The Oscar Grouch

The Oscar Grouch's 2006 Academy Award Predictions

2006-03-05T13:01:00.000-08:00

Best Picture
Will Win: Brokeback Mountain
Potential Spoiler: Crash
Dark Horse: Munich
Who I'm Rooting For: Munich

Best Directing
Will Win: Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
Potential Spoiler: Steven Spielberg, Munich
Dark Horse: Paul Haggis, Crash
Who I'm Rooting For: Steven Spielberg, Munich

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Will Win: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Potential Spoiler: Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
Dark Horse: Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line
Who I'm Rooting For: A four-way tie between Hoffman, Howard, Phoenix and Strathairn

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Will Win: Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
Potential Spoiler: Felicity Huffman, Transamerica
Dark Horse: Keira Knightley, Pride & Prejudice
Who I'm Rooting For: Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Will Win: George Clooney, Syriana
Potential Spoiler: Matt Dillon, Crash
Dark Horse: Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain
Who I'm Rooting For: George Clooney, Syriana

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Will Win: Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
Potential Spoiler: Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain
Dark Horse: Amy Adams, Junebug
Who I'm Rooting For: Frances McDormand, North Country

Best Adapted Screenplay
Will Win: Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana, Brokeback Mountain
Potential Spoiler: Dan Futterman, Capote
Dark Horse: Tony Kushner and Eric Roth, Munich
Who I'm Rooting For: Tony Kushner and Eric Roth, Munich

Best Original Screenplay
Will Win: Paul Haggis & Bobby Moresco, Crash
Potential Spoiler: George Clooney & Grant Heslove, Good Night, and Good Luck.
Dark Horse: Noah Baumbach, The Squid and the Whale
Who I'm Rooting For: Woody Allen, Match Point

Best Animated Feature
Will Win: Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Potential Spoiler: Howl's Moving Castle
Dark Horse: Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Who I'm Rooting For: Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (I haven't seen Howl's Moving Castle yet)

Best Foreign Language Film
Will Win: Paradise Now
Potential Spoiler: Tsotsi
Dark Horse: Sophie Scholl - The Final Days
Who I'm Rooting For: Tsotsi (I haven't seen Don't Tell or Joyeux Noël yet)

Best Documentary Feature
Will Win: March of the Penguins
Potential Spoiler: Murderball
Dark Horse: Street Fight
Who I'm Rooting For: Murderball (followed very closely by Street Fight)

Best Art Direction
Will Win: John Myhre (art direction) and Gretchen Rau (set decoration), Memoirs of a Geisha
Potential Spoiler: Grant Major (art) and Dan Hennah and Simon Bright (set), King Kong
Dark Horse: Jim Bissell (art) and Jan Pascale (set), Good Night, and Good Luck.
Who I'm Rooting For: Grant Major and Dan Hennah and Simon Bright, King Kong

Best Cinematography
Will Win: Rodrigo Prieto, Brokeback Mountain
Potential Spoiler: Dion Beebe, Memoirs of a Geisha
Dark Horse: Robert Elswit, Good Night, and Good Luck.
Who I'm Rooting For: Emmanuel Lubezki, The New World

Best Costume Design
Will Win: Colleen Atwood, Memoirs of a Geisha
Potential Spoiler: Sandy Powell, Mrs. Henderson Presents
Dark Horse: Jacqueline Durran, Pride & Prejudice
Who I'm Rooting For: Gabriella Pescucci, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Best Editing
Will Win: Hughes Winborne, Crash
Potential Spoiler: Claire Simpson, The Constant Gardener
Dark Horse: Michael Kahn, Munich
Who I'm Rooting For: Michael Kahn, Munich

Best Makeup
Will Win: Howard Berger and Tami Lane, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Potential Spoiler: Dave Elsey and Nikki Gooley, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Dark Horse: Not gonna happen
Who I'm Rooting For: Dave Elsey and Nikki Gooley, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

Best Original Score
Will Win: Gustavo Santaolalla, Brokeback Mountain
Potential Spoiler: John Williams, Memoirs of a Geisha
Dark Horse: Dario Marianelli, Pride & Prejudice
Who I'm Rooting For: John Williams, Munich

Best Original Song
Will Win: "Travelin' Thru" from Transamerica, Music and Lyric by Dolly Parton
Potential Spoiler: "In the Deep" from Crash, Music by Kathleen "Bird" York and Michael Becker, Lyric by Kathleen "Bird" York
Dark Horse: "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from Hustle & Flow, Music and Lyric by Jordan Houston, Cedric Coleman and Paul Beauregard
Who I'm Rooting For: "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" though I really like "Travelin' Thru" too

Best Sound
Will Win: Paul Massey, D.M. Hemphill and Peter F. Kurland, Walk the Line
Potential Spoiler: Christopher Boyes, Michael Semanick, Michael Hedges and Hammond Peek, King Kong
Dark Horse: Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer and Ronald Judkins, War of the Worlds
Who I'm Rooting For: Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer and Ronald Judkins, War of the Worlds

Best Sound Editing
Will Win: Mike Hopkins and Ethan Van der Ryn, King Kong
Potential Spoiler: Richard King, War of the Worlds
Dark Horse: Wylie Stateman, Memoirs of a Geisha
Who I'm Rooting For: Richard King, War of the Worlds

Best Visual Effects
Will Win: Joe Letteri, Brian Van't Hul, Christian Rivers and Richard Taylor, King Kong
Potential Spoiler: Dean Wright, Bill Westenhofer, Jim Berney and Scott Farrar, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Dark Horse: Dennis Muren, Pablo Helman, Randal M. Dutra and Daniel Sudick, War of the Worlds
Who I'm Rooting For: Joe Letteri, Brian Van't Hul, Christian Rivers and Richard Taylor, King Kong

Best Animated Short Film
Will Win: The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation
Potential Spoiler: One Man Band
Dark Horse: The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello
Who I'm Rooting For: One Man Band

Best Live Action Short Film
Will Win: Six Shooter
Potential Spoiler: Ausreisser (The Runaway)
Dark Horse: The Last Farm
Who I'm Rooting For: A tie between Cashback and Six Shooter

Best Documentary Short Subject
Will Win: God Sleeps in Rwanda
Potential Spoiler: The Mushroom Club
Dark Horse: The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club
Who I'm Rooting For: God Sleeps in Rwanda

Other Immediate Reactions

2006-01-31T06:23:00.000-08:00

Biggest Surprises:

Brokeback Mountain shut out of Best Editing.
Only three nominees for Best Song? Is this a reaction to last year's truly awful collection of songs (quite possibly the worst in Academy history)? It's unfortunate timing, because I actually had trouble narrowing my selections down to five this year.
The Academy actually went for a song called "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp!"
Memoirs of a Geisha? Best Sound Editing?
Revenge of the Sith shut out of Sound and Visual Effects categories. The first Star Wars film to go unrecognized for its visual effects.

And that's about it for the shockers. I wasn't betting on William Hurt to pull through, but enough people had talked about him for it to be less-than-shocking. I also thought the classification screw-up would keep Syriana from picking up a screenplay nomination, but nope.

At first glance, this seems like a rehash of 1999 when American Beauty also led with a relatively paltry 8 nominations.

This is the first time since 1981 (and only the fourth time in history) that all five Best Picture nominees were nominated for Best Director.

First time since the Best Animated Feature category was introduced that not a single CGI movie was nominated. Corpse Bride and Wallace & Gromit are the first two stop-motion features nominated.

Munich still has an uphill battle ahead if it hopes to win the big one. Only ten films in history have won Best Picture without a single acting nomination.

Roadblock on the Mountain?

2006-01-31T06:06:00.000-08:00

As I pointed out last year, no movie has won Best Picture without an Editing nomination since Ordinary People in 1980. What does that mean for Brokeback Mountain's frontrunner status?

Last Minute Nomination Predictions

2006-01-30T23:33:00.000-08:00

My fearless predictions (ranked in order of likelihood):

Best Picture
1. Brokeback Mountain
2. Crash
3. Good Night, and Good Luck
4. Munich
5. Capote

Best Director
1. Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
2. George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck
3. Steven Spielberg, Munich
4. Bennett Miller, Capote
5. Fernando Meirelies, The Constant Gardener

Best Actor
1. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
2. Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
3. Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line
4. David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck
5. Terrence Howard, Hustle & Flow

Best Actress
1. Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
2. Felicity Huffman, Transamerica
3. Charlize Theron, North Country
4. Judi Dench, Mrs. Henderson Presents
5. Joan Allen, The Upside of Anger

Best Supporting Actor
1. Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain
2. Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man
3. George Clooney, Syriana
4. Matt Dillon, Crash
5. Bob Hoskins, Mrs. Henderson Presents

Best Supporting Actress
1. Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain
2. Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
3. Amy Adams, Junebug
4. Catherine Keener, Capote
5. Frances McDormand, North Country

Best Original Screenplay
1. Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco, Crash
2. George Clooney and Grant Heslov, Good Night, and Good Luck
3. Noah Baumbach, The Squid and the Whale
4. Woody Allen, Match Point
5. Steve Carell and Judd Apatow, The 40 Year Old Virgin

Best Adapted Screenplay
1. Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, Brokeback Mountain
2. Dan Futterman, Capote
3. Tony Kushner and Eric Roth, Munich
4. Jeffrey Caine, The Constant Gardener
5. Josh Olsen, A History of Violence

Best Animated Feature
1. Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
2. Madagascar
3. Corpse Bride

Best Foreign Language Film
1. Paradise Now
2. Tsotsi
3. Sophie Scholl - The Final Days
4. Joyeux Noël
5. Sorstalanság

Best Documentary Feature
1. March of the Penguins
2. Murderball
3. Street Fight
4. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
5. Mad Hot Ballroom

Best Art Direction
1. John Myhre, Memoirs of a Geisha
2. Grant Major, King Kong
3. Alex McDowell, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
4. Arthur Max, Kingdom of Heaven
5. Nick Gottschalk and Mark Swain, Pride & Prejudice

Best Visual Effects
1. King Kong
2. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
3. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Best Costume Design
1. Colleen Atwood, Memoirs of a Geisha
2. Terry Ryan, King Kong
3. Jacqueline Durran, Pride & Prejudice
4. Gabriella Pescucci, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
5. Janty Yates, Kingdom of Heaven

Best Makeup
1. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
2. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
3. A History of Violence

Best Editing
1. Geraldine Peroni & Dylan Tichenor, Brokeback Mountain
2. Hughes Winborne, Crash
3. Claire Simpson, The Constant Gardener
4. Michael Kahn, Munich
5. Tim Squyres, Syriana

Best Cinematography
1. Rodrigo Prieto, Brokeback Mountain
2. Robert Elswit, Good Night, and Good Luck
3. Dion Beebe, Memoirs of a Geisha
4. Emmanuel Lubezki, The New World
5. Janusz Kaminski, Munich

Best Sound
1. King Kong
2. Walk the Line
3. War of the Worlds
4. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
5. Munich

Best Sound Editing
1. King Kong
2. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
3. War of the Worlds

Best Original Score
1. Gustavo Santaolalla, Brokeback Mountain
2. John Williams, Memoirs of a Geisha
3. Harry Gregson-Williams, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
4. James Newton Howard, King Kong
5. Thomas Newton, Cinderella Man

Best Original Song
1. “A Love That Will Never Grow Old,” Brokeback Mountain
2. “Travelin' Thru," Transamerica
3. “Wunderkind," The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
4. “Hustle & Flow,” Hustle & Flow
5. “In the Deep," Crash

Torontoing the Line

2005-07-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

Well, it worked for Ray (if only Johnny Cash could die again, they'd have this in the bag).

Hollywood Reporter: "Lesser" of two evils?

2005-04-06T01:36:00.000-07:00

Uh, I think the folks at The Hollywood Reporter kinda missed the point in their assessment of these guilds' complaints:

The board of directors of American Cinema Editor and the executive director of the Visual Effects Society objected to the way Oscars were presented in some of the lesser categories this year.

Genius Loves Company

2005-02-27T03:02:00.000-08:00

I don't know why it's taken me until now, but I've stumbled across a connective tissue between all of this year's Best Picture nominees: Genius. Forgive me if this has been discussed elsewhere already, but I've suddenly realized that all five films deal with individuals striving for the extraordinary in their respective arts (no wonder The Academy tapped them), be it boxing, aviation, writing, music or writing again. These films are about what it takes to reach the level of genius (determination, vision, raw innate talent and inspiration - I'm leaving Sideways off because it's the one movie where the artists (Miles and Jack) fall short of greatness... and that's okay too) as well as the sad and lonely price these people have to pay for achieving it. These geniuses are isolated by their excellence (again, Sideways is the exception, where as Miles starts to accept his lack of greatness he's able to let Maya in).

If the five Best Picture nominees in a given year are somehow representative of a zeitgeist in motion pictures, then this theme can surely be seen in other notable films of 2004. Perhaps no three films addressed it more directly (sometimes through metaphor) than the "superhero" trinity of The Incredibles, Spider-Man 2 and Team America: World Police. In all three cases, the greatness was innate in the characters, so what they really focused on was the struggle between the desire to fit in and be average in this P.C. society (even if that means ignoring your God-/radiated spider-given gifts) and the responsibility an extraordinary person has to share their gifts with the world (with great power comes great responsibility).

And if movies are a reflection of the times we live in, both The Incredibles (obliquely and unintentionally, since it was written many years ago) and Team America (blatantly and very intentionally as it was written weeks before it was released) tied this dillema into America's place in the world at the moment as well as one of the fundamental questions at the heart of this year's electoral divide: When is it necessary to exercise our country's force?

The two biggest lightning rods of the year in cinema expressed a diametrically opposing view from The Incredibles, Team America and Spider-Man 2. Both The Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11 preached a form of "With great power comes the need for great restraint" (I know that may not be the main point of The Passion, and perhaps I'm oversimplifying, but I seem to remember something about how Jesus had the power to get off that cross if he had wanted to yet chose not to use it).

