Oscars: Campaign '08 — Big questions begin to emerge...

Over the last few weeks on the awards trail, I've chatted with numerous critics, bloggers, and good ol' movie buffs about the state of the race. A number of questions came up, in one form or another, on multiple occasions, so I figured I'd write down a few of them and do my best to answer them here on the site...

Is it just me, or is there an unusually high number of acting contenders with two horses in the race this year?

No, it's not just you; the list really is quite long. (Note: release dates and awards category submissions and rulings are subject to change as the race shapes up):

• Josh Brolin: lead for "W." (10/17, Lionsgate) and supporting for "Milk" (12/5, Focus Features)
• Daniel Craig: lead for "Quantum of Solace" (11/14, MGM/Sony) and lead for "Defiance" (12/12, Paramount Vantage)
• Penelope Cruz: lead for "Elegy" (8/8, Samuel Goldwyn Films) and supporting for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (8/15, Weinstein Co.)
• Leonardo DiCaprio: lead for "Body of Lies" (10/10, Warner Bros.) and lead for "Revolutionary Road" (12/26, Paramount Vantage)
• Ralph Fiennes: supporting for "The Duchess" (9/19, Paramount Vantage) and lead for "The Reader" (12/12, Weinstein Company)
• Philip Seymour Hoffman: lead for "Synechdoche, New York" (10/24, Sony Pictures Classics) and supporting for "Doubt" (10/12, Miramax)
• Viggo Mortensen: supporting for "Appaloosa" (10/3, New Line/Warner Bros.), lead for "Good" (12/TBA, THINKFilm), and lead for "The Road" (11/26, Dimension)
• Meryl Streep: lead for "Mamma Mia!" (7/18, Universal) and lead for "Doubt" (10/12, Miramax)
• Kate Winslet: lead for "The Reader" (12/12, Weinstein Company) and lead for "Revolutionary Road" (12/26, Paramount Vantage)

Still, in all likelihood, there won't be any double-nominees this year (like Cate Blanchett last year, or ten others before that). Those with multiple performances eligible for the same category can only be nominated for one, and those with multiple performances eligible for different categories seem to only have a really strong chance for one, if that.

Of the group above, at this point it looks like the performances most likely to be nominated are: Cruz in supporting for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," DiCaprio in lead for "Revolutionary Road," Hoffman in supporting for "Doubt," Streep in lead for "Doubt," and Winslet in lead for one or the other, which leads to the next question...

Will Kate Winslet be nominated for "The Reader," "Revolutionary Road," or neither?

This is one of the hottest questions of the year. Winslet, as great an actress as any now working, will be portraying two of the most colorful characters from two of the most acclaimed novels of the past half-century in two films for two rival studios. Assuming she does her usual great work, either would seem to be likely Oscar bait, but if both studios push her for lead instead of supporting, as they currently plan to (although "The Reader" is in flux, see below), she can only be nominated for one. Nobody has seen either yet, so we don't know which film is better, but we do know bits and pieces of information about how both productions have evolved, which might help us answer our question...

The distributor (Harvey Weinstein) and the producer (Scott Rudin) and director (Stephen Daldry) of "The Reader" had a heated debate about whether or not to release the film this year. According to reports, the argument for delaying the release to 2009 was that Daldry did not want to have to rush to finish/possibly compromise the quality of the film, which he feared he would have to do in order to be done in time to honor his commitment to direct a Broadway adaptation of "Billy Elliot." Rudin, the producer, seemed to agree, but Weinstein, the king of Oscar campaigners, was energized by the material he had seen and felt there was enough time to get the thing done. Eventually, following a well-received test screening in New York, the three parties announced that they had agreed on a release date of Dec. 12, and all seemed well in the world... but then Patrick Goldstein broke the news on Thursday night that Rudin has taken his name off of/walked away from the project, so who knows what to think now?

