Chris's Best Picture Oscar Predictions 2004
Written: 24 January 2005
Oscar nominees to be announced: 25 January 2004
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Just to remind longtime readers and inform new ones: I've been making predictions
about the five Best Picture nominees for about a decade. Most Oscar prognosticators
try to pick the winners, but I have my fun sorting through the potential nominees
– ensconcing myself at the multiplex all through Christmas and January,
reading the trades. It's an interesting combination of art, science, and money,
money, money that brings a movie into the Final Five.
The Return of the Absence of the Rings
The big story of this year's Oscar race is who's not in it: Peter Jackson and his Lord of the Rings trilogy. After three years and three consecutive Best Picture nominations – a feat that may never be duplicated again, at least not in my lifetime – the fantasy juggernaut's absence has left a larger-than-expected vacuum in the Oscar contest. Every year, the Hollywood press likes to gas on about how "wide-open" and "unpredictable" the Oscar derby is, but this year it's not just hyperbole. Since 2001, you could pick the five Best Pictures ahead of time, just by naming Jackson's latest and then filling most of the other four slots with whatever Miramax was hyping that year. Not this time.
Oh, yeah – about Miramax. They're getting to be less of a factor, too. Bob and Harvey Weinstein's ongoing negotiations with their corporate parent, Disney, had them pretty distracted last year. Miramax's normally enviable pipeline of prestige films is getting narrower by the day, as Disney tapers off their funding. There's no way we should count the Weinsteins out, and indeed, their biggest Christmas offering has emerged as an Oscar front-runner (see The Aviator, below). But years of complaints by Academy members over Miramax's rapacious campaign tactics have finally borne fruit, in the form of stricter Academy rules; never again will Harvey be permitted to, for example, cajole an Academy member into writing a testimonial for a Miramax film, as he did in 2003 when director Robert Wise campaigned for Gangs of New York in a shameless newspaper ad. So Harvey's got one hand tied behind his back – which may mean he has to make do with one or two Best Picture nods instead of three or four. Boo-hoo.
Of course, the juiciest Weinstein-related question of the year is whether the brothers will be able to push their non-Miramax film, a little documentary called Fahrenheit 9/11, into the Best Picture race. We'll get to that in a minute – that, and The Passion of the Christ.
I never feel totally confident about my five picks going in – usually it breaks down as three laydowns, two long shots. This year is no different, but even I'm surprised at how hard a time I'm having. As always, it's a cinch to name the seven or eight movies that could conceivably fill those last couple of slots, but more difficult than usual to figure out which two horses to bet on. Truly, any of the perceived finalists could slide in there. And about those three front-runners: they're all locks for nominations, but not for the win – as of now, no one knows whether Marty, Clint or Mr. Payne is going to wind up with Best Picture. So good luck in next month's Oscar pool!
Before we peer into the crystal ball, I feel compelled to add that these are
Oscar predictions, not a top-five list of my favorite movies of 2004. For the
record, if it were up to me, the five Best Picture nominees would be Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Garden
State, Sideways, Hotel Rwanda and Before
Sunset. This year, maybe the Academy and
I will have a pick or two in common for a change.
The Threesome
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1. THE AVIATOR — As with any job, succeeding in Hollywood is all about managing expectations. Two years after Martin Scorcese's Gangs of New York went zero for 10 at the Oscars, Miramax and Marty have run a more restrained campaign for The Aviator, and it's working. Maybe it's because, at last, Scorcese isn't sweating. Back in '02, Gangs represented a quarter-century of his life's work, and it was hyped to the gills; Harvey Weinstein all but swore on his mother's grave that he would win Marty that long-deserved Oscar. When audiences respected, but didn't love, Gangs, the film limped into the '03 awards season and got shut out by the likes of Chicago and Roman Polanski's The Pianist (you know your Oscar campaign's distasteful if people shun you for a convicted pederast). The Aviator, by contrast, was mostly Leonardo DiCaprio's project, and Marty the auteur was just a gun for hire. And now – holy Hell's Angels! It's this year's Oscar front-runner, and a hit no less, on its way to outgrossing Gangs. Somehow, this time, Scorcese's latest is playing as a big, bold, breezy epic – a movie, not a film. And Harvey learned his lesson: when it comes to Scorcese, play it cool. That's not to say the Miramax machine isn't in full gear, with the usual array of magazine covers and splashy commercials; but this time, they're letting the work (mostly) speak for itself. Two months ago, I would not have called The Aviator a lock. Early reviews were mixed, few critics named it their favorite of the year, and Leo still can't convincingly play anyone over 21 (he's much, much better in this one than he was in Gangs, by the way). But The Aviator will definitely end up competing for Best Picture, for two reasons: (1) it's a movie few people adore but no one dislikes; and (2) it's about old Hollywood, and when has that ever hurt a flick's chances at the Oscars? (It won the Golden Globe last week, in a bit of an upset over Million Dollar Baby, but don't pay too much attention to that; this year, the Globes were televised long after Oscar ballots had been collected.) Look for Leo and Cate Blanchett to pick up nods, too. Plus, need I add that Marty's earned it? Seriously, the poor guy – this may not be his best work, but we have to compensate him somehow. You try living down the loss of your two best movies to Ordinary People and Dances With Wolves.
