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Chris's Best Picture Oscar Predictions 2002

Written: 10 February 2003

Oscar nominees to be announced: 11 February 2002

 
With not a minute to spare, I offer you my predictions on the Academy Awards' Best Picture race for 2002. The nominees will be announced, as usual, on the second Tuesday of February.

A quick recap, for those who haven't been with us before: I've been doing these Best Picture predictions for about seven years now. Why? It's more fun than trying to predict the ultimate winners at the Oscar telecast, and I enjoy watching award-caliber flicks in the otherwise dismal months of January and February. I stick to the Best Picture contest because it's the prestige award, and because the stakes are highest – a studio can ride a Best Picture nod to the bank, and the pre-nomination lobbying is fierce.


A Shrinking Pool

Like last year, this year's race looks a little murky. There has been little agreement among critics' polls and other reliable indicators. But it would be a mistake to call this year's race wide-open. With the major studios producing ever fewer non-franchise, non-popcorn, non-braindead-two-weekends-and-it's-gone pictures, the pool of major awards-caliber movies keeps shrinking every year. You can pretty much limit the serious contenders in this year's race to less than 10. That said, there are really only two shoo-ins I can detect this year (more on them in a minute), and any of the other eight flicks is a legitimate contender for the remaining three slots. Last year, in a fluke, I went five for five; I'm not banking on a repeat performance.

This would be a good time to talk about the "indie" factor. All of this year's serious Oscar contenders are being called "indies,", but it's a term that's come to mean very little. After the boom in actual independent movies in the 1990s, the major studios got wise and formed "classics" divisions under their roofs to handle the smaller-budget, higher-prestige pictures that were starting to steal Oscars from them. So, many of the movies called "indies" these days are distributed by small divisions of the same multinational conglomerates offering you Kangaroo Jack.

On the flip side, the indie shop that started the boom, Miramax (itself a division of Disney), has gotten so pumped up it's effectively a major studio in its own right, even though it continues to handle smaller and prestige pictures. People love to grumble about the Weinstein brothers' cutthroat Oscar tactics, but Miramax has made a legitimate comeback this year: they have at least three serious Oscar contenders. As a result, Miramax is this year's prime X-factor; are Hollywood insiders annoyed enough with the Weinsteins to try to punish them? That may sound petty, but movies often get nominated for Oscars – or get shut out – for petty reasons. As for my picks, much as I would love to see the Weinsteins go home empty-handed, I am predicting that all three of their contenders will make the final five. For what it's worth, none of these contenders cost less than $20 million to make, and one of them cost more than $100 million. So much for the indie aesthetic.

Before I offer my picks, a reminder that these are predictions for Oscars, not a top-five list of my favorites. For the record, if it were up to me, the five Best Picture nominees would be Y Tu Mama Tambien, About a Boy, The 25th Hour, About Schmidt and 24 Hour Party People. Sadly, I now have to talk about some other movies.


The Sure Things

 

1. CHICAGO — A bulletproof choice, Chicago is not only a lock for a nomination, it is the early favorite to go all the way, which would make it the first musical to win Best Picture since 1968's Oliver! Amazing, when you consider that Moulin Rouge was perceived as a major risk just two years ago. But you can't beat Chicago's pedigree: written, choreographed and originally directed for the stage by late Broadway legend Bob Fosse, with songs by Kander and Ebb, it's still enjoying a healthy run on Broadway since its 1996 revival. Directed by Rob Marshall, himself a Broadway golden child (Cabaret), the film is decidedly stagey and a little too slavish to the source material, but Marshall did an admirable job translating this pre-MTV material for a post-MTV audience without pandering. This is the first of Miramax's three contenders, and to give the Weinsteins their due, they earned this: they've been trying to make Chicago into a movie since the revival opened on Broadway seven years ago. The cast is winning – all three leads are locks for nominations, and even Queen Latifah might sneak in – and Academy members are probably marveling that Marshall created something so believable with actors who can't sing. (And thank God we didn't have to see this with its original casting choices, Madonna and Goldie Hawn.) Is Chicago a great movie? No, but it's the kind of movie that wins Oscars, like Cabaret (which won Fosse a Best Director statue in 1972 and would have taken that year's Best Picture if not for a little flick called The Godfather). I expect a more serious backlash to kick in any day now; some critics are already grumbling that this pleasant piece of entertainment is overhyped, and I basically agree with them. But nothing's going to stop this nomination. Hollywood wants to prove it can make the musical viable again, and Chicago is their proof.