On Dec. 26, just two weeks after "The Reader" comes out, Paramount Vantage will release "Revolutionary Road," which the studio has regarded as its primary awards contender all year. This film has also taken an odd path to this point -- it was originally supposed to come out last December before being pushed to 2008, but studio officials insist the delay was not due to problems with the film.

Regardless, it has two potential aces in the pocket: (1) Rudin, who is obviously disgruntled about "The Reader," is also a producer of "Revolutionary Road," and (2) Winslet is married to the film's director, Sam Mendes and, according to reports, intends to do minimal campaigning for "The Reader" because she does not want to compete against her husband's film.

Anyway, the truth is that most voters will never know -- and don't care to know -- about these internal studio politics; they'll simply support the better performance and better film. Which is...

Nobody is quite sure. I read both source novels after learning that Winslet had been cast to play the lead characters in the films, and both are terrific. Without giving away more than a trailer would, here's what they're each about...

"The Reader" is set in post-WWII Germany, where Hanna Schmitz (Winslet), a beautiful streetcar conductor, befriends and subsequently becomes the secret lover of a teenage boy. She never volunteers much to him about her past, and he learns not to ask questions, but despite his best efforts to keep her happy her behavior grows increasingly erratic, and then one day she is gone. When he ultimately discovers why she went away, it is both shocking and revealing.

• Winslet's case: Winslet gets to age greatly and play down her looks in the film, two things that Academy voters have gravitated towards from their earliest days through as recently as last year, when the gorgeous Marion Cotillard won an Oscar for portraying the not-so gorgeous Edith Piaf from youth to death. Also, the story is indirectly about World War II and the Holocaust, both subjects that the Academy has repeatedly shown a fondness for in the past.

"Revolutionary Road" is set not long after, in 1950s America, a period during which most Americans simply wanted to fit in, but April Wheeler (Winslet) and her husband Frank harbored dreams of standing out. As they "settle down" and try to find happiness, the everyday routine of life in suburbia begins to weigh heavily on them and their marriage.

• Winslet's case: The last time Mendes directed a movie about suburban angst, it was called "American Beauty," it earned its leading lady a nod for Best Actress, and it won Best Picture... but where that film was satirical, this one is dark. With the national mood already low, will voters embrace the story or go looking for martinis of their own to help forget it?

Based solely on the novels, I would give a slight edge to Winslet in "The Reader," but based on the projection of confidence (or lack thereof) being demonstrated in these productions by their studios, I'm thinking Winslet in "Revolutionary Road." We'll see. For Winslet herself, the worst possible outcome, of course, would be to go without a nomination for either. If that happens, it would probably be because both movies were disappointing, or because two well-meaning but competing studios ended up splitting voters' support between the two performances, causing neither to garner enough votes. One thing's for certain, though: at this stage, neither is about to back down.

Will the awards prospects of Robert Downey Jr. ("The Soloist") get an added boost as a result of his busy -- some might say "career" -- year?

It certainly can't hurt. Downey, aside from his weightier role in "The Soloist," also stood out this year in "Iron Man," one of 2008's biggest and best blockbusters ($318 million) and "Tropic Thunder," one of its most successful comedies ($110 million). While it's true that neither of them are Oscar-y movies, they did receive widespread attention, and any member of the Academy's actors' branch, which solely determines acting nominations, would have to be impressed for any actor to have such a prolific year... especially one who has overcome as much as Downey.

In which category will Cate Blanchett ("The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"), Philip Seymour Hoffman ("Doubt"), and Michael Sheen ("Frost/Nixon") end up?

These things can always change, but at the moment we're hearing that Hoffman will go supporting and Blanchett and Sheen will go lead. These are all carefully calculated moves.

