One film has an oblique ending that's left some viewers dissatisfied and others floored by its profundity. The other features a slowly developing plot and a brutal, operatically violent finale.
"No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" are both gorgeous and bold, expertly crafted and intelligently acted. But most moviegoers have seen neither of them — and they never will — even though they're the two leading contenders for best picture at the Academy Awards.
Oscar-nominated films are often small, dark and unintended for mass audiences; they're about art, after all, not commerce. But that's especially true of this year's crop, which has little mainstream buzz and among the lowest box-office totals in recent years.
(The exception, of course, is the crowd-pleasing comedy "Juno," starring the hugely appealing Ellen Page as a quick-witted, pregnant teen. It had a budget of about $2.5 million and just crossed the $100 million mark at the box office. It is far and away the most financially successful of the five.)
Four of the movies nominated last week for best picture — "Juno," "Michael Clayton," "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" — got the so-called "Oscar bump" that comes from audiences checking them out the following weekend. (The sweeping romance "Atonement" dropped slightly.)
Still, they've only combined to make about $246.3 million domestically. In contrast, "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" already had grossed about $364 million all by itself by the time it won best picture in 2004.
In terms of ticket sales, about 7.3 million people have seen "No Country" (from Miramax and Paramount Vantage, a division of Viacom Inc.) and 2 million have seen "There Will Be Blood" (also from Paramount Vantage), compared with the approximately 51 million who saw the third "Rings" picture in theaters by Oscar night.
"I had someone ask me the other day, `Are academy voters out of touch in honoring these films that aren't popular with audiences?'" said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box office tracker Media By Numbers. "But they're not supposed to be popular. They're honoring the cinematic merit of these films. (Or else) `Spider-Man 3' would have the most nominations. ...
"I always say it's either cinematic fast food or cinematic fine dining — you pick what you want," Dergarabedian added. "And Oscar tends to honor the films that give a cinematic fine dining experience."
The 2006 nominees did a bit bitter with a cumulative gross of about $297 million, thanks largely to the winner, "The Departed," which ended up with more than $132 million. "The Departed" also had a revered director in Martin Scorsese and an all-star cast including Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson.
The nominees from 2005 combined for about $245 million with the winner, the ensemble drama "Crash," making only about $55 million. But that year had huge buzz thanks to "Brokeback Mountain," the gay cowboy romance, which had America talking regardless of their interest in art-house films. The perceived front-runner until the moment the envelope was opened, it made $83 million.
But it's not just the contenders in the best picture category that are drawing specialized crowds. "Michael Clayton" is the only film with multiple acting nominations: for its star, George Clooney, and supporting actors Tom Wilkinson and Tilda Swinton. The suspenseful corporate thriller from first-time director Tony Gilroy has made a decent $41.5 million.
"Away From Her," which has made a best-actress front-runner of Julie Christie as a wife suffering from Alzheimer's disease, made just under $16 million in limited release last year. "La Vie en Rose," the Edith Piaf biopic, has grossed only about $10 million, despite a wildly heralded performance from best-actress nominee Marion Cotillard.
The languid Western "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," with its creepy, nuanced supporting turn from nominee Casey Affleck, hasn't even made $4 million. And the experimental "I'm Not There," which features six different people playing various incarnations of Bob Dylan — including supporting-actress nominee Cate Blanchett — made just about $3.5 million in its limited run.
"They're not simple fare," said Boo Allen, a Dallas-based film critic and historian.
"The average moviegoer might hear that Brad Pitt is playing Jesse James, then they hear from someone who's seen it that it's two and a half hours long and very slow, it's more of a character study than a shoot 'em up, and it just doesn't touch a nerve," said Allen, who chose "La Vie en Rose" as his favorite film this season. "Something like `Juno,' that touches a nerve. You hear people say it's funny, it's about a teenager who gets pregnant. Jennifer Garner's in it, Jason Bateman's in it, the little girl's really funny. That lends itself to word of mouth and draws people in."
While they haven't exactly been boffo in terms of box office, this year's awards contenders are undeniably strong in terms of art. Veteran cinematographer Roger Deakins, who's up for two Oscars for "No Country" and "Jesse James," compared the nominees to the kinds of films that pushed boundaries in the 1970s.
"It's one of the best years because there's so many intelligent films that are provocative. They're actually about something as well as being entertaining," said Deakins, the longtime Coen brothers collaborator, who's also been nominated for the more mainstream "The Shawshank Redemption."
"It really makes you feel part of a real cinema," he added. "There's brilliant, brilliant people out there."
Little buzz for top Oscar films
Coens win for 'No Country for Old Men'
LOS ANGELES - Joel and Ethan Coen won the top prize from the Directors Guild of America on Saturday for "No Country for Old Men," giving them the inside track for the same honor at the Academy Awards — assuming the Oscars go on amid the writers strike.
"Oh, we get two of them," Ethan Coen said when he and his brother were presented with their trophies.
The Coens were only the second two-person team to win the Directors Guild honor, following Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for 1961's "West Side Story."
"Ethan and I have a bookshelf in our office where we keep various plaques and such that we've gotten over the years that we call our ego corner," Joel Coen said.
When brother Ethan is having a bad day, he goes over with Windex and silver polish and "spit shines his medals for an hour or two," Joel Coen said. "It makes him feel better. This is a really big one, in every respect. It's going to keep him busy."