2. THE HOURS — I'm far more annoyed at the runaway train of hype on this movie, a painfully tasteful big-think drama that screams "I'm Important!" from frame one. Three months ago, amid rumors that Miramax was bickering with producer Scott Rudin over everything from the length of the movie to Philip Glass's score, I figured The Hours was damaged goods. Then it won some critics' awards, some good notices (although not uniformly great reviews) and, most importantly, a few of those pesky Golden Globes. I didn't hate The Hours by any means, but I find its anointing as a sure thing almost inexplicable; do you know anybody, other than a Miramax employee, who feels passionately about this film? Still, I've learned not to ignore the Globes – people take them incredibly seriously nowadays – and it is a showcase for a passel of big performances. (Ironically, Ed Harris all but steals the movie.) There's also the Nicole Kidman factor; I ran hot and cold on her performance as Virginia Woolf in The Hours – at times she seems to be letting the prosthetic schnozz act for her – but when she's good, she's superb, and her dedication to the role is inarguable. As nice a moment as Halle Berry's Oscar win last year was, the fact is Kidman got robbed, after the series of incredible performances she gave in 2001. It's payback time. Expect The Hours to ride on her long, flowing coattails.


The Director Paybacks

 

3. THE PIANIST — Yes, Holocaust dramas are always Oscar bait, and a celebrated performance by Adrien Brody makes this one more notable than most. This film also took the top prize at last spring's Cannes Film Festival, which is a big plus. But I think The Pianist will get the nod for one reason and one reason only: Roman Polanski. Hollywood's all-time favorite Prodigal Son was exiled from America in the '70s following an indictment for a brief relationship with a minor. But the prodigious talent behind Chinatown and Rosemary's Baby has never been in question, and I think the Academy is ready to welcome the Polish auteur back into its warm embrace. The Pianist has been positioned by its studio, Universal Focus, and some critics as the anti-Chicago, and indeed it is everything that flashy musical is not. So its presence in the final five makes sense as a kind of corrective.

 

4. GANGS OF NEW YORK — Sigh. Why couldn't this movie have been better? And it didn't need to be a lot better, just a little bit better, so that critics, audiences and the Academy could finally give Martin Scorcese his due without that pesky "but" at the end of the sentence. Sadly, Gangs of New York is a flawed film, and I have yet to read even the most enthusiastic review that didn't temper its praise somewhat. Everyone has their pet theories as to why Gangs is a B-plus flick instead of the A-plus it could have been: the script's wild mood swings and abrupt ending; the meddling of Harvey Weinstein; the debatable casting of Cameron Diaz and Leo as working-class Irish immigrants; an over-the-top performance by Daniel Day-Lewis as Bill the Butcher (though a Best Actor nomination for him seems all but preordained). For me, the problem with Gangs can be summed up simply: It just doesn't feel like a Scorcese film. All the pieces are there, but the tone is just off. Somewhere in the process of commanding a $100 million production at Rome's Cinecitta Studios, this economical, fleet-footed director became ponderous, portentous, lumbering. Despite all this, I believe Gangs of New York will get a nomination (but no win – that will come in the Best Director category), because Scorcese poured everything he had into the picture. He is at least as beloved as Francis Ford Coppola by now, and Francis got his last Best Picture nomination for the utterly mediocre Godfather Part III. More important, Marty is the greatest living director without an Oscar, so badly owed – for Taxi Driver, for Raging Bull, for Goodfellas – that the Academy will throw him a bone for his bravery, for sticking by Gangs over 25 years and thinking big. That's not the reason Scorcese should get his nod, but if Paul Newman's only Oscar is for The Color of Money and Al Pacino's is for Scent of a Woman, there's no reason Marty can't win a little gold man for his years of toil in a Roman three-ring circus.

The In-Joke

 

5. ADAPTATION — That tough-to-call fifth slot could go to any number of flicks this year, but I think it may come down to one of two movies that are most appealing to Hollywood insiders: Todd Haynes's sly recreation of '50s cinema in Far From Heaven, and Spike Jonze's and Charlie Kaufman's mobius-strip meta-movie, Adaptation. A month ago, I would have gone with the polished and lilting Heaven, but as that film has drifted off screens and opinion on it has cooled, I am left with Adaptation, a film that has won plaudits from most critics and has devoted fans. For Academy folk, who are not exactly "with it," this is the Spike Jonze film they get; Being John Malkovich was probably too weird for them. To me, Malkovich was indisputably the better film, but with its stronger slate of high-pedigree actors (Supporting nod favorites Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper, a stunning double performance from Nicolas Cage) Adaptation is the Academy's chance to reward a risky director and writer they admire. In short, it's this year's Pulp Fiction, a chance for Oscar to look hip with little downside risk – and like Fiction, Adaptation stands little chance of winning much besides Best Screenplay. Let's hope it does take that prize, though – I can't wait to see Kaufman explain away his brother Donald's absence from the ceremony.

