First we’ll get the house-cleaning out of the way as everyone seems to be getting all excited over the minor change in the voting rules for Oscar’s Best Picture as a result of the shift from five nominees to ten.
As a result you begin rounding up the first place votes by setting up ten stacks based on the total number of first place votes from the film with the most to that with the least. The film with the smallest number of first place votes find its votes redistributed by looking at the second place film on those ballots and moving those votes to the appropriate stack. This is done repeatedly until one film has the majority of votes.
“Instead of just marking an ‘X’ to indicate which one picture they believe to be the best, members will indicate their second, third and further preferences as well,” newly appointed Academy President Tom Sherak said. “PricewaterhouseCoopers will then be able to establish the Best Picture recipient with the strongest support of a majority of our electorate.”
The preferential voting system has long been used by the Academy to determine nominees, but hasn’t been used to decide the Best Picture winners since 1945.
The goal here is to obviously eliminate the fact a film could essentially win the Oscar with less than 18% of the vote (even as low as 10%). Of course, I think we all know, this decision to increase the number of nominees will not only make for increased shady practices prior to nominations and who knows what will happen once things get down to deciding the winner. However, I think the list of ten nominees will be the most intriguing thing when it comes to the 2009 Oscars as the winners will likely be the same regardless of how many Best Picture nominees there are.
Speaking of “for your consideration” tactics, I never referenced an article from Gold Derby talking about Harvey Weinstein’s Oscar strategy for both Inglourious Basterds and Nine. Tollowing the five noms he managed to get for The Reader last year (to most everyone’s dismay) we should take note.
Harvey plans to reserve that last-minute, ambush strategy he employed for “The Reader” for his other major Oscar pony, “Nine,” Rob Marshall’s adaptation of the Tony-winning musical starring Penelope Cruz, Daniel Day-Lewis and Marion Cotillard. For “Inglourious Basterds,” he plans to use the “Crash” campaign model.
By releasing “Inglourious Basterds” in theaters now, Harvey can give the flick a second wave of ballyhoo when the DVD comes out late this year. Because the DVD will be a mass release, it won’t need to be watermarked with numerals identifying each disc with the name of an academy member or other award voter. That’s one of the sneaky ways “Crash” beat front-runner “Brokeback Mountain” for best picture of 2005 — Lionsgate blitzed Hollywood with more than 120,000 cheap DVDs.
To manufacture and ship a watermarked DVD costs about $20. The cost for a non-watermarked equivalent: $5.
Nine currently sits as my pick to win Best Picture even though we are six months away from the Oscars and almost three months away from seeing the film in theaters. However, there was a test screening just last night, but no word yet on how that turned out. Then again, it’s not like people aren’t already talking as Jon Burlingame at Variety wrote an article headlined “Oscar winners abound in ‘Nine'” detailing the film’s talent and new songs. If it lives up to its billing it is sure to be a heavyweight, but if it doesn’t I wouldn’t put it passed the Weinsteins to still wedge it in there somewhere, but with the Basterds idea I think we can be sure Christoph Waltz has a nom in his future, but beyond that I don’t think there is much of a chance.
Moving on, we will take a look at Pamela McClintock’s Variety piece talking about Paramount’s decision to move Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island out of the awards race and into February 2010. McClintock uses the opportunity to talk about how the move benefits Jason Reitman’s Up In the Air, a film that started to get buzz about a month back and will make its debut in Toronto this month.
Unofficially, Par has decided to throw its support behind George Clooney dark comedy and awards hopeful “Up in the Air,” directed by Jason Reitman. That film isn’t yet dated. Rumors are that it will be released in early December, but Par says a date won’t be decided upon until after the film makes its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival.
“Up in the Air” cost only a fraction of what “Shutter Island” did to produce, so Par insiders say the writedown would be less. Plus, the studio can use the fest circuit as a key part of its marketing campaign and awards push.
Speaking of Up In the Air, Coming Soon now lists the film as a December 4 release, but there is still no official date set by Paramount.
Next we come to a few films I have seen recently and have already been eyed as potential Oscar contenders. A couple others I will mention are trying to find their way into the race.
First off, the bad news (at least as far as I am concerned), Jane Campion’s Bright Star did nothing for me. As a matter of fact, by the time the film started its second 60 minutes I was staring at my watch for the final hour counting the minutes until I could rush out of the theater away from the schmaltzy mess I had heard so much about. I will save most of my comments for my official review once the film releases just over two weeks from now, but when a youngster that has little to do with the storyline and a frisky cat are two of the film’s standouts you know there is a problem. I will say Paul Schneider as Charles Brown did well with what was the only character with anything remotely interesting to do. Of course, I am the only one saying anything negative about this film right now, so who knows what will happen once the rest of the critical community weighs in.
Thankfully, two days after Bright Star I saw one of the better films I have seen all year in Lee Daniels’ Precious, a film that couldn’t be any more depressing, but somehow manages to pull itself up and tell an incredibly hopeful story. The film’s lead, Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe, has been talked about in circles as a possible Best Actress nominee and if it was up to me right now I would have her at the top of the charts competing with Carey Mulligan (An Education) for the #1 slot (I currently have her at #4).
Of course, this is where things get tricky as both Mulligan and Sidibe are quite young, not to mention Bright Star‘s 27-year-old star Abbie Cornish, who is also in the race. Will the Academy be able to skew so young in its leading ladies? You would think so as a fresh batch of faces is always fun to see, but won’t such a move only further the opinion that actresses in Hollywood have a much shorter shelf life? Oh man, the way we can twist the facts eh?
Another major standout in Precious is Mo’Nique. Primarily known as a comedic actress, you would never expect what she offers up as a deadbeat welfare mother in this film, but it is as powerful as it can get, especially once we see her in a dramatic scene with Mariah Carey (yes that Mariah Carey), who also knocks it out of the park. Way out of the park! I can’t say enough about Precious, it is picture perfect and I will be promoting it every moment I get.
Next we come to a pair of films from Miramax that are trying to get in the mix, especially with Stephen Frears’ Cheri not living up to expectations earlier this year and the confirmation Julie Taymor’s The Tempest won’t be released until fourth quarter 2010.
The first is the Clive Owen weepy The Boys are Back. Owen turns in a good performance, but it’s inside a film that traditionally doesn’t hit the mark when it comes to the awards race. The Boys are Back is actually far better than the trailer (watch it to the right) would lead you to believe, but it does have its generic moments that don’t allow it to stand out as original and it is that aspect I think will hurt its chances.
Next is Everybody’s Fine starring Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell and directed by Kirk Jones (Nanny McPhee). I just saw the trailer last night at a screening of Extract and come to learn it isn’t even online yet. This one, too, looks a little generic, but the trailer managed to sell it’s story above its cliche plot following a widower (De Niro) who embarks on an impromptu road trip to reconnect with each of his grown children only to discover that their lives are far from picture perfect.
Outside of Daniel Day-Lewis in Nine and Morgan Freeman in Invictus I think the Best Actor category is about as volatile as they come. I don’t see much of a chance for Owen, but De Niro’s role in Everybody’s Fine looks like one that may be able to rise above the rather simple subject matter, especially considering the talent around him, all of which looked good in the preview. Actually, I thought the film looked pretty good.
So, with that we move to prediction changes. This time around I have shuffled a few names in five of the six categories since my last update, with the Supporting Actress category showing no changes this time. You can click on any of the following links to check out my latest picks. Each opens in a new window so just close the window to return to this post.
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