Now I've gotten a little off track, and I'm probably stretching to tie all of this year's films to the theme of Greatness (comma the pursuit of, the burden of and the lack thereof). Though if I wanted to, I could extend this discussion to Kill Bill, Vol. 2, Collateral, Troy, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, Spanglish, Bad Education, The Assasination of Richard Nixon, Baadasssss!, Being Julia and of course that epitome of Greatness - Alexander (the man, not the movie).

Just something for you to think about during the Best Original Song performances.

The Oscar Grouch's 2005 Academy Award Predictions

2005-02-25T04:23:00.000-08:00

Best Picture
Will Win: The Aviator
Potential Spoiler: Million Dollar Baby
Dark Horse: Sideways
Who I’m Rooting For: Uh, I guess Sideways. Or Million Dollar Baby. Or The Aviator.

Best Directing
Will Win: Martin Scorsese, The Aviator
Potential Spoiler: Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
Dark Horse: Alexander Payne, Sideways
Who I’m Rooting For: Martin Scorsese, The Aviator

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Will Win: Jamie Foxx, Ray
Potential Spoiler: Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
Dark Horse: Leonardo DiCaprio, The Aviator
Who I’m Rooting For: Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Will Win: Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby
Potential Spoiler: Annette Bening, Being Julia
Dark Horse: Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake
Who I’m Rooting For: Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Will Win: Morgan Freeman, Million Dollar Baby
Potential Spoiler: Clive Owen, Closer
Dark Horse: Thomas Haden Church, Sideways
Who I’m Rooting For: Clive Owen, Closer

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Will Win: Cate Blanchett, The Aviator
Potential Spoiler: Virginia Madsen, Sideways
Dark Horse: Natalie Portman, Closer
Who I’m Rooting For: Cate Blanchett, The Aviator

Best Adapted Screenplay
Will Win: Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor, Sideways
Potential Spoiler: Paul Haggis, Million Dollar Baby
Dark Horse: David Magee, Finding Neverland
Who I’m Rooting For: Alexander Payne & Jim Taylor, Sideways

Best Original Screenplay
Will Win: Charlie Kaufman & Michel Gondry & Pierre Bismuth, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Potential Spoiler: Mike Leigh, Vera Drake
Dark Horse: Keir Pearson & Terry George, Hotel Rwanda
Who I’m Rooting For: Charlie Kaufman & Michel Gondry & Pierre Bismuth, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Best Animated Feature
Will Win: The Incredibles
Potential Spoiler: Shrek 2
Dark Horse: A write-in win for The Polar Express
Who I’m Rooting For: Shrek 2

Best Foreign Language Film
Will Win: The Sea Inside
Potential Spoiler: Downfall
Dark Horse: The Chorus
Who I’m Rooting For: The Sea Inside (of the two I’ve seen)

Best Documentary Feature
Will Win: Born into Brothels
Potential Spoiler: Super Size Me
Dark Horse: Twist of Faith
Who I’m Rooting For: Born into Brothels (of the two I’ve seen)

Best Art Direction
Will Win: Rick Heinrichs (art direction) and Cheryl Carasik (set decoration), Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
Potential Spoiler: Dante Ferretti (art) and Francesca Lo Schiavo (set), The Aviator
Dark Horse: Aline Bonetto, A Very Long Engagement
Who I’m Rooting For: Aline Bonetto, A Very Long Engagement

Best Cinematography
Will Win: Robert Richardson, The Aviator
Potential Spoiler: Caleb Deschanel, The Passion of The Christ
Dark Horse: Bruno Delbonnel, A Very Long Engagement
Who I’m Rooting For: Bruno Delbonnel, A Very Long Engagement

Best Costume Design
Will Win: Sandy Powell, The Aviator
Potential Spoiler: Bob Ringwood, Troy
Dark Horse: Colleen Atwood, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
Who I’m Rooting For: Colleen Atwood, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events

Best Editing
Will Win: Thelma Schoonmaker, The Aviator
Potential Spoiler: Joel Cox, Million Dollar Baby
Dark Horse: Paul Hirsch, Ray
Who I’m Rooting For: Jim Miller and Paul Rubell, Collateral

Best Makeup
Will Win: Valli O’Reilly and Bill Corso, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
Potential Spoiler: Keith Vanderlaan and Christien Tinsley, The Passion of The Christ
Dark Horse: Jo Allen and Manuel Garcia, The Sea Inside
Who I’m Rooting For: Valli O’Reilly and Bill Corso, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events

Best Original Score
Will Win: Jan A.P. Kaczmarek, Finding Neverland
Potential Spoiler: John Debney, The Passion of The Christ
Dark Horse: John Williams, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Who I’m Rooting For: John Williams, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Best Original Song
Will Win: “Believe” from The Polar Express, Music and Lyric by Glen Ballard and Alan Silvestri
Potential Spoiler: “Learn To Be Lonely” from The Phantom of the Opera, Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Lyric by Charles Hart
Dark Horse: “Look to Your Path” from The Chorus, Music by Bruno Coulais, Lyric by Christophe Barratier
Who I’m Rooting For: Write-in votes for anything from Team America: World Police

Best Sound
Will Win: Kevin O’Connell, Greg P. Russell, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Joseph Geisinger, Spider-Man 2
Potential Spoiler: Tom Fleischman and Petur Hliddal, The Aviator
Dark Horse: Scott Millan, Greg Orloff, Bob Beemer and Steve Cantamessa, Ray
Who I’m Rooting For: Randy Thom, Tom Johnson, Dennis Sands and William B. Kaplan, The Polar Express

Best Sound Editing
Will Win: Paul N.J. Ottosson, Spider-Man 2
Potential Spoiler: Michael Silvers and Randy Thom, The Incredibles
Dark Horse: Randy Thom and Dennis Leonard, The Polar Express
Who I’m Rooting For: Randy Thom and Dennis Leonard, The Polar Express

Best Visual Effects
Will Win: John Dykstra, Scott Stokdyk, Anthony LaMolinara and John Frazier, Spider-Man 2
Potential Spoiler: John Nelson, Andrew R. Jones, Erik Nash and Joe Letteri, I, Robot
Dark Horse: Roger Guyett, Tim Burke, John Richardson and Bill George, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Who I’m Rooting For: John Dykstra, Scott Stokdyk, Anthony LaMolinara and John Frazier, Spider-Man 2

Best Animated Short Film
Will Win: Ryan
Potential Spoiler: Gopher Broke
Dark Horse: Lorenzo
Who I’m Rooting For: Ryan (of the three I’ve seen)

Best Live Action Short Film
Will Win: Little Terrorist
Potential Spoiler: Everything in This Country Must
Dark Horse: 7:35 in the Morning
Who I’m Rooting For: 7:35 in the Morning

Best Documentary Short Subject
Will Win: Autism Is a World
Potential Spoiler: Sister Rose’s Passion
Dark Horse: The Children of Leningradsky
Who I’m Rooting For: Haven’t seen any of these

The Big Ones

2005-02-25T04:01:00.000-08:00

Oscar prognosticators seem to say this every year, but I truly believe that this is one of the closest races in recent memory (except for the lead acting categories). In almost every race, there are at least two very strong contenders, either of which I could easily predict for the win. I’ve never been this unsure about my picks (there have been years where I’ve purposefully gone out on a limb to call a long shot, but I at least knew who the favorite was – not this year).
No two categories are more distressing for me at the moment than the two big ones – Best Picture and Best Directing. And in recent years, the two have not gone hand-in-hand as much as in the past.

This year, the Best Picture race comes down to intellect vs. emotion, which isn’t to say that Million Dollar Baby doesn’t appeal to people on an intellectual basis or that The Aviator is without a heart. But it seems that most of The Aviator’s supporters “appreciate” its artistry and technical prowess whereas Million dollar Baby’s fans are “touched” by its humanity and heart wrenching drama. Both methods of impacting the audience have worked for Best Picture winners in the past (it’s hard to judge which has worked better). On paper, The Aviator seems to have everything going for it according to trends and rules (everything except that pesky DGA Award). But predicting the Academy Awards is about more than science – after all, it is The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. So we can’t forget the “Arts” part of the equation. There’s an intangible feeling surrounding Million Dollar Baby that has inspired most Oscar prognosticators to shift it from potential spoiler to the frontrunner.

This is something unique in my decade-or-so-long history of following the Awards.

Many have been comparing this year’s race to 1998 when Shakespeare in Love defeated Saving Private Ryan (analogizing Baby to Shakespeare and Aviator to Private Ryan), but there are few notable problems with that theory. For starters, I’m not sure that Shakespeare ever achieved the frontrunner status that Baby now has. Many (including myself) were saying that it had a very good shot at upsetting Private Ryan, but few were actually willing to go on the record and predict it to win (as I recall – memory can be a fuzzy thing). Also, Shakespeare had more total nominations than Private Ryan, which is not true of Baby. Shakespeare had a no-name director (well, it was a famous name, but for a different man) with no significant body of work who lost the DGA Award to the other guy – again, not true of Baby. And speaking of precursors, those went a little different back in 1998: Both Shakespeare and Private Ryan won Golden Globes for Best Picture, which was impossible for Baby and Aviator to repeat this year since they were up against year other in the Drama category; of the nine guild awards, Private Ryan won four and Shakespeare won two – this year, Aviator’s won three while Baby has only picked up one (I’m only counting SAG’s ensemble award, which Shakespeare won and Baby did not). The one important similarity between Shakespeare and Baby is that both had that intangible, in the air feeling of support working for them and building late-season momentum.

There are a few other similar races I could go into where there was a tenuous frontrunner – 1991, 1995 and 2002 – but each seems distinct enough from this year’s match-up that it hardly seems worth it (I wasn’t really on the Oscar beat in 1991, but one major difference is that The Silence of the Lambs swept the Writers, Directors and Producers Guilds; in 1995, Braveheart’s two chief competitors – Apollo 13 and Sense and Sensibility – failed to garner Best Directing nods, effectively crushing their once promising prospects); and in 2002, Chicago was sitting pretty, pretty much up until The Pianist’s three shocking “top-tier” wins).

I do however keep reflecting on 2000, when many were tipping Gladiator to win, but few could actually believe that it was going to be an Academy Award-winning Best Picture. The last minute DGA upset by Ang Lee threw some prognosticators (including yours truly) into a tizzy, I think because we were reaching for some sign that Gladiator couldn’t possibly win (I really enjoyed Gladiator a lot – but come on…). There certainly wasn’t much critical love for Gladiator (a lot of like, but not “like” like) and honestly, I don’t know of anybody outside of the teenage boy set who felt a passionate love for the film.

In my analogy, The Aviator is Gladiator (they even sound alike!) – despite Gladiator’s front-runner status. They’re both the well-respected, big-budgeted, lots-of-nomination-getting films that run somewhat cool on the passion scale (though The Aviator has fared better, I believe). The problem with 2000 as a template for this year is that there was no Million Dollar Baby back then. Chocolat was an amusing trifle, nothing more (despite what Miramax’ marketing would have you believe). Erin Brockovich and Traffic are ruled out, not just because of the Soderbergh split, but because even though both films have their lovers (myself included), I think that love was mostly felt for the brilliant technique whereas Baby’s love is for the characters and the story. Finally there’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which I had pegged for a win, even though I knew it was a long shot). It had a lot of what Baby has – emotion, the second highest number of nominations, passionate supporters and a DGA win – but it had one thing more: subtitles. And those outweighed everything else.

Still, if Gladiator can win Best Picture, surely The Aviator can. And so, I have to go against the grain and predict The Aviator to win Best Picture. Though you should know, I have a tendency to pick the underdog (pretty much every year except 1998, when I let my love of Spielberg get in the way), so the safest bet for your Oscar pool is probably Million Dollar Baby.

As for Best Directing, I could go through a whole bunch of statistics and historical precedents, but in this category, it really does come down to a gut feeling. Despite the DGA, despite the general consensus in the press that Eastwood is a beloved figure in Hollywood who’s due for (another!) win, despite prevailing predictions to the contrary – I’ve gotta go with Scorsese. Yeah, I thought he’d win in 2002, too, but there was a lot of controversy and backlash then, and besides that, nobody liked Gangs of New York and many hated it.

And I just don’t buy this talk that Eastwood and Scorsese are (directing) legends of equal caliber. Putting personal feelings aside (I’m not a huge fan of either, though I respect both), how many generally accepted “classics” has Eastwood directed? I count one (it’s too early to judge how Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby will be considered in the future). Scorsese’s got three that outrank #98 Unforgiven on the AFI’s Top 100 list (Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and Goodfellas), and some would classify Mean Streets and The Last Temptation of Christ as modern classics.

What really irks me is that I keep reading that Eastwood is arguably one of our greatest living directors. Two back-to-back well-received films does not transform someone into the greatest. Are these people forgetting everything he did between Unforgiven and Mystic River (let me remind them: Blood Work, Space Cowboys, True Crime, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Absolute Power, The Bridges of Madison County and A Perfect World)? Sure, Scorsese’s had a rough decade or so too (since Goodfellas, he’s made Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, Casino, Kundun, Bringing Out the Dead and Gangs of New York, as well as a few documentaries), but I think that most of his failures were at least trying for something loftier than Blood Work, and even they have their ardent supporters and garnered some Oscar attention (not including Gangs, those films earned a cumulative twelve nominations to Eastwood’s grand total of one). Okay, this rant is over.

Anyway, I just have a feeling that Scorsese will win out. I feel much better about that prediction than my Best Picture prediction. I’d recommend going for the split in your Oscar pool, with Million Dollar Baby for Best Picture and Scorsese for Best Directing. But don’t blame me if you lose.

Do Numbers Matter?

2005-02-24T05:26:00.000-08:00

When I started tallying up the number of Best Picture winners that were and were not the most nominated films in their Oscar years, I was surprised by the results. Of the 76 Best Pictures, 35 had the most nominations, 18 were tied for the most nominations with at least one other film and 23 had fewer nominations than at least one other film. That last number (representing 30% of all winners) seemed high to me, until I realized that like many Oscar trends, it’s heavily skewed by including data from all 76 years. When you narrow the sample to the last 22 years, the number of Best Pictures that didn’t pick up the highest number of nominations drops to… two (0.09%).

