Oscars Are A Fine Country For Old Men

It may be a while before we see a movie year like 2007, in which a studio system that industry pundits constantly describe as broken can crank out such films as competed for this year's Best Picture award--most notably the winner, No Country For Old Men. It goes like this: a smart and dedicated producer (Scott Rudin) snaps up a well-crafted novel (by the famously reclusive Cormac McCarthy--did we really see him stand up and shout when Denzel Washington announced the film had won?) and finds not one but two smart film companies (Paramount Vantage and Miramax) to finance it all and stay hands-off while a genuine auteurist (if two-headed) director shoots it with minimal fuss and four actors at the top of their game (Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin and Kelly MacDonald), then brings it out to general acclaim and pretty fair box office--the latter to be much aided now, of course, by the film's four statuettes. In addition to the big prize, Bardem got his seemingly inevitable Supporting Actor award and the brothers won for directing and adapted screenplay. Bardem's partly Spanish speech (he cited his mom, aunt, grandparents and Spain) injected needed life; "For those who were waiting for a moment," said host Jon Stewart with relief, "That was a moment."

Backstage, the ever-generous Bardem had this to say about his competition:

Philip Seymour Hoffman, for me, is one of the most amazing actors of all time. There's no one moment of not truth in his performances. I go to the away, blown way with everything that he does.

Hal Holbrook, I didn't know his work prior to this, because I don't live here. When I saw "Into the Wild," I have a heart attack almost, and I almost have to leave the theatre in Toronto with the scene in the truck when he wants to adopt him. I said, "There's no way that nothing can really go up" how can I say "beyond that performance." That's an amazing, intimate moment of a man, who is really putting away the mask and being really transferring in front of audience. Casey Affleck, the whole journey is a piece of jewelry, jewelry, like every piece on time in order to create a really a spectrum of a ghost. And Tom Wilkinson, I haven't ever seen a madman so funny, crazy, dangerous, and the same time so heartbroken. So, I think it's who should win? I don't know. This is a lottery. I won. That doesn't mean I am better than the other one, than the others, the rest at all, that's for sure.

The really encouraging thing abut the past year is that There Will Be Blood is almost as happy a story, and Daniel Day Lewis (also seemingly inevitable as Best Actor) and cinematographer Robert Elswit were able to gve director Paul Thomas Anderson a proper touting. (Although Day Lewis' no doubt heartfelt speech did feel a bit over-rehearsed--or was it overwritten? The little gold guy as a sapling? Still, he earned his milkshake.)

The media will be filled with meditations today on the meaning of it all, whether incidentally in general coverage (like the New York Times Arts front story,,no doubt written to a ticking clock and attributing a Joel Coen quip about Homer and Cormac McCarthy to brother Ethan in some editions), or more probingly, like Patrick Goldstein's Los Angeles Times piece (full of apt quotes regarding current cinema's "dark view on dark times".)

The upset of front-runner Julie Christie for Best Actress seemed a bit sad until Marion Cotillard took the stage, on this night of one hundred accents, and spread pixie dust over what had been, let's admit, a pretty sluggish evening even by Oscar-show standards. (The New York Times' A.O. Scott modestly proposed this morning that an ongoing writers' strike would have meant "the best movies could be liberated from the pomp and tedium of Hollywood spectacle."

Was it the Times Magazine's gripping Elizabeth Rubin piece from a bloody and discouraging Afghanistan, or Hillary Clinton's churlish invective and fear-mongering in a speech aired on CNN this day that chased away the joie de vivre and reinforced Scott's final point so strongly? He wrote that "The wonderful thing about the Academy Awards is that they are fundamentally trivial." And yet Alex Gibney's brief and dignified speech when he won with his tough documentary about U.S. interrogations, Taxi To the Dark Side was a good antidote to Jon Stewart's largely de-fanged--and curiously immobilized--emcee-ing. (Had Christie won, there would have been political sparks, and she even slung a reference to Guantanamo into one of the typical red carpet interviews by an ABC team.)

It all felt a bit rushed, and yet it often crawled, especially during the prepared segments that must have been spring-loaded by producer Gil Cates in the event the strike wasn't settled. A tip for next time--if you have a boring sub-category that needs a presenter and also have a mini-movie to shoot, don't put Owen Wilson with the wonk presenter spot and Academy President (and Deuce Bigalow producer) Sid Ganis in the shot footage. Switch them. Prove you're in show business. (Tomorrow's ratings numbers are not likely to make ABC turn cartwheels as it is. Speaking of which--the show was lucky both Colin Farrell and John Travolta are seasoned hoofers, as each slid on slick spots, but recovered.)

Finally--we're almost at finally, after living with the award prognostications for way too long--kudos to the producers and Tom Hanks for incorporating some actual troops overseas in the telecast. He might want to bring some of them to L.A. to watch his back as the coming internecine battle between the Screen Actors Guild big shots and the rank and file, with the Oscars now safely out of the way, threatens to turn nasty.

(Joel Coen, left, and smiling brother Ethan meet the press after picking up awards for directing, adapted screenplay, and best picture.)