Ahh. The dust is settling. And on the horizon, just visible through the mist and waiting to drive us all up the wall once again: the 2009 Oscar season.
I’ve been writing this year-in-advance column for probably six years now, and I always look forward to gazing ahead. No one dives in so pathetically deep this far out as yours truly, but in exchange for not having a life for the past few months, I get to unload this burden the day after our annual season’s peak and forget about little gold men entirely for a few months.
It’s quite liberating.
The most interesting thing about the season to come, from my vantage point, is the lack of a dreaded “frontrunner status” for any of the contenders. Some might say Clint Eastwood’s Nelson Mandela project (which is not called “The Human Factor,” mind you — the director says the film is currently untitled and is based on John Carlin’s book “Playing the Enemy”).
Others might say Rob Marshall’s “Nine” (coming from a money-tight company hoping to avoid echoes of “Memoirs of a Geisha”). But I don’t see a “Geisha” from here, or a “Charlie Wilson’s War,” expected heavies waiting to miss the mark. The field is curiously flat, and as a result, excitingly broad.
Let’s get to it, shall we?