The boxer and the billionaire
Oscars ready to roll Sunday night
By Todd Leopold
CNN
 |  "The Aviator" |
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|  VIDEO |
 "The Aviator" has the most Oscar nominations, but "Million Dollar Baby" vies to beat it to the punch. CNN's Sibila Vargas reports.
 Oscar is banking on irreverent comedian Chris Rock to avoid the ratings' slide of other recent awards shows. CNN's Toure reports.
 A record number of minority performers are vying for top honors at the 2005 Oscars. CNN's Sibila Vargas reports.
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(CNN) -- The Oscars this year seem to have inspired more yawns than awe, particularly when it comes to best picture.
"The Aviator"? Not even close to Martin Scorsese's best, critics carp. "Million Dollar Baby"? Some found it cliched, and those conservative talk-show hosts aren't happy about the ending. "Sideways"? Overrated. "Ray"? Great Jamie Foxx performance, but come on. "Finding Neverland"?
Huh? Did you say something?
Moreover, not a single one of these best picture nominees has topped $100 million at the box office, leading some commentators to worry about the ratings for the big show.
Audiences like the Oscars more when there's a rooting interest, the conventional wisdom goes, and a year in which the most-talked-about films ("The Passion of the Christ" and "Fahrenheit 9/11") were overlooked will find it hard to draw audiences in.
Well, that would be too bad because they'll likely miss an interesting show.
There are the Oscar subplots, for one. Professional guilds split their honors, so with the possible exception of best actor, none of the top six categories has a sure-fire winner, and some are wide open.
There's movie history: The best director and best picture categories pit film legend Clint Eastwood against the Oscar-snubbed Scorsese.
There's an Oscar rematch: Hilary Swank ("Million Dollar Baby") and Annette Bening ("Being Julia") are going against each other in the best actress category, just as they did five years ago.
And there are breakout stars, most notably double nominee Foxx ("Ray" and "Collateral") but also Natalie Portman ("Closer") and Clive Owen ("Closer").
Not to mention the new host, Chris Rock, who's kicked up his own firestorms.
No 'Booty Call 2' for Foxx
If there's any trend to be discerned among the nominees, it's the popularity of film biographies. Three of the five best picture nominees are biopics; four of the five best actor nominees play real people.
Foxx, in particular, has been helped by playing a real person. His Ray Charles is so dead-on accurate that even two Charles intimates -- pal Quincy Jones and the pianist's son -- have said it was like watching the real thing.
Foxx already has won a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance, but he knows that Oscar is the ultimate. It wasn't long ago, Associated Press writer David Germain wrote, Foxx was a lead in the much-mocked "Booty Call."
"Fortunately now, I may not be doing 'Booty Call 2,' " Foxx said at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Cate Blanchett, who plays screen legend Katharine Hepburn in "The Aviator," also has earned raves for her performance. She was Scorsese's first choice; when she accepted the role, the director assigned her Hepburn's first 15 films to watch so she could get the part down. Blanchett also worked with a voice coach to capture Hepburn's distinctive upper-crust Yankee accent.
But Blanchett is in one of the tossup categories, best supporting actress. Oscar likes bright newcomers in supporting roles, awards expert Tom O'Neil has noted, and that could help "Closer's" Portman or "Hotel Rwanda's" Sophie Okonedo. Or the academy could side with "Sideways'" Virginia Madsen, a terrific comeback story, or Laura Linney, who shined in "Kinsey."
Best supporting actor is also a tossup, though "Million Dollar Baby's" Morgan Freeman -- a career four-time nominee -- is believed to be the front-runner. However, the newness factor could help Owen, and the comeback factor could help "Sideways' " Thomas Haden Church, a TV veteran who'd practically dropped out of acting.
"I do know there are a lot of people who seem to be in my corner, and that's, of course, wonderful," Freeman told the AP. "I'm really more interested in the nomination than in the award, because I think the nomination just puts you within a group of outstanding actors."
Eastwood vs. Scorsese
Observers believe best actress is a two-person race between Swank and Bening. Five years ago, Bening was considered the front-runner, having starred in 1999's most-honored film, "American Beauty." But Swank, a virtual unknown who dazzled critics with her androgynous turn in "Boys Don't Cry," won in an upset.
This time around, it's Swank who's believed to be the front-runner for her performance as a female boxer in "Million Dollar Baby."
And both best director and best picture have been considered two-candidate races for weeks. On one side, there's Scorsese -- who's 0-for-4 as a best director nominee -- and his epic "Aviator," a biography of Howard Hughes that's a classic bit of bravura filmmaking.
On the other, there's Eastwood, a longtime Hollywood hand and previous winner (1992's "Unforgiven," which earned him best director and best picture). "Million Dollar Baby," about a crusty gym owner/trainer (Eastwood) and his boxer (Swank) was shot quickly and economically -- the budget was $25 million, tiny by Hollywood standards -- and has been lauded for its old-fashioned virtues of sturdy storytelling and powerful emotion.
"My tears were not just for its story but for the movies," critic David Thomson wrote. "Because at long last someone has said, 'Look, this is how you do it,' and made a film that hits you like one of Hilary Swank's punches."
But Scorsese, though modest, isn't going down without a fight.
"To win would be really wonderful. If not, hopefully the picture could garner a few nods, which would help the picture. This is the main thing for me, at this point," Scorsese told the AP.
Rock shakes things up
Finally, there's the Chris Rock factor.
The comedian is hosting the Academy Awards for the first time, and he's already drummed up some controversy -- or what passes for it in these blog-jammed times -- with some biting comments about who watches (and doesn't watch) the Oscars.
"What straight black man sits there and watches the Oscars? Show me one," he said in an Entertainment Weekly interview. He also called awards shows "idiotic" and likened the Academy Awards to a "fashion show."
Rock, of course, just said what everybody has always thought, which probably will make him the best host since Johnny Carson. It was Carson, you'll recall, who got the Oscars exactly right: "Two hours of sparkling entertainment spread out over a four-hour show."
Of more concern to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is Rock's language, which can veer toward the profane. Oscar producer Gil Cates, however, doesn't seem worried.
"Chris is a very smart man, and he understands quite clearly the difference between the scatological observations he can make on his cable television specials and how to be funny within the boundaries allowed on the networks," Cates wrote on Oscar.com.
What Cates is worried about is the tendency for the Oscars to drag on, and on, and on. (He'll benefit from a lack of Whoopi Goldberg; Washington Post writer John Maynard noted that the last two Goldberg-hosted shows lasted more than four hours.) To that end, winners in lesser categories are scheduled to be honored from the audience and not come onstage.
If Cates can pull off a shorter show, nobody will be yawning.
The Oscars, which will air from the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, California, are scheduled to begin at 8:30 p.m. ET Sunday on ABC.
Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
