The Bottom Line: Oscar Hopefuls Beg 'For Your Consideration'
By Robert Sims, Special to Hollywood.com
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Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Leonardo DiCaprio |
“See what a little bit of buzz can do in this town.”
That’s film publicist Corey Taft on the Oscar talk surrounding Marilyn Hack’s portrayal of a dying mother in Home for Purim.
You’ve not heard Hack mentioned in the same breathe as The Queen’s Helen Mirren as a Best Actress nominee? Not to worry. Hack doesn’t exist. And Home for Purim is the film within the film For Your Consideration (Nov. 17), the new mockumentary from Best in Show’s Christopher Guest.
In Guest's witty and knowing Hollywood spoof, Catherine O’Hara stars as the washed-up actress who hopes to land an Oscar nomination and, in the process, revive her stalled career. Guest doesn’t so much bite the hand that feeds than poke fun at how everyone in Tinseltown can quickly come down with a severe case of awards-season fever.
“When people started talking about awards … it’s not something you want to think about, [it’s] the wrong thing to be thinking about,” Michael Sheen, a possible Oscar nominee for his role as British Prime Minister Tony Blair in The Queen, tells Hollywood.com. “But you can’t help it.”
Like the Christmas shopping season, the race for Oscar gold seems to start earlier every year. And October’s now the new November, and the buzz is already building.
Martin Scorsese’s The Departed and The Queen are reaping the rewards of their Oscar-worthy status. The Last King of Scotland’s doing brisk business thanks to Forest Whitaker’s electrifying portrayal of Idi Amin. And Babel’s admirers are obviously louder than its detractors given its $389,351 debut at just seven theaters.
Unfortunately, middling reviews and/or poor box office receipts, though, have taken Catch a Fire, Infamous, Marie Antoinette and Running with Scissors out of the running. Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers needs as many nominations as possible for it to recoup its $90 million budget, but it could be denied. Audiences are not connecting emotionally with the World War Two epic as they did with Saving Private Ryan.
Besides, Scorsese’s a lock to win Best Director. Fueled by Goodfellas-like rave reviews, The Departed’s should by now have surpassed The Aviator ($102.6 million) as Scorsese’s top earner. Throw Jack Nicholson into the mix and Oscar voters will finally relent and hand Scorsese’s his long-deserved Oscar.
If it emerges as the leading candidate for Best Picture, The Departed could give two of its stars major headaches. The Departed doesn’t need Oscar’s seal of approval to turn a profit, but Leonardo DiCaprio’s geopolitical thriller Blood Diamond and Matt Damon’s CIA history lesson The Good Shepherd (Dec. 22) certainly do. Both Blood Diamond and The Good Shepherd could find themselves stuck in The Departed’s shadow—and lacking at the box office—if neither is as good as Scorsese’s Infernal Affairs remake.
Dreamgirls would benefit from The Departed keeping down Blood Diamond and The Good Shepherd. But director Bill Condon’s got a hard act to follow with this musical: he wrote the Best Picture winner Chicago. If Condon fails to outdo himself, Dreamgirls runs the risk of becoming another Oscar-less musical disappointment like The Phantom of the Opera. And Eddie Murphy’s can say goodbye to his shot at a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
Acting nominations may make or break such art-house offerings as The Good German (Cate Blanchett), Little Children (Jackie Earl Haley, Kate Winslet), Miss Potter (Renee Zellweger), Notes on a Scandal, (Judi Dench), Venus (Peter O'Toole) and Volver (Penelope Cruz). Will Smith’s dramatic turns never do well, but an Oscar nod for The Pursuit of Happyness could change that.
Of course, it would be stupid to ignore any of the films released earlier this year and likely to be on DVD come Oscar nomination time, such as Little Miss Sunshine and World Trade Center. Out of sight doesn’t mean out of mind, as Crash proved this year with its smart, aggressive and fruitful Oscar campaign. And, given its staying power, don't be surprise if The Illusionist applies some of its magic come Oscar time.
The Bottom Line
“It’s still a bit of a shock, I can’t quite get my head around it,” Michael Sheen says of the awards talk he’s hearing for The Queen. At this time of the year, films like The Queen desperately need strong word of mouth and awards recognition to draw attention. But as For Your Consideration show, buzz can work for you and against you. Which is why, come next Oscar night, the prospect of another showdown between Scorsese and Eastwood—the directors of 2005 rivals The Aviator and Million Dollar Baby—is an unlikely possibility.
Photo(s) by Adriana M. Barraza- © 2005- Hollywood Media Corp.- All Rights Reserved