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Finding
Oscarland
By
Laura Leon, Ann Morrow and Shawn Stone
Who
will take flight? Who will take it on the chin? Who will sing
hallelujah? Who will wake up feeling used? Our annual look
at the Academy Awards up, down and sideways
‘Two
hours of sparkling entertainment spread over four hours.”
So quipped longtime Academy Awards host Johnny Carson about
Hollywood’s big show in 1979, and the joke is still funny.
Every year they try to find some gimmick to speed things along;
every year the stars find a way to drag things out. And why
not: Whether you’re Julia Roberts or James Coburn, when you’re
on that stage with your little bald, golden statuette, it’s
the moment of your life.
This year, most of the awards-related drama is in the contest
between Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator and Clint Eastwood’s
Million Dollar Baby. Will Marty finally get his due, or will
wily old Clint take home another armful of Oscars?
All of the telecast-related drama is in the debut of Chris
Rock as the Oscar host. Who will he insult most? (We’re hoping
it will be the insufferable Russell Crowe.) How many times
will Rock have to be “bleeped out”? (The broadcast will be
on a short delay, just in case.)
Tune in Sunday night (Feb. 27) and find out.
Best
Picture
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Two
likely winners: (l-r) Swank and Freeman in Million
Dollar
Baby.
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Here
we’ve got one zeitgeisty film (the talky, raunchy Sideways)
that might not have made it in a stronger field; one film
that had no business being nominated (Finding Neverland,
the melancholy and thinly whimsical retelling of the creation
of Peter Pan); and three near-great films, The Aviator,
Million Dollar Baby and Ray. Ray is just
marvelous: a loving, lyrical and joyously musical biopic that
captures both Ray Charles, the man, and his life and times
(from sharecropper shack to the top of the charts). Yet Ray
is bound by the conventions of biography, and owes much
of its heartbreak and effervescence to Jamie Foxx’s dazzling
incarnation. Million Dollar Baby, definitely the candidate
most reliant on heartbreak (and therefore a likely winner),
is ever so slightly marred by its down-at-heels familiarity.
The characters, though immensely appealing, are so pure-of-heart
as to be nearly one-dimensional. And there are visual stretches,
such as the climactic boxing championship, that are more underdone
than subtle. That leaves The Aviator, Martin Scorsese’s
dashing portrait of Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio), as
Best Picture. Not so much a biography as an homage to a particular
era in America, The Aviator presents its vision of
a daring yet damaged innovator with visual panache, narrative
exhilaration, and sensitivity toward its hubristic subject
that doesn’t gloss over the human failings that fueled Hughes’
iconic accomplishments.
—A.M.
Best
Director
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Try
not to be so tall next to Leo: Blanchett (l) is directed
by Scorsese (r) in
The
Aviator.
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This
is not where the action is this year (the heat is in the acting
categories), since the two front-runners, Clint Eastwood and
Martin Scorsese, have greater works in their past (Unforgiven
and Raging Bull, respectively). So let’s knock
Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby out of the ring
straight off. The power of this story—the late-in-life, father-daughter
relationship between a woman boxer (Hilary Swank) and her
flinty old trainer (Eastwood)—comes from the F. X. Toole story
it was adapted from. Though Eastwood is to be commended for
the film’s beautiful performances and pervading atmosphere
of Irish fatalism, there’s little to distinguish the direction
aside from emotional honesty. Whereas in Ray, Taylor
Hackford gives us such quietly bravura scenes as young Ray’s
transition from the world of sight to the world of hearing,
and the watery hallucinations that represent the adult Ray’s
guilt about his younger brother. But overall, Hackford riffs
on Charles’ life without great originality or insight (again,
the heartbeat of the film is Jamie Foxx). For Sideways,
a road-trip comedy about two losers who hook up, Alexander
Payne’s knack for realistic dialogue disguises a bouquet of
shortfalls, such as puerile humor and a condescending attitude
toward the characters (are we laughing with them, or at them?).
And geez, did anybody really want Paul Giamatti’s alcoholic
underdog to get Virginia Madsen’s beautiful-in-every-way girl?
Since
gritty Brit director Mike Leigh doesn’t stand a chance for
Vera Drake, a film about a woman, and an unglamorous
one at that, The Aviator is left again as the year’s
best; this time for Martin Scorsese’s direction, which soars
above the other nominees on its visual élan (the Coconut Grove,
the crash, the crack-up), incomparable soundtracking, historical
relevance (from Hollywood to the halls of Washington) and
smashing storytelling.
—A.M.
