel silly!

Not an Insight in Sight

I don't know everything, nor have I ever claimed to, but...

Why are "journalists" who know nothing about The Academy Awards allowed to cover them for major magazines?

Take this small excerpt from Devin Gordon's piece for Newsweek:

Perhaps, by nominating a handful of directors whose films are noteworthy for their cinematic modesty, the actor-heavy Academy is sending him a message again: we’re the stars here, not you.

Hate to break it to you Devin, but the actors in the Academy didn't pick this handful of directors. The directors did. Actors don't get to nominate directors, only pictures and other actors.

Oh, and if you're going to call yourself a journalist, you might want to consider this tool of the trade: Research. And that doesn't mean leaving it up to your readers to do for you:

Eagle-eyed readers can check me on this, but I’ll bet there’s another first: Jamie Foxx is the first black actor ever nominated twice in the same year.

Seriously, thanks to the internet, it would take about five minutes and very little effort to confirm that. Any Oscar trivia site (or The Academy's official site) will tell you that before yesterday, only nine actors had accomplished this feat. A look at who these actors were reveals that they were all white. A more unexpected fact is that Foxx is only the second male actor to be nominated twice in the same year for two different movies.

So thanks for your "insights," Devin.

Answering my Own Questions About Sideways

Little did I realize that Driving Miss Daisy was actually the most nominated Best Picture nominee of 1989 with 9 nominations. Whoops. I guess E!’s expert isn’t the only one without a clue.

By my quick count, since 1970 only four Best Picture winners have had 7 or fewer nominations. Of those four winners, one was tied for second least nominations of the Best Picture contenders (Silence of the Lambs, with 7 nominations, tied The Prince of Tides, was outgunned by JFK with 8 and Bugsy with 10, and just barely surpassed Beauty and the Beast’s 6 song-fueled nominations). One had the second least number of nominations (Chariots of Fire had 7 nominations to Atlantic City’s 5, Reds’ 12, On Golden Pond’s 10 and Raiders of the Lost Ark’s 9). And two tied for last place (Ordinary People tied Tess with 6 and was outnumbered by The Elephant Man and Raging Bull with 8 apiece and Coal Miner’s Daughter with 7 while Annie Hall’s 5 were matched by The Goodbye Girl and surpassed by Star Wars, Julia and one of the biggest losers, The Turning Point with a whopping 11 nominations each).

That would make a win for Sideways unprecedented in the modern era (defined as since 1970 for the sake of this argument). Annie Hall is the only Best Picture winner in that time to have as few nominations as Sideways finds itself with. And no Best Picture in that time has had the absolute fewest number of nominations. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done (the first rule of Oscar prognosticating is that there are no rules), but it’s not a good sign either.

More bad news for Sideways…

I asked in my last post about Best Picture winners that failed to garner Best Editing nominations. There have been nine. Since the category was first introduced in 1934 (when there were only three nominees, and Best Picture winner It Happened One Night was not among them).

Here are the poorly edited Best Picture winners:

1980 – Ordinary People
1977 – Annie Hall
1974 – Godfather Part II
1966 – A Man for All Seasons
1963 – Tom Jones
1955 – Marty
1948 – Hamlet
1937 – The Life of Emile Zola
1934 – It Happened One Night

That’s it. And as you can see, the last time this phenomenon occurred was in 1980. There was a Best Picture winner without a nominated director more recently than there’s been a Best Picture with an un-nominated editor. Sure, even blue moons appear once in a blue moon, but I just don’t see it happening this year.

I know Annie Hall, and Sideways is no Annie Hall.

Some initial thoughts on the nominations…

The Best Picture race has been narrowed down to two movies, thanks to the unexpected nominations for Alan Alda and Clint Eastwood for acting, as well as Sideways’ measly five nominations. I need to research if any movie has ever won Best Picture with the fewest number of nominations of the five, or if any Best Picture of the last thirty years has had fewer than seven nominations (maybe perennial exceptions Driving Miss Daisy, Chariots of Fire or Annie Hall?). Oh and if any recent winner has ever failed to garner a nomination for Best Editing. Regardless, support for Sideways isn’t strong enough across the board to give it a win.

I was all set to declare Million Dollar Baby as my out-on-a-limb frontrunner for Best Picture prediction, but Alan Alda’s nomination makes me think that The Aviator may be unstoppable.

I often like to draw parallels between Best Picture nominees in the current race with those in other races (particularly the previous year). Sometimes it helps with predictions of how each film will fare. Here’s how I compare this year’s Pictures with last year’s:

The Aviator = The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (the biggest, most expensive nominee with the most nominations; long seen as the frontrunner; viewed as “a long time coming” honor for body of work (Scorsese/the trilogy); won the Golden Globe for Best Drama; earned 11 nominations)

Million Dollar Baby = Mystic River (Clint Eastwood; lots of critical love, three acting nominations; viewed as an old-Hollywood “Character” piece that has the best shot at upsetting the big behemoth)

Sideways = Lost in Translation (token indie/comedy; fewest number of nominations; some backlash from people who don’t get the critical fawning; viewed as more of a writer’s/actor’s movie than a director’s movie)

Finding Neverland = Seabiscuit (I already noted some pre-nomination parallels, but the similarities continued this morning when it became the only Picture nominee to miss in the Directing category; picked up seven total nominations; could very likely go home empty handed)

Ray = Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (the least likely to be nominated (at least according to me); lots of technical nominations without a writing nom (the only Best Picture nominee not to get one); not a good movie)

There were very few shocks (even though I missed a couple in my predictions – oh, and as I was going to bed last night, I realized that I forgot about Before Sunset, which would’ve replaced The Door in the Floor had I remembered it, I swear). The big stunners, besides Alda and Shark Tale, were snubs for Collateral in Cinematography, House of Flying Daggers in Foreign Language Film, Kinsey in Original Screenplay, The Incredibles in Original Score and “Old Habits Die Hard” in Best Original Song. Also, I must admit that I didn’t think Tupac: Resurrection had a shot (no pun intended).

