'Benjamin Button': A screening snafu

I learned over at Kris Tapley's InContention blog that last night's L.A. screening of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button had to be halted and canceled after 30 minutes due to a projection problem. That's certainly not the best first impression for such an eagerly awaited film, and I can only imagine the heart attacks the Paramount people were having at the time. But having seen Button two weeks ago in New York (a city that clearly boasts better A/V equipment), I can say that they don't need to worry. Button is an Oscar movie with a capital O, with jaw-dropping production values, a soaring romance, and terrific performances, particularly from supporting-actress candidate Taraji P. Henson as Benjamin's de facto mother. Even if Brad Pitt doesn't make it into the tough Best Actor race (the likes of Clint Eastwood and Leonardo DiCaprio may squeeze him out), I still can see Button racking up as many as 11 nominations, which could very well be the highest tally for any film this year. Once the film opens on Christmas day, I guarantee we'll all be talking about one thing: whether or not Benjamin Button made you sob.

'Doubt': Feeling the Oscar pressure

The Meryl Streep/Philip Seymour Hoffman drama Doubt has taken a few hits lately, with Variety critic Todd McCarthy calling Streep's turn as a nun "a questionable central performance." The film, written and directed by John Patrick Shanley (a past Best Original Screenplay winner for Moonstruck), is still a strong contender for all the big prizes. My colleague Carrie Bell attended its L.A. premiere earlier this week and spoke to Shanley and his cast; here's what they had to say about all the buzz.

John Patrick Shanley You can’t set out to do something with the plan to get an Oscar. I guarantee you that you’d never win with that attitude. I have been lucky enough to win one and I don’t think going in people thought Moonstruck was going to be an Oscar movie. So when buzz starts happening, you think, I hope I survive this awards crush. It is a job in itself to try to win awards. There are people who specialize in that. And if anything goes wrong they’re not going to blame Meryl. They’re not gonna blame Phil. They’re gonna come to me. If you don’t like it, I’m the problem.

Philip Seymour Hoffman I welcome the awards buzz because serious movies like this need that to draw more people to the theater. I didn’t just show up here tonight as a masochistic act: I have such self-loathing issues that I thought I’d show up for a movie that I didn’t believe in. No, I think that the movie is a really great piece of cinema and writing and I think that John deserves the recognition. He did an amazing job with the film. Buzz is buzz and it gets created on everything. You just hope the buzz coming in your direction is positive.

Amy Adams I am excited that Philip is so excited for the Oscar buzz. I really respect his opinion. If I wasn’t in the film and I didn’t know how good it was, I would go see Doubt based on Philip’s recommendation. I agree that John deserves recognition. I think the script is brilliant. It is a very good adaptation and his direction isn’t too shabby either. And I can’t say enough good things about Viola and Meryl and Philip. They are all tremendous. And if everyone else gets recognized and I didn’t, I would still be thrilled. It is a team mentality. It is mostly the four of us on screen and we got to watch each other work up close and personal. You never go in with expectations of awards, although at this point maybe Meryl could with her 14 nominations, but when I watch the film, I am blown away by their performances. If those accolades come, fantastic. If they don’t, it doesn’t take anything away in my eyes.

Viola Davis Everyone is asking me how it feels and to be honest with you it is making my behind this tight [makes a fist]. It makes you very, very nervous. I don’t want to put the cart before the horse. You don’t want to lose perspective. I consider myself No. 1, a grounded person and No. 2, an actor.

Bill Maher's 'Religulous' snubbed by Academy

If the documentary branch of the Academy is trying to make themselves irrelevant, they're doing a mighty fine job. Yesterday the 15 semi-finalists for next year's Best Documentary were announced, and noticeably absent from the list was Bill Maher's massively entertaining Religulous, which is by far the highest-grossing doc of the year. Now, that statistic alone shouldn't qualify it as an Oscar front-runner—that would be like saying Pirates of the Caribbean should have been a Best Picture nominee. But whether or not Religulous ended up actually scoring a nomination next January, it certainly should have made this week's shortlist. Then again, this is the same group that also omitted Grizzly Man from the list of semi-finalists and neglected to nominate the terrific Dixie Chicks doc Shut Up and Sing two years ago. The message here seems to be: If your documentary manages that rare feat of actually entering into the cultural zeitgeist, don't expect the Academy to pat you on the back too.

