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A
Shotgun Guide to Oscar Time
2004
By Eric Barker
The Oscars
are evolving, but toward what, nobody knows.
A couple
of years back the Academy moved its show from its time-honored
Monday night spot to Sundays, because the broadcast hasn’t
interfered with box office receipts in decades. This year
they made a more important switch, lopping one month off the
traditional three-month campaign season that has been part
of Oscar mania in Hollywood since 1939, which was the first
year that voting results were sealed in envelopes until the
big night.
Both moves
were calculated to bolster television ratings, since the Oscar
broadcast is the Academy’s chief source of revenue.
The thinking was, fewer people were watching the show because
there are now so many award programs, the public was bored
by the whole thing when March rolled around. Of course, studies
done by the Academy have also shown that fewer people were
watching because they hadn’t seen most of the nominated
movies. For about 60 years, the audience has dutifully given
a box office bump to nominees, they checked-in on Oscar night
to see who won in the acting and producing (Best Picture)
categories, and they often gave more box office dollars to
the winners.
It seems
ticket buyers have grown somewhat tired of the game. With
the exception of the 1998 broadcast (for 1997 films), when
all-time box-office champ Titanic was nominated for everything
except the most important element of a movie, its screenplay,
Oscar’s TV ratings have been in steady decline. This
kind of puts a crimp in the fabric of the plan, since the
Oscar show was originally designed as a promotional tool for
prestige movies, the movies that were a bit more literate
and were a harder sell for the general public, the movies
that critics thought Hollywood should make and audience should
see for their own good.
If the
audience is no longer taking the bait, a little facelift like
a shortening of the schedule isn’t going to help. The
Oscars are determined by a small coterie of the most successful
industry professionals, and they tend to make decisions and
place their votes based on how hard it is to get a good movie
made, rather than how entertaining a film is, or even if it
adheres to the eternal verities. This is the most reliable
constant in predicting the Academy Awards, and always will
be (I predict): a film’s difficulty as a production
trumps every other aspect of its Oscar-worthiness. Including
box office, including TV ratings.
Another
good predictor: the Oscars are about honoring those we should
have honored last year, or last decade. It’s not really
about the year’s “best” at all, but about
the most surprising, to the Academy, anyway. “Gee, Johnny,
Bill...we didn’t know you could be so funny/dramatic/honest.”
Particularly in the acting categories, this year’s ranks
of nominees are filled with people who should have a damned
Oscar by now.
In advising
how to make predictions, I normally suggest avoiding cynicism
and leading with your own intuition. Because sometimes the
Academy does the right thing, even though the whole process
is dependent on democratic voting, which is anathema to critiquing
art. This year, I’m putting aside Academy history and
going with more gut reactions, just to keep it interesting.
One thing
to like about the Oscars: they retain the distinction of parsing
movies into their individual components. Can you imagine an
award for Best Film Editing at the Golden Globes? Sound Recording
at The People’s Choice Awards? Or Documentary? No, and
for me, this is why the ceremony of the Little Gold Man still
retains a sliver of dignity, a smidgen of validity. At the
end of the day, the Academy cares about montage, by golly,
they care about movies and processes no one else considers.
You wanna bolster ratings? Stick to movie stars.
Time for
predictions. Some of what follows is informed guessing, just
like any Oscar pool, some of it is unenlightened hogwash because,
really, no one knows anything until the envelopes are opened.
Will Lord of the Rings finally get some recognition at the
end of the evening, instead of its customary token nods at
the beginning? How important is it for Sofia’s chances
that her last name is Coppola? Just how beautiful is Charlize
Theron?
Don’t
look for predictions in the Documentary and Short Subject
categories; even I’m not dumb enough to venture a guess
on movies I have no way of seeing. Mostly. I will venture
a fervent wish that Errol Morris’ The Fog of War wins
Documentary Feature over the repulsive, smug, self-serving
Capturing the Friedmans.
In ascending
order of importance:
Makeup:
Pirates of the Caribbean
All three
nominees here were big, tough jobs. In spite of last year’s
win for a subtle period movie, I’m betting this year
it’ll be a bone tossed to Disney. My vote: Master and
Commander.