The last three times that occurred were in 2001, 1991 and 1981 (notice any superficial patterns there?). In 2001, A Beautiful Mind was tied with Moulin Rouge! in a distant second to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings (8 nominations to 13). In 1991, The Silence of the Lambs was tied for third with The Prince of Tides (7 nominations apiece), behind both JFK (8 nominations) and Bugsy (10 nominations). Finally, in 1981, Chariots of Fire placed fourth with barely more than half the nominations of Reds.

So recent history does not favor Million Dollar Baby in its match-up with The Aviator. Even such non-historical epics as Chicago, American Beauty and Shakespeare in Love managed to earn the most nominations in their winning years. And there were mitigating circumstances that enabled A Beautiful Mind’s triumph over The Fellowship of the Rings (obviously Academy members were waiting to see how the entire trilogy would turn out before bestowing it with the precious gold).

Although I’ve stated time and again that rules and trends are made to be broken (and don’t mean too much to begin with when it comes to the Oscars), this one has me very hesitant to join the fray and call Million Dollar Baby in the Best Picture race. Especially because this rule isn't merely based in coincidence - the reason the film with the most nominations usually wins is because that represents across the board support in the various branches of the Academy.

More Best Picture analysis on the way, as well as my final predictions in all categories…

The Academy, Marty and Boxers in Brief

2005-02-24T04:18:00.000-08:00

What is with Martin Scorsese, The Academy and boxing pictures? The last three times a boxing movie has been nominated for Best Picture (not counting Pulp Fiction, which did feature a story about a boxer), there’s also been a Scorsese film nominated: In 1976, it was Rocky vs. Taxi Driver; in 1980, the boxing movie was the Scorsese movie (Raging Bull); and of course, in 2004, it’s Million Dollar Baby vs. The Aviator. An odd coincidence, no?

The following is a list of boxing films (or films featuring boxers) nominated for Best Picture:

1931 The Champ
1941 Here Comes Mr. Jordan
1954 On the Waterfront (won)
1976 Rocky (won)
1980 Raging Bull
1994 Pulp Fiction
2004 Million Dollar Baby

Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven was only the third western to win Best Picture. Can his Million Dollar Baby be the third boxing movie to do the same (if you consider On the Waterfront to be a "boxing" movie)?

If The Departed manages to be in contention next year, does this mean it’ll have to face off with Cinderella Man? Oh the cruel hand of irony.

In addition, the following actors were nominated for playing boxers or retired boxers (this is by no means a comprehensive list - also, I can't recall whether the trainers played by Oscar nominees Burgess Meredith and Clint Eastwood were former boxers themselves, so I'm not counting them):

1927 Richard Barthelmess, The Patent Leather Kid
1931 Wallace Beery, The Champ (won in a tie)
1941 Robert Montgomery, Here Comes Mr. Jordan
1947 John Garfield, Body & Soul
1949 Kirk Douglas, Champion
1954 Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront (won)
1970 James Earl Jones, The Great White Hope
1976 Sylvester Stallone, Rocky
1980 Robert De Niro, Raging Bull (won)
1999 Denzel Washington, The Hurricane
2001 Will Smith, Ali
2004 Hilary Swank & Morgan Freeman, Million Dollar Baby

Trojan Horse

2005-02-23T18:44:00.000-08:00

There may be no less accurate an Oscar precursor than the USC Scripter Award in recognition of the “Best Realization of a Book Adapted to Film.” Dare I say, it’s even something of a jinx – like the Best New Artist award at the Grammys.

Of the seventeen movies that had won as of last year, only four went on to win Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars. Even fewer (only three – A Beautiful Mind, The English Patient and Schindler’s List) picked up Best Picture Awards from the Academy.

Granted, three of the winners of Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars (Traffic, Sling Blade and Driving Miss Daisy) were ineligible for the Scripter Award (because they weren’t based on books), but still, those are not good odds. Even perennial punching bag The National Board of Review has got a better track record of picking the Best Picture winner.

That’s not a good omen for this year’s winner – Million Dollar Baby – in either the tight Best Adapted Screenplay race or the tight Best Picture race. Like Kanye West, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor should be breathing sighs of relief that they lost.

Best Art Direction

2005-02-23T02:45:00.000-08:00

The Art Directors Guild is more in step with the Academy than their Costume Designing counterparts. Though the ADG has been handing out awards for two more hears than the CDG, they’ve only had three Oscar mismatches (as opposed to the CDG’s four). And whereas the Oscar winners weren’t even nominated for CDG Awards in the mismatch years, every one of the Academy’s choices for Best Art Direction were at least nominated by the ADG. In addition, they usually match the Academy’s nominees four out of five.

However, a Lemony Snicket win is by no means guaranteed in this category either. Pointless Trend Alert: The ADG’s mismatches have occurred in every even year after their inception in 1996 (when The English Patient won both the ADG and Academy Awards). If this pattern holds, then we’re due for another mismatch this year, and another potential win for The Aviator.

But not so fast: I think Lemony Snicket has a much better shot in this category than in Best Costume Design. As Jim Emerson notes, many times with the Academy, it’s not about quality so much as quantity (not to dismiss the quality of Snicket’s art direction, which I happened to love) and the movie with the most Art Direction often wins. It worked for Rick Heinrichs on Sleepy Hollow (again, I don’t mean to disparage the quality of his work there, which was most deserving of both its ADG Award and its Oscar) where the entire film was, like Snicket, shot entirely on sets, with all outdoor locations artificially constructed inside a soundstage.

When I started writing this post, I was ready to bet on The Aviator, but I think I’ve persuaded myself to shift support to Lemony Snicket for the win on Sunday (though I'm still a bit worried about it being more stylized and hyper-real than even recent winners Chicago, Moulin Rouge! and Sleepy Hollow -- something which I think may have contributed to ADG winner What Dreams May Come's (somewhat ironic, given its title's source) loss to Shakespeare in Love at the Oscars). We’ll see if I should’ve stuck to my gut.

Oh and here’s a fun little bit of trivia I noticed – in 1996, all but one of the Academy’s Best Art Direction nominees were based on stage productions. The winner? The lone non-theatrically-originated film: The English Patient.

Best Costume Design

2005-02-22T19:42:00.000-08:00

What does the Costume Designers Guild Award mean for Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events mean in terms of its Oscar prospects? Not much. Although the CDG Awards have accurately predicted the last two winners for Best Costume Design (which coincidentally went on to win Best Picture), before that they’d never made a match in their brief four year history. In fact, all four eventual Oscar winners (Moulin Rouge!, Gladiator, Topsy Turvy and Shakespeare in Love) weren’t even nominated by the CDG.

It appears they have a greater propensity for gothic and/or fantasy and/or family and/or Jim Carrey films than the Academy (rewarding Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Sleepy Hollow), classifications which all fit Lemony Snicket (the first CDG winner/mismatch was Pleasantville, which in terms of costume design, I’d consider more of a straight period film than a fantasy one).

Also, it seems they aren’t as fond of Sandy Powell as the Academy is. Although she’s now been nominated for six Academy Awards (winning one for Shakespeare in Love), this year’s CDG nomination for The Aviator was surprisingly her very first.

So I’m predicting an Aviator win here, though if I were truly a stickler for trends, I’d go with either Troy or Finding Neverland (probably Troy), neither of which were nominated for CDG Awards.

Spreading the Wealth

2005-02-20T18:20:00.000-08:00

With all the fuss about how this year’s crop of Best Picture nominees are the least successful (financially) in 20 years, a small, positive bit of trivia has been completely ignored.

As of this weekend, the lowest grosser this year (Finding Neverland) is among the highest grossing lowest grossers ever (not taking into account inflation – which I admit is a bit of a cheat). Thanks to the handy charts over at Box Office Mojo, I’ve compared Neverland’s earnings with those of other bottom-dwellers dating back to 1978, looking at their total lifetime grosses and if they eventually made more than Neverland, looking at how much they made up until Oscar night (when possible).

So far, Neverland has pulled in an estimated $45.3 million, with a week to go until the big night. In all but four of the last 26 years, the lowest grossing Best Picture nominee has made less than that. And in three of those four years, the lowest grossers (Goodfellas, Bugsy and The Full Monty) had earned less than that as of Oscar night. That leaves only that other Miramax-produced Johnny Depp-“starrer,” Chocolat, which had accumulated $60.7 million on its way to $71.5 million in a year that saw a record four $100 million-plus movies nominated for Best Picture.

On top of that, Neverland has already made more than some second-, third- and even fourth-lowest grossers. In the last 26 years, 50 nominees earned less than $45.3 million in their entire runs. An additional six had accumulated less than that as of Oscar night (at the very least – I’m not sure how much Chariots of Fire, Ordinary People and The Deer Hunter earned before their big wins), and Neverland has a good shot at overtaking Awakenings’ and The Crying Game’s pre-Oscar hauls of $46.1 and $47.3 million, respectively, by next Sunday. And in that low-grossing year of 1984, Neverland would’ve been the highest grosser on Oscar night by a good ten million dollars.

The point is that yes, there may not be a Hundred Million Dollar Baby nominated this year, but the distribution of wealth among the five nominees is more even than in most years. If a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, then this year’s chain is one of the strongest.

For the record, the lowest grossing nominee from this period of time is 1983's The Dresser with a paltry $5.3 million, followed closely by that same year's Tender Mercies with $8.4 million. The lowest grosser of the last 15 years is Secrets & Lies, which picked up just $13.4 million back in 1996.

In Pursuit of Trivia

2005-02-13T03:20:00.000-08:00

I just spent most of my day trying to answer these very difficult Oscar trivia questions... and it's not like I didn't have anything better to do, because I did... I just didn't get it done.

By far the toughest and most time-consuming question was this one:

In how many years has the Costume Design Oscar been given to a period movie (i.e. Ghandi) as opposed to a film set in present time?

First of all, the answer is complicated by the fact that for the first few decades, two Costume Design Oscars were handed out each year (one for Black & White, one for Color). So if both winners were period movies, does that count as one or two? And if only one of the two winners was a period movie, does that year count?

Second of all, I haven't seen most of the older movies, and a few I'd never heard of (Les Girls?), so I had to try to figure out through some online detective work when they were set - and not all of them were as obvious as Cleopatra or Doctor Zhivago. I'm still not convinced I'm right on all of them.

Third of all, by his definition, I'm not sure how to classify Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Kings. Neither one is set in the present time, but neither one is set in a historical period. Lord of the Rings looks like a period movie, it's as long as a period movie and it's as boring as a period movie - but when exactly did Orcs roam the Earth? And Star Wars may take place a long time ago, but it's set in a galaxy far, far away.

Needless to say, my response to Mr. Levy will be quite detailed, covering all my bases to avoid missing out on account of a technicality.

I can't believe there's still three more questions to go.

And this time... IT'S PERSONAL!!!

2005-02-10T04:44:00.000-08:00

As every so-called Oscar expert has pointed out ad infinitum, this year’s Best Actress race is a “grudge re-match” between Hilary Swank and Annette Bening (there will be audible gasps if Imelda Staunton wins – my main reason for betting against her is that despite what you might think, the Academy actually doesn’t like British actresses (South Africans and Australians are okay); witness Helen Hunt’s and Marisa Tomei’s victories as the lone Americans in their categories – and you have to go back to 1992 to find the last time a Brit won Best Actress, and 1973 before that).

As if the trumped up catfight weren’t an interesting enough narrative for these "journalistic" charlatans, they keep trying to sell the erroneous story that Swank was the underdog in the 1999 bout. Every time I read that, it makes me want to throw my computer out the window (it’s a good thing I don’t, or I’d have had to buy at least twenty-five new laptops by now). Where do people get the idea that Swank was such a long shot for Boys Don’t Cry? Granted, Bening’s last-minute SAG upset (and that was the real upset that year) threw many Oscar prognosticators off (including yours truly – remember though, this was the year after the Screen Actors were the only major signifiers of Roberto Benigni’s Oscar win (no offense, Las Vegas Film Critics)) and American Beauty had momentum, but just compare the two actresses’ precursor award wins (not counting nominations, film festival awards, breakthrough performance awards or ensemble mentions):

In Bening’s corner:
American Comedy Awards (Swank not eligible)
BAFTA (awarded after the Oscars; Swank not nominated until next year)
London Critics Circle Film Awards (Swank not nominated until next year)
San Diego Film Critics Society Awards
SAG

In Swank’s corner:
Boston Society of Film Critics Awards
Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
Chlotrudis Awards
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards
Florida Film Critics Circle Awards
Golden Globes
Golden Satellite Awards
Independent Spirit Awards (Bening not eligible)
Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards
New York Film Critics Circle Awards
Santa Fe Film Critics Circle Awards
Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards
Toronto Film Critics Association Awards

By my count, that’s five rounds awarded to Bening compared to 15 rounds awarded to Swank. And three of Bening’s wins were in contests that Swank couldn’t compete in, while only one of Swank’s was in an exclusive race. On top of that, when Boys Don’t Cry was released in October of that year, all the buzz was that Swank had an Oscar in the bag.

In what world does that make her win a "shocking upset"?

Now that I’ve got that rant off my chest, back to this year’s contest.

So even with all the grudge match talk, everyone’s pretty much accepted that Hilary Swank is going to win again this year. She’s in the drama, she made a physical transformation, she’s in the movie with the Oscar momentum, people have seen her movie (whereas Being Julia has made even less money than Boys Don’t Cry had at this point), she’s on magazine covers. Yes, everyone agrees that she’s going to get yet another chance to make a joke about how she forgot to thank her husband last time. Except me. I’m still not convinced. For the same reason I was hesitant to predict twin nominations for Jamie Foxx (and look how that turned out): I just don’t feel she has the pedigree to pull off this rare Oscar feat.

