The trouble with predictions. . .
Well I was right about a couple of things: Ratatouille did get a Best Original Screenplay nod, as did Juno. and I was right about exactly where the Academy would put Philip Seymour Hoffman –- Best Supporting Actor. His being left out in he Best Actor race is all the more noticeable, since his co-star in The Savages, Laura Linney, was nominated for Best Actress. But an excellent strategy on the part of Academy members, because it gives him a better chance to win – though Javier Bardem is gathering a lot of steam.
Hoffman was Charlie Wilson’s only nomination. Tommy Lee Jones as Best Actor for In the Valley of Elah ended up being the Academy’s nod to the political situation in the fiction feature category. On the other hand, three of the five nominations for Best Documentary feature were about the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan: No End in Sight: Taxi to the Dark Side, and Operation Homecoming: Writing the War Experience. Hollywood is determined to make movies about the war, but definitely has trouble making a fiction film on the subject that people want to see.
Ratatouille ended up with five nominations: not only the Best Animated Feature but Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Sound, Best Sound Editing. No Best Picture nomination. But most of all, it’s a shame Peter O’Toole wasn’t nominated.
Juno was also a big contender: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay. To make this even sweeter, the nominations for the very popular film that informs its audiences that yes, an unborn baby has fingernails, came on the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court decisions legalizing abortion, just as hundreds of thousands of people were beginning to march in Washington, D. C. The tide, at least in popular culture, is turning.
There was a very surprising strong show for Michael Clayton – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor and Actress, which many people probably didn’t see coming. As my screenwriting teacher at Act One, Janet Batchler, always says, “Actors vote for actors.” The Academy loves Clooney, and this film is seen as his passion project: he’s the film’s executive producer. I guess I’m really going to have to watch it now.
No clear front runner at all. It could be a wide open race. A very strange mood right now in Hollywood, grim stories onscreen (all the main contenders except Juno are on the very serious side) and glitz withdrawal from the writers’ strike offscreen. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
But the writers and producers seem to be talking again, so there is renewed hope we’ll actually see an Oscar ceremony this year. I’m really ready, since I missed last ceremony while I was in Italy filming the St. Elizabeth documentary.
A final note: I spent a lot of time yesterday working, and as I was listening to the Oscar news, I learned from TV about the death of actor Heath Ledger, who was only 28. His sorrowing fans over on imdb.com are calling him “the James Dean of our generation.” I didn’t think Brokeback Mountain was at all as good a film as critics were saying, but Ledger was clearly a very talented young actor. May God welcome him to heaven and bless his family.
