Every year, I quote Bill Condon’s notion – which has more resonance with his Oscar gig this year … and less – of The Great Settling.

All the critics’ awards and nominations are laid out. Screeners are in every Oscar voter’s stockings. People go on their annual big vacations to wherever with the family and the discs in tow. And as the pressures from the hard push of the studios and press are relieved, cooling the situation, the films themselves creep into perspective. Nomination ballots go out right at Christmas and are returned en masse when people get back from their holiday to their lives.

But this year … not so much.

This year, if there are any surprises, they will be a lot like a whoopi cushion on a desk chair … ha ha … pick it up … look at it … hand it back to the joker … get on with your day.

Yes, lives will be changed. And that is the ongoing irony of all this mess. It really does matter to people when they are embraced by their peers. Winning is nice. Being nominated is nice. And when you are nominated, for instance, by 88 semi-credentialed star-f*#kers who are mostly hoping you will say something embarrassing enough to be talked about for months to come, you don’t think about those details … you graciously think about how wonderful it is to be loved by your community … especially that person who put their hand on your ass during the photo … oh, never mind.

The illusion that there are a lot of choices is just that. The Top Five that seems to be continually cementing in are Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon, Ben Button, Milk, and The Dark Knight.

Of course, Doubt, Revolutionary Road, Rachel Getting Married, and Wall-E are still out there, kicking. But Wall-E is really settling back into the now-classic animation win mode. Rachel doesn’t seem to be getting the small signals that it is really in the Best Picture race. And the only group that seems to be showing love to Revolutionary Road is HFPA … and those mooks left out Michael Shannon as they kept stacking the red carpet.

Even our Gurus o’ Gold voting … we ask for 1-10 … and aside from Revolutionary Road getting four #5s and one #4, there was only one top Five vote after the Globes announced last week for anything else out of the Cementing Five mentioned above. That’s 90 Top 5 votes … 84 for the same five movies.

There is a little shifting that can be anticipated. Amy Adams suddenly has a little nomination momentum, though she was the least well reviewed of the Doubt trio. Kate Winslet’s lead performance in The Reader continues to get Supporting nods, so she gets stronger. The “foreigners” are almost always shorted by the HFPA and SAG, so don’t be surprised by bouncebacks by Kristin Scott Thomas and/or Sally Hawkins.

There are very few real questions left that count.

Will Clint Eastwood get a nomination for being Clint Eastwood?

Will Dev Patel get in as Supporting for his Lead in Slumdog on the weight of the movie?

Is there another gear for Doubt to get into that can push it past Batman, a movie that is actually getting helped by critics’ groups?

Will DGA turn the Che boat around or is January 8 just too late to matter?

Will a single kid tune in to watch The Dark Knight lose and Heath Ledger win?

Will we all be so bored of the same five films in the end that we stop worrying and learn to love the Oscars?

It’s not unlike Election Night 2008. We all kinda knew what was coming. The odds against Obama losing were long. But in the end, there are enough Republican-locked states that it couldn’t be too much of a blowout. So we waited for Pennsylvania. And we waited for North Carolina. And we waited for Colorado. And little by little, we grew confident and the McCain camp wrote concessions. The race really ended at 7pm pst on November 4. The networks wouldn’t call it until an hour later because they were cautious … and playing the string out. One more victory lap for everyone associated with the event … one more night of single-focused ratings … one more chance to be the one to say something that others would remember.

Who gets nominated at 5:35a pst January 22 will matter to Michael Shannon or Robert Downey, Jr. A lot. More than either realizes right now. So I don’t want to minimize the small victories and losses still to come.

But in the big picture, the entire season is already down to whether we tip 15%, 18% or 22%. Was it double the sales tax? What is the sales tax here? Is Ahnuld taxing expensive pizza at Mozza more than cheap pizza from Domino’s? Hey … did that Domino’s guy support Prop 8? It’s safe to go get Mexican food again. Too bad about Rich Raddon … he was a good guy … I mean, is a good guy. So Sundance is leaving the “Yes on Prop 8” theater as a press screening room. Nice. Really? They are only sending up two people for 5 days? Times is hard.

