STICKING UP FOR BEYONCE

Is Beyoncé being punished for not being the bad kind of diva about her role in Dreamgirls, asks Peter Howell.

I’m sure Beyoncé Knowles doesn’t need my sympathy, but I’ve been feeling sorry for her anyway.

I’m also worried that her snubbing at the Oscars might lead Hollywood to be even more avaricious in the future.

When Dreamgirls was being touted by over-caffeinated commenters as a guaranteed Best Picture nominee and likely winner, months before the movie was even released, it also seemed as if Beyoncé was also shoo-in for Best Actress honours.

She was top-billed for the movie, right behind Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx and ahead of comedian Eddie Murphy.

That was before the press got a look at the movie and many scribes decided that the real story was Jennifer Hudson, the American Idol cast-off who plays a rejected Motown diva. And suddenly it became Beyoncé who was the cast-off. She’s being punished for not being the bad kind of diva.

Hudson is indeed great in the role of Effie White, both as an actor and singer, and she deserves acclaim and the Best Supporting Actress nod she eventually got. But it’s sad that in downplaying her own natural ebullience and singing power in the role of Deena Jones, Beyoncé was deemed to have been upstaged by Hudson.

The New York Post wrote it that way in a very catty article, just before the film’s release last month, saying the former Destiny’s Child lead singer is made to look “like a pretty extra” by Hudson.

Hudson does get more screen time in the movie, but Beyoncé’s role was supposed to be that of a slow-blooming talent. “I knew the risks before I took it,” Beyoncé said at the New York junket I attended in December.“I read the (stage) script. I knew that Deena was not the underdog. I knew she didn’t sing (the show-stopper) ‘And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going.’ I knew that all of our parts are very important, because it’s an ensemble cast. I knew she wasn’t the lead. It’s not about her life.”

She was very gracious about congratulating Hudson for a job well done and she seemed completely credible when she said she didn’t accept the role to win awards or to prove that she can sing. “I have nine Grammys,” she said. “I don’t have to prove that I’m a star, because I already am. I wanted to prove that I can act.”

She did just that, but what’s troublesome about this is that she’s being made to look bad for being a good soldier. She didn’t try to upstage Hudson for the sake of her own image, which many other actors would have.

Being a team player might have cost her an Oscar nomination. And you can bet that other actors will take note and be less reluctant to do what she did, in allowing a complete unknown to so dominate a movie.

Anything that makes Hollywood less about the art and more about the glory is a bad thing

BRING ME THE HEAD OF EDDIE MURPHY

Listen, I know the Oscars have turned into something of a blood sport.But this is the first time I’ve actually seen someone offering a bounty to take down one of the contenders.

Jeffrey Wells of the Hollywood Elsewhere blog is so incensed by the thought of Eddie Murphy sleepwalking his way to a Best Supporting Actor win for Dreamgirls, he's offering a C-Note to anyone willing to launch a Stop Eddie Murphy web campaign.

Jeffrey Wells of the Hollywood Elsewhere blog (http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/) is so incensed by the thought of Eddie Murphy sleepwalking his way to a Best Supporting Actor win for Dreamgirls, he’s offering a C-Note to anyone willing to launch a Stop Eddie Murphy web campaign.

“It may be too late and it may be a futile notion, but it’s time for all good people to rise up and band together in order to Stop Eddie Murphy from winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar,” Wells writes.

“If anyone wants to launch a website to help amplify this feeling and (who knows?) maybe trigger a turnaround of opinion, I’ll contribute $100 bucks ... seriously. He’s the one bad guy in the bunch who, I feel, really doesn’t deserve to win. Surely others feel this way?”

That’s American dough, by the way, which is currently worth $118.20 Canadian. That kind of coin would buy a lot of maple-glazed donuts.

The outburst by Wells was triggered by Murphy’s win Sunday night at the Screen Actors Guild awards for his portrayal of James Thunder Early, the amalgam of James Brown and Little Richard that Murphy does in Dreamgirls.