As with Martin Scorsese, who as last year's winner for "The Departed" presented the award to the Coens, the Directors Guild winner almost always goes on to win the same prize at the Oscars.
Adapted from Cormac McCarthy's novel, "No Country for Old Men" stars Josh Brolin as a good old Texan who makes off with loot from a drug deal gone bad, Javier Bardem as a ruthless killer on his trail, and Tommy Lee Jones as a sheriff tracking both men.
With the Directors Guild honor, "No Country" also may emerge as the favorite to win best picture at the Oscars.
The fate of the Oscars remains uncertain, though. Writers, who have been on strike for nearly three months, have refused to work on some major awards shows, among them the Golden Globes, whose ceremony was scrapped for lack of stars.
The Coens' former cinematographer, Barry Sonnenfeld, also was a guild winner. Sonnenfeld, whose films include the "Men in Black" series, won a small-screen prize, receiving the award for television comedy for directing an episode of "Pushing Daisies."
"Mad Men" earned the TV drama honor for Alan Taylor, while Yves Simoneau won the TV movie award for "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee."
Other TV winners included Glenn P. Weiss for musical variety for "The 61st Annual Tony Awards"; Bertram Van Munster for reality programming for "The Amazing Race"; Paul Hoen for children's programs for "Jump In"; and Larry Carpenter for daytime serials for "One Life to Live."
Asger Leth won the documentary honor for "Ghosts of Cite Soleil," his portrait of two brothers who are gang leaders in a notorious Haitian slum.
Unlike other major honors, such as Sunday night's Screen Actors Guild Awards, the DGA ceremony is untelevised, making it a more laid-back gathering of Hollywood's elite and shielding it from some of the attention the industry's labor strife has brought to other ceremonies.
The Golden Globes banquet was canceled after stars made clear they would stay away in support of the Writers Guild of America strike, and the Oscars may face the same dilemma come Feb. 24.
Still, the writers' strike did cast a pall over the directors' big night, even though their guild last week negotiated a new contract after just days of meetings with producers. A fair number of Directors Guild members also belong to the writers union, whose strike has shut down TV shows and postponed movies, throwing thousands in the entertainment industry out of work.
Hal Holbrook, nominated for the supporting-actor Oscar for Directors Guild nominee Sean Penn's "Into the Wild," said before the Directors Guild awards that the "strike is becoming really dangerous. They're losing their homes. ...
"All I can hope is since we all have to share in producing anything — from the studio to the actors to the camera person to the costume lady, whatever, the set dresser — we all share," Holbrook said.
Many in Hollywood hope the Directors Guild deal will help resuscitate talks between writers and producers, whose negotiations broke down Dec. 7, a month after guild members walked off the job.
Dan Glickman — who heads the Motion Picture Association of America, Hollywood's top trade group — said before the directing awards that the union's new contract "offers a very good template for the other guilds," which could jump-start the labor impasse in time to let the Oscars go on.
"I sure hope so. The Oscars are kind of the link between the world of consumers and the world of entertainment," Glickman said. "I mean, a billion people or more watch the Oscars, and so it would be a real shame if we weren't able to keep that precedent, that history of this event going."
Winners, presenters and host Carl Reiner generally ignored Hollywood's labor problems during the Directors Guild ceremony, keeping the tone celebratory. There were only a few passing references to contract negotiations.
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Oliver Stone Casts Josh Brolin in Biopic About George W. Bush
There are two very big stories here. First, Oliver Stone (Any Given Sunday, Alexander, World Trade Center) is making a movie titled Bush, a film focusing on the life and presidency of our 43rd President, George W. Bush. Second, Stone has cast Josh Brolin in the lead role. Wait, so if I heard that correctly, Josh Brolin is going to play George W. Bush?! The report says that a script was quietly finished before the writers strike kicked in and is currently ready to shoot. Given the writers strike is still in effect, Stone can't work on Pinkville, his Vietnam War film, and instead must turn to his Bush script since it is ready to go.
The script for Bush was written by Stone's old NYU classmate Stanley Weiser, who also co-wrote Wall Street with Stone. If the money comes together, it's likely that Bush could head into production by April and could already be pushed into theaters by the election in November. Although Oliver Stone isn't the biggest George W. Bush supporter, his goal is not to create a biased film, but rather use seminal events in Bush's life to explain how he came to power. The structure will be similar to The Queen, a biopic from 2006 on Queen Elizabeth II.
Oliver Stone spoke with Variety about the project and the idea behind it, and here's what he had to say.
"It's a behind-the-scenes approach, similar to 'Nixon,' to give a sense of what it's like to be in his skin," Stone told Daily Variety. "But if 'Nixon' was a symphony, this is more like a chamber piece, and not as dark in tone. People have turned my political ideas into a cliche, but that is superficial. I'm a dramatist who is interested in people, and I have empathy for Bush as a human being, much the same as I did for Castro, Nixon, Jim Morrison, Jim Garrison and Alexander the Great."
I was actually looking forward to both Pinkville and Escobar, another biopic about Pablo Escobar. However, both of those seem to be on hold because of the strike. If Oliver Stone can really pull off something as incredible as The Queen, then I'm all for it. But Josh Brolin as Bush? That just doesn't seem right at all! I think Josh Brolin is an incredible actor who deserves an Oscar for one of his many great performances this year, but he just doesn't seem like Bush at all. What do you think?