You get the idea.

You know you should watch Serious Movie 8 … but you really want to pop in Mamma Mia! again … you really want to enjoy Slumdog again … you really want to see the Blu-ray of The Dark Knight, even if you don’t have Blu-ray in your $3000 a night bungalow …

A nice jolt to the system is always amusing … but really, sign the paper … get it over with … hand Kate Winslet her first Oscar … you know you want to … did you see her ass in Vanity Fair … well it was the side of her ass … I mean, airbrushed, of course … but she has kids and everything …

Settled.

– David Poland
December 18, 2008

I held off writing this week’s column until after the Golden Globes nominations… and then… well… who cares?

Every year, we all beat the heck out of the HFPA members and then mine their nominations like we are going to find nuggets that matter. But we’re seeking fool’s gold… and get what we deserve.

Can HFPA help cement in a nominee here and there? Sure. But history tells us that the group’s nominations are no more influential than anyone else’s. There are just network TV lights when they give out their awards.

What really strikes me today is that it is time for someone, somewhere to start a No Awards awards show.

Would it really be so bad to have a night to celebrate the great work of a year without worrying about the detail work of who won in what category, but to actively celebrate the movies of the year?

What is there… 42 minutes in a network hour? So three hours – perhaps not all in one shot – leaving 126 minutes of time to celebrate the great movies of the year.

Do it like the BCS… “coaches” (critics) votes, seeding by way of “conferences” (genres or specific criteria, like highest grossing film of the year, top animated film, top foreign language film, top true indie), computer rankings based on Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes, etc.

Send out a man-on-the-street crew to talk to real people about why they love these movies.

Show clips that are not the standard clips everyone has seen over and over and over again.

Deconstruct one scene from each film with the director and cast.

Have some fun, celebrate what is great with a broad enough brush but a sophisticated enough palette to make it compelling for a lot of people who will be pleased to know more about movies they really like than they ever knew they wanted to know.

Wouldn’t it be fun to just celebrate the movies instead of narrowing it all down to a niche that we can argue until the end of time… or worse, not argue for very long at all?

Honestly, I am rather bored with deconstructing whether The Dark Knight or Wall-E should be nominated for this or that… or if Rachel Getting Married is too inaccessible for a bigger audience… or if Waltz With Bashir is a doc or an animation or a foreign feature… etc.

We should be celebrating them all. Che is a landmark, whether Academy members are willing to sit through 4.5 hours or if HFPAers don’t see the celebrity value. Wendy & Lucy deserves a place at the table for its own little, intimate, oddball world. And is Man on Wire really any less important… any less thrilling… than The Dark Knight?

We all love movies. So why slice and dice and parse and farce? Why not find a way to love W. and Tyler Perry and right wing docs and the overlooked films and the massive machine films that work. Can’t we love Robert Downey, Jr. without pretending that he deserves an Oscar for Tropic Thunder?

And yes, let’s include all of those Oscar nominees to be! What the heck? Let’s give them a break!

When I talk to people about this industry – people who are not lawyers or accountants – I often find myself saying that if they don’t love the work they aspire to do that they should not get into the industry to chase the benefits that come from success in that work. Of course, some get the brass ring. Others are the brass ring. But mostly, it is work… hard work… lots of hard work. What I respect is someone who gets so much out of what they do that the work is enough.

Shouldn’t we aspire to at least one moment like that during the year-end awards season? To just saying, “Yay.” To celebrating the form and all the small pieces that come together to make the whole?

That’s what I got out of the Golden Globes nods this morning… that more and more it is less and less about loving movies. And, my friends (and foes), that is why I am here.

There is no award for that… the experience is its own reward.

– David Poland
December 11, 2008

We’ve seen The Year of the Bio-Pic, The Year of the Big Director, The Year of The Indie … but this year, it’s The Year of Ambiguity.

But like years past, it is looking like the thing that it is the “year of” may turn out to be the thing that becomes the least Oscar celebrated thing of all.

