Oscars 2009: Previews and Predictions
Posted: 02/02/09 2:14PM
Filed Under: Oscars 2009
By JASON ANDERSON
Ostensibly Hollywood's chance to honour the year's best achievements in cinema, the Academy Awards rarely work out that way. For one thing, the awards show - which airs Feb. 22 - is best appreciated by celeb obsessives as a chance to judge who's on top, who's on the way up and who's bottoming out.
But what's really been bottoming out in recent years is the show's ratings - last year's edition was the least-watched on American TV ever. The disruption caused by the same writers' strike that scuppered the Golden Globes was one reason for the 20-per-cent ratings dip, but it's hard not to suspect that viewers weren't so invested in a contest between so many star-less movies that they hadn't seen - the only bona-fide box office hit up for Best Picture last year was Juno. Others - like There Will Be Blood, for which Daniel Day-Lewis won Best Actor - were dark and strange enough to qualify as art with a capital A and therefore bound to alienate the masses.
Best Picture Nominees |
More than likely this year's winner, everybody's favourite under'dog' focuses on a young man's dream to get the girl and win some money. Will he rise up from the slums of Mumbai and achieve his dream? Will the girl eventually realize that even though he's not the greatest-looking guy, he's the best choice? Despite the evident cliche-ridden script, the film has warmed hearts the world over, and its popularity shows no sign of abating. |
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The pressure was on the 2009 Oscars to rectify this imbalance between art and commerce and once again widen its appeal. That much was obvious when two-time host Jon Stewart was spiked in favour of Hugh Jackman. The beefy star of Australia and the upcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a polished, affable fellow but don't count on the world's sexiest man to have Stewart's boredom-relieving forte for snappy quips.
If the Academy Awards really wanted to assert a more populist bent, then it's blown a golden opportunity in regards to the movies up for nomination. The last twelve months had a rare bounty of blockbusters that also attracted wide critical acclaim - in other words, movies that people actually saw in big numbers and just about everyone liked a lot. Yet the Academy members did not extend Best Picture nominations to The Dark Knight or WALL-E. Also missing was Gran Torino, a seeming sure thing due to Clint Eastwood's Oscar track record and the movie's warm reception.
At the same time, great movies of more modest scales didn't do much better - many are relegated to lesser categories (Cannes favourites The Class and Waltz With Bashir only get best foreign film nods) or not represented at all. Oodles of critics prizes didn't put Sally Hawkins of Happy-Go-Lucky or Michelle Williams of Wendy and Lucy into contention for Best Actress.
Best Actor Nominees |
Milk Strangely, Penn's astounding performance as gay rights activist Harvey Milk didn't win the Globe, though many thought he should have. For someone as gruff and seemingly harsh as Penn to grasp this role so completely (and convincingly) is enough to help him win the Oscar. |
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Instead, the list is dominated by middlebrow dramas that didn't elicit much excitement among audiences or critics. The Reader epitomizes that trend, what with its pedigree (it's another literary adaptation by the team behind The Hours) and big important theme (it's another Holocaust drama in a season that was glutted with them). That the film isn't very good will probably not prevent it from winning an Oscar or two. The same goes for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - with 13 nominations, it's this year's most favoured film yet it's hard to believe anyone could be very passionate about such a coolly dispassionate work.
Thankfully, the underdog story of Slumdog Millionaire may enliven the proceedings - Danny Boyle's Mumbai-set saga may not be a Juno-sized hit yet but at least it's a movie that works hard to win over a crowd. Here are some more picks and predictions, made in the hopes that the Oscars hasn't entirely lost the plot.
Great Performances
The awards season thus far has produced many opportunities to ponder one burning question: what the hell's with Mickey Rourke's face? While it's still a matter of debate whether the man seen on the red carpets lately is the same one we remember so fondly from Rumble Fish and 9 1/2 Weeks, consensus is forming that his valiant, vulnerable, career-resurrecting performance in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler deserves every possible accolade. His Golden Globe win in January puts him in pole position for the Oscar.