So, as usual, I did some research. I was surprised to find that winning two Oscars for leading performances (for the purposes of this post, I’m only looking at actors who won two statues in the lead categories – not one in lead and one in supporting) actually isn’t as rare as I thought. It’s been done by seven men and eleven women.

Of the men, all had earned at least one nomination prior to their first wins, and only the back-to-backers (Spencer Tracy and Tom Hanks) didn’t pick up additional nominations between their two wins.

On the female front, six had earned at least one nomination prior to their first wins. Two of the actresses who won on their first at-bats (Katharine Hepburn and Glenda Jackson) were nominated again before their second wins (Hepburn eight times, Jackson once).

That leaves just three precedents for Swank to pin her hopes on: Luise Rainer, Vivien Leigh and Sally Field. As an interesting side note, none of these actresses were ever nominated again after their second nomination/win.

The actress whose career seems most similar to Swank’s is Field (though I can’t really compare since I was only four when she won her last Oscar). Both got their starts on mediocre TV shows (Field on Gidget and The Flying Nun; Swank on Camp Wilder, Growing Pains and Beverly Hills 90210 (not really mediocre, but for the sake of argument…)), both did time with Burt Reynolds (Field in Smokey and the Bandit I & II, The End, Hooper and real life; Swank on a season of Evening Shade) and both followed up their first Academy Award winning roles with crappy disaster movies (Field in Beyond the Poseidon Adventure; Swank in The Core). Finally, like Field, Swank’s two nominations come five years apart. However, Field was eight years older than Swank when she won her second Oscar and was (from what I gather) a considerably bigger star. Swank better just hope that the Academy really likes her.

So what about Bening? In some ways, she’s swapped positions with 1999 Hilary Swank (especially if you believe that Swank was an underdog back then). She was being called a sure thing back when her little indie movie was released in October and she’s the only nominee from her film (Swank was one of only two from Boys Don’t Cry back when Bening was part of the American Beauty behemoth). Like Boys Don’t Cry, Being Julia is principally talked about only in terms of the lead actress’ tour-de-force performance (though Boys is a considerably more substantive film). However, Swank has again won the lion’s share of precursor awards this year.

If Swank’s best hope is the Sally Field precedent, then Bening’s is probably the Jessica Lange precedent. Their cases aren’t exactly analogous, but Lange’s is the one I keep coming back to. In 1994, Jodie Foster’s turn in Nell was showier than Lange’s in Blue Sky (I have to admit that I’ve never seen Blue Sky, but they don’t get much showier than Nell). Foster probably would’ve been a considerable threat (and would’ve stood an excellent chance of winning) if she hadn’t just won her second Oscar three years earlier. In fact, she beat Lange at the SAG Awards that year, most likely because those awards didn’t exist in 1991, so the playing field was more level. With Foster already a two-time winner at the age of 29, the path was clear for Lange at the Golden Globes and then the Academy Awards (where she’d “only” won a Supporting Actress Oscar, a dozen years ago), even in a movie that nobody had seen (it made less than either Boys Don’t Cry or Being Julia) and that nobody talked about outside of Lange’s performance. And as with Lange, there’s a sense that Bening is “owed” a Best Actress Oscar. So Bening is still in this two-woman race.

For now I’m leaning towards the underdog (Swank), but I could change my mind right before they tear open the envelope… just like I did in 1999.

Madam, I'm Oscar

2005-02-10T02:23:00.000-08:00

Hollywood Madam, a friend of The Grouch, has a nice column about the Adapted Screenplay race up over at Bookslut. Check it out.

Drawing Lines

2005-02-03T05:55:00.000-08:00

I really shouldn’t have been so shocked to see The Polar Express snubbed in favor of Shark Tale. If you recall, the first year that the Best Animated Feature category was introduced, the heavily-favored Waking Life was surprisingly passed over for Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.

Apparently, the animators in the Animation branch don’t take kindly to live-action directors (Richard Linklater/Robert Zemeckis) treading on their turf, using new-fangled technology (rotoscoping/motion-capture) to essentially “trace” live performances (although there’s a lot more animated artistry involved than that implies, especially in the case of The Polar Express).

It may be payback for the bias that existed among the live-action Academy members against animated features for their first 73 years. Or maybe they simply let their five-year-olds vote for them (which would also explain the nomination for Treasure Planet). Either way, with this relatively new category, Oscar-prognosticators are still learning how to read the tealeaves. But I think I’m getting the hang of it now.

Quizzical Error

2005-01-29T18:16:00.000-08:00

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

2005-01-26T15:02:00.000-08:00

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

2005-01-26T05:09:00.000-08:00

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…

2005-01-25T19:24:00.000-08:00

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?

2005-01-25T06:06:00.000-08:00

Are you kidding me?

Ridiculously Late Oscar Predictions

2005-01-25T02:07:00.000-08:00

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

2005-01-23T18:11:00.000-08:00

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

2005-01-21T01:12:00.000-08:00

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

2005-01-17T01:53:00.000-08:00

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?

2005-01-15T04:23:00.000-08:00

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.

As long as Jamie Foxx is breaking/making records...

2004-12-15T03:32:00.000-08:00

Has anyone other than Barbra Streisand been nominated for a Grammy for singing and an Oscar for acting in the same year (Diana Ross just marely missed the cut)?

And has anyone ever been nominated in the same year for a Grammy for singing on a track that wasn't related to the film they were nominated for an Oscar for acting in, or will Foxx be the first?

Now, I know he is going to be the first actor nominated for both an Oscar and a Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (take that, Babs!).

Sure Thing

2004-12-15T02:59:00.000-08:00

The one prediction I feel most confident making now is that this year’s Academy Award nominees for Best Song will be the absolute worst crop ever. Which is really saying something.

Stream of Consciousness Golden Globe Reactions

2004-12-13T17:40:00.000-08:00

Nothing too out there. And really, I'm not sure the Golden Globes matter all that much. There are always films and people ignored by The Globes that make it to The Oscars anyway. That said:

Good news (though not great) for Hotel Rwanda and Don Cheadle.

Not great news for The Phantom of the Opera or Ray, which got no major nominations outside of their Musical/Comedy ghetto (and only one Acting nomination each).

Finding Neverland gets a slight boost for its across the board support (except no Supporting noms).

Closer stops some of the hemorrhaging, though as I predicted back in September (and in June), I don’t see it making the final five at the big show (and if Julia Roberts can’t find support from these people, her Oscar hopes seem dashed).

Kinsey (and especially Liam Neeson) gets a much-needed slight boost, though its lack of directing, writing and supporting actor noms doesn’t bode too well.

Spanglish is dead (I can’t think of any English-language comedic film in recent years being nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars after failing to be nominated for a Golden Globe).

Collateral seems even less likely now than it did yesterday (and as with Roberts, if Tom Cruise can’t get nominated by his fans in the Hollywood Foreign Press, good luck with the Academy).

The Passion of The Christ couldn’t even get a Best Foreign Film nomination, nor could Bad Education, which isn’t good for either of them.

Million Dollar Baby bolsters its position as a pretty sure bet for Best Picture nomination, though its lack of Lead Actor and Screenplay nominations suggests it probably won’t win at The Globes (The Aviator, Closer and Finding Neverland all secured both writing and directing noms).

Eternal Sunshine gets to remind Oscar voters that it came out this year, though it’s likely to be overshadowed by Sideways.

The Aviator seems to secure its position as a lock for lots of nominations (though early front-runners such as Cold Mountain and The Talented Mr. Ripley have done better with The Globes than The Oscars).

And finally, Sideways. Though no sure thing when it was first released back in October, it’s now a lock (though hardly the front-runner) for the Lost in Translation slot at The Academy Awards this year (again, that’s bad news for Eternal Sunshine). The movie it most reminds me of right now (not in content, but in Awards season trajectory) is L.A. Confidential. Like Confidential, Sideways is sweeping every critics’ groups’ awards, though it still seems unlikely to win the top prize at The Academy Awards. So the real question is: Where’s this year’s Titanic? The Aviator seems like the closest comparison, though even with Leo onboard, it seems unlikely to become the phenomenon that Titanic was.

That’s where Fahrenheit 9/11 or The Passion of The Christ still could conceivably rear their ginormous heads.

Last Minute Golden Globe Predictions

2004-12-13T01:28:00.000-08:00

With only a few hours left until nominations are announced, I really have no grasp on what and who to predict this year. For the most part, I guess I'm just ripping off Tom O'Neil and Kris at Oscar Watch, who have nearly identical picks. Any deviations I'm making are totally "out on a limb" longshots.

Before I get to "my" predictions, a few things to keep in mind when attempting to play psychic with the Globes.

Of course the number one rule is that they love celebrities, even more than your average awards show, which is why big box-office stars and magazine cover girls/boys tend to do quite well there (however, from time to time, they do pick unknowns in little movies (like Evan Rachel Wood, Ken Watanabe, Peter Sarsgaard, Hope Davis, Maria Bello, Kieran Culkin, Hayden Christensen, John Cameron Mitchell, Javier Bardem, Tilda Swinton, Chloe Sevigny, Samantha Morton, Richard Farnsworth, Stephen Fry, Fernanda Montenegro, Cate Blanchett, Djimon Hounsou, Emily Watson, Brenda Blethyn, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Geoffrey Rush, Colm Meaney, etc....).

In both the Best Picture categories, as well as in the acting categories, they think much more globally than the Academy does (even though their rules forbid foreign-language films from competing for Best Picture). Thus the following list of European and Australian films made the cut with the Globes over the last 13 years, but not with the Academy (and not all of them in the Musical/Comedy ghetto, either - I've bolded the Drama nominees): Bend it Like Beckham, Love, Actually, About a Boy, Nicholas Nickleby, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Billy Elliot, Sunshine, Chicken Run, The End of the Affair, Notting Hill, Still Crazy, The Boxer, Breaking the Waves, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Much Ado About Nothing, Strictly Ballroom, Enchanted April, The Commitments.

So it's likely there'll be at least one of these going-nowhere nominees this year. In the Drama category, the most likely seems to be Vera Drake (I'm not sure if Finding Neverland, Hotel Rwanda or Closer count as foreign since they have American stars). In the Musical/Comedy category, we can usually count on the good people at Working Title (you may know them from the trailers that proclaim that you may know them from producing Four Weddings and A Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones's Diary and Love, Actually -- Golden Globe Best Picture nominees all). But this year, neither Wimbledon or Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason seem too likely. And I can't think of any other films that qualify as this year's Four Weddings or Full Monty. Which makes me think that Vera Drake might just squeeze her bottom into one of the five/six/seven Best Picture slots.

That's the other thing about The Golden Globes - They frequently pad their categories with more than five nominations. So to be fair, I'm going to include two back-ups just in case (and because I'm feeling really indecisive at this hour).

My predictions, in descending order of likelihood:

Best Picture - Drama
1. The Aviator
2. Million Dollar Baby
3. Finding Neverland
4. Hotel Rwanda
5. Closer

6. Vera Drake
7. Kinsey

Best Picture - Musical/Comedy
1. The Phantom of the Opera
2. Sideways
3. Ray
4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
5. The Incredibles

6. Spanglish
7. Beyond the Sea

Best Director
1. Martin Scorsese, The Aviator
2. Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
3. Mike Nichols, Closer
4. Mel Gibson, The Passion of The Christ
5. Joel Schumacher, The Phantom of the Opera

6. Michael Mann, Collateral
7. Alexander Payne, Sideways

Best Actor - Drama
1. Leonardo DiCaprio, The Aviator
2. Javier Bardem, The Sea Inside
3. Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland
4. Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda
5. John Travolta, A Love Song for Bobby Long

6. Liam Neeson, Kinsey
7. Jeff Bridges, The Door in the Floor

8. Kevin Bacon, The Woodsman
9. Tom Cruise, Collateral
10. Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
11. Jude Law, Closer

Best Actress - Drama
1. Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby
2. Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake
3. Julia Roberts, Closer
4. Julie Delpy, Before Sunset
5. Catalina Sandino Moreno, Maria Full of Grace

6. Kim Bassinger, The Door in the Floor
7. Laura Dern, We Don't Live Here Anymore

Best Actress - Musical/Comedy
1. Annette Bening, Being Julia
2. Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. Emmy Rossum, The Phantom of the Opera
4. Paz Vega, Spanglish
5. Tea Leoni, Spanglish

6. Lindsay Lohan, Mean Girls
7. Jennifer Garner, 13 Going on 30

Best Actor - Musical/Comedy
1. Jamie Foxx, Ray
2. Jim Carrey, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. Paul Giamatti, Sideways
4. Kevin Spacey, Beyond the Sea
5. Bill Murray, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

6. Gerard Butler, The Phantom of the Opera
7. Adam Sandler, Spanglish

Best Supporting Actor
1. Clive Owen, Closer
2. Thomas Haden Church, Sideways
3. Morgan Freeman, Million Dollar Baby
4. Peter Sarsgaard, Kinsey
5. Jamie Foxx, Collateral

6. Alan Alda, The Aviator
7. John Lithgow, Kinsey

Best Supporting Actress
1. Natalie Portman, Closer
2. Virginia Madsen, Sideways
3. Laura Linney, Kinsey
4. Cate Blanchett, The Aviator
5. Sophie Okonedo, Hotel Rwanda

6. Barbara Streisand, Meet the Fockers
7. Cloris Leachman, Spanglish

8. Julie Christie, Finding Neverland
9. Meryl Streep, The Manchurian Candidate
10. Kate Winslet, Finding Neverland
11. Regina King, Ray

Best Screenplay
1. Sideways
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
3. Kinsey
4. Million Dollar Baby
5. The Aviator

6. Spanglish
7. Hotel Rwanda

When it comes to the Music and Foreign Film categories, I have even less of a clue. The only thing I'll be paying attention to is whether or not Team America scores any noms for Best Song.

Only two hours to go...

Oscar Contest

2004-12-06T13:15:00.000-08:00

There's an early bird Oscar prediction contest up here. No prizes, other than a minor ego boost. Bonus points if you enter before December 17. Join under Team The Oscar Grouch (not to be confused with Team America or Team Zissou) and then check out my current predictions - I really went out on a limb with some of these, so I'm sure to be humiliated.

