Apparently not content to subsidize the whining of the nonentities at Media Matters, Soros is taking a break from his adventures in currency manipulation and general scuzziness to enlist entertainment celebrities like Sting in his newest quest.  The Drug Policy Alliance is the result, a group whose members, as its founder puts it, “come from across the drug use spectrum.”  Yes, the junkies, stoners, hopheads, dope fiends, pill-poppers, and Lindsay Lohan are unanimous:  Drug laws are bad, and it’s probably BusHitler’s fault.

The threshold problem with comments by Sting such as, “The war on drugs represents an extraordinary violation of human rights,” is that Sting presumably not only believes this piffle, but further believes that he can put down his bass and offer meaningful input into the discussion.  This assumption of competence is a common delusion among celebrities, and here it has more potential for damage than most mindless celebribabble.

Now, Sting is not alone – no one in that clip says anything worthwhile.  One woman, who is bald for no apparent reason, states that “The War on Drugs is a war on people of color,” as if Americans decided they would outlaw crack because they fear that black people might enjoy themselves.  Montel Williams shows up to explain that drug laws prevent him from making choices about his own body, but the awful tie and ridiculous earring he chose to wear make a powerful argument against allowing him to make any kind of choices at all.

Tony Papa also appears.  He went to jail for 12 years for being part of a drug deal – oh, I mean committing “a nonviolent drug offense” – and became an artist on the taxpayer’s dime.  While most of us will likely ask “Why only 12?,” naturally Papa is worshipped by trendy leftist celebrities.  Some Hollywood half-wit even scooped up the rights to his inspiring story.  So, to repeat, Tony Papa joined a drug conspiracy, got arrested, went to jail, leveraged that into becoming a hip artist and the subject of a movie, and yet he is somehow the real victim.

Of course, there’s also the perennial “America imprisons more people than anywhere else in the world!” meme.  In fact, the only drug incarceration problem in America is that too few drug dealers are incarcerated.  Sting suffers from the same delusion that afflicts many of his celebrity pals.  He seems to think that if the kind of people who deal drugs didn’t have drugs to deal, they would naturally flock to the world of hard work and responsibility.  Oh, if only drugs weren’t illegal, the drug dealing scumbags who infest our ghettos, barrios and college sociology departments would morph into clean-shaved, untatted workerbees eagerly embracing the world of 9-5 employment.  Yeah, it was outlawing meth and crack that turned the scumbags into scumbags. 

At one point, the clip promises “new solutions” to the drug problem.  Then Sting pops back up, smug and self-satisfied, to announce that drug laws violate his individual sovereignty.  Uh, typically, when you say you are going to provide new solutions you might consider, you know, providing some new solutions instead of some new cliché.

I certainly enjoy Sting and his pals’ new-found appreciation of my personal autonomy and “sovereignty over my body.”  I assume they’ll be standing by me when I reject the government’s interference in my health care decisions.  Unlikely.  If you think consistency is one of their strong points, perhaps you’ve been smoking the same stuff as them.

Now, Sting was always annoying but here he is reaching new heights of crappiness and pomposity in direct proportion to his declining relevance.  It’s always a pleasure to hear some Brit mega-millionaire who glides around his English manor practicing tantric sex sound off on American domestic policy. 

Please Sting, save us!  Unleash the full intellectual firepower you’ve amassed writing forgettable smooth jazz/rock fusion tunes for people who buy their music at Starbucks.  Just because you’ve been waited on hand and foot for three decades by a coterie of professional sycophants telling you you’re wiser than Buddha and smarter than Einstein doesn’t mean it’s true. 

There may be a case for looking at our drug laws, but these nimrods don’t make it.  The most compelling points are made by the conservatives at National Review and the libertarians at Reason.  Sure, pot smokers steal your snacks, listen to Phish and sound-off with long, disjointed monologues about the miracle of hemp, but I have a hard time getting too bent out of shape by them.  Many celebrities are among them, but Sting and Soros aren’t just talking about causal stoners.  They think we ought to go open season on meth, crack and whatever else these degenerate half-wits today are ingesting.  No thanks – I’d prefer not to live with the mess you’re rich enough to ignore.

The fact is that His Stingness knows nothing – or cares nothing – about the unspeakable devastation drugs cause, particularly within the inner cities.  Instead of standing behind the one truly effective response to urban drug terror – throwing the bastards in a cell and dropping the key down the Guatemalan sinkhole – His Majesty Sting decrees that drug dealing scumbags should run free, then retreats back behind his gates and armed guards to further hone his delayed orgasm skills.

Well, Sting, let’s discuss your really keen points about why poison ought to be legal.  But let’s expand the scope of our discussion to include some other celebrities who might be able to provide us with some valuable insights.  Let’s invite Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, Brad Renfro, DJ AM, and Brittany Murphy to weigh in with their points of view.  Oh wait, they’re all dead.  So are just a few others.

Like a Sean Penn who can’t help but fly into some hellhole, figuratively fellate the local anti-American strongman then jet back to Santa Monica in time for dinner at Pizzeria Mozza, Sting wanders out of his fairy-tale life for a few minutes to tell the benighted peons in the real world how they need to live their lives before retiring back inside his palace behind three layers of security.  The violence, the abuse, the wasted potential brought on by drugs mean nothing to him; what is important is his own act of scolding his lessers for failing to conform to his personal vision.

That’s Sting’s high – lording over others as if he was something more than a glorified cruise ship bassist who got lucky and didn’t have to spend his career cranking out covers of Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” for Corona-swilling passengers during runs between San Diego and Puerto Vallarta on the S.S. Living Hell.  And like so many in the entertainment world, he’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of possession of stupid ideas – with intent to distribute.

What follows is a list of the Top 10 performances of the last quarter century.  It focuses on lead roles, or at least substantial ones – no cameos, thank you.  Interestingly, there are no straight comic performances here, and many of the roles are villains.  And it is also focused on movies people have actually heard of. 

So, this is not an exhaustive list – it overlooks plenty of great performances.  But it is my list and based on my criteria alone – and I’m sure I’ll hear about my myriad defects of insight, taste, breeding and general mental competence in the comments.  For example, Daniel Day Lewis is missing because I decided not to invest three hours into There Will Be Blood (2007) since after seeing the “I drink your milkshake!” clip I just can’t take it seriously. 

Johnny Depp is missing for his Captain Jack Sparrow character from the Pirates of the Caribbean films because he’s mildly amusing for about the first hour or so of this seemingly endless series but eventually makes me long to walk the plank off into the blessedly Depp-free depths of the briny. 

Leonardo Di Caprio is missing because he’s always terrible. I’m sure my passing him over will make him cry all the way to the supermodel bank.

And you film snobs out there are out of luck. This list completely ignores foreign language films – if you’re outraged at my glaring omission of Migbor Ombungliani’s shattering portrayal of Yegiv the Goatherd in the Albanian Dogme 95 epic The Thousand Meaningless Agonies of My Existence, you need to find yourself a different list.  And probably a girlfriend. 

Speaking of girls, there are not many here.  It just worked out that way, and I’m not sure why.  But this is a pure meritocracy.  If you want a quota system, you probably need to hit the Huffington Post.  Of course, on the HP, half the Top Ten would be performances from Brokeback Mountain with the rest of the slots spread out among the various dreary, America-hating, soldier-sliming, anti-war movies that have zipped through the theaters since 9/11 on the way to their final reward in the Blockbuster remainder bins (“At number seven, we have Ryan Phillip as the emotionally shattered, psychotic vet in Stop-Loss , followed by number six, some actor you never heard of as the emotionally shattered, psychotic vet in Redacted ….”).

So here are the top ten performances of the last 25 years, in order:

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10.  Denzel Washington – Training Day (2001):  Denzel Washington is so good because crooked LAPD cop Alonzo Harris is so damn bad – he’s like the Antichrist with a badge.  There’s an incredible smoothness to his performance, as if all the goodness of his previous characters was seamlessly turned 180 degrees.  It’s his comfort in the role that is so mesmerizing – there is nothing “actory” about his performance, though of course (minor spoiler) the character himself is pretending to be something he is not throughout the movie.  The way he talks, the way he moves, his ease in that sordid world – it is all so different from the Denzel Washington we’ve known before.  The movie itself is watchable, but kind of dopey.  But Washington?  You can’t look away.

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9.  R. Lee Ermey – Full Metal Jacket (1987):  Some may say that Ermey simply did in front of Stanley Kubrick’s camera what he had done for years as a real USMC drill instructor.  To some extent, that might be accurate, but remember that being a drill instructor is itself a kind of performance.  While the amazing barracks scene takes the Basic Training experience to the nth degree, there is a lot of truth to it, as I found out when I reported to Basic at Ft. Sill about a month after seeing this movie.  I vividly recall Drill Sergeant Whittlesey fulminating to our formation about our utter inability to meet even the lowest standards of competence when, in what was undoubtedly a flash of insanity, I turned my head slightly from the rigid position of attention and saw the other drill sergeants cracking up.  Ermey’s performance is dead-on and unforgettable, and not just to those of us who have experienced the delights of Basic Training firsthand.

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8.  Kevin Spacey – American Beauty (1999):  The Nineties were the Age of Spacey, with stunning showcases in Swimming with Sharks (1994), Seven (1995), The Usual Suspects (1995) and L.A. Confidential (1997).  However, his turn as suburban loser turned rebel Lester Burnham best captures the kind of calm, semi-smarmy, cynical detachment that Spacey does better than anyone else.  Through Spacey, you can feel Lester’s angst, understand his moral quandaries, and see him come out of the shell he retreated into rather than face the world.  It’s a great performance in a movie that is often frustrating in its treatment of military men as sexually-repressed sociopaths, such a hackneyed Hollywood cliché that the filmmakers should have been embarrassed to wheel it out again.  Spacey’s work actually makes it worth wading through that nonsense.     

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7.  Helen Mirren – The Queen (2006):  Mirren brought to life a living person, the Queen of England, a relic of an age when people actually considered the idea of “royalty” as something more than the joke it is.  The essential ridiculousness of the concept of a monarch aside, Mirren’s Elizabeth is a woman of values a half-century out of date, values that had allowed Britain to survive the Depression and the Blitz and to defeat the Axis.  But Mirren shows how the Queen had grown detached from her subjects, a people who have become vulgar, sentimental and maudlin in an age of celebrity and who choose to idolize a feel-good empty vessel like Lady Diana over a monarch who symbolizes a mature, strong and faithful nation.  Watching this pampered but smart, tough but cunning woman deal with the changes (mostly for the worse) in her country before the backdrop of the death of “the People’s Princess” is riveting.  The Queen is a great film about a formerly great people and their descent into juvenile mawkishness (their awesome warriors excepted), and its impact largely comes from Mirren’s staggering achievement in the lead role.

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6.  Val Kilmer – Tombstone (1993):  I have no idea what “I’m your huckleberry” is supposed to mean, but I do know that Val Kilmer was incredible as the tubercular sawbones Doc Holiday in this retelling of the legendary gunfight at the O.K. Corral tale. It’s no one note performance – you can see he’s sometimes scared even behind the smartass, ironic demeanor, but that dose of reality (compounded by the toll he shows his vices and his consumption taking upon him) only makes the character come more alive.  Mention Tombstone to anyone and the first thing you’ll hear is the name “Val Kilmer.”  That says it all.

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5.  Meryl Streep – The Devil Wears Prada (2006):  Yeah, I saw this movie about ladies in the fashion industry and, dammit, I liked it.  They’ll probably take back my Airborne wings and break my cavalry saber for admitting it.  But you gotta give credit where credit is due, and Streep deserves it.  Her Miranda Priestly is best known for overbearing arrogance, but that’s only a part of her character.  Streep actually lets us peer inside and see her humanity, to understand why she demands excellence, and to see the price she pays for holding herself to her own exacting standards.  The movie wimps out a bit by not forcing the heroine to really confront and deal with the choices the Miranda character faced – things just sort of work out for the heroine deus ex machina-style thanks to an unconvincing, off-screen intervention by Miranda herself.  But while the movie finds an easy way out, Streep’s performance takes the character down a hard road and turns a caricature into a character.

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4.  Steve Coogan – 24 Hour Party People (2002):  This is probably the “smallest” of the pictures on the list, but it’s one of the best.  Coogan plays the real-life British music impresario Tony Wilson, who discovered and championed bands like Joy Division in the late-70s and 80s.  Coogan takes the role and runs with it, totally inhabiting the character in an often surreal portrayal that captures all the excitement, excess and exhilaration of the times.  Beyond the fascinating story (especially the first half involving Joy Division) and the incredible music (buy the soundtrack now), Coogan’s performance sticks with you as a real, larger-than-life character made both human and more than human by an incredible actor.

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3.  Sharon Stone – Casino (1995):  Stone got a bad rap for Basic Instinct (1992), where her cervix seemed to overshadow what really was a great femme fatale turn in a really good, really pulpy film noir classic.  In her heyday in the ’90s, Stone was actually Hollywood’s only real movie star, in the way actresses used to be stars.  She was talented and beautiful, but distinctive too – she had that intangible something that put her on a plane above her peers.  In Casino, as De Niro’s harpy of a wife Ginger, she uses that glamour to show why De Niro’s character would fall for – and keep being drawn back to – a woman who redefines the term “bad news.”  It is a relentless, heartfelt, devastating performance that makes you care (a little bit) for her as she meets the fate she has earned even as you let out a sigh of relief knowing she won’t be back to wreak more havoc. 