Best Actress Nominees |
The Reader Winslet used to go by the adage 'Always a nominee but never a winner,' until she won TWO Golden Globes this year. Pundits think the double win will curse her Oscar chances, and we're inclined to agree. But you never know with these awards shows - she could surprise us all and end up the winner. |
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The only man who can catch him is Sean Penn, who's both captivating and charming (a real achievement for the oft-prickly actor) as pioneering gay politician Harvey Milk in Milk. He beat Rourke for the best acting prize from the Screen Actors Guild and has won equally the same number of citations from critics' organizations. Frank Langella's performance in Frost/Nixon has plenty of fury, too, but he seems destined to be passed over, as does Richard Jenkins in the sleeper hit The Visitor and Brad Pitt's low-key time-traveller in Benjamin Button.
Without Hawkins in contention, the Best Actress category is less clear-cut. The oft-nominated Kate Winslet would've seemed likely to repeat her two-fer triumph at the Golden Globes if she'd been nominated for the right movie - it's her performance in Revolutionary Road that should be in the running, not the one in The Reader, for which was rightly relegated to the Best Supporting Actress category at the Globes. Likewise, Meryl Streep's at her most mannered and Streep-y in Doubt - indeed, she was more engaging in the trashier and far more popular Mamma Mia!
The chances of Changeling's Angelina Jolie seems doomed owing to the lack of enthusiasm for Clint Eastwood's two movies of '08. The so-so American indie Frozen River didn't register with enough viewers to give Melissa Leo more heat. With Winslet and Streep possibly splitting the vote, Anne Hathaway could walk away with it for her cred-enhancing turn in Jonathan Demme's under-nominated Rachel Getting Married. It certainly wouldn't be the first time youth beat experience at the Oscars.
Not Just Second Fiddles
Speaking of youth, the desire to honour an actor who died way too early trumps all other considerations when it comes to Best Supporting Actor. It helps that Heath Ledger's psychotic Joker was also the most exciting thing in The Dark Knight. The late Ledger has it wrapped up, though it was good to see the usually comedy-averse Academy voters also recognize Robert Downey Jr.'s ludicrous and ingenious blackface act in Tropic Thunder. The situation for supporting actress contenders is as fuzzy as it is for the leading ladies but expect one of Doubt's two honorees to win, with Viola Davis edging out co-star Amy Adams. Penelope Cruz's tempestuous turn in Vicky Cristina Barcelona -- which now counts as Woody Allen's biggest hit since Hannah and Her Sisters -- could also win if voters aren't so suspicious of the funny stuff.
Behind the Camera
The sheer abundance of nominations for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button suggests it's bound to win plenty of statuettes, if not necessarily the big prizes. It should clean up in the technical categories for its age-manipulating CG effects (impressive if hardly seamless - the geezer Pitt still looks damn freaky), plus take wins for Claudio Miranda's cinematography and Alexandre Desplat's soundtrack. It'll have more trouble in the writing and directing categories if a certain slumdog pulls off an upset (see below).
For original screenplay, here's hoping Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon are honoured for their inventive, wry and wondrous work on WALL-E, the movie whose absence among the Best Picture nominees is most conspicuous. (Even the egghead cinephiles who vote in the Village Voice/LA Weekly annual critics poll gave it top honours.) They'll otherwise have to be content with the Best Animated Feature prize, seeing as the only serious competition they might've had for that award - Waltz With Bashir -- was only cited in the Best Foreign Film category. Actually, the Israeli animated doc could've also qualified for Best Documentary - expect the enthralling Twin Towers tale Man on Wire to win that.
Best in Show
The keenest irony of this year's Oscar contenders is that a low-budget, principally Hindi-language film set in India and cast largely with young unknowns may have far more mass appeal than a $160 million Hollywood production with two huge stars and much CGI wizardry. That the former nearly didn't get released makes its feel-good story all the sweeter.
The box-office battle between Slumdog Millionaire and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was decidedly lopsided at the time of the nominations - as of the end of January, Slumdog's worldwide gross was US$72 million while Button topped US$130 million. But the fight's hardly over, what with Boyle's film just beginning to pick up steam in North America and David Fincher's more lumbering romantic melodrama rapidly losing its novelty value. Top prizes from the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild have added to the smaller film's momentum.
So it should be a big night for Slumdog Millionaire, which is set to prevail in the key categories of Best Picture, Best Director (Boyle) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Simon Beaufoy). What's more, it deserves to -- the craftiest of crowdpleasers, it straddles the art-commerce divide with a finesse that's sorely lacking among this year's other Oscar nominees. Its win would also add some drama to a show that's awfully eager to play it safe and widen its own appeal yet went about it all the wrong ways.
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