More Oscar Predictions

Because I enjoy public humiliation, I thought it was time to throw my hat into the ring with my Oscar predictions. No need to share your Oscar pool winnings with me, as long as you don't blame me when you lose. When it's all over, in hindsight it might look predictable, but right now I'm having trouble guessing many of the categories (and Tovarich's insights only make things trickier).
Best Picture
The last award to be given out is, necessarily, the first one you should try to predict. Often, the most-nominated film turns out to be the Best Picture winner, but in this case, Slumdog Millionaire had no shot at being the most-nominated because of its no-name cast and inability to fit into some of the other technical categories. It's also the most loved, and most talked-about, film in just about every demographic.
WINNER: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Best Actor
Richard Jenkins and Frank Langella are in the happy-to-be-nominated category, and Brad Pitt's performance was several steps below the others. I would have said that Mickey Rourke was a shoo-in a month ago, but he's been so overexposed and borderline embarassing on the talk show and tabloid circuits that I'm going to go with Sean Penn nailing his second Best Actor award. I bet the final totals will be close, though.
WINNER: SEAN PENN (MILK)
Best Supporting Actor
There are three things you can do that help you to win an Oscar. You can be one of the biggest, best-loved stars. You can give the best performance in the category. And you can die tragically during the year. Heath Ledger is the shooingest of shoo-ins.
WINNER: HEATH LEDGER (THE DARK KNIGHT)
Best Actress
Sentiment leans toward Kate Winslet, who has never won, but The Reader is so awful (and little-seen) that I don't see her being canonized in this role. People love Angelina Jolie, but they didn't like Changeling. Melissa Leo may have given the best performance, but there aren't enough votes for Frozen River. So it's between Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep. Like the Acting category, this is a really tough call. I can see Anne Hathaway winning, as the Academy loves seeing young, beautiful and talented actresses up there. But Meryl Streep has only won two Oscars, and none since 1983. The fact that Doubt has four other nominations and Rachel Getting Married none should put her over the edge.
WINNER: KATE WINSLET (THE READER)
Best Supporting Actress
Doubt is going to split its votes, Marisa Tomei already won in this category, and Taraji P. Henson seemed to ride Benjamin Button's coattails. That leaves Penélope Cruz as the only possible winner, despite being in the least-watched film among the nominees.
WINNER: PENELOPE CRUZ (VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA)
Best Animated Feature
Not only is Wall-E a shoo-in, its only competition is two light mainstream films. At least Waltz with Bashir might have provided some drama.
WINNER: WALL-E
Best Art Direction
Though these categories can look tricky, they can be among the easiest to predict. In this case, Benjamin Button not only has the most nominations, it has rich and complex settings throughout many different eras. This film is going to pick up a few consolation prizes.
WINNER: THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
Best Cinematography
The academy loves big, sprawling epics, and it also loves to ride the coattails of whatever wins Best Picture. In this case, I'm going go with Slumdog Millionaire because it nicely balances both of these trends.
WINNER: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Best Costume Design
Recent period pieces never win, and having elaborate costumes on the movie poster helps as well. So it would be hard for The Duchess to lose this one, even though nobody has seen the damn thing.
WINNER: THE DUCHESS
Best Directing
Only with rare exceptions does the director not match the film, so enjoy your moment in the sun Danny Boyle.
WINNER: DANNY BOYLE (SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE)
Best Documentary Feature
As fun as it would be to see Werner Herzog on stage, the most popular (and most stirring) documentary of the year was Man on Wire. Bonus points for being put together in the most traditional manner, full of talking heads and still photographs. Voters in this category don't like their boat to be rocked too much.
WINNER: MAN ON WIRE
Documentary Short Subject
Your guess is as good as mine. Sorry, there's no Holocaust film, unless you count The Conscience of Nhem En, which is about the victims of the Khmer Rouge. The one that's most unlike the others, and the most traditional, is The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306, a film about the last living witness to MLK's assassination and, in the Academy's mind, a tribute to our new president of sorts. But seriously, who knows.
WINNER: SMILE PINKI
Best Editing
Usually this goes to the longest film, and the one that plays the most with chronology. Hello, did somebody say Benjamin Button?
WINNER: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Best Foreign Film
Waltz with Bashir has been blowing people away, and has to be considered the front-runner.
WINNER: DEPARTURES
Best Makeup
Comes down to people voting for The Joker's memorable makeup and Benjamin Button's aging process. Will the fact that Button had so much character CGI affect the vote? Heck, even Hellboy could sneak in for a win. Flip a coin, I say. I'll go with The Dark Knight as a sentimental second vote for Heath.
WINNER: THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
Best Original Score
With Slumdog Millionare getting so many Best Picture votes, and people remembering the music most of all, this should be a fairly easy pick.
WINNER: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Best Original Song
Slumdog might split some votes, but the Peter Gabriel Wall-E tune is so awful that I think people will do the research to find out that Jai Ho is the boisterous closing-credits song that they hummed all the way home.
WINNER: JAI HO (SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE)
Best Animated Short
Pixar has never won this category automatically (only one win), and while Presto is a lot of fun, it also feels derivative of old Looney Tunes. Let's go with La Maison en Petits Cubes, which has the most unusual (yet elaborate) two-dimensional look.
WINNER: LA MAISON EN PETITS CUBES
Best Live Action Short
Toyland is the Holocaust short of the year, so let's go with that for old times' sake.
WINNER: TOYLAND
Best Sound Editing
Loud and poppy is better (this is the special effects category) so The Dark Knight should nail it.
WINNER: THE DARK KNIGHT
Best Sound Mixing
Sometimes the Academy has trouble differentiating between music, sound, and sound effects, so let's see if Slumdog Millionaire can ride its Best Picture coattails.
WINNER: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Best Visual Effects
Benjamin Button sure was impressive, but The Dark Knight is the type of film that usually wins this category.
WINNER: THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
Best Adapted Screenplay
Follow the lead: Slumdog Millionare will win, unless you're picking a different film for Best Picture.
WINNER: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Best Original Screenplay
Quirky films usually get this category, and Mike Leigh is well-liked. But Milk is the only film among the five to be nominated for Best Picture, so it will probably get the most votes.
WINNER: MILK
Final tally: Slumdog 7 wins, Dark Knight 4, and nothing else with more than 2.
FINAL COUNT: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE 8 OSCARS, BENJAMIN BUTTON 3 OSCARS, MILK 2 OSCARS, THE DARK KNIGHT 2 OSCARS

