God bless the Academy Awards. Just when you're ready to write them off as predictable panderers to public expectation, they go and drop a bombshell on you. On Jan. 23, that bombshell was dropped by another bombshell, namely Salma Hayek, when she and Academy President Sid Ganis announced to the nation that "Dreamgirls" had not been nominated for Best Picture.
When Hayek and Ganis read through the list of Best Picture nominees -- a reasonably deserving selection that includes "Letters from Iwo Jima," "The Departed," "Little Miss Sunshine," "Babel" and "The Queen" -- everyone in Hollywood blinked. Had they missed something? Had "Dreamgirls," a film that had been at the front of the frontrunners for months before its release, a movie upon which producers had heaped millions of "For Your Consideration" marketing dollars, a historic collaboration of Oscar-bait talent, somehow failed to score a nomination? It wasn't so much that everyone loved "Dreamgirls," which was politely received by critics and audiences; it was more that everyone had assumed that everyone else loved it. After it grossed nearly $80 million in only a few short weeks, won a Golden Globe for Best Musical/Comedy and reminded the world that there's still such a thing as Eddie Murphy, everyone bet the house on "Dreamgirls." Say goodbye to the house, folks.
Of course, it's only fair to note that, with eight (mostly technical) nominations, "Dreamgirls" did receive the most nods of any film this year (I guess those marketing dollars had to go somewhere). But still, the absence of "Dreamgirls" in the Best Picture category cannot be seen as anything less than an upset of Biblical proportions. Another was the appearance of Ryan Gosling in the category of Best Actor for his role in the indie masterpiece "Half Nelson." Despite giving what many critics (including yours truly) thought was the best performance of the year, nobody thought that Gosling had the media clout necessary to pull off a nod. After all, "Half Nelson" was seen by, like, 12 people nationwide. Gosling is joined in the Best Actor category by Forest Whitaker ("The Last King of Scotland"), Peter O'Toole ("Venus"), Leonardo DiCaprio ("Blood Diamond") and Will "Look at me, I'm playing a poor person!" Smith ("The Pursuit of Happyness").
Lest Hollywood suffer a collective heart attack from all the shake-ups, the Best Actress category this year was refreshingly by-the-numbers. It seems as though the Academy, faced with the perennial absence of female-centric films, chose to fill out the Best Actress slots by photocopying a standard list of respected female thespians.
We have the yearly Judi Dench nomination ("Notes on a Scandal"), the yearly Meryl Streep nomination ("The Devil Wears Prada") and the yearly Kate Winslet nomination ("Little Children"). It was nice to see Penelope Cruz garner a well-deserved nod for her luminous turn in "Volver," but let's face it: This trophy was engraved the moment Helen Mirren signed on to star as Elizabeth II in "The Queen." Mirren has had this category on lockdown for months now thanks to universal critical acclaim, the movie's box-office success and the minor detail that she happens to be thoroughly deserving.
Speaking of sure things, you can probably count on Martin Scorsese breaking his perennial Oscar strike-out record with his Best Director nod for "The Departed." If anyone rains on Marty's parade, it will be Clint Eastwood, who beat Scorsese in 2005 with "Million Dollar Baby" and is competing against him in the Best Director category again this year with "Letters from Iwo Jima." Scorsese's win at the Director's Guild of America Awards last Saturday should all but assure him the Academy Award (52 out of the past 58 DGA winners have scored Oscars in the same year), but Eastwood has always had a knack for unexpected comebacks both onscreen and off. It's safe to say that the other Best Director nominees -- Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for "Babel," Stephen Frears for "The Queen" and Paul Greengrass (!) for "United 93" -- are just along for the ride.
Meanwhile, Alan Arkin, Jackie Earle Haley and Eddie Murphy all got much-needed career reboots with their Best Supporting Actor nominations for "Little Miss Sunshine," "Little Children" and "Dreamgirls," respectively. Djimon Honsou and Mark Wahlberg somehow managed to squeeze out Supporting nods with "Blood Diamond" and "The Departed," but Murphy is the man to beat in this category; so far, the race has shaped up with him in the lead and Arkin riding a dark horse close behind.
Similarly, Murphy's "Dreamgirls" co-star, the former American Idol wannabe Jennifer Hudson, looks like an early favorite for the Best Supporting Actress statuette. That's assuming she's capable of overcoming the overwhelming cuteness of 10-year-old Abigail Breslin, who's nominated for the title role in "Little Miss Sunshine." Cate Blanchett ("Notes on a Scandal") gets to fight over the leftovers with "Babel" babes Rinko Kikuchi and Adriana Barraza.
The screenplay nods, traditionally the ghetto category for critical darlings that didn't have millions to spend on marketing budgets, include "Children of Men," "Notes on a Scandal," "Little Children," "The Departed" and "Borat" in the adapted column, and "Pan's Labyrinth," "Little Miss Sunshine," "Letters from Iwo Jima," "Babel" and "The Queen" in original. It was a wonderful surprise to see the public favorite "Borat" score a nod, but I would have been even happier to see Sacha Baron Cohen in the Best Actor category where he belongs. If he wins for screenplay, I pray to all the gods in Hollywood for an in-character acceptance speech.
The most exciting prospect of the nominations is that, with the 800-pound "Dreamgirls" gorilla inexplicably absent from the Best Picture race, there's been no clear front-runner so far -- it's no exaggeration to say that any one of the five BP nominees stands a good chance of walking away with the gold. Which means another few weeks of rabid studio advertising, talk-show bombardment and obsessive Internet speculation from every critic and casual fan in America. Ladies and gentlemen, the race is on.
