..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Kim Voynar
..Michael Wilmington

205 DAYS TO GO
The Year Of The Huh?

About three months ago, I was excited about this being the Year of The Director. And now, a few weeks from Toronto, it feels like The Year of Who The Hell Knows.

The directors I foresee racing are still pretty much familiar awards season names, but a lot of those directors' films have simply become also-rans, some even without being seen. Just a couple of for-instances would be Milos Forman's Goya's Ghosts, which still has no distributor, and Scorsese's The Departed, which is now being positioned as an action movie first and awards movie not at all.

A big part of the Oscar season, like all movie business, comes from how studios perceive their own product and how hard it seems they are going to fight the good fight. Right now, there is a strong perception out there that one studio that might have a movie that could race just isn't interested enough in the Oscar race to bother looking too far past the commercial potential of their film. On the other hand, there are a couple of companies that have been looking, unsuccessfully, for a top of the line Oscar consultant to guide relatively inexperienced, albeit smart, company publicists.

Over at Paramount Vantage, former Fox Searchlight publicist turned Publicity Chief and untitled marketer - since Vantage is still without a head of marketing - did what the Weinsteins failed to do… she kept her gang together. Vantage not only hired a bunch of Searchlight employees, but Megan brought in some of her favorite people from around town.

Ironically, Vantage's biggest hurdle for Babel will be coming from the same lot, with Paramount/Dreamworks holding three big cards - Dreamgirls, Flags of Our Fathers, World Trade Center - as we head into the season. (Interestingly, Babel is a Paramount-created project, handed to Vantage after John Lesher fought to get it for months.)

The other company with a full awards boat is Sony, with All The King's Men, Stranger Than Fiction, and The Pursuit of Happyness, plus Running With Scissors and Marie Antoinette.

Meanwhile, Hollywood's favorite Oscar wildcard, The Dart Group, is on both side of those two juggernauts, plus Miramax and a few other films that have Dart Group clients involved. (For instance, Scott Rudin has both Miramax Oscar hopefuls, The Queen and Venus, plus Searchlight's Notes on a Scandal and the apparently delayed Ken Lonergan film, Margaret.)

But I digress…

Some have suggested that it may be The Year of the Actress, but while the two acting categories for women may be the most loaded and the most competitive at this early date, it's not like there is a long list of additional performances threatening to knock anyone out.

It could end up being The Year of The Major Studio. Only four of the seventeen films with distribution that I still have in the top level of contention come from non-majors. The Weinstein Company films are now all in that category, as they are being released by MGM… still a MPAA major. (Goya's Ghosts remains in contention in spite of it still being without distribution. If it has no home by the time I do a post-Toronto list, it will be out. A campaign can be put together quickly, but at some point it becomes unreasonable.)

The opportunity is certainly there for this to be The Year of Internationalism. Babel, The Queen, The History Boys, The Good German, A Good Year, Goya's Ghosts, and Catch A Fire are all stories based outside of the U.S.

On the flip side, it could be the Year of American History. World Trade Center, Flags of Our Fathers, Dreamgirls, The Pursuit of Happyness, Bobby, All The Kings Men, and Home of the Brave are all stories of American history, whether literal or metaphoric.

Who knows? Maybe it's going to be The Year Of The Funny People with Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Will Ferrell and Steve Carrell all getting nominations and movies like Little Miss Sunshine, Stranger Than Fiction, Little Children (which is the darkest of comedies), Borat and For Your Consideration stepping up.

Probably not…

The truth is, it doesn't look like there will be a clear theme for this year. There is a wide range of movies, though I have to say, there is a hell of a lot of history. Is this our best filmmakers' way of discussing today's politics without speaking directly to it? Perhaps. It seems to me that most of these films either have a happy ending or that Bobby Ewing in the shower, "it was all a dream" feel to them.

Even González Iñárritu, who has gone to awfully dark places in previous films, seem to lean towards relatively happy endings to the various sagas - with exceptions - in Babel. Oliver Stone's World Trade Center is hopeful about humanity. We have a Good Shepherd and a Good German, a Good Year and The Pursuit of Happyness, which is so happy that it excuses its own misspelling.

By the time you read the next entry of this year's countdown columns, all but a half dozen of the contenders will have been screened. That's another very unique part of this year's race. The surprises will be the presumed great films that aren't and the crap films that turn out to be great. I expect the field to be more narrow more quickly than any of us can remember.

So take a mouthful, chew a bit, and spit it out before it ruins your dinner.

It'll be fun to look back in the months to come and to see how much I got wrong.

The Charts
Best Picture
Best Actor
Best Actress
Best Screenplay
Best Director

- Email David Poland