WILL it be The Year of the Pig? Or will the most expensive movie ever made in Ireland take some of the laurels? Will a dead, man walk over the competition for best actor? Will kudos go to Dead Man Walking? Will Oliver Stone have to suffer the ignominy of his Nixon epic going home empty handed" Has Emma Thompson already written an acceptance speech in the style of Jane Austen for the adapted screenplay award? And will Tom Hanks cry again, even though he's presenting rather than accepting an award this year?
Pushed on those points, I would hazard the following guesses, in order Hopefully. Probably. Perish the thought. Some. More than likely. Even more than likely. You never can tell with the lachrymose Tom.
However, the definitive answers to these and other burning questions will not be known until the 68th Academy Awards ceremony is held in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Centre in downtown Los Angeles next Monday night, or, if you live in this part of the world, in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
To be eligible for Oscars, a movie must have been exhibited publicly on 35mm or 70mm in a Los Angeles County cinema for a minimum seven day run commencing before December 31st last. Of the 255 films which met the general eligibility requirements, only 37 were nominated of those, 19 received multiple nominations. Braveheart leads the field with 10 nominations, followed by Apollo 13 with nine, and Babe and Sense And Sensibility with seven each.
Every Oscars ceremony yields some surprises, but the consensus is that this year's show is the most unpredictable in a very long time. The only certainties at this stage are, that Kirk Douglas will be presented with an honorary Oscar by Steven Spielberg and that John Lasseter will receive a special achievement award as the director of the ground breaking Toy Story. And that Whoopi Goldberg will be back to present the show, having been passed over for the dire Dave Letterman last year.
As ever, millions of dollars have been spent on promoting the prospects of the principal nominees. Miramax, the formerly independent US company now owned by Disney, has been lavishing promotional finance on the slight and seriously over rated Italian picture, Il Postino, perhaps hoping that its story of a simpleton might replicate last year's Oscars triumph by the simpleton known as Forrest Gump.
Miramax's aggressive campaign has involved buying page upon page of trade paper space and anticipates a mawkish sympathy vote for the film's star, Massimo Troisi, who died at the age of 41 on June 4th, 1994, the day after the movie finished shooting.
Il Postino kicks the door open," Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein was quoted as saying in Screen International. And I guess at the end of the day, without sounding egotistical, that is what Miramax specialises in going where no one goes and watching everyone else follow. If the door is closed, it's a question of just kicking the f...ing door down."
With no shoo-in victories on the cards this year and with so many first time Oscar nominees on the short lists, I venture the following predictions. There are five nominations in all the principal categories.
Best Picture
The all important award, and the last to be presented on the night. Only twice in the history of the Oscars has the award gone to a film which has not received a best director nomination Grand Hotel in 1932 and Driving Miss Daisy in 1989. That should rule out Ang Lee's Sense And Sensibility and the only all American film on the short list, Ron Howard's Apollo 13, although Barry Norman tipped the latter for the award when he was in Dublin last week.
It's positively unthinkable that Il Postino could become the first foreign language film to win the major award, which leaves the field open to the two Australian directed movies in contention for the prize Mel Gibson's Braveheart and Chris Noonan's Babe. Braveheart is more likely to be rewarded elsewhere on the night, which means Babe should win. The surprise hit of last year it has taken $200 million at the international box office Chris Noonan's lovable film could well prove this year's equivalent of the 1976 best picture winner, Rocky, an against the odds tale which no major studio wanted to touch. Let's hear it for the pig.
Best Director
Only three times since 1949 has the winner of the annual Directors Guild of America award failed to win this Oscar, and this will be the fourth, because this year's DGA winner, Ron Howard (Apollo 13) has not even been nominated for director. The Australians, Mel Gibson and Chris Noonan, are here again, as are the English directors, Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) and Mike Radford (Il Postino), and the only American, Tim Robbins (Dead Man Walking). None of the five nominees has been nominated in the past. Actors turned directors have won this award five times in the past 20 years Woody Allen, Robert Redford, Richard Attenborough, Kevin Costner and Clint Eastwood which bodes well for Tim Robbins and Mel Gibson, and it is essentially down to the two of them, with Gibson given the edge to take the Oscar.
Best Actor
Two former Oscar winners are on the short list Anthony Hopkins for Nixon and Richard Dreyfuss for his comeback in Mr Holland's Opus. By no means the most popular actor in Hollywood, Sean Penn is in for his finest performance to date, in Dead Man Walking. The late Massimo Troisi is there for Il Postino, the first posthumously nominated actor since Peter Finch won for Network in 1976. And then there is Nicolas Cage for his revelatory performance as a suicidal alcoholic screenwriter in Leaving Las Vegas. Sentiment is on Dreyfuss's side, but Cage is the sure shot to win on the night.
Best Actress
The competition here is so unusually tough that seemingly certain nominees such as Nicole Kidman(To Die For) and Annette Bening (The American President) failed to make the grade. Those who did include three former nominees Meryl Streep, a two time Oscar winner getting her tenth nomination for The Bridges Of Madison County Susan Sarandon, who has never won, on her fifth nomination, for Dead Man Walking and Emma Thompson, who won for Ho wards End, up for the fourth time in Sense And Sensibility. Their rivals are Elisabeth Shue, leaping into the mainstream in Leaving Las Vegas, and Sharon Stone, finally being deemed respectable after her gritty work in Casino. Stone has already won the Golden Globe, always a strong indicator, but the award on the night has to go to Sarandon.
Best Supporting Actress
Just as Dianne Wiest walked away with this award last year for Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway, Mira Sorvino seems certain to win this year for Allen's new comedy, Mighty Aphrodite. Of the other nominees, the only likely contenders are Joan Allen (the best hope Nixon has for an Oscar) and young Kate Winslet (Sense And Sensibility). The rank outsiders are Mare Winningham (although very impressive in Georgia) and Kathleen Quinlan (Apollo 13). None of the five has been nominated in the past.
Best Supporting Actor
A tough enough category to make this year, not to mind win. In another field of five first time nominees, the very long shots are Tim Roth (Rob Roy) and James Cromwell (Babe), although if Cromwell wins early on in the ceremony, you can be certain that Babe is on a roll. Brad Pitt has the advantage of the Golden Globe under his belt for his all out performance in Twelve Monkeys, and the well respected Ed Harris finally gets Oscar recognition for Apollo 13. Despite that competition, Kevin Spacey deserves to, and, should, win for The Usual Suspects.
Other Categories
Christopher McQuarne richly deserves the best original screenplay award for The Usual Suspects, and just might pip Randall Wallace (Braveheart) for it. Emma Thompson (Sense And Sensibility) seems a shoo-in for best adapted screenplay, with fellow English person Mike Figgis her strongest competition, for Leaving Las Vegas.
It's down to Bruce Springsteen (Dead Man Walking), Bryan Adams (Don Juan De Marco) and Randy Newman (Toy Story) for best original film song, with Newman likely to scrape ahead of former winner Springsteen (Philadelphia) on the night. The best foreign language film is more of a joke than ever, with some of the best candidates shut out by arcane regulations, and it's anyone's guess who'll win. And expect Nick Park to turn up in another ridiculously large bow lie to accept his third best animated short film Oscar for A Close Shave.
The Oscars ceremony will be carried live on BBC 2 at 2a.m. (Irish time) on Tuesday, preceded by the "glittering" arrival of the stars an hour earlier. Michael Dwyer will analyse the results in The Irish Times on Wednesday's arts page.
