Jack Nicholson and Leonardo DiCaprio in 'The Departed'
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Stop-Loss
In Bruges
City of Men
Hancock
Wanted
Waiting for Oscar
Ed’s annual predictions
This year's Academy Awards broadcast (Sunday night at 8 p.m. on ABC) faces two big problems: a dearth of widely-seen films and a lack of viewer passion. Of course, movie buffs are all fired up for the festivities, but the academy wants to reach a much broader audience. A battle between blockbusters would draw a larger crowd, but the box office for this year's Best Picture titles is on the shaky side. Of the Big Five nominees, Martin Scorsese's The Departed is the only film to break the $100 million barrier (around $130 million as of this writing) and achieve blockbuster status. As for its competition, Little Miss Sunshine (just under $60 million) and The Queen ($49 million) are solid hits, Babel ($32 million) is doing so-so and Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima is struggling at less than $10 million.
Art shouldn't be measured by money, but half the fun of the Oscars is arguing the relative merits of the films with your friends and, unfortunately, most of your friends haven't seen most of the nominees.
But wait a minute, you say, last year's Best Picture nominees (Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash, Good Night and Good Luck and Munich) made even less money and everybody was talking about the awards. The difference between now and then is Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee's sad, haunting tale of a tortured love affair between two young ranch hands, was quickly dubbed "the gay cowboy movie" and became a hot topic months before its release, with late-night talk show hosts and wise guys everywhere retooling every tired gay joke in the book to fit the premise. The incessant mocking irked a lot of people and somewhere along the line, Brokeback stopped being just a movie and became a symbol for the gay rights movement in general to a substantial number of folks on both sides of the issue.
The Brokeback Mountain debate stirred up a tremendous amount of heat, and that passion affected the whole Academy Award experience. In fact, the conversations became even more heated when, after winning virtually every other award on the circuit, the film lost the Best Picture Oscar to the ensemble drama Crash.
You won't find that kind of passion this year. The only controversy so far was over the films and actors that didn't get nominated. More about that later.
The bottom line is that water cooler chatter about this year's Oscars has been less than lively, but don't despair. We still have the actual program coming up, with numerous exceptional films and memorable artists in contention for the gold statue. And even if the nominees aren't all that exciting, the show has great potential. Host Ellen Degeneres has proven herself to be a solid, if perhaps a bit too polite, host on other award shows. Hopefully, she'll really let rip here. Also, the possibility of big, juicy gaffes is great, since, with the public now soundly against the Iraq war, some of the presenters and winners will likely decide the time is perfect to make a stirring celebrity political statement. Oh, how would the world carry on without celebrities to show us the way? And even if the participants (anticipatory shudder) behave themselves, fashion lovers can always amuse themselves by cheering or booing the women's evening gowns.
So here we go with the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 79th Annual Academy Awards Nominations
Best Motion Picture of the Year
Babel
The Departed
Letters From Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen
Welcome to the blurriest Best Picture race in years. The frontrunner would be Dreamgirls, except — oops — it didn't get nominated in this category. So what's up with that? How does a hit musical — the academy loves musicals — get nods for Best Supporting Actor and Actress, along with several other categories, while being shut out of the Best Picture list? For fun you can encourage your Oscar party guests to create their very own conspiracy theory.
Of the films that did receive nominations, Letters From Iwo Jima is least likely to win, I think, because while it's very well-done and admirable and all, it suffers from being unrelentingly fatalistic and a tad too reserved. The Queen is an exceptional character study of the royal family, but again, the film is probably too reserved for the academy.
Babel could win. It's a multistory drama with a big cast, like last year's winner, Crash. I found each of the plotlines long-winded and thought the Tokyo story was too thinly tied to the rest of the film, but hey, I don't get to vote.
Little Miss Sunshine was a surprise nomination. The academy rarely picks comedies for the Best Picture category, but Little Miss Sunshine has had a charmed run, culminating in winning the top prize at the recent Screen Actors Guild ceremony. On the downside, the film has a well-worn sitcom premise and the ending is sloppy as hell. On the upside, the dysfunctional family road comedy is funny as hell and it boasts an ensemble cast that mostly lives in the Los Angeles area (think Crash). Comedies rarely win and this is a flawed comedy, but count Little Miss Sunshine as a contender.