Oscar Race

2004-11-18T06:01:00.000-08:00

It’s time to dispel another Oscar myth: That The Academy is racist.

It’s an easy accusation to make (one I most recently spotted here, where the usually on-the-ball Sasha Stone thinks that Jamie Foxx “has to overcome the stigma of being black,” which is preposterous) and on the surface it may even appear to be substantiated by a simple glance at the lists of acting nominees. But looking beyond that, it’s clear that the relative dearth of minority winners and nominees has very little to do with The Academy itself and everything to do with the Hollywood machine (of which, certainly Academy members are a part) and moviegoers (both foreign and domestic). All of this isn’t to say that there’s not an injustice that needs to be rectified – just that it’s lazy and misguided to blame The Academy.

The acting nominations are first and foremost about the roles, not the actors. There are dozens of great, award-worthy actors working in Hollywood (and outside of it), but only when they get the right role in the right movie do they have a legitimate shot at an Oscar nomination. Sure there are a few exceptions and several actors who seem to get nominated no matter what they do (though even Nicholson, Streep and Hanks have been denied nods from time to time), but the truth is, a good actor in a great role has a better shot than a great actor in a good role.

Unfortunately, there are very few quality, Oscar-baiting roles for minorities in Hollywood (a discussion of the many reasons why is better left for another time – and one that could tie into my last post, since perhaps the pretty, young women are dominating the Oscars because they get offered the most plum roles) -- much fewer than the number of truly stellar minority actors vying for them. However, when African-Americans, Asians and Latinos have landed the right roles, they’ve been nominated with at least as much frequency as Caucasians. I can think of tons of white actors who were labeled sure-fire contenders that never materialized, but (sadly) only a few highly buzzed about performances by minorities come to mind.

Off the top of my head:

Samuel L. Jackson had some heat in 1991, 1996 and 1997 for Jungle Fever, A Time To Kill and Jackie Brown respectively (winning a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Fever and Golden Globe nominations for the latter two).

Djimon Hounsou was nominated for a Golden Globe for Amistad, but had several things working against him at the Oscars – the tepid response to the film itself, a very competitive Best Actor category (even Leonardo DiCaprio couldn’t get carried along by the Titanic wave) and the fact that this was his first major role (something that tends to work much better for Actresses and Supporting Actors than for Lead Actors).

Any early buzz for the actors in Beloved died once people saw the movie.

Jeffrey Wright’s role in Shaft, while thoroughly entertaining and briefly buzzed about, wasn’t exactly the stuff Oscar nominees are made of (though apparently it was the stuff Toronto Film Critics Association Awards are made of).

Zhang Ziyi had generated some significant buzz for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but that was always a truly uphill battle. It’s pretty tough to get nominated for a foreign-language performance, no matter what the ethnicity.

Derek Luke and Denzel Washington in Antwone Fisher at one point showed great potential, but the film itself (unjustifiably) bombed, Washington had just won the year before and Luke wasn’t even nominated for an Image Award (they nominated Morgan Freeman for High Crimes instead).

There was some bitterness and cries of racism way back in 1995 when Don Cheadle wasn’t nominated for Devil in a Blue Dress, which I still haven’t seen so I can’t comment on the performance itself – but that right there seems to be a more plausible explanation: not enough people saw the movie. He seems to have a serious -- though by no means guaranteed -- shot again this year for Hotel Rwanda. Aside from the film possibly being too small (though after wins in Toronto and The AFI Fest, it’s gaining momentum) and the Best Actor category being too crowded, I think Cheadle’s biggest hindrance may be the bad sportsman-like words he had for The Academy back then. Yet if they can honor Sean Penn, Bill Murray and Johnny Depp (not to mention nominate post-Patton George C. Scott once, post-Sacheen Littlefeather Marlon Brando twice and perennial Awards no-show Woody Allen a whopping 20 times), why shouldn’t they look past Cheadle’s comments?

That’s all I can think of. If you can think of any others from the last fifteen years (not merely great, over-looked performances, but ones that legitimately smelled like serious awards-players at the time), please post them in the Comments section.

If you don’t trust me, look at Entertainment Weekly’s early lists of "Oscar's Hopefuls," where they include everyone from sure bets to the longest of long shots. On this year’s list, out of the 78 total actors they cite, there are only 11 people of color (six African-Americans, one African-Brit, three Latinos and one Asian-Canadian). Of those 11, I’d say that five (Gael Garcia Bernal, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Rodrigo de la Serna, Regina King and Sophie Okonedo) are pretty long long-shots and three (Kerry Washington, Sandra Oh and Irma P. Hall) don’t have a chance in hell (which isn’t a comment on the quality of their performances, just their odds of being nominated). Without any early word on Million Dollar Baby, it’s hard to know how to classify Morgan Freeman, though with a weak Supporting Actor race, I wouldn’t bet against him. That leaves just two (Jamie Foxx and Don Cheadle) as legitimate contenders in my mind, with only Foxx as a lock.

Last year, EW’s list was even less diverse. Out of 74 total actors noted, there were just five non-Caucasians (one half-Indian, one half-Maori, one Puerto-Rican, one African and finally one of African-American, Jamaican, English, German, French, Dutch, Syrian and Lebanese descents). Amazingly, of these five, four actually went on to be nominated – and I don’t think anyone would blame racism for Wentworth Miller’s omission. Four out of five is a much better ratio than the 16 out of 69 Caucasians who made the cut.

For further evidence that it’s the dearth of quality roles at fault and not the voting patterns of The Academy, look at the performances nominated for NAACP Image Awards over the years, and ask if those roles in those movies would have had a better shot at getting nominated for an Academy Award if they’d been played by white people? Even Meryl Streep would have a hard time getting a nom for Deliver Us From Eva or Juwanna Mann. That may sound flippant, but the fact that these are the best roles minorities can get in Hollywood is indicative of a greater problem. The Image Awards are unfortunately forced to reward embarrassing action movies and mediocre comedies because those are the genres where African-Americans (who aren’t Denzel Washington) are most bankable.

I’m not sure how to fix this problem, but I do know that calling The Academy’s voting racist isn’t the solution. I also think that focusing on the ethnicity of the nominees (as I’ve done throughout this column) is an insult to nominees of all colors as well as the Academy Awards themselves. It’s why I was offended by Halle Berry’s acceptance speech a few years ago. I understood that it was momentous and I was moved by her genuine emotions, but she made it sound as though up until that point, every woman who had won that award was only the Best White Actress – as though if Sissy Spacek had won instead, it would’ve only been because she was white. In addition, she made it sound as though she was being rewarded for something other than her performance in Monster’s Ball, which I thought demeaned her own achievement, as well as that of her fellow nominees. And though we all know that factors outside of an actor’s performance (their likeability, if they were “robbed” the year before, their body of work, their health) contribute to voting, it seems in poor taste to acknowledge that while accepting the statue. I know I was in the minority on this one. Maybe as a white male, I just couldn’t understand. Or maybe as a writer, I was just bothered that with all the people she thanked, she neglected the writers who provided her the Oscar-baiting role.

P.Y.T.

2004-11-14T01:32:00.000-08:00

Movie City News calls it "A Rather Silly Oscar Story, Focusing On Female Sexuality Instead Of The Power Of Transformative Performances..."

But to tell you the truth, I had the exact same thought while watching Vera Drake the other day.

Imelda Staunton and Annette Bening are by most counts the two front-runners right now. I do expect one of the "pretty young things" to emerge during the next few months as a new front-runner. The optimistic (read: foolish) part of me thinks it will be Kate Winslet (for Eternal Sunshine...). If Spanglish is as good as As Good As It Gets, Tea Leoni could very well pull off a Helen Hunt.

But I do have a couple of qualms with O'Neil's assessment.

He says that “since 1990, only one woman over 50 has won an acting Oscar,” which is true. However, in the next paragraph, he notes that Bening is 46 and Staunton is 48. If 46 was used as the cutoff, he could’ve added Dianne Wiest (who was just a day shy of 47 when she won her second Oscar) and Susan Sarandon (who at 49 was also the oldest woman nominated in her category that year).

At the top of the article, he also cites as an example of this ageism Bening’s defeat at the younger and prettier hands of Hilary Swank. However, at the time, Old Lady Bening was all of 41 (and still of child-bearing age). By that standard (which is much closer to Hollywood’s definition of old than 50), Jessica Lange (45 at the time), Mercedes Ruehl (44), Kim Basinger (at 44, she only seemed young compared to Gloria Stuart, right Tom?), Kathy Bates (42) and Marcia Gay Harden (41) should also be counted. Add to that list Frances McDormand who was pushing 40 when she won at the ripe old age of 39 and you’ve got nine “elderly” recipients of acting Oscars since 1990… now, that’s nine out of 28, but it’s still better than the “one” O’Neil names.

What’s I find more revelatory than O’Neil’s statistic is that of the nine women I counted, only one (Gay Harden in 2000) has won since 1998. The last Best Actress in a Leading Role winner was the young’un, McDormand, in 1996, and before her, Sarandon. The trend has definitely become more pronounced in the last five years, where outside of Gay Harden, the oldest female winners were Halle Berry and Nicole Kidman, both 35.

The other mistake O’Neil makes is that, as the Movie City News editor suggests, he ignores the issue of “quality.” In the All About Eve-esque match-ups he refers to (Berry vs. Spacek, Swank vs. Bening, Binoche vs. Bacall, Basinger vs. Stuart), it’s clear the youngsters didn’t just coast by on their looks or youth. In Swank’s case, she was always tracking ahead of Bening (except when Bening won the SAG Award and when some suspected an American Beauty sweep might take her along). And though Sissy Spacek was an early favorite, the tide was definitely turning in Berry’s favor as Oscar night approached, so it was no shocker to anyone (but Berry herself) when her name was called.

As for the Binoche and Basinger upsets (in both instances I predicted the old ladies would win), they were more indicative of the falsehood of another Oscar-forecasting myth: The Life Achievement award disguised as competitive Oscar. Yes, the Academy likes to honor elder statesmen who’ve never won, but the performance has to merit it (just ask odds-on-favorites Burt Reynolds and Martin Scorsese). Jessica Tandy, James Coburn and Roman Polanski didn’t win because they were old and win-less, they won because they did, arguably, the best work of their careers, respectively, with Driving Miss Daisy, Affliction and The Pianist (Jack Palance may be the exception that proves this myth).

But the question remains: Where is the young and pretty frontrunner for Best Actress this year?

You forgot, Poland!

2004-11-12T17:39:00.000-08:00

David Poland doesn’t often make sloppy mistakes, but on his Oscar prediction chart, he lists both The Sea Inside and The Motorcycle Diaries as potential nominees for The Golden Globes’ Best Picture (Drama) category. The only problem is that the Hollywood Foreign Press has ruled non-English films ineligible for that category. That’s why Crouching Tiger, Life is Beautiful and Il Postino weren’t given any Best Picture love by the Golden Globes (though Crouching Tiger did win for Best Director).

Poland also now goes out on a limb to declare The Phantom of the Opera the new frontrunner for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. He has a mixed track record, but he’s usually pretty good at reading the Academy’s voters. While I’m still skeptical, I believe at the very least this means it’s a legitimate contender for a Best Picture nom – something I hardly thought possible back in September (it ranked a lowly number 17 on my list – just above Sideways, which incidentally should also have been much higher, though I still think it will fall short of the Lost in Translation slot).

Phantom will have to sweep the Musical/Comedy categories at the Golden Globes to have a serious shot at The Oscars, though even that didn’t guarantee the last Andrew Lloyd Webber movie musical a seat at the table. I’m not sure which is a greater albatross towards being taken seriously – Madonna or the director of Batman & Robin.

In & Out

2004-11-07T01:26:00.000-08:00

There have been plenty of release shuffles since my last post (way back on October 7):

In: The Assassination of Richard Nixon, Imaginary Heroes, A Love Song for Bobby Long, The Merchant of Venice and Million Dollar Baby

Out: Proof, An Unfinished Life and The Upside of Anger

In addition, The Sea Within is now The Sea Inside and Synergy is now In Good Company (though having seen the latter film, I don't think either title belongs on this site anymore).

Wondering...

2004-10-07T15:40:00.000-07:00

Who's going to foot the bill for Fahrenheit 9/11's Oscar campaign? Lion's Gate and IFC Films, who handled stateside theatrical distribution, have little to gain now that the film is out of their hands. Abroad, the documentary is split between a more diverse international coalition than President Bush had going into Iraq, so no one company has enough vested interest.

Depending on the deal Michael Moore got, Columbia Tri-Star Home Video probably stands to benefit the most from Academy Award nominations. However, I don't know if there's any precedent for a studio that only controls home video distribution paying for an awards campaign. Even though two of the three Best Picture winners to have been released on video prior to winning were co-financed by two studios (Braveheart and Gladiator), in each case, the domestic theatrical distributor also handled domestic video. I'm not sure if there are any movies that have campaigned for awards that better fit the Fahrenheit model.

I could also see Harvey Weinstein, or even Moore himself, personally funding the effort (they've certainly made enough money off the film). We'll see.

Sweepstakes

2004-09-19T19:29:00.000-07:00

I know I’m currently predicting a clean sweep in the acting categories for Closer. According to Oscar Trivia, this has happened 13 times in Academy Awards history. The last time was in 1981. So, it’s not a very common occurrence – at least not anymore (though it’s been 22 years since the last instance, the first seven all appeared within a 17-year span, while the other six happened in a 15-year period).

What changed? Having not seen all 13 films in question, I have two theories that require a lot more research to substantiate. One concerns the evolution of the Academy while the other concerns the evolution of filmmaking itself.

First, the Academy’s definition and criteria for a “supporting” role seem to have changed in the last twenty years. With Judi Dench’s nomination and subsequent win for Shakespeare in Love being an anomaly, I think most recent Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress nominees have had more screen time and more significant presences in their films than did their counterparts between 1936 and 1981.