Speaking of Documentaries, I think there’ll have to be an asterisk next to the nominees in this category this year (like the winners of the boycotted 1980 and 1984 Olympics), what with all the notable films (Some Kind of Monster, Control Room, Tarnation and of course, Fahrenheit 9/11) that were ineligible for one reason or another (I’m still not clear on why some of them were disqualified).

Mike Leigh’s somewhat surprising nominations are very good news for Imelda Staunton, who I had all but counted out as a winner. More people will see her performance now and obviously there’s more support for the film than many suspected.

I don’t know if I want to live in a world where Troy, Shark Tale and The Phantom of the Opera earned more Oscar nominations than Razzie nominations (Troy in particular was robbed by the Razzie committee, completely snubbed – with Britney Spears wrongfully stealing Orlando Bloom’s rightful slot in the Worst Supporting Actress race).

The early morning E! coverage, as always, was painful to watch. Their “expert” was hardly. He had more product between his ears than facts. Poor Brad Bird phoned in and was under the mistaken impression that Michael Giacchino had been nominated, lavishing praise and congratulations on his un-nominated composer. It’s become clear that Virginia Madsen really, really wants this – but not in an obnoxious Michael Caine sort of way. She’s been so grateful for every honor she’s received this year, has been making lots of appearances (most recently on VH1’s I Love the 90s Part Deux) and was among the first to phone in to E!

I wonder if there have ever been two foreign language songs competing in the Best Original Song category before.

I expected – and I’ve already heard – lots of squawking about how many African-Americans were nominated (unsurprisingly, this commentary has failed to cite Catalina Sandino Moreno as an example of this ethnic diversity). Hopefully this will finally put to rest those absurd accusations that the Academy is racist (unless critics decide to focus on the dearth of minority/female Directing nominees – though again, don’t blame the Academy, blame Hollywood (same people, different name) because I can’t think of a single director that would’ve qualified this year) – or maybe cynics will focus on the fact that Ray was directed by a white man (as they did with The Color Purple, Amistad and Beloved), even though Jamie Foxx himself at the Golden Globes praised “a Caucasian man [for] taking a chance on this beautiful black film”).

As I said before, it’s all about the roles (which isn’t to denigrate the skill that actors bring to their roles, but there’s a reason why good actors aren’t nominated every time out of the gate), and this year, there was an uncharacteristic plethora (it is a sad fact that I’m considering five a plethora) of good roles given to African-American actors (I say “given” and not “for” because Foxx’ role in Collateral was not written specifically for a black man – I’m not sure about Morgan Freeman’s role). Despite appearances, this doesn’t really change anything for African-Americans in Hollywood (any more than Halle Berry’s “door-opening” did) – unless this boosts the box office of Ray and Hotel Rwanda or if it gets better scripts to the nominated actors. It’s all about money and the roles.

Shark Tale?

Are you kidding me?

Ridiculously Late Oscar Predictions

Best Director

Locks: Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby), Martin Scorsese (The Aviator), Alexander Payne (Sideways)

Again, it’ll be a shock if any one of these is left out.

Guesses: Michael Mann (Collateral), Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)

As I stated back in September, there have only been three times in history when all five Best Picture nominees have been nominated for Best Directing (the last time was in 1981). So there’s always some discrepancy between the Picture contenders and the Directing contenders (usually there’s just one director left out, though occasionally there are two).

And since 1970, all five DGA nominees have only been nominated for Best Directing three times. So odds are against both Marc Forster and Taylor Hackford making it. Although most Oscar prognosticators are calling Forster, I just have this feeling that like Gary Ross last year, he’ll get left on the cutting room floor. Of the four “sure thing” Pictures, Finding Neverland is the least sure, and Forster is the least established director. Plus, there’s nothing particularly flashy about the film, which can be a handicap in this category.

When it comes to Michael Moore, I still think that they’d rather reward the movie/message than the man.

Taylor Hackford has a legitimate shot, though if he’s left out (as I’m predicting that he will be), it won’t be the first time he’s been nominated for a DGA Award without converting it into an Oscar nomination.

So I had four Michael/Michel/Mikes gunning for these two Guess slots. Ultimately I decided to go for the real longshots – Mann and Gondry. Although Collateral has been underrepresented this award season (outside of Jamie Foxx and cinematography), the Directors’ branch of the Academy frequently goes for surprises, and Mann is well respected.

And don’t forget that this is the branch that nominated Spike Jonze for Being John Malkovich, so I just have a feeling that even though he hasn’t been praised as much as Jonze, Gondry could sneak in here.

Pinch Hitters: Mike Nichols (Closer), Taylor Hackford (Ray), Marc Forster (Finding Neverland), Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11), Mel Gibson (The Passion of the Christ)

For a long time I clung to Nichols, but Dave Karger made a good point in Entertainment Weekly about how the veteran vote will be more than taken care of by Eastwood and Scorsese. Still, I think he has more than a decent shot.

