Tonight's Oscar night # 79

BY JOSEPH PLANTA

Sunday, 25 February 2007

VANCOUVER - The august Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands out its coveted Oscars tonight with eyes of the world purportedly watching, as Hollywood honours the year's best in film. They say the world is watching, but even that's debateable because in the United States the Super Bowl draws a bigger audience yearly. Even American Idol outdraws the Oscars.

Over the last few years, viewership of the annual Oscar show has declined. Producers have tried to stem the haemorrhaging to no avail. Chris Rock, deemed suitable to bring a more urban, younger demographic didn't set the audience meters on fire when he hosted two years ago. Jon Stewart, who was pretty hot stuff when he was selected to host last year's show, barely made a blip in increasing Oscar's profile.

Look at the list of presenters Oscar telecast producer Laura Ziskin has corralled: Naomi Watts, Gael Garcia Bernal, Emily Blunt, Daniel Craig, Abigail Breslin, Kirsten Dunst, Cameron Diaz, Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Tobey Maguire, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Lopez, Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, Jerry Seinfeld, and Nicole Kidman, among others. Though Academy favourites like Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Catherine Deneuve, and Jack Nicholson are on board, one can see the attempt of Ziskin to attract viewers with names that most celebrity watchers would know yet wouldn't turn the Oscar show into the MTV Video Music Awards. Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily is reporting that Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas will be presenting the Best Director award, and that Tom Cruise will present deposed Paramount head Sherry Lansing with the Jean Hersolt Humanitarian Award.

Ziskin is known for bringing big surprises to the Oscar show. When she last produced in 2002, she scored the coup of the decade by coaxing Woody Allen to appear to present a tribute to the city of New York in the form of a film package cut by Nora Ephron. Akin to Katharine Hepburn appearing on the 1974 Oscar telecast, the Allen appearance sets the bar high for Ziskin. It's been reported elsewhere on the internet that Michael Jackson may perform. Though the possibility of Jackson appearance has also been rumoured on American Idol, it would be folly if he were the big surprise Ziskin had in store. One thinks a Michael Jackson appearance would do irreparable harm to the Academy Awards.

Ellen DeGeneres's selection as Oscar host is a curious one. Though eminently qualified-she has hosted the Emmy's and Grammy's on multiple occasions each-how well she does will be the operative come Monday morning. How her homespun charm will translate to the worldwide stage of the Oscars will be something to watch. She's been lauded for her deft and ease as seen when she hosted the first major awards telecast after September 11th, the oft-postponed 2001 Emmy's. Her subsequent outing as Emmy host was not as successful. She could do much by not dancing.

It still boggles the mind however how Dreamgirls, which received the most nominations overall, failed to score a Best Picture nod. What seemed bankable before Christmas was thrown to the wind come nomination morning after New Year's. Also was the notion that Babel would win Best Picture. As in everything political, it's all about momentum, and from what's been gleaned from people who know these things best in Hollywood, it would seem that the Best Picture race is between The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine. Both have the momentum as the nominees file into the Kodak Theater tonight.

Had Dreamgirls been nominated, one suspects it would be an altogether different ballgame. The purported backlash against Dreamgirls's producer David Geffen has been an entertaining sidebar to all the Oscar hoopla. Geffen is said to be unpopular in Hollywood, and thus the snub to Dreamgirls. (Though there was a report that Diana Ross, an Academy member, was campaigning against the film, as she didn't favour Dreamgirls on Broadway 25 years ago and this new film version, as it seemingly portrayed her and The Supremes in an unflattering light.) This week, Geffen made national political news with the snub he gave to Bill and Hillary Clinton. He told Maureen Dowd that he was not supporting Senator Clinton's presidential bid, essentially that she was old news and he was reckless, and that he was throwing his much sought after money behind Barack Obama. Obama, it seems is the presidential hopeful straight out of central casting.