Rants Wells: “I’ve seen that bored-indifferent, man-am-I-rich, leave-me-alone look on Murphy’s face too many times, and I’d be tickled if the Oscar camera could catch him scowling when Mark Wahlberg or Alan Arkin win instead. He may have the Oscar in the bag, but I keep hearing he’s not very well-liked in the industry and that he’s regarded as a bit of an a--hole. Plus he was too cool to show up for any one of those three swanky Dreamgirls press events that Terry Press threw last year. It’ll just take a little blogosphere surge to make it happen ... maybe. Or maybe not.”

Peter Howell is rooting for Mark Wahlberg to take the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Departed.

Wells goes on to say that he doesn’t hate Murphy and actually used to love him, but “I can’t get over that run of truly awful big-studio films he made from the mid ’80s to the late ’90s.”

As extreme as it seems to be hammering a Wild West bounty poster into the Oscarville oak tree, I suspect Wells may be onto something here.

Murphy really has had it pretty easy this awards season. He didn’t do much press to support Dreamgirls — certainly a lot less than Beyoncé, Jennifer Hudson and Jamie Foxx — and it’s possible his lack of enthusiasm contributed to the movie’s shut-out from the big-ticket Oscar noms.

And Murphy’s performance really wasn’t all that remarkable. If you saw him during his Saturday Night Live heyday in the early 1980s, you’ve already seen his Dreamgirls shtick.

Meanwhile, there are far more deserving choices for Best Supporting Actor amongst any of the other four nominees, whom I list in order of personal preference: Mark Wahlberg (The Departed), Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine), Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children) and Djimon Hounsou (Blood Diamond).

Let the Sunshine in

Hope you had lots of Red Bull and strong coffee tonight, if you were staying up to follow the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

The tape-delayed results trickled in via satellite and online, each one inducing greater yawns than the other – with the exception of the ensemble acting award, which may indicate an upset brewing for Oscar night.

Four of the five film winners weren’t the least bit surprising, and they serve to improve the chances of an Oscar “me too” on Feb. 25, since actors dominate the Academy. But don’t expect an exact match, since the memberships of SAG and the Academy intersect but aren’t mirror images of each other.

Helen Mirren won Outstanding Female Actor in a Leading Role for The Queen.  In a replay of her Golden Globes twofer, she also won the prize for Outstanding Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries for Elizabeth I.

Forest Whitaker won Outstanding Male Actor in a Leading Role for The Last King of Scotland.

Eddie Murphy won Outstanding Male Actor in a Supporting Role for Dreamgirls.

Jennifer Hudson won Outstanding Female Actor in a Supporting Role for Dreamgirls.

No surprises for these four choices, which were all widely predicted. But there might be sign of a tide turning in the fifth film category, the award for Outstanding Cast in a Motion Picture.  It went to Little Miss Sunshine, an indication that Hollywood’s infatuation with “The Little Sundance Comedy That Could” is no fluke and continues to build. There is no Oscar equivalent for ensemble acting, but people really love this movie, more so than the perceived Oscar front-runners Babel and The Departed, it seems. Could an upset be brewing to crown a comedy Best Picture?

Number Crunching React

Sasha Stone, the high priestess of the must-read blog OscarWatch.com, gives Oscarology a nice shout-out today.

She posted an item about my Number Crunching post of two days ago, in which I mentioned how there hasn't been a Best Picture winner without an accompanying nomination for editing since Robert Redford's Ordinary People in 1980.

The factoid may seem trivial or geekish, but front-runner Brokeback Mountain didn' t have an editing nom last year, and the eventual winner Crash did.

Babel, nominated for Best Picture, also received a nomination for editing, which bodes well for its chances on taking home the top prize.

This year, only two of the Best Pictures nominees also have bids for editing: Babel and The Departed. If you believe in omens, this could spell trouble for Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine and The Queen.

Two OscarWatch commenters added additional insights.

"Has any film ever won Best Picture without being nominated for editing or director?" wrote Michael Cusumano. "Unless I'm mistaken, Little Miss Sunshine would be the first. Also, you'd have to go back quite far to find a time when picture and director didn't line up two years in a row, 1948-49, I think. So if Scorsese wins, the odds favour The Departed. And since we're talking about stats, I haven't heard anyone mention that if Streep loses as predicted it will be her tenth (!) loss in a row."