Which brings us to the last, and best, film in the category. The Departed is a corker of a gangster movie, a smart, snappy, suspenseful, violent-as-all-get-out cops and robbers story adapted by Martin Scorsese mostly from the acclaimed 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs. The premise is great, the cast is great, the director is … you get the idea. The buzz is that the movie is too violent for the conservative academy. Hopefully the buzz will prove wrong, because it would be a real drag if the best picture doesn't win Best Picture.
SHOULD WIN: The Departed
WILL WIN: It's a toss-up between The Departed, Babel and Little Miss Sunshine, but I'm optimistically betting on The Departed.
Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
Peter O'Toole, Venus
Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness
Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Forest Whitaker, who was amazing in The Last King of Scotland, will win the award. I'm 99 percent sure on this one. The only alternative I can imagine is if the academy, which gave Peter O'Toole an honorary Oscar a few years ago, opts to award him a real one for his ripping good performance in Venus. As for the others, the very talented Ryan Gosling's award was in getting nominated, Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for the wrong film (Blood Diamond instead of The Departed? Egads!) and Will Smith, having established his dramatic actor credentials this year, will have to wait until he's a little older to take home the big prize. Forest Whitaker will win and let's hope he gives a better acceptance speech than he has at all the other awards shows. Enough with the stammering and acting surprised. He knows he's going to win as much as we do, so he needs to take a few minutes and compose a coherent acceptance speech.
SHOULD WIN: I love you, Peter, and you were fantastic, but I've got to go with Forest Whitaker.
WILL WIN: Forest Whitaker
Best Actress
Penélope Cruz, Volver
Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal
Helen Mirren, The Queen
Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada
Kate Winslet, Little Children
Helen Mirren will win the award. Absolutely. Positively. You could bet the farm on this one, except that no one would take the bet because they also know she is going to win. The incredibly versatile actor gave a quietly stunning performance in The Queen and has been mowed down by the awards show competition for weeks and weeks. I could assess the other performers in the category, but it would be a waste of words, because Helen has it nailed. Her acceptance speeches are pretty good, too.
SHOULD WIN: Penélope Cruz, who is so much stronger and more appealing when speaking her native Spanish, was exceptional in Volver, but Helen Mirren takes the cake.
WILL WIN: Helen Mirren
Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine
Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children
Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond
Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls
Mark Wahlberg, The Departed
Alan Arkin was a hoot in Little Miss Sunshine and Djimon Hounsou was powerful as the desperate father in Blood Diamond. Little Children star Jackie Earle Haley, missing in action since Breaking Away and The Bad News Bears, proved to be the comeback kid of the year. Good on ya, Jackie! Many people were surprised when Mark Wahlberg got the supporting actor nomination over his much more celebrated co-stars, but the ex-pop star/poster boy gave the best performance of his career as the wise-mouth, tough as nails cop in The Departed. Wahlberg's successful career-turnabout is quite an achievement (Fun Fact: In 1992, he dedicated his autobiography to his dick.) and he'll get a lot of votes for that, but not enough to beat Eddie Murphy, who managed to play a dramatic role as an out-of-control singer in Dreamgirls without ever causing viewers to think about his comic portrayals of similar characters back in his SNL days.
SHOULD WIN: I'd vote for Wahlberg, in part because of his performance and in part because I'm mad at Murphy for making me sit through Norbit.
WILL WIN: Eddie Murphy
Best Supporting Actress
Adriana Barraza, Babel
Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal
Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Rinko Kikuchi, Babel
What a strong field. Cute young Abigail Breslin was dandy in Little Miss Sunshine, but not dandy enough to win. Rinko Kikuchi's sad, disturbing performance as a depressed teen in Babel was certainly memorable and her cast mate Adriana Barraza was also quite effective as a housekeeper/nanny who gets swept into a nightmare. Cate Blanchett was great in Notes on a Scandal, but then again, when isn't she great? You could make an argument for each of the women, were it not for the Jennifer Hudson Cinderella story. The American Idol runner-up proved to be an effective actor in Dreamgirls and she brought down the house with her singing. Jennifer has taken home lots of awards from groups that love her talent and her rags to riches personal story. Some unpleasant yapping to various entertainment tabloids may have turned off some voters, but not enough to keep her from snagging the trophy.