In 1994, when she was first nominated for an Oscar for her supporting turn in The Madness of King George, Helen Mirren suggested that they change the Oscar selection process. "All of the nominees should be in the back of the auditorium, and the head of the Academy shouts, 'Go,'' The first person to get up on the podium and grab and Oscar wins," said Mirren, who returned for another losing attempt for Robert Altman's Gosford Park in 2002, and her husband's double nominations for producing and directing the Ray Charles bio, Ray. This year, she's the odds on favourite to cop the Oscar for her portrayal of Elizabeth II, not to mention deemed deserving by many prognosticators. It is a triumphant and unprecedented year for Mirren, who also won an Emmy for her portrayal of Elizabeth I.

It has been said that Mirren has made Elizabeth II sympathetic to audiences who may remember her conduct following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales nearly ten years ago, which The Queen is about. Mirren's task was not the most thankless of the year however. Forest Whitaker, who plays Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland, has done the unthinkable to most. One critic wrote of his performance as the Ugandan madman, that he made audiences feel sorry for Amin.

Besides Helen Mirren, personal favourites in this year's Oscar derby include Peter O'Toole in the Best Actor category, as well as Ryan Gosling for Half Nelson in the same category. In 2003, after being announced as the recipient of an Honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement, O'Toole wrote to decline the honour, saying his quest to win an Oscar wasn't over, and that he wanted more time to "win the lovely bugger outright." He could win tonight, though Whitaker seems to be a lock. As for Gosling, his performance in Half Nelson was a revelation. Despite the bleak and harrowing portrayal of drug abuse and addiction, Gosling was eloquent and understated with a tinge of charm. If the Academy could have nominated Little Miss Sunshine's Abigail Breslin-not to take anything away from her wonderful performance-then surely it could have nominated Gosling's co-star, Shareeka Epps, who was remarkable in the film.

Speaking of Little Miss Sunshine, Alan Arkin was great and a favourite from the previous year, but because he's not in the last third of the film, I didn't think he resonates as much. That can't be said of Abigail Breslin, who was delightful in the said film throughout, and could easily block Jennifer Hudson from winning for Dreamgirls. And the two nominees from Babel in Breslin's category, Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi, were sublime, for two very different performances in the same film. Kikuchi is quiet (not just because she's a deaf mute), but also beguiling and mesmerising, while Barraza, is touching and robust with emotion.

In 1988, Eddie Murphy was selected to present the award for Best Picture. When he came out to present the award, he said he initially didn't want to appear on the telecast because over the previous sixty years only three black actors had won Oscars, Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Poitier, and Lou Gossett Jr. He then said, "I'll probably never win an Oscar for saying this. Actually, I might not be in any trouble because the way it's been going, it's about every twenty years we get one, so we ain't due until about 2004." Of course, since 1988, Denzel Washington won two, Whoopi Goldberg, Cuba Gooding Jr., Halle Berry, and Jamie Foxx would win Oscars. As for Murphy, if he wins as is suspected, he would have been off by three years-and little did he know it would have been an Oscar for himself.

Had I been an Academy voter, unless otherwise stated, I would have voted for these nominees as well as predict them to be Oscar winners this evening:

Picture: The Departed.

Actor: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland.

Actress: Helen Mirren, The Queen.

Supporting Actor: Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls.

Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls.

Director: Martin Scorsese, The Departed.

Foreign Language Film: Pan's Labyrinth.

Adapted Screenplay: William Monahan, The Departed. Here, I would have voted for Borat.

Original Screenplay: Michael Arndt, Little Miss Sunshine. Though, Babel is equally deserving.

Animated Feature Film: Cars.

Art Direction: Dreamgirls.

Cinematography: Children of Men.

Sound Mixing: Dreamgirls.

Sound Editing: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

Original Score: Alexandre Desplat, The Queen.

Original Song: "Listen," from Dreamgirls. Now, if this song wins for best song, why won't Beyonce win an Oscar?

Costume: Marie Antoinette.

Documentary Feature: An Inconvenient Truth.

Documentary (Short Subject): Two Hands.

Film Editing: The Departed.

Makeup: Pan's Labyrinth.

Animated Short Film: The Little Matchgirl.

Live Action Short Film: Eramos Pocos (One Too Many).

Visual Effects: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

And I predict the telecast will finish in no less than three hours and thirty-seven minutes.

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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE.