How the Oscars got boring

Just about every year, weary journalists and pop-culture pundits trot out opinions on how to save The Academy Awards because the Oscars no longer draw big viewership figures. In 1970, the televised ceremony had a 43.4% share in the ratings. Today, it's less of an event. Last year's show -- which was up 6% on 2008 -- boasted an "American Idol"-scale audience. Which is pretty good, but hardly phenomenal in this era of long-tail media fragmentation.

Typically, suggestions on boosting numbers tend to go like this:

• If you can't get Billy Crystal as emcee, how about Jay & Conan as co-hosts?
  
• If you can't bring back Björk and her egg-laying swan dress, how about inviting Lady Gaga (with Cher as her stylist).
• If you can't get star power like Brangelina on the red carpet, how about Snooki and The Situation?
• How about inviting Steve Jobs to the podium to unveil a new Apple product?
• Or how about just awarding Best Picture to "Twilight" for that all-important 13-18 demographic? (Bonus idea: Have Justin Bieber hand over the statuette.)
  

Such cosmetic changes will move the needle some. But our culture has fundamentally changed since Oscar's heyday. For starters, Hollywood movie stars aren't as important anymore. In part, it's because there's less mystery and less golden-era glamor.

There was a time, long ago, when stars weren't over-exposed. Apart from the occasional appearance on Johnny Carson or a Jerry Lewis telethon, your only opportunity of seeing actors outside of the movies was tuning into the Oscars. Nowadays, you can watch Clooney picking his nose on TMZ. In the old days celebrities were largely presented in publicist-controlled puff pieces in "Life" magazine. Now, you can read about Brangelina's sex life in US Weekly right after you've flipped past pictures of J.Lo pumping gas in the "Stars: They're Just Like Us!" feature.

More fundamentally, stars no longer have the currency they once did. Studios now rely on well-branded properties and high-concept stories, rather than big-name actors, to pack theaters. That's true of nearly all 2009's top-grossing films: "Avatar," "Star Trek," "Transformers," "Harry Potter," "Twilight," "Alvin & The Chipmunks," "The Hangover," "X-Men: Origins," "2012."

There are one or two exceptions to that hardening rule: Robert Downey Jr. helped sell the "Sherlock Holmes" brand name with the capital he gained from starring in "Iron Man 2." Sandra Bullock and Meryl Streep can reliably draw a crowd in the right project. And Will Smith could probably star in a sequel to "Howard the Duck" and still notch a big opening weekend. But can they turn the awards telecast into a "must see"? Nah.

So, if celebrity is no longer a significant draw for the Academy Awards, how about the movies? The gambit of expanding the Best Picture nominees to 10 films will likely improve audience numbers as the category isn't just limited to middlebrow fare. The 9 nominations for "Avatar" will be a cause for celebration for the Academy and ABC because the last time America gave a damn about the Oscars was the year of "Titanic." The studios will cheer, too, since the awards are primarily about selling movies (and flattering egos).

Problem is, the Academy awards are all over before they've even begun. The awards season is oversaturated with award shows, many of them televized, ranging from The Golden Globes to the Spirit Awards. Moreover, each of Hollywood's major guilds -- Actors, Producers, Directors -- hold their own ceremonies and the big winners in each category tend to be a safe prediction of who will win in the corresponding Oscar category. We now know that Jeff Bridges will win for Best Actor, Sandra Bullock for Best Actress, Kathryn Bigelow for Best Director, and The Hurt Locker for Best Picture.

All of this happens before the Academy Award nominations have even been announced. In fact, the only surprises today in the widely predicted nominees was the inclusion of "The Blind Side" for Best Picture and "In the Loop" for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Simply, there's no element of suspense anymore.

Jane Campion's 'Bright' future

For a while, it seemed that Jane Campion's career was destined to sink without a trace, much like the piano turfed into the ocean at the end of her best-known film. The New Zealand director's last movie was 2003's "In the Cut," an erotic thriller that was neither erotic nor thrilling. Even Paul Verhoeven must have snickered at its art-house veneer. Result: Meg Ryan's then-teetering career tipped over the A-list precipice and it has been in free fall ever since. The star's nudity and a scene of seemingly unsimulated sex by an extra became the stuff of punchlines in "Family Guy" and "Knocked Up." For Campion, it was time for a rethink.

