Will Munich make it to the podium?
Will it be another Schindler’s List, or another Amistad?
Everybody in Hollywood, and the people who write about them, are all asking the same question about Steven Spielberg’s Munich, his docudrama about the bloody vengeance exacted for the 1972 Palestinian massacre of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes. The film, which Spielberg is rushing to complete for a Dec. 23 theatrical release, hasn’t been screened yet to critics, awards associations or Academy voters, and deadlines are fast approaching for prizes big and small. Very little information has been released regarding the movie, which Spielberg filmed just this past summer.
Pundits, eagerly speculating, want to know if Munich will ace the Oscars, as Spielberg’s Schindler’s List
did when it won Best Picture and other glories in 1993, or whether it will fall by the wayside as the director’s Amistad did in 1997. The question has become all the more intense as various presumed Oscar contenders have slipped off the critical radar: Cinderella Man, The Constant Gardener, Jarhead, In Her Shoes and Bee Season among them.
There are indications Munich might just go the distance, because all the Academy portents are there: ‰ It’s a drama set in the past dealing with serious issues, a potent Oscar combo; ‰ It’s directed by Oscar- winning director Spielberg, stars Oscar- winning actor Geoffrey Rush and is co- written by Oscarwinning screenwriter Eric Roth ( Forrest Gump). Once you’ve won the Academy’s love, you keep it; ‰ The movie also stars Eric Bana, a star of much worth and acclaim, and the equally talented Daniel Craig, who has the additional brio ( and bankability) of being the new James Bond; ‰ It concerns a topic of consuming interest to Academy voters, who gave the 1999 documentary Oscar to One Day in September, which also concerned the Munich massacre.
Speculation hit fever pitch in recent days with the release of the official poster and teaser trailer for Munich, which looks to be every bit the emotional drama that Oscar voters crave. You can see both online at www. munichmovie. com. The only cautionary notes have to do with the theme of vengeance. The film begins with the kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September. But most of the films tracks the payback authorized by Golda Meir, then Israel’s president, in response to the killing. She gave the green light to agents of the Mossad to search for, stalk and execute anyone and everyone who had anything to do with the massacre, and even a few who didn’t. The Munich massacre and Meir’s controversial assassination edict are viewed by many historians as watershed moments in modern history, creating terror links that extend to the acts of 9/ 11 and beyond. The Los Angeles Times’ new awards blog ( www. theenvelope. theorizes that Munich “won’t be popular with many Arab sympathizers — or some Jewish ones either, since Spielberg plans to spotlight how Israeli leaders sanctioned the deaths of Palestinians not involved in the Munich showdown.” You have to wonder how many Arabs are Oscar voters, and how many Jews (or non- Jews, for that matter) would be upset at a film about Israel responding with righteous fury to unprovoked violence.
David Poland, a columnist with the online journal MovieCityNews. com, has already declared Munich to be the “ prohibitive front- runner to win the Academy Award for Best Picture on March 5, 2006.” He adds, however, that Spielberg already knows how easy it is to go in as a champion and go out as a loser, as Saving Private Ryan did in 1998 when Shakespeare in Love took the Oscar crown. Over at Hollywood- Elsewhere. where columnist and webcaster ( as of Nov. 20) Jeffrey Wells holds forth, the betting is the exact opposite. Wells takes the position that the buzz on Munich“ seems to be . . . well, not building.” He admits he doesn’t have much to base this on, since he also hasn’t yet seen the movie, but his instincts are usually sound.
Poland and Wells both take note of another still- unviewed Best Picture contender, one the L. A. Times
seems to be pushing. It’s Rob Marshall’s Memoirs of a Geisha, made by the man behind the Oscar- winning Chicago, and starring formidable Asian talents Ziyi Zhang, Ken Watanabe and Michelle Yeoh. It’s due out Dec. 9. DRUDGE WAKES UP:
Another Oscar guessing game comes from the unlikely source of Matt Drudge, the mercurial muckraker behind The Drudge Report, the online scandal sheet. His interest in movies tends to be mainly in the negative, as when he peddled false rumours about A Beautiful Mind being anti- Semitic and hilarious piffle about Team America: World Police being anti- Bush. Yet all of a sudden he’s touting a movie for Best Picture, long after others have done so, and you have to wonder what he’s really up to. Drudge woke up last week and discovered Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, a movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger about two cowboys finding love on the range. Quoting his usual unnamed sources, Drudge breathlessly revealed that Brokeback Mountain
“has quietly become an award season frontrunner,” despite its gay bonding theme — which really only matters to people who don’t see movies. Where was this guy back in early September, when patrons and critics at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals were loudly buzzing about Brokeback Mountain’s Oscar prospects? Does Drudge’s sexual orientation have anything do with his unusual enthusiasm? SPIDEY GUY:
Wonder how Sideways skirt- chaser Thomas Haden Church will do playing the villainous Sandman ( a/ k/ a Flint Marko) in Spider-Man 3, due out May 4, 2007? Wonder no more, at least from the visual perspective. An image of Church in his bicep-bulging Sandman attire has been released by Sony Pictures, which is also viewable online via this Wikipedia link: http:// tinyurl. com/ a9k6s.
It shows him standing on a New York street, looking menacing. With his pointy ears and slick hair, it made me think of a Vulcan version of James Dean. PETEHOWELL@AOL.COM