The Bagger Returns

Carr is a writer before he is anything else and thus, when he dips into Oscar season, it’s somehow more of everything than the usual jibber jabber – his world view, born out of a life’s worth of the good, the bad and the ugly has somehow found its way to the Oscar scene. It’s about as likely as someone like Michael Jordan becoming an Oscar blogger but there it is – and so he hits this season less a fish out of water and more a one-step-removed observer. Here is his eloquent opener:

Against the backdrop of a historic presidential election and a vortex of economic dysfunction, the burgeoning Oscar season seems even sillier than usual. After all, who really cares about the throw-down for best supporting actor at a time when the citizenry seems poised for a run on its own banks.

But watching Hollywood hug itself in an orgy of self-congratulation has some real psychic benefit. Who among us will not enjoy the diversion of watching someone opening an envelope that contains something besides the ashes of a 401(k)? Besides, there is always a bull market in ego, and the movie business will be celebrating the 81st annual Academy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 22, at the Kodak Theater with or without your consent.

As the season kicked into gear, some suggested that Oscar backers would rein in spending out of deference to hard times and the bottom line ‚Äî Peter Bart, the editor in chief of Variety, wrote a column yowling about the lack of Oscar ads in his trade paper ‚Äî but profligacy remains the default setting for the silly season. In just the past two weeks the producers, actors and directors of this season’s contenders have been crisscrossing the skies between Los Angeles and New York, holding star-studded screenings, indulging in lavish parties and all but licking the faces of media types and Academy voters in hopes of gaining that ineffable edge. The Bagger (that’s me) has been on the circuit on your behalf, enduring abundant buffets and spurning proffered cocktails while occasionally saying yes to a portion of Oscar spin.

And after laying it out, he talks Oscar stuff — like EW, it isn’t anything particularly new but hell, it’s the New York Times and voters are reading, along with everyone else.¬† From my perspective, he’s dead on when he writes: “Ultimately, however, when it comes to Academy Awards, there is best picture, and then there is everything else.” It really does come down to Best Picture when all is said and done – it’s the turkey on the Thanksgiving table if you will.

This year, by the Bagger’s count, seven or eight films have a shot at best picture. The consensus, in no particular order ‚Äî well, OK, in a little bit of a hierarchy ‚Äî includes “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Revolutionary Road,” “Milk,” “Doubt” and “The Reader.” And a surprise may be waiting in the wings: Clint Eastwood, a durable crush object of the Academy, has a habit of swinging out of the trees late in the game, as he did two years ago with “Letters From Iwo Jima,” so keep an eye on “Gran Torino.”

With almost three months to go, a great deal can happen. The chemistry of Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman in “Australia” may bring to mind oil and water, but the Academy may swoon over the epic intent of the director, Baz Luhrmann (“Moulin Rouge!” and “Romeo + Juliet”). The Walt Disney Co. is carpet-bombing voters with DVDs to argue that the robotic glories of “Wall-E” should not be pigeonholed into animation alone. And there’s always a chance that smaller films like “Rachel Getting Married,” with a searing performance by Anne Hathaway, or “The Wrestler,” featuring the muscular return of Mickey Rourke, might sneak in.

Anything can happen is right. We’re all chattering mostly in a vacuum here, with none of the major films hitting the public — and in fact, many of the films will have just opened when Oscar ballots are mailed on December 26. Two weeks after that the ballots are due again. An Oscar voter has to spend his or her holiday season watching screeners, or not. You finally get time off with the family, that’s if you’re still a working person and not retired, and here come the piles and piles of screeners.

Hopefully, most voters will have already seen many of the films when it’s time to mark the ballot, but you know they’ll probably only look at, gun to their heads, the ones with any kind of buzz, or a naked lady having sex.¬† That is why publicists have to push so hard right now, before the ballots ever even come into the mailbox. Most voters do it early, some wait until the last minute, some don’t even see the films they vote for (because they’re voting on buzz or for their friends and allies), some work really hard to see everything and do a truly honest job of voting.

We bloggers can only do what we do and hope it lands somewhere in the right zone. This year, and every year really, it feels like a big mystery until suddenly it doesn’t and everything starts to float to the surface. But that’s after the critics awards and the guild awards….we’ve only just begun.