Somewhere up There, These Two Are Smiling

The trouble with the Academy’s shutting out arguably the best film of 2008 is that it casts an unfair light on the five nominees (okay, maybe only here at Awards Daily but still…). Not for one second do I begrudge The Reader its success. We have been talking about how the film was on the rise for quite some time now and this is, actually, a good thing for a deserving film.

No, the trouble is one starts thumbing through the other five and wondering which is the weak link. Probably all but Slumdog Millionaire will films some will think should have been axed. The simple fact is that the Academy’s five looks a lot like the Academy’s five through the ’80s and ’90s. Two years back to back of stellar nominees felt like the ’70s all over again but this year, we’re right back to the middle. And it isn’t necessarily a bad place to be; it’s a safe place to be.

Do this long enough and safe isn’t what you want. Excitement, change, the new – that’s what we old hats crave and it’s something we so rarely get. The Dark Knight’s inclusion would have meant that the AMPAS was embracing something different and recognizing that a good film doesn’t necessarily have to be “important” to be good.

The Reader is the quieter but more interesting story of 2008. It’s interesting because of the drama behind the scenes, interesting because it shows Harvey Weinstein is back and in a ferocious way. It shows that there were two movies this year with Kate Winslet in the middle in a kind of tug-of-war. Putting Kate in lead for The Reader meant that they had to shove her aside for Revolutionary Road. This shows that they want to give Kate Winslet the lead actress award but they wanted to give it to her for The Reader. And she deserves it, either which way it gets sliced up.

Interestingly, The Reader was written off by pundits at some point, probably because of the Scott Rudin/Harvey Weinstein flap, and maybe because it received middling to poor reviews – in fact, only three of the five got rave reviews: Milk, Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon. Benjamin Button and The Reader both have succeeded with the Academy not for being favorites of the critics but for being good old fashioned storytelling of the Academy kind. We haven’t seen these types of Academy movies in a while, but let me tell you, it’s as familiar as that egg bread smell of my grandmother’s kitchen every time I walked into it.

For me, I can’t think of dropping any of these five for The Dark Knight, though I do believe it should have been nominated. The Reader has Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack listed as producers and they loom over these proceedings, like Heath Ledger in a way.

It’s hard to say whether the Minghella/Pollack thing had anything to do with The Reader’s nod, or whether it had a lot more appeal than people were giving it credit for. Most were saying Gran Torino was headed up the outside, or Doubt, or even Revolutionary Road. But The Reader had several factors going for it.

1. Minghella/Pollack
2. Harvey Weinstein
3. Naked Kate Winslet
4. A Holocaust movie
5. Globe and BAFTA nods for Best Picture
6. A relatively weak year
7. A moving story
8. A traditional Oscar movie
9. It’s well directed (I think Daldry’s best)
10. Featured Kate Winslet’s best performance (along with Revolutionary Road)

But no, I’ll not take this out on The Reader, Frost/Nixon, Benjamin Button, Milk or Slumdog.¬† I’ll just try to remember next time – if the lead character wears a batsuit, it doesn’t matter how many critics loved it or how much money it made, or how artfully done it was – it is still a movie about a guy wearing a batsuit.

Meanwhile, check out this LA Times story about the film and Daldry’s reaction to the nomination.