'Dark Knight' snubs and 'Reader' triumphs -- did Oscar get it right?

So the big question is, did Oscar get it right?

Obviously, Harvey Weinstein, who willed "The Reader" into this year's race against all odds and the objections of original producer Scott Rudin (who took his name off the film), thinks so on the evidence of a triumphant five nominations, all in key categories like best picture, actress, screenplay, directing and cinematography.

Rudin may have a different opinion as his two ponies, "Doubt" (also with five nominations but only in acting and writing categories) and "Revolutionary Road" (with only three, the most prominent being Michael Shannon's well-deserved supporting actor nod), got shut out of the best-picture race entirely.

Interesting to note that, of all the best-picture contenders, "The Reader" is the only one that has its producer "nominees to be determined,"  but in addition to Donna Gigliotti (put on the film after Rudin bolted), they include the late greats Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella. The academy's aknowledgement of the film would seem to be a warm goodbye to these two giants.

More so than the guilds this year, the British academy seemed to strongly mirror the tastes of the American academy, and indeed there was a strong overlap of voters in both organizations. And as I wrote in this column last week after BAFTA's announcement in which "The Reader" got several key nods including best picture, "This is the movie that has cropped up again and again in conversations I have had with academy members, not 'The Dark Knight.' "

That decidely unscientific survey has again proven to be right. (My "group" has in previous years pointed clearly to upset victories for Marisa Tomei, "Crash" and Marion Cotillard. I am getting on the phone with them right now to see who wins on Feb. 22. I'll let you know.)

UPDATE: Harvey Weinstein just called sounding deliriously happy about his latest Academy Awards success story and he's just getting revved up with that old Oscar mojo of his. "I tell people its nice we got all the nominations but do not count yourself out. You have a real chance to overtake this all. We've seen that happen with 'Crash' and 'Brokeback Mountain'. It's all great. The only thing I can say is the race ain't over. It's just beginning," he said.

As part of his campaign strategy Weinstein is urging people to see the movie more than once.

"'The Reader' is one of those rare movies that works on a three or four times basis. The more you see it, the more you get it and the more you understand the movie. That's what happened with me originally,"  he says.

Harvey (who also gave  NOTES ON A SEASON a very generous shout out for our coverage of the serious emergence of  "The Reader" ) says Kate Winslet's lead actress nomination was the first signal he had that "Reader" could go all the way.

"That's the first indication I had we could win the Best Picture, not just be nominated. WIN. Because to put Kate in there showed such incredible passion for the movie.  They knocked her out of supporting, and the other movie ("Revolutionary Road") to do it.

As for  Winslet, she has to be the most conflicted of all today's nominees. The double Golden Globe winner (supporting for "Reader" and lead for "Revolutionary Road") must be surprised that her strategy of trying to squeeze her clear leading role in "Reader" into supporting in order to get a lead nomination for "Revolutionary Road" (the film she made with husband Sam Mendes) did not fly with the academy's actors branch.

Like BAFTA last week, the actors showed great integrity in going their own way, declaring her role in "Reader" a lead role and nominating her for that film, rather than "Revolutionary Road," in that category (unlike BAFTA, which gave her two noms in the category, Oscar rules only allow one performance per category for actors). It would be fascinating to see the voting breakdown; clearly, she ran the risk of confusing the entire situation and coming up empty. Now with a clear shot for "The Reader" and her remarkable performance in "Revolutionary Road" in the back of voters' minds, Winslet is without a "Doubt" (sorry, Meryl) the front-runner for best actress.

Weinstein has to be doubly happy about this because his true supporting-actress contender, Penelope Cruz, who lost to Winslet in supporting at the Globes, should without a "Doubt" (sorry, Amy and Viola) sail into the winners' circle for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," Woody Allen's brilliant comeback comedy hit that quite surprisingly failed to nab a deserved original-screenplay nomination for Woody himself. That's a grievous oversight, but the Wizard Of Os sometimes giveth and then taketh away, making the morning bittersweet for the Woodys and the Winslets.

It also has to be an extremely bittersweet morning for Warner Bros.,  which had its corporate heart set on seeing its monster smash hit, "The Dark Knight," defy the odds and nab a best-picture berth. It seemed especially likely after Batman's triumphant run of WGA, PGA and DGA guild nominations, usually ultra-strong indicators of Oscar as well, but despite eight mostly technical (and Heath Ledger) mentions, it was shut out of picture, director and writing, proving again the "snobability" factor of Oscar.

If ever there was a chance for a comic-book popcorn summer movie to do it, this was the year. But Warners will just have to settle for billion-plus worldwide gross. Sad. It's ironic that  "Slumdog Millionaire," with 10 nominations including best picture, is the movie non-believers at  corporate Warners handed to Fox Searchlight to run to glory with (while retaining an equal financial stake). Warners also is repped in the best-picture race with "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button," which it has internationally while Paramount releases it domestically.

