The Oscar Chronicles

Since Chris Rock will invariably be leeched of all credibility and attitude when he hosts the Oscars this year, I think we can expect he'll fill the time where he used to be funny with even more cheerleading for Jamie Foxx (he's been hip-hip-hooraying the guy for months now). Everyone loves the sly Foxx, but do either of you think he also played a lead in Collateral? Why is he relegated to a supporting nomination for that one?

And I know this is blasphemous, but Foxx's very good, very long cocktail-party impression of Ray Charles — spot-on twitching, spot-on stuttering — couldn't hide the fact that the movie Ray was about as exhilarating as a car commercial. Soulful music, soulless movie, decent performance.

Not to mention that Foxx hasn't exactly been the most gracious presumptive winner in the history of the awards, either. I could do without the "hey" callback he demands of every crowd at the lesser awards (Golden Globes, SAG, yadda), but being heavily favoured to win means you get to be obnoxious about it, I guess.

Having said that, it's not like there's anyone else I'd much rather see win it — AMONG THESE NOMINEES, that is. Paul Giamatti's well-publicized snub for his great performance in Sideways has left Foxx the undisputed front-runner: Johnny Depp's J.M. Barrie was totally vanilla; Leonardo DiCaprio's still too young (and, dude, he's my age — shouldn't his voice have changed by now?); Clint Eastwood was squinty and grizzled, yawn. Don Cheadle was excellent in Hotel Rwanda, but too few people saw that movie for him to be a real contender. I still harbor a secret hope that Cheadle will benefit from an Adrien Brody–style upset, but I'm not doing anything crazy like picking him in my Oscar pool or anything — not with *money* at stake.

This one is easy as tying your shoes. The LHE (Liberal Hollywood Elite) love to cast votes that affirm the ESM (Eternal Struggle of Man). And Jamie Foxx played a poor black blind boy who became a superstar and then conquered drugs. That last part is an ES the LHE know all about.

Foxx is going to win the Best Actor award. And I hope he does. One only had to have seen Kevin Spacey's take on Bobby Darin in Beyond the Sea to realize that Ray was a cut above standard biopics. And Foxx managed to be funny, cruel, ecstatic and soulful in the title role. I never thought DiCaprio was Howard Hughes in The Aviator, not for a single frame, whereas Foxx easily inhabited a more difficult and remote character.

About “The Snub”: I had to laugh when Paul Giamatti didn't even get a nomination here. Turns out his grumbling, resentful characters in Sideways and American Splendor were right in suspecting that high school–quarterback glamour trumped all else. Especially in today's Hollywood. Hell, in 1955 Ernest Borgnine WON an Oscar for playing a schlub in Marty. And he was up against James Dean (East of Eden) and Frank Sinatra (The Man With the Golden Arm). Maybe the ESM should now be amended to the ESAM (Eternal Struggle of Attractive Man).

“Cut above standard biopics”? Oh Stephen, how disappointing. All that hackneyed mom-loves-me motivation and the lame drug sequences and the endless, endless "He's a genius!" montages. Foxx was fine, though I got the sneaking suspicion it was a Rainman kind of performance — a lot of well-honed affectations passing for a character. And I thought there was a point in The Aviator when DiCaprio as Howard Hughes actually began to morph; it came during the trials when his face, slightly bashed in from the plane crash, shifts from that blank Titanic balloon expression into a man of age and conviction. It freaked me out a little, I must admit, because I had no idea he was capable of actually becoming another person.

Love the LHE/ESM thery, but what about the rule of thumb that nominees have an advantage if they play someone real, disabled or old? Puts Foxx in the lead again, though don't forget about Clint Eastwood's possible pre-posthumous nod. My dream would be a Cheadle night. It's so much harder to play "ordinary."

"Oh Stephen, how disappointing." Katrina, you should have seen my report card in grade 10. Listen, sometimes I think we reviewers are too much like East German skating judges. We tabulate imprecise landings and missed axels, then count up the score, and nothing is ever up to our exalted standards. I don't think movies can be judged that way. Sometimes they work despite their failings. Ray "works" despite many problems. One of which, I would agree, is the Mommy Motivation plot engine; although, come to think of it, the Freud motor runs smoother there than in The Aviator. You ever figure out what was going on between Mom and Howie in that bathtub that made him an overachieving loon?

All I know is that, as Oscar catchphrases go, “Q-U-A-R-A-N-T-I-N-E” is no "Show me the money.”

As for the "East German skating judges" analogy: maybe none of these performances is among our best of the year. The Oscars have nothing to do with our own artistic judgments: all we're doing now is handicapping the likeliest outcome based on choices made by a few thousand mostly septuagenarian Academy members. Katrina's absolutely right to point out that "nominees have an advantage if they play someone real, disabled or old," particularly with regard to this category. Best Supporting Actress nominees tend to have an advantage if they play someone really old, really young, or somewhat whorish (which is why Natalie Portman is my pick to win this year); Best Actress nominees give themselves a leg up by pretending to be ugly (which is why Charlize Theron won last year).

In the Best Actor category, nominees who portray some kind of ailment — paralysis (Daniel Day-Lewis), autism (Dustin Hoffman), unspecified mental retardation (Tom Hanks), AIDS (Hanks again) — know when they do so that it's sure-fire Oscar bait. Jamie Foxx won't even be the first Best Actor winner in my lifetime to get the prize for playing blind, since we all remember Al “Hoo-wah” Pacino's Scent of a Woman. In my estimation, Foxx *shouldn't* win — Cheadle should — but Foxx, having played the most physically disadvantaged character, absolutely *will* win.