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2.  Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight (2008):  Even the conventional wisdom gets it right once in a while.  Since just about everyone on Earth has seen it, there’s no real reason to talk about why it’s such an incredible performance.  Ledger got a lot of praise for Brokeback Mountain (2005), but his performance there was just a collection of scowls, tics and mumbles that constitute nothing more than what Hollywood thinks real gay cowboys are like.  As with the movie itself, most of the acclaim was simply wishful thinking – they loved the subject so they had to praise the portrayals.  There’s no wishful thinking here – this was acting far beyond what some comic book movie had any right to incorporate.  And it makes the loss of Ledger to the scourge of drugs that much more of a waste. 

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1.  Ralph Fiennes – Schindler’s List (1993):  This is the most terrifying portrait of pure evil ever put on the screen, made all the more horrifying by a performance that shows how a real-life normal man consciously chose to immerse himself in darkness and luxuriated in it, who willingly paid a terrible price in exchange for becoming, for a time, a dark god with the power of life and death.  Fiennes earned a Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the real war criminal Amon Goeth, but this was truly the lead role.  Goeth was the Nazi commander of a forced labor camp that he turned into a private kingdom subject only to his cruel and sick whims.  In scenes like where Goeth uses a high powered rifle to amuse himself by picking off victims from the porch of his mansion, Fiennes shows us a cultured, intelligent man who makes a deliberate decision to embrace evil.  He shows us that the potential for evil lurks inside all of us just as Oskar Schindler’s example teaches that the potential for good exists there too.  What is so powerful is how Fiennes shows that Goeth chose to experience the transitory joy of wickedness knowing it would lead to his death.  It is a performance that will leave you shaken.

And here are some honorable mentions:  Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction (1987), Bill Murray in Groundhog Day (1993), and Tommy Lee Jones as Sam Gerard in The Fugitive (1993) were all memorable.  Robert De Niro was great as the taciturn criminal in Heat (1995) (Al Pacino also deserves a shout-out for his ferocious and highly entertaining scenery chewing, but I would not call it “good” acting).  As great as Anthony Hopkins was as Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs (1991), Brian Cox was even better in a smaller role as the cannibalistic convict in 1986’s Manhunter.  The less said about the sequel Hannibal (2001) the better, though it also featured Ray Liotta.  Liotta gets a nod for Goodfellas, as do Bobby De Niro and Joe Pesci (and for that matter, those last two should also be mentioned regarding the aforementioned Casino). 

And to further rile the members of Team Snooty, let’s not forget Alan Rickman in Die Hard (1988).  Yeah, artistes, I went there.

The website Newsbusters points out the silliness behind the outrage – after all, President Bush has been depicted as far worse – he’s been portrayed as everything from a bloodsucking vampire in the Village Voice, to the Joker in Vanity Fair, to God forbid, a Republican- everywhere else. No one seemed to mind then. And while people like Bill Maher point out that Obama has been only at this job for six months (whereas Bush earned the bile over eight years) and therefore any criticism is unfair – that’s pure batpoop. Hatred for Bu$hitler began the moment he took office, and the vile lefties only knew Sarah Palin for a few weeks before they were wearing t-shirts with her face and a vulgar word (begins with ‘C’ and rhymes with bunt) beneath it.

And besides, if you ask me, this new Obama Joker face is pure street art that only elevates his hip persona. It’s no different than the Shepard Fairey ‘Hope’ poster, except it’s far more complimentary and honest. Seriously, we live in a culture where anti-heroes have replaced heroes, and we all know that Ledger’s Joker is far cooler than Bale’s Batman. (At least the Joker didn’t yell at his mom at the premiere.) The Joker scoffed at traditional values, reveled in post-modern humor and more important – was played by Heath Ledger, who’s dead! You can’t get any cooler than that, even if you add a Prince Albert and a nitrous addiction.

Finally, as so many Obamalovers point out, our President is more than a President, he’s a pop culture icon – and you can’t go more than five feet in Times Square without seeing a t-shirt, a button, or a jock strap with his face plastered on it.

At least with these new posters, the media has a message.

Also – a reminder for tonight: Mike Baker, Remi Spencer, Barret Swatek, and Ab News!

There is, obviously, some overlap: Not all art entertains (though some does); not all entertainment is art (though some is).  At bottom, it seems, the difference is one of intent – the artist seeks to connect us with larger meanings, larger truths about the world, about ourselves.  The primary focus of art is therefore to illuminate, with any entertainment had in the process merely a bonus.

The goal of the entertainer, on the other hand, is perhaps less sublime, though no less worthy – to distract, to tickle, to stimulate the fancy.  Entertainment is at bottom diversion, and I say this without a trace of disdain – often it is the quality and quantity of our diversions which makes the difference between a joyful life and a merely bearable one.

One year ago this weekend, a beating black heart pulsed in summer’s midst: The Dark Knight.  It was big-budget, comic book based franchise movie, made for popcorn eaters seeking suitable summer diversion.  And It delivered beyond the filmmakers wildest expectations – the masses were so entertained that they lifted it up into the box office stratosphere in grateful recompense.

And yet…

There was something different about The Dark Knight, something which separated it from its innumerable costume-wearing, crime-fighting brethren.  Something weighty, a gravity which distorted its appearance in interesting ways.  For instance, more of the story of The Dark Knight takes place during the day than in any previous Batman film.  And yet no comic book movie was ever so black and bleak; it seems to take place in an unending polar night, not some sunny Chicago day.

Even common film tropes are distorted by this gravity, and bend backwards in on themselves: Lieutenant James Gordon is shot and killed…only to later reappear, his ‘death’ having been an elaborate head-fake for the benefit the film’s villains…and us.  Lots of movies have this type of false death.  The difference?  We believe Gordon’s death; the film unfolds in such a manner as to make clear that no one is safe, a suspicion confirmed when, only a short while later, Bruce Wayne’s childhood friend, and love interest to both Wayne and Harvey Dent, is blown to bits in front of our eyes.  This combination of reassurance and disaster, of sigh-of-relief then sucker punch, makes clear – there are no rules in this film.

Which, of course, is exactly how the Joker would want it.  The only sensible way to live in this world, the Joker tells a demoralized and disfigured Harvey Dent, is without rules.  Why would this movie, his movie, be any different?

In that same scene, the Joker puts a loaded gun into Harvey’s hand, then puts his own head to the barrel as he confesses to Dent “I’m an agent of chaos.”  It was in that moment that I realized what Chris Nolan was up to: This isn’t the Joker – it’s the Devil.

Heath Ledger’s villain is not the macabre clown who battled Batman on the pages of the D.C. comics for most of the 20th century.  He is the serpent from the Old Testament who has battled God for most of eternity.   The genius of The Dark Knight is to give this eternal adversary a form well suited for our post 9-11 world – the man who blows up buildings and wages war on civilization itself.

Satan as Osama – that is Heath Ledger’s Joker, and the heart of The Dark Knight.  By entangling our most ancient and mythic tormentor with our most recent real life villain, The Dark Knight simultaneously plays on our most primal and frightening suspicions: 1) That anyone can become a villain (wasn’t Lucifer the light-bearing angel most favored by God?  Wasn’t Dent the most virtuous of public servants?), and 2) that the veneer of civilization is paper thin, and no match for even one man with bullets and gasoline and the will to use them.

By daring to step into those pooling shadows, The Dark Knight attains something higher than mere diversion.  Dare I say it?

Art.

Creepy, right? I have not seen Haunting and will probably wait for DVD or pay cable, but that is a weird, startling, attention-grabbing image. As a movie junkie, I love good movie art. The best movie posters are evocative. They capture what a movie is all about without giving away the mystery. There are certain movie posters that instantly put me back in that theatre experiencing the film for the very first time. The best movie posters are not just promotional tools. They stand as a work of art on their own. These are my favorites, buit it is by no means a definitive list. Feel free to add your favorites (and subtract any of mine).

#1 – JAWS
I saw this all-time classic as a 9-year-old on opening day, and saw it a second time at the Saturday matinee. To this day, I am afraid to swim in the ocean. That shark is always there in my imagination. The poster is literal, but haunting.

#2 – CHINATOWN
This is truly a work of art. The smoke shrouding the ultimate mystery of Evelyn Mulwray, and the stylized version of Jake Gittes (played by Jack Nicholson), the hard-boiled detective who unravels it all.

#3 – THE DARK KNIGHT
Impossible to separate Heath Ledger’s death from his remarkable interpretation of The Joker. This is an amazing image. In 30 years, I will look at this poster and immediately feel the impact of Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece.

#4 – BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S
You can almost hear Audrey Hepburn warbling “Moon River” at the sight of this iconic poster. Every woman wanted to be her and every man wanted to be with her.

#5 – SECRETARY
The 2002 cult classic about a sadomasochistic relationship between a demanding lawyer (James Spader) and a submissive secretary (Maggie Gyllenhaal). The movie is an under-appreciated gem. The poster may be even better.

#6 – UNFORGIVEN
This is my favorite poster made for Clint Eastwood’s masterful revisionist Western. Simple. Classic. Tells you everything you need to know about Clint’s Bill Munny character.

#7 – AMERICAN BEAUTY
A beautiful image that suggests the perversity that lies just beneath the surface of the suburban neighborhood created by screenwriter Alan Ball and director Sam Mendes.

#8 – SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
“You will let me know when those lambs stop screaming, won’t you?” You can almost hear Dr. Hannibal Lecter say it. The Death’s-head moth “lodged” in Clarice Starling’s throat. Brilliant image.

#9 – VERTIGO
An ode to acrophobia as Detective Scottie Ferguson (as played by Jimmy Stewart) battles his fear of heights while becoming obsessed with Madeleine Elster (the stunning Kim Novak). This kaleidoscopic design immediately brings the strains of Bernard Hermann’s amazing score into my head.

#10 – PULP FICTION
Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace in all her swagger. Yes, she does wind up with a sharpie circle on her chest and a shot of adrenaline, but the whole gritty movie is captured with this image.

HONORABLE MENTION
- in no particular order -
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
SWEENEY TODD
MEAN STREETS
AMADEUS
GONE WITH THE WIND
METROPOLIS
KING KONG (1939 Fay Wray version)
CLOVERFIELD
THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter@LAMase.

I am an unabashed lover of the acting craft. I see virtually every movie, large and small, that passes through the US marketplace, and, taking nothing away from Sean Penn, Kate Winslet, Penelope Cruz and Heath Ledger, not all of 2008’s best performances have been recognized. I’m not going to be obvious here. Clint Eastwood was snubbed for Gran Torino, but he received lots of acclaim for the role including being named Best Actor by the National Board of Review. My goal is to highlight 10 performances from last year that have received virtually no acclaim in the US. Many of these roles can be found in hardly-seen, under-appreciated movies that came and went without much notice. Each and every one of these movies deserve a spot in your Netflix (or Blockbuster) cue.

My list is by no means definitive. If you have a favorite performance from 2008 that sticks with you, this is a great place to tell the world. There were 20 actors nominated on Oscar night, but there is a lot of great work that hasn’t been recognized with a walk down the red carpet.

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1. JEAN DUJARDIN, 0SS 117: CAIRO NEST OF SPIES
This was the funniest movie of the year for me. OSS 117, a reboot of a previously successful franchise, was a hit in France, but generated only about $300,000 in very limited engagements in the US. Dujardin is a James Bond-style secret agent who bumbles his way across the middle east with the panache of Sean Connery and the comic physicality of Peter Sellers. He was nominated for Best Actor at the Cesar Awards (French Oscars), but almost nobody saw Nest of Spies here. The sequel OSS 117: Rio Ne Repond Plus is due later this year. Steve Martin, who badly resurrected the Pink Panther franchise, should watch this movie with a deep sense of shame.

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2. PATRICIA CLARKSON, ELEGY
Sold about $3.5M in tickets at American box offices. In many ways, Penelope Cruz’s performance here is more courageous and luminous than her winning turn in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but I am choosing to focus on Patricia Clarkson who brings a heartfelt honest to her small role. I am always impressed when a woman is unafraid to appear nude in a film, especially if it gives us a window into that character’s soul. Clarkson is close to 50 and her character is maintaining a purely sexual relationship with Ben Kingsley’s David Kepesh. She has no illusions about being young or being in love. She is settling for the occasional comfort of a tumble with this man, and sadly, her constant career demands make a permanent loving relationship a faraway idea.

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3. BILL IRWIN, RACHEL GETTING MARRIED
Loading a dishwasher has never been so dramatic. Primarily a theatre actor (he played George alongside Kathleen Turner in the 2005 Broadway revival of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf), he does something very different in Jonathan Demme’s documentary-style Rachel Getting Married. He is the buttoned-down, peacemaker who is hiding a shattered emotional interior that comes forward in a remarkable scene in which he demonstrates how to correctly load a dishwasher. Oscar nominee Anne Hathaway and Golden Globe nominee Rosemarie DeWitt were both excellent, but Irwin’s performance has stayed with me in a meaningful way.

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4. ELSA ZYLBERSTEIN, I’VE LOVED YOU SO LONG
This extraordinary French film from the masterful Phillippe Claudel features the luminescent-but-prickly Kristin Scott Thomas, who was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Actress – Drama and many other awards. Elsa Zylberstein portrays the fully accepting sister who loves without any strings attached. She unwinds the mystery about why her sister committed a horrible act, and simultaneously remains patient and receptive. She allows for as happy an ending as this film can possible allow. Her soulful beauty softens the rough edges of Kristin Scott Thomas’ Juliette.