Australia, Che, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Defiance, Doubt, Revolutionary Road, The Reader, The Wrestler … all ambiguous in different ways … some ambiguous emotionally, some intellectually, some morally, some in style … but hard to nail down.

Great for critics. Crappy for marketing.

And in the end, the Oscar Season is a season of marketing. Sorry. Hope there wasn’t any water in that bubble as it burst over your head.

It is one of the treacherous pitfalls of being an Oscar Monkey that we start to think that our personal opinions about these films are meaningful. And those opinions can be very useful, so long as you can see past your own nose. My experience on this field has been that the movies I am most vulnerable to misreading are the ones I most love. I have a 99.9% accuracy record on films I really dislike. (That is, films I actually hate … not films that others decide I hate because I don’t love the film as much as they do.)

But there is not a single title on my List o’ Ambiguity that I “really dislike.” There are very few films that I really “love” this year. And that seems to be, in another ambiguous turn, what Academy voters and movie lovers all over town are feeling as well.

Of course, every movie has passionate followings … and passionate detractors.

But if you want to know exactly why the Slumdog bandwagon has gotten so heavy (and subject to backlash) lately, it’s not just the movie … it’s that people feel something intensely when they walk out of the movie theater. It’s not “okay.” They aren’t discussing what it meant. They aren’t picking out which performances they liked or didn’t like. They just had, with a few exceptions, a great f-ing time at the movies. And that is, in the end, what it is all about.

Frost/Nixon? Terrific story, well told. Everyone comes in knowing the players. Nixon’s charm and humor is a surprise. But it’s not very challenging material. It’s just a very good movie. And that is likely enough for it to overcome all of the fireworks and ambiguities of other films.

Milk? A powerful emotional piece about an underdog finding a raison d’être at 40, bringing unending passion and the need to bring some meaning into his life to his cause. The movie is about more than gay men and civil rights … but make no mistake, this is a film about civil rights (as seen though the eyes of one iconic individual) and those civil rights are for homosexuals.

Of course each film has its complexities … but in spirit, simple, clean, and direct.

This doesn’t mean that no movies of ambiguity can or will make it to the Best Picture slots. But it’s a hard road to hoe … or more importantly, to find a focused constituency for.

For instance, I still think there is a very good chance that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button will land in the Top 5, but more in spite of the ambiguity that turns on so many of its most fervent supporters than because of it. What’s my logic? I’d say that Ben Button is the only massive, visual epic of the season in play (given Australia’s style inconsistencies). And the experience of it, through those visuals, is so intense that the impact on audiences who are not lingering in their lack of emotional connection will be profound. (And yes, some people will find it emotional as well.)

But if I was behind The Dark Knight or Wall-E, I would imagine that it’s time to redouble my efforts, as all this ambiguity is leaving the door open to at least one more very clear pitch.

When you look at the films of some ambiguity that have made it, you see distinct ideas fronting those films. Bill Murray as the sad clown in Lost In Translation. The emotional harshness and internationality of Babel. The indie buddy comedy for wine lovers of Sideways. The actress showcase of The Hours. Really, you have to go all the way back to Gosford Park, which is, essentially, a manor house mystery, to find a movie that chugged into Best Picture on the movie without a diamond sharp pitch about what the movie was.

If I had Rachel Getting Married, I would be picking a very specific angle to push right now. Ride Debra Winger for a while. Or create a push that sells the notion that Rachel is the great women’s movie of the season, with three awards-worthy performances from great actresses and even more in support.

If I was selling Che, it would all be about it being the epic of our time. Epic. Epic. Epic.

Stephen Daldry is not interested, understandably, about giving away the second act of his film, The Reader. But if you want to stay in the BP game, the marketing better be as brazen about the sex as it is about the emotional twists. Same with Revolutionary Road.

Doubt? Sell both arguments? One campaign suggests he “did it” and another says he “didn’t do it” and you have to see the movie to make up your own mind. It’s got to be the “secret” of The Crying Game, even if the answer remains more elusive than Jaye Davidson’s manhood.

