The Valley Wire - 2/22/2008 Column

Hollywood and the Academy Awards
By Mary Beth Gentle

The Writer’s Strike is over! TV Shows are heading back into production. And the Academy Awards are going on as scheduled. Life in Hollywood is getting back to normal. Or, I guess, as normal as a place known to the world as ‘tinsel town’ can be. It will take some time to get the shows back on the air and to get everyone working again, but as the saying goes, ‘the show must go on’.

And in the blink of an eye, that is just what happens, the focus around town shifts from the striking writers to the Academy Awards. And excitement is in the air here in the Hollywood Cubicles. It begins the same way every year. As soon as the Nominations are announced, we all start making our lists. What have we seen? What do we need to see? What can we just pretend we saw?

Don’t get me wrong, this is not because I or anyone in my near vicinity is actually going to the Academy Awards nor will we be on any of the after party invite lists. This is for a far more important reason than walking the red carpet or sipping martinis with George Clooney. This is for the Office Oscar Pool. And it is serious business. In these hallways, this is bigger than the Superbowl. And it is not just our office pool that has us shifting into research mode, it is the Oscar pools that our family and friends across the country are in.

This is not simply picking a square in a giant grid, this is about successfully predicting the correct outcome of twenty-four different categories. You always have to start out with the big awards; best picture, best actor and best actress. The films in the running for Best Picture this year are; Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men and There will be Blood. Now early research shows that Atonement has a pretty good shot at taking the prize. But, no one is counting out Critical favorite No Country for Old Men, nor are they counting out underdog favorite Juno.

Best Actor nominations this year are; George Clooney (Michael Clayton), Daniel Day-Lewis (There will be Blood), Johnny Depp (Sweeny Todd), Tommy Lee Jones (In the Valley of Elah) and Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises). This category is a little tougher, early awards have gone to a few of these gentlemen with the favorites so far being Daniel Day-Lewis for There will be Blood and George Clooney for Michael Clayton.

Best Actress nominations this year are; Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: The Golden Age), Julie Christie (Away From Her), Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), Laura Linney (The Savages) and Ellen Page (Juno). Another tough category, the favorite is looking like Julie Christie for Away From Her, but no one is counting out the star of the Underdog hit of the year, Ellen Page for Juno.

Those are the big awards. Those are the easy ones to predict. Once you narrow them down to a short list, you can start researching what the polls are saying and take a pretty good guess. I mean they have odds running in Vegas on who will win those awards.

But, the tougher ones to predict are the awards for categories like; Best Achievement in Film Editing, Best Original Screenplay or Best Achievement in Visual Effects. This is where you really have a chance to impress you sister in Chicago if you can help her win these categories on her office Oscar pool. Because, if you do enough research and pay attention to who took the prize at the different Guild Awards Dinners this year, then you are on the fast track to getting these categories correct.

And finally, it comes down to the near impossible to predict, the awards for categories such as; Best Documentary Short Subject, Best Foreign Language Film of the Year or Best Animated Short. Don’t let anyone try to kid you either, even in the Hollywood Cubicles we really have no idea what has a shot here. It usually comes down to picking the title you may have actually heard people talking about or just picking the title that has a nice ring to it. Either way, these categories are all guess work and just plain luck.

I, myself, have never actually won an Oscar Pool. I start out every year with the best intentions. I do all the research. I read all the predictions. I should be able to win these things every year. But, at the end of the day, when it comes time to sit with my ballot and make my selections, I really can’t help but to go with my heart. I do it every year. And I lose every year.

But, isn’t that what the Academy Awards are all about anyway? Going with our hearts? Picking the films that touched something in us? Picking our favorite Actor for loyalty sake? I think it is what makes it fun to sit in front of the television every year and hope that the underdog can pull it off or hope that a surprise win will shock everyone. After all, putting on a great show is what Hollywood is all about. I don’t know about you, but I will be watching come Sunday night, with my heart-picked ballot in front of me, and my hopes high.