Best
Actress
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| Plotting
her revenge—and her Oscar strategy: Bening (l) in Being
Julia. |
As
the Academy is not known for being especially adventurous,
it was a surprise when nominations went to Annette Bening
and Kate Winslet for Best Actress this year. The surprise
isn’t in who they are—both are Oscar also-rans—but in the
roles they’re being recognized for. In the comic farce Being
Julia, Bening is an aging actress who pulls off a hilarious
revenge on both her playwright-husband and selfish boy-toy
lover. In the dark comedy Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless
Mind, Winslet is amazing as a selfish, neurotic Long Island
bitch from hell. And, rare as nominations for performances
in comedy are, it’s even stranger in a year with so many unrecognized
performers, including previous nominee Uma Thurman (Kill
Bill Vol. 2), and Oscar winners Meryl Streep (The Manchurian
Candidate) and Nicole Kidman (Dogville). Nominees
Catalina Sandino Moreno (for Maria Full of Grace) and
Imelda Staunton (for Vera Drake) are more in the traditional
mode. The former is an attractive newcomer who made a powerful
impression; the latter is British. Citizenship aside, it’s
particularly satisfying that Staunton was recognized for her
quietly powerful work in Mike Leigh’s film.
It’s Hilary Swank, however, as the boxer with a heart of gold
in the out-of-nowhere smash Million Dollar Baby, who
will win. Swank is excellent as the dirt-poor young woman
determined to become a boxer. Plus, the character suffers
a great tragedy, which is always a plus for Oscar voters.
Whether she should win is, of course, another matter—my preference
would be a comedienne, either Bening or Winslet.
—S.S.
Best
Actor
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Startlingly
real: Foxx in Ray.
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What
a talented field this year’s Best Actor contenders represent,
and yet, what a travesty, in at least one choice. While this
writer is a longtime admirer (21 Jump Street anybody?)
of Johnny Depp, whose talent has often been underestimated
in light of his “cute” factor, his tap as the playwright James
Barry in the hopelessly fluffy Finding Neverland is
a testament to superior marketing. Clearly, Depp’s place should
have been occupied by the now-twice-ignored Paul Giamatti,
whose deeply nuanced performance in Sideways was laced
with realism and emotion. As for the other contenders,
the real race will come between Jamie Foxx, almost a shoo-in
for his uncanny, fully realized depiction of the late Ray
Charles, and longtime fave Clint Eastwood, who at the ripe
old age of 74 is still showing the whippersnappers—and those
who have long sniffed at his thespian abilities—how it is
done. In Million Dollar Baby, Eastwood gives the performance
of a lifetime, one which is almost painful in its recognition
of human frailty, and yet deeply complex. Tough, and worthy,
competition, then, is Foxx’s intuitive, brilliant portrayal
of the late artist who recently swept the Grammy Awards.
—L.L.
Best
Supporting Actress
While
bettors are guessing that Virginia Madsen, perennial star
of indie and B-grade movies of the last 20 years, will take
home the gold, even her longtime admirers are cringing at
the prospect. Why? Madsen’s role in Sideways, while
a welcome return, is not so much supporting as propping up
the Paul Giamatti character. Heaven knows why Natalie Portman
was nominated, since at times, in Closer, she seems
dreadfully adrift, and not because that’s the way her character
is written. Newcomer Sophie Okonedo is surprisingly strong
playing Don Cheadle’s supportive wife in the emotionally gripping
Hotel Rwanda, but it’s not likely, given the presence
of powerhouses Cate Blanchett and Laura Linney, that she’ll
win. That said, who should win? Blanchett is eerie, yet effective,
as Kate Hepburn in The Aviator (opposite an equally
eerie Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes). Linney has the
decidedly more difficult role, in Kinsey, that of wife,
lover and helpmate (participating in numerous sexual relationships
to help her husband’s pursuit of science), and, with characteristic
aplomb, she delivers an astonishingly honest, delicate portrayal.
Ultimately, however, the Academy will honor Madsen, if only
to make up, in some way, for its omission of Giamatti in the
Best Actor category, and to acknowledge its appreciation of
those cinematic Davids that slew that big-budget Goliaths.
—L.L.
Best
Supporting Actor
As
usual, this category sizzles. It’s impossible to opine on
the best in a field that runs from Morgan Freeman’s low-key
genius as a washed-up but wise ex-boxer in Million Dollar
Baby (a performance that’s all in that molasses-and-whiskey
voice and a knowing tilt of the head) to Clive Owen’s brutish
confidence and ice-cold articulation as a ruthless competitor
in sexual one-upmanship in Closer. Then there’s Alan
Alda, who uses his down-to-earth charm as a weapon of mass
spin-doctoring for the corrupt and wily senator he plays in
The Aviator (and notice the reptilian intensity with
which he observes his prey during a lunch with the struggling
Hughes). But this is a very small role. And Jamie Foxx, who
conveys a palpable sense of morality (way beyond the range
of most action-thriller roles) as the cabdriver who is menaced
by Tom Cruise’s hit man in Collateral, is in a very
large role—in fact, since he’s on screen even more than Cruise,
it should’ve been placed in the lead actor slot, where Foxx
could’ve competed against himself (and which would’ve made
room for Alfred Molina’s entertaining turn as the distorted
but inherently decent scientist in Spider-Man 2, or
for William Hurt as the benevolent patriarch in The Village,
a performance that rivals Freeman’s for subtle and masterly
phrasing).
