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

6 WEEKS TO GO
Looking Back With Forward Still Ahead

Before we get to the real surprises, in two weeks, let's look at what surprises we can take away from this year's Oscar season so far.

TINKLE TINKLE - Can you hear that? Every time a bell rings, someone becomes a star. This year that someone is Terrence Howard, who has not only given great performances, but has also shown himself to be up to the superstar game off the screen. When you chat with Terrence, you quickly realize how young this longtime veteran is. He still has the drive of a kid. But the thrill of the realization is that we are seeing just the beginning of this star rising. He's going to need a little beach time when all this calms down, hopefully in Spain. But with the shocking possibility of being a double nominee this year, after being backburnered by the Crash campaign and written off as being in "too black a movie" to get nominated by an aging white Academy for Hustle & Flow (one of my mistakes this year), his force of will is greater than anyone else in play this year. Ya gotta love the guy.

GOING FOR BROKE - It's been a long Weinstein since anyone has done as good a job campaigning a movie as Team Focus has on Brokeback Mountain. Journalists have lapped up every ounce of spin from the publicity team on this one, but that is the goal. Much in the vein of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11 is changing Republicans into Democrats" spin last year, Brokeback has gone from being a story of incomplete love between two western boys to being the movie that is changing the culture for gay men. And when I hear more than a handful of anecdotal stories about any true homophobes even seeing the film, much less changing their tune, I will be forced to recant. In the meanwhile, Focus has kept any chance for the story to turn into the majority of the country rejecting the film from occurring by keeping the release close to the vest, so people who want to can continue to make claims about a single theater in a town they see as arch-conservative. It really is brilliant.

MANGLED MUNICH - Drudge reports aside, Steven Spielberg has to take some of the heat for the way things have gone south with Munich, though it is not quite dead yet. That said, there was clearly no strategy of response in place to deal with any of the inevitable resistance to this film. The Time Magazine thing was a disaster, mostly because of crabby journalists feeling burned - as though they had a right to be a part of the hype - but also because what hit the newsstands just wasn't that interesting. And NBC/Universal has not chosen/been able to get the debate about the subject of this film out into the world. I mean, it's not like they own a television network or a 24-hour cable news outlet or anything. Many of the complaints about Munich are reasonable and not really deadly. This is one of Spielberg's least easily accessed works. But after making a movie with so much to say, it seems like no one is left with anything to say. And that is a shame.

WEINSTEIN WOBBLE - That old black magic hasn't really put anyone under its spell this season. They have done a great job with Felicity Huffman, yes. But one still must wonder how they missed by so much on Mrs. Henderson Presents, a sweet, old-fashioned valentine amongst a season of serious downers. It's not that they don't have strong people working at the new company... but they don't have the same number of well-trained troops and haven't been spending the kind of money necessary. Maybe next year.

LET THEM EAT RICE - There has been talk this year about the number of "indie" films in the Oscar race this year, but the truth is, only Crash is a true independent. No doubt they fought to get Brokeback Mountain made, but Ang Lee is part of the Focus family and that movie was going to happen, one way or another. (Note: Stacey Snider, who has been under some attack lately, has not taken the opportunity to turn up at every Brokeback love fest to get face time kissing the award winners as they head to the podium. This deserves some notice and some appreciation.) Good Night, And Good Luck would not have happened were it not for Section Eight's long relationship with big Warners. Walk The Line was a challenge, but instead of Sony just throwing money at Mangold/Konrad as it should have, Elizabeth "The Woman With The Golden Gut" Gabler got it at Fox. Even Capote got made by UA post-Bingham Ray, which was a more corporate business.

Chasing Oscars is simply bad business, unless you can do what only the Weinsteins have really done well in the modern era... to build a strong commercial run based on the expenditures for awards. (See: $170 million for Chicago... over $300 million worldwide) Even Sideways, which rode critics groups and Oscars to a surprising $71 million domestic by laying low until Oscar nominations came out, ended up spending well over half that gross number in awards marketing.

And if you want to chase the Chicago strategy and miss, your film dies. And if your film is an expensive one, people get fired.

The fact is, the Dependents are a part of the studios and their product supports and bolsters major studio product. It is a lie that you can't make quality, small movies at a big studio. Walk The Line and The Family Stone proved that this year at Fox. But try to get the studio to prioritize awards as highly as cash flow and you will find yourself with a sore nose from that door that just slammed in your face. And if your film is intimate, you will have a hard time with the big studio really understanding how to handle that film at all. It is beyond rhetorical to ask, if The Family Stone could have done $25 million and gotten six Oscar nominations versus making the $60 million-plus it is going to in domestic release with, perhaps, no Oscar nods, which would Fox prefer?

This Week's Oscar Charts
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2004 Oscar Columns

- Email David Poland