THE REEL OSCAR
Sue de Groot gets the chocolate ready for a long and bumpy Oscar night
THOSE of you who stay up to watch the 86th Academy Awards tonight had better warn your colleagues that you’ll be yawning all day tomorrow. With nine films nominated for best picture, as Bette Davis said in All About Eve: “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”
More film history could be made tonight than on any given Sunday. Martin Scorsese’s three-hour The Wolf of Wall Street is likely to enter the records as one of the best films not to win an Oscar, not because of any failings on its part, but because this year’s nominations are as mixed as a box of Quality Street, where the odd-shaped ones stand out.
In his 40-plus years of making a film annually, Woody Allen has been nominated once for best actor and 19 times for best director or writer. He missed out on the acting prize in 1977, but Annie Hall won him the best screenplay award. He repeated this in 1986 ( Hannah and her Sisters) and 2011 ( Midnight in Paris ). He’s not going to win this year, because he is not nominated — even though Blue Jasmine is widely considered his best film since Annie Hall. This snub is the least of Allen’s current troubles, so if Cate Blanchett wins best actress for Blue Jasmine (and she should), that might cheer him up.
Blanchett might be beaten by Meryl Streep, who has buried Katharine Hepburn’s record for the most acting nominations (Streep: 16, Hepburn: 12). But Streep has yet to equal Hepburn’s four golden statues for best actress. If she wins tonight for August: Osage County, she can place the Oscar next to those for Kramer vs Kramer (1979), Sophie’s Choice (1982) and The Iron Lady (2011) and say: “Kate and Cate, eat my shorts.”
Streep won’t be wearing shorts to the ceremony, though she might be in another space dress out of Star Wars. Those most likely to arrive in see-through hot pants are, in order of prediction: Jared Leto (nominated for best supporting actor in Dallas Buyers Club), Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence (respectively up for best actress and best supporting actress in American Hustle) and Scarlett Johansson (if you are not nominated, you need to make more effort to be noticed).
Young Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o has an outside chance of being named best supporting actress for 12 Years a Slave. Even if she doesn’t win, she will probably get the loudest applause and undoubtedly will wear the most stylish outfit.
Nyong’o’s co-star Chiwetel Ejiofor is, according to the betting sites, neck-andneck with Matthew McConaughey ( Dallas
Buyers Club) in the running for best actor. This is a close call. Both deserve the award, so it all depends on which minority group is most favoured by this year’s Academy judges.
Bruce Dern ( Nebraska ) is behind by a nose. With the split vote as well as the respect-for-elders vote, he might be shuffling onstage to thank director Alexander Payne for casting him. (Dame Judi Dench might pull a similar surprise if her peerless performance in Philomena pips Streep and Blanchett.)
Payne has a good chance at winning his first directing Oscar for Nebraska — he has previously shared best adapted screenplay awards for Sideways (2005) and
The Descendants (2012) — but all bets are on The Other Steve McQueen for 12 Years
a Slave. If his actors miss out on awards, at least there will be some redress.
The beautifully filmed Gravity will no doubt attract technical awards like a field of meteors — but Sandra Bullock as best actress? That would be like Pia Zadora winning a Golden Globe for Butterfly.