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A
Shotgun Guide to Oscar Time
By Eric Barker
“Nobody
knows anything.”
-- two time Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman on
the Academy Awards
After
last year’s nearly unprecedented display honoring -- what
the hell was that anyway? Towering mediocrity? Finally, this
year, an Academy Awards selection I can get behind. Sort of.
Now: none
of us really watches the Academy Awards to find out what was
the “best” of the last year at our local multiplex, except,
perhaps children and the terminally naïve. The Oscar Spectacle
is a glamour fest for movie fans where the movers and shakers
du jour line up to be seen in outrageously expensive gowns
and coifs, schmooze other movers and shakers, and honor the
product their friends and neighbors have turned out since
last year. One of the most successful promotional schemes
in movie history, the Academy Awards are, in fact, sincere.
In their own glitzy, kitschy, insincere, Hollywood way.
What I
mean is: the films that wind up being nominated, and/or winning,
really do reflect what the American Film Industry believes,
or would like us to believe, is high-minded and serious and
worthy. The Oscars are always a time capsule of current wisdom
in The Business, rather than a scientific sampling of cinematic
thought, and predicting what will win remains an interesting
parlor game primarily because, really, there is no predicting
what Academy voters will do.
Ten years
ago, through a fluke of sheer dumb luck and arrogance, I predicted
The Silence of the Lambs would defy all indications,
historical and political, and sweep the coveted “Top Five”
-- Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director and Screenplay.
My crystal ball has never been as reliable since, and anyone
who says they predicted last years’ muddle, with Screenplay,
Director and Picture going to three different films, will
find themselves being chased around the block by Yours Truly,
angrily waving a very heavy book of Oscar trivia. “You’ll
never do it again,” I will yell.
It helps
that Tinsel Town produced a much better crop of big-budget
movies last year than they did in 2000, getting back to an
overall slate in which the brass and brains were evenly distributed
over 12 months. As always, leave it to the Academy to overlook
a great many good movies as if it was their time-honored duty,
but it must be said they are busy making a living just like
everyone else, and as the producer once quipped, “Someone
has to finish sixth.” Still, it would have been nice to see
Steve Buscemi, for instance, get a nomination for his sweet
portrayal of a jazz geek in Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost World
(but then, it would have been nice to see him get one for
his bumbling kidnapper in Fargo, five years ago). He’ll wind
up getting some kind of honorary Oscar thirty years down the
road, when today’s young filmmakers, remembering him fondly,
will have been elected to the Academy’s Board of Governors.
Meanwhile, hey, he eats well and he works.
In so
many ways, Oscar is always about who should have gotten the
nod years ago. What I like about this year (and didn’t about
last) is how many deserving people the Academy DID manage
to recognize and nominate, and there’s enough of them in the
big categories like Actress and Director, that I really don’t
care who wins. It’s going to be a pleasing evening for me.
Way too long, packed with silliness and groans, sure, but
a lot of my favorite show biz people being patted on the back,
nevertheless.
Be advised,
these are predictions, not preferences. For those who can’t
keep it straight (like me), branches nominate, the whole membership
votes. That is, art directors nominate art directors, but
everyone votes in the final ballot on all categories. And
I don’t predict Documentary and Short Subject awards because,
aside from the fact that no one I know cares, I NEVER SEE
THEM. But here’s the important thing to remember when trying
to pick the Oscars: they’re not really about image, anymore
than they are about excellence. As multi-hyphenate nominee
and winner Warren Beatty says, “The Golden Globes are fun.
The Oscars are Business.”
I have
abbreviated The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
throughout as LOTR 1.
In ascending order of importance:
Sound
(Effects) Editing: Pearl Harbor
Like many
Oscars, usually goes to the biggest job, which in turn usually
means a very expensive movie. The actual technique being honored
is the creation and mixing of every engine sputter and bullet
whine and hawser creak. A bone tossed to lesser films with
good craftsmanship behind the scenes. With only two nominees,
it doesn’t take much sweat to deduce Pearl Harbor’s lone victory
here.
Sound
Recording: LOTR 1
You may
ask, “What’s the difference?” and rightly so. Goes to the
Re-Recording Mixers, generally three guys (and lately, more
and more gals) who assemble everything -- sound effects, music,
dialogue from the shoot and dialogue from looping sessions
-- and weave it together in a suitably dramatic mix. Although
it is a more elegant craft than the creation of pure sound
effects, it is still usually given to a blockbuster film that
was a lot of work. Not much question that LOTR 1 will win
this, though watch out, Moulin Rouge’s sound track is probably
the most complicated nominee, and Musicals, back when they
used to make them, always won this award..
