One Tru Thing (and Maybe Two)
Buzz Has Hoffman as Best Actor, 'Crash' & 'Capote' Challenging 'Brokeback'

By William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 26, 2006

LOS ANGELES

One of our favorite Oscar prognostications appeared recently as a post on the political blog Daily Kos, which began, "Keeping in mind that it's early, keeping in mind that I haven't seen ANY of the pictures nominated . . . "

Well, we can play that game.

To hear this year's Oscar contenders tell it, they're honored just to be nominated. They always say that. But this year? It happens to be true.

A few weeks ago, at a pre-Oscar party at the hillside home of a Lions Gate Films executive for the cast and crew of "Crash" -- up for six Academy Awards including Best Picture -- director Paul Haggis stood in the crowded living room and recalled the film's travails. He spoke of how his little $7 million ensemble movie about racial angst in L.A. not only struggled to find bankable actors and studio support, but how the shooting was stopped in the middle of production because he ran out of money. Oh, and then Haggis had a heart attack.

So Haggis is not only honored to be nominated, he's honored to be alive. (Possible flash-forward to the 78th Annual Academy Awards on March 5 to be broadcast on ABC, when he stands at the podium and thanks Cedars-Sinai for the nice assist on the quadruple angioplasty.)

Haggis and "Crash" are not alone in the lucky department. Those lovesick cowpunchers on "Brokeback Mountain" famously struggled for years to find their way to big-screen country. "Good Night, and Good Luck," even with George Clooney, was judged not commercially viable in either color or black-and-white. Ditto the hard rows hoed by the other indieish, outsidery message films with nominees in top categories.

So here's the Oscar buzz about who might win the 13-inch golden men, with commentary by the contestants themselves at the annual Academy Nominees Luncheon at the Beverly Hilton, where tradition demands that before they are served their Kyoto beef rolls and smoked salmon canapes, the actors take a quick turn at the podium in the adjacent Interview Room, where the press corps soldiered on gamely with chilled tap water.

Best Actor

Terrence Howard, in the competition for his role as a Memphis lowlife in "Hustle & Flow," said he was looking forward to hearing the audience at the Academy Awards, in their Armani tuxedos and Badgley Mischka gowns, sing along to the film's hit rap, "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp."

It is, Terrence, it really is.

Then Howard went misty and did something real and wonderful: He admitted he wanted to win. "The Oscar is the dream, the Oscar is the fantasy you're afraid to believe in, but in the secrecy of your own little dark room, you dream," he said quietly. He imagined the awards ceremony as "the scariest day of my life, because everyone has a shot, and what if they call my name? What would happen then? This is the big one. This is definitely the big one."

That hurts. Because everybody in town says it is going to be Philip Seymour Hoffman for "Capote." He won the SAG; he got the Globe. He is the top of the list.

Best Actress

Keira Knightley of "Pride and Prejudice," you fresh-faced swizzle stick wrapped in Ossie Clark couture, the line starts at the back. "My mother put a tenner on me" with the London bookies, said the fun Brit, "which was very nice." But the odds are against her, 33 to 1. Consolation prize? "I just saw George Clooney outside, and that was pretty cool."

So we are all winners here.

Judi Dench? Settle down. She won in 1999 for "Shakespeare in Love." Charlize Theron? She won for "Monster" two years ago and audiences did not warmly embrace the tale of sexual harassment in the frozen wastes of "North Country," so sorry, no, the unusually tall former South African model who always mentions her mother will not double down.

The foregone conclusion in the Best Actress category is Reese Witherspoon, for her turn as June Carter Cash standing by the man in black in "Walk the Line." Witherspoon not only sings, she dances, she autoharps and she won a Golden Globe, plus a Screen Actors Guild award -- and SAG members make up about a quarter of the 5,800 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

When she came home with her SAG, Witherspoon said, one of her children asked her if she got it "because you're the best mom in the world." The entertainment press corps awwwwed with warm milky mommy feelings. (We were more skeptical when she was asked what kind of dress she was going to wear: Witherspoon offered, all frowny-foreheaded, "I don't have a lot of time to think about it" because she has kids and is a working mother and all.) Added bonus for Witherspoon: "Walk the Line" is the only top nominated film that has made some serious coin -- $118 million in domestic box office.

