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 The Mexican film "Pan's Labyrinth" is nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, but it may be the best picture of the year in any category. |
This may be the year
Oscar stops looking golden
of TheColumnists.com
This is the first year in more than half a century of Oscar-watching that I had to conduct a major search to find enough Oscar-nominated movies to make my usual predictions about the outcome of the Academy Awards.
Now that I live in a small Washington state community with no movie theaters, I'm getting used to the idea that I'm going to be driving quite a distance to see all the nominated movies. But before I haul out for Seattle, roughly three hours south of me in very heavy traffic, or drive an hour north to Vancouver, British Columbia, and the long wait that means at the U.S.-Canadian border crossing, I generally tell myself, "Well, it'll get to Bellingham in a week or two." Bellingham is only half an hour's drive away.
But it didn't happen. "The Last King of Scotland," featuring Forest Whitaker's performance in the Best Actor category, hasn't shown up yet. Neither has "Venus" with Peter O'Toole's nominated performance in the Best Actor category. Nor has "Volver" with Best Actress nominee Penelope Cruz.
For that matter, the DVD of "Half Nelson" with Best Actor nominee Ryan Gosling just came out last Tuesday or I'd have missed that one, too. The movie never turned up in a theatre in my county. Luckily, I was in Phoenix, Ariz., last week or I might have missed "Little Children" with the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor performances by Kate Winslet and Jackie Earle Haley. (The movie finally opened here Friday night.) And I finally caught "The Pursuit of Happyness" with Best Actor Nominee Will Smith in Phoenix. After a long run, it finally had left the multiplex in Bellingham.
Now I don't expect you to care a whiffle about my trouble catching up to nominated movies. But the movie industry should care--and so should ABC, which has been carrying the annual Academy Awards ceremony for years and years and years.
The trend of the past decade has been clear: Academy members are not nominating many of Hollywood's "big box office" movies anymore, at least not compared to the great number of little "independent" films that have been racking up nominations. What does that tell you?
Let me explain my theory: Hollywood is making too many brain dead movies that are about explosions, special effects creatures or stupidity gone wild. The solid movies of substance are coming from small, independent companies like Miramax used to be before it was swallowed up by a giant corporation. Because most of the big name stars aren't appearing in those little movies like "Little Miss Sunshine," that means a lot of mainstream moviegoers never see them--until maybe they win Oscars.
When they come to town, often they play in one of the few remaining "art houses" and they don't stay around long enough for even the people who want to buy tickets to actually see them.
That translates into a steadily diminishing public interest in the Academy Awards. The TV ratings, which used to rank right up there with the Super Bowl, now are falling off dramatically. And it doesn't help to have The Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild awards and all those other award events already crowning the same movies and performers before the Academy gets around to handing out its Oscars.
Mind you, I'm not complaining about the films and talent that are being honored. I think the Academy members are thumbing their noses at the studios where most of them work and going for the best quality out there. That's good. What's bad is that the studios don't get it: We're tired of remakes, sequels and movies that feel like we've seen them many times before.
Consequently, I predict a lower than usual rating for this Sunday night's Academy Awards (5:30 p.m. on ABC on the Pacific Coast; check your local TV guide for times and channels in your area. Comedian Ellen DeGeneres is the host and, as much as I love Ellen and her comedy, I don't think she's going to draw the sort of viewership that Billy Crystal used to draw when he did the show.
This year all the films nominated for Best Picture are excellent--and they're also pretty off-the-wall. Martin Scorsese's crime picture "The Departed" is the closest thing to a major Hollywood studio production of the five. It's also his best picture since "Goodfellas," so I'm hoping either it will win or the British film by Stephen Frears, "The Queen," will take home the gold.
I really liked "Babel," although I felt it's linked multi-character storyline was too similar to last year's Best Picture, "Crash," to get too much credit for originality. I loved "Little Miss Sunshine," but felt it might be just a bit too slight to grab the Big Oscar. Clint Eastwood's "Letters From Iwo Jima," though infinitely superior to his companion picture about Iwo Jima, "Flags of Our Fathers," didn't engage me enough i;n any of the characters to really sweep me away.
I won't hazard a prediction in the Best Actor category until I've caught up to "Last King of Scotland" and "Venus." Forest Whitaker, who plays former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "Last King," may be the favorite for the Oscar, but O'Toole, always a bridesmaid, but never a winner, could get the Oscar as a sort of "life achievement award." Among the other nominees, I thought Leonardo di Caprio was excellent as a mercenary South African fortune hunter in "Blood Diamond," but thought he was even better in "The Departed," for which he wasn't nominated. I used to cringe when I saw his name in the cast of a new picture, but this year he made me a believer with these two searing performances. He's at the top of his game now and will get his Oscar sooner or later.