Renee Zellweger, Benicio Del Toro (21 Grams and Traffic), Tim Robbins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Julianne Moore (The Hours), Jim Broadbent, Ethan Hawke, Ben Kingsley, Jennifer Connelly, Marcia Gay Harden (Pollock), Angelina Jolie, Minnie Driver, Juliette Binoche, William H. Macy, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Uma Thurman might all have been considered Leads in another era (and at some awards – like the Golden Globes and SAG – in this one, too). Many of them, in fact, had screen time rivaling the so-called Lead co-stars they were supporting. Look at 1996, when [though I can’t find confirmation of this, so I’m not 100% certain] the two Supporting winners may have had more screen time than the two Lead winners.

The point is, that a lot of the Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress nominations that enabled those 13 sweepers to sweep probably wouldn’t pass muster these days. Even without having seen these films in a while, I’ll cursorily mention a few nominated actors that don’t stand out: Nancy Olson, Erich Von Stroheim, Estelle Parsons, Ned Beatty and Beatrice Straight. Which isn’t to denigrate any of their performances (except for maybe Parsons’), it’s just that I can’t imagine them being serious contenders now.

Another change that may be at the root of this drought is the shift from the Studio System to the star-empowered free agent system in place today. Back when the studios could dictate who appeared in what without concern for cost, they could easily pack four top-level stars into a prestige picture. Now money is an issue, so it’s rare to fill out every role with an Oscar-friendly face, especially in an intimate character-driven film. While newcomers do slip in from time to time, and celebrity is no guarantee for an award, there’s no denying that it helps.

There’s also the matter of the scripts themselves, which so rarely offer four substantial roles (though I have no real explanation for why this might have changed). All you have to do is look at the 13 films in the last 14 years that have been represented in three acting categories: Mystic River, Adaptation, Chicago, The Hours, Iris, In the Bedroom, Shakespeare in Love, As Good as It Gets, Good Will Hunting, The English Patient, Pulp Fiction, In the Name of the Father, Dances With Wolves.

Of these, Mystic River, Adaptation, Good Will Hunting, Pulp Fiction, In the Name of the Father and Dances With Wolves all had their most prominent females nominated in the Supporting Actress category, leaving nobody to fill the Best Actress slot (indicative of the general dearth of strong female roles in many movies?). Likewise, The Hours had its most prominent male nominated for Best Supporting Actor. And As Good as It Gets didn't have any notable Supporting Actress contenders. So none of these movies had any hope of securing a nod in their elusive fourth category.

In the Bedroom and Iris both had very low star wattage in their Supporting Actor contenders, and neither Nick Stahl nor Hugh Bonneville (in America, anyway) really generated any sort of buzz for their performances, so sweeps never seemed likely for those two films either.

The English Patient had an Oscar-friendly star up for Supporting Actor, but the role wasn’t particularly showy, and amidst all the buzz for that film, none ever stuck to Willem Dafoe.

That leaves just Chicago and Shakespeare in Love as the two with legitimate shots at sweeps. Both Richard Gere and Joseph Fiennes had some buzz surrounding their lead performances and a few preliminary awards and nominations. However, neither was considered much of a sure thing.

Now, back to this year. Closer appears to have the best shot at a sweep of any film in recent memory. It’s got four well-respected actors (presumably) competing in each of the four categories, and each one has a strong role to play. In addition, Mike Nichols has guided a cast to this achievement once before with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It’s still very much a long shot that all four will actually receive nominations, but for now I’m tentatively predicting it. But I’m also predicting that Closer won’t get nominated for Best Picture, which might be an even bigger long shot.

Because of those 13 films that have achieved this milestone, only the first one did this without getting a Best Picture nomination (interesting to note that 1936 was also the first year that any movie could pull off this feat, seeing as how it was the first year to include the Supporting categories). Strangely enough though, only two of the lucky 13 (Mrs. Minniver and From Here to Eternity) have gone on to actually win the Best Picture award. Again, I’ll stand by my prediction, but history is not on my side.

Wondering...

2004-09-14T02:51:00.000-07:00

Is Gwyneth Paltrow blowing her promotional load too early and for the wrong movie?

Or is she just getting all the baby talk out of the way now so she can focus on her craft in December?

Ridiculously Early Best Supporting Actress Predictions

2004-09-14T01:17:00.000-07:00

1. Natalie Portman, Closer

For Her: Her most adult role yet will be an eye-opener; residual goodwill towards Garden State - as well as appreciation for the range exhibited in the two distinct performances - should give her a boost; even people who didn’t like Cold Mountain were impressed with her too-small-to-nominate turn; there are worse ways to get a nomination than acting in a Mike Nichols film (he’s directed seven women to Best Supporting Actress nominations); more than holds her own with some pretty hefty “elder statesmen and stateswoman”; the Academy (and this category in particular) likes them young… and pretty – in Portman they get a 23-year-old starlet who also has ten years of critically-acclaimed performances on stage and screen under her belt [a combination that helped another brainy-and-talented-beyond-her-years actress with an ethnically-cleansed surname pick up her first nomination in this category about a decade ago for her all-grown-up-now performance in a renowned director’s film]

Against Her: Possible media focus on the more salacious aspects of her performance may overshadow the performance itself; if Garden State is popular enough, could split some votes; residual antipathy towards the Star Wars prequels could give some voters pause

2. Laura Linney, Kinsey

For Her: I get the sense that the Academy has wanted to nominate her again since You Can Count on Me… she just hasn’t the right role; early word coming out of Toronto is very positive; she gets uglied up, which worked well for Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Halle Berry; showed range with Emmy-winning comedic role on Frasier

Against Her: If P.S. catches on, it could split votes; Kinsey role may be considered a lead

3. Cloris Leachman, Spanglish

For Her: Hollywood can’t stop rewarding her; with an Emmy nomination in each of the last four years (including one win); there are worse ways to get a nomination than acting in a James L. Brooks film (ten nominations from just three movies), and she’s Spanglish’s most pedigreed performer; when this category isn’t honoring pretty young things, it likes to throw a token bone to a veteran having fun (Helen Mirren (Gosford Park and The Madness of King George), Maggie Smith, Judi Dench (Shakespeare in Love and Chocolat), Julie Walters, Lynn Redgrave, Gloria Stuart, Lauren Bacall, Dianne Wiest, Rosemary Harris, Vanessa Redgrave and Joan Plowwright – obviously it helps to be British, but it’s not a prerequisite)

Against Her: Nobody’s ever been nominated for an Oscar playing opposite Adam Sandler

4. Hope Davis, Proof

For Her: Has been building awards buzz the last two years with About Schmidt, The Secret Lives of Dentists and American Splendor – picking up several honors for the latter two roles; this role earned Johanna Day a Tony nomination in 2001

Against Her: As with Paltrow and Hopkins, Davis’ chances could suffer if the film and her performance are deemed too stagey; apparently, she played the French Ticket Agent in Home Alone (on second thought, put that in the For Her column)

5. Jodie Foster, A Very Long Engagement

For Her: The Academy loves her, but she hasn’t been nominated since Nell in 1994; manages to generate Oscar talk even for her work in genre movies like Contact and Panic Room, so imagine what she can do in a bona fide art film; American actors don’t often do foreign language performances, but when they do, they’re handsomely rewarded (Robert De Niro, Benicio Del Toro); when the winners of Lead Actress Oscars “slum” in Supporting roles, they get noticed (Holly Hunter, Meryl Streep, Kathy Bates, Frances McDormand, Emma Thompson, Jessica Tandy)

Against Her: I can’t think of any precedent for an American actor tackling a significant role in a foreign film, so I have nothing to measure her odds against – though this sheer uniqueness may work in her favor; when I first heard about Foster signing for this film, it sounded like it would be a glorified cameo – not sure if it’s a meaty enough part

As you can tell by the sheer number of runners-up I have listed below, this is the category I’m currently least sure about. There could be some big surprises emerging here. Notice, I tied the two actresses from Ray and the two actresses from Alexander because it’s not clear yet which one in either pair has the showier part.

6. Lauren Bacall, Birth
7. Cate Blanchett, The Aviator
8. Julie Christie, Finding Neverland
9. Scarlett Johansson, Synergy
10. Regina King, Ray
10. Kerry Washington, Ray
12. Meryl Streep, The Manchurian Candidate
12. Gena Rowlands, The Notebook
13. Laura Dern, We Don’t Live Here Anymore
14. Virginia Madsen, Sideways
15. Aileen Atkins, Vanity Fair
16. Angelina Jolie, Alexander
16. Rosario Dawson, Alexander
17. Irma P. Hall, The Ladykillers
18. Lynn Redgrave, Kinsey
19. Marcia Gay Harden, P.S.
20. Lily Tomlin, I [Heart] Huckabee's

Lies, Damned Lies and Festival Statistics

2004-09-12T03:05:00.000-07:00

What do the multiple wins in Venice for Vera Drake and The Sea Within mean for their Oscar chances? Historically speaking, not much.

In the last ten years, the Venice Film Festival hasn’t overlapped much with the Academy. Only one Best Picture nominee (The Cider House Rules) has even been in the running for the top prize – The Golden Lion (which Vera Drake just won). The only other Best Picture nominee to receive any recognition there was Lost in Translation, which wasn’t nominated for the Golden Lion, but did pick up the Lina Mangiacapre Award last year.

There have been a few future Academy nominees in other categories that have earned preliminary recognition in Venice. Spike Jonze picked up a couple of awards for Being John Malkovich. Y tu mama tambien won Best Screenplay. Julianne Moore got her first recognition for her work in Far From Heaven there with a pair of Best Actress awards, and Edward Lachman received a special award for his cinematography in that same film [side note – what is an Academy Award nominated cinematographer doing shooting Carmen Electra’s Aerobic Striptease?]. And Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro were both honored for their Oscar-nominated turns in 21 Grams. Finally, this year’s Best Actor, Javier Bardem previously won his first award for his performance in Before Night Falls in Venice.

All in all, though, Venice’s value as an Oscar prognosticator is severely limited by the small number of high profile English language films that show in competition there. So while their wins may help Imelda Staunton and Bardem start to build some much-needed buzz going into awards season, they hardly guarantee nominations (however, if Bardem also scores in Toronto, he may cement his position as a lock). The films themselves still seem to be a long way from entering the Best Picture race.

The Toronto International Film Festival, on the other hand, has a pretty good track record with generating buzz (or at least noticing it first). Between 1996 and 2000, the festival tapped five future Best Picture nominees for top awards (Shine, L.A. Confidential, Life is Beautiful, American Beauty and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). In addition, films nominated for Best Directing Oscars received high honors in Toronto (The Sweet Hereafter, Billy Elliot and City of God), as did some other top-category Oscar contenders (Amelie, Bowling for Columbine, Whale Rider, The Barbarian Invasions).

With a number of high-profile prestige films in competition up North this year, the winners (both in terms of awards and critical reception) from Toronto will probably be bigger Academy players than their Venice counterparts.

As long as I’m examining superficial trends in festival outcomes as they relate to the Oscar race, let’s take a look at how Cannes Palme d’Or winners have fared at the Academy Awards.

Since 1949, 27 English-language films have won the top prize at the festival. Among those, nearly half (13) have gone on to be nominated for Best Picture (actually only 11 have gone on to be nominated, since Friendly Persuasion and All That Jazz were nominated for Oscars before their wins at Cannes). Half of the remaining 14 winners were nominated for Academy Awards other than Best Picture (six of them in the “major categories”), while the last seven received no Oscar love.

If there’s any science to this sort of thing, that’s good news for Fahrenheit 9/11.

Ridiculously Early Best Supporting Actor Predictions

2004-09-10T01:07:00.000-07:00

1. Clive Owen, Closer

For Him: It’s a great, charismatic role with some powerful scenes, both comedic and dramatic; could be an opportunity for long overdue payback for his ineligible, but critically adored performance in Croupier four years ago; has a lot of screen time for a supporting role; there are worse ways to get a nomination than acting in a Mike Nichols film; being British – always a vote-getter

Against Him: Has been considered the “Next Big Thing” for a long time, and yet up until this movie, those BMW ads were the most impressive thing he’d done since Croupier – his moment may have passed before it ever really arrived (the Gretchen Mol effect); Nichols hasn’t gotten anyone nominated in this category since George Segal in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf; could suffer backlash from the abysmally-received King Arthur

2. Anthony Hopkins, Proof

For Him: He’s Sir Anthony Hopkins; an Academy favorite who hasn’t been nominated since Amistad in 1997; this role earned Larry Brygmann a Tony nomination in 2001; seems like he’s abandoned the sell-out phase of his career; could get a boost from his turn in Alexander; mental illness – always a vote-getter; dying on-screen – always a vote-getter; being British – always a vote-getter

Against Him: May be campaigned as a lead; performance in Alexander could split votes; co-star Jake Gyllenhaal (who’s also inherited a Tony-nominated role) may siphon off some votes

3. Peter Sarsgaard, Kinsey

For Him: Consolation prize for not being nominated last year for Shattered Glass; early reviews are strong for his Kinsey performance; residual goodwill felt towards Garden State could give him a boost

Against Him: If Kinsey follows the Gods and Monsters pattern too closely, he could get stuck with the Brendan Fraser booby prize; is it just me, or was his solid performance in Shattered Glass highly overrated?

4. Willem Dafoe, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

For Him: Looks to be the scene-stealer and emotional heart of this impressive cast; performances in The Clearing and The Aviator could give him a boost; in the wake of The Passion, a lot of people were talking about his turn at playing Christ in a favorable light; accents – always a vote-getter

Against Him: Despite some pre-Oscar recognition for Bill Murray and Gene Hackman, Wes Anderson has yet to get an actor nominated for an Academy Award; in the wake of Spider-Man 2, a lot of people may have been talking about his turn at playing the Green Goblin in a less-than-favorable light

5. Dustin Hoffman, I [Heart] Huckabee’s

For Him: He’s Dustin Hoffman; an Academy favorite who hasn’t been nominated since Wag the Dog in 1997; could get a boost from his turn in Finding Neverland

Against Him: Movie (and his performance) may wind up being too zany to be taken seriously; if role in Finding Neverland is bigger than initially reported, it could either split votes or replace this performance as the one most likely to be nominated

In what’s usually a very competitive category, this year’s crop of potentials looks to be fairly weak. Expect some surprises to sift to the top by December.

