Oscars predictions are to Los Angeles what political gossip is to Washington DC, and during the week of the Oscars it's pretty much impossible to walk down the street, let alone open a newspaper, without somebody giving you their tuppence on the matter. As with arseholes and opinions, everyone's got their own prediction but in the final days before the ceremony one verdict was becoming increasingly loud: Gravity will beat 12 Years a Slave to Best Picture. Why? Because a true story about slavery is, well, kind of a downer.
"For many, 12 Years a Slave is too hard to watch," declared a front page headline in the LA Times above a story by the paper's film critic, Betsy Sharkey, suggesting audiences have shied away from the movie. But a brief glance at the movie's box office proves this is not the case – the film has done much better than, say, Dallas Buyers Club and Her. In fact, the people who seem to be shying away from it are some of the members of the Academy who vote for the films. Only the day before the paper talked to one member of the Academy who suggested "many voters of the Academy have been reluctant to screen their 12 Years DVD", and another academician complained that he felt he was being emotionally blackmailed into voting for the movie: "Vote for the black movie to win because it's time to do so? That's offensive." Whether it's as offensive as the fact that the Academy is 94% white, he did not clarify.
Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter has been running some delightfully grumpy interviews with anonymous members of the Academy to find out who they think should win. One, described as a "longtime member of the Academy's directors' branch", conceded 12 Years was "interesting" although "you don't even crack a smile". That's the problem with slavery: it's just not enough of a hoot. So he voted for American Hustle to win, and again in the director and supporting actress categories. "[12 Years'] Lupita Nyong'o was very good," he graciously allowed, "But a lot of the commotion over her is attributable to people's tremendous sympathy with the role she's playing." Yessss, some people would say that comes from her performance, but never mind. Note to Steve McQueen: next time make the slaves less sympathetic, and slavery more funny.
The long lead time to the Oscars this year, extended by the Winter Olympics, may have amped up the anticipation in a few (very few, and those few being the heads of TV networks), but among the participants themselves it seems to be turning them a little feral. A slew of Oscars participants and contenders, past and present, have been trashing the event this week, including fashion designer Tom Ford who, despite dressing actresses every year for the event, dismissed the red carpet as "a bubble of fifties Barbie clothes" that are "not particularly important". But in terms of pointing out that the emperor is naked, few have done it as succinctly and definitively as Julie Delpy who described the Academy as "90% white men over 70 who need the money because they haven't done anything in a long time. You just need to give them two or three presents and they're in your pocket." Paging Steve McQueen: also, give out more presents.
To the Dolby Theatre where, on Wednesday, packs of journalists spent the day being given tours of the venue ahead of Sunday's Oscars and were issued with a series of seemingly endless instructions about what they weren't allowed to do on the night (condensed version: anything.) Anyone caught taking photos inside would be sent to Guantanamo Bay, anyone caught approaching "the talent" would be beheaded, etc and so forth. All very serious stuff. One might almost think that the Academy Awards was, say, a glimpse inside the pre-perestroika Kremlin as opposed to a massive schmooze fest. For an hour, journalists obediently stood in the press room while the press officers spoke, in great detail, about things such as Wi-Fi, ISDN, OMG, ROFL, BFF and so on. After a solid hour of this, your diarist glanced over the shoulder of the very nice Korean journalist in front of her who looked like he'd been taking notes more diligently than she. There, on his pad, were written just two words: "Free food". Always nice to know journalists are the same the world over.
It may not quite live up to the high standards of the 1939 Best Picture list (Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Stage Coach, Goodbye, Mr Chips, Ninotchka, Love Affair, Dark Victory and Of Mice and Men) or 1972 (The Godfather, Cabaret, Deliverance, Sounder, The Emigrants), but many agree that 2014's Oscars includes the best selection of films for some time. But what year was the worst? 1990 when Driving Miss Daisy won, and Do the Right Thing wasn't even nominated? 1998 when the awards were dominated by Titanic, Good Will Hunting and As Good as it Gets? But surely we all learn from our mistakes. Right? Well… The results of the TV network ABC's poll about which was the best Oscar film of all time were published this week and who, pray tell, did the 529,000 voters choose? Gone with the Wind, perhaps? The Sound of Music, maybe? Nope – Forrest Gump. Apparently the voting came down to a tight final round between Forrest and the Godfather, but it turned out that voters prefer their movies to be to like a box of chocolates: saccharine and nauseating, as opposed to violent and covered with blood. Meanwhile, Gone with the Wind didn't even get a look-in. Instead, fighting it out for the top spot in the final rounds were Ben-Hur and The Sound of Music alongside, er, The Lord of the Rings and, ahem, Rain Man. A film about how adorable autism can be? Frankly, the American public still gives a damn.
And finally, The Butler still can't catch a break. As if it wasn't bad enough that the once (briefly) touted film has been pretty much universally snubbed, awards-wise, now even the actors are being humiliated. Forest Whitaker stopped by Soho House in west Hollywood on Monday afternoon with some friends. After taking a look round, he walked back downstairs towards the elevator. "Hey! Darth Vader!" yelled a man at the top of the staircase. A great call out, marred only by the small flaw that Darth Vader was actually voiced by James Earl Jones.