The lead actor field is overflowing with talent this year, and even though Hoffman is a highly-respected past winner in the category, he might well come up short of even a nomination if he tried there, so if he does not feel "above" the supporting category (he's never been a vain actor) and if his performance can unglaringly pass as supporting Meryl Streep's lead, then why not go for the safer bet? Contrarily, the people behind the campaigns for Blanchett in "Benjamin Button" and Sheen in "Frost/Nixon" obviously feel they have a decent shot at lead for their work in those films, both presumptive Best Picture nominees. Based on everything I know at this time, it strikes me as a better gamble for Blanchett than Sheen.

Blanchett has already received five nominations and won one of them. She is the second coming of Streep: an immensely talented actress who has acquired such reverence among her peers that she could simply slop on a little makeup and yell for two hours and get nominated. (How else do you account for her lead nomination last year for the entirely mediocre "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"?) So if "Benjamin Button" is even half as good as some of us believe it could be, then are Academy members really going to vote for a performance by a relative ingenue like Anne Hathaway in "Rachel Getting Married" over a tried-and-true vet like Blanchett? A huge chunk of voters don't even watch the movies, so are they going to reward a worthy but under-the-radar performance like Melissa Leo's in "Frozen River" or a familiar name like Blanchett? I'm not saying that Blanchett won't be worthy of a nod or that those other women won't get one anyway... just that Blanchett has to do less to get one than other contenders.

Sheen is a different story, as my colleague Tom O'Neil recently began to explain. The guy is a brilliant actor and probably deserving of a lead nomination, but he's trying to dive into one of the most competitive lead actor fields in years, which already includes Frank Langella, his co-star with an even more awards-worthy part (based, if nothing else, on the fact that Langella won a Tony and Sheen wasn't even nominated for playing the same parts on Broadway). If Sheen was a well-known American actor or sex symbol, then a double-nomination would seem somewhat more conceivable, but in fact he's a Welsh actor who is a few months shy of 40 and has never been nominated before... even after he gave a terrific performance just two years ago (as former British P.M. Tony Blair) in a movie ("The Queen") that mustered an impressive six nominations (including one that turned into a win for his co-star Helen Mirren).

Not exactly a good omen from the Academy! Besides, the last time one movie produced two Best Actor nominees was "Amadeus" (1984, Abraham/Hulce) twenty-four years ago... not "Wall Street" (1987, Douglas/Sheen), "Rain Man" (1988, Hoffman/Cruise), "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994, Freeman/Robbins), "Pulp Fiction" (1994, Travolta/Jackson), "Training Day" (2001, Washington/Hawke), "The Departed" (2006, DiCaprio/Damon), "The Last King of Scotland" (2006, Whitaker/McAvoy)... nothing... one of the two male leads in those films either went supporting or got shut out. I'm not saying it can't happen, but would you really want to bet on Michael Sheen being the guy to break that streak?

Who, if anyone, will be nominated for the ensemble films "Defiance," "The Secret Life of Bees," and/or "Slumdog Millionaire"?

It's never easy for performances in true ensemble films like these three to crack the top five of any of the acting categories, but it can be done, and indeed it has been done in recent years, almost always in the supporting categories -- consider Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith for "Gosford Park" (2001), Ed Harris for "The Hours" (2002), Matt Dillon for "Crash" (2005), Alan Arkin for "Little Miss Sunshine" (2006), Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi for "Babel" (2006), and Hal Holbrook for "Into the Wild" (2007). For that reason, and also because the lead categories are so crowded this year, I believe that the performances in "Defiance," "Bees," and "Slumdog" that will have the best shot at a nomination will be those classified as supporting.

Paramount Vantage, which is distributing "Defiance," has apparently read the tea leaves and already officially designated Liev Schreiber, who I hear is that film's biggest scene-stealer, as a supporting candidate. Fox Searchlight, which is handling both "Bees" and "Slumdog," has yet to make a final call on either film's performances.

With "Bees," I suspect they will give young Dakota Fanning a (long) shot at lead on the basis of her perf's warm reception at Toronto and at the film's recent premiere at the Academy, and then allow the film's other actresses -- including past winner Jennifer Hudson, past nominees Queen Latifah and Sophie Okonedo, and Alicia Keys -- to duke it out between each other in the supporting field. (I give the edge to Latifah, who is still probably the biggest name of the quartet in film circles, and whose mother-figure character is probably the most endearing of the lot's.)

