Cinerant

Now This Gets Me Excited

Of course, one of the movies I'm the most excited about this year is seeing Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, and Sasha Baron Cohen sing in Sweeney Todd. I'm even more excited about that than I am seeing Michelle Pfeiffer sing in Hairspray or Julie Taymor's totally trippy Beatles musical, Across the Universe. I mean, come on this has to be a good year for movies, right/ Because there's TWO Soderbergh pictures coming out. (Ocean's Thirteen and Che.

Nevertheless, Dave Poland is already predicting that Depp will win the Oscar next year for his swinging, ravenous barber! Here's his blurb:
I really don't want to get into next year's awards yet. (This has not stopped me from talking to some reporters about it.) At some point, one has to stop complaining and just hold back.

Also, next year is no clear read. Movies like Che' (Episode One) could arrive... or not. Movies like Sweeney Todd could deliver... or not. Strong foreign directors like Suzanne Bier could become strong US-studio film directors... or not. And veterans like Mike Nichols could be unstoppable... or not.

So...

Just this.

I believe now that Johnny Depp is a 95% bet to be nominated for Best Actor as the title character in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in a very, very crowded field of 2007 male movie performances… and an 80% chance to win.

Word from the set about his performance - from multiple sources - is excellent. He was nominated in the last two years before missing this year with the Pirates sequel. But the Pirates threequel is actually more a help than a hindrance. Huge box office power followed by an unexpected (though people have come to expect the unexpected from Depp) performance as the lead of a Grand Guignol opera… manna from heaven to Academy voters who are more than ready to deliver this guy an Oscar.

Leo will get one eventually for the right role. Mark Wahlberg is probably the next guy to become an “actor’s favorite” regular in races, even for less than Oscar-y roles. Ryan Gosling can probably have whatever he wants to have in this regard.

But Depp is like an aesthetic zit that actors are drooling to pop. To paraphrase what someone said, actors want to be him and actresses want to be with him, on screen and off. We’re a long, long way from The Ninth Gate and The Astronaut’s Wife.

The film can miss and Depp will still be nominated if he is any good at all. And it seems unlikely that he will be anything less than fantastic… which makes him the one clear frontrunner for 2007/8’s award season.

14% of the 20% of not winning is that there will be a film that comes along – none is clearly in sight right now – that will be overwhelming, have an overwhelming lead male performance, and will become unstoppable, turning Depp’s work into a “stunt” that can be overlooked in the finals. 1% is that Depp just isn’t that good. And 5% is just plain “other.”

Edie Murphy as James “Thunder” Early did stink of Oscar. And so does Depp as Sweeney Todd. The biggest question is whether he could sing the role. But everyone from Sondheim, who auditioned him, to everyone who I know of who has heard him sing this role, is “thumbs up.”

The reasons Depp is far more of a probable to win than Murphy are, a) it will be his third nomination, b) he is seen as an artist by almost everyone, c) he doesn’t carry any of Murphy’s baggage of being black, a comedian, 99.9% unavailable (Depp is at about 85%, though he is good at hiding in Europe and not making the press hate him for being unavailable), or a wearer of fat suits, and d) he is the lead, not a supporting actor, where quirky performances are more common.

And so, that is my one deeply believed projection into next year’s race. The rest, I would truly be guessing… even more than in year’s past. Even from this distance, you can see that the studios are not even making the big, obvious Oscar films for this fall. Perhaps the surprise appearance of one will be, like The Departed, a feature of next year’s race. Maybe not.

But for now, time to shut down my Oscar brain for a while. Time to consider what to do next season and not just how quickly it can be done.

posted by cinegod @ 4:23 PM