Oscar Upset in the Works?

We're just over two weeks from the Oscars, with many of the major categories seemingly locked up. However, with the later date of this year's ceremony it's difficult to gauge which direction the buzz is building for certain films and performances. It’s best to try and not to over think certain performances and movies. As much as you want to find an upset in Best Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress races, the truth is all the precursors and buzz point to a foregone conclusion in these races. James Cameron and Quentin Tarantino might pose a threat to Bigelow, but it seems like there is enough support to propel her to victory, regardless of the Best Picture outcome. The two major categories that are most in question remain Best Picture and Best Actress.

Best Actress
Since Bullock's win at the SAG's, people have jumped on the Bullock bandwagon, but her win has never felt that secure. The Blind Side certainly has support as evidenced by its Best Picture nomination, but how deep does that love run? As beloved of an actress as Bullock is, she also lacks the sentiment of being overdue for an Oscar victory. Her SAG win has more to do with the respect she has among all actors, a voting base deeper than that of the actor's branch in the Academy. For many of those voters Bullock is a far fresher face to them than Streep. How deep does that love run outside of the actor's branch?

Despite Streep's two previous victories there seems to be large sentiment that she deserves a third Oscar and her first 27 years. Yet, Streep's performance also comes from a movie that was hardly a critical darling; neither movie seems to be headed to all-time esteem. After comparing these two "lightweight" movies, Streep's performance had garnered more love and praise and that goes a long way in determining a winner. Streep has the further edge in that I expect her to garner more consideration from the other branches (writers, producers, editors, etc) where the Bullock love may not run as deep.

I have read other bloggers that have wondered rather Gabourey Sidibe or Carey Mulligan could win. I won't count out either surprising us with a win, but Sidibe's performance seems to have been lost in the Mo'Nique buzz. Far more likely is Mulligan's chance for a victory Incidents of voter splits have happened in the past (Art Carney beating Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino being the most infamous.) However, I'm most reminded of the Oscars for 2002, when Jack Nicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis were fighting it out for the Best Actor statuette. Yet, in the end Adrien Brody came sweeping in for the surprise win and a kiss of Halle Berry. To that point the only significant win Brody had taken was from the Boston Film Critics, so Brody was barely on the radar come Oscar night. Granted The Pianist gave Chicago a scare by winning Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, indicting some deep love for Polanski's film. An Education does have its strident following, particularly for Mulligan's performance, while remaining a contender in the Adapted Screenplay category. Mulligan is also young and pretty, an attribute that the Academy likes in their lead actresses (in less Katherine Hepburn is involved). Mulligan's performances has its supporters, whether it has enough to win in case of a vote split is unknown.

Best Picture
The Best Picture race is still very much in flux, which is always a good thing. Oscar night is poised to be Avatar vs. The Hurt Locker, a battle of big and small films. Additionally we have ten nominees for the first time in close to 70 years, a decision that has met considerable criticism. Criticism I have found unfounded as the list of nominees includes blockbusters, moderate hits, critical darling and independent hits. Despite the field of ten nominees most people have boiled this down to a two horse race. However, a growing sentiment has arisen that Inglourious Basterds will take the win, or if you listen Kris Tapley over at InContention that Up or Up in the Air are the stealth contenders given the preferential balloting system.

I'm more inclined to side with Kris on this one, as much fun as Basterds is, Tarantino is a still a very divisive filmmaker, which could hurt his film in balloting. This is much my argument against Avatar a film with many lovers, but lacks love across the board. Furthermor, James Cameron's epic has lost buzz since the Globes and even lost some of its box office luster. By the way, I'm less convinced the Globes win means anything, of the last five Best Picture winners only Slumdog Millionaire won at the Globes as well. Yet, The Hurt Locker is hampered by its small gross, something this is somewhat negated by its successful DVD run. Despite its prestige and Oscar's love for the war genre, I never got the feeling of it being an Academy movie either. The movie justly received critical praise and most of the critic awards, but neither did feel like the personal dramas that the Academy tends to favor. If we wanted to predict the win solely on this Precious or Up in the Air would be the likely favorites. Was it so long ago that these two were the favorites?