As for "Slumdog," which continues to be received magnificently wherever it is shown, I'd look for attention to center around Dev Patel, the young British TV actor whose part -- the game-show contestant who relives his past in flashbacks before stepping back into the present -- is the most sizable in the film, but not so big that it couldn't be sold as supporting, since the film really has no one or two "leads." If Patel does, in fact, get a push, I'd be very surprised if Freida Pinto, the jaw-droppingly gorgeous Indian actress who plays his love interest as an adult, isn't tossed into the mix as a supporting possibility as well. Note: The child actors who play Patel and Pinto's characters as kids deserve equal attention, but history has taught us that it is nearly impossible for a child actor to get awards attention unless he or she is precocious and white (hence nominations for the likes of Abigail Breslin for "Little Miss Sunshine" but the snubs of Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada and Zekiria Ebrahimi for "The Kite Runner").

On nomination morning, what or whom might I be surprised to see excluded?

• Picture: "The Dark Knight"... I've personally never bought into the notion that this was going to show up anywhere outside of technical categories (aside from Heath, of course), but a great many people -- particularly online -- have concluded that massive box-office automatically equals Best Picture lock. I respectfully disagree and direct them to the the record books (particularly a little movie called "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" that's still slightly ahead of TDK, as well as numerous others close behind like "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and "Star Wars: Episode 1 -- The Phantom Menace") and to the history books (no comic book adaptation has ever been nominated for the top honor).
• Actor: Mickey Rourke for "The Wrestler"... I'm not saying it won't happen (everything we've seen and heard out of Venice, Telluride, and Toronto says it will), but I do caution people to remember that (a) this is some rough material, and (b) just because the media likes a comeback story doesn't mean Rourke's peers in the acting branch are necessarily ready to forgive his abhorrent behavior over the past quarter-century leading up to this apparent reformation.
• Actress: Well, by suggesting that Angelina Jolie for "Changeling" might not be as safe a lead actress contender as we had assumed, I already set off one firestorm, so I will watch and see how that campaign continues to play out on the awards circuit...
• Supporting Actor: Jamie Foxx for "The Soloist"... The buzz is not good at the moment, and many of the concerns I'm hearing center around Foxx's performance. Though charismatic for the public and undeniably terrific in "Ray," since his Oscar win, it will be interesting to see if his fellow actors still carry a torch for him.
• Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"... The absence of familiar names among this category's presumptive contenders, and the fact that films with many of the unfamiliar names have yet to screen, have led many to assume that Cruz's colorful, over-the-top turn in Woody's summer flick is a sure thing. Certainly that was the word coming out of Cannes. But it may have come out too early to be remembered half a year later.

On nomination morning, what or whom might I be most surprised to see included?

• Picture: "WALL-E"... Talk about a blockbuster that people can love! This is an epic love story that everyone can/does love: kids, adults, critics, voters. Like "The Dark Knight," it made a zillion dollars; unlike "The Dark Knight," there is a precedent for this sort of a film getting a Best Pic nod... and if "Beauty and the Beast" won over enough voters to get a nod, then this one sure can.
• Actor: Tom Cruise for "Valkyrie"... I know, I know, conventional wisdom says (a) it's been a troubled production, hence all the release date changes, (b) its move to December was for purely commercial reasons, and (c) Tom Cruise is finished... but a small piece of me thinks that this is the sort of story that people could root for and, thus, the sort of film that could really catch on. Cruise vs. Hollywood is another question.
• Actress: Keira Knightley for "The Duchess"... I'll grant you that this would have looked a lot more realistic if she had picked up a gimme nomination for "Atonement" last year, but she let that one slip away because she thought she could do minimal press for the film and it would still happen. Hopefully she's learned her lesson, because this gem of a performance is never gonna get the attention it deserves unless she brings her beauty and charm to bear at media and industry ops. But if she does...
• Supporting Actor: Michael Shannon for "Revolutionary Road"... Voters are going to check out the movie to see DiCaprio and Winslet. They're going to discover a film much smaller but no less dark than "Titanic." And they'll be grateful when Shannon's wacky character comes along, unabashedly calls things likes he sees them, and brings a little levity to the otherwise melancholy story. It could just be enough.
• Supporting Actress: Elsa Zylberstein for "I've Loved You So Long"... If enough people check out the movie to produce a lead nomination for the buzzed-about Kristin Scott Thomas, then there is an excellent chance that they will also notice and quite possibly nominate her lesser-known Parisian co-star, who is arguably just as good.