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Locks: Jamie Foxx (Ray), Leonardo DiCaprio (The Aviator), Johnny Depp (Finding Neverland)

I’m not one hundred percent certain about Depp (he’s definitely less of a lock than Foxx and DiCaprio), but I think he’ll be carried along by Neverland’s momentum. Even DiCaprio isn’t a sure thing in this very competitive race (remember he failed to clinch nominations for much-buzzed-about performances in Titanic and Catch Me If You Can), but his passion for The Aviator is a big plus, as is the range of his performance. Meanwhile, the only mystery about Foxx comes in the Supporting race.

Guesses: Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda), Paul Giamatti (Sideways)

Giamatti is a big question mark, and I’ve only put him in the top five at the last minute because of SAG support and the enormity of Sideways love this year. Plus, it never hurts to have been overlooked for a well-regarded performance the previous year. Again, I’m not totally convinced that he’s in (even though he sure acted like he would be on SNL last weekend – even while “jokingly” grumbling the steamroller that is Jamie Foxx).

Pinch Hitters: Javier Bardem (The Sea Inside), Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby), Liam Neeson (Kinsey), Jeff Bridges (The Door in the Floor), Kevin Bacon (The Woodsman)

I thought Bardem was a definite, but buzz hasn’t been huge, and as an enormous proponent of his in 2000, I must say that I found his Sea Inside role a tad underwhelming, especially considering his circumstances. His SAG lockout doesn’t necessarily mean anything (he wasn’t nominated for Before Night Falls either), but a nomination would’ve helped. He’s neck and neck with Giamatti for spot number five.

And Eastwood also didn’t get much pre-Oscar recognition for his acting in Unforgiven, but that didn’t stop him from making the cut, though I don’t think the field was as competitive as it is this year, and the Actors may feel that he’ll get his due as a Producer/Director/Composer.

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Locks: Hillary Swank (Million Dollar Baby), Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake), Annette Bening (Being Julia), Kate Winslet (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)

We’ll get into my uncertainty about current front-runner Swank being able to win again after she’s nominated.

Guess: Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace)

Let the record show that I had her in my top five predictions way back in September (of course I also had Sideways at number 18 on my list of likely Best Picture finalists). She’s got momentum off of a lot of people predicting her and then that SAG nom. I feel pretty confident about her.

Pinch Hitters: Um… I got nothing.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Locks: Thomas Haden Church (Sideways), Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby), Clive Owen (Closer)

Guesses: Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland), Jamie Foxx (Collateral)

I’ve been very reticent to predict a nomination for Foxx in this category, and if there were any other legitimate contender, they’d be in here. The problem is, only nine actors have ever double-dipped (eight if you don’t count Barry Fitzgerald who was nominated for the same role in two categories). Of those eight, only the first double-dipper, Fay Bainter in 1938, and Jessica Lange in 1982 achieved that feat without having ever been nominated previously. While both of Foxx’ performances this year have been critically-hailed, let’s not forget that before this year he was perhaps best known for Booty Call and “Wanda” on In Living Color (which isn’t a knock on him – as a friend of The Dish recently observed, “Isn’t it great that we live in a world where the dumb guy from Wings and a washed-up frequently topless B-movie star can be nominated for Oscars?” I’d add to that list the stars of The Next Karate Kid, 21 Jump Street and Growing Pains, as well as “Pig Vomit” from Private Parts as “Only in America” comebacks). More accomplished stars than Foxx have failed to clench the double. In the same year that Al Pacino was double nominated, Jack Nicholson had been double nominated at the Golden Globes (like Foxx), yet only managed one Oscar nod. The same goes for Meryl Streep in 2002 and Julianne Moore in 1999. So yeah, in a more competitive year, I’d say that Foxx doesn’t have the credentials to get double nominated so early in his career (especially when he’s already guaranteed a statue).

Pinch Hitters: Peter Sarsgaard (Kinsey), James Garner (The Notebook), David Carradine (Kill Bill, Vol. 2)

For some reason, even though he had a much more demanding role in Kinsey than he did in Shattered Glass, Sarsgaard just hasn’t gotten the buzz (or the precursor awards) this year, though again, he may sneak in as payback for last year.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Locks: Virginia Madsen (Sideways), Natalie Portman (Closer), Cate Blanchett (The Aviator), Laura Linney (Kinsey)

Guess: Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rwanda)

This could be the film’s consolation prize if it doesn’t get a Best Picture nomination.

Pinch Hitters: Cloris Leachman (Spanglish), Kate Winslet (Finding Neverland), Meryl Streep (The Manchurian Candidate)

Leachman got a surprise SAG nom after Spanglish had been all but left for dead. Don’t count her out yet.

Winslet hasn’t gotten as much attention for Neverland as she has for her Sunshine performance, but she certainly has the bona fides for a double dip after three previous nominations. And she does something at the end of the movie that is a big awards boost.

I don’t really think Streep has a chance, but apparently Paramount’s been pushing hard (what else are they gonna push?), and ad campaigns have gotten unlikely noms nominated in the past.

And the rest…

Unlike Chris Rock, I don’t think the below-the-line (and writing) categories are any less important than the others… but sadly it’s getting late and I have to wake up in four hours, so they’re not getting much coverage tonight.

Best Original Screenplay
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2. The Aviator
3. Kinsey
4. Hotel Rwanda
5. The Incredibles

With Vera Drake as a possible replacement.