The Near Misses

 

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS — I loved this movie, even more than I liked The Fellowship of the Ring, and so it probably seems perverse that I don't think this is a contender. I will not be surprised at all to be proved wrong if this gets a nod. But let's be honest: spectacular as it was, The Two Towers is not The Godfather, Part Two, a sequel with its own identity; it's The Empire Strikes Back, a top-notch but transitional middle chapter. Guess which of those two films got nominated for Best Picture? (Not so fast, Empire fans.) You and I know Towers is a great film in its own right, but will the Academy nominate it – especially knowing that the triumphant last chapter is just 10 months away? I'd love to be proved wrong, but I think this is the one year out of three in which Peter Jackson's team (undeservedly) sits out the Best Picture race.

 

 

FAR FROM HEAVEN — I know I've compared it to Adaptation, but the real reason I think Far From Heaven will be knocked from the winner's circle is The Hours, its sensitive-gynocentric-melodrama doppelganger (with an almost identical performance by Julianne Moore). Which is a crime – Far From Heaven is by far the cleverer film. But I've heard from various quarters that the little problem I had with the film is a big problem with Hollwood types: As a movie, FFH is all brains and no heart. The recreation of 1950s Douglas Sirk melodramas ("women's pictures") with a postmodern reality check is a brilliant concept, brilliantly executed. But that doesn't make it an emotionally satisfying film – like Martin Scorcese's 1993 adaptation of The Age of Innocence, it's a movie you admire tremendously but feel just shy of loving. In the Best Picture category, sadly, that's probably the kiss of death.

 

 

ABOUT SCHMIDT — Jack's a lock for a Best Actor nomination, and Hollywood admires Alexander Payne, the sardonic auteur behind Election. But there's a host of reasons why Schmidt probably won't end up among the final five, not least the perception that Payne has made a bitter film with no heroes. I disagree with this assessment: About Schmidt was the pleasant surprise of the year for me, a movie I expected to hate that completely won me over, with a surprisingly subtle Nicholson performance and – please note – a generosity of spirit; there may be no clear heroes in the movie, but there are no villains, either. Still, capturing full-bodied charatcers with both satire and subtlety is not something the Academy usually "gets"; these people thought American Beauty had something deep and innovative to say about the human condition. Whatever – their loss.

 

 

MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING — I'm annoyed to even have to take this seriously, but every couple of years the Academy rewards a major populist hit with a Best Picture nomination, and Big Fat is as populist as they come. But affection for The Little Movie That Could will only take you so far. There are moments in Nia Vardalos's comic trifle that earn their empathy – her pseudo-soliloquy to her husband-to-be near the beginning of the film is so full of heart, it may well earn Vardalos a Best Actress nomination. But mostly, Big Fat is as unsubtle as its title; calling it a glorified sitcom is an insult to sitcoms. Still, count on certain mercenary Disney employees to vote for it. Why? Its presence in the winner's circle would boost ratings for the Oscar telecast on ABC. Heartland viewers only tune into the Oscars when they've got something to root for, and they've been blowing off the show since 1997's sweep by Titanic, the last big Oscar winner they "got." Sorry to sound so urbane and condescending, but $240 million doesn't make this movie a great picture any more than $100 million made Patch Adams bearable. Sometimes the public is just wrong.

 

 

ANTWONE FISHER — What happened? A generally acclaimed picture directed by everyone's favorite Oscar winner from last year, and nobody showed up. As The Wall Street Journal's Tom King pointed out in his column, this quiet drama got drowned in the holiday box-office tsunami, and it needed better reviews than the respectful, but not enthusiastic, ones it got. And yes, the Academy likes actors who direct (a little too much: Martin Scorcese has lost Best Director to moonlighting actors twice). But after rewarding Denzel with his second gold statue just 10 months ago, the Academy probably feels he can survive with the attention so soon.

 

 

TALK TO HER — Here's my dark-horse pick for the year, and I'd be thrilled if it leapfrogged over all the pictures listed above and took one of the five slots. Pedro Almodovar's latest is mysteriously ineligible for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, because his homeland, Spain, didn't submit it to the Academy as the country's official contender. But since its release in December, Talk to Her has been pulling in major coin for a foreign film and wildly positive reviews, even by Pedro's standards. Sony Pictures Classics has been pumping this as a worthy Best Picture contender, and after nominations in the last decade for Il Postino, Life Is Beautiful and Crouching Tiger, the Academy has clearly gotten over its bias against non-English films as Best Picture contenders. Oh, and by the way, the film is brilliant, too – in my opinion, not quite the equal of Almodovar's career high point, All About My Mother, but a stellar piece of work nonetheless. It's still a long shot, but Pedro is such an institution by now that a Best Picture nod just makes sense. Or maybe I've been living in New York too long.

Other films that are too flawed or underhyped to take seriously but shouldn't be ruled out:

Thanks for reading. As always, I welcome your own predictions – write me at chris@molanphy.com with your thoughts. This year, I can use all the help I can get.

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