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Guest Column

These super performances deserve our acclaim

By Rob DeWitt
Published February 9, 2007

From the players' genius to the genius of "The Artist's" halftime performance, from the historical coaching matchup to the winner's humble victory, the stories from Super Sunday 2007 will be told for as long as the game is played. Bravo, all!

The display of flawless sportsmanship, class and ideal public entertainment set a high standard for the next few television events, including one known in some circles as being the "Big Bowl" of the emerging creative class: The Oscars.

Like it or not, professional sports, the film industry and subsidiaries of all kinds generate billions for our economy. Oscar fever, like Super Bowl sweat, is a fuel that keeps America running.

Handicapping the contenders has become commonplace, yet most consumers of modern media don't have the resources to see every film - and the reason is not financial. With numerous cinematic stories to see, seeing all of them, even at a matinee, would cost about $150 (less than an annual NFL cable subscription, but that isn't my point here).

The reality is, finding the time for more than 60 hours of viewing is difficult. I have proven it is possible, but it took much organization and planning. (It did pay off, however, with a 100 percent prediction in 1997.)

In my past urban existence, I was obsessed with seeing as many Oscar-nominated movies as possible. It's a hobby that lasts only three months, perfect for a busy person in theater.

In December, I would see movies handicapped through exhaustively reading Entertainment Weekly, the New York Times and Vanity Fair and talking to industry types and watching the SAG, Golden Globes, and Directors Guild Awards. This was before the Internet really took hold, and Google was still baby talk.

In January, once the nominees were announced, I organized my quest by coordinating lunches, appointments and work, squeezing in as many 2 1/2-hour blocks of time as possible. It was easier, of course, for a childless, single person who worked evenings and had Mondays off. I once saw four films in one day. In three different theatres. In three different neighborhoods. In January. In Chicago .

I was driven.

* * *

Viewing continued into February, and Oscar night plans were made: to be alone, viewing with friends at home, at a private party, or a public venue. (Warning! Know your stuff before a public experience. Not knowing your stuff is akin to wearing a turtleneck at a necktie convention.)

Oscar wagerers are serious folks. As long as it doesn't send the movie enthusiast's work, relationship or other important elements of life into a free fall, it is a fun thing, especially if shared with friends.

All that said, I have not seen everything this year ... yet.

With the office betting pools shifting from grit and gridiron to celebrity and celluloid, here is an offering of insightful opinion - nothing more - about a few of the nominees, and an intense look at the acting crafts and industry buzz for the nominated screen stories experienced by this author. If nothing else, it may add to the inevitable party chit-chat until Feb. 25, just as the Super Bowl dialogues of the past few weeks inundated waiting rooms and lunch lines.

This is for those of you who haven't seen the nominated films but want to be erudite entertainment enthusiasts (a.k.a film geeks). Remember, no matter which talented storyteller takes home the golden dude, they all deserve their work to be seen.

* * *

The Departed and Letters from Iwo Jima will be recognized, more likely Martin Scorsese for directing, as his recent Directors Guild award nudges him closer to this spotlight. Due to Clint Eastwood's recent wins over the last 10 years, his films may be nudged out. I never like to think about one of these storytellers as "better." Scorsese and Eastwood have such amazing individual storytelling styles that those in any category with these two are winners by association.

Pan's Labyrinth is a possible winner for best foreign film and makeup, and possibly cinematography. Those are conjectures based solely on the film's appeal to the more cutting-edge creative segment of the Oscar voters. However, fantasies usually are not best pictures. And the film may be ahead of its time. (It took Steven Spielberg until Schindler's List - a from-real-life story - to take home his prize, after years of making money and entertaining millions of kids of all ages.)

Babel is sure to surprise, an important story to be included in the Oscar pantheon of great stories, but so good as a whole that the pieces cannot be disassembled to be winners in individual categories.

Dreamgirls is an astounding achievement. The score was familiar. (Being a theater geek for years, I knew it well. I had a chance to see it on Broadway in 1983, but I saw Merlin instead. Now when I think of it I kick myself for giving up Jennifer Holliday's Tony-winning performance to see Doug Henning. Lesson learned. Look for Jennifer Hudson, in Ms. Holliday's part of Effie White, and Eddie Murphy's James "Thunder" Early character, to receive this film's awards.

Sharing Hudson's category of best female actor in a supporting role is Abigail Breslin for the title role in the adult comedy Little Miss Sunshine. She portrays a dreamgirl who wants to be a queen, and who is surrounded by crazy people helping her deal with skinny, younger, better-dressed girls.

Alan Arkin, an often-overlooked original, is nominated for best actor in a supporting role in the very funny dark horse Little Miss Sunshine, as is Little Children supporting actor Jackie Earle Haley. Children is a modern comic look at suburban life.

The consensus of the Academy usually goes in one of two directions: inducting new talented artists into the pantheon of greats, or honoring the legends who may not be with us much longer. Several categories qualify for this, and I think Peter O'Toole is amazing in Venus. Yet the night's best actor in a leading role may be Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland. Whitaker has been around a long time and has created volumes of great work.

* * *

Control is the prevalent subject matter in most of the stories this year. Whether it is the frustrated wanna-be journalist in The Devil Wears Prada, the writing and ownership of songs in Dreamgirls, or a public figure's uttering of a writer's simple statement, "The People's Princess," in The Queen, the bottom line is writers change history, and control is power.

Successful women also are a dominant subject, especially in the best female actor in a leading role category, as shown by all the actors nominated: Penelope Cruz's apparitionally challenged accomplice in Volver, Dame Judi Dench's twisted teacher in Notes on a Scandal, Kate Winslet's philandering parent in Little Children, and the title roles for Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren in The Devil Wears Prada and The Queen, respectively. All these actors are successful, not only in their craft but in professionally negotiating the thorny path of survival in the toughest business there is, show business.

Dench, Winslet and Streep portray characters first given life in literary form. The process by which an actor chooses to play an existing literary character always infuses the personage to a point where it doesn't become a reasonable comparison to its page-bound predecessor. It's much like two blue ribbons in a pie contest: Both are fabulous, but they're different flavors.

Dench's and Winslet's characters do inhabit wonderful stories, though the roles are not nearly as technically difficult as some of their previously honored roles have been. (Namely, Dench as Mrs. Brown and Winslet in her breakout Heavenly Creatures.)

Mirren, as a living monarch, has such authentic subtlety, perhaps honed during her observation of her subject at close proximity at her recent, and deserved, "dame-ing."

Cruz creates the only role imagined originally for the screen, and one wonders why the movie wasn't included in the writing awards.

Cruz has paid her dues and, even if not selected this year, her nomination has opened the door to her coronation room. However, the wait will be a while, as Hollywood's reigning queen, Streep (the only actor at the Golden Globes who honestly and comically could say "I think I've worked with everyone in this room"), is back after singing in last year's subtle A Prairie Home Companion," the great Robert Altman's last film.

* * *

The much-nominated Streep hasn't actually won an award in quite a while. The control she has of her craft in creating Miranda Priestly (with visual assistance from the fashion genius of Patricia Field) is the reason this is a must-own comedy and obvious labor of love by producer Wendy Finerman and director David Frankel. For Field, possibly a winner for costumes. With Ms. Streep and Ms. Field's experience and artistry, regardless of wins, Prada achieved the comic genius in the classic it will become. Streep's performance of the "cerulean blue" monologue is an actor at the top of her game.

Mirren, being the odds favorite, is so real and so effortless as Elizabeth II that sometimes you may feel as if you are watching a secret camera placed by her grandsons. Nothing more needs to be said.

The Queen is an example of why, no matter who wins, it is inevitably the stories that are the winners, because they get told to a wide audience. Every film starts as a story someone wants to tell. The fact that any of them get told at all is a reason for thanks. The fact that we can see them, discuss them and enjoy them is a privilege and blessing of free speech and the right to assemble peacefully.

Enjoy those rights. Go see a story, and let your DVR record the Pro Bowl Saturday.

Rob DeWitt is a freelance writer, theater artist and generally creative type who has been producing, writing and performing theater for more than 15 years in his native Brooksville and Chicago. Guest columnists write their own opinions on subjects they choose, which do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.

[Last modified February 9, 2007, 06:52:08]