Another OscarWatch poster, identified only as Nigel, isn't buying the "no editing, no win" voodoo.

Speculation is Little Miss Sunshine is longshot for Best Picture because it did not receive an editing nomination..

"I put it down to pure coincidence," he wrote. " I highly doubt Academy members (or their assistants) sit there filling out the ballot and think, 'Well, hang on a second there, Skip, Brokeback Mountain doesn't have an editing nomination! I can't vote for that!' Then again, this is the same group that gave Kim Basinger an award for acting, so who knows how they think?"

Excellent points all, and just another indication of why this is one of the most interesting Oscars in recent memory.

THEY WUZ ROBBED: If Dreamgirls was looking for any sympathy for its Best Picture snubbing from regular moviegoers, it was sulking on the wrong street corner.

The Internet Movie Database (http://imdb.com) asked web surfers the musical question, "Which film was robbed the most by this year's Oscar nominations?"

In an IMDb poll, 23 per cent of respondents are convinced Children of Men was robbed for not getting a Best Picture nomination compared to less than 7 per cent for Dreamgirls.

The answers from 16,954 respondents indicated the majority of people are far from heartbroken over the Dreamgirls debacle. The film's Best Picture beating ranks a distant fifth on the list of things people are peeved about.

Here's the 13 occupants of Oscar's boneyard of broken dreams, ranked in order of significance (percentage of respondents follows in brackets):

1. Children of Men: No Best Picture nomination - 23 per cent

2. Casino Royale: Zero nominations -19 per cent

3. Volver: No Best Picture/Best Foreign Language Film nominations - 10.9 per cent

4. United 93: No Best Picture nomination - 9 per cent

5. Dreamgirls: No Best Picture nomination - 6.7 per cent

6. Bobby: Zero nominations - 6.5 per cent

7. Apocalypto: No major category nominations - 5.8 per cent

More than 10 per cent of IMDb surfers wanted Volver to be shown more Oscar love with a Best Picture or Best Foreign Language Film nomination.

8. Flags of Our Fathers: No major category nominations - 5.5 per cent

9. Over the Hedge: No Best Animated Film nomination -4.4 per cent

10. This Film Is Not Yet Rated: No Best Documentary nomination - 3 per cent

11. Little Children: No Best Picture nomination - 2.7 per cent

12. The Painted Veil: Zero nominations- 2.3 per cent

13. Dixie Chicks: Shut Up & Sing: No Best Documentary nomination - 1.1 per cent

Number crunching

Jennifer Hudson’s supposed lock for a Best Supporting Actress win is in doubt.

DOING THE MATH: It’s always dangerous to allow a words guy near numbers. But I haven’t seen any Einsteins out there crunching the data on the Best Picture contenders, so I guess it’s up to me.

Tradition has it that the leading Academy Awards nominee not only gets a Best Picture nod, but almost always goes on to win the prize as well.

But as everyone now knows, Dreamgirls made Oscar history this week by becoming the first nominees champ to not have a Best Picture bid in its basket of kudos.

Take a closer look, though and perhaps we’ve all erred by naming just one champ. There might actually be three of them.

Dreamgirls has eight nominations, which is on the low side to begin with. But three of those nods are in the Best Original Song category, for the tunes “Listen,” “Love You I Do” and “Patience.”

Little Miss Sunshine’s Abigail Breslin, the 10-year-old firecracker who charms everybody, male or female, young or old, could dance home with an Oscar.

The film can win just a single Oscar for its songs, no matter how popular they are, which means the best it can do on Feb. 25 is to take six golden statues. And that result is far from assured, because it’s clear the Academy isn’t as enchanted with Dreamgirls as it obviously is with Little Miss Sunshine.

As the Dreamgirls skyrocket sputters, Jennifer Hudson’s supposed lock for a Best Supporting Actress win is in doubt. She could quite conceivably lose to Little Miss Sunshine’s Abigail Breslin, the 10-year-old firecracker who charms everybody, male or female, young or old.