– David Gorgos

© TLA Entertainment Group

The Original Video-on-Demand

Photo: © Norman McGrath

Formerly the Museum of Television & Radio, The Paley Center has two locations (NY and LA) where anyone can view thousands of classic (and not so classic) TV shows at the flip of a switch. Queued up at a mainframe and beamed to individual sets, it not only predates Hulu and Comcast on-demand but surpasses them with the breadth of offerings. (YouTube may have millions of videos, but they're mostly on the DIY level rather than professional commercial productions).

My first visit there, during my early '90s collegiate era, I arrived armed with selections jotted down from pre-world-wide-web research, and instantly became one of the few to witness the only episode of "Turn On." Ahead of its time, yet also painfully unfunny, it took the rapid-fire gags of "Laugh-In" to an extreme postmodern level. Later shows like "Monty Python's Flying Circus" would crib such concepts ad sketches without beginnings or endings and credits shown out of order, while "Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job" would crib the ironic lack of punchlines... or intentionally unfunny ones. Best part of "Turn On"? The parade of headache commercials by the show's sponsor. Most appropriate.

Next up was the second, and final, episode of "You're in the Picture," Jackie Gleason's ill-fated game show. Reception was so bad that he cancelled the show in its second week, live on air. Rather than play the game, he pulled out a chair, fired up a cigarette or twenty, and ad-libbed a half hour of apologies for various failings throughout his career. No wonder he was so well-liked!

The great disadvantage to this collection, of course, is that you have to travel to one of the coasts to see it. There is a small amount online at www.paleycenter.org but it pales in comparison to other websites. So until Hulu, Netflix or your local cable company can offer such delicious rarities, video-on-demand will be left wanting in my book.

– David Gorgos

© TLA Entertainment Group

Revolutionary Road screwed at the Oscars? Not so fast...

(2008, 119 min) Revolutionary Road is, above all else, an exquisite example of that tired old adage: great books make bad films. Actually, a more accurate twist of the phrase, in this case, would be: great books make disappointing films. Not that they lacked effort but Sam Mendes and Kate Winslet have reduced a beautifully written, psychologically revealing tale of the two-headed dragon of lost romantic youth and the hopeless spiral into conformity into a histrionic and ultimately shallow acting exercise.

One is often remimded, when viewing this adaptation, of a one act play put on by Method-trained high school students who yell all their lines in a vain attempt to project the psychological complexities of their characters. Winslet, the driving force behind this adaptation, acquits herself the most. She has moments when April Wheeler's damaged psyche actually bubbles to the surface and punches the audience in the gut. But, too often, her scenes with co-star Leonardo DiCaprio feel like a toe-to-toe acting bout, one in which DiCaprio is getting bounced all over the ring. Aside from the film's inability to even scratch the novel's depths of character insight, DiCaprio's performance is the most disappointing thing about the film. Having re-established his acting chops with exceptional performances in The Departed and Blood Diamond, he thoroughly regresses, making his Frank Wheeler into a callous mook who never demonstrates just what it was that made everyone think he was so special. He screams nearly all of his lines and affects an accent more suitable to a suporting player on "The Sopranos" than the once-Byronesque, disaffected salaryman that Yates detailed so beautifully.

Not everything about Revolutionary Road is a disaster. Roger Deakins' cinematography is lushly lit and perfectly composed (and exactly what one would expect from award-bait) and Tariq Anwar's editing occasionally takes a stab at quietly making points... at least, that is, when the actors stop shouting at each other for long enough for a subtle, poignant cut to register. Thomas Newman's music, however, is an embarrassment to film composers everywhere. It's as if he and Mendes got together to discuss whether the score should emphasize the action on-screen or run in counterpoint to it, but never came to a decision. Frankly, the score could've been lifted from any pathetic attempt by an indie arm of a major studio to grab a few golden trophies made in the last ten years.

Perhaps the saddest effect of this production is that those who haven't read the novel will be left with the work as a shallow, melodramatic and, above all else, clichéd tale of an unhappy couple in the midst of a tragic spiral. Those who see this film and leave the novel on the shelf, or worse, try to read the novel but can't escape the visions of DiCaprio and Winslet desperately screaming at each other will be cheated out of the experience of enjoying one of the twentieth century's greatest novels.

– Daniel Reed

© TLA Entertainment Group