Visual
Effects: LOTR 1
One of
my favorite categories (first initiated in 1963, at the 36th
Oscars) because there’s rarely a doubt it is going to the
best example of the craft. There’s not a lot of subjectivity
involved in whether or not the visual effects make us believe;
they either do or they don’t. This category has been the nearly
exclusive domain of Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light and Magic
for two decades, but it’s clear the Down Under crew for LOTR
1 holds all the trump cards this time.
Best
Song: “May It Be” from LOTR 1
My least
favorite category. A few prescient triumphs aside (“Over the
Rainbow” in 1939, “Theme from Shaft” in 1971), this award
almost always goes to the most uninteresting, sentimental
garbage the Academy’s music branch can find. Every now and
then, like last year‘s Bob Dylan, a legend will be nominated,
and then be awarded for being a legend, in addition to offering
a pretty good song. This year’s legendary song nominees are
Paul McCartney, for the “Vanilla Sky” title tune, and wry
songsmith Randy Newman, who has been nominated in this category
7 times without ever winning. But I think it’s going to go
to Enya and company for their “May It Be” from LOTR 1, a pretty
standard piece of romantic fare.
Music
Score: LOTR 1
All the
nominees are such veterans of film scoring, they are near
institutions -- this is not the first time, for instance,
that John Williams has had 2 nominations in this category
in the same year. James Horner has made it here frequently,
while first time nominee Howard Shore has the weird distinction
of having scored 61 films, in the past twenty-three years,
before finally getting noticed. And then, there’s Randy Newman.
A brilliant songwriter, scion of a founding Hollywood musical
family, he’s deserved it many and many a time without ever
winning. But, I’m going to pick Howard Shore’s LOTR 1 score.
Way to go, Howard. I always pick Newman and he never wins.
Maybe this will be good luck for him.
Makeup:
LOTR 1
Again,
I can’t see anything but LOTR 1, especially since multiple
Oscar-winner Rick Baker isn’t nominated for his great work
on Planet of the Apes, a film that obviously did not
impress the Academy voters. The Makeup branch has seen Rick
do all that before. But this award goes to the MOST makeup,
rather than the best. And that would be hobbits, wizards,
dwarves, elves, orcs and Viggo, not an admittedly clever Toulouse
Lautrec.
Foreign
Language Film: Amé lie
Getting
excited? Yeah, this is when you know the big ones are coming.
Only a few more commercials. Look for French entry Amé
lie to score a victory here in its continuing conquest
of the U.S. box-office. It’s about time they gave it to a
Jean-Pierre Jeunet film.
Best
Costume Design: Moulin Rouge
Another
favorite category, though it should be called Most Costume
Design. The thing is, like Visual Effects, the work is all
onscreen, and its dramatic value is obvious and essential.
Also, it frequently goes to a film that doesn’t have a chance
in any other category, but which is pretty good anyway. So,
I’m just guessing you understand, but I think the decendants
of Edith Head will pick the period-piece-on-acid aesthetics
of Moulin Rouge. If they don’t, this one also belongs
to LOTR 1.
Best
Art Direction: Moulin Rouge
I may
have this one mixed up with Costume, but it won’t be the first
time. By now, LOTR 1 has taken 5, maybe 6 Oscars, if I know
anything, and we’re all thinking we’re looking at a sweep.
I’m not convinced though. More than one visual feast is nominated,
and I think Moulin Rouge will get this one: definitely surreal,
but still anchored in more reality than the Tolkien opus.
Actors moving through real sets, not digital; that’s what
the art directors really admire, and will for some time. So
will actors, who represent the largest voting block in the
Academy. If I’m wrong, things are really changing fast, and
some artisans are throwing their hands up in despair.
Best
Film Editing: Memento
An underrated
category, the importance of which no one wants to admit, because
what we’re getting into now, or beginning to get into, is
the meat of storytelling. In the final analysis, film is assembly,
bringing the elements together. Oddly enough, this award goes
to Best Picture winners at an indifferent and unpredictable
rate; editors often go for innovation in their voting, or
at the very least, excitement over critical buzz. While Moulin
Rouge is an exciting piece of editing, and LOTR 1 is an
action-adventure masterwork of difficult montage, I think
the voters are going to be hot for Memento, the most purely
cinematic piece nominated. No frills, no flourishes, just
tough, hard-boiled storytelling. Backwards.
