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Predicting the Oscar nominationsGood year for movies makes tough year for picks
By Todd Leopold
(CNN) -- By most critical yardsticks, 2002 was a great year for movies. But it was a lousy year for consensus. Critics' lists and early awards have each had their own spin on the best of the best -- which makes picking the nominees for this year's 75th annual Academy Awards all the more difficult. It's like a game of championship musical chairs: Six or seven worthy contestants are competing for each major category, but only five will get to continue when the music (metaphorically) stops -- and the nominations are announced Tuesday morning. Will "The Quiet American's" Michael Caine -- who's called his performance in that little-seen movie his best ever -- be left out for best actor? Will Meryl Streep's performances in "The Hours" and "Adaptation" cancel each other out in both supporting actress and best actress categories? Will Martin Scorsese get a nod for best director, but find his movie, "Gangs of New York," left in the cold? And what about the sleeper of the year, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"? Even Tom O'Neil, the man behind awards-charting Web site Goldderby.com and the author of several books on major awards, can't figure it out. He's been reading tea leaves for weeks, and still doesn't know where everyone will end up -- particularly actors and actresses whose performances could fit in both lead and supporting categories. "The Academy will put you where it feels like it," he muses. The Fitzgerald factor
That's because you can't be nominated for the same performance in two different categories. It's a rule that goes back to Barry Fitzgerald, who was nominated for both best actor and best supporting actor for playing a kindly priest in 1944's "Going My Way." This year, it's Meryl Streep, Daniel Day-Lewis, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere who have to worry about the Fitzgerald factor. Studios try to position performers in one category or the other, but their advertisements sometimes don't have any effect. "The season began with Gere as a supporting actor [for his 'Chicago' performance]," says O'Neil. "But since he won best actor at the [Golden] Globes, they've changed the ads." O'Neil believes Gere is one of two actors -- Michael Caine is the other -- on the bubble for best actor. His sure things include Day-Lewis ("Gangs of New York"), Nicholson ("About Schmidt," and going for his 12th Oscar nomination), Nicolas Cage ("Adaptation") and Adrien Brody ("The Pianist"). Day-Lewis' is also a supporting performance, says O'Neil, but it's the kind of outsize performance Academy voters love -- witness Anthony Hopkins' work in "The Silence of the Lambs." Hopkins was only on screen for about 20 minutes, but what minutes. Questions, questions
Streep didn't get nominated for anything for the Screen Actors Guild Awards. The official word is that her name wasn't submitted properly, but the whispering is that she was angling for the wrong categories. Still, for the Oscars, she will almost certainly get a supporting actress nomination for "Adaptation" and possibly a lead nod for "The Hours," along with fellow cast member Nicole Kidman, who won the Golden Globe for her performance as author Virginia Woolf. The third major star in "The Hours," Julianne Moore, will likely pick up a supporting nod for her performance in that movie and a lead nod for "Far From Heaven." Renee Zellweger, who won a Globe for lead actress for "Chicago," will take a slot. O'Neil sees Salma Hayek ("Frida") getting a best actress nomination, but "the question is who will be bumped to let Hayek in." Other best actress possibilities are Diane Lane ("Unfaithful") and Catherine Zeta-Jones ("Chicago"), though many observers see Zeta-Jones treading that line between lead and supporting actress. If Zeta-Jones gets a nod for best supporting actress, her competition may include Streep, Moore, Kathy Bates ("About Schmidt"), and Patricia Clarkson ("Far From Heaven"; O'Neil reports she's getting "huge heat"). Queen Latifah ("Chicago") and Michelle Pfeiffer ("White Oleander") are wild cards -- particularly Latifah, a music star making the transition to acting. Oscar has a checkered history of handling music stars, notes O'Neil; Cher's been accepted, but many others have been seen as dilettantes. The supporting actor category's shoo-ins include Chris Cooper from "Adaptation" ("He's way ahead to win," says O'Neil) and Christopher Walken ("Catch Me If You Can"). Other strong candidates are Paul Newman ("Road to Perdition"), Dennis Quaid ("Far From Heaven") and John C. Reilly (probably "Chicago," but he stood out in three movies in 2002). However, Alfred Molina ("Frida") and Ed Harris ("The Hours") also have support. "And where do we put Gere?" asks O'Neil. Questions, questions. Best picture? Or worst movie of the year?
Which leads to best picture. "Chicago" might be the only guarantee. It's won everything in sight, including several critics' awards and a Golden Globe, and it's getting the widest support for a musical since 1972's "Cabaret" -- notwithstanding last year's "Moulin Rouge," which earned eight nominations but was disliked by many. O'Neil sees "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" and "Gangs of New York" as vulnerable, and he's not too hot on "The Hours," despite its awards and praise. "It wasn't nominated by the producers guild, and Time magazine said it was the worst movie of the year," he notes. His own top five are "Chicago," "About Schmidt," "The Pianist," "Gangs," and "Adaptation," though he acknowledges that "The Hours" could just as easily take that fifth slot ... as could "Two Towers." All this is just a thousand words of conjecture, of course, until Tuesday morning, when -- at the heavy-lidded hour of 5:30 a.m. West Coast time -- the nominees are named. And six weeks later, after the Oscars have been handed out, we'll struggle to remember who won LAST year. Why do we care about the Oscars? Nobody spends half as much time talking about the Grammys, Emmys or Tonys, or digs out reference books looking for the best TV comedy actress of 1983. "Because we're shameless film snobs," O'Neil says. TV is more easily dismissed and music is more ephemeral, he asserts. And the Oscars count more than film critics' awards because we find out "a lot of what's behind the tinsel."
Sure, the Oscars aren't always right, or even close, he notes. "Citizen Kane" didn't win best picture; neither did "The Graduate," "2001: A Space Odyssey" or "Singin' in the Rain." "There's no such thing as a best picture," O'Neil says. "It doesn't exist ... [these awards] are a game." And even when you think you have a consensus, you really don't. In 1993, O'Neil notes, "Schindler's List" won all the major awards, topped all the major critics' lists, and was hailed as one of the great films of all time. But there was one holdout: the Gallup-poll-driven, populist People's Choice Awards. Its award for best picture? "Jurassic Park."
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