16 Weeks To Go The Thin Gold Line

we are getting near the end of the early screenings of the list of titles that will seriously be considered for best Picture. Very near the end.

The idea of guessing at what films and performances WILL win, especially in this season of relatively soft contenders in all categories (if there is one kind of obvious call, it’s Monique in Precious… though long run, not quite as easy), is silly. Phase II, the period between nomination voting closing and the final ballots going out, will be more significant this season than, I suspect, in almost anyone’s memory.

but I do think it is reasonable for me to make the case for a movie that I think will end up in the group of 10 nominees, in spite of a very, very late start for a summer release that didn’t actually do much business by the standard of such things… The hurt Locker. I actually think The hurt Locker has a very real chance of becoming more than “a” movie in the 10, but “the” movie of the 10… your best Picture winner.

The current frontrunners of the season, Up In The Air and Precious, are not going away. they have passionate constituencies. and as Academy members have started to see Precious, more older men than I would have expected have become believers in the notion of Precious as a 70s style cinema verite’ of Black American urban life. Up In the Air speaks to a constituency of people who have active professional lives and understand that personal lives can become a second tier of a life and that this is not a road to happiness. That is virtually a definition of the life experience of most Academy members.

but will Academy members, when it comes time for the finals, think to their selves, “This is the film that I want to represent The best of American Film and (more importantly) my vote for the best American Film of the year”?

this is the reason you have to go back 32 years to find an outright comedy winning best Picture and only two other best Picture winners in that period – Terms of Endearment and Shakespeare in Love – that would be classified as near-comedies by much of anyone.

Up In The Air may well be up to the standards of the best of Jim Brooks and/or Cameron Crowe. but is it a history making game changer?

you have to go back 20 years to Driving Miss Daisy and then another 22 years to find the last two best Picture winners with a black person in a lead role… and that includes Out of Africa, Crash, and the two films with Morgan Freeman supporting performances – Unforgiven (for which he was not nominated) and Million Dollar Baby (for which he finally won) – as well as the one he was nominated for in lead, The Shawshank Redemption.

Precious may get a lot of love… but in the end, will Academy members take it to their hearts like Driving Miss Daisy or see it as groundbreaking in the way they saw In The Heat of The Night?

The Lovely Bones, Inglourious Basterds, A serious Man, and A Single Man are all movies that could get in… but are not concensus builders by their nature.

The Last Station could be a surprise nominee, but is already being marginalized as a “performance movie,” which is unfair, but who ever told you that buzz was fair?

Nine and Invictus are still under embargo (for the handful of us who continue to live by our word) , but without casting aspersions, neither is likely to find a big enough percentage of Academy voters to find the 50% +1 mark necessary to win best Picture. (Nine, however, does deserve a room full of Clios for their “behind the scenes” ad campaign that celebrates the stardom and beauty of its cast more passionately than the movie can claim.)

and that leaves… Up, Avatar, An Education, and The hurt Locker.

we haven’t seen Avatar. We’ll cross that bridge in about 2 weeks. The film will have to be a true phenomenon on lift-off to get nominated… and if it is that, there is the chance that it becomes the next Lord of The Rings Academy phenomenon. On the other hand, there is a long history of phenoms that got nominated and did not win. but it could happen.

Up is still fighting to be nominated, though I think it is as close to being a lock as any film out there. it is, pretty much, the most well liked film in the group of potential nominees, from first to last. it is a significant commercial success.

Five years ago, The Producers Guild of America put an animated film from Pixar, The Incredibles, in it’s five for Motion Picture Producer of the Year. Disney/Pixar needs to repeat that feat to be a serious contender to win. and, it may actually have to win the award. and it might.

Eighteen years ago, Beauty & The Beast was the first animated film to get nominated for best Picture. but that was before an animation category was created. and, by the way, the film lost in one of those odd seasons where a movie got hot late, Silence of the Lambs… the film that won the PGA, DGA, and WGA for Adapted.

Can The Academy get its head around giving an animated film a best Picture win?

An Education is a lovely, intimate movie. but is The Academy going to get behind a coming-of-age story with rising stars and a handful of veterans? To my eye, you really have to go back 59 years to All about Eve to come up with a BP winner with a profile that encompasses the mode of drama, style, and humor of An Education.

That leaves The hurt Locker.

The film is pretty much universally liked by critics and the small number of audience members who had a chance to see the film in theaters. Much as I think Rotten Tomatoes is overquoted… 98% fresh.

