The Oscars

Ah, the Oscars.

In no other context do we countenance, much less watch with rapt attention, a host of rich and famous folks spending a long, formal evening patting each other on the back for their brilliance.

Do you think investment bankers could get away with such a tableau?

On the other hand, one does enjoy seeing genuine merit rewarded even when it's a makeup call. And anticlimax is something at which the Academy Awards is expert. Many actors have won statuettes for lesser work after great performances have gone begging, and it looks like Jeff Bridges has a better than even chance of becoming the latest top-of-the-line actor to be recognized -- well after he should have been.

When co-hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin lift the curtain on the 82nd annual Oscar telecast tonight at 8 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood (locally on WCIV-TV Channel 4), Bridges will be the sentimental Best Actor favorite for his work in "Crazy Heart."

Not to say he wasn't good. Quite good, in fact, as was co-star and fellow Oscar nominee Maggie Gyllenhaal, although in an unexceptional movie shot through with every boozy-music-star-on-the-skids cliche known to filmdom. After notable performances in worthy pictures such as "Cutter's Way," "American Heart" and "Fearless," a better vehicle would have been preferred for this potential Payback.

The Payback Annals

The Payback has its analog in sports: the blown call and the makeup call, wherein a sheepish referee who realizes he's blundered quietly tries to rectify the mistake on a subsequent play.

Oscar's history is full of Paybacks, which are distinguished from "career-achievement" awards (for actors who never won but should have) masquerading as a given year's "Best of" nominee. The Payback also differs markedly from the Long Overdue Acknowledgment, which dispenses Academy Awards to oft-nominated people who previously had not won -- for example, Geraldine Page for "The Trip to Bountiful" (1985) after eight prior nominations.

Yet actresses do not seem to have been accorded them that often, perhaps because fewer good roles are written for them to begin with -- since the '50s, anyway. A conspicuous modern exception is Holly Hunter. Fine though she was in "The Piano" (1993), her Oscar should have been earned for a comic tour de force in "Broadcast News" (1987).

Several classic examples of the Payback stand out.

Paul Newman had the bad luck to give the finest performance of his career ("The Verdict," 1982) the same year Ben Kingsley was a lock for "Gandhi." When Newman won in 1986 for "The Color of Money," it seemed to be a Payback Oscar. The problem is that one injustice creates another; superior work by James Woods ("Salvador") and Bob Hoskins ("Mona Lisa") that same year was penalized by the settling of scores.

Most actors accept the Payback graciously, though who can forget Jeremy Irons' pointed comments while retrieving the 1990 Best Actor statuette for "Reversal of Fortune." Two years earlier, to the bafflement of everyone, the Academy overlooked his astounding work in "Dead Ringers," one of the most accomplished performances in memory. Irons made it clear he felt he'd been robbed before and through a rather forced smile made his displeasure plain.

Who else received Oscar makeup calls? Try the late Jack Lemmon, Michael Caine, Elizabeth Taylor and Denzel Washington, just to name a sampling.

'Ava-tired'

If only James Cameron's "Avatar" had a story as sophisticated as its spectacle. Here is a movie that at times is absolutely magical, even transportive (especially in 3-D), a quantum leap technologically that, if not for its violence, anachronistic military content and hackneyed third act, might have been ranked among the most imaginative children's films ever made. Instead, it's a breathtakingly immersive, if inflated, video game.

Cameron's black-and-white view of life, coupled with grade school-level enviro-moralizing and a cliche-ridden plotline, a Cameron specialty, weakens what otherwise is a truly remarkable movie.

"Avatar" doubtless will sweep most of the technical awards. And therein lies its fundamental hypocrisy. Cameron marries an argument against raping the environment to a more disturbing argument against scientific progress. And what irony! Cameron spent half a billion dollars on the most advanced technology he could find, then argues that the only path to survival is to abandon advanced technology and return to the simple lifestyles of ancient hunter-gatherer people.

Naming it Best Picture in a year of such intelligent, grown-up fare as "The Hurt Locker" would be lamentable.

The nominees are ...

Other than Bridges, none of this year's nominees -- making up an intriguing cast of household names (Meryl Streep) and the relatively obscure (Christoph Waltz of "Inglourious Basterds") -- fall into the Payback category. What they do offer are some interesting races, especially in the acting, directing and screenwriting arenas. In the latter, former lovebirds Cameron ("Avatar") and Kathryn Bigelow ("The Hurt Locker") go at it hammer and tongs. If they split the vote, and they might, don't be shocked to see Jason Reitman win for "Up in the Air."

With a quartet of deserving Oscar nominees -- Reitman for director, George Clooney as Best Actor and Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick as Best Supporting Actress -- "Up in the Air" may surprise. But the real neck-and-neck race is between Streep for "Julie & Julia" and Sandra Bullock for "The Blind Side." Oscar generally favors youth, remember, so odds favor the Girl Next Door.

One only wishes the customary ranks of the overlooked did not include actresses Emily Blunt and Abbie Cornish, so good this past year in a pair of period pieces ("The Young Victoria," "Bright Star"), and Christian McKay, who gave an extraordinary performance as the rampant auteur of "Me and Orson Welles."

As to that, what we have here is a case of transparent pandering.

In an effort to bolster sagging TV ratings for its telecast -- ratings often climb in years when blockbusters are in the running -- the Academy reverted to the old practice of nominating 10 films for Best Picture this year as opposed to the usual five.

From 1932 to 1943, there were 10 and sometimes as many as 12 (1934, 1935) nominees for Best Picture at the Oscars. Finding it increasingly difficult to come up with 10 worthy nominees (even in the last years of Hollywood's Golden Age), the Academy dropped the Best Picture field to five in 1944, where it remained until 2010.

All one need do is look at some of those in the running in 2010 to know it's about ticket sales and mass audience popularity rather than excellence, the same problem as pop music's Grammys.

Some will applaud, but this maneuver risks further undermining the Oscars' significance and reputation in an awards-obsessed world.

To be sure, the Academy Awards already is a four-hour commercial for the film industry, and good for business. But a watered-down Oscar that's indistinguishable from a zillion other awards shows? Heaven forfend.

Reach Bill Thompson at bthompson@postandcourier.com or 937-5707