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5. CHIWETEL EJIOFOR, REDBELT
David Mamet does a movie about Mixed Martial Arts. Go figure. The master of dialogue practices jujitsu in real-life, and now he has found a way to incorporate it into one of his films. Chiwetel Ejiofer portrays Mike Terry whose mantra is that “There is always an escape.” Some Hollywood types, played with the appropriate dollops of sleaze and smarminess by Tim Allen and Joe Mantegna, put him in an impossible situation, and he must find the escape. A buff Ejiofor delivers physically (easy to buy him as a badass), and he has a rigid sense of honor. His scene with Emily Mortimer in which she exorcises a past demon in worth the price of admission.

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6. KARINA FERNANDEZ, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY
I love Happy-Go-Lucky. Writer/Director Mike Leigh takes a full year rehearsing and improving with his actors in order to finalize the script. He hit solid gold with Poppy, played by Sally Hawkins, who won the Golden Globe and, I assume, narrowly missed an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. The same can be said for Eddie Marsan as the anal retentive driving instructor Scott. But my shout-out here goes British stage actress Karina Fernandez who, in two short scenes, demonstrates her rigid and unbending love for the flamenco and that those very steps may be the only thing keeping her from becoming emotionally unhinged.

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7. HAAZ SLEIMAN, THE VISITOR
So much of the lightness in Oscar nominee Richard Jenkins’ turn in The Visitor is his reaction to the joyful drumming of Haaz Sleiman’s Tarek Khalil character. His co-star Danai Jekesai Gurira is also wonderful, but something tells me that the Lebanese-born Sleiman will be heard from again. After drumming with reckless abandon at one point, Tarek realizes that he is going to be late and says his girlfriend will kill him because he’s on Arab time, “It means I’m late by an hour. All Arabs are late by an hour, It’s genetic. We can’t help it.”

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8. CANTINCA UNTARU, THE FALL
The weirdest, most fantastical movie of 2008 was directed by Tarsem Singh, whose best-known previous film was the strikingly visual horror pic The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez. This is a fable told by an injured, drug-addicted stuntman in the early 20th century who befriends a little girl. Lee Pace (brilliant in the 2003 film Soldier’s Girl and also seen in ABC’s short-lived Pushing Daisies) weaves a spectacular fantasy that plays out in the imagination of a little girl played by novice actor Cantinca Untaru. I love this movie, and I’m not alone. Roger Ebert wrote, “You might want to see this for no other reason than because it exists. There will never be another like it.” Part Wizard of Oz. Part Lord of the Rings. 100% original. And it all works because of the innocence and spontaneity of a chIld actress before the camera for the first time.

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9. KATE DEL CASTILLO, UNDER THE SAME MOON
She is absolutely beautiful and has a number of popular telenovelas to her credit including El Derecho De Nacer, Ramona, La Mentira and Imperio De Crystal before mading the jump to American television with the 2002 PBS series American Family from creator Gregory Nava (Selena, Mi Familia). This heartbreaking story of a little Mexican boy who decides to try to make it over the border to find his mother, working as a nanny and sending money home, is sweet and pulls at the heartstrings, and this Patricia Riggen movie also features a strong performance from Mexican comic actor Eugenio Derbez.

–

10. JASON BUTLER HARNER, CHANGELING
I did not like Changeling. I am a huge fan of Eastwood the director, and, for me, Angelina Jolie’s performance was one-note, Jeffrey Donovan from TV’s Burn Notice was doing a 1930’s rat-ta-ta-tat dialect while Oscar nominee Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) seemed to be playing it present day. As for the art direction, it’s been done so much better in classics like Chinatown and more recent noir like L.A. Confidential. But, the reason to see the movie is Jason Butler Harner as serial killer Gordon Stewart Northcott. He conveys a certain cavalier smarminess when confronted with his evil deeds. He enjoys the infamy he has achieved and uses it to manipulate and torture Jolie’s Christine Collins. Unsettling and unforgettable.

HONORARY MENTION
-in no particular order-

MILA KUNIS, FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL

MISTY UPHAM, FROZEN RIVER

DON CHEADLE, TRAITOR

DAVID KROSS, THE READER

REBECCA HALL, VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA

JEFFREY WRIGHT, CADILLAC RECORDS

EVAN RACHEL WOOD, THE WRESTLER

DANNY MCBRIDE, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS

DOMINIQUE PINON, ROMAN DE GARE

TILDA SWINTON, THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

PAUL RUDD, ROLE MODELS

RICKY GERVAIS, GHOST TOWN

ALAN RICKMAN, BOTTLE SHOCK

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.

Slumdog Millionaire is about to win the Hollywood's Grand Prize

The “Battle Royale” of the night is Mickey Rouke from The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) vs. Sean Penn in Milk (Focus) in the Best Actor category. There have been two ties in major categories in Academy Award history. The first was in 1932 when Frederic March in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde shared Best Actor with Wallace Beery for The Champ. (March had one more vote, but in that era, any finish within 3 votes was rules a tie.) Then in 1968, Katherine Hepburn for The Lion In Winter and Barbara Streisand for Funny Girl tied for Best Actress. If there was any justice, Rourke and Penn would share the award. In any other year, either of them would be a lock. Forced to make a pick, I’m going with Rourke.

Does Streep's upset of Winslet at the SAG Awards set the stage for Meryl's third Oscar win?

Kate Winslet is on the cover of Time Magazine, and she has picked up a wheelbarrow full of hardware during this awards cycle, but a fair number of voters got their fill of Kate when she pulled off the double-win at the Golden Globes. My upset special is Meryl Streep for Doubt (Miramax). This is her 15th career nomination, and she has not won an Academy Award in 25 years (Sophie’s Choice in 1982). That is too long for the most-revered actress in history to go without getting one of those golden guys. Streep won the SAG Award for Lead Actress, and I think she has a real shot here. (It would be a huge upset.)

Finally if my predix hold up, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Paramount) would win only 2 Oscars – Best Visual Effects and Best Makeup – despite 13 nominations. That would be the fewest wins for any movie with 13 or more nominations. In fact, 2 wins would be among the poorest showings ever for a movie with 11 nominations or more.

Tied for the biggest shutout in Oscar history; Benjamin Button could win for Makeup and Visual Effects

FEWEST OSCAR WINS FOR MOVIES WITH 11 NOMINATIONS OR MORE
1. The Color Purple – 0 wins (11 nominations)
2. The Turning Point – 0 wins (11 nominations)
3. Chinatown – 1 win (11 nominations)
4. Johnny Belinda – 1 win (12 nominations)
5. Becket – 1 win (12 nominations)
6. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington – 1 win (11 nominations)
7. Pride of the Yankees – 1 win (11 nominations)
8. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 2 wins (13 nominations) – predicted
9. Rebecca – 2 wins (11 nominations)
10. Sergeant York – 2 wins (11 nominations)
11. A Passage To India – 2 wins (11 nominations)
12. Judgement at Nuremberg – 2 wins (11 nominations)

After weeks of obsessive study, relentless debate and intense soul-searching, here are my final Oscar predictions for all 24 categories.

