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.