6. Kevin Costner, The Upside of Anger
7. Rodrigo de la Serna, The Motorcycle Diaries
8. David Carradine, Kill Bill, Vol. 2
9. Topher Grace, Synergy
10. Morgan Freeman, An Unfinished Life
11. Jake Gyllenhaal, Proof
12. Jamie Foxx, Collateral
13. Jeremy Irons, Being Julia
14. Chris Cooper, Silver City

The Shot Heard 'Round the World

2004-09-08T21:54:00.000-07:00

Warner Independent has unleashed the first For Your Consideration ad of the season, more than two months before A Very Long Engagement is even released in American theaters.

The text of the ad is unusually blunt and transparent, essentially declaring that they too will be aggressively pursuing what David Poland deems the "City of God Effect" (though it could just as easily be called the Talk to Her effect, or Il Postino Effect, or the Red Effect). However, the ad copy is deceptive in its statement that "This picture is not eligible for Best Foreign Film." What it should say is: "This picture is not eligible for Best Foreign Film... this year," because, as I understand the convoluted rules, it will be eligible in that category next year (though I haven't been able to find a single instance of this in Academy history, so maybe I'm wrong), should France decide to submit it.

With both Michael Moore and Warner Independent officially staking their claims, and so many high profile contenders premiering in Venice and Toronto, it seems like the shortened Oscar season is no longer so short - it's merely arriving earlier to compensate for ending earlier.

Ridiculously Early Best Actress Predictions

2004-09-08T05:15:00.000-07:00

1. Gwyneth Paltrow, Proof

For Her: Had to act out losing her father so soon after doing it in real life – that’s gotta be good for a few tears (and votes); last time she worked with John Madden, she won an Oscar; this role won Mary Louise-Parker a Tony in 2001; there are worse ways to get a nomination than acting with Anthony Hopkins (who has helped co-stars to seven nominations plus three wins – all for leading actresses); if Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a hit, it could help; she looks pretty in a dress – always a vote-getter

Against Her: Some felt that her Shakespeare in Love role was too fluffy to warrant her winning an Oscar and may hold that against her now (though that didn’t stop Marisa Tomei from getting a nom in 2001); had a depressing awards season last year with Sylvia; might be hurt if movie (and her performance) are too stagey; refuses to walk red carpet with her hubby; named her daughter Apple

2. Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

For Her: The Academy loves her, yet they’ve never given her any gold so now’s another chance; accents – always a vote-getter (though the generic American accent may not qualify as such, flawless though it may be); could get a boost if performance in Finding Neverland is warmly regarded; critics adore this performance and a Comedy/Musical Golden Globe nomination is in the bag; the most likely chance to recognize this well-liked film (outside of Best Original Screenplay)

Against Her: Finding Neverland performance may split votes (especially if it’s campaigned as a lead and not supporting); Eternal Sunshine may have dimmed in voters’ memories since March – Focus will need to aggressively campaign and use the DVD release to reverse the memory erasure

3. Annette Bening, Being Julia

For Her: Buzz is good and a lot of Oscar predictors have her as a lock; many felt she deserved the award for American Beauty (she even won the SAG) – this could be payback; can count on husband to campaign for her and be arm candy

Against Her: The movie doesn’t sound like it’s going to be the blockbuster awards juggernaut that American Beauty was- she’ll have to depend on buzz (and critics’ awards) for her performance to get people to even put the screeners in their DVD players

4. Julia Roberts, Closer

For Her: Being Julia; there are worse ways to get a nomination than acting in a Mike Nichols movie (who’s directed his actresses to 12 total nominations over the years, including five in the lead category); may be rewarded for making a risky departure with this role that could potentially turn off some of her core fans (like Tom Cruise in Magnolia); for the first time in a long time, actually got a part after somebody else passed - which shows surprising humility; could get a boost if she gets to flash her smile in Ocean’s Twelve; chance of her going into labor at the ceremony could be too much to resist (see Catherine Zeta-Jones in 2002 and Annette Bening in 1999)

Against Her: She’s already got so much – does she really need twin Oscars, too?; may not have as much screen time as some of her competitors; as with Jude Law, her role isn’t as showy as her co-stars; her diva-esque acceptance speech for Erin Brockovich may have left a bad taste in voters’ mouths; if she gives birth before ballots are due, media hype could cause Julia-fatigue

5. Catalina Sandino Mareno, Maria Full of Grace

For Her: Universal critical acclaim for a harrowing performance; could be this year’s Keisha Castle-Hughes shocker; has already started gathering festival awards; Oscar likes them young… and pretty

Against Her: There’s that pesky non-English thing; with a mid-summer release date and a mere $4 million in box-office, it’ll be an uphill battle to make sure she’s seen and remembered, and New Line may be too focused on The Sea Within to do the heavy-lifting necessary – she’ll have to get some year-end critics’ awards and make the rounds in Hollywood to be this year’s Keisha

The barbarians at the gate:

6. Joan Allen, The Upside of Anger
7. Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake
8. Nicole Kidman, Birth
9. Audrey Tautou, A Very Long Engagement
10. Rachel McAdams, The Notebook
11. Uma Thurman, Kill Bill, Vol. 2
12. Julie Delpy, Before Sunset
13. Tea Leoni, Spanglish
14. Halle Berry, Catwoman

Raising the Bar

2004-09-07T01:18:00.000-07:00

[LATE UPDATE: I should've done a little more browsing before writing this post. Reading Michael Moore's own explanation on his website (thanks to the link on Oscar Watch) invalidates a lot (though not all) of my premature analysis. What is interesting is that the AP feature clearly makes it sound as though the main reason for not submitting is to focus on the Best Picture race, followed by opening up the category to other documentarians and lastly about the potential television broadcast. Michael Moore's letter (which features plenty of his trademark mingling of veiled self-aggrandizement and pronounced selflessness) however emphasizes the TV airing as the number one rationale, followed by his generousity to his fellow filmmakers and finally mentions, as an afterthought, that it might make a Best Picture run possible. So where are your priorities, Mike?]

Once again, Michael Moore is making it all about himself, even as he says its about others, making him the worst sort of narcissist. Just as at the 2002 Oscars, when he rallied/bullied all the other documentary nominees to come up with him no matter who won, making an even bigger spectacle of himself, he now says he’s taking Fahrenheit 9/11 out of the running for Best Documentary, in part, because he wants to give everyone else a fair chance. Well, isn’t that nice? Of course, by saying so, he smugly assumes his doc was going to be considered one of the five (or even the) best by the Academy. It also puts an unfair asterisk next to whoever actually wins (like Olympians in boycotted Olympics), since there will always be speculation that Moore would’ve won if he hadn’t so “selflessly” removed himself from competition. When someone self-imposes term limits at The Emmys – like Candice Bergen did in 1996 – it’s more a commentary on the tedious repetition of The Emmys.

It is of some note to Oscar-watchers that he and Harvey will be actively seeking the Best Picture award. This was assumed from the get-go, but now it’s confirmed. Not submitting in the Documentary category is an interesting tactic. It could produce similar results as when Foreign Language films haven’t been eligible for that category (the Best Picture nod for Il Postino, as well as the high-profile nominations for Talk to Her, Y tu Mama Tambien and City of God). If this strategy works and Fahrenheit 9/11 becomes the first documentary nominated for Best Picture (or even gets nominations in other categories like Directing, Original Screenplay or Editing – which, if I’m not mistaken, only Hoop Dreams has accomplished with its Editing nom), I wonder if we’ll see this gamble employed by animated films, documentaries or foreign films (of their own volition) in the future. I believe that Finding Nemo could have been a serious contender (though not without a fight) for Best Picture if there were no Animated Feature category.

This could all be misdirection if it turns out that Fahrenheit 9/11 airs on television before the election, as the AP article suggests. Since this would disqualify the film from Documentary contention anyway, Moore wouldn’t likely miss an opportunity to put his own, self-serving spin on the ineligibility– and effectively quit before he can be fired [sort of like Brian on Mr. Personality]. I’m not sure what odds I’d put on a television broadcast between the October 5 home video release date and the November 2 election. First of all, I’m not sure what Moore cares most about – Money, awards, record DVD sales or the potential to impact the election even more by getting his movie seen by as many people as possible and gain a few more seconds of media attention while he’s at it – because airing it on TV in October would directly impede the first three goals on my list. However, based on his urging people to illegally download his movie, I suppose the latter might very well be the most appealing to him. But this raises another question:

Where would it air?

Showtime is handling the pay-TV rights, so most likely it will be shown on Showtime before it can be shown on any broadcast network – and Showtime proved they aren’t squeamish when it comes to politically charged material by airing last year’s controversial The Reagans mini-series. But if Moore’s mission is to have his film seen by as wide an audience as possible, how many viewers can he get on Showtime? The Reagans was only seen by a little over a million in its highly publicized initial airing.

It would seem to make more sense to put it on PBS [and now that I look at the Rolling Stone interview, it looks like Moore has the same thing in mind – though his notion of it airing on a broadcast network is preposterous], which shows many recent documentaries and is capable of reaching millions more viewers (Ken Burns’ The Civil War was seen by a whopping 40 million viewers in 1990). But unlike Moore, Showtime’s only motivation is making money, and allowing it to air on free TV before its Showtime premiere doesn’t do much for their bottom line. So if Showtime has any say in the matter (which I assume they do), I can’t see it airing anywhere else. We’ll know for sure within two months.

One thing's for sure: This certainly breaks the Best Documentary competition wide open in a year already full of promising contenders.

Ridiculously Early Best Actor Predictions

2004-09-04T18:08:00.000-07:00

1. Jamie Foxx, Ray

For him: Already the front-runner; positive reaction to his performance in Collateral may carry over; a nomination for him could be seen as honoring Ray Charles posthumously; if the movie’s a serious Best Picture contender, it’ll bring him along; physical handicaps - always a vote-getter

Against him: Already the front-runner (as with the potential Best Pictures, this can be a blessing and a curse); his performance in Collateral might (not likely, but might) split votes, especially if voters consider it a lead; comics don’t always have an easy time getting respect for dramatic roles (just ask In Living Color castmate Jim Carrey); I still think his performance in the trailer looks a little caricature-y, but I seem to be the only one who thinks so

2. Javier Bardem, The Sea Within

For him: Mostly basing this on David Poland’s assertion that his nomination is virtually guaranteed; I think he deserved to win in 2000 for Before Night Falls, and I can’t be alone; his brief but memorable turn in Collateral can only help; physical handicaps – always a vote-getter

Against him: There’s that pesky non-English thing; the movie he’s in will have to get some traction amidst a competitive batch of foreign-language films; I wrote a few days ago that in August of 2000, nobody knew who Javier Bardem was – but how much has changed in four years?

3. Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland

For him: Everybody loves him; there are worse ways to get a nomination than acting with Kate Winslet (five co-stars nominated in nine years); there are worse ways to get a nomination than acting in a Miramax movie; accents – always a vote getter; after getting nominated for playing a fey pirate in a Jerry Bruckheimer/Disney movie about a theme park ride, what can’t he get nominated for?; was a gracious loser last year, unlike some people…

Against him: Buzz on the film has grown a little tepid – we’ll have to wait until after Venice to see how it (and he) is received

4. Leonardo DiCaprio, The Aviator

For him: If The Aviator is the awards-behemoth it’s supposed to be, it’ll take him with it; there are worse ways to get a nomination than acting in a Martin Scorsese movie (4 wins plus 12 nominations); there are worse ways to get a nomination than acting in a Miramax movie; there are worse ways to get a nomination than playing Howard Hughes; could be rewarded for consistently foregoing the easy heartthrob route

Against him: The Titanic and Gangs of New York juggernauts didn’t bring him along for the ride, and his Oscar-baiting role in Catch Me if You Can failed to get any bites (to be fair, Gangs and Catch going head to head may have hurt his chances); suffers from Tom Cruise dilemma where people think of him more as a pretty-boy movie star than an actor (forgetting his Oscar-nominated turn in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape), and like Cruise, he tends to get co-stars nominated instead of himself (co-stars like Diane Keaton, Kate Winslet, Gloria Stuart, Daniel Day-Lewis and Christopher Walken)

5. Jude Law, Closer

For him: Is in so many movies this year, the law of averages alone secures him a slot; he’s been on a role, getting two nominations in five years (as well as getting serious attention for A.I. and The Road to Perdition); there are worse ways to get a nomination than acting in a Mike Nichols movie (2 wins plus 13 nominations); being British – always a vote-getter

Against him: Jude Law fatigue may set it, from his ubiquitous presence in both cinemas this fall and the Oscar races of the last five years; potential vote-splitting if he doesn’t clearly campaign for one film; his role in Closer isn’t nearly as showy as some of his co-stars; Nichols hasn't gotten a male nominated for an Academy Award since The Graduate

[Side note – It wasn’t intentional, but by arranging these actors in this order, I created a sort of Six Degrees of Separation – Jamie Foxx was in Collateral with Javier Bardem who was in Before Night Falls with Johnny Depp who was in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape with Leonardo DiCaprio who is in The Aviator with… Jude Law!]