BEST PICTURE
My Pick – Slumdog Millionaire
Consensus Pick – Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Horse – Milk

BEST ACTOR
My Pick – Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Consensus Pick – Sean Penn, Milk or Rourke
Dark Horse – None

BEST ACTRESS
My Pick – Meryl Streep, Doubt
Consensus Pick – Kate Winslet, The Reader
Dark Horse – Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
My Pick – Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Consensus Pick – Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Dark Horse – None

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
My Pick – Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Consensus Pick – Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Dark Horse – Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

BEST DIRECTOR
My Pick – Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Consensus Pick – Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Horse – David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Milk screenwriter Justin Lance Black

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
My Pick – Dustin Lance Black, Milk
Consensus Pick – Andrew Stanton, WALL-E
Dark Horse – Martin McDonagh, In Bruges

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
My Pick – Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Consensus Pick – Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Horse – David Hare, The Reader

BEST EDITING
My Pick – Slumdog Millionaire
Consensus Pick – Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Horse – Frost/Nixon

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
My Pick – Anthony Dod Mantle, Slumdog Millionaire
Consensus Pick – Anthony Dod Mantle, Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Horse – Wally Pfister, The Dark Knight

BEST ART DIRECTION
My Pick – The Dark Knight
Consensus Pick – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Dark Horse – The Duchess

BEST SOUND MIXING
My Pick – The Dark Knight
Consensus Pick – The Dark Knight
Dark Horse – Slumdog Millionaire

BEST SOUND EDITING
My Pick – Slumdog Millionaire
Consensus Pick – Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Horse – The Dark Knight

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
My Pick – The Duchess
Consensus Pick – The Duchess
Dark Horse – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
My Pick – A.R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
Consensus Pick – A. R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Horse – Alexandre Desplat, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
My Pick – Waltz with Bashir
Consensus Pick – Waltz with Bashir
Dark Horse – The Class

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
My Pick – Man on Wire
Consensus Pick – Man On Wire
Dark Horse – Trouble the Water

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
My Pick – WALL-E
Consensus Pick – WALL-E
Dark Horse – Kung Fu Panda

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
My Pick – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Consensus Pick – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Dark Horse – The Dark Knight

BEST MAKEUP
My Pick – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Consensus Pick – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Dark Horse – The Dark Knight

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
My Pick – Jaiho from Slumdog Millionaire
Consensus Pick – Jaiho from Slumdog Millionaire
Dark Horse – Peter Gabriel, Down to Earth from WALL-E

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
My Pick – Toyland (Spielzeugland)
Consensus Pick – Auf der Strecke
Dark Horse – The Pig

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
My Pick – Presto
Consensus Pick – La Maison en Petits Cubes
Dark Horse – This Way Up

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
My Pick – The Conscience of Nhem En
Consensus Pick – The Witness
Dark Horse – The Final Inch

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.

But, in the world of gambling, you always want to look for value. What are the films and performances with longer odds that would be worth a wager on Sunday? My purpose here is to establish a betting line for each of the six major categories, and then find the value bet in each category.

Question: Who will win Best Picture? Answer: Still, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

BEST PICTURE
Slumdog Millionaire – 1/7
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 6/1
Milk – 20/1
Frost/Nixon – 30/1
The Reader – 50/1

VALUE: I believe that in order to win an Academy Award, passion is required. Slumdog Millionaire has a passionate zeal among its supporters that will make it virtually unbeatable. Although I have made The Curious Case of Benjamin Button the second choice here, I give it very little chance of winning. It has major studio backing (Paramount), and it is certainly well-respected, but it is more admired than loved. So, for me the betting value is in Milk. Aside from Slumdog, it is the movie with the largest bloc of zealous fans. Gay and gay-friendly Academy members love the movie, and in the shadow of the passage of Proposition 8 in California, Milk is worth a $2 bet at the window.

Sean Penn's portrayal of Harvey Milk is now a decided underdog to Mickey Rourke

BEST ACTOR
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler – 1/2
Sean Penn, Milk – 3/2
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon – 10/1
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 25/1
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor – 35/1

VALUE: After colorful, rambling, verging on obscene acceptance speeches at both the Golden Globes and the BAFTA Awards, Mickey Rourke is the true favorite for Best Actor. Rourke has also campaigned hard, paying the paying the price for that Golden Globe win by schmoozing each and every one of those 95 Hollywood Foreign Press members. Penn just doesn’t play that awards campaign game at all, but actors love him. The only real betting value here is Penn, who still has a chance of winning his second Oscar.

It has been 25 years since Mery Streep won an Oscar

BEST ACTRESS
Kate Winslet, The Reader – 1/2
Meryl Streep, Doubt – 5/2
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married – 4/1
Angelina Jolie, Changeling – 25/1
Melissa Leo, Frozen River – 35/1

VALUE: It is Kate Winslet’s year. Just ask anybody. She has two outstanding awards-caliber performances in The Reader and Revolutionary Road. If rules would have allowed, she might have been nominated twice in the Best Actress category. She’s 0-fer-5 lifetime at the Academy Awards and deserves to win, but she can be beaten. Jolie and Leo have no shot. Hathaway is the 3rd choice in the field, and a win is not inconceivable, but Streep is the value bet. The undisputed greatest living actress has not won an Oscar in 25 years, despite the fact that this is her eleventh nomination since winning for Sophie’s Choice in 1983.

Ledger is a lock

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Heather Ledger, The Dark Knight – 1/100
Josh Brolin, Milk – 20/1
Robert Downey, Jr., Tropic Thunder – 25/1
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt – 30/1
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road – 50/1

VALUE: None. There is no value in this category. Heath Ledger will win Best Supporting Actor posthumously. If you are unfamiliar with how odds work, 1/100 means that you would have to bet $100 to win just $1, and even then, it would be tough to get anybody to take your wager.

Marisa Tomei's "stripper with a heart of gold" in THE WRESTLER may earn her a second Oscar

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona – 1/2
Viola Davis, Doubt – 3/1
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler – 5/1
Amy Adams, Doubt – 12/1
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 15/1

VALUE: This is, by far, the most competitive of the major awards. The longest shot in the field, Taraji P. Henson from Ben Button, is only a 15-1 longshot. Woody Allen has a knack for helping actresses win in this category (ask Dianne Wiest , who scored for both Hannah and Her Sisters and Bullets Over Broadway). That points to a win for Penelope Cruz, who was raw and sexy as Maria Elena in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Davis can certainly win for her fleeting-but-powerful turn in Doubt, but my value bet is Marisa Tomei. Her first win, for My Cousin Vinny, was viewed by many as a fluke. In fact, there is an urban legend that she really didn’t win. The story goes that Jack Palance, who presented that year, read the wrong name (the legend claims that Vanessa Redgrave was the actual winner for Howard’s End). In reality, there is no doubt that Tomei is an Oscar winning actress, who gives her career-best performance in The Wrestler.

