![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
libertangoJust a quick note -- ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
akirlu has heard this before, but many of you haven't.
Mulling over the Oscar possibilities tonight, the conventional wisdom has been Brokeback Mountain is the film to beat, with Crash coming in second.
My own thought is -- Good Night, and Good Luck.
Why?
Look, "What I really want to do is direct..." may be a cliché, but it's a cliché for a reason. An awful lot of actors really do want to direct. (And it's not even a question of ego, necessarily. Speaking as a some-time actor, many directors make terrible choices, and if you're a professional, you have to go along with them. So getting to direct is at least one way to screw up on your own, good, bad, or indifferent.)
A majority of the Academy -- which is to say, the Oscar voters -- are actors. Nominations are generated by the individual branches -- directors for directors, costume designers for costumes, etc. -- but the entire Academy then gets to vote.
Historically, the Academy tends to vote for fellow actors for Best Picture when given the chance. Consider Dances with Wolves, Unforgiven, Braveheart, and Million Dollar Baby.
It's not a dead-certain lock. Nothing in Hollywood is. But Clooney is fairly popular, his movie was made for next to nothing (in Hollywood terms) which made it profitable, it takes the right political stance, the black-and-white is nostalgic as all hell, and the precedent -- if you're an actor -- just can't be beat.
Mind you, by this theory, Branagh's Hamlet should have been a lock in its year -- but it wasn't even nominated. So I've been wrong before.
On the other hand, I want a record, if by some small chance I'm right. :)
akirlu has heard this before, but many of you haven't.Mulling over the Oscar possibilities tonight, the conventional wisdom has been Brokeback Mountain is the film to beat, with Crash coming in second.
My own thought is -- Good Night, and Good Luck.
Why?
Look, "What I really want to do is direct..." may be a cliché, but it's a cliché for a reason. An awful lot of actors really do want to direct. (And it's not even a question of ego, necessarily. Speaking as a some-time actor, many directors make terrible choices, and if you're a professional, you have to go along with them. So getting to direct is at least one way to screw up on your own, good, bad, or indifferent.)
A majority of the Academy -- which is to say, the Oscar voters -- are actors. Nominations are generated by the individual branches -- directors for directors, costume designers for costumes, etc. -- but the entire Academy then gets to vote.
Historically, the Academy tends to vote for fellow actors for Best Picture when given the chance. Consider Dances with Wolves, Unforgiven, Braveheart, and Million Dollar Baby.
It's not a dead-certain lock. Nothing in Hollywood is. But Clooney is fairly popular, his movie was made for next to nothing (in Hollywood terms) which made it profitable, it takes the right political stance, the black-and-white is nostalgic as all hell, and the precedent -- if you're an actor -- just can't be beat.
Mind you, by this theory, Branagh's Hamlet should have been a lock in its year -- but it wasn't even nominated. So I've been wrong before.
On the other hand, I want a record, if by some small chance I'm right. :)