If I’m
wrong, LOTR 1 could take the entire evening. And that would
not be a bad thing.
Best
Cinematography: LOTR 1
First,
the Cinematographers branch has a great appreciation for the
art of their European brothers, especially if they’re English.
Second, this is once again an award given to a film that doesn’t
stand a chance in any other category, frequently one that
hasn’t even been nominated in any other category. Cinematographers
don’t honor murkiness as a rule, so Moulin Rouge’s
evocative and colorful darkness shouldn’t win; The Man
Who Wasn’t There, is also too dark, and artsy, and black-and-white
besides. But LOTR 1, in addition to its startling CG landscapes,
has some good solid outdoor photography, which is harder to
shoot than indoors and which the cinematographers always prefer
over domestic drama when they can. The only nominee that was
as much work is Black Hawk Down, and it’s not out of
the question it could win. Think Outdoors. Outdoors.
Best
Animated Feature: Shrek
A worthy
new category, long overdue, with no traditions to fog up the
forecast. Yet, that is. From the example of the first 3 nominees,
it doesn’t appear that anything very demanding will make its
way into the category any time soon. DreamWorks’ Shrek,
is without doubt the most popular film here, over the independent
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and Pixar’s Monsters,
Inc., and it would be a great surprise if that loveable
ogre didn’t win.
And now,
the hard ones:
Best
Adapted Screenplay: A Beautiful Mind
In spite
of recent Oscar idiocy, I still believe screenplay is intimately
tied to Best Picture. Screenwriters are certainly fond of
the idea that they are the primary reason any movie succeeds,
casting coups and visionary directors and other collaborators
aside. Given the nominees (A Beautiful Mind, Ghost World,
In the Bedroom, LOTR 1, and Shrek), and being a
screenwriter myself, I would personally vote for the Tolkien
adaptation, because it does the impossible task of making
a vast, alien universe palatable for a general audience, and
wraps it all in a superb adventure package.
But Best
Picture wins one of the screenplay awards, most frequently
in this category, and I don’t think LOTR 1 is going to get
Best Picture (reasons below). So, I predict A Beautiful Mind
will get this one, a literate drama with lots of recognizable,
earthbound characters suffering hardship and joy and hardship
again, the sort of thing screenwriters spend their lives learning
how to do well. It’s basic, Emotionally Intelligent Screenwriting
101. If LOTR 1 triumphs here, the evening is over.
Best
Original Screenplay: Memento
It will
be observed (drum roll) that films made from original source
material get the Best Picture nomination much less often.
Adapted Screenplay, above, has three Best Pic nominees. Original
Screenplay has one (Gosford Park).
It used
to go to foreign language films. Of late -- say, the last
decade -- this award goes to some terrific independent film
everyone wishes had gotten more notice. That would be Memento
again, the best twist on the thriller genre since The
Usual Suspects won this award in 1995. Of course, Gosford
Park has a real chance at this one because: a) it is an
excellent piece of work, and b) it won the Writers Guild Original
Screenplay award. But Memento was shut out of the WGA voting
because its authors were not guild members. It wasn’t eligible.
Now that it is, I think the Academy membership will lean in
its favor.
Best
Supporting Actress: Jennifer Connelly
Much harder
than it looks. One reason is the Maggie Smith Factor: this
is her 6th nomination, and she’s won twice, an unequivocal
Academy favorite and a truly great performer. For that matter,
all the actresses nominated here are working at the peak of
their form, no doubt pulling voter sympathies in five different
directions. But it’s really between British stage titan Helen
Mirren in Gosford Park, and Jennifer Connelly, doing
a Grace Kelly-style coup in A Beautiful Mind as the
long-suffering-yet-gorgeous spouse of a schizophrenic. Mirren
deservingly won the Screen Actors Guild Award (SAG) a few
weeks ago, and I’d love to see her win here, too, but I think
the Academy will bestow its favor on Connelly’s impressive
honesty.
Best
Supporting Actor: Sir Ian McKellan
No contest:
Sir Ian McKellan, for bringing Gandalf to hilarious and moving
life in LOTR 1. It’s marginally possible Jon Voight could
pull an upset here with the comeback/survivor factor, but
not likely. Only the magnificent Ben Kingsley has a chance
against Gandalf, for his Sexy Beast psycho, and he was much
better than his film.