The uncompromising David Fincher

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire – 1/7
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 6/1
Gus Van Sant, Milk – 20/1
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon – 25/1
Stephen Daldry, The Reader – 35/1

VALUE: Nobody is going to beat Danny Boyle, but if I was looking for a strong value bet, I would wager on Fincher. He is a visionary with some amazing movies on his resume, including Se7en, Fight Club and Zodiac. He has worked with countless actors and industry types, and his uncompromising nature makes him tough to like, but easy to respect. If there were an upset in this category, Fincher is the only guy who could pull it off.

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.

BAFTA Winner Mickey Rourke

The two major uncertainties entering Sunday’s ceremony were whether Kate Winslet, twice-nominated for Best Actress, would split her own vote and miss out on her second BAFTA Award and who would prevail in the Sean Penn-Mickey Rourke battle for Best Actor. Aside from that, it seemed like a Slumdog sweep, and that’s exactly how it played out.

BEST PICTURE: Slumdog Millionaire
Presented by Mick Jagger, so good in 1992’s Freejack, also starring Emilio Estevez, Renee Russo and Anthony Hopkins, the Rolling Stones front man was chosen to lead the coronation. (I’m being facetious. Freejack was awful. Jagger just seems like an odd choice.)

BAFTA Winner Danny Boyle flanked by Patrick Stewart (left) and Ian McKellan

BEST ACTOR: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Chalk one up for Rourke. I think that the tide is turning in the Oscar race. Mickey dropped an F-bomb in his acceptance speech, and although censors will need every one of those 7 seconds of delay, I am now leaning to Rourke’s heroic turn as Randy “The Ram” Robinson to win Best Actor at February 22’s Academy Awards. A choice moment from Mickey’s speech, “Thanks to Marsei Tomei for constantly taking her clothes off on-screen…I enjoyed looking at her.” Here’s a link to Mickey’s acceptance speech with all the necessary bleeps.

Penelope Cruz, Mickey Rourke and Kate Winslet show off their hardware

BEST ACTRESS: Kate Winslet, The Reader
She was nominated for both Revolutionary Road an The Reader, but just as Oscar voters did, the BAFTA Awards voters preferred the slow burning guilt and shame of her performance in The Reader over her showy Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf-style theatrics in Rev Road.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
The year’s most memorable performance, and since TDK was snubbed for Best Picture at both the BAFTA Awards and the upcoming Oscars, this is the best way to pay tribute to the all-time second-biggest grossing movie in US history.

Cruz didn't have to contend with Winslet, with both of her nominations in the Best Actress category or Viola Davis (Doubt), a strong contender at the Oscars

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Very well-deserved. She had a tremendous year with both the edgy, verge of crazy Maria Elena from Woody Allen’s comedy and a haunting performance in the very underrated Elegy. With Winslet out of the Supporting Actress race at both the BAFTA Awards and the Oscars, Cruz gets her shot. Keep in mind that Viola Davis, so good in Doubt was not nominated here, but is a live bet in two weeks at the Academy Awards.

BEST DIRECTOR: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
The obvious choice. Manchester-born. The career of a true auteur with brilliantly diverse films like Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, Millions and 28 Days Later on his resume.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
After writing The Fully Monty in 1998, this UK-born screenwriter seemingly disappeared until 2008 when he wrote both Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day and Slumdog. No surprise at all that he wins here, and he seems like a lock on Oscar night with David Hare’s The Reader as a distant challenger.

Original Screenplay winner Martin McDonagh with his In Bruges star Colin Farrell

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Martin McDonagh, In Bruges
Known for his plays The Pillowman and The Beauty Queen of Leenane, he actually won the Oscar for Best Short Live Action Film in 2006 with something called Six Shooter. London-born this is his first full-length feature film and he is both a BAFTA winner and an Academy Award nominee. McDonagh is unlikely to repeat on Oscar night with Dustin Lance Black, already the WGA winner, a strong favorite for Milk.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Anthony Dod Mantle, Slumdog Millionaire
A Boyle favorite who previously worked with him on 28 Days Later, Mantle was also DP on 2006’s fantastic The Last King of Scotland. He could be carried to an Oscar win riding the crest of a Slumdog tidal wave, or Wally Pfister could snag the award for his work on The Dark Knight (there could be a reverse backlash at the Academy Awards with voters rallying around TDK because of the Best Picture snub). The tag-team of two-time Oscar winner Chris Menges and eight-time nominee Roger Deakins are also a threat for their work on The Reader.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Probably the right choice here. It’s a 160-minute movie covering decades so getting the look right must have been a daunting task.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Again this is right on. In fact, you could argue that the whole movie is predicated on the visual effects. Seamlessly placing Brad Pitt’s face on another body without the strings showing? If the FX people don’t pull this off, Fincher has no movie.

BEST SOUND: Slumdog Millionaire
On Oscar night, this category will either belong to Slumdog in a sweep or The Dark Knight.

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIR: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The obvious choice for the BAFTA Awards and the Oscars.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN: Michael O’Connor, The Duchess
Big gigantic dresses. That’s what I saw when I watched The Duchess. Generally speaking, that’s what wins in this category.

Composer A.R. Rahman wins the BAFTA and may become the first Indian to win an Academy Award

BEST MUSIC: A.R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
In my mind, this is the right choice. There has never been a mainstream film score that sounds remotely like what Rahman produced for Slumdog. The score is integral to the feel of the movie. In fact, it’s hard to imagine that it would be the same movie with a conventional score. Rahman is only the third Indian ever nominated for an Oscar, and this soundtrack does represent a fascinating bridge between traditional and modern Indian music and the Western sound we all know.

BEST ANIMATED FILM: WALL-E
Yes, Waltz With Bashir is unique – an animated, foreign language documentary, but WALL-E is a special, special movie, and Andrew Stanton deserves every award that comes along. The Chaplinesque quality of the first act makes it, for my money, one of the best animated movies of the modern era.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: I’ve Loved You So Long
This was easily my favorite foreign language film of 2008. The arcane rules governing Best Foreign Language Film excluse this Phillipe Claudel drama from Oscar contention, but put this in your Netflix cue when it becomes available. Kristen Scott Thomas delivers a haunting portrait of a woman with a secret, and, as it unravels in the hands of her empathetic sister (played by the remarkable Elsa Zylberstein), her burden and suffering are heartbreaking.

BEST BRITISH FILM: Man on Wire
Slumdog was nominated here, but the BAFTA tradition is to recognize a smaller film, excluded from the Best Picture race. I am one of the few people that didn’t fall in love with this James Marsh doc about wire-walker Phillippe Petit. Since the Brits have no Best Documentary Feature category, this was their one chance to recognize Marsh. Man On Wire is the prohibitive Oscar favorite for Best Doc, and I may have to watch it again just to see if I missed something the first time around.

Noel Clarke, the surprise winner of the BAFTA Rising Star Award

ORANGE RISING STAR: Noel Clarke
This award is voted on by the British public, and Clarke is the star of the UK TV hit Doctor Who. Both Michael Cera (Juno, Superbad) and Rebecca Miller (Frost/Nixon, Vicky Cristina Barcelona) lost the fan vote but are likely to have longer and more notable careers than Clarke.

CARL FOREMAN AWARD: Steve McQueen, The Hunger
Tells the story of the last six weeks in the life of hunger striker Bobby Sands. Michael Fassbender, who also lost out on the Orange Rising Star Award to Clarke, portrays Sands, and the movie played for just one week in the US (I’m assuming for Oscar qualification). Hopefully IFC will give this some arthouse runs this year.

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.

Only one of this year’s Best Picture nominees has inspired any real passion from the broad public. The almost-certain Best Picture winner is Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight), and its devotees, including critics and members of the Academy (not to mention yours truly), have made it a word-of-mouth smash hit. The Danny Boyle-directed feel-good Bollywood fusion movie made for a meager $14M added another $2.05M or so on Friday and is charting a 3-day course for about $7.4M. That will give the Slumdog a $77.4M take, and it could reach $90M-$95M before it’s through in American theatres.

David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin is the only 2009 Best Picture nominee to top $100M

The other four Best Picture noms are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Paramount), Milk (Focus), The Reader (Weinstein) and Frost/Nixon (Universal). I approached  Benjamin Button as a little kid might approach broccoli. (You’re not allowed to leave the table until you eat it, and it’s supposed to be good for you.) It’s very long, a bit pretentious, and not nearly as good as other David Fincher-directed films like Se7en and Zodiac. After opening strong, the movie is now fading despite 13 Oscar nominations, selling about $640,000 in tickets Friday for a likely $2.24M 3-day. The cume will be a respectable $120M by Monday, but how many people have you actually heard saying, “I love Benjamin Button!”

The Reader, Milk and Frost/Nixon are now on as many screens as they will ever be, and they are certainly not setting the world on fire. Here’s how the five movies nominated for Hollywood’s biggest prize are performing this weekend.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE OF BEST PICTURE NOMINEES FEBRUARY 6-8
Slumdog Millionaire – $2.05M Friday – $7.4M 3-day – $77.4M cume
Benjamin Button – $640K Friday – $2.4M 3-day – $120M cume
The Reader – $605K Friday – $2.3M 3-day – $16M cume
Milk – $285K Friday – $1.1M 3-day – $25.2M cume
Frost/Nixon – $189K Friday – $753K 3-day – $15.6M cume

Aside from Slumdog Millionaire, there’s not much box office upside here. Ben Button is unlikely to reach $130M, while Milk will probably fall short of $30M. The Reader could add a possible $8M before its done, and Frost/Nixon won’t even get to $20M domestic.

Frank Langella and Michael Sheen in Frost/Nixon, unlikely to top $20M domestic

PROJECTED CUMES OF 2009 BEST PICTURE NOMINEES
Benjamin Button – $127M cume (projected)
Slumdog Millionaire – $95M cume (projected)
Milk – $29M cume (projected)
The Reader – $23M cume (projected)
Frost/Nixon – $19M cume (projected)
Combined projected cume: $293M

If those numbers hold, the 2009 awards season will have given us three of the six weakest performing Best Picture nominees of the last decade.

TOP 10 LOWEST GROSSING BEST PICTURE NOMINEES OF THE LAST DECADE
1. 2006 – Letters From Iwo Jima – $13.75M cume
2. 2009 – Frost/Nixon – $20M cume (projected)
3. 2009 – The Reader – $25M cume (projected)
4. 2005 – Capote – $28.75M
5. 1999 – The Insider – $29M
6. 2009 – Milk – $30M cume (projected)
7. 2005 – Good Night & Good Luck – $31.5M cume
8. 2002 – The Pianist – $32.5M cume
9. 2006 – Babel – $34.3M cume
10. 2008 – There Will Be Blood – $40.2M cume

Now just two weeks away, the 2009 Oscar ceremony could be a Waterloo of sorts for the Motion Picture Academy. First-time Oscar producers Bill Condon and Lawrence Mark have promised something daring. A re-imagining of the Academy Awards telecast, coming off last year’s all-time lowest ratings.

Hugh Jackman, the talented Australian actor, will serve as host. He previously won an Emmy for his hosting of the Tony Awards a few years back (Here’s his opening musical number from the broadcast.) Yes he can sing and dance, but can he overcome the lack of appeal of the movies that the Academy has chosen to honor?

As a hardcore movie fan, I will be watching, but the average American doesn’t care about enough of these movies to draw a substantial audience. This group of Best Picture nominees seems destined to be the second-least popular group of nominees in the past fifteen years with an ultimate combined cume of just $293M.

Thandie Newton and Matt Dillon in Best Picture winner Crash, which grossed $54.5M domestic

WEAKEST TOTAL GROSS FOR BEST PICTURE NOMINEES
- last 15 years -
1. 2005 – $245M
Crash, Brokeback, Capote, Good Night & Good Luck, Munich
2. 2009 – $293M (projected)
Slumdog, Ben Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader
3. 2006 – $296M
Departed, Babel, Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, The Queen
4. 1996 – $306M
English Patient, Fargo, Jerry Maguire, Secrets & Lies, Shine
5. 2007 – $357M
No Country, Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood
6. 1993 – $368M
Schindler’s List, Fugitive, Name of the Father, The Piano, Remains of the Day
7. 1995 – $378M
Braveheart, Apollo 13, Babe, Il Postino, Sense & Sensibility
8. 2004 – $401M
Million Dollar Baby, Aviator, Finding Neverland, Ray, Sideways
9. 1998 – $440M
Shakespeare in Love, Saving Private Ryan, Life is Beautiful, Elizabeth, Thin Red Line
10. 1994 – $543M
Forrest Gump, Four Weddings & a Funeral, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, Shawshanke Redemption

I would love to be wrong. I’d love to believe that keeping the identities of presenters a secret, and a song-and-dance man from Down Under, and the sight of Brad and Angelina on the red carpet, and a gutsy, little independent movie from Mumbai, and a guarantee from producers that the show won’t exceed three hours, and the dramatic posthumous recognition for Heath Ledger – that it will all work to draw a huge television audience. But I am feeling more certain that ABC’s Oscars telecast this year may go down as the lowest rated ever.

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.