SHOULD WIN: Jennifer Hudson
WILL WIN: Jennifer Hudson
Best Director
Clint Eastwood, Letters From Iwo Jima
Stephen Frears, The Queen
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Babel
Paul Greengrass, United 93
Martin Scorsese, The Departed
The Departed is the best movie of the past year. Filmmaker Martin Scorsese, the man behind Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The King of Comedy and Goodfellas, has never won an Academy Award. He will win this year because it would be a crime if he didn't. The other directors did excellent work as well, but give me a break. Scorsese deserves it for this movie. He deserves it for being passed over all those other times. And he deserves an honorary Oscar for Best Eyebrows.
SHOULD WIN: Martin Scorsese
WILL WIN: Martin Scorsese
Best Adapted Screenplay
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Children of Men
The Departed
Little Children
Notes on a Scandal
Children of Men is a powerful film, but there have been grumblings that it's not nearly as rich as the book. For Little Children and Notes on a Scandal, the nomination is their prize. Hey, how bizarre, not to mention entertaining, would it be if Borat won? It won't though, because the screenplay for The Departed is so well-crafted and packed with quotable lines.
SHOULD WIN: The Departed
WILL WIN: The Departed
Best Original Screenplay
Babel
Letters From Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
Pan's Labyrinth
The Queen
The real contenders here are Babel, Little Miss Sunshine and The Queen. If Babel wins, don't be surprised if it takes Best Picture, too. I'd opt to reward the tight-as-a-drum screenplay for The Queen, but my guess is the only Oscar destined for the film is in the Best Actress category. As I mentioned before, Little Miss Sunshine suffers from a sit-com premise and a messy ending, but the fact that the writers made it work despite the not-insignificant problem areas is impressive enough to draw the majority of academy votes.
SHOULD WIN: The Queen
WILL WIN: Little Miss Sunshine
Best Animated Film
Cars
Happy Feet
Monster House
The Pixar folks are famed for the innovative feel of their CGI features, but Cars, though technically impressive, was nothing special in the screenplay department. Happy Feet got preachy near the end, but overall the film had a bright feel. Monster House was flat, despite all its efforts to be kinetic, and the motion capture animation was creepy. Hey, and where is the nomination for A Scanner Darkly?
SHOULD WIN: Happy Feet
WILL WIN: Cars
Best Art Direction
Dreamgirls
The Good Shepherd
Pan's Labyrinth
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
The Prestige
Dreamgirls is the winner here. The other nominees are deserving, but Dreamgirls beautifully recreated an era bursting with cheesy clothes and hairstyles and did so without succumbing to campiness.
SHOULD WIN: Dreamgirls
WILL WIN: Dreamgirls
Best Cinematography
The Black Dahlia
Children of Men
The Illusionist
Pan's Labyrinth
The Prestige
The camerawork in Children of Men was a crucial part of the film's appeal. The choices were bold and smart, and it never felt like the cinematographer was showboating.
SHOULD WIN: Children of Men
WILL WIN: Children of Men
Best Costume Design
Curse of the Golden Flower
The Devil Wears Prada
Dreamgirls
Marie Antoinette
The Queen
I don't know about things like this. My guess is that Dreamgirls will win because the costumes looked authentic and the voters are still feeling guilty that they didn't nominate the film for Best Picture.
WILL WIN: Dreamgirls
Best Documentary Feature
Deliver Us From Evil
An Inconvenient Truth
Iraq In Fragments
Jesus Camp
My Country, My Country
An Inconvenient Truth will win because it triggered conversations all over the world and documentaries that break through to the mainstream audience almost always win.
WILL WIN: An Inconvenient Truth
Best Documentary Short
The Blood of Yingzhou District
Recycled Life
Rehearsing a Dream
Two Hands
Haven't seen any of these, so I'm basing my pick on what I've seen on numerous online Oscar prediction Web sites.
WILL WIN: The Blood of Yingzhou District
Best Film Editing
Babel
Blood Diamond
Children of Men
The Departed
United 93
Tough call. All five films are deserving. I'd probably vote for United 93, but I think Babel will win; either as part of a surprise sweep or as a consolation prize for being passed over in the top category.
SHOULD WIN: United 93
WILL WIN: Babel
Best Foreign Language Film
After the Wedding, Denmark
Days of Glory, Algeria
The Lives of Others, Germany
Pan's Labyrinth, Mexico
Water, Canada
No question about this one. Probably.
SHOULD WIN/WILL WIN: Pan's Labyrinth
Best Makeup
Apocalypto
Click
Pan's Labyrinth
Or this one.
SHOULD WIN/WILL WIN: Pan's Labyrinth
Best Original Score
Babel
The Good German
Notes on a Scandal
Pan's Labyrinth
The Queen
Babel's score stood out without seeming pushy or heavy-handed.