Weighing the chances of 'Seven Pounds'

During this past Sunday's episode of Desperate Housewives I noticed an impressive 60-second high-def ad for Will Smith's upcoming drama Seven Pounds. The film looks very interesting—Smith apparently is attempting to atone for a past car crash by performing good deeds for seven strangers—but it remains the only possible Oscar contender left this year that hasn't even announced any screenings yet (not for me, at least). I appreciate the mysterious nature of the TV spot, since the plot obviously involves some sort of secret Sony doesn't want to spoil, but I wonder if holding the film back this long will be a problem. By the week before Thanksgiving in years past, late entries like There Will Be Blood, Letters from Iwo Jima, and Million Dollar Baby had at least been shown to some members of the media. Can Seven Pounds become a top Best Picture contender? Probably not. But I know Rosario Dawson will be getting a supporting actress campaign. And the studio has Best Actor hopes for Smith, which doesn't seem outlandish: The last time the mega-star teamed up with Seven Pounds director Gabriele Muccino, the result was The Pursuit of Happyness, for which Smith scored his second career Oscar nomination.

Can 'Slumdog' go the distance?

Did a future Best Picture nominee just hit theaters this weekend? After winning the audience prize at this year's Toronto film festival, Danny Boyle's electric drama Slumdog Millionaire had its first weekend of limited release and posted a strong $35,000 per-theater average, by far the best of any film out there. I also found the important reviews to be terrific, though not so terrific that the film will be considered merely a critics' darling. Rather, as it was in Toronto, Slumdog should end up emerging as an audience film, building momentum among the public (and the Academy) as the next few weeks and months go by. As I said on Friday, it really is the only "little" film with a real shot at scoring a nomination. Here's another OscarWatch TV segment, in which Missy and I discuss Slumdog along with Toronto's other breakout hit, The Wrestler, followed by a video postcard from Boyle and his film's star, Dev Patel.

Oscar Roundup: Nov. 14

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

Best Bets

Best Picture
In a year of blockbusters (The Dark Knight) and prestige dramas (Doubt, Frost/Nixon), Slumdog is the only true indie with a shot at making the final five.

Best Director, Danny Boyle
No other filmmaker puts more energy on the screen. And Slumdog's Dickensian storyline makes the film  his most Academy-friendly yet.

Best Adapted Screenplay, Simon Beaufoy
He was nominated in the original screenplay race over a decade ago for The Full Monty. His Slumdog script is every bit as personal and charming but even more ambitious.

Best Cinematography, Anthony Dod Mantle
The scenery ranges from slums to palaces, but the photography is vivid no matter what the conditions.

Best Editing, Chris Dickens
As we saw with Into the Wild last year, films that jump back and forth in time often have a good shot in this category.

Best Original Song, "Jaiho"
I don't want to say too much, but the movie's closing credits are the highlight of the film, and that's due in large part to the song that plays over them.

Possibles

Best Art Direction, Mark Digby, Michelle Day
There's a lot of location work, which may lead voters to think there wasn't much set-building involved. But it still could compete with this year's larger-scale dramas.

Best Original Score, A.R. Rahman
Rahman is a celebrated pop star and composer in his native India; can he break through and achieve Oscar recognition as well?

Long shots

Best Supporting Actor, Dev Patel
The feature-film rookie delivers a very matter-of-fact, non-showy performance, but a Slumdog sweep could end up including him.

Best Sound Editing & Best Sound Mixing
Loud action flicks usually eat up these slots, but there's enough fast-paced stuff in there to give the film an outside shot.

QUANTUM OF SOLACE

Possible

Best Original Song, "Another Way to Die"
Jack White and Alicia Keys' duet isn't winning over tons of fans (or getting much radio play), but Bond songs do have a decent track record at the Oscars.

Long shot

Best Actor, Daniel Craig
Craig scored a BAFTA nomination two years ago for Casino Royale. If the Best Actor category wasn't so crowded this time, he'd have a chance.

GlobeWatch: Where are the funny men?

One of the main reasons the Golden Globes are so much livelier than the Oscars is the Globes' inclusion of categories for Best Actor and Actress in a Musical or Comedy. Usually the Best Actor in a Comedy race includes at least one major Oscar contender (think Sweeney Todd's Johnny Depp, Ray's Jamie Foxx, or Lost in Translation's Bill Murray), while the Best Actress in a Comedy lineup sometimes seems like a stretch (um, Goldie Hawn for The Banger Sisters?). But this year it's the opposite: With Mamma Mia's Meryl Streep, Last Chance Harvey's Emma Thompson, Happy-Go-Lucky's Sally Hawkins, and Sex and the City's Sarah Jessica Parker all in the mix, the comedic Best Actress roster is strong, while there's a notable dearth of musical men or funny fellas. I'm told Josh Brolin's reps pushed for a comedic placement for W. but were denied, so he'll be considered in the Best Actor in a Drama category instead. And word is that Robert Downey, Jr.'s camp wanted to push for a Best Actor nomination for Tropic Thunder (followed by a supporting campaign at the Oscars) but were overruled by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, who decided to include him on their supporting-actor list.