Which brings us to Felicity Huffman. People in this town like Felicity Huffman. She's the relatively normal-looking one on "Desperate Housewives," she's married to nice-guy character actor William H. Macy, and she has a sense of humor about herself, which Charlize and Reese must choose not to display.

"I'm an Academy Award nominated actress!" she squealed. Huffman said she was so happy to get the nod, she arrived at the luncheon two hours early "to help set the tables." She said she was thrilled to be attending the awards ceremony -- "and not as a caterer." Etc. Etc. She could snatch a statuette -- except no one has seen "Transamerica," in which Huffman plays a man wanting to become a woman. It's made a wee $3 million. Next!

Supporting Actor

Tough one, huh? "I don't expect to win," said Clooney, nominated for his role as a CIA operative in "Syriana." He's also up for Best Original Screenplay and Best Director for "Good Night," which is also up for Best Picture. So the law of averages might kick in? "But it just doesn't feel like I'm going to win."

Of course as he was saying this, Clooney was tan and handsome and rich and single and he flashed his killer smile and shoved a hand deep into the pockets of his beautifully tailored pinstripe suit (open collar, no tie), like he just rolled in from the shores of Lake Como.

Clooney said he too was just happy to be here, blah blah blah, but he confessed he was pleased that success had come to him later in life, as opposed in his twenties when it would have spoiled him, or, as he put it, "if it had happened earlier, I'd probably be shooting crack into my forehead."

William Hurt, up for his role as a brutal mobster in "A History of Violence," said he really put the "afterburners on" for the part, which consumes only nine minutes of screen time. "I don't think you can compete in artistic achievement -- like a Super Bowl game." He was wearing jeans and a sweater. "I don't sport trophies in my home," he says, because he doesn't want to twist the minds of his children. (Also, his 1985 Best Actor Oscar for "Kiss of the Spider Woman" was stolen last June.) Regardless, Hurt said it has taken him a long time to understand and appreciate Oscar's whole "hierarchal" winning-losing thing.

That's good, because Paul Giamatti of "Cinderella Man" -- who didn't get even a nod for his popular 2004 "Sideways" role -- is expected to win.

Supporting Actress

Let's review the groupthink: Four of the five actresses in this category are nominated for excellent but not mind-altering craft, and often for roles that play at the corners of bigger, more consuming leads. Think of Michelle Williams as Heath Ledger's lonely ranch wife in "Brokeback Mountain" or Catherine Keener's Harper Lee to Hoffman's "Capote." Whoa. But not whoa .

"Boy, this is crazy, huh?" said Amy Adams, the sultry redhead wearing a red J. Mendel dress, nominated for "Junebug." "The film was a smaller film, so I didn't have any expectations beyond just making the film." Just, you know, honored to be here.

Of course many, many people harbor a secret crush on veteran Keener (she started her film career as the cocktail waitress in "About Last Night" in 1986). Frances McDormand played sick and dying in "North Country," which is always Oscar bait, but the herd likes Rachel Weisz of "The Constant Gardener." She won a SAG and a Globe and she is favored to take home the Oscar. There could be a surprise.

Best Picture/Best Director

This year, think of Best Film and Best Director as a double-helix molecule, entwined. Oscar handicappers suspect that Academy voters might split their ballots, meaning if they pick "Crash" for Best Film, they'll chose Ang Lee as Best Director for "Brokeback." And vice versa.

"BB" leads the field with eight noms, including Best Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress and Screenplay. Lee won the Directors Guild of America award, and he and his film won Golden Globes. It is the movie to beat. But wait.

If "Brokeback" is such a great film, the thinking goes, why haven't its leads, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, won anything?

Lately, Lions Gate Films, the studio behind "Crash," has gotten ink for revealing that it mailed 130,000 DVDs of the movie to the entire SAG membership, a group dominated by Angelenos. And what is "Crash" but a home movie about living in L.A. -- except, of course, that some residents have found its characters to be racial stereotypes as imagined by a liberal Hollywood elite.

Interesting. According to the Web site Rotten Tomatoes, which tallies film reviews from around the country, the best-reviewed movies in the category are not "Brokeback" and "Crash" but "Capote" and "Good Night." Notice we haven't even mentioned Steven Spielberg and "Munich."

Oh, the envelopes, please.