Still, for technique combined with originality, the best in
show goes to Thomas Haden Church as a fading actor in Sideways.
With ease and naturalism, Church manages the difficult feat
of making a dimwitted sleazebag not just comic, but pathetic
and endearing and somehow less dishonorable than his pretentious
buddy.
—A.M.
Best
Adapted Screenplay
Other
categories may be wide open, but these are pretty much a done
deal. Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry and Pierre Bismuth will
win the original screenplay Oscar for Eternal Sunshine
of the Spotless Mind, while Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor
will nab the adapted screenplay golden whatsis for Sideways.
The former is deserved, on originality and meanness alone,
though some of the competition—particularly Mike Leigh (Vera
Drake) and Brad Bird (The Incredibles)—is first-rate.
I’m conflicted about Hotel Rwanda (Keir Pearson and
Terry George) and The Aviator (John Logan); both scripts
are significant narrative achievements riddled with historical
goofs and painful, though perhaps necessary, simplifications.
The adapted-from-other-material award should not go to Sideways.
Yes, it’s keenly observed and well-crafted, blah blah blah,
but the ending is dishonest. Better that the award go to Paul
Haggis for his razor-sharp screenplay for Million Dollar
Baby, or (my favorite) Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy,
Ethan Hawke and Kim Krizan for the slyly constructed, emotionally
powerful Before Sunset.
—S.S.
And
the Rest . . .
Ah,
“the rest.” You know, like Best Foreign Language Film.
Because of the arcane nominating rules, this category is light
on films people have seen and loved—like House of Flying
Daggers, Bad Education and A Very Long Engagement—and
heavy on films no one has seen at all. None of the five nominees
has opened in the Capital Region. Best Documentary, however,
is a positively audience-friendly category, featuring the
crowd-pleasing, binge-eating Super Size Me and Paramount’s
widely shown Tupac: Resurrection, a doc on the life
of the world’s most famous dead hiphop artist. The smart money
is on The Story of the Weeping Camel, which played
for a couple of days last month at Saratoga Film Forum. No
Michael Moore, though. He bet on a Best Picture nod for Fahrenheit
9/11, and lost.
“The
rest” is also where worthy, notorious or too-commercially-successful
pictures are allotted their shot at any number of technical
prizes. This is where we find Mel Gibson’s The Passion
of the Christ. Passed over (sorry) for Best Picture and
Best Director, POTC earned nods for Best Original
Score, Best Cinematography and Best Makeup.
I saw the film, but the music made no impression at all. The
cinematography, by Caleb Deschanel (The Right Stuff),
was superb. Deschanel is up against some tough competition,
including John Mathieson for his widely praised anamorphic
cinematography in The Phantom of the Opera; Bruno Delbonnel
for re-creating the horrors of World War I in A Very Long
Engagement; Zhao Xiaoding for the dazzling action and
visual bric-a-brac of House of Flying Daggers; and
the likely winner, Robert Richardson, nominated for his evocative,
show-stopping use of color in The Aviator.
Whither Best Makeup? The Passion should win hands down.
OK, so the folks behind Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate
Events worked wonders with Jim Carrey, and the crew on
The Sea Inside transformed handsome Javier Bardem into
an aged quadriplegic. Big deal. Keith Vanderlaan and Christien
Tinsley made us believe that poor Jim Caviezel was having
the living skin flayed from his body.
Finally, this brings us to Best Original Song. Five
songs are nominated. None is Oscar-worthy, because the Academy
saw fit to ignore the songcraft of Trey Parker, Matt Stone
and collaborators in Team America: World Police. If
there were more compelling ditties than “America, F@#k Yeah,”
“Freedom Isn’t Free” and “Everyone Has AIDS” this year, I
didn’t hear ’em. Besides, it appears that Beyoncé is singing
most of the nominated tunes on the Oscarcast; hearing her
tear into lines like “Coming again, to save the motherfuckin’
day, yeah!” while Jay-Z shouts out “Wal-Mart, fuck yeah” would
be priceless.
—S.S.
The
77th Annual Academy Awards will be televised this Sunday,
Feb. 27 at 8 PM on WTEN-TV, Channel 10.
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Columns
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