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 That might explain why two films that embody the inherent
struggle of show business - "Birdman" and "Boyhood" - are top
contenders for best picture at Sunday's 87th Academy Awards.
Even if "Birdman" has the slightest edge, the race is one of the
hardest to predict in years, experts say, adding welcome
suspense to Hollywood's annual climax, the largest televised
event in the United States outside of the sports world.
And there's room for a dark horse to come in and win the top
honor from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, made
up of 6,100 people who toil in the industry.
The strength of "Birdman" lies not only in its nine Oscar
nominations, a near sweep of awards from Hollywood's guilds and
cinematic derring-do, but also in a story the appeals to the
Academy's largest voting bloc: actors.
Director Alejando G. Inarritu presents a washed up, former
superhero actor trying to make a comeback, portrayed by Michael
Keaton, whose own career sagged after his "Batman" heydey.
"The message of the movie is even though you are unemployed and
you haven't gotten all the success you deserve, you are still an
amazing, terrific person," said Tim Gray, awards editor at
Variety.
"I think everybody in the Academy can relate to that because
that's the state of normalcy for the film industry, that you
spend a lot of time unemployed," he added.
Keaton could therefore win best actor over Eddie Redmayne, who
has won a slew of awards for his portrayal of physicist Stephen
Hawking in "The Theory of Everything."
NO BOX OFFICE BONANZA
"Boyhood" is a more simple story of a boy of divorced parents
coming of age, but director Richard Linklater earned respect
from the industry for a marathon undertaking never before
attempted: making the film over 12 years with the same actors.
And he did it on a shoestring budget.
It could be that the top contenders split best picture and best
director, as "12 Years a Slave" and "Gravity" did last year.
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"It seems a lot of people are saying that if they vote 'Birdman' in
one of those two categories, they are going to vote 'Boyhood' in the
other," said Paul Sheehan, editor at awards handicapper
GoldDerby.com.
But because of the best picture category's preferential ballot, in
which members rank their top films rather than vote for just one, a
movie that is many people's second choice could prevail. For
Sheehan, that's director Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel."
Actor Bill Murray joked he was so glad Anderson was getting
recognition because he would no longer have to defend the
idiosyncratic director. His colorful caper staged in the bygone era
of a European resort has won universal acclaim from critics and
audiences.
But the film that has been most popular with audiences is "American
Sniper," director Clint Eastwood's gritty portrayal of late Navy
SEAL Chris Kyle, the U.S. military's most lethal sharpshooter after
his four tours in the Iraq war.
It has earned $307 million at the domestic box office, more than the
other seven best picture nominees combined, and gathered strength in
recent weeks amidst a heated debate about war and snipers.
"Selma," the Martin Luther King Jr. biopic, drew early support but
lost steam after it earned only two nods and became the symbol of
the lack of diversity among this year's nominees.
With one of the smallest collective box office showings for best
picture nominees in recent times, the Academy faces a challenging
year for its telecast. It is betting on big music acts and
first-time host Neil Patrick Harris to bring in the young audience.
People like to make fun of the Oscars, Gray says, but in a world
saturated with entertainment choices, he likes to believe the awards
are still "a way of curating" Hollywood's best work.
(Editing by Ken Wills)
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