Best Adapted Screenplay
1. Sideways
2. Million Dollar Baby
3. Finding Neverland
4. Closer
5. The Door in the Floor

With Mean Girls as a possible replacement.

Best Animated Feature
1. The Incredibles
2. The Polar Express
3. Shrek 2

Best Foreign Language Film
1. The Sea Inside
2. The Chorus
3. House of Flying Daggers
4. Tae Guk Gi
5. Nightwatch

Best Documentary Feature
1. Born into Brothels
2. Twist of Faith
3. In the Realms of the Unreal
4. The Story of Weeping Camel
5. Touching the Void

Best Art Direction
1. The Aviator
2. The Phantom of the Opera
3. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
4. The Terminal
5. A Very Long Engagement

Best Visual Effects
1. Spider-Man 2
2. The Day After Tomorrow
3. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Best Costume Design
1. A Very Long Engagement
2. The Phantom of the Opera
3. The Aviator
4. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
5. Vanity Fair

Best Makeup
1. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
2. Hellboy
3. The Aviator

Best Editing
1. The Aviator
2. Million Dollar Baby
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4. Ray
5. Fahrenheit 9/11

Best Cinematography
1. The Aviator
2. The Passion of The Christ
3. Collateral
4. A Very Long Engagement
5. Ray

Best Sound
1. The Aviator
2. Spider-Man 2
3. The Incredibles
4. The Phantom of the Opera
5. Ray

Best Sound Editing
1. The Incredibles
2. Spider-Man 2
3. The Polar Express

Best Original Score
1. Sideways
2. Finding Neverland
3. The Incredibles
4. Million Dollar Baby
5. The Motorcycle Diaries

Best Original Song
1. “Old Habits Die Hard” (Alfie)
2. “Believe” (The Polar Express)
3. “Learn to be Lonely” (The Phantom of the Opera)
4. “Accidentally in Love” (Shrek 2)
5. “Peter’s Song” (Finding Neverland)
Nobody’s talking about the Randy Newman song from Meet the Fockers, but never count Newman out.

And don’t forget that the Songwriters’ branch isn’t as square as their rep. They gave Eminem the Oscar instead of Bono and they nominated “Blame Canada,” even when the Globes ignored South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. So don’t give up on hearing Robin Williams belt out “I’m so Ronery,” “Freedom Isn’t Free” or “Everyone Has AIDS” or whichever song Trey Parker and Paramount are pushing. Personally, I’d love to hear the Michael Bay-baiting “Pearl Harbor Sucked” sung by Faith Hill with cutaways to Ben Affleck, though I suppose Debbie Allen could do a kick ass medley with “Learn to be Lonely” and “I’m so Ronery.”

That’s all for now… Happy Oscar Morning (hopefully)!

Ridiculously Late Best Picture Predictions

I’m splitting up my final Academy Award nomination predictions into three groups: My top five picks will be divided between “Locks” and “Guesses,” with a few “Pinch Hitters” that could surprise if any of the Guesses fail to make it (though when I gauge my own success as a prognosticator on Tuesday, I’ll only be counting my top five picks). Names will be listed in order of likelihood. Commentary will be sprinkled throughout. Also, by clicking on the hyperlinked category names, you can see my Ridiculously Early predictions from four and a half months ago.

Best Picture

Locks: The Aviator, Million Dollar Baby, Sideways

It’ll be a shock to Oscar watchers everywhere if one of these three fails to make the cut.

Guesses: Finding Neverland, Fahrenheit 9/11

I settled on Finding Neverland a few weeks ago, after seeing it nominated for just about every guild award (Producers Guild, Directors Guild, three Screen Actors Guild nominations – including Outstanding Performance by a Cast, Editors Guild, Art Directors Guild – it failed to garner a Writers Guild nomination, though only because it was rendered ineligible by a technicality). Seabiscuit followed a very similar trajectory last year (though it picked up a few more, including Makeup and Sound Editors nominations, which haven’t been announced for this year yet, as well as the Writers Guild, Costume Designers Guild and American Society of Cinematographers nominations that Finding Neverland missed. It was this Guild sweep that inspired me to pick Seabiscuit as one of the five Best Picture nominees last year, even when it was still considered a longshot (for some of the same reasons as Finding Neverland – namely that critics weren’t enamored with it). But actually, I was leaning towards calling Neverland as a finalist even before the Guild nominations started piling in for another of the reasons that Seabiscuit was dismissed: Sentimentality. It’s a quality that’s missing from the Three Locks, I think, and yet it’s a quality that usually finds its way into the top five. I didn’t hear any nose-blowing at the end of Million Dollar Baby, but my mother needed a tissue as Neverland’s credits were rolling. Which illustrates the other Oscar-benefit of sentimentality – it skews older than your average critic/Oscar-prognosticator but hits squarely in the Academy members’ demographic. Don’t underestimate sentimentality.

Like most predictors, I’ve been wrestling with the fifth slot all Oscar season. This year, that slot is truly a wildcard. At various points I’ve had Ray, The Passion of the Christ, Hotel Rwanda, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Motorcycle Diaries and The Phantom of the Opera all pegged for a nomination. Fahrenheit 9/11 has gone in and out for me repeatedly.

Here’s what I keep coming back to: The Academy’s preferential voting system. I don’t fully understand it, even after reading David Poland’s, Tom O’Neil’s and Dave Karger’s explanations, but the one thing I do get is that a sizable minority of passionate voters outweighs a majority of only mediocre support. The best example of this that I can think of is last year when Fernando Meirelles was nominated for Best Directing. My guess is that Gary Ross and Anthony Minghella both had more total votes, but that the people who voted for Meirelles consistently ranked him much higher.