Another keen disappointment for Warners has to be the shutout of "Gran Torino" and Clint Eastwood's hoped-for best-actor nod. Voting had ended just as word of "Torino's" huge box-office success got out and its momentum started building or the film probably would have done better. It needed another week or two since academy members genuinely seemed to like it. Timing was just slightly off in this extremely competitive year. Had the actors gone for Clint, he might have been the front-runner to win the whole thing.

The day had to be all sweet, no trace of bitter, for "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button," with a near-record 13 nominations, sweeping every portion of the academy and showing great strength. It's always a good thing to be the leader in nominations as it's a momentum builder.  Paramount has retooled its campaign already, debuting impressive new TV spots this week and changing its game after early losses at the Globes and Critics Choice awards to the surging "Slumdog," which came in second with an impressive 10 Oscar nominations. Gambling that they would have bragging rights editorially Paramount pre-bought the cover of Friday's Variety giving it a one-two punch when Academy members get their trades tomorrow.

With "Button" passing the $100 million dollar mark this week, it's a certified hit and can now build strongly on it's Oscar glory. It's the popular choice in the Best Pic pack now that "Dark Knight" is out but "Slumdog" still seems to be the "passionate" pick.  But as Oscar show producers Bill Condon and Laurence Mark told me this morning they are happy because they believe it's a real "horse race" and that's good hopefully for ratings. Some Academy officials were said to be privately rooting for a "Dark Knight" Best Picture scenario to really goose the numbers but voters had other ideas. Still happiness abounds with the Brangelina nominations. The red carpet will be on fire!

A brief look at the actor races sees Sean Penn looking good to grab a second lead actor Oscar for "Milk" which had a surprisingly robust showing with 8 nominations. His key competition will be "The Wrestler's" Golden GLobe winner Mickey Rourke grabbing the comeback vote and Frank Langella's  Richard Nixon which has yet to win anything this season. Academy members mention him a lot though and they love actors who play the real thing. Of course Harvey Milk was a real guy too so.......

The lead nominations for Richard Jenkins in "The Visitor" as well as Melissa Leo in "Frozen River" were no brainers as both are known as actors' actors and these were dream roles in small films from earlier in the year. Whenever they get the chance, the actors branch loves to honor those who have paid their dues in the trenches.

Barring a big surprise the fine supporting nominees , Josh Brolin, Robert Downey Jr., Michael Shannon and Philip Seymour Hoffman will probably all take a back seat on Oscar night to the "Dark Knight's" Heath Ledger who seems to be in line to become only the second actor after Peter Finch in "Network" to win posthumously. No 'Doubt' about it (Sorry Philip). However, if there's an upset anywhere on the list it's likely to be here due to the Academy's historical reluctance to award posthumous Oscars but don't count on it.

Condon and Mark were scratching their heads over the paltry best-song list, with only three contenders including "Down go Earth" from "Wall-E" and the two songs from "Slumdog," but they told me they were purposely waiting until the nominations even to start thinking about showcases for songs, so the musical planning starts now. Clearly, though, the Oscar show is gonna get a BIG dose of Bollywood. Take it to the bank.

Finally, the wisdom of year-end releases again pays off with "Slumdog's" Nov. 12 opening the earliest of any of the best-picture contenders. In other words, if this week's No. 1 film, "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" had any dreams of Oscars it should have held out for a Thanksgiving release. The recent exception of "Crash" aside,  the academy once again is showing it has a short memory when it comes to best-picture contenders. 

So did Oscar get it right?  It's still a work in progress with exactly a month to go and reasons to be happy and depressed for just about every consultant in town.

With Condon and Mark promising a rejuvenated show and Jerry Lewis finally getting an Oscar statuette this year (the Hersholt), it will be one to watch. And according to the producers, who refuse to reveal any of the presenters' names beforehand, only one thing is absolutely certain.

"We will bring the Oscars in at three hours, period,"  said Condon. And Mark added, "That's a campaign promise!"

So, look on the bright side, newly minted Oscar nominees.  If you lose, at least it's gonna be quick.

--Pete Hammond

(Photo: David Kross and Kate Winslet in "The Reader", courtesy The Weinstein Company)

Comments

[Jake]

I'm so unhappy because the academy chose to ignore the two best performances of the year -- Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road -- which is by far a better picture than the reader. I'm sad about the Dark Knight, but not entirely surprised, it got no SAG support. I don't think anyone should think that Heath Ledger is a sure thing - no one is a sure thing until the envelope is read.

