Hollywood Life Magazine

Asides

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  Major props must go out to Anne Thompson for sticking hard to Tree of Life and never wavering.  Thompson knew that the passionate support for the film (boomer nostalgia cum familial masterpiece) would drive it over when it was all about the number one votes.  My biggest mistake was assuming that broad guild support would have gotten films in.  That was wrong.  Passionate support is what resulted in the Best Picture lineup, for better or worse.

  Major props to Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg for accurately predicting the Academy would go for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

  And speaking of that movie, major props go out to none other than the Broadcast Film Critics. For years now they’ve been hoping to be the pre-eminent Oscar predicting moving group — I have always said they should aim higher — but they, not the DGA, nor the AFI, not the NBR, not the PGA, not the Golden Globe or the BAFTA — the Critics Choice and the Critics Choice alone predicted both Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. In fact, so closely aligned was the BFCA with the AMPAS that with ten Best Picture choices in their grasp they chose War Horse AND Tree of Life AND Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. NO ONE ELSE DID.

  Whether they’re trying to BE LIKE OSCAR or whether they simply THINK like Oscar, there is no denying the truth.  My ritual of combing through the films between 2001 and 2008 to find the near-misses? A total failure.  I might have instead looked more closely at the Critics Choice’s top ten films.  Therein, somewhere, would be, more likely, the Academy’s preferences.  The heart wants what it wants and it defies all logic.  If by some chance the AMPAS actually decides this passionate choosing was a good idea we’ll have to remember that for next year.

  When you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back at you.