It's Oscar Time

I seem to remember a time when the Academy Awards was about a celebration of the year in movies. You knew the films and stars nominated for the Oscars because you had either seen the movie or at least knew someone who had seen it. But over the past 5 years or so, this has changed drastically. Gone are the days when films like Forrest Gump that were both critically acclaimed and box office hits received Academy Award nominations. As the Oscars have become more political, the films and stars that are nominated more often than not are critically-acclaimed media darlings that only a handful of people have either heard of or seen.

One of the nominees for Best Supporting Actress this year is Amy Adams in a movie called Junebug. Can I have a show of hands out there of anyone who has any sort of knowledge of this movie. *looks around* That's what I thought.

Please don't think that I'm demeaning Amy Adams' performance because I'm not. I'm merely using her as an example as to what the Oscars have become in recent years. It's no longer about acknowledging all films and all performers. It's about the Academy Awards being their own little private club with their own little political agenda. And this isn't a defamation of the liberal media, because both sides of the political spectrum are involved in this. The Oscars are about politics, not great movies and great performances.

I remember a time when I would see at least 4 of the 5 Best Picture nominees every year, mostly because they were movies that were well done and popular. This year? I haven't seen any of them. I'm not saying that the films nominated aren't good movies. On the contrary, I'm sure they are very good films. What I am saying is that, by and large, no one has seen them, and box office numbers provided by BoxOfficeMojo.com back me up.

Of the 5 nominees for Best Picture, the only movie that's even done remotely good business is Brokeback Mountain ($76 million). Capote made a paltry $24 million at the box office, and Good Night and Good Luck made only $30 million. Saw II made $31 million its first weekend. Not that I'm comparing the quality of the three films, but you get my point. And it doesn't stop with the Best Picture noms.

Felicity Huffman is nominated for Best Actress for Transamerica. Now, I love Felicity Huffman. She's a tremendous actress, and there's a good chance she's going to have an Oscar to go along with her Emmy after Sunday night. However, no one has seen the movie. To date, it's made only $5.2 million. There have been Z-grade horror movies that have done better business. However, this is just the kind of performance that the uber-political Academy Awards love to recognize. Huffman portrays a man who is a transvestite who decides he wants to become a she. This is the very sort of movie that makes members of the far right cringe. So, of course, the far left leaning Hollywood has to recognize it. Brokeback Mountain is the ultimate example of this. I mean, a movie about gay cowboys? Of course it was going to get multiple nominations. Nevermind the fact that a lot of the people I know who saw it said it was a good movie, but certainly not a great one.

So, as both political extremes continue to wage war on one another, people in the middle (i.e. the majority of the American public) suffer. I guarantee you that ratings will be down for the Academy Awards this year, if only because people will tune in and say, "I've never heard of any of these movies" and flip over to something else or pop in a DVD of a movie they saw and liked (like Wedding Crashers). It is possible for a movie to be good and to make a lot of money at the box office, but don't tell that to AMPAS, at least not anymore. Sure, all 3 Lord of the Rings movies were nominated and they were huge at the box office, but they are the exception rather than the norm.

With all of that being said, who do I think is going to win? Well, I have my thoughts, and they are based on personal opinion and the opinions of Stephen Hunter and Joe Barber, two Washington, DC, based film critics who have much different takes on what is and isn't a good film. Hunter and Barber gave their respective picks on The Tony Kornheiser Show Thursday and Friday of this week, so I have to give credit to them for educating me on films I really haven't seen. So here goes...

Best Picture - I have to go with Brokeback Mountain. Hunter and Barber both don't think it's going to win because of the controversial subject matter, but that's exactly why I think it's going to win, just so Hollywood can boast how forward-thinking it is.

Best Actor - This one is about as much of a shoo-in as you can get. Phillip Seymour Hoffman has captured nearly all of the pre-Oscar awards for his portrayal of Truman Capote, and his is the sort of performance that is always recognized by the Academy Awards.

Best Supporting Actor - In years past, the Supporting Actor category was used to recognize actors who have had long careers but have gone without an Oscar (see Tommy Lee Jones, Jack Palance and so on). Two actors fall into that category this year: Paul Giamatti and Matt Dillon. A lot of people thought Giamatti was snubbed last year when he didn't get nominated for Sideways, and Dillon's career stretches all the way back to the early 1980's. I'm going with Giamatti for his performance in Cinderella Man. This is the Academy's version of a make good.

Best Actress - Hunter and Barber seem to think the race is between Reese Witherspoon for her portrayal of June Carter Cash in Walk the Line and the aforementioned Felicity Huffman for Transamerica. I'm going to go against the grain here and pick Witherspoon, if only because I think Walk the Line has to win an award of some sort since it wasn't nominated for Best Picture. I'm also going with a performance in a movie that at least more than 35 people have seen.

Best Supporting Actress - This is another two woman race, with the contenders being Rachel Weisz for The Constant Gardener and Michelle Williams for Brokeback Mountain. Three of the stars from Brokeback Mountain received nominations, and I think that Williams will be the only one of the three to win. I have no real reason for this prediction; I'm just putting myself in the shoes of the people who vote. This is the sort of thing they will do.

Best Director - This is even more of shoo-in than Phillip Seymour Hoffman winning for Capote. Ang Lee will win for Brokeback Mountain. His winning may end up impeding Brokeback Mountain from winning Best Picture, but I'm predicting a director/picture sweep for the movie that's already become a pop culture phenomenon.

The 78th Annual Academy Awards air tomorrow night on ABC at 8pm ET/5pm PT. I doubt I'll be actively watching, but I'll at least try to keep up with it if only to see if my predictions were right or not.

It's a shame that the Oscars have become so political as of late because there are a lot of good movies and good performances that actually made some money at the box office that go unnoticed because of political agendas. Anyway, that's it for me. Be back on Monday with my Academy Awards recap and reactions. Later, kids!

~Sara