To be fair, here is the list of all the serious BP nomimation contenders with over 90% at RT…

98% Up 98% The hurt Locker 96% Up in the Air 94% An Education 91% Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by Sapphire 90% District 9

but The hurt Locker has a few singular things going for it in this field.

Visual Muscle – The quality of visual filmmaking amongst the contenders varies. some is very good. but aside from up and for some, Inglourious Basterds, Nine, and The Lovely Bones, there are no visual, visceral experiences out there that can touch the experience of The hurt Locker. Kathryn Bigalow has always shown remarkable visual skill, but she has reached a new level of skill and restraint here, combined with a screenplay that turns her visual acuity into more than the stuff of genre. (See: Danny Boyle)

Story Weight – It’s a war movie… but it’s not really an Iraq War movie… it’s not really even a war movie… it is about the soldiers, who even the most liberal of Hollywood believe deserve our thanks and admiration. Men who put their lives on the line. Heroes and anti-heroes. Line up the BP winners… No Country for old Men, The Departed, Crash, Million Dollar Baby, Gladiator, The English Patient, Braveheart, Unforgiven… and just keep going…

Precious Jones survives her mother. SSgt. William James puts himself in harms way so that others can survive. Which do you think will play as more “important” to Academy voters?

Makes A Statement – Academy members don’t want to be told to make a statement with their choices for best Picture. but they always seem to be conscious of what kind of statement they may be making.

The hurt Locker cannot be twisted into being a pro-war film. it is not an explicitly anti-war movie either. but it is a film that does speak to the pressure our soldiers feel in a war like Iraq or Afghanistan. are we the heroes or the oppressors? Liberal America struggles with this question. we want to be safe. we want to succeed in the goals of a safer Middle East. we want our oil, even if we don’t want to get our hands dirty to get it.

The hurt Locker as best Picture would speak to this dichotomy. we support our soldiers. we support humanity. we know that some in the Middle East see us as invaders and we get that. If we are to be in war, we must make it about the human spirit and not about politics and money.

Serious Drama – I spoke to this to some degree in “Story Weight,” but it deserves some repetition. The majority of best Picture winners in the last 20 years are serious dramas. Leave out the Slumdog Millionaires and The Departeds and Lord of The Rings from the list as something more or other than straight dramas. hurt Locker is more than that too… but regardless, Academy tends to be about the dramas.

Not Embarrassing – will any Academy member worry that The hurt Locker as the representative of their vote and their organization will be embarrassing, argued strongly against, or get less worthy in perception as time passes? Or is this film a timeless piece that blows away a very high percentage of everyone who sees it?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not claiming that I know that this film will win best Picture or am even expressing a sense of being sure. I am not sure. I do not know. I am engaging the conversation. there are a lot of films in the group that are truly well loved. and the truth is, as always, that there are major variables that can change the game of all this, whether it is purely about the movie or not. some may not even have anything to do with the movies or the marketing of them.

I have been frustrated already by the approach of Summit Entertainment with this film, first with the distribution pattern that treated it like an art film and not like the remarkable mass entertainment that it is (See: District 9), and more recently with the lack of advertising (even though they have bought on MCN) and the late delivery of the DVD in the awards season.

but I believe they want to make things happen. they have Cynthia Swartz on board, who has been closely involved in five of the last thirteen13 Oscar winners. no one else can legitimately claim more than two in that period. she doesn’t work alone and there were a lot of people with her on the journeys of The English Patient, Shakespeare In Love, Chicago, Crash, and No Country for old Men…including the irresistable force known as Harvey Weinstein. but you can count the consultants on one hand who carry her kind of weight and experience. and none of them are ready to cede the season to Cynthia.

The film on her resume that most reflects on The hurt Locker, in terms of where it is at this part of the season, is Crash… a company that hasn’t been there before… a movie that doesn’t seem to be assured of being in the five (but now, with ten, a different thing)… and a vulnerable set of frontrunners. there is no Rings or Titanic in this group.

and for the record, Cynthia got dumped by Lionsgate (briefly) on that film when they decided that they were not going to make it into the five nominee slots. they were wrong. and she was brought back as soon as they realized that her strategy had worked better than most thought. The film went on to win best Picture.

but back to hurt Locker … the currently quiet campaign could get too aggressive and seem too desperate. Or they could underplay it and just fade into the background. how they choose to play the chess game will mean a lot about how the film is perceived.

The hurt Locker might not be The Movie. but make no mistake… it could be The Movie. and the list of films that could be The Movie is short… shorter than I think people think.

The ChartsBest PictureActor | Supporting ActorActress | Supporting Actress

November 28, 2009- by David Poland