[Sam]

I feel like the Academy doesn't want to nominate popular films. Here they had the chance to increase it's ratings by nominating The Dark Knight, nominating Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens song from High School musical 3 and Miley Cyrus song from Bolt.
None of the films except for Button have played in middle america and they expect all of us to make time to watch them all in less then a month? The awards should be moved back to March. If you haven't seen the movies nominated, why would you care about the ceremony?

[DrDave]

I cannot believe that Bruce Springsteen's T"he Wrestler" was not nominated as best song. I figured it was a shoe in following the Golden Globe win - who does these nominations?

[someone]

Count me out on this years Oscar's. I'll probably just look online to see if Heath Ledger won but that's it. I mean the reader over the Dark Knight that's just full of BULLSH*T I mean seriously the reader got very low ratings considering it's being nominated for best picture. I mean look at its scores on rotten tomatoes and metacritic and compare it to the dark knight.

If they wanted to snub the dark knight they could have ate least done it with worthy movies like Wall-E, Gran Torino, or even Doubt but no they choice the reader I mean even revolutionary road has better ratings than the reader.

OSCAR VOTERS(if you're reading this) when you take a look back don't you regret not giving a win to Citizen Kane or the Shawshank Redemption(although forrest gump was amazing but Shawshank owned)
or better yet don't you regret not nominating into the wild
I'll say this to you voters you WILL regret nominating the reader over the Dark Knight. Because Oscar ratings will be DOWN. And you can expect to get a lot of hate mail from alot of angry people.

Since you members already made a stupid mistake by not nominating it you better give Heath the oscar he deserves.

[David Miami Beach]

Why, good old Mr. Weinstein might as well be selling tickets to Oz if he thinks "The Reader" could 'go all the way.' To quote Kate Winslet's character in the sadly overlooked "Revolutionary Road", "If anyone could talk black into white..." A tremendous push on his part for "The Reader" would be a serious error, for if the film did in fact take the top trophy, there would be a tremendous backlash against the whole campaigning season. Maybe President Obama should step in and draft a few new rules, after all, what works for Washington should work for Hollywood, right?

[Robert Hamer]

"So the big question is, did Oscar get it right?"

Absolutely not, and I'm not just talking about snubbing The Dark Knight. The Wrestler and WALL-E were also unfairly left out.

[christy]

with the snubbing of the dark knight i'm not watching this trash and waste 3 hours of my life to watch actors to kiss there own ass. the reader over the dark knight this must be a bad joke!

[Sticka]

Did they get it right? Not even.

The Reader performance is simply not the better of the two, the the way the Academy ignored Revolutionary Road is frustrating.

Even more frustrating is the snobbish and insular natural of this year's nominations. I am far from a film populist, but between Wall-E and the Dark Knight, some of the year's finest cinema happened to be populist.

[alluhrey]

harvey weinstein gave you a generous shout-out for the emergence of the reader???!!! emphasis on the generous...

[Reichdome]

hey Rober Hamer mate..

where you said "..reader over The Dark Knight this must be a bad joke.."

Comes straight from the line of (one of many great memorable lines from tdk:)

as the Joker says my friend "And I thought, my jokes were bad".

Well...lol if the Joker thought his jokes were bad, OScars snub of tdk is the WORST JOKE OF ALL....and a slap in the face to balance in recognizing role of popculture with critcally acclaimed films..

I had no idea the Academy would like to generate communcal resentment among the very people that deserve to have a bigger say in which films at least can compete i big categories even if they cant win: US!

[andytanhw]

huh why is everyone saying the reader sucks?
to me that is one of the best movies i've watched ever!
beautiful acted and directed
sure the story etc might be considered 'oscar bait' but that doesn't mean it isn;t a good movie
i love dark knight too and yes it was snubbed for best picture
but does that mean the reader doesnt deserve to be nominated? i dun think so!
i so pray that it will win for best picture and actress cause kate winslet deserves it!
it's a travestry that such a brilliant actress has never won an oscar

[zenrin]

I'm not surprised if Revolutionary Road is snobbed and replaced by The Reader coz the latter one has more story to tell. I also think that Ms. Winslet is deserving for best actress nod, and for the dark knight, which I think is a brilliant movie, but i dont think it has more oscar material than the reader. We should just be more matured if we're talking about Oscars.

[InMyPjs]

There are better films than the Reader....The Dark Knight, Revolutionary Road, and even Wall-E. Those films will be long remembered than The Reader. A year from now, people would ask...The Reader what?! They were not even going to release it until 2009 so this was a huge fluke.

Kate Winslet should have been nominated for RR and maybe even Dicaprio and Sam Mendes. The Dark Knight have many nominations and one would think it would be a shoe-in for Best Picture. Wall-E is a lot better than Beauty and the Beast.