..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Ray Pride
..Patricia Vidal

WEEK FIVE

Can you feel the calm before the storm?

The next three weeks will have a big effect on the final outcome of this year's Oscars. It's like that moment in every period war movie where the archers shoot flaming arrows across the wide expanse of battlefield as the enemy approaches. There is aggression in the air, but the real ugliness won't start until the critics groups (a term I use advisedly for NBR and HFPA) get out of the way. That's when everyone with a horse in the race (with apologies to the increasingly desperate ad buys for Seabiscuit) runs on the field with a blunt instrument and fights it out until January 17, when Oscar nomination balloting closes.

The season started a long while ago, but somehow, people are treading rather gingerly this year. People are still talking about Mystic River and Lost In Translation a lot since there is not enough traction on the rest of the Oscar-hopeful movies for to get good footing. Focus Features, Fox Searchlight, Lions Gate and DreamWorks have been pressing hard on small films, but somehow, nothing is quite getting there yet, no matter how positive the reaction has been. Fox will get some better footing this weekend if Master & Commander holds well in its second weekend. Big Fish is being seen. The Missing is being seen. Both Cold Mountain and Lord of The Rings: Return Of The King are being delivered to their studios in the next few days.

And screeners still haven't been delivered….

A few classic shots have been fired. Liz Smith rushed out a review of The Last Samurai just days after a number of the more serious critics let Warner Bros. know that there are reservations about the film. Roger Friedman surprised a lot of people by coming out strongly for the non-Miramax Big Fish. But our old friend, the brown nosed one (and that ain't Shinola), was back this week, doing what damage he could to House of Sand & Fog, attempting to reduce it to a movie about a real estate transaction gone wrong. The Human Stain got buried and reburied… but it was already dead on arrival at Toronto and the story of its demise got more attention than the actual movie did.

But that's about it.

There were rumors earlier this week about a "dependent" planning to ship foreign-language candidates to non-Academy awards groups after poor attendance at their screenings. The studio denies it at the highest level, though there is an admission that some tapes and DVDs were shipped before the ban was formalized. The head of this studio accused another studio of trying to stir things up. As it turns out, a rep from yet another studio was spreading the word.

In other words, there are all of these high-strung thoroughbred Oscar campaigners all penned up together, champing at their bits, working hard but not quite sure where to step.

The most popular whine of the moment is, "Why are you people assuming that Cold Mountain and Lord of the Rings are locked into slots?" I've heard it a lot in the last few weeks. But it is a rhetorical question. Everyone knows why they are The Assumed.

The "unfair" advantage is that assumption allows New Line and Miramax to take the high road, not only waiting to unleash the hounds of awards war but knowing that unless their movies come up stiff, their seat at the table is safe and being kept warm by the media. Meanwhile, everyone else tensely awaits the slugfest.

Can anyone really tell you whether In America, House of Sand & Fog, Mystic River, Big Fish, 21 Grams or Lost in Translation will be the one or the ones to make it? No. At best, three of the six can make it. And that is before you go to the other big movies, The Missing, The Last Samurai, Master & Commander and Seabiscuit. I have my personal preferences, as everyone else does. But these are 10 movies, not a single one of which would be a shocker were it to make the list of 5… or the list of 3, if you embrace The Assumed.

What extraordinary measures can Oscar campaigners take to breakthrough the clutter, which is all the grayer with the hyperactive glamour of the screener fight in our rearview mirror? I don't really think there are any. People are all abuzz, actually, about the massive number of Seabiscuit ads. But by shoving the horsemeat down our throats, Universal is in danger of moving right past traction to irritation and awards death. And that is the trouble. Do you risk turning people off with hype or do you risk people forgetting your movie by being too low key?

There are plenty of people who tout Oscar history, but basic logic dictates that awards voters are only likely to nominate so many historical dramas… a category already loaded by The Assumed. Do Big Fish and Lost In Translation have enough humor to breakout as the only "fun" movies in the running this year? Will The Last Samurai or Seabiscuit be old school enough to get traction from traditionalists who don't like the edginess of the other films? Can the brilliant revisionist view of the cowboy movie and the sea faring movie get The Missing or Master & Commander through? Will the dead ends of House of Sand & Fog, Mystic River and 21 Grams make Oscar voters feel brave or resentful? And will Searchlight get enough people in to see In America to build a voting block?

No one really knows. And there really is no way to sell a movie into an answer. You can argue the power of Clint Eastwood and Ron Howard and Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe. You can argue an interest in the cutting edge that Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Sofia Coppola and Vadim Perelman represent. You can argue a bias against the fantastical, but then you can't explain the last two awards seasons of Lord of the Rings, which broke every "rule." Of all 13 movies on my current Best Picture list, the only one that does not involve former Oscar Nominees or winners in a major category is Lost In Translation. So Oscar voters like someone… really, really like someone… in every other film.

It feels like a traffic bottleneck… you can change lanes or stick with one… ride on the soft shoulder or obey every traffic rule… you can honk your horn or wait patiently… but the traffic ain't moving until it decides to move. And there isn't a darned thing you can do about it.

The Thanksgiving homework for awards voters has become really simple. Every Oscar story I have seen names pretty much the same dozen movies. Most really interested voters seem to have seen Finding Nemo, Seabiscuit, Mystic River and Lost In Translation already. Cold Mountain and Return of the King will not be widely seen until the first week of December. That leaves six movies to see in the next couple of weeks. That's doable, isn't it? There are screenings out the ying-yang. Go to the freakin' movies.

And then, the next big push, coming out of National Board of Review and the Independent Spirit Awards nominees (inexplicably announcing nominees a week earlier this year) and BFCA and HFPA and NYFCC and NSFC, will mean as little as it should, if the voters have seen the movies.

NOTE: The only big mover on this week's charts is Charlize Theron, who took her place in the elite by way of the AFI premiere of Monster. (See The Hot Button - 11/17, second Item) Also, there are new charts this week for documentary and anomation categories.

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The Rankings

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20 Weeks To Oscar: Week Four
20 Weeks To Oscar: Week Three
20 Weeks To Oscar: Week Two
20 Weeks To Oscar: Week One
21 Weeks To Oscar
23 Weeks To Oscar
29 Weeks to Oscar

- by David Poland