In Contention: Why Did He/She Win?

By Josh Spiegel

February 9, 2009

I'd nominate her all night. And I'm not just talking about Calvins voting here.

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Every year, the Oscars are announced and every year, with few exceptions, someone will say the following sentences: "Why did Person X win for Movie Y? I mean, they're great, but Movie Y was nowhere near their best performance." More often than not, people will be disappointed when an actor wins for a seemingly lackluster performance or when they don't win at all even if they may have just given their best performance.

Consider, for a second, Kate Winslet. Stop drooling, please, it's bad manners. Her nomination for 2008's The Reader is her sixth overall Oscar nomination, making her the youngest actor to get that many nods. Unfortunately, she has exactly zero Academy Awards to show for all those nominations, which means she's probably the best person to give tips on how to pretend you're happy for the winner instead of angry that you didn't get it. Some of her nominations may not represent her best work (yes, she was in Titanic, but is it really her best performance?), but her most recent nominations, for 2004's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and 2006's Little Children, may have represented her absolute best, whereas The Reader may not be as great. So why does she have more of a shot this year as opposed to the past?

The conventional wisdom is that she deserves it, and there's no question that, as mentioned in a previous column, if she keeps on losing, Winslet is very close to becoming the 21st century version of Susan Lucci. But the big surprise (will you at least pretend to be surprised?) is that the Academy frequently awards people for their past performances instead of their current work. A great example occurred at the turn of the past century.

Some of the 1999 Best Actor nominees included Kevin Spacey for American Beauty, Russell Crowe for The Insider, and Denzel Washington for The Hurricane. Previous winner Spacey won the award, even though Crowe and Washington were considered strong rivals. The next year, Crowe won for his portrayal as the original shouting gladiator in...well, Gladiator. A year later, Washington won his first (and only) Best Actor Oscar for his villainous turn in Training Day. Whatever your opinions may be, it's hard to argue that King Kong ain't got nothing on me! is nearly as powerful as playing a broken-down boxer. Hey, is Mickey Rourke copying Denzel this year, or what?

Of course, there's always the possibility that Crowe won in 2001 because he lost in 2000, and Washington won in 2002 because he also lost that year. The Academy, again, rarely honors those in the year they deserve it. Two of this year's nominated directors, David Fincher and Danny Boyle, are first-time nominees. Though both their films, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire, have garnered much critical and commercial support, both men were behind some truly trail-blazing films of the 1990s, including Se7en, Trainspotting, and Fight Club. And, yes, none of those films, which have all arguably influenced many other films, got any major awards. So why the love for Fincher and Boyle now?




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Setting aside the notion that both men's work from the past year actually merits nominations (no argument from me there), Fincher could be getting a little late love for his 2007 crime drama Zodiac, which got a Best Original Screenplay nomination, but nothing else. Though Fincher's only directed seven films, many argued that Zodiac was his best. Please do not send me your hate mail about leaving out Alien3, folks.

Boyle's career has never been one that's truly hit the spotlight. For every Trainspotting, there's a The Beach. For every 28 Days Later, there's A Life Less Ordinary. More importantly, very few of Boyle's films have been successful in the states. His two films before Slumdog, Millions and Sunshine, only grossed over $10 million. $10 million combined. As low-grossing as some of this year's Best Picture nominees are, all will crack that barrier by the big night. Boyle appears to have hit the zeitgeist at exactly the right time with Slumdog, so despite his sometimes-impressive filmography, this may be one case of not having a career filled with many missed nomination opportunities.

Of course, for every David Fincher, there's a Stephen Daldry, the nominated director of The Reader, who's directed three feature films and has now three Oscar nods, one for each. A case like Daldry's is rare, but each of his films has spoken to voters in one way or another (his previous films were Billy Elliott and The Hours). I bet he wins at blackjack, too, the lucky guy. Why does Daldry get recognized every year? His films have all fit some Academy stereotype. Underdog movie set in a foreign country? Check, with a ballet twist. Literary story with famous actresses? Check, with a prosthetic nose to boot. Holocaust movie? Check, check, check! His films just seem to fit the mold. Ah, if only Christopher Nolan had made Batman fight some Nazis.

The Oscars are and will probably always be fickle; uncertainty will abound on why someone got nominated or didn't, why someone won or didn't. It's rare, however, that some kind of politics (not the Washington kind, though) is behind the scenes. That is, unless, we're talking Best Documentary Short, whose nominees this year I'm sure you're all familiar with, right? Liars, you didn't see any of them, did you? I thought so.


     


 
 

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