..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Kim Voynar
..Michael Wilmington

14 WEEKS TO GO
Gobble Gobble

Happy Turkey Day!

It hit me like a flash! Every year, this column appears on the fourth Thursday of November. It certainly seems time to write a column about Oscar turkeys.

I will start with my own red badge of wrongness, last year's The Phantom of the Opera. The film stumbled out of the gate, already intensely under attack by certain journalists, and never came close to finding its feet, though the charms of Emmy Rossum did draw some awards heat.

Speaking of Heat, the Michael Mann is perhaps the most overlooked Oscar movie in decades, in spite of heritage (Pacino, DeNiro, Mann, Voight, Goldenthal) and subsequent status as a movie classic. People speak of Raging Bull losing, but for Heat to carry not one Oscar nomination - even for sound - is stunning.

This year, Proof, An Unfinished Life, Elizabethtown, and Jarhead have lived down high expectations. And that was more what I was asking for when I asked Hot Blog readers for their picks for Biggest Oscar Turkey.

One thing that is notable when looking in this list is the rule of, "Fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice, we won't get fooled again." There aren't a lot of second chances on here. There is Oliver Stone, whose U-Turn and Any Given Sunday came up shor, which didn't keep us from buying into Alexander hype last year… and people are already lining up to hype his 9/11 movie as an awards sure bet. Then there is the case of Michael Hoffman, who made the great and underrated Soapdish followed by the showy but forgotten Restoration, then the showy and forgotten A Midsummer Night's Dream followed by the starchy and forgotten The Emperor's Club. And Steven Spielberg is fortunate that the Israeli Olympic massacre didn't happen in Athens because his "A" films, A.I. and Amistad, both came up well short of award expectations.

There are the musicals, A Chorus Line and Evita, which seem destined to be joined by Rent and The Producers this year, though some Golden Globes and talent nominations are possible.

You have Hilary Swank after her first Oscar (The Affair of the Necklace), Jonathan Demme following Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia with Beloved, The Truth About Charlie and The Manchurian Candidate, and Oscar sure bet James L. Brooks delivering Spanglish last year.

Of course, Spanglish was in better shape than The Evening Star, a sequel to Terms of Endearment that neither came to term nor was endearing.

Kevin Spacey holds a special rank in Oscarville after scoring big in The Usual Suspects and American Beauty then coughing up awards sure-bets Pay It Forward, K-Pax, The Shipping News, and The Life of David Gale.

But has anyone flown higher than Dustin Hoffman before hitting Family Business (Connery's first after winning for The Untouchables), Billy Bathgate (Nicole Kidman's wannabe breakout with award guy Robert Benton), Hero (ending the heat of both Geena Davis and Andy Garcia in one big miss, from which Stephen Frears still has not recovered, though The Hi-Lo Country deserved better), Sleepers (Pitt & Patric suffer still), Mad City (Costas-Gravas no-as Oscar-as), Moonlight Mile (Sarandon down! Sarandon down! Plus, another Jake Gyllenhaal non-starter… though I really like that movie) and last year's I Heart Huckabees, which was hearted only for getting people to write "hearted" in columns.

Billy Bob Thornton couldn't be stopped until he was Pushing Tin, riding All the Pretty Horses and not opening The Alamo. At least Daddy & Them barely got released so no one had a chance to get disappointed.

John Cusack has a spotty record, from Say Anything to Fat Man & Little Boy (which also hurt Paul Newman), missed nomination for The Grifters (Frears!), no nod for the nodded Bullets over Broadway, followed by a big miss with The Road to Wellville which segued into City Hall (Ouch, Pacino). Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil was the only late Eastwood film that was Oscar aimed and missed. His Pushing Tin, Cradle Will Rock double feature was agony, but High Fidelity looked like he had another… no. The low expectation Max also failed to send it home, though closer… closer…

At least he wasn't the kind of massive star to get hurt by a high expectation dud like Captain Corelli's Mandolin or Havana or The Majestic.

Cusack is more like Kevin Kline in Cry Freedom or Matt Damon in The Legend of Bagger Vance or Winona Ryder in The Crucible.

Sometimes, a movie just seems to be ready to happen, like At Play in the Fields of the Lord or Night Falls on Manhattan or Pearl Harbor. There are directors who have heat… like Ron Howard before The Missing or Cinderella Man.

And there are forgettable performances that were meant to be big winners, like Babs Streisand in The Mirror Has Two Faces or Elizabeth Shue in Molly.

Scarlett Johansson has been very awards oriented, but has missed quite a bit at a tender age. The Horse Whisperer was a miss. The Man Who Wasn't There… An American Rhapsody… A Love Song For Bobby Long… A Good Woman… In Good Company. Evn when she seemed a shoe-in in the year of Lost in Translation and Girl with The Pearl Earring, she missed the Oscars are scoring two Golden Globes nods. In a way, Match Point is the least obvious point of entry for Scarlett… and it could be the one she finally grabs a nomination for.

Jack Nicholson is so Oscar popular that Hoffa and Ironweed seemed like turkeys even though they scored a few nods each.

The Hurricane… Anna & The King… The Story of Us… Snow Falling On Cedars… Proof of Life… Wonder Boys… Meet Joe Black… Hope Floats… Jackie Brown… Courage Under Fire… When A Man Loves A Woman… Something To Talk About… Rising Sun… Born Yesterday… School Ties… Regarding Henry… Dying Young… For the Boys… Grand Canyon… Stella… Memphis Belle…

There're a million of 'em!

So as you savor your perfectly cooked, ptomaine-free, delicious turkey, think of what the stuffing has been through. For every home run hitter in Oscarville, there are a lot of turkeys that were fattened up and slaughtered. And today, we slaughter them one more time. We give thanks.

Feel free to offer up your own Oscar Turkeys on The Awards Blog, which you can click to here.

Charts will be adjusted this week, but in honor of the holiday, I'll be withholding comments.

And have a great Thanksgiving.

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2004 Oscar Columns

- Email David Poland