Of course, I am punching along here, talking about selling the movies and not the movies themselves.

Why do I think so many ambitious films are lingering in such ambiguity this year? Well, I would guess that it is the manifestation of thinkers lingering in a second four-year Bush administration, leaving them unsure of why our nation didn’t see Bush and his policies the way liberal America did. Australia and Defiance seem to be outliers here, though in a way, with good men in the woods trying to determine whether it is better to fight the power or to just survive it, it seems to fit right in.

And why aren’t these feelings being reciprocated as one might expect them to be? Well … President Obama isn’t helping. Happy days are here again, even with a worldwide economic crisis. When you have hope, you are less likely to be interested in lingering in the questions of whether you have done the right thing.

Meanwhile, there are Dark Knight DVD ads on the tube … and it looks so great!

Or as Sam Goldwyn is oft quoted as saying, “If you want to send a message, call Western Union.” Even during Oscar season.

– David Poland
December 4, 2008

Along with, ”May you live in interesting times,” a new curse has developed into undeniable undesirability… “May your film run at the front of the Oscar pack!”

Dreamgirls, Flags of Our Fathers, Cold Mountain, 21 Grams, Charlie Wilson’s War, Sweeney Todd, Memoirs of a Geisha… all members of the Fraternal Association of Ritual Takedowns. These were can’t miss front-runners that missed. Each has a story. Each suffered as much from expectation as from the qualities of the films themselves.

The two other sides of this are, first, highly anticipated films that turned out to be epic disasters, including Rent, The Producers, Breaking & Entering, The Shipping News, Lions For Lambs, Rendition, and others. Second are the films that started as frontrunners and still got in with a nomination, but seemed dead to the possibility of a win, like Atonement, Ray, Seabiscuit, Gangs of New York, The Cider House Rules amongst them.

This year’s victims?

Well, it already seems that there is some strong pushback against Australia, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Doubt, and Revolutionary Road. Each one has the opportunity to push back again. People love a comeback. And the list of potential nominees is thin and the likely to win list is even shorter. Not coincidentally, all four are period pieces… two are epics, two are about repression.

One film, Milk, already went through a front running role into a “it’s not going to happen,” and has already recovered into a near lock for a Best Picture nod and a serious expectation that Sean Penn is as likely as anyone to bring home a Best Actor Oscar.

There wasn’t much blood loss at Toronto this year because so few put themselves in harms way. No Elizabeth: The Golden Age, burning bright and out in one evening’s screening.

What did happen in Toronto was the opposite of the norm. Fox Searchlight, which was limping into the season with just The Secret Life of Bees (which may now rebound in some categories after a surprisingly strong run in theaters), came out a top contender with the underdog launch of Slumdog Millionaire and the acquisition-up of The Mickey Show, aka The Wrestler.

POW!

Just a few years ago, the idea of a Toronto pick-up making a big Oscar push in the same season was just not being done. After Lionsgate picked up Crash at Toronto 2004 waited until the following May to release the film. Fox Searchlight had a nearly complete In America at Toronto 2002 and sat on it all the way until November 2003 in the name of an Oscar run. But Juno really changed the dynamic on the whole thing. It was a last-minute festival entry in September of last year, got very hot very fast, set up a big commercial run in December, and pressed right past everything else Searchlight had been focusing on as Oscar bait last season.

This phenomenon is not just an Oscar thing. Marketing waves are getting shorter and more intensive through all movie marketing. But that’s another column.

This week, the last couple contenders – Gran Torino and Seven Pounds – will be shown in earnest for the first time. And then, things really lock in. Film Independent announces the Indie Spirit noms on Tuesday. The idiotic Nation Board of Review launches its strike in the name of selling ballroom tables on Thursday, followed by The Return Of The Hollywood Foreign Preciousness Association (The Molded Globes) next Thursday… and on… and on…

And by the end of that weekend, we should know which frontrunners are in the running and which ones fell to The Curse.

Fun!

Note: There will be a new column and a new set of charts on Thursday, Dec 4