Many “civilians”–the term Industry people use for those not in the entertainment biz–assume the Oscars are corrupt. How else to explain the bizarre choices made every year? And doesn’t everyone know Hollywood types are shady wheeler-dealers anyway?
Well, I leave the answers to those two rhetorical questions to you, but the truth is–at least from my experience of 20 years as an Academy member–that the awards are a remarkably clean contest. No one has ever tried to buy my vote in any way (small disappointment here). But more to the point, I have never witnessed or even heard about such a thing. Sure there’s self-interest, as in any selection process. People vote for themselves (I did) or for their friends (maybe), but that’s about the extent of it. The Academy now even forbids the endless bulky studio mailings for contending films we used to receive that resembled glossy advertisements for time-share vacation homes. But like those ads, they went straight into the circular file anyway.
The Academy publishes an elaborate set of regulations to ensure probity in the voting, which I imagine few members have read. I haven’t. So it may be I am breaking the rules by disclosing my preferences on here. But I’m having fun, so I’m going to continue digging the grave I began in previous NRO articles.
But wait–I just remembered one instance of “corruption” to which I must per force admit. Years ago, when I first joined AMPAS, I attended a dinner party at the French Consulate in Los Angeles seemingly aimed at influencing votes in the Best Foreign-Language Film category. I can vividly recall the excellent pâté, but I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the film or how I voted. Such parties are now banned, unfortunately.
THE AVIATOR
For reasons unknown, this seems to be the year of the biopic–Kinsey (Alfred Kinsey), Ray (Ray Charles), Finding Neverland (J. M. Barrie) and The Aviator (Howard Hughes). Of the four, the only one that worked for me was Martin Scorsese’s version of oil, film, and aviation mogul Hughes’s life and that worked surprisingly well. I say surprisingly because for decades people have been trying to turn Crazy Howard into a movie. Stacks of scripts have been written about his rise with, most often back in the day, Warren Beatty envisioned in the starring role.
Now that dithering Warren is out of the picture, Leonardo DiCaprio has stepped in, doing a bang-up job, particularly for me in Senate-hearings scenes opposite an appropriately slimy Alan Alda. Cate Blanchett is also being touted for an Oscar for her impersonation of Katharine Hepburn and she does it well, but not as well for me as DiCaprio does in a more demanding role.
Of course, the question du jour is who will win the Oscar for best director–Scorsese or Eastwood. I give my nod to Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby), if only because the younger Scorsese will have more chances. Nevertheless, this is one of Scorsese’s best films in years because he has put his unparalleled visual pyrotechnics at the service of a good script by John Logan. Yes, the film could have stood with a little cutting, but even in the movie’s longuers you can always admire Dante Ferreti’s sets. His version of the Coconut Grove reminds us of how far Hollywood has fallen since its glamour days in the Thirties. But we knew that, didn’t we?
COLLATERAL
Why wasn’t this movie about a ruthless hit man commandeering a taxi cab (and its driver) more successful at the box office? It has a clever script by Stuart Beattie, Tom Cruise’s best performance in years, an even better performance by the marvelously sympathetic Jamie Foxx (far more interesting than the one in Ray for which he is being feted), is directed to a fare-the-well by Michael Mann and is in one of the most reliable popular genres–thriller.
Maybe it’s because the movie is almost, but not quite, smart. Reminiscent at its best of Pavel Lungin’s brilliant Taxi Blues–a 1990 Russian film about a dissident Jewish jazz musician trapped in a taxi with a Soviet-style cab driver–Collateral pulls some of its psychological punches by opting for at least two too many Miami Vice-type chase scenes in lieu of character development. Still, when I finally fill out my Oscar-nomination ballot, I’ll be paying close attention to Stuart Beattie’s script for best original screenplay. And Michael Mann has cemented his reputation as our best director of thrillers.
SPANGLISH
The less said the better about this witless comedy about the confrontation between Latino and Anglo L.A. It is the polar opposite of Collateral–and not just in genre. While Mann’s film seems made by someone who has visited every corner of megalopolis Los Angeles, James Brooks–the writer/director of Spanglish and many better movies–appears to have receded into some Brentwood/Beverly Hills home (like Howard Hughes?) never to emerge again. The movie is essentially clueless about Hispanics and even about Brooks’s own Westside liberals. If you’re interested in an honest movie about Latino life in SoCal, rent Cheech Marin’s raucous Born in East L. A. It’s a lot funnier.
–Roger L. Simon writes movies, books and a blog–www.rogerlsimon.com.