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

4 WEEKS TO GO
Pass, Present & Future

It's the micro/macro Oscars this year.

There will be competition in the tech/craft categories… and there looks to be some intense competition in the top two categories, Best Picture and Best Director. The only high-profile category that is seriously competitive is Best Supporting Actor… and as I recall, that is the second award given out in the evening. So buckle up and try not to fall out of your chair in boredom as you wait the three hours between seeing if George Clooney, Paul Giamatti, or the upset-minded Matt Dillon of Crash wins and finally finding out whether Brokeback Mountain has been backed or broken.

Pass the popcorn.

The most interesting phenomenon of this awards season has been the coverage of this award season… which is not to say that the coverage has been all that interesting. But the sudden wave of so much coverage from so many outlets, large joining the small (and MCN somewhere in the middle) has blown almost every small event out of proportion as most of us have been forced to yell louder to be heard… or to hope to be heard.

It's been a while since I jotted this quote down and I don't quite remember who said it, but it is appropriate… "When you write and there is no echo, you tend to raise the volume."

The canyon is too crowded this year for many echos to occur.

But as the season progresses, each writer has slowly developed their own space. And part of my personal learning curve is not telling you what I think those spaces are. (I'm studying at the Terrence Howard School Of Media Training.) But the niche-y nature of the web befits the situation. For a moment, there are a half dozen daily voices that are like the critics of decades past, where the writers are complete enough to draw audiences that have allegiance to the various mindsets.

My biggest complaint, however, is that some stories don't individuate and borderline truths are built into mythologies.

Pass the crying towel.

The box office situation with this year's Best Picture nominees has the smell of 1996, the year of Fargo, Secrets & Lies, Shine and The English Patient. Unlike this season, there was one $100 million-plus nominee, Jerry Maguire. But still, the three small movies that were still in release that year all got a significant bump from their nominations.

This year, Crash is the only one of the five nominees that may not chase a big box office bump, though I wouldn't be surprised to see Lionsgate go for a post-DVD re-release using the tag that this is a movie you have to see in a theater with your friends so you can go to dinner and fight about it afterwards.

Brokeback Mountain is the closest to being in the old school Miramax position - capitalizing on the nominations with a film that hasn't been in a wide release. However, we'll have to see what kind of bump the film gets from the nomination. Is the heat already as high as it is going to get? No one really knows. Ask me on Monday.

Pass the cash card.

The story that this is such an amazing indie year and that studios are out of step is borderline silly. Munich is a studio movie. Good Night, And Good Luck came from a major studio deal and Warner Indie was created with the mandate to service Section Eight's more esoteric projects. Finding equity partners for Capote at UA was not much different than every major studio has been doing for years, whether with Village Roadshow, Spyglass or others. Focus is a well-financed division of Universal.

Really, the only true independent in the group is Crash. And I have said from early on in its success, Lionsgate (then Lions Gate) is really the only company that would likely have driven that film to the kind of box office and acclaim it achieved. As a true independent, the standard for success is different and there is a level of patience and of energy that is quite rare these days.

The list of nominees, without diminishing their achievement, is as much a product of the failure of big studios films to fill the Academy's needs as anything else. Kingdom of Heaven, Cinderella Man, Jarhead, The Producers, North Country, Shopgirl, The Chronicles of Narnia, King Kong, In Her Shoes, The Family Stone, Syriana, Match Point… the candidates were there. And they fell by the wayside. Memoirs of a Geisha and Walk The Line had more nomination success, but still fell short of the big show.

Did someone expect the majors to offer up more candidates?

The business has changed. And majors don't spend the money to make dramas, which don't tend to be high return. On the list above, only four of the titles qualify as straight dramas. And what got nominated? Four straight dramas and one action/drama.

"Doctor, it hurts when I go like this!"
"So… let's amputate."

That's Hollywood thinking in the media lately.

Pass the bag to stop the hyperventilation.

What oh what will we write about for the next four weeks leading up to the Oscars? I'm missing E!'s boob grabbing Issac Mizrahi already.

This Week's Oscar Chart

The Nominations Special
6 Weeks To Oscar
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2004 Oscar Columns

- Email David Poland