As both Poland and O’Neil have pointed out, Harvey Weinstein and Michael Moore are following Karl Rove’s strategy of exclusively targeting their base and hoping they have the numbers. Even putting aside Weinstein’s uncanny ability to campaign for votes (just ask Lasse Hallstrom) and Moore’s less successful vote-getting talents (just ask John Kerry), I predicted last September that the film’s chances would be boosted by a Bush win. I believe that many liberals in Hollywood are still bitter about the election and the Reddening of America, and a vote for Fahrenheit 9/11 would serve as a giant “[bleep] you!” I try to think of how Moore groupies Leonardo DiCaprio, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck will vote – will DiCaprio put The Aviator as #1 or Fahrenheit (the movie he flew cross country to attend both premieres of)? Now, I know that these people aren’t necessarily representative of the Academy as a whole, but the die-hard liberals must make up a sizeable minority, right? So will they put politics ahead of art?

One thing that raises doubts is that no documentary has ever been nominated for Best Picture. And though Fahrenheit 9/11 has done a lot of things that no documentary has done before, I think that the reason behind the genre’s absence goes beyond it having its own ghettoized category at the Awards (a hurdle which Moore tried to sidestep by not submitting). As with animated features inability to get recognition (excluding Beauty and the Beast) long before they had their own category, I hypothesize that Academy members at large, who mostly have made careers on live-action, scripted films, tend to recognize films that highlight their own specialties. Thus members of the acting branch like movies with strong acting, writers like movies that are well-written, art directors like movies with good art directing, and so on. Maybe that’s not true, but I think it would help explain why the film with the most nominations almost always wins Best Picture. So will actors and art directors and makeup artists and costume designers and special effects artists vote for a movie that doesn’t even have those elements? And can Weinstein have his fingerprints on three Best Picture nominees (he actually had them on four in 2002)?

I don’t know, but I’m going to put it in the top five, against my better judgment, mostly just because I think it’d make things interesting. It also would fulfill a couple of the categories that are usually represented at the Oscars that seem to be missing this year: The $100 Million Blockbuster, The Pre-September Release and The Relevant Message Movie (Million Dollar Baby has yet to position itself as such). And it would validate my analysis of the Cannes numbers.

Pinch Hitters: Hotel Rwanda, Ray, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Passion of the Christ

The thing (preferential balloting) that makes me think that Fahrenheit 9/11 can rise to the top is the same thing that makes me think that any one of these could easily surpass it.

I have a feeling that most liberal, socially minded voters will put both Fahrenheit 9/11 and Hotel Rwanda on their ballots. But which will they tend to rank as #1? The worst thing for both would be if half ranked Rwanda higher and half ranked Fahrenheit higher. Of course, Rwanda has several advantages over Fahrenheit. For one, it’s a traditional scripted/acted film. It highlights an under publicized social injustice in a disturbing and yet ultimately uplifting manner (the only thing uplifting or hope-inspiring about Fahrenheit is its box-office). Although financial success is usually seen as a positive in the Oscar race, in this instance, Rwanda may have the edge because voters may recognize that they could help get its message out in a way that Fahrenheit already achieved on its own. However, that positive may also be a negative. Rwanda didn’t really make as big a splash in the media as I thought it would and the critics and guilds haven’t rallied behind it in large numbers. At this point, it may be lucky to clinch two acting nominations.

A lot of people are calling Ray as the fifth slot-filler. Universal’s campaigning did manage to push another critically-underwhelming movie through last year, and Ray has had almost as much Guild support as Finding Neverland. It also doesn’t have a clear vote-splitter in the race (De-Lovely and Beyond the Sea fell by the wayside), though it’s support among the Academy Black Caucus may be divided among Hotel Rwanda and Fahrenheit 9/11 (which picked up a somewhat surprising nomination at the NAACP Image Awards). Still, I don’t know anybody who actually liked the movie (not that being a good movie is a prerequisite for an Oscar) – though I may be committing the cardinal sin of Oscar predicting: Letting my personal feelings about a film’s quality influence my predictions.

That same sin may be what keeps me believing that Eternal Sunshine still has a shot. I know that it will probably appear as #2 on a lot of ballots where Sideways is #1 (thus discarding the votes for Sunshine. But I also know that very few people like Sunshine – it’s either loved or hated, and the people who love it really love it – even more so than Sideways lovers love that film. It could break through thanks to its small, but fervent group of supporters, though most likely it will go the way of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation.

And then there’s The Passion. This is a movie that really has no direct competition. People who don’t hate it think it’s the Second Coming. Sure, Mel Gibson has probably killed his chances by not whoring himself for votes and by his prickly behavior of late, but then again, this movie is bigger than him. Like Fahrenheit, it would fill the Blockbuster, Pre-September and Relevant Message slots. And it would have the added bonus of endearing Hollywood to the rest of America.

Stay tuned for predictions in other categories...

More Meaningless Numbers

Building on the coincidental instances of a Golden Globe nomination being a prerequisite for an Academy Award nod that I noted last week, I decided to take a look at Golden Globe nominees that have overlapped with Screen Actors’ Guild, Producers’ Guild or Directors’ Guild Award nominees and how those overlapping nominees have fared at the Academy Awards.