The rest of these actors all have some modicum of buzz around them, though for various reasons, I can’t see putting them in the top five right now:

6. Colin Farrell, Alexander
7. Liam Neeson, Kinsey
8. Bill Murray, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
9. Gael Garcia Bernal, The Motorcycle Diaries
10. Tom Cruise, Collateral
11. Jim Caviezel, The Passion of The Christ
12. Paul Giamatti, Sideways
13. Jeff Bridges, The Door in the Floor
14. Jim Carrey, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
15. Christopher Walken, Around the Bend
16. Kevin Bacon, The Woodsman

Ridiculously Early Best Directing Predictions

2004-09-03T18:07:00.000-07:00

Only three times have all the Best Picture nominees been nominated for Best Directing. On the other hand, since the Academy limited the Best Picture category to five nominees in 1944, there have been only five instances when three Best Picture nominees failed to receive nominations for Best Directing – and all occurred between 1954 and 1966 (is it coincidence that the two categories became more tightly intertwined around the time that Andrew Sarris’ “manifesto of the auteur theory” was published?).

So the five nominees for Best Directing this year will most assuredly come from the candidates for Best Picture nominees, and most likely, there will be one or two nominees that don’t match up between the two categories. Rather than re-list all the potential nominees I’m predicting, I’ll assume that my top five in the Best Picture race are going to be the nominees and just predict who will be the odd men out (since Vanity Fair’s hopes have tanked, the directing nominees will all be men, for the 74th time).

Here’s where I think Proof and Closer will swap out, as Mike Nichols is going to get a nomination no matter what. Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone seem pretty untouchable, unless either of their movies is completely trashed. If there’s enough passion for The Passion to get it into the top five, then it’s hard to imagine Mel Gibson will be ignored, unless his brash persona (and the accusations of anti-Semitism) turned people off too much last February.

If Ray is truly beloved, Taylor Hackford could get his first nomination in this category, however he looks to be the next weakest of the bunch and might very well be pushed out by a director with more style (whose Picture might not be seen as having enough substance).

My first bet would be Walter Salles for The Motorcycle Diaries (as foreign film directors have frequently been nominated when their Pictures were not [directors of foreign language films have been nominated an astounding 26 times by my rough count - including six in five consecutive years in the early 70s - compared to the seven times foreign language films have been nominated for Best Picture], most recently in the last two years with Pedro Almodovar and Fernando Meirelles).

Salles is followed closely by Wes Anderson (who might benefit from the branch that has in the past nominated “quirkier” directors like Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch and Spike Jonze while their Pictures have been ignored). I think that Michael Moore is less likely to get a nomination for Directing than Fahrenheit 9/11 is for Best Picture, as I think that many of its supporters probably like the film more than they like the man (though after rewarding a pedophile-rapist, who knows?).

Ridiculously Early Best Picture Predictions

2004-09-03T04:59:00.000-07:00

With a little over 20 weeks until the Academy Award nominations are announced, here are my ridiculously early attempts at predicting the Best Picture nominees, in order of likelihood.

The Odds-On Heavyweight Favorites
The 800-pound gorillas everyone is betting on.

1. The Aviator

There’s always a lot of pressure on the perceived favorite going into Oscar Season. Sometimes they stay the course (A Beautiful Mind) and sometimes they fizzle out (Cold Mountain). Although last year, Harvey Weinstein blamed the abbreviated Oscar schedule and the late December opening date for Mountain’s chilly reception, I don’t expect the December 17th berth of The Aviator to cause it to get the same Cold shoulder from the Academy (it was a ludicrous excuse – all that debacle proved was that poor Harvey needs more than a month to turn his shit into Shinola).

I see four potential roadblocks for The Aviator. The first is bio-pic overload fatigue, which I touched on in my last column. The second is if there’s some controversial debate over the film’s historical accuracy, such as the one that (may have) sidelined The Hurricane as a contender, and threatened A Beautiful Mind. The third is if voters resent the way Martin Scorsese was shoved down their throats in 2002, and how Harvey and others tried to guilt trip them into giving the filmmaker everybody loves a de facto “lifetime achievement” award for directing a movie nobody loved. And finally, the fourth potential roadblock for The Aviator is if the movie sucks – however, this one is the most easily overcome (see Gangs of New York).

2. Alexander

As the only large-scale epic in contention this year (weighing in with a measly $30 million budget hardly qualifies The Passion of The Christ as large-scale), Alexander would seem to be a shoo-in since the Best Picture race tends to favor historical epics. Still, I’ve got this nagging feeling that it might not make the cut – I’m not sure if it’s Oliver Stone’s 12-year absence from this category after a remarkable 3-for-6 run between 1986 and 1991 or if it’s Colin Farrell as a blonde, but for now I’ll keep it in the top five.

Small, but Scrappy
Not quite the behemoths of the top two, but that may prove to be a blessing.

3. Ray

Advance buzz was hot before the body was even cold, and now that it’s not just a tribute but a eulogy, it’s even hotter. Whether it makes it or not rests largely on how well Jamie Foxx can make us both forget and remember the legend – a paradoxically challenging task, indeed.

4. Proof

Why this intimate stage-adaptation and not (the more widely predicted) Closer? Well, since they (pretty much) match up in pedigree in front of and behind the camera, it comes down to Proof dealing with weightier issues (and though I’m not positive, being less shocking and offensive to older voters). The biggest hesitation I have about putting it in the top five is that I don’t know if a) Harvey will be pushing this one as hard since he’s adopted a sure thing in The Aviator (and might want to focus all his efforts on getting at least that one in after getting none last year), b) Harvey’s attention will be further divided by a push for Fahrenheit 9/11, and c) Harvey will even be synonymous with Miramax by the time this movie rolls out in December. So Closer might get its shot after all.

5. The Passion of The Christ

I originally had this at #6, but while writing my last post, I convinced myself that I needed to put one pre-September release in here, and I’m starting to realize that The Passion seems like a pretty classic Academy-friendly movie (to those who suggest that they’re squeamish when it comes to violence, I point out that Pulp Fiction, Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan all pushed the bloodletting envelope). Surely there are enough devout Christians in Hollywood to carry it to the promised land… Surely?

The On-Deck Circle
Any of these could be called up to the Big Five should one of the above falter.

6. The Motorcycle Diaries

When The Passion was at #6, this was at #5, and it could easily move back into the top five if it’s as good as early festival buzz suggests. It’ll have to catch on, and stay caught on between September and January. Even then, it faces a couple of uphill battles. First, this looks to be a competitive year for foreign language films in the Best Picture race, and there have never been two foreign language films nominated in the category in any year, and only seven total in 76 years. Second, is this really the year Hollywood wants to be seen as embracing a communist icon? That doesn’t sound like the “heart and soul” of America.

7. Closer

Mike Nichols is hot. So are Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman and Jude Law. Clive Owen is supposed to be hot. And that’s all well and hot, but I think Closer is too insubstantial, too sexually frank and maybe too stagey to become the monolithic awards-darling that Angels in America has become through the lowered expectations of the much smaller proscenium arch of television.

8. Fahrenheit 9/11

A documentary has never been nominated for Best Picture. A documentary had also never been number one at the box-office or broken the $100 million barrier. Will the people who loved it in June still love it in January? More than any other movie this year, this one’s awards hopes hinge on world events. My inclination is that its odds are greatly enhanced if its star wins in November, but I could have that backwards.

The Funny Four
Like I said, I don’t really see any of these happening, but if the Academy’s desperate for a laugh, it’ll probably come from one of these.

9. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
10. Synergy
11. Spanglish
12. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The Runners-up
Small dramas (with the exception of The Phantom of the Opera) that might get their hopes up with some Oscar Season traction, but seem too small from this vantage point to make the final cut.

13. Finding Neverland
14. Kinsey
15. The Sea Within
16. A Very Long Engagement
17. The Phantom of the Opera

The Runners-up to the Runners-up
These seem to have even less of a chance.

18. Sideways
19. Bad Education

Uh… No
Not gonna happen.

20. An Unfinished Life

Predictions in other categories, coming soon...

Questions... and Answers?

2004-08-31T22:14:00.000-07:00

Welcome to The Oscar Grouch!

Let me start off by saying that it’s ridiculously early to be prognosticating the year’s Academy Award nominees. At this point, with most of the likely pool of movies yet to be released, we can only hypothesize based on how these projects look on paper. If Oscar-watching history has taught us anything, it’s that projects that on paper look like sure bets often blow up before nominations are announced – projects like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Pay it Forward, The Shipping News and The Life of David Gale (not to mention non-starters that don’t star Kevin Spacey like The Age of Innocence, Heat, Ghosts of Mississippi, Casino, Nixon, Evita, Marvin’s Room, Jackie Brown, Amistad, Beloved, Eyes Wide Shut, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Hurricane, Almost Famous, The Majestic, Ali, The Royal Tenenbaums, Vanilla Sky, About Schmidt, The Human Stain, The Last Samurai, Love Actually and Cold Mountain). Meanwhile, low-on-the-radar fall movies, unthinkable of as serious nominees before Labor Day, have snuck into the top five – movies like Beauty and the Beast, The Crying Game, Secrets & Lies, Jerry Maguire, Life is Beautiful, The Cider House Rules, Chocolat, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, In the Bedroom, Gosford Park, The Pianist and Lost in Translation. And in the acting categories, there have been even more unpredictable surprises – in August 2000, who in the U.S. even knew the name of Javier Bardem?

The point of all this is, there’s no way to accurately guess the short lists before all the eligible films have been screened. But since everyone else is doing it (in the hopes of attaining bragging rights as the only one to call some shocking nominee), I’ll throw in my two cents.

But before I get to my predictions, there are a few big questions I have about the 2004 Academy Awards:

Will there be a comedy in the Best Picture race?

While it’s a dangerous game to try and apply rules and statistics to a non-united body of 5,739 voters as though they are some kind of machine, and though there are exceptions to every rule, there are some undeniable trends that can guide the prediction process. In the last decade, 1999 was the only year without a comedy in the top five.

And yet, looking at this year’s lineup, I don’t see any comedies leaping out as strong contenders. However, the token comedy nominees are often the ones that emerge as legitimate front-runners for a nomination late in the race (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Babe, Il Postino, Jerry Maguire, The Full Monty, As Good As It Gets, Chocolat, Gosford Park and Lost in Translation).

The comedies that seem likely to be considered this year are: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I [Heart] Huckabee’s, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Sideways, Spanglish and Synergy. As much as I loved Eternal Sunshine and am looking forward to all the others, I just can’t imagine any of them being taken seriously. I know a lot of people are already putting The Life Aquatic on their shortlists, but this movie seems less Academy-friendly than The Royal Tenenbaums, and all that masterpiece could garner was a single nomination for Best Original Screenplay. And while Academy history would suggest that it’s a bad idea to bet against James L. Brooks (75% of his movies have been nominated for Best Picture), there’s that nagging Adam Sandler thing. I was all ready to go out on a limb and suggest that Synergy would emerge as the leading comedy choice, but the mediocre reviews on Ain’t It Cool News last week (along with its way late release date) made me think twice. So now I’m at a loss, but if I have to name one of these comedies as most likely to succeed, I guess I’ll go with The Life Aquatic.

Will there be any pre-September releases in the Best Picture race?

Again, history says yes, but this year’s release schedule says no.

Before 2002, the last time that there were no pre-September releases in the top five was 1988 (coincidentally, in both 1988 and 2002, all five Best Picture nominees were December releases). So statistics are on the side of one of the movies we’ve already seen making it – but which one?

The Dreamers? The Passion of The Christ? Eternal Sunshine? The Ladykillers? Troy? The Terminal? Fahrenheit 9/11? Before Sunset? Maria Full of Grace? The Manchurian Candidate? The Village? Collateral? We Don’t Live Here Anymore?

None of these seem all that likely now, but also as with the comedies, the pre-September movies that make it into the elite five are often far from sure things before Labor Day. When they were released, would anybody have put real money on The Silence of the Lambs, The Fugitive, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Braveheart, Il Postino, Babe, The Full Monty, The Sixth Sense, Erin Brockovich, Gladiator, Moulin Rouge! or Seabiscuit? I wouldn’t have.

So out of this year’s batch, the only two that have anything close to a shot (depending on how the fall movies stack up) would appear to be The Passion of The Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11 – two movies that have a lot of the same positives and handicaps, if not many overlapping fans. It’ll be an uphill battle for both crusaders. The good news for both of them (if I understand at all the complicated math of the Oscars’ voting procedures), is that they only need somewhere around ten to fifteen percent of the Academy to mark them down as their first choice. And since the people who love these two movies really love them, that just may be do-able. The Passion’s fortunes will depend on how many hard-core Christians there are in Hollywood, while Fahrenheit’s fortunes may depend on the outcome of the other election (though I’m not sure yet which outcome would help it more). Pitting Christians against Lefties in Hollywood may seem like a(nother) bloodbath for the Christians, but I give the edge to Mel Gibson

Will there be too much vote splitting?

Will the dueling bio-pics (The Aviator, Ray, Alexander, Finding Neverland, Kinsey, Beyond the Sea, The Sea Within, The Motorcycle Diaries, The Passion of The Christ) and intimate, stagey dramas (Proof, Closer, We Don’t Live Here Anymore) and cross-over foreign language films (The Sea Within, The Motorcycle Diaries, The Passion of The Christ, Bad Education, A Very Long Engagement, House of Flying Daggers) start to cancel each other out? If so, what movies would that leave?

It’s not unheard of to have similarly-themed movies going head to head in the Best Picture race. In 1998, there were three WWII flicks and two Elizabethan indies. In 1990 The Godfather, Part III and Goodfellas had a turf war. And in 1978, Coming Home and The Deer Hunter covered similar territory.

The bio-pics don’t seem like they’ll have too much thematic overlap to worry about, and as David Poland observes, “it is hard to imagine that there will be more than one or two Best Picture slots, if that, that go to non-bio-pics.” But there’s a good chance that serious contenders Proof & Closer and The Motorcycle Diaries & The Sea Within will cannibalize each other, resulting in either one or both of each match-up missing the final cut.

Will there be three repeats from last year in the Best Actor category?

Has this ever happened before? I haven’t done the research yet, but I know it’s at the very least rare, and there’s a good chance that it could happen this year. Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Bill Murray are all being floated as serious contenders this year, lending this category a sense of déjà vu more reminiscent of The Emmys than The Academy Awards.

That's all for now. I’ll be back with my ridiculously early Oscar predictions soon!