Foreign
Language Film: The Barbarian Invasions (Canada)
Since
foreign language films are rarely seen in this country unless
they win this award, impossible to predict, but still, I make
a guess out of deference to world cinema. This year I think
it will go to our closest neighbor. My vote: the Columbine-like
Evil.
Visual
Effects: Return of the King
Hereafter
known as ROTK. For the third time in a row, New Zealand’s
magnificent effects houses Weta Workshop and Weta Digital
will steal the thunder from everyone else because they have
done it all. And they have proven the value of time-honored
crafts, like detailed analog miniatures, in the age of CGI.
Sound
Mixing: Master and Commander
This one
is awarded to the sound laborers, to the people who record
dialogue on the set, and to the mixers who spend months blending
every crashing cannonball, grunt, word and musical note into
a seamless flow. Sound mixing is rarely given to the same
people as the next award, so I’m betting this award
will be for recreating “reality.” This time, both
awards could go to one movie though...
Sound
Editing: ROTK
What’s
the difference? Goes to the supervising editors, the Big Bosses
of sound, the designers who chart the position for each burble
and rumble on the soundtrack, down to the second.
Best
Song: Sting, “You Will Be Ain True Love” from
Cold Mountain
I never
get this one right. Most often it goes to three-chord romance,
sometimes it goes to a musical legend. Almost never does it
go to a film in contention for Best Picture. This year, I’m
betting on romance. My vote: “A Kiss at the End of the
Rainbow” by Michael McKean and Annette O’Toole
Music
Score: Danny Elfman, Big Fish
I never
get this one either. At first I thought ROTK here, but Howard
Shore already laid the groundwork for this score, and won
an Oscar, with his beautiful Fellowship of the Ring melodies.
Voters might think it was redundant. Thomas Newman did a nice
comic score for Nemo, but I’m going to play favorites,
cast aside cynicism, and pick long overdue Danny and his wildly
eclectic Big Fish score, to win.
Best
Costume Design: ROTK
Going
out on a limb here, predicting with my heart as well as my
head. Designer Ngila Dickson is also nominated for The Last
Samurai, which was spectacular to be sure, but I think ROTK
will win because it was just a huge job, just enormous, bigger
than any winner in this category for the past three years.
It’s time.
Best
Art Direction: ROTK
Same thing,
and here’s where the whole three-great-movies-factor
will start coming into play. Though The Lord of the Rings
has been passed over here the past two years, everyone in
the Academy has now had enough time to realize that there
were thousands of wonderful sets involved in making these
movies. Yes, a lot of CGI helped, but the actors were just
as often walking around in full-size halls and spider lairs.
Give it to the Kiwis!
Best
Film Editing: ROTK
Long-time
Peter Jackson colleague Jamie Selkirk is going to win this,
even though he didn’t cut together the other LOTR films,
because he shaped the most impeccably choreographed battle
scenes of the trilogy with great subtlety and musical rhythms.
Long shot spoiler: Master and Commander’s Lee Smith.
Best
Cinematography: Seabiscuit
Extraordinary
racing scenes (that are lost on television, even when letterboxed);
rainbows of color both brilliant and muted; moving drama photographed
in every weather, every terrain; light and shadow in equal
measure. And John Schwartzman made it all look very easy,
which is always appreciated.
Best
Animated Feature: Finding Nemo
Aside
from the fact this was the year’s biggest box office
smash, I don’t see how the animated feature committee
could fail to notice that it’s another Pixar masterpiece.
If they gave Oscars for vocal talent (something the actors
branch will probably never allow), Ellen Degeneris would win
for sure. Had there been no other animated features this year,
Nemo would get a special Oscar anyway, for spreading hilarity.
Perhaps the seagulls will accept the statuette.
Best
Adapted Screenplay: ROTK
Very tough,
very tough to guess, because there are four great adaptations
nominated this year, and one really good one (Mystic River).
