Oscars race enters home straight
The race for the Oscars enters the home straight on Tuesday as
nominees for the 80th Academy Awards are unveiled amid uncertainty
about how Hollywood’s writers strike will affect this year’s
showpiece red carpet event.
Oscar pundits say a crop of acclaimed dark or offbeat films have
made this year’s battle for the Academy’s famous gold statuettes,
which will be handed out on February 24.
The competition is one of the hardest to call in years, but the
picture should become slightly clearer at the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences headquarters at about 12.30am on
Wednesday (AEDT), when the contenders for each category are
announced.
The early front-runner for the coveted best picture prize is
Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country for Old Men, a bleak
crime thriller about the murders unleashed when a drug deal on the
US-Mexico border goes wrong.
However the film, which has won a string of critics prizes
during awards season, was overlooked for the best picture prize at
the Golden Globes on January 13, with the Hollywood Foreign Press
Association instead choosing to honour period drama
Atonement.
Tom O’Neil, of Los Angeles Times awards blog
theenvelope.com, said No Country for Old Men, the powerful
drama There Will Be Blood and low-budget comedy
Juno were likely to be among the five best picture
nominees.
But the other two places were harder to call with
Atonement, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,
American Gangster, Into the Wild, Michael
Clayton, and Sweeney Todd all possible nominees.
While Atonement, a sweeping adaptation of Ian McEwan’s
novel about love and betrayal set during World War II, would have
been a classic Oscars contender in years gone by, O’Neil believes
Academy voters tastes may have changed.
“Atonement has the big epic feel of an Oscar movie and
Oscar voters love this kind of movie, just as they’ve loved The
English Patient and Out of Africa in the past,”
O’Neil said. “However we’ve seen a sea change in recent years with
films like The Departed winning.”
That could strengthen No Country for Old Men’s chances,
O’Neil said, warning there was a slim chance that the Golden Globes
two best picture winners Atonement and musical Sweeney
Todd may both fail to get nominated.
“If that happens it will be the first time ever that one of the
two best picture winners at the Globes did not translate into an
Oscar,” O’Neil said. “That would be shocking.”
In the acting awards, clear front-runners have emerged in most
categories, with Daniel Day-Lewis the best actor favourite for his
performance as a tyrannical oil prospector in Paul Thomas
Anderson’s There Will Be Blood.
The best actress front-runners are tipped to be France’s Marion
Cotillard for her startling portrayal of tragic chanteuse Edith
Piaf in La Vie En Rose and British veteran Julie Christie
for her performance as an Alzheimer’s sufferer in Away from
Her.
In the best supporting actor category, Javier Bardem is
considered a lock for his role as a psychopathic hitman in No
Country for Old Men while Australian Cate Blanchett is fresh
from a Golden Globe for her gender-bending performance as Bob Dylan
in I’m Not There.
The build-up to the Oscars has been dominated this year by
concerns that Tinseltown’s biggest night of the year may be
disrupted by picket lines set up by writers who have been striking
since November.
Actors vowed to steer clear of the Golden Globes after the
Writer’s Guild of America vowed to set up picket lines, forcing the
cancellation of the ceremony, which was replaced by a 30-minute
news conference.
Despite fears that a similar scenario may play out at the
Oscars, Academy officials are adamant that the show will go on next
month, with or without the appearance of A-list stars.
Awards show producer Gil Cates told the Los Angeles
Times he was praying stars showed up for the event, but hinted
the ceremony could survive without the appearance of actors.
“There are enough clips in 80 years of Oscar history to make up
a very entertaining show,” Cates told the Times.
“We’d have a lot of people on stage. Much as this is shocking to
people, there are a lot of people who don’t act. I just hope that
the actors are there. I pray that the actors are there. I’m
planning that the actors are there.”
Sets for the show at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood were already
being designed and built, while planners would start choosing
actors to be presenters and musical numbers after Tuesday’s
nominations.
“I don’t want to say read my lips, but it’s not going to be
cancelled,” Cates said. “It’s a big moment for the town. The
grand-daddy of all the shows and it awards excellence.”
AFP
