+4
That's just magazine talk. If there really and