by Jonathan Taylor
HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - As the awards season draws to a close -- Oscar ballots are due Tuesday -- Sunday's Academy Awards offer something long missing from the ceremony: genuine suspense.
In the past two years, American Beauty and Gladiator seemed to be the front-runners, with some observers predicting upsets that never happened. This year, however, all five best picture contenders seem like front-runners.
In a season filled with question marks, there have been a few certainties: Bellwethers are no longer valid, several studios waged brilliant campaigns, and nearly everyone hopes that the mudslinging of this year won't be repeated.
As for bellwethers, no matter which film wins best picture, it will defy the odds.
In other words, no matter what film wins, a lot of "sure-fire" Oscar predictors will be proved wrong.
And this year has made clear that if year-end critics kudos ever had any Oscar clout, it's certainly diminished by now.
Probably because so many of the major contenders were bunched up late in the year, the early bellwethers didn't seem to ring true; sometimes it takes a while for a film to find its awards footing, and for the critical consensus to coalesce. Some films and some performances that looked like sure bets early on now are barely mentioned.
The wide-open race may account for the fact that the campaigning changed this year. Almost any conversation with a studio exec, marketer or Oscar consultant began with a mournful refrain of "I've never seen a campaign so nasty."
Stories in newspapers and on the Internet slammed Fox for its campaign for Moulin Rouge (as if it were the only studio pushing its film); questioned the accuracy of A Beautiful Mind and attacked the character of John Nash, the focus of the film; and pooh-poohed the chances of Rings, since it's "only" a fantasy (though it's closer to Gladiator and Braveheart than to E.T.).
Howard and A Beautiful Mind star Russell Crowe both addressed the simmering controversy at the Oscar nominees luncheon on March 11, an event usually known for its relaxed atmosphere and congenial tone.
Magazine articles even stirred up the race card in the acting categories.
In all these cases, studio execs and Oscar campaigners theorized that the negativity was being stirred up by the competition. There were even accusations that the recipients of the mudslinging were capitalizing on it to get sympathy votes.
The fighting wasn't confined to the best picture category, either. Long-standing bad blood between Disney and DreamWorks spilled early in the race as the two animation powers jockeyed for the new feature animation prize.
Even in the foreign-language film category, competitors were throwing accusations at each other but claiming that their main beef was not with rivals, but with the Academy -- which still insists that voters must see all the nominees on the big screen before voting.
While this eliminates virtually all voters outside of L.A., New York, San Francisco and London, there is a reason. Can, say, the producers of a little film submitted by Vietnam that has no U.S. distributor mail cassettes to 5,700 voters? And would the voters actually watch such a film?
And, of course, no Oscar season would be complete without a scandal. Acting contender Crowe didn't help his Oscar cause with his profanity- laced outburst at the BAFTA ceremony. But in the point-counterpoint game of Oscar predicting, many see the attention focused on Crowe as being beneficial to the Mind director Howard's Oscar bid.
If you watched the eighth annual Screen Actors Guild Awards program on television, the ovation when Crowe won sounded suitably enthusiastic. But at least from table 65 in the Shrine Auditorium Exhibition Hall, there was no escaping that the applause ended well before the actor even reached the stage.
Had his recent run-ins with the BBC left a sour taste with SAG members? If so, will it impact Oscar voters?
By now the unpredictability of this year's Oscar race has become the most predictable story, unless it's the lamenting over the unprecedented nastiness of the campaign. And yet, with each passing week and every event, the two threads were reinforced, and more closely wound together.
Despite the squabbles, the season has seen numerous bright spots. Although awards aren't handed out for kudos campaigns, a number of efforts this year deserve commendation.
© 2002 Variety