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2. MILLION DOLLAR BABY — An undercard a month ago, now the main event, Clint Eastwood's followup to Mystic River has taken its sweet time finding an audience but is poised to be this year's Rocky. It's not gonna make Rocky money, though, unless it goes all the way on Oscar night. Million Dollar Baby is a bit of a paradox: a conservative, old-Hollywood kind of movie that blue-state audiences seem to love more than red-staters. Mostly that's because folks in the hinterlands haven't had a chance to see it. Warner Bros.' release campaign is one of the slowest ever for a big-studio Oscar contender – six weeks after its initial release, M$B is still playing on only a few hundred screens (which, reportedly, has made Eastwood none too pleased). Critics are divided: it's been praised to death by those who pumped up Mystic last year, while a sizeable minority have called Clint's latest corny and predictable. I'll say this: M$B is an easier film to love than the overrated, overheated Mystic River, and while I still found it a bit too pleased with itself – the last half-hour meanders into Lifetime-channel territory – the film is admirably lean and uncluttered, and it tells a good story. It's also more rabidly beloved by its fans than The Aviator is. But 12 years after the heavily-rewarded Unforgiven, Clint doesn't need a little gold man as badly as Marty does. Still, with three all-but-assured acting nominees – Eastwood, Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman – you can safely put money on M$B making it to the final round.
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3. SIDEWAYS — Director Alexander
Payne is like the band Wilco, and Sideways is his Yankee Hotel Foxtrot:
pale, urban, middlebrow critics adore it, while the general populace shrugs.
Add this middlebrow to the bunch: I loved Sideways, too. And boy, am
I in good company. Rarely in movie-awards history has one film swept as many
critics' prizes as Sideways has: from New York to L.A., Boston to Chicago,
those ornery scribes, resisting their normal tendency to contradict each other,
have all named Payne's droll midlife-crisis comedy their best picture. Even
those slicksters from the Hollywood Foreign Press gave it a Golden Globe. The
logical prediction, then, is that Sideways won't be nominated
by the Academy, which tends to look upon a cabal of critics as a bad sign. The
fact is, Sideways, while not making a ton of money, is not really an
underdog anymore after two straight months of coastal chatter. Indeed, among
the three sure things, it stands the best chance of getting a surprise snub.
However, there is one factor that will keep it alive with Oscar voters: those
performances. The actors' branch represents the biggest block of Oscar voters,
and Sideways was a feast of meaty acting, with at least three of its
four main performers likely to get nominated: Thomas Haden Church, Virginia
Madsen and the much-beloved Paul Giamatti (who has the misfortune to be facing
Jamie Foxx this year). No movie gets that many actors nominated and then goes
ignored itself. By the way, in case you, too are tired of all the Sideways
hoopla: just go see it. It's not just Oscar bait. It's funny. Seriously
– don't let all these balding, Malbec-sipping flacks keep you away. Hopefully,
Malbec-sipping Oscar voters won't ignore it, either.
