But things are looking good now. Clouds have dispersed with plenty of blue breaking in overhead. The Oscars organizers seem to be making good on their promises from Friday that Mother Nature will not rain on their parade today. “I just called God,” awards show co-producer Adam Shankman told a press conference about getting assurances that the red carpet walk-ins would do so in sunshine. Co-producer Bill Mechanic added that it would only “rain humour” today. Apparently, God is listening - and waiting for the storm of jokes from co-hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin.
With the weather taken care of, here are some last-minute Oscar insights:
- BOX OFFICE: If Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker wins as best picture - and it stands a very good chance to succeed in its war with Avatar for top spot - it will be an historical moment. But that will be for the wrong reason, at least when it comes to box office revenues. Pardon the pun, but The Hurt Locker is a box-office bomb, despite being an artistic triumph. It would become the most unwatched and underappreciated best picture winner in decades.
In the 40 years of Academy Awards shows prior to this year - going right back to the triumph of Midnight Cowboy at the 1969 Oscar ceremony - no best picture winner has earned as little in its theatrical run as Bigelow’s powerful drama. Not even close.
The Hurt Locker has now taken in only $19.3 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo’s latest figures going into this weekend. For the U.S. and Canada, the take is $12.7 million, nearly 66 percent of that worldwide total. These are extremely low revenues for a major Oscar contender, especially one that is co-leader of the nominations race with nine. What it really means it that realistic war movies set in the Middle East continue to be box office poison in the U.S., in Canada and, indeed, in the entire world market.
At the other end of the spectrum, if Avatar wins, it will obviously set a different record. James Cameron’s sci-fi fantasy is already the all-time box office champ worldwide. It has generated an unimaginable $2.553 billion in ticket sales. Ditto for the North American part of those staggering figures, coming it at $714.5 million.
The question for Avatar is whether success is an aphrodisiac or a downer for the 5,777 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. But it is instructive to remember that the last time a box office record-holder was a big winner at the Oscars, it went home with most of the hardware: a record-tying 11 Oscars to be exact. That was Cameron’s Titanic, which took in $1,843 million, $600.9 of that in North America. Cameron really was king of the world for a moment.
Over the past 15 years, when $100 million-grossing pictures have become common, only one best picture winner has failed to crack that magic number. It was Paul Haggis’ melancholic Crash, which just narrowly missed with $98.4 million in worldwide box office, $54.6 million of that in North America. So - once again - The Hurt Locker would be an astonishing exception to the rule. Winning, however, could be a tremendous boost for the film’s DVD and Blu-ray sales, along with legal digital downloads.
- FEMME FATALE: Whether or not The Hurt Locker beats Avatar for best picture, Kathryn Bigelow is considered the favourite to win as best director. If she does so, she would become the first woman in the 82 years of the Academy Awards to take this prestigious prize.
Only three other women have ever even been nominated: Famed Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmuller was in the running for Seven Beauties; Australian-based New Zealander Jane Campion was a contender for The Piano; and American Sofia Coppola earned a nom for Lost in Translation. Obviously, none of them won, ensuring that category remained an all-male enclave. Until now, we think.
The embarrassing truth is that women do not get the same chance as men to direct movies, especially in the United States. According to statistics in The Los Angeles Times, women direct between 7 and 9 percent of major American movies - and that range has stayed static for the past 25 years.
- SEXISM: If there really is sexism in who gets to direct what in Hollywood, there is none in Oscar’s acting categories. The new debate over male and female categories is just stupidity and self-indulgence. Citing what they call gender biases, critics have called for an end to separate actor and actress categories. But, except in rare cases, men and women are not interchangeable in the roles they play. That is human nature, not sexism. There is no need whatsoever to get politically correct in this arena. Among many logical reasons, mainstream audiences generally give the male and female categories equal interest and weight. It depends on the movies involved, not the gender of the winner. I don’t get the sense that winning best actor means more than winning best actress. So the petty people just need to get over it and address real gender issues.
Personally, I would create a whole new category for actors/actresses, not take any away. The new competition would be for the best voice work in animation, along with best motion capture performances. These performers, who are crucial to the success of Oscar-nominated films such as Avatar and Up, are always overlooked, even if they are technically eligible. Academy voters seem uncomfortable with putting them into the traditional categories because they don’t see their faces on screen.
Meanwhile, if the Academy wanted to go co-ed on this category, that might more sense than lumping together the existing male and female categories.
- THE BUZZ: Last minute predictions are only speculation, just as early predictions of the probable Oscar winners were just guesses. Nevertheless, it is fun to speculate. And esteemed Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan joined the fray today. He figures The Hurt Locker has closed in enough on Avatar that the best picture race is a toss-up.
But Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart) is still a clinch as best actor, he says. And early favourites Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) and Mo’Nique (Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire) are still considered the front-runners in the two best supporting actor/actress categories.
The only outsider Turan gives even a remote chance to is the 80-year-old Canadian legend Christopher Plummer (The Last Station), whom he thinks could edge out Waltz if the Academy voters did any last-minute second-guessing before sending in their ballots.
Otherwise, Turan thinks only Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side) is vulnerable among the favourites for the top personal awards. For weeks, she has been cited as the front-runner for best actress. She may, however, succumb to a late surge from Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia). Streep has the all-time record for most nominations in the acting categories - 16 overall, 13 of those as best actress. But she has won only twice and the last time was at the 1983 Oscars, when Streep earned best actress honours for Sophie’s Choice.
In other key categories, Turan predicts Kathryn Bigelow will win as best director over her ex-husband James Cameron for Avatar. And Canadian writer-director Jason Reitman (Up in the Air) should win his first Oscar, for co-writing the best adapted screenplay with his American collaborator Sheldon Turner. Together, they turned Walter Kirn’s novel into the much admired film. In the best original screenplay category, Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds) is battling it out with Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker) in what is considered a close race.
- SO SUE ME: Add another Hollywood lawsuit to the list of bizarro twists in this year’s Oscar race. On Tuesday, an American soldier who served in Iraq in 2004 when The Hurt Locker screenwriter Mark Boal was an embedded journalist there, launched a formal lawsuit in federal court. The suit claims that he has been cheated out of his share of box office revenues for the film.
Master Sgt. Jeffrey S. Sarver maintains he is the basis for the character played by Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner. He also objects to the portrayal, claiming he was falsely shown to be “a reckless gung-ho war addict.”
For his part, Boal has said he knew Sarver and admired him as a soldier. But he said this week he based the fictional character in The Hurt Locker on the stories of many soldiers whom he witnessed in action and then researched.
The weirdest thing about the lawsuit is that it involves a film that has failed to make big money. Usually, these kinds of actions are taken against $100 million box office hits. So it is almost pathetic, and funny, that Sarver’s lawyer Geoffrey Fieger is quoted as saying: “They’re going to owe him a whole lot of money and recognition.”
Source:torontosun.com/