The Golden Globes and The Screen Actors’ Guild Awards Overlap

In the acting categories, I didn’t count it as an overlap if an actor was nominated in one category at the Globes and a different one at the SAG Awards (e.g. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jennifer Connelly, Benicio Del Toro). Because the SAG Awards have only been around since 1994, all stats come from the ten years since then.

In the Best Actor race, there were 36 overlaps between Globe nominees and SAG nominees for an average of 3.6 out of a possible 5 per year. Out of those 36 overlaps, 34 of them went on to be nominated for Academy Awards (that’s 94% of them). And in only one of those ten years, 1998, was the Academy Award winner not among the Globe/Guild overlaps (Roberto Benigni won the SAG Award, but Life is Beautiful was completely ignored by the Globes).

In the Best Actress category, there were 42 overlaps for an average of 4.2 per year. Out of those 42, 38 were nominated for Oscars (90%). In all ten years, the eventual Oscar winner was drawn from the pool of Globe/Guild overlaps.

As with the direct comparison between Globe nominees and Academy nominees last week, the likelihood of matching Supporting nominees is reduced because the Globes (usually) only nominate five actors in those categories as opposed to the ten in the Lead categories. However, the difference between the number of Lead overlaps and Supporting overlaps isn’t quite as pronounced with SAG as it was Oscar.

In both Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress, there were 31 overlaps for an average of 3.1 per year in each category. Out of those 31, 28 Actors and 26 Actresses were nominated for Oscars (90% and 84% respectively). Again not counting the category mis-matches (Zeta-Jones, Connelly, Del Toro), the only Academy Award winners not included among the overlaps were James Coburn (nominated for a SAG but not a Globe) and Marcia Gay Harden (who came out of nowhere in one of the biggest upsets in recent memory after receiving neither a Globe nor a SAG nomination).

So out of the 200 Academy acting nominations in those ten years, 126 of them (63%) were culled from the elite list of Globe/Guild overlaps. That still leaves 74 (or an average of 7.4 out of a possible 20 each year) that didn’t come from this group. Yet, when you consider that out of 140 overlaps, 90% made it to the big show, it certainly looks like a good bellwether.

What does that mean for this year’s batch?

All five of this year’s SAG nominees for Best Actor were also nominated for Globes, which has only happened one other time in this category and five times in Best Actress. The last time it happened here (2002), only four out of five made the final cut (Michael Caine replaced Richard Gere). In Best Actress, the last three times that this occurred (2002, 2000, 1999), all five nominees were Oscar-nominated. In 1998 and 1997, four out of five made it through. So it seems like there’s a very good chance that at least four of the five SAG nominees will hear their names again Tuesday morning (in fact, none of the acting categories has ever had more than one overlap fail to receive an Oscar nod in a given year). I think it’s safe to say that Paul Giamatti is the most vulnerable, though Don Cheadle could easily be left out if there’s a Sideways sweep and Javier Bardem has enough support.

There are four overlaps this year in the Best Actress race and all seem pretty safe, which is certainly not without precedent.

There are three Supporting Actor overlaps, and Thomas Hayden Church and Morgan Freeman are both sure things. I’m still not convinced that Jamie Foxx can garner two Oscar noms, but this at least bolsters his odds.

In Supporting Actress, all three overlaps seem like locks, though if any of them falter, it will probably be Laura Linney.

Is there precedence for all overlaps in all four categories making it through in one year? Yes. In 2000, all 16 overlaps made it. In 1996, there were only ten overlaps, but all made it. In 1998, 1997 and 1995 there was only one overlap that didn’t make the cut in each year (Jane Horrocks, Pam Grier and Anjelica Huston respectively). In fact, since the first year of the SAG Awards, 1994, there haven’t been any years with more than two mismatches total.

The Golden Globes and The Directors’ Guild Awards Overlap

Now we move on to the Directors’ Guild Awards. These Awards date back to 1949, but I only tracked Golden Globe overlaps back 34 years, through 1970.

There were 123 total overlaps in 34 years, and out of those, 103 (84%) were nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards (there should be an asterisk next to that last stat as Francis Ford Coppola was double-overlapped in 1974, but according to Academy rules at the time, he was ineligible to be nominated for both The Godfather Part II and The Conversation). Out of the 170 Best Director nominations between 1970 and 2003, those 103 overlaps account for 60.5%. Only two Oscar-winning Best Directors have failed to be among the overlaps – Roman Polanski (nominated by the DGA but not the Globes) and George Roy Hill (who won the DGA award but was denied by the Globes) – and nearly 30 years separated those two oversights.

What’s perhaps more interesting is that of the 20 overlaps that weren’t nominated for Best Director by the Academy, 14 had their respective films nominated for Best Picture. And since 1980, only three overlapped directors have had the distinction of having neither themselves or their films nominated: Steven Spielberg (1997), Martin Scorsese (1993) and Rob Reiner – twice (1989 and 1986). Reiner earned the hat trick (or turkey) of unrecognized overlaps in 1992, but at least A Few Good Men picked up a Best Picture nod. Spielberg scored an additional two fruitless overlaps in 1985 and 1975, but both The Color Purple and Jaws were nominated for Best Picture. The only other director in the last 34 years to get more than one unfulfilled overlap is James L. Brooks (1997 and 1987), however both As Good As It Gets and Broadcast News were Oscar-nominated and at least Brooks had already picked up a little gold man for directing Terms of Endearment in 1983. I guess some guys just aren’t as popular with the Academy’s Directing branch as they are with the Hollywood Foreign Press and the DGA.

And what does all that mean for this year’s directors?

There are four overlaps: Clint Eastwood, Marc Forster, Alexander Payne and Martin Scorsese. All but Forster appear to be locks. In the 19 years where there were four or more overlaps, there were only five times where all made the final cut (six if you give Coppola the benefit of the doubt in 1974). In only three of the remaining 14 (13) years was there attrition of more than one title. So according to these arbitrary statistics, odds are that Forster will be dropped from the Best Director race but Finding Neverland will find its way to the Best Picture circle.

Oh, and before Taylor Hackford and the Raelettes get too excited about his DGA nom, they should know that history and meaningless statistics aren’t in their favor (at least if Finding Neverland does indeed makes the Best Picture shortlist). Since 1985, the DGA nominees have only matched up perfectly with the five Best Picture nominees twice (1996 and 1994). Between 1970 and 1984, it happened four times (1984, 1981, 1978, 1975). And Mike Nichols better hope that Forster doesn’t make the cut, since all five Globe-nominated directors have only been tapped by Oscar twice in the last 34 years (1980 and 1977).

The Golden Globes and The Producers’ Guild Awards Overlap

The Producers’ Guild has been handing out awards since 1989, and they are the least reliable predictors of the three guilds (as are their overlaps). They tend to reward more populist blockbusters (The Last Samurai, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone), comedies (My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Shrek, Waking Ned Devine) and edgy movies (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, Gods and Monsters, Leaving Las Vegas) than the Academy. The PGA had a three-year streak between 1992 and 1994 where they matched all five of the Academy’s Best Picture nominees, however they haven’t repeated that feat since 1994.

In addition, since the Globes nominate ten Best Pictures (and the PGA frequently sneak in six, seven or even eight), they’re more likely to overlap with the PGA, but it is less likely for those overlaps to match the Oscar nominees.

That said, in the 15 years since 1989, there have been 63 overlaps. Of those, 45 (71%) have gone on to be nominated by the Academy, which means that an even 60% of Oscar-nominated Best Pictures are drawn from this pool of overlaps. Trying to find rhyme and reason is difficult as the match-ups are quite sporadic. In 1992, there were five overlaps and all five were nominated for Oscars. However, three years later, there were again five overlaps but only two of them were Oscar-bound (Braveheart was not among them, having been ignored by the PGA, however this is the only time in 15 years that Oscar’s Best Picture winner was not an overlap).

And this year that means what exactly?

All five of the PGA’s nominees are overlaps with the Globes. Though there was that one year when all five overlaps made it through to the next round, the other five times that there have been five overlaps, between one and three overlaps did not survive the cut. With The Incredibles due to be shunted off to the Best Animated Feature ghetto that leaves The Aviator, Finding Neverland, Million Dollar Baby and Sideways. But we already knew that.

Golden Globe Reactions

No real surprises tonight (on the movie side, anyway) other than Clive Owen and Natalie Portman's wins, which keep them at the forefront after being surprisingly snubbed by the SAG Awards and put a temporary halt to the steamroller momentum of Thomas Hayden Church and Virginia Madsen (was her loss made more upsetting by seeing her ex-half-sister-in-law pick up a Globe instead?). Although the list of potential nominees in the Supporting categories this year is pretty short, the wins tonight keep the competition for the Academy winners interesting. Each of those categories look like three-person races at the moment

On the other hand, the competition for a Lead Actor nomination is intense, while the win is the closest thing to a sure bet this year. Jamie Foxx cemented his position as the season-long lock with his speech tonight - he hit all the right notes - he was funny, he was gracious, he was enthusiastic and he got choked up. The standing ovation didn't hurt. Leonardo DiCaprio got a slight boost, but this just isn't his year - at least in the Best Actor category. Javier Bardem and Liam Neeson could've really used the surprise win to offset their SAG snubs, while neither Don Cheadle nor Johnny Depp is a sure thing for a nod.

The Globes didn't make prognosticating the Best Actress winner any easier. As everyone's been noting, it looks like it'll come down to a rematch of 1999's title bout: Annette Bening vs. Hillary Swank, but more on that in another post.

Clint Eastwood's win doesn't mean too much for the Scorsese in '05 campaign since the Globes gave him his defacto-lifetime-achievement award just two years ago for Gangs of New York. It's still a two-man battle of the legends.

The Best Picture race didn't get any clearer either with the three-way split at the top. Finding Neverland, Hotel Rwanda, Eternal Sunshine and Kinsey all could've used wins tonight to give them an edge and keep them afloat in the race for the last two wide-open Best Picture slots (or one open slot, but more on that in another post).

Which Comes First... The Globes or The Gold?

I’m not sure what if anything the Golden Globes mean. Do they influence the Academy Awards or do they just reflect the general popularity of certain films and performances that are destined to be nominated for the big show anyway? Whatever the answer, they do historically match up pretty closely with the Oscar shortlists (they’re helped greatly by having a pool of ten to chose from (in three top categories) for five slots, and even with that advantage, they often sneak in an eleventh or twelfth (as with the eleven Best Picture contenders this year).

Inspired by my offhanded remarks a month ago about Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise’s already unlikely Oscar hopes being dead in the water (and by a Best Actress category that still has two tenuous slots to fill that I was considering plugging Ms. Roberts into), I decided to see how many performances that were snubbed by the Globes managed to make it to the big leagues anyway. In the Lead categories (especially Lead Actress since there are usually far fewer strong female roles to chose from), there are few mismatches.