The True Underdogs
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4. RAY — How many biopics can one Oscar race take? In a normal year, one – namely The Aviator – would be plenty. But after a year in which Hollywood also offered us the stories of Alfred Kinsey, J.M. Barrie, Che Guevara, Bobby Darin, Paul Rusesabagina and, oh yeah, Jesus Christ, you have to assume that more than one heroic piece of Oscar bait would make the final five. What's killing me is which one to pick, but I've decided to lay my money on Taylor Hackford's homage to Ray Charles, even though it is, at best, a three-star movie. Of course, there is the little matter of Ray's five-star lead performance: the mighty Jamie Foxx, his Best Actor statue already etched and shipped. (Seriously, Leo? Johnny? Just stay home.) It's not just virtuosic, not just a testament to actorly commitment and craft. Foxx's performance makes the movie fun, and that's no small achievement; biopics like this can be so stiff, so snoozy, and Foxx jolts the whole thing to life. Plus, director Taylor Hackford may not be a widely admired auteur, but he's an old, well-liked Hollywood pro with a great underdog story, about his decade-long, underfunded drive to bring Ray Charles's story to the screen. What might sink Ray's chances? Its lame ending (after Charles kicks heroin, the movie just dies); its limited audience (I've said it before, I'll say it again: music-related movies are box-office poison); plain old institutional racism (Ray is a showcase for African-American performances, at least a half-dozen; the white folks are bit players). Whatever Ray's flaws, anyone who thinks Oscar voters don't respond to uplifting pics like this has a very short memory.
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The Near Misses
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HOTEL RWANDA — With a performance as mighty as Don Cheadle's, this true story of Paul Rusesabagina's heroism in the face of genocide didn't have to be half as good as it was: taut, gripping, true to life. It's the best film of its kind since The Killing Fields, and in its modest way, it may be the storytelling equal of Schindler's List. I came thisclose to putting Rwanda in my predicted five, but I can't get past the scuttlebutt: Oscar viewers are focusing exclusively on Cheadle and looking past the modestly budgeted movie, and the fact that it's being released by recently acquired, soon-to-disappear studio MGM/UA doesn't help in the Oscar derby. It's a shame – among movies carried by a big lead performance, Rwanda is better than Aviator or Ray. I would be delighted to see it surpass my expectations.
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KINSEY — Speaking of movies with strong supporting actors, the only thing that would make me happier than Clive Owen winning an Oscar would be Peter Sarsgaard doing so – especially after his brilliant, funny/sad turn in Garden State. But acknowledgement for Sarsgaard, plus maybe a screenplay nod, is probably the most we can expect from Bill Condon's controversial biopic of the controversial sex researcher Alfred Kinsey. I must confess that I haven't seen Kinsey yet; somehow I can't convince my wife or any of my friends to go see it. And we're a bunch of New York liberals! No wonder this film is dying.
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ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER'S THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA — No, thank God.
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FARHENHEIT 9/11, THE PASSION OF THE
CHRIST — The media-trumped Oscar race
between these twin poles of blue-state and red-state moviegoing pride
is, to me, pretty fanciful. Pundits outside of Hollywood – the O'Reillys,
Begalas and Matthewses – have been licking their chops for a fight between
Michael Moore's record-breaking polemic and Mel Gibson's Jesus-porn blockbuster,
but they forget how little the Academy likes controversy. Let's keep this simple:
Most Academy members have probably seen and even liked Fahrenheit 9/11,
but every last one of them remembers the last time they let Moore take the podium.
They may agree with his politics to the letter, they may even regret Dubya's
victory, but they're not going to let Moore rant on their air again. And The
Passion? Most of Hollywood hasn't seen it. Not seen it and hated it –
they. have. not. seen. it. And Gibson – admirably, it should be
said – elected not to send awards screeners or push the film for Oscar
consideration. You can't vote on something you haven't seen, and you won't vote
for something you think will make trouble. Period. Now, that wasn't so complicated,
was it?
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THE INCREDIBLES
— The Academy is long overdue to honor another animated film; it's been
13 years since Beauty and the Beast became the only cartoon nominated
for Best Picture. That's part of what makes The Incredibles this
year's dark horse pick. Another factor: Pixar, the most consistently great studio
since Paramount in its '70s heyday, is long overdue for an amen – not in
the Best Animated Feature ghetto, but in the big show. How many studios have
produced films with characters, scripts and visuals as top-notch as Pixar has
for the past decade? (Yes, folks, it's been 10 years since the first Toy
Story.) Throw in much-admired director Brad Bird; cinema's first believable
computer-animated humans; a truly pathbreaking script that rethinks the studio's
sturdy formula; and, not incidentally, the Disney factor,
as Steve Jobs's animation powerhouse prepares to go its own way,
and this may be the year that Pixar plays with the big boys on Oscar night.
Other films that are too flawed or underhyped to take seriously but shouldn't be ruled out:
Thanks, as always, for reading, and feel free to share your guesses at chris[at]molanphy.com. I've had some third-party predictions already!