Best
Actress: Halle Berry
The hardest
choice.
Harder,
in fact, than this year’s supporting actress category, although
the nod to René e Zellweger is clearly a “just-be-patient-we’ll-get-to-you”
sort of gesture, and the Dame Judi Dench citation is just
another brick in the pedestal of her legend. But there are
no less than 3 strong contenders with lots of cache to their
nominations: Halle Berry won this category at the SAG Awards
and many of the same people are voting here, with a chance
to make her the first African-American winner of Best Actress;
Nicole Kidman has had an outstanding year in the tabloids
as well as on screen, and sympathy is running very high for
her in the film community (call it the Liz-Taylor-Circa-1960
Factor); and former winner Sissy Spacek has thundered back
into Academy voter consciousness with her image shattering
role as a grieving parent.
Since
I must step out of my objectivity box at least once in these
predictions, I’m picking Ms. Berry: a) because she’s great
in Monster’s Ball, b) because Ms. Spacek’s campaign
has lost its initial buzz, and c) because Warren Beatty said
he was voting for her. So is my sister, and that’s another
good reason.
Best
Actor: Russell Crowe
Or as
it’s known in my house, Best Handicapped Guy, or Best Straight
Man Playing a Gay Man. As much as the Actress awards are about
genuine craft, the Actor awards are about show. That rules
out the venerable Tom Wilkinson’s subtlety, for starters.
Will Smith did a good impression of Muhammed Ali, but the
film wasn’t very good. That leaves frequent Academy favorite
Denzel Washington, scoring his fifth nomination in fourteen
years, this time as a very scary guy; Sean Penn, getting his
third nomination in six years, as a handicapped guy; and Russell
Crowe, getting his third nomination in three years, as real-life
genius and schizophrenia victim John Nash. The “real-life”
is important.
There
has been a great deal of buzz about it going to Denzel, while
the Academy has been doing its best since Dead Man Walking
(1996) to convince Mr. Penn they like him, but the simple
fact is this: El Crowe has won every major award for this
performance, and he should have. A Beautiful Mind,
unlike Gladiator, shows off just how good an actor he is when
he gets the right material. Add to that an ugly “whisper campaign”
since the nominations were announced, concerning Nash’s supposed
anti-Semitism, a move that will likely backfire and cancel
some of Russell’s recent bad boy press.
I’m predicting
the Academy will, for the second time in a decade, give two
Oscars in a row to the same actor. They screwed up last year
and jumped the gun, but this is a Crowe performance that says,
“See, this is why we like him. Deep down he‘s sensitive.”
And if I’m wrong, I’ll be very, very happy for Mr. Washington.
Again.
Best
Director: Ron Howard
This one’s
a lock. Legends David Lynch (Mulholland Drive) and
Robert Altman (Gosford Park) are here out of deference
to their enormous talent, not because they have a chance.
Lynch could care less, and Altman is a famously outspoken
critic of the Oscars. Ridley Scott (Black Hawk Down)
is here because, once again, he did not make a science fiction
movie, and because he directed last year’s Best Pic, Gladiator.
That leaves first time nominees Peter Jackson, for LOTR 1,
the biggest directing job of the year in terms of sheer logistics
(and probably next year, and the year after that), and Ron
Howard, who is young enough to be Robert Altman‘s son, but
whose show biz career is almost as long. Last week he won
the Directors Guild Award for A Beautiful Mind, which
makes him all but certain for the Oscar, and frankly, it’s
about friggin’ time. He’s a journeyman craftsman who always
delivers a smart entertainment, and this film is his most
deeply felt and interesting.
I predict
that Peter Jackson will just have to wait, possibly until
LOTR 2 & 3 have been delivered.
And then
there’s the Producers’ Award...
Best
Picture: A Beautiful Mind
This is
an award we traditionally examine as if it was about the finished
product, the story, or the director, but it has always been
given to people, not a product. That’s how the relatively
tame Driving Miss Daisy (1989) could win over Field of Dreams
and Born on the Fourth of July: the award was going to Richard
Zanuck, son of a legendary Hollywood family, and his spouse
Lili, not to the movie (and not to Oliver Stone).