SHOULD WIN/WILL WIN: Babel
Best Original Song
"I Need to Wake Up," from An Inconvenient Truth
"Listen," from Dreamgirls
"Love You I Do," from Dreamgirls
"Our Town," from Cars
"Patience," from Dreamgirls
WILL WIN: "Listen"
Best Short, Animated
The Danish Poet
Lifted
The Little Matchgirl
Maestro
No Time for Nuts
Of the nominees I've seen, the Norway/Canada feature The Danish Poet was the standout. It's the pick of most of the pundits as well.
SHOULD WIN/WILL WIN: The Danish Poet
Best Short, Live Action
Binta and the Great Idea (Binta Y La Gran Idea)
Eramos Pocos (One Too Many)
Helmer & Son
The Saviour
West Bank Story
Four of the five nominees are deserving (sorry, Binta), but the crowd pleaser is the spirited and funny West Bank Story, a 21-minute absurdist homage to West Side Story focusing on a love affair between a boy and a girl at dueling food stands in the Middle East.
SHOULD WIN/WILL WIN: West Bank Story
Best Sound Editing
Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Flags of Our Fathers
Letters From Iwo Jima
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Guess why I don't think Apocalypto will win.
SHOULD WIN: Apocalypto
WILL WIN: Letters From Iwo Jima
Best Sound Mixing
Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Dreamgirls
Flags of Our Fathers
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Ah, that quasi-Motown sound!
SHOULD WIN/WILL WIN: Dreamgirls
Best Visual Effects
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Poseidon
Superman Returns
Pirates may have been wildly overdone, disorganized and indulgent, but the effects were great, especially the guy with the squid head. No one remembers Poseidon and Superman Returns looked too creamy, though the first big rescue was a knockout.
SHOULD WIN/WILL WIN: Pirates of the Caribbean
Local Oscar parties
Want to attend the Oscars with your own entourage? There are a number of Oscar parties this Sunday. Here are our top picks.
Oscar Oscar @ Radio Radio
Where: Radio Radio (1119 Prospect Ave. in Fountain Square)
When: Sunday, Feb. 25, 6 p.m.-12:30 a.m.
Tickets: $20 in advance (see the Web site), $25 at the door
Who: This is a 21 and over event
Dress: Black tie encouraged
http://indyfilmfest.org/specialevents.html
A benefit for the 2007 Indianapolis International Film Festival, Oscar Oscar @ Radio Radio will feature fun, food and frivolity as you cheer on our favorite movies on the industry’s biggest night. Door prizes, a silent auction and a movie-themed art competition fill out the event, which will also let you in on a few of the movies Indianapolis International Film Festival will be showing at its annual festival in April.
Key Cinemas Oscar party
Where: Key Cinemas (4044 S. Keystone Ave. in the Keystone South Shopping Center)
When: Sunday, Feb. 25, 6:30-11 p.m.
Tickets: Free
Dress: Casual
Who: All ages
Entertainment: Door prizes, including a season pass to Key Cinemas
www.keycinemas.com/; 317-784-7454
Key Cinemas, the long-running independent movie theater, is throwing an Oscar party, showing the broadcast on their HDTV giant screen. Note that Key is also showing a number of Oscar nominees: Academy Award Nominated Short Films: Live Action and Animated (reviewed in last week’s NUVO), while adding the Oscar nominated documentary Iraq in Fragments. Click here for Ed's review of Iraq in Fragments.
United Way’s Evening at the Oscars
Where: IMAX Theater at the Indiana State Museum (650 W. Washington St.)
When: Sunday, Feb. 25, 7-11 p.m.
Tickets: $75 each
Dress: Black tie optional
Who: This is a 21 and over event
Entertainment: Rob Dixon & Triology +1; emcee Ryan Hupfer
United Way of Central Indiana, together with Oscar Night America, is hosting Indiana’s only event officially sanctioned by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. See all the glitz and glamour on the (really) big screen at the Indiana State Museum’s IMAX Theater. This unique fund-raiser recreates the pageantry of the Academy Awards, complete with walks down the red carpet and press interviews of arriving guests. Enjoy delicious themed appetizers and drinks while bidding on items in the silent auction. To purchase tickets, www.uwci.org/index.asp?p=525 or contact Jody Pope at 317-920-3460 or jody.pope@uwci.org.
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