Given this we must look at the preferential ballot system, which rewards a movie that has a broad range of love not just small pockets of fervor. Up in the Air is far more likely to have broader support than Precious a movie that has garnered considerable criticism since its critical peak. Up is another movie with broad appeal, however it's hampered for being the frontrunner of Animated Film. However, The Hurt Locker has also owns universal love, all three films have been listed towards the tops of many top ten lists. With three movies poistioned with broad support, its difficult to go against the favorite.

Find Karen Allen Some Good Roles

Maybe it's just the fanboy in me, but I've always been a fan of Karen Allen. Always the best of the Indy girls, Allen had a solid career in the late 70's and 80's. She was a winning part of Animal House and starred alongside Jeff Bridges in Starman. However, the only award consideration she received was from the Independent Spirit Awards for her turn in Paul Newman's update on The Glass Menagerie. After finding a couple of supporting roles in Malcolm X and The Sandlot she disappeared before finding notable roles in The Perfect Storm and In the Bedroom. Finally she appeared again in the travesty that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull reprising her most iconic role. Sadly, Karen has never been catapulted into the realm of notable actresses despite her great screen presence. Allen will be 60 next year an age when if an actress can find the right role, she can garner critical attention.

Most Under-Appreciated Oscar Winners

As much as the Academy tries to play it safe many of their choices generate their share of criticism. Crash and A Beautiful Mind have recently demonstrated that. However, over the years a number of films have become either unfairly maligned or forgotten by modern audiences. The following lists several movies that have sustained critical praise, but modern audiences have neglected.


5. Ordinary People (1980)
A movie unfarily maligned for beating Raging Bull, Robert Redford's directorial debut still stands as a powerful family drama featuring great performances from Timothy Hutton, Donald Sutherland, Judd Hirsch and Elizabeth McGovern. While the movie is certainly not as strong as Scorsese's masterpiece, that doesn't diminsh the emotional impact of Redford's movie. The movie never feels as if it is trying to be overly sentimental, but instead allows the audience to act as observers to the lives of its characters.

4. It Happened One Night (1934)
A movie beloved by many film historians, but mostly forgotten by today's audiences, It Happened One Night represents of the finest early "talkies". While today's dating crowd is consumed by trite romances like Dear John and Twilight, Frank Capra's comedy manages to be funny but also romantic. It Happened One Night inspired the coming age of screwball comedies and other romantic movies, but contains more heart, memorable characters and better writing than most that have followed it. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert deliver charming performances and helped prove that sound films were the future of cinema.

3. A Man For All Seasons (1966)
Rarely regarded as one of the worst winners, but rarely discussed regarding 1960's cinema, A Man For All Season is a fine period drama about the life of Sir Thomas More. The movie is well crafted from the costume design, art direction and cinematography. Paul Scofield won an Oscar for his humble portrayal of the Catholic saint, while Robert Shaw delivers a humanistic performance of Henry VIII.

2. The Apartment (1960)
Another highly regarded film that is mostly ignored by modern audiences, Billy Wilder's directs Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon in a brilliant comedy that has aged better than his own Some Like it Hot. Bold at its time for its depiction of infidelity, and playboy lifestyle, The Apartment manages to be insightful while fleshing out well developed characters. Both Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine are fantastic and have a natural chemistry that is central to their relationship. Billy Wilder is one of our most underrated directors and The Apartment is one of his finest films.

1. The Last Emperor (1987)
A somewhat strange choice for the sometimes xenophobic Academy, The Last Emperor swept the Academy Awards winning all nine awards it was nominated for. Under the direction of Bernardo Bertolucci The Last Emperor is a lavish production that focuses on Puyi the last emperor of China. A true epic the movie was the first movie allowed by the Chinese government to be filmed in the Forbidden City. Bertolucci's direction never loses interest in its subject, and invests the audience in the many highs and lows of Puyi's life from his coronation as a child to his time as a political prisoner later in life. Mostly ignored by American audiences for its length, and its setting, The Last Emperor reigns as one of the most overlooked Oscar winners.

