March 5, 2006

A week to go for the Oscars. The ballots are predictable. The pundits are divergent, but mostly generalized. In our opinion, apart from some interesting insights, especially from Ebert and Roeper officially predicting that Crash might just overtake Brokeback Mountain for the picture, we might be inclined to agree with the other pundits. Brokeback looks easy win. But then again, the Association of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is known to throw in some curveballs, and there is an equal number of support for Good Night and Good Luck as well as Crash.

It’s safe to assume the number of nominations also influence ballots. Currently Brokeback Mountain accounts for eight. So far it’s happened a lot actually, when the sheer numbers of nominations just edge out the voters into conceding a likely win. In this way Brokeback might be lucky.

But there is another side to this paradox. There is massive support for George Clooney this year, who shepherded two powerful political dramas in almost all the major categories — Syriana, the entangled cross-character oil drama from Stephen Gaghan (the writer of Traffic) and Good Night and Good Luck, another political drama Clooney acted in and directed.

Considering this, one is still not inclined to think that he has a chance at the ‘Best Director’ category, so they might just even him out by giving him a ‘Best Picture’ Oscar. It is good to see Bennet Miller and Paul Haggis get recognized for Capote and Crash, both at their first film. Here, the Oscar might agree with the Globes and Ang Lee should win. Spielberg has already won too many and too much and Clooney may have cancelled his award from being nominated too many times.

It’s happened before and people in Hollywood, like other industries, love you as much as they hate you. It’s wise that Clooney has listened to his strategists and submitted for the best supporting actor category instead of actor for Syriana. It is an excellent film but it’s hard to actually recognize a singular character as a lead in the film since everyone had almost equal screen-time.

Also, if there was a best ensemble category, the Oscar would undoubtedly belong to Crash.

On the acting front, it’s a difficult decision between Phillip Seymour Hoffman and David Strathairn. Hoffman, who has been a critical favourite in the race since Capote premiered, looks like a hard beat. The other wild card on the race is Terrance Howard for whom this has really been a breakthrough year. Not only is he nominated in Hustle and Flow, which made one of the early Oscar buzzes, he was also in Crash, Lackawanna Blues, Ray and Their Eyes Were Watching God. Maybe Strathairn would secure an unlikely win over Hoffman.