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Friday, Jul 10, 2009
Oscar voters are cranky score-settlers. Here's how they'll rate this year's nominees.
Mar 23, 2002 | For weeks before Sunday night's 74th annual Academy Awards broadcast, pundits predict who's going to take home the Oscar. Don't listen to them.
Because the only opinions that count are those of the 5,732 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. And they're a cranky crowd.
Their dirty little secret is that they take too much into account when filling out ballots. Was that actor on his best behavior too little? Did that actress appear topless too often? Did that director have an easy time because of a too-lucrative studio deal? These are the criteria that matter to the membership instead of the quality of a picture or a performance. The Oscars are their payback time, pure and simple.
Here is how they think -- and how they are likely to vote:
Best supporting actress
This is the category where the voters try to demonstrate they're not just the media's pawns. It's also where old scores are settled, ingénues anointed and plain idiotic decisions are made. For instance, Lauren Bacall has been a disliked figure in Hollywood for seemingly eons, so the academy ignored the critics who touted her as a sure thing in this category and refused her an Oscar for "The Mirror Has Two Faces."
Or take Mira Sorvino: Given her lousy taste in roles and even lousier on-set behavior, voters may be ruing their encouragement of her for "Mighty Aphrodite." And how Kim Basinger won for "L.A. Confidential" when the voters could only judge her on at most a dozen lines of dialogue is nonsensical: They apparently felt bad for her because she was married to that train wreck, Alec Baldwin.
This year, voters see Kate Winslet and Marisa Tomei as actresses who each had high-profile starts but then became nonpersons. Besides, Tomei and Maggie Smith already have Oscars. Which is why this race is between Helen Mirren and Jennifer Connelly.
The academy likes actor's actors of "a certain age." On the other hand, Mirren's still best known in this country not for movies but for the TV series "Prime Suspect." Sorry, but they see TV as declassé.
Which is why Connelly will win. Not only is she gorgeous and grateful, but more important, she has handled herself appropriately while campaigning on Leno et al. As ridiculous as it sounds, that counts for a lot to the Academy.
Best supporting actor
Forget Ethan Hawke -- he's already lucky to have Uma Thurman as a wife, in the view of voters. And discount Jon Voight because the Academy will be blaming him for years for having been responsible for that hell-on-wheels Angelina Jolie. Though Ben Kingsley gave the year's best supporting performance, it doesn't matter: To voters, he will always be that guy in the diaper.
So now it's down to Ian McKellen and Jim Broadbent. Surprisingly, McKellen isn't given much credit for being openly gay. But everyone knows he was robbed in 1998 when he should have won for either "Gods and Monsters" or "Apt Pupil." But even voters were impressed by the way he elevated "X Men" with his portrayal of Magneto.
McKellen would be a sure thing if it weren't for Broadbent's appearance in this category as well. Voters and critics fell all over themselves to reward "Enchanted April" and "Topsy Turvy," two films where Broadbent excelled. And the Academy clearly loved "Iris" because, for this mostly geriatric membership, a movie about Alzheimer's hits close to home. It's almost a dead heat, but Broadbent wins.
Best director
David Lynch is not just the dark horse in this category; the voters barely know who he is. And Ridley Scott's nomination comes on the heels of his sweep last year for "Gladiator." Although Peter Jackson is now on the radar of the voters, they won't reward him for the first movie in a three-film series: too risky, since it's still possible that No. 2 or No. 3 could be stinkers.