But with ROTK, we’re really talking three movies again,
an enormous undertaking which Peter Jackson, his soul mate
Fran, and various helpers pulled off with shocking é
lan and wisdom. If they don’t win, it’ll be because,
well, the Academy doesn’t want to overdo the whole Peter
Jackson thing. My vote: American Splendor.
Best
Original Screenplay: Lost in Translation
Sofia
Coppola is not just a sentimental favorite here; she wrote
a bittersweet May-September friendship that lingers in the
mind for its restraint and authenticity. She did something,
in fact, which most punk American filmmakers wouldn’t
even have the chops to attempt, let alone accomplish: she
captured melancholy without descending into the maudlin. That
said, Oscar loves family continuity, and Papa Coppola has
three writing Oscars.
Best
Supporting Actress: Renee Zellweger in Cold Mountain
Full disclosure:
I haven’t seen Cold Mountain. But I like Renee (all
right, all right, I’ve been obsessed with her since
Jerry Maguire). She’s a terrific character actress,
and she should have won for Nurse Betty. Oh wait, she wasn’t
nominated. No matter, I’m told she steals Cold Mountain
from the pretty people, and I think it’s finally her
turn.
Best
Supporting Actor: Tim Robbins in Mystic River
It’s
a performance devoid of the blazing intelligence that Tim
Robbins, as a person, exhibits in his typical roles. Like
everyone in Mystic River, Robbins went the extra mile for
Eastwood and became his character, a man who wears decades
of inner torture on his face. The Academy has avoided nominating
Robbins for a decade because he was a political hot potato,
but I think these days he’s looking a lot better to
them.
Best
Actress: Charlize Theron in Monster
See Monster.
Charlize gives the performance of her career, nothing she’s
ever done has remotely prepared us for the fires burning inside
this woman. It’s not just a beautiful-gal-gets-ugly
star turn, it’s the real deal, it’s De Niro in
Raging Bull, a great performance in a very unsettling, thought-provoking
film.
Best
Actor: Bill Murray in Lost in Translation
Everybody
says Sean Penn, Sean Penn, and they may be right, he deserves
it by now, he gave two priceless displays of his enormous
talent this year, in Mystic River and 21 Grams. But I think
the Academy will go for uplift at this point. They’ll
go for the sentiment. Sean Penn will get another great role.
Murray
has deserved a nomination at least half a dozen times in the
last twenty-five years and never been noticed; his performance
in Lost in Translation, while totally Murray-esque, is completely
charming and winsome, and that is never as easy as it looks.
Try it some time.
Best
Director: Peter Jackson for ROTK
This is
not why he made the movies, this is not the payoff. PJ made
these films out of his love and respect for Tolkien, and out
of an insane, unstoppable passion for moviemaking. The joys
of imagery and storytelling drive him. Anyway, until now he’s
been too busy to stop by and pick up an Oscar. But it will
be a sweet moment when his name is announced, not just for
him, or Fran, but for the millions of fans around the world
who have supported his grand vision.
Best
Picture: ROTK
It’s
thrilling, it’s moving, it’s funny, suspenseful,
and it’s the best epic in years. And, it’s fantasy,
a genre Oscar never notices. But this time they will. Every
imaginable aspect of filmmaking went into these films, including
heart and honor and morality, and there’s really nothing
that compares to them.
So, at
least two trips to the podium for PJ, since this award goes
to the producers. The only question is: Will the normally
camera-shy Mrs. Jackson, Fran Walsh, step up with him to get
her trophy?
Finally,
the lone Honorary Award: to Blake Edwards
No one
asked me about this one. Though his comedies became a little
strident and lewd in the later years, there’s no doubt
this guy made some classic knee-slappers, especially the Inspector
Clouseau romps with Peter Sellers. Occasionally insensitive,
Edwards tried anything for a laugh.
Number
of Oscars that I accurately predicted last year: 9 out of
20
Sources
of interest:
All
About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy
Awards by Emanuel Levy, Continuum Books.
The
Academy Awards Handbook by John Harkness, Pinnacle Books,
updated annually (contains a smart guide to predicting).
www.oscars.com
www.oscars.org
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