LOTR 1
still has a considerable chance here for several reasons:
it’s the longest film, it has the most nominations, it’s an
epic in every sense, and it’s an adaptation of a successful
book, all aspects that consistently impress Academy voters
in every generation. There’s a good chance many younger voters
have even read the book and dreamed of seeing a decent movie
version. But they’re likely to be from the Visual Effects
and Sound Recording branches.
Major
elements working against LOTR 1 are its genre, and the fact
that it is unfinished. No science fiction or fantasy film
has ever won Best Picture. As two-time Best Director and fun-meister
Steven Spielberg once said, “They don’t give Oscars for fun.”
And LOTR 1 is only the first of three parts in the same big
story. Many curmudgeonly voters will be saying, “Ah, let’s
wait until it’s all put together before we decide.”
A Beautiful
Mind has a 91% chance of getting Best Director, and therefore
a 74% chance of winning Best Picture. And the actual nominees
are longtime Hollywood producing partners Brian Grazer and
veteran actor-writer-film director Ron Howard, two guys who
gave the beloved Tom Hanks his first big break, way back when.
If Hanks is the presenter for this award -- they always pick
a star-of-stars to present Best Picture -- the other nominees
can start for the exit. Maybe get a good seat at the Governor‘s
Ball. And a stiff drink.
Honorary
Awards: Sidney and Bob
The extraordinary
Sidney Poitier will be getting an honorary Oscar, presumably
just for being Sidney. Rent his movies. Robert Redford will
be honored for founding the Sundance Institute. Rent his movies,
too.
Barker’s Oscar Index;
or, the Little Gold Man by the numbers:
Year of
first Academy Awards ceremony: 1928
Current
number of voters in the Academy: 5,607
Number
of voters in the Directors Guild of America: 12,000
Number
of voters in the Directors’ branch of the Academy: 350 Last
day for Academy members to turn in ballots: March 19
Science
fiction and/or fantasy films nominated for Best Picture since
1928: The Wizard of Oz (1939), Miracle on 34th Street (1947),
Dr. Strangelove... (1964), Mary Poppins (1964), Dr. Dolittle
(1967), A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Exorcist (1973), Star
Wars (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), ET -- The Extra-Terrestrial
(1982), Field of Dreams (1989), Ghost (1990), Beauty and the
Beast (1991), Babe (1995), The Sixth Sense (1999).
Of these
15 films, number that won: 0
Number
that could also be considered children’s movies: 8
Number
that could also be considered musicals: 4
Number
that could also be considered comedies: 11
Number
of comedies that have won Best Picture since 1928: 9
Performers
who have won back-to-back Oscars in the same category two
years running:
Spencer
Tracy (Best Actor 1937-1938), Katharine Hepburn (Best Actress
1967-1968), Jason Robards (Best Supporting Actor 1976-1977),
Tom Hanks (Best Actor 1993-1994).
Last time
there was a tie vote for Best Actor: 1932 ( between Wallace
Beery in The Champ and Frederic March in Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde).
Last time
there was a tie for Best Actress: 1967 (between Katharine
Hepburn in The Lion in Winter and Barbra Streisand in Funny
Girl).
Year Halle
Berry was born: 1968
Year Sissy
Spacek made her film debut: 1970
Percentage
of years in which the longest nominated film has won Best
Picture: 44
Percentage
since 1991: 40
Number
of times since 1949 the Directors Guild and Oscar have differed
over Best Director: 5, out of 53 (9%)
Number
of times since 1928 that Best Picture and Director have gone
to different films: 19, out of 73 (26%)
Number
of times since 1991: 2, out of 10
Number
of times since 1997: 2
Total
John Williams nominations for Best Score or Best Song: 41
Wins:
5
First
Williams nomination: 1967
Total
Randy Newman nominations for Best Score or Best Song: 16
Wins:
0
Number
of movies scored by Randy Newman since 1971: 27
Number
of movies scored by Randy Newman’s uncle Alfred Newman in
a forty-five year career: 247
Ratio
of nominations to wins for Alfred Newman: 45:9 (5:1)
Ratio
of nominations to wins for costume designer Edith Head: 34:8
(4.25:1)
Sources
of interest:
The
Academy Awards Handbook by John Harkness, Pinnacle Books,
updated annually (contains a smart guide to predicting).
70
Years of Oscar by Robert Osborne, Abbeville Press, updated
every 5 years (contains every nominee in every category, category
histories, interesting statistics).
www.oscars.org
www.calendarlive.com
(the LA Times entertainment section)
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