Now look at Babel, which has seven nominations, Best Picture included. Two of Babel’s noms are for Best Supporting Actress for Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi. Like Dreamgirls, the film could take a maximum of six Oscars. Unlike Dreamgirls, the dual acting nomination indicates a deeper appreciation of this movie by the Academy, which is dominated by actors.

Then there’s The Queen, which has six nominations, none one of them competing and one an almost guaranteed winner: Helen Mirren as Best Actress. The film also has a Best Picture nomination.

So Dreamgirls, Babel and The Queen could each win statues, but they couldn’t all do it together. And only Babel and The Queen could win Best Picture.

Only nine movies have ever won Best Picture without an accompanying nod for editing. The last time that happened was in 1980, when Robert Redford’s Ordinary People beat Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull in an awards outcome often cited as one of the weirdest.

Perhaps there are really three nominations leaders? Or am I missing something here?

Here’s something else to key into your calculator. Only nine movies have ever won Best Picture without an accompanying nod for editing.

The last time that happened was in 1980, when Robert Redford’s Ordinary People beat Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull in an awards outcome often cited as one of the weirdest.

Only two of the current Best Picture nominees also have nominations for editing: Babel and The Departed (which has total of five noms).

Could this spell trouble for The Queen? The lack of an editing nomination last year for Brokeback Mountain may have foretold the film’s loss for the Best Picture title to Crash, which did have one.

Anyone with a slide rule or crystal ball who wants to challenge these numbers and theories, feel free to let me know.

Nomination day

MOTOWN BLUES: And I’m telling you that they’re not going … to the Oscar bigtime.

AP Photo/DreamWorks, David James

Eddie Murphy , above, was nominated for Best Supporting Actor and co-star Jennifer Hudson was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Dreamgirls, but it didn't get a Best Picture nod.

Dreamgirls led the nominations today for the 79th Academy Awards with eight nods, but the Motown musical still managed to look like the biggest loser.

It didn’t score a nomination for Best Picture, something that may be a first in the annals of Oscar history. The Academy has confirmed it's the fist time a nominations leader didn't also get Best Picture nod.

For that matter, Dreamgirls was also knocked out of the race for Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay.

It did manage noms for Best Supporting Actor for Eddie Murphy and Best Supporting Actress for Jennifer Hudson, along with bids for art direction, costumes, sound mixing and original song.

Dreamgirls has three nominations for Best Original Song: “Listen,” “Love You I Do” and “Patience.”

This means the most Oscars it can possibly win is six, and the chance of it sweeping the full half-dozen is slim, especially if votes for those three songs cancel each other out.

It’s quite a comedown for a movie that many felt would be the one to beat at this year’s Academy Awards.

But musicals have always been a hit-or-miss thing at the Oscars. Back in 1972, Cabaret swept the ceremony with eight wins, but Best Picture wasn’t won of them. It has the dubious distinction of having the most Oscar wins of any film without winning Best Picture.

File photo

Cabaret, starring  Liza Minelli and Joel Grey swept the 1972 Oscars and Cabaret has the dubious distinction of having the most Oscar wins of any film without winning Best Picture.

Yet even that outcome would be preferable to the nightmare facing the Dreamgirls team.

In other Oscar news, the nominations were generally wise and worthy, with no embarrassments amongst the Best Picture five: Babel, The Departed, Letters From Iwo Jima and Little Miss Sunshine.

Clint Eastwood’s gambit to bump up the release date for Letters From Iwo Jima after its companion World War II epic Flags of Our Fathers crashed and burned proved to very smart. Letters is in the running for picture, director, original screenplay and sound editing.

Canadians can be especially proud, because it’s a banner year for us at the Oscars, especially if you happen to come from London, Ont.

London-born Ryan Gosling is up for Best Actor for Half Nelson while fellow Londoner Paul Haggis is nominated for Best Original Screenplay for Letters From Iwo Jima, which he says with co-writer Iris Yamashita.

Toronto’s Deepa Mehta is in contention for Best Foreign-Language Film with Water, which managed to knock Pedro Almodóvar’s higher-profile Volver out of the fifth slot in the category.

