Unlike last year, when The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King stomped over the Kodak Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard like a thundering troll - the best picture prize a foregone conclusion - the 77th annual Academy Awards fete isn't dominated by a single behemoth.
Jamie Foxx may have his best-actor Oscar in the bag (if the star of Ray doesn't win, it will be the shock of the night), but the contest for best picture comes down to two. Sure, Sideways is a great little movie, and Finding Neverland and Ray have their fans. But like the Oscars of 1995, when Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump faced off, and 1999, when Shakespeare in Love and Saving Private Ryan fronted the pack, the 2005 edition is a binary affair.
Historically, the film with the most nominations has gone on to win the best picture prize (that's been the case in 18 of the last 20 years), and The Aviator, with 11, beats out Million Dollar Baby's seven. And Scorsese, who has been nominated five times previously for best director, has never won. The consensus is: He's due, even if The Aviator isn't his worthiest. And Eastwood took both the best picture and director trophies in 1993, for his western Unforgiven.
The irony, this time around, is that Scorsese, known for such tough, incendiary projects as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The Last Temptation of Christ, has delivered a decidedly safe, conventional studio spectacle: a big-budget celebration of Old Hollywood (Kate Hepburn! Ava Gardner! Errol Flynn!) filled with swanky soirees, fancy cars, and that legendary aeronautical folly, the Spruce Goose.
Eastwood, the Dirty Harry law-and-order poster boy and former mayor of Carmel, Calif., has, on the other hand, turned Hollywood convention on its head. With Million Dollar Baby, the actor and director upends audience expectations, using the template of a classic underdog boxing pic, then veering off into an emotionally challenging third act that poses enormous questions about life, God and euthanasia. The film's crushing finale has sparked protests from disability advocacy groups Not Dead Yet and United Spinal Association, as well as from conservative opinionators, with Rush Limbaugh, Debbie Schlussel, and film critic Michael Medved leading the pack.
(Oscar trivia break: Million Dollar Baby star Hilary Swank has a good shot at an Oscar. In a neat repeat, she's once again sharing the nominees list with Annette Bening. In 2000, Swank won the leading actress Academy Award for Boys Don't Cry, beating out, among others, Bening, for American Beauty. This year Bening was nominated for her performance as an English theater diva in the entertaining trifle Being Julia.)
Million Dollar Baby isn't the only contender with a hot-button social issue that the 5,808 academy voters had to deal with this year. The Sea Inside, a best foreign-language film nominee from Spain, is a true-life feature that wrestles with the same moral and religious arguments concerning assisted suicide.
And in Vera Drake, up for awards for leading actress (Imelda Staunton), writer and director (Mike Leigh), abortion is the topic as a sweet working-class Londoner of the '50s goes about performing the then-illegal operation. Planned Parenthood has sponsored screenings; antiabortion groups have mounted protests.
In Hotel Rwanda, nominated for best actor (Don Cheadle), supporting actress (Sophie Okonedo) and writing (Keir Pearson and Terry George), the theme is African genocide - and how Western nations virtually ignored the mass killings in the country in 1994. The film provokes disturbing questions about racism - if not by design, then by default.
And although this might be considered a stretch, Sideways - the road movie about two buddies touring California wine country - has irked more than a few recovering alcoholics and alcohol-treatment professionals with its somewhat jaunty, comedic depiction of a guy drinking himself into a self-loathing stupor. (The various Santa Ynez and Santa Barbara vineyards featured in the art-house hit have had no problem with the movie: Their business is booming as a result of Sideways' success.)
Speaking of Sideways, nominated in five categories, including best picture, director (Alexander Payne), and both supporting actor slots (Thomas Haden Church and Virginia Madsen) - this is the film that, more than any other this Oscar season, screams, "I wuz robbed!" That's because Paul Giamatti, starring as the failed novelist/failed husband antihero, failed to get a best-actor nod. Sure, it was a crowded field, but Johnny Depp's shaky Scots accent and pirate rehash in Finding Neverland? Please!
Also missing from the ranks: Julie Delpy, offering one of 2004's most sublime screen moments in the real-time romance Before Sunset; Jim Carrey, understated and (finally) likable in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Jeff Bridges as a narcissist author in The Door in the Floor; and Gael Garcia Bernal, as the cross-dressing Catholic school alum who's been sexually abused, in Pedro Almodvar's Bad Education.
Indeed, if Bad Education had been recognized in any category, another stormy social controversy would have shown its face tonight at the Oscars: sexual abuse and the Catholic Church.
But it wasn't.
So, on with the show.
Contact movie critic Steven Rea at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com.
Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/stevenrea.
Oscar's Darlings
Best picture
The Aviator
Finding Neverland
Million Dollar Baby
Ray
Sideways
Best actor
Don Cheadle
(Hotel Rwanda)
Johnny Depp
(Finding Neverland)
Leonardo DiCaprio
(The Aviator)
Clint Eastwood
(Million Dollar Baby)
Jamie Foxx (Ray)
Best actress
Annette Bening
(Being Julia)
Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace)
Imelda Staunton
(Vera Drake)
Hilary Swank
Kate Winslet
(Eternal Sunshine
of the Spotless Mind)
Best supporting actor
Alan Alda (The Aviator)
Thomas Haden Church (Sideways)
Jamie Foxx (Collateral)
Morgan Freeman
Clive Owen (Closer)
Best supporting actress
Cate Blanchett
Laura Linney (Kinsey)
Virginia Madsen (Sideways)
Sophie Okonedo
Natalie Portman (Closer)
Best director
Martin Scorsese
Taylor Hackford (Ray)
Alexander Payne (Sideways)
Mike Leigh (Vera Drake)
Our Critics' Picks
Will Win
. . . . . . . . . . . Steven Rea Carrie Rickey
Best picture The Aviator Million Dollar Baby
Best Actor Jamie Foxx Jamie Foxx
. . . . . . . . . . . Ray Ray
Best Actress Hilary Swank Hilary Swank
. . . . . . . . . . . Million Dollar Baby Million Dollar Baby
Best Supporting Actor Morgan Freeman Morgan Freeman
Best Supporting Actress Cate Blanchett Cate Blanchett
. . . . . . . . . . . The Aviator The Aviator
Best Director Martin Scorsese Clint Eastwood
. . . . . . . . . . . The Aviator Million Dollar Baby
Should Win
. . . . . . . . . . . Steven Rea Carrie Rickey
Best picture Million Dollar Baby Million Dollar Baby
Best Actor Clint Eastwood Jamie Foxx
. . . . . . . . . . . Million Dollar Baby Ray
Best Supporting Actor Thomas Haden Church Morgan Freeman
. . . . . . . . . . . Sideways Million Dollar Baby
Best Supporting Actress Virginia Madsen Cate Blanchett
. . . . . . . . . . . Sideways The Aviator
Best Director Clint Eastwood Clint Eastwood
. . . . . . . . . . . Million Dollar Baby Million Dollar Baby