William Hurt - Kiss of the Spider Woman

The latest in my addition of Best Actor Winners:

Actor: William Hurt
Character: Luis Molina
Movie: Kiss of the Spider Woman
Director: Hector Babenco
Year: 1985

Other Nominees:
Harrison Ford - Witness
James Garner - Murphy's Romance
Jack Nicholson - Prizzi's Honor
Jon Voight - Runaway Train

When looking the Best Actor field of 1985, I was impressed by the talent of actors, ranging from the television veteran James Garner, Harrison Ford's sole Oscar nomination, the reliable Jon Voight and Jack Nicholson in one of his greatest roles. However, William Hurt would take the big prize in somewhat of a surprise. Kiss of the Spider Woman is notable for helping to bring independent movies to the Oscars, while also being one of the few homosexual movies that Oscar embraced.

The strength of Hurt's performance relies on the great chemistry that he shares with his political prisoner cellmate, Valentin (Raul Julia). Both actors fully flesh out their characters and present two radically different men. Hurt's character relies on his own fantasies and interpreation of cinema to allow him to think outside of his prison walls. Hurt portrays his telling of these stories to his cellmate in both an honest way, but also as a means to gather intel on his cellmate to gurantee his own release. Yet, Luis never wants to betray his friend, Hurt's performance convinces the audience of Luis's love and affection for his cellmate. The love Luis feels for Valentin mirrors that of his favorite movie, and part of Luis' love feels fueld by that passion. Regardless of the nature or the feelings of Luis, William Hurt creates a singular character that helps drive a movie that mainly takes place in a singular location.

Other Awards:
Best Actor: BAFTA
Best Actor: Cannes Film Festival
Best Actor Drama Nominee: Golden Globes
Best Actor: Los Angeles Film Critics
Best Actor: National Board of Review

Roberto Benigni - Life is Beautiful

The latest in my quest to view Best Actor Winners:

Actor: Roberto Benigni
Film: Life is Beautiful
Director: Roberto Benigni
Year: 1998

Also Nominated:
Tom Hanks - Saving Private Ryan
Ian McKellan - Gods and Monsters
Nick Nolte - Affliction
Edward Norton - American History X

While Saving Private Ryan and Shakespeare in Love were dominating the Best Picture race in the winter of 1999, Roberto Benigni's personality dominated the rest of the awards season. A physical comedian out of Italy, Benigni quickly became a household name in America based on his melancholy World War II film about a man protecting his son in a concentration camp in the waning days of the war. I'm going try to refrain from comment on the movie, despite Benigni's performance being key to the overall theme and intent of the story (Benigni wrote and directed).

Benigni delivered one of Oscar's more memorable Oscar moments jumping on seats after his victory, a reaction that seemed just as calculated as his performance. The problem with performers begging for attention like Benigni is its difficult to decipher their personality, as so much of what they do is calculated and about the creation of false personas. As a result the first half of the movie we only get to see Benigni hamming it up without any real characterization. When it is needed to care about his character later the lack of characterization serves as a weakness to the movie, as we don't identify with Benigni's character. There is a certain desperation to Benigni's character but only derives from the film's setting. The lasting result is an unworthy winning performance.

Benigni was supposed to have a successful career following Life is Beautiful, but people quickly cooled on his antics. Benigni's follow up was the bomb Pinocchio, which garnered serious Razzie consideration. Instead the Academy could've given the award to Tom Hanks, much better in Saving Private Ryan than his Oscar winning performances, or to Edward Norton's searing turn in American History X. Instead we're left with one of the more undeserving actor wins of recent memory.