So who might end up making the cut for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy? Certainly Dustin Hoffman, who's so touching in Last Chance Harvey. I'd also make the case for Paul Rudd, who anchors the current hit Role Models with his signature deadpan delivery, and Ghost Town's Ricky Gervais, who was brilliant in a sophisticated comedy that nobody saw. The HFPA could go the more obvious route with Get Smart's Steve Carell or Hancock's Will Smith, but here's hoping they'll think out of the box and recognize another understated humorist: Michael Cera from Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist. We can dream, right?

Here are a few of my video interviews with Rudd, Cera, and Gervais:

Frank Langella's Oscar scene?

In 2000, when Hilary Swank was making the award-show rounds for her phenomenal performance in Boys Don't Cry, her savvy PR team made the decision not to release a clip from her most powerful scene, where she painfully admits her "sexual identity crisis" to a police detective after having been raped. That way, when they finally authorized it to be used as her "Oscar scene" on the night of the Academy Awards ceremony, it had the maximum impact because it hadn't been seen on television before. This year, I'm noticing the opposite trend: Studios are allowing us to see their contenders' strongest moments now, surely in the attempt to build buzz in what's becoming an increasingly competitive year. For instance, I've seen Mickey Rourke's indelible heart-to-heart with Evan Rachel Wood from The Wrestler on the web already, and now Universal has given EW.com this clip from one of Frost/Nixon's most memorable scenes, where a drunk Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) telephones TV host David Frost (Michael Sheen) the night before their final interview together. Take a look, as this may be the first of many times that you see this scene in the next few months.

Oprah hearts 'Australia'

As if you didn't know this already, Oprah Winfrey devoted the entire episode of her talk show yesterday to Australia, hosting Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman in her studio, much to the squealing delight of her live audience. And Miss O didn't hold back, gushing about the movie's scenery, its young Aboriginal costar Brandon Walters, and even Jackman's physique. "It's the best movie I've seen in a long, long, long, long time," she enthused. I half expected her to jump up and down on a sofa this time. But there was one word she never brought up when talking about the movie: Oscar. (Well, actually, the word was spoken, but that's only because Jackman's son is named Oscar.)

Given all of her praise for the film, I have to say I found that a little peculiar. I do remember Winfrey repeatedly telling Reese Witherspoon (correctly, it turned out) that she would win an Academy Award when she was on the show for Walk the Line a few years ago. Does this mean the movie won't have a shot at next year's awards? Of course not. But even as I watched the sweeping, colorful clips of the film yesterday, I still couldn't tell if Australia is another English Patient or another Pearl Harbor. And it does make me nervous that Baz Luhrmann is apparently still finishing the darn thing. (The poor guy had to be Skyped in from Fox studios in Australia for the show.) Given Luhrmann's impressive body of work, though, I'm still holding out hope. Is anyone else?

Are the Oscars a popularity contest?

Lately there's been some talk about what factors really matter when trying to win an Oscar. Last week those rascals Tom O'Neil and Pete Hammond over at The Envelope took me to task for declaring that Frank Langella, Sean Penn, and Mickey Rourke were the leading contenders for Best Actor this year. They argued that those three guys aren't particularly known for their warmth, and Pete wondered how nicely Rourke in particular would "play with the Academy" over the next few months.

I see where they're coming from: An awards campaign truly is similar to a political campaign at times, and one's deportment certainly comes into play. I think it's fair to say that Marion Cotillard's tirelessness and charm in supporting La Vie en Rose didn't hurt in her recent eventual Best Actress victory over Julie Christie. And who knows how many nominations Russell Crowe has squandered over the years by shoving awards-show producers or chucking hotel telephones. But then again, I wonder if Penn's win for Mystic River (after he didn't even bother to show up for the Golden Globes) proves that conduct doesn't matter that much.

Last week you all proved that you've got strong opinions when so many of you took issue with my post on Obama's victory and how it may affect this year's race. (I really didn't think I was opening such a can of worms with that one!) So I'm curious to hear what you think about this. Do you have to be a nice guy to win an Oscar? Does an actor's off-screen behavior only make a difference in a close race? Or is it only about the performance and nothing else?