Comments

[Daniel]

Saying Cate Blanchett has less to do to get an Oscar nomination is ridiculous. Cate Blanchett's acting is far superior than most, that's what earns the nominations. People seem to mistake Best Picture for Best Actress.
Yes, I agree The Golden Age was a horrible film, but it was not the film that was up for Best Actress? Look at Blanchett's performance, it was incredible and worthy of the nomination it received.
Funny, when she was ignored for Heaven and Veronica Guerin, what were you saying then?

[Anthony]

We certainly have some excellent performances this year, but are the films themselves worth it? Like many, I though that No County was a weak film. Javier Bardem gave a stellar (if scary) performance, yet the film seemed as though it were missing a lot of pieces.

[Hans]

A few comments:

Regarding "The Dark Knight": "but a great many people -- particularly online -- have concluded that massive box-office automatically equals Best Picture lock. I respectfully disagree and direct them to the the record books". The Dark Knight has garnered a 95% fresh rating on Rottentomatoes and an 82 score on MetaCritic. Heath Ledger's performance aside, it arguably became a critics' darling, something the latter two Pirates of the Caribbean films, Shrek 2, two massively successful Harry Potter films, and the comeback Star Wars film couldn't do. In fact, out of the ten highest grossing films of all time, only three films have received RT ratings higher than 90%, one of them being TDK, and the other two being Lord of the Rings films.

I would love to see WALL-E get nominated. It is so much more than just another Animated film. It is a cinematic experience in and of itself. Unfortunately, it looks like that film has Best Animated Feature fodder written all over it.

Also, if anyone has seen the Extras episode in which Kate Winslet guest-starred, then I hope you will see the sheer, utter, hilarious irony of her possibly getting a nod for a "post WWII-Germany" film.

[Aaron]

GREAT ARTICLE! I thoroughly enjoyed reading it!

I agree with mostly everything written...except I have this slight feeling that once the Reader is finally released on Dec. 12, they will start pushing Kate Winslet in the best supporting actress race. I feel like the internal competition between that film and Revolutionary Road, and the unwillingness of Kate Winslet to campaign for that film, will change the producers' minds for pushing her in the Lead race (and as a result appease Winslet).

At the beginning of the year, I thought Keira Knightley had an excellent shot at a Best Actress nomination with The Duchess, but now I am not so sure. I feel like her performance, although excellent, will be ignored as the bigger, baitier roles come out. I don't think the Academy is anxious to nominate her again against other actresses (i.e. Streep, Scott-Thomas, Winslet, Blanchett, even Hathaway), particularly for a film that resembles the last one she was nominated for. But it will be interesting to see what happens...

And p.s. I also think Fox MIGHT switch Michael Sheen to supporting once November/December comes around. I have thought this for a long time. Maybe it's wishful thinking on my behalf because I'm a huge fan and thought he was totally ROBBED of a nomination for The Queen. But I'm not naive enough to think he can score a nomination in this tight category (DiCaprio, Rourke, Penn, Pitt, Mortensen, Downey, Jr. and Langella--his co-star who supposedly has a baitier role).

But GREAT GREAT article