Other Wins:
Best Actor: BAFTA
Nominated Best Actor: Chicago Film Critics
Best Actor: Las Vegas Film Critics
Best Actor: SAG

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Five Most Overrated Best Picture Winners

The Academy has created plenty of controversy in the past selecting such winners as Ordinary People over Raging Bull, Crash and Forrest Gump among others. This list represents my opinion of the five most overrated Best Picture winners. I have excluded those pictures that have lost luster over time (Cimarron,Greatest Show on Earth, Around the World in 80 Days, but rather films that maintained a healthy following.

5. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

The universal acclaim for this movie still baffles me as the movie is a rather simple telling of a modern day Dickensian storyline. The movie certainly has some thrilling scenes, but beyond that the storyline is very conventional. A movie without memorable characters and forced antagonism along with a traditional frantic Hollywood ending that doesn't belong or fit with the rest of the movie. An entertaining movie, but worthy of high praise it is not.

4. The Sting (1973)

A rather strange anomaly in the Best Picture canon, a movie of pure entertainment winning the big prize. Considering some of the other challenging movies of the 70's to win, The Sting simply feels out of place. The movie contains a great cast and is a rather enjoyable, but neither is it memorable. Considering some of the other challenging and more memorable films of 1973, The Sting's victory seem all the stranger.

3. Chicago (2002)

More of Hollywood's apology for not rewarding Moulin Rouge the year before, Chicago provides a few entertaining musical numbers, without a story to care about. Musical sequences have nothing to do with the story and rarely flesh out the characters. By the way the characters are selfish and nasty, hardly traits to identify with. Granted I'm no fan of musicals, but the Academy could've done much better than this bland release, considering The Two Towers, About Schmidt, The Pianist, Far From Heaven and Road to Perdition were also released that year.
2.My Fair Lady (1964)

Just another musical I just don't get. Beloved for its star Audrey Hepburn, My Fair Lady is an overlong production of an overdone story.

1. Shakepeare in Love (1998)

I've started watching this three times, I fell asleep three times, enough said.

Best Director

The Best Director category follows different trends than the acting categories, except for the notable fact that no woman has ever won the award (Kathryn Bigelow has a chance to end that this year.) Only two times has the award gone to multiple directors (The Coen Brothers for No Country For Old Men and Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story. Steven Soderbergh was nominated for twice in 2000, for Traffic and Erin Brockovich, winning for Traffic. Obviously it is important that the director's film be a favorite for Best Picture, with the two having matched just over 75 percent of the time. However, recently Oscar has shown a tendency to split the awards, with 3 times in the last decade,the most in a decade since the 50's.

Film Won Best Picture - 65 times 75%
Average Age - 44.1
Oldest Winner - Clint Eastwood - Million Dollar Baby (74)
Youngest Winner - Norman Taurog - Skippy (32)

This year's nominees

Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker (58)
James Cameron - Avatar (55)
Lee Daniels - Precious (50)
Jason Reitman - Up in the Air (32)
Quentin Tarantino - Inglourious Basterds (46)

A split this year could certainly occur as I suspect Bigelow to take Best Director, while Avatar or perhaps Inglourious Basterds have a chance to win Best Picture. Jason Reitman seems like a threat, but even he is too young to win this award. Other than that most of these numbers really mean nothing, aside from the fact Bigelow would be the first woman to take this prize.

Director

Best Actors Without an Oscar Nom

Christopher Plummer's Supporting Actor nomination this year took him off the list of the greatest actor's to have never been nominated for an Oscar. Vera Farmiga, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Stanley Tucci also got off the snide this year, and considering the many "lucky" nominations many deserving actors will never be nominated. Entertainment Weekly's recent Oscar issue has a list of their top 20 stars who were or have never been nominated. The list certainly has some worthy inclusions, including Donald Sutherland at 2 and Joseph Cotton at 6, but other picks and their placement are odd. Marilyn Monroe at 1? Yes, she was a mega star but to consider her a top actor over others on the list including Mia Farrow is a stretch. Dennis Quaid clocks in at 11 mostly for his snub from Far From Heaven, but is that enough to warrant inclusion on this list. I respect Peter Sarsgaard, but will he have a lasting legacy in the same vein as Fred MacMurray or Kim Novak, both of whom are listed lower. More importantly, where is Warren Oates the centerpiece of Sam Peckinpah's filmography and crucial to Two-Lane Blacktop? Toshiro Mifune who injected soul and passion into Kurosawa's epics is also absent. EW's list is below:


1. Marilyn Monroe
2. Donald Sutherland
3. Myrna Loy
4. Christian Bale
5. Edward G. Robinson
6. Joseph Cotton
7. Jim Carrey
8. Richard Gere
9. Peter Lorre
10. Gary Oldman
11. Dennis Quaid
12. Mia Farrow
13. Richard Pryor
14. Maureen O'Hara
15. Peter Sarsgaard
16. Errol Flynn
17. Jennifer Jason Leigh
18. Fred MacMurray
19. Kim Novak
20. Jerry Lewis

Paul Newman - The Color of Money

The latest in my addition of Best Actor Winners

Actor: Paul Newman                                
Film: The Color of Money
Director: Martin Scorsese
Year: 1986

Other Nominees:

Dexter Gordon - Round Midnight
Bob Hoskins - Mona Lisa
William Hurt - Children of a Lesser God
James Woods - Salvador


Paul Newman's Oscar for his reprising his role Eddie Felson is often cited as one of the greatest examples of Oscar rewarding a favorite actor for one of his lesser performances.  That's not to say that Paul Newman delivers a less than average performance here, but given his great roles in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Hud, Butch Cassidy, Cool Hand Luke, The Sting, The Verdict and later performances in Nobody's Fool and Road to Perdition leave some people wishing he could've received it for a greater performance.  However, his award here is more than acceptable than other career Oscars such as John Wayne's in True Grit.

Paul Newman certainly knows the Fast Eddie character well and he displays that confidently here.  There isn't much trouble buying that Eddie has ended up where he is, Newman takes it even further and displays the character's doubts and strengths as he takes a young hustler under his tutelage.  Eddie still possesses the same confidence, but also must face the realization that he isn't untouchable as he once might have been.  This type of character obviously wasn't new for Newman, so the performance lacks the range of earlier Newman performances.  Despite the simple nature of the performance it is also a performance that is difficult to dislike, and Oscar saw an appropriate time to honor a Hollywood legend.

Bob Hoskins' performance in Mona Lisa likely posed the greatest threat to Newman's win, but with Newman's star power and the smaller nature of Hoskin's film paved the way for Newman. Notably absent in the field were Jeff Goldblum hampered by the sci-fi and grotesque nature of The Fly and Gary Oldman's breakthrough in Sid and Nancy.

Paul Newman's win is notable for being the only time an actor has won an Oscar for reprising a role in a sequel.  Newman was also the third actor to win in  Martin Scorsese film.

Other Wins:
National Board of Review

What Can Kathryn Bigelow Do Next?

As big of a fan of The Hurt Locker that I am, it puzzles me how quickly people are appointing her as one of our great directors.  She showed off her great skill this past year crafting a heart pounding action picture, but it hasn't been until now that she has received such critical acclaim.  Her earlier films have been mostly neglected as simply action flicks, a claim that could also be levied against The Hurt Locker.  Until now Point Break has been her most notable movie, an entertaining movie but the action genre had better examples in the 90's.  Bigelow is also notable for one of the bigger decades larger bombs in K-19, a film headlined by Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson.  Strange Days was a film also evenly divided by critics, Roger Ebert gave it four stars but many other critics note that it falls short of fleshing out its ideas.  I don't want to rag on her as a director, she takes more risks as a director than many of her male counterparts.  Yes, I'm looking at you Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich.  However, I don't think we need to elevate her to auteur status either.