A fourth nominee is Will Smith, playing a desperate father trying to keep his little boy safe and secure while virtually penniless as he gambles on winning a job as a junior stockbroker in "The Pursuit of Happyness." Smith has grown into one of our most popular and respected actors and his work in this film is really, really good. I'm also happy to say I had some close-up time with Smith when he was just a young rap singer starring in his first TV sitcom, "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," and he was ALWAYS a gentleman and a very hard-working actor, angled for success.
The only nominee I don't think belongs in the pack is Ryan Gosling, whose performance is nothing special in "Half Nelson," an amateurish and show-offy film about a white teacher in a ghetto school who's a crack cocaine addict. Matt Damon, who was also very good in "The Departed," should have been in there instead.
In the Best Actress category, I think it will be awfully hard to defeat favorite Helen Mirren, whose performance as England's current Queen Elizabeth in "The Queen" is mesmerizingly good. My second choice would be Meryl Streep whose nasty fashion boss in "The Devil Wears Prada" is an absolute knockout piece of work. She's awesomely funny and wicked. Streep can do anything, as far as I'm concerned, and is America's finest screen actress. But the fact that she's a two-time winner already will probably hurt her chances.
As much as I admire Judi Dench--which is a lot--I think she was out-acted by Cate Blanchett in "Notes On A Scandal." (Blanchett is nominated in the supporting actress category.) Kate Winslet, playing a young American wife and mom with "Madame Bovary"-like desires, in "Little Children" was better than I've ever seen her. I wouldn't weep if she earned the Oscar. But I haven't seen Penelope Cruz in "Volver," so I'll reserve judgment until I catch that film..
In the Supporting Actor category, we also have five very worthy contenders. Though I haven't liked anything Eddie Murphy has done since the original "Beverly Hills Cop," I thought he was quite good in "Dreamgirls," even though he probably was recycling his wonderful James Brown impression from his "Saturday Night Live" days while playing the Brown-like soul singer.
My second choice would be Mark Wahlberg as the embittered Boston cop in "The Departed" and I also like former child star Jackie Earle Haley as the paroled child molester in "Little Children." He's so creepy you need a bath after watching him in this role, which means he's either quite an actor or he's grown up to be a real creepy guy. Veteran Alan Arkin is wonderful in "Little Miss Sunshine," but it's a comic bit and maybe not important enough to rate an award. Djimon Hounso is excellent as Di Caprio's reluctant partner in "Blood Diamond," but I don't think it's up there in Oscar-worthy territory.
I can't imagine newcomer Jennifer Hudson, the rejected "American Idol" contestant who went on to star in "Dreamgirls," not getting the Best Supporting Actress Oscar to go with her Golden Globe. She's really wonderful as both a singer and an actress. This is a showstopping performance and may be her only chance at an Oscar for some time to come.
My second choice is Cate Blanchett as the teacher caught in a sex scandal in "Notes On A Scandal," although I thought Adriana Barraza as the honest, but unthinking Mexican babysitter in "Babel" was superb. I was less impressed with Rinko Kikuchi as the sex-happy deaf girl in "Babel" and little Abigail Breslin, who plays the title role in "Little Miss Sunshine," was a joy throughout that movie, but I don't think it's the sort of effort that needs an Oscar.
For me, Marty Scorsese deserves his long elusive directing Oscar for "The Departed," a mature work by a great filmmaker that makes up for some of his flops of recent years like "Gangs of New York," but I think an equal case could be made for "The Queen," an almost perfect film that has one of the best screenplays in decades, but was also beautifully put together by its talented director, Stephen Frears. The other nominees-- Clint Eastwood for "Letters From Iwo Jima," Alejandro Gonzalez Inarrito for "Babel" and Paul Greengrass for "United 93"--all did fine work, but they were less impressive than Scorsese and Frears this time around.
Let me add this one other note: I think "Pan's Labyrinth," the Mexican film that's among the nominees for Best Foreign Language Film, may be the best all-around movie of the year. It's a wildly-imaginative, brilliantly realized fantasy film with a serious, adult message. I think director Guillermo del Toro deserves an Oscar for something and I'm not the least bit particular about where he gets it.
Hollywood is entering a new phase and I think the absence of big box office films from the Academy Awards sweepstakes tells us what direction we're heading. Overall, it may be bad news for the Academy Awards as a TV event, but as long as good pictures are being made and recognized, maybe we should hold off on the crying towels.
©2007 by Ron Miller. The poster reproduction is courtesy of . The "Oscar" logo and the phrase "Academy Awards" are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. This column first posted Feb. 19, 2007.
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