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

11 Weeks To Go:
The Greatly Settled

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.

 

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December 11, 2008
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November 20, 2008
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- Email David Poland