Here’s how the numbers break down (all stats are based on data since 1980; math may be a bit fuzzy):

In the Best Actress category, there were perfect matches (i.e. all five Oscar-nominated performances were also tapped by the Globes in either Drama or Musical/Comedy Lead Actress category) in 1980, 1982, 1983, 1990, 1991, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002. That’s 11 out of 24 years with perfect matches. In those 24 years, there were 17 Oscar-nominated performances in the Lead Actress category out of a total 120 who were not also nominated for a Globe – or 14% missed. There are asterisks next to some of those stats, but I’ll get to those in a minute.

In the Best Actor category, there were perfect matches in 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1991, 1999, 2002 and 2003. 8 out of 24 years with perfect matches, with 20 misses out of 120 – or 17% missed.

In the Supporting categories, where there are usually only five Globe slots (though often six or seven), it stands to reason statistically that their averages would be less accurate. Also, whereas the Globes are slightly more adept at predicting the women than the men in the Lead categories, the opposite is true of the Supporting categories.

In the Supporting Actor category, there were just two years with perfect matches (1999 and 2000) and 39 misses (almost exactly double the number in the Best Actor race, which makes sense since they get half as many guesses) – or 32.5% missed.

In the Supporting Actress category, there were also just two years with perfect matches (1996 and 2001) and 41 misses (again, a little more than double the Best Actress number) – or 34% wrong.

All in all, not bad for determining the likely pool of contenders, especially considering that there are rarely more than one Oscar nominee left out in any category in any given year and that the Globes have been doing even better in recent years (except for last year where they didn’t go for 21 Grams or In America or unknowns as much as The Academy Awards).

It gets even better when you take into account those asterisks I mentioned before. There are pretty much three reasons why I starred certain misses:

1) The Globes nominated the performer for a different performance than The Oscars that year (Debra Winger (A Dangerous Woman instead of Shadowlands), Gerard Depardieu (Green Card instead of Cyrano de Bergerac), Julianne Moore (only nominated for Far From Heaven, not The Hours));

2) The Globes nominated a different performance in that category from the same film (Meryl Streep instead of Diane Keaton for Marvin’s Room, Robin Williams instead of Robert De Niro for Awakenings, John Turturro instead of Paul Scofield for Quiz Show, John Goodman instead of Michael Lerner for Barton Fink, Kim Basinger instead of Glenn Close for The Natural, Mary Steenburgen instead of Elizabeth McGovern for Ragtime); and

3) The Globes nominated a performance in a different category than the Oscars (Denzel Washington (Cry Freedom), Robert Preston (Victor/Victoria), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Chicago) all went Lead at the Globes and Supporting at the Oscars, while the aforementioned Elizabeth McGovern actually was nominated for Ragtime – but in the now-defunct New Star of the Year category, as was Michael O’Keefe (The Great Santini), and Clint Eastwood did win Best Director for Unforgiven at the Globes, even though he didn’t pick up a Best Actor nod).

Not counting Eastwood, that’s thirteen semi-misses to deduct, which would bring the Globes’ miss percentages down to 12.5% for Actress, 15% for Actor, 28% for Supporting Actor and 31% for Supporting Actress.

Our ability to narrow down the pool of contenders is further aided when you run the Globe misses through the sieve of the SAG shortlists (at least dating back to 1994 when the SAG Awards first appeared on the scene).

Of the Globe misses since 1994, 23 received individual SAG nominations (with a few like Joan Allen (Nixon) and Keisha Castle-Hughes in the wrong categories) and an additional four mentioned as part of SAG’s Best Ensemble award nominees. Forgetting those team players and eliminating overlap between the asterisked performances and SAG nominees, that means that the percentages of Oscar nominees covered by the Globes and/or SAG is up to 89% for Actress, 90% for Actor, 77% for Supporting Actor and 72.5% for Supporting Actress. If we only count since 1994, those percentages rise to 94% for the first three categories and 86% for Supporting Actress.

Meaning that if history and statistics mean anything (and most likely they don’t), then there probably won’t be too many as-yet untapped performances mentioned on the morning of January 25th. That means Jeff Bridges, Clint Eastwood, Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Tom Cruise, Gael Garcia Bernal, Jude Law, Al Pacino, Julia Roberts, Laura Dern, Julie Delpy, Sigourney Weaver, Ziyi Zhang, Kerry Washington, Kim Basinger, Peter Sarsgaard, John Lithgow, Alan Alda, Rodrigo De la Serna, Gena Rowlands, Sharron Warren, Regina King, Minnie Driver, Lynn Redgrave, Kyra Sedgwick, Lola Duenas and Kate Winslet (for Finding Neverland) will all be clawing at each other for a very slim chance of slipping in.

Looking at the Globe misses, very few Leads (including Tom Wilkinson for In the Bedroom, Clint Eastwood for Unforgiven and Stephen Rea for The Crying Game) came from films that the Globes nominated for Best Picture, and not too many Supporting nominees came from them either. That’s more bad news for Roberts, Law, Washington, Eastwood, as well as Alda, Sarsgaard, Lithgow, Winslet, King, Warren and Driver – and it’s not a vote of confidence for SAG nominees Sophie Okonedo or Freddie Highmrore either who couldn’t get support from people who liked their movies.

So the point is, I won’t be predicting a Julia Roberts surprise this year.