And Montreal’s Torill Kove is keeping the National Film Board’s maple leaf flying in the Best Animated Short category. Her nomination for The Danish Poet is her second Oscar nom, the previous one being for My Grandmother Ironed the King’s Shirts in 2000.

Taking the fifth

AP PHOTO/CHARLES REX ARBOGAST

Shown are the five phases in the making of the Oscar statue at the Chicago plant of R.S. Owens Co. which has manufactured the coveted award since 1983.

Yawns of boredom as well as sleepiness will greet many of the anointed picks Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. Toronto time, when nominations for the 79th annual Academy Awards are announced.

Helen Mirren for Best Actress and Forest Whitaker for Best Actor? Of course. The Departed and Dreamgirls for Best Picture? Ditto. Jennifer Hudson for Best Supporting Actress? Snore.

But you can expect at least a few jolts before you’ve sipped your morning java.

What’s always interesting about Oscar noms is how often the fifth choice comes out of left field. No matter how many critics’ groups and industry guilds weigh in prior to Oscar, the Academy always seems to come up with tantalizing long shots to round out its nominee lists.

Think of William Hurt’s nod for Best Supporting Actor last year, the only cast member of David Cronenberg’s very fine History of Violence to win Academy recognition. And remember how Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter) “stole” the Best Director’s slot from James L. Brooks (As Good As It Gets) a decade ago?

AP PHOTO/IFC FILMS, MACALL POLAY

Will Maggie Gyllenhaal get a Best Actress nomination for Sherrybaby? Gyllenhaal received a Golden Globe nomination, but is a longshot to get an Oscar nom for her role in this little-seen movie.

Size is the reason for this. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is larger and more diverse than the other packs of prognosticators out there. Its 5,830 members, representing everybody from actors to publicists, are bound to nominate at least a few people and films that haven’t been celebrated elsewhere.

Guessing the “fifth column” is what keeps the Oscars interesting and fun, especially in the Best Picture category, where four of the five slots look like slam dunks and the fifth is a complete wild shot.

With this in mind, here are my predictions for the top six categories, each with four slots I’m calling sure bets and the dark horses taking the fifth:

BEST PICTURE

The Departed

Dreamgirls

Little Miss Sunshine

The Queen

Fifth column: Babel, United 93, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Children, Pan’s Labyrinth, Children of Men and The Devil Wears Prada.

BEST DIRECTOR:

Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Stephen Frears, The Queen

Bill Condon, Dreamgirls

Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Little Miss Sunshine

Fifth column: Clint Eastwood (Letters From Iwo Jima), Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel), Paul Greengrass (United 93), Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) and Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men).

BEST ACTOR:

Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

Peter O’Toole, Venus

Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed

Fifth column: Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan), Leonardo DiCaprio (Blood Diamond), Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson), Daniel Craig (Casino Royale), Matt Damon (The Departed), Derek Luke (Catch a Fire).

BEST ACTRESS:

Helen Mirren, The Queen

Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada

Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal

Kate Winslet, Little Children

Fifth column: Penélope Cruz (Volver), Beyoncé Knowles (Dreamgirls), Cate Blanchett (Notes on a Scandal), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Sherrybaby).

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls

Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine

Djimon Honsou, Blood Diamond

Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children

Fifth column: Mark Wahlberg (The Departed), Jack Nicholson (The Departed), Michael Sheen (The Queen),

Brad Pitt (Babel), James McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland), Steve Carell (Little Miss Sunshine), Leslie Phillips (Venus), Tim Robbins (Catch a Fire).

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal

Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine

Toni Collette, Little Miss Sunshine

Fifth column: Rinko Kikuchi (Babel), Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada), Catherine O’Hara (For Your Consideration), Emma Thompson (Stranger Than Fiction), Shareeka Epps (Half Nelson).

Welcome to my Oscarology blog

Starting Monday, Jan. 22 and for the following five weeks, I'll be following the Oscar action, seeking enlightenment on the path to the 79th annual Academy Awards on Feb. 25.

I'll read the tea leaves, harken to the buzz and gaze into the crystal ball.

Let's see if I can help you win your office Oscar pool.

See you on Monday...

Cheers,
Peter Howell.