Her comeback, "Bright Star," is a triumph on every level. It should, by rights, be a hit with the teens obsessed with "Twilight." After all, "Bright Star" is also about young love and its unconsummated romance is heightened by the thrumming tension of longing. But the notion of a movie about John Keats may be a tough sell for teen viewers. Let's face it, high-school readings of "Ode to a Grecian Urn" don't exactly bolster the poet's sex appeal.

But Campion's movie manages to bring his poems to life. It helps that Campion herself always found poetry to be a "members only" domain, a haughty form that only learned academics could truly claim to understand. Campion might not exactly have described it like I just have but, before Friday's screening, Campion explained that she'd never really understood poetry. So she started reading several biographies, including one about Keats. That, in turn, inspired her story about the Romantic poet's love affair with his next door neighbor, and later fiancé, Fanny Brawne. The film is told from her perspective and so the film isn't truly a biopic as such.

Fanny is played by Australian actress Abbie Cornish ("Somersault," "Candy") and it's one of those star-making roles where you wonder where this girl has been all this time. She's certainly getting an Oscar nomination for her deeply marinated performance, which is radiant with a star quality befitting the movie's title. Coquettish at first, and fiercely independent despite her callow youth, Fanny's flighty emotions deepen with intensity during the course of the story. In the role of Keats, Ben Whishaw imbues his performance with stillness, the yin to her yang.

What Campion achieves so wonderfully here is a period film that feels contemporary by eschewing the conventions and cliches of costume genre. Even the costumes look different (the designer is almost certainly going to win an Oscar next year). The cinematography is ravishing and yet its poetic images are so much of a piece with the story that the painterly scenes don't self consciously call attention to themselves.

For now, the film is in release in New York and Los Angeles (just 5 screens here on the West Coast). I hope this film doesn't sink without trace. Hopefully word of mouth should buoy this film during Oscar season.

Oscar nominations: What went wrong

Today's Oscar nominations at least had one or two more surprises that no one saw coming. The multiple nominations for "The Reader" are a reminder that you should never underestimate a Holocaust movie. Or Harvey Weinstein. The michelin-man mogul may be in a slump at the box office -- at least until the arrival of August's "Inglorious Basterds"-- but he's not lost his touch when it comes to procuring Academy Award nominations. Kate Winslet is guaranteed to win for her role in "The Reader." In case it's escape your notice, the Oscar apparently means an awful lot to the actress and her fellow British countrymen are still mortified at her Golden Globes acceptance speech. (Note to Oscar producer Gil Cates: Have a mop in the wings so that no one slips on Kate's puddle of tears at the podium).

"The Reader" nominations mean that "The Dark Knight" was shut out. Since Warner Bros is laying off hundreds of employees, the studio can at least save money but not having to spend a penny more on a campaign for "The Dark Knight." After all, Heath Ledger is 101% guaranteed to win a posthumous Best Supporting Actor.

The omission of "The Dark Knight" and "Wall-E" in the "Best Picture" category reveals a lot about the perplexing nature of the Oscars these days. The Academy's choices tend to fall in a peculiar no-man's land. On the one hand, they tend to ignore the film-aficionado selections of the various movie critic circles. And they tend to shun the type of films that the average moviegoer gets enthused about.

The cowled crimefighter and binocular-eyed robot were embraced by audiences and critics alike. But they were relegated to lesser categories (Best Supporting Actor; Best Animated Picture) by the Academy. It wasn't always this way. In the past, the Academy has nominated blockbusters such as "Jaws"and "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Nowadays, I'm not sure that a "Titanic" or a "Lord of the Rings" would even make it to a Best Picture nomination. "Wall-E" seems to have been deemed a lesser film by virtue of being an animated film even though critics and audiences seem to agree that the mostly silent film was unique for saying so much by saying very little at all. A true "show, don't tell" message film. And "The Dark Knight" may have hauled in the sort of box office that had James Cameron nervously looking over his shoulder, but it would be foolish to dismiss Christopher Nolan's film as a mere superhero movie. Equating "The Dark Knight" to "The Fantastic Four" is akin to comparing "Bladerunner" to "Battlefield Earth." What other film in recent years (other than "Children of Men") tapped into the zeitgeist of the Patriot Act era?

In short, those Best Picture nominations underscore why the Academy Awards play to ever diminishing television audiences. The presence of Brangelina on the red carpet won't give the ceremony much more than a bump in the ratings, either. Several decades ago, the Oscars gave audiences a rare opportunity to gawk at the stars. In the TMZ era, stars are so overexposed that they've lost any mystery and novelty they once possessed. It doesn't help that, Will Smith aside, actors don't have the box-office clout they once had. Nowadays high-concept story is more important than the actor in front of the green screen.

While I'm ragging on the Academy, let's add a WTF? about the Best Original Song category for coming up with a mere three nominees and somehow omitting Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler" or Jenny Lewis's "Barking at the Moon" from "Bolt." Thank goodness Clint Eastwood wasn't nominated for his singing in "Gran Torino." For a minute there, I thought he'd been taking vocal lessons from William Hung.

Also, the Best Foreign Language Picture list overlooked "Gomorra," just as it ignored "Four Months, Three Weeks, and Two Days" last year.

Final complaint: All the nominations for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Really? Like Brad Pitt's other Oscar bait films -- "Babel" and that Jesse James movie with the awfully long title -- it's puffed up with self importance but utterly hollow. Mark my words, the film will age less well than its titular character.

But let's say this about the Academy. At least it had the good sense to shut out "Revolutionary Road" with its tired myths about the suburbs of the 1950s. And kudos for all the nods for "Slumdog Millionaire."

And the Oscar for best actor goes to ... Mickey Rourke?

Over the past 24 hours, the various agents representing Lorenzo Lamas, Jean Claude van Damme, and the two Feldmans -- Corey and Haim -- have been repeat dialing Darren Aronofsky's phone.

Ok, I can't state that's 100% true, but it's certainly possible now that the director of "The Wrestler" has miraculously done a Lazarus on Mickey Rourke. The all-but-forgotten actor can afford to swagger once again now that he seems certain to get nominated for Best Actor. (Just imagine what Aronofsky could do for Mike Myers' career.*)

"The Wrestler" has won top honors at Venice. And it arrives at Toronto heralded by reviews in Variety and The Reporter that, between them, pretty much drained the dictionary of every known superlative in the English language in describing Rourke's performance. (Rourke was the best thing in "Sin City," too, but no one recognized him in all those shadow-obscured facial prosthetics.)

So, on paper at least, strong contenders for Best Actor 2009 seem to be: Rourke, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Penn, and Brad Pitt. Given that these things are really a popularity contest that come down to carefully orchestrated electoral campaigns -- the McCain/Palin ticket really needs to hire Rogers & Cowen to see how it's done -- The Golden Boy will walk away with it for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Unless, that is, the mega-megabudget film turns out to be as much a flop as "Meet Joe Black." The press -- and Gil Cates -- will be praying that Angelina Jolie will also walk away with gold on the same night for "The Changeling." That storyline would trump even Phelps's 8 medals. (Don't worry, the Jolie-Pitts can more than afford the 8 babysitters they'll need for the night.)

Marisa Tomei, meanwhile, seems to be dishing out some sweet revenge to everyone who claimed she unfairly won an Oscar. Her once-promising A-list status faltered soon after and it seemed her lot would be a lifetime of Lifetime TV movies. Instead, Tomei is going for broke at this stage of her life, taking off her clothes and taking on unglamorous roles in "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" and now "The Wrestler." (The balding blabbermouth in the trench coat at the front of the ticket line? That'll be George Constanza.) I expect we'll see Tomei back on the red carpet at the Kodak theater next year.

* Quentin Tarantino, the patron saint of lapsed careers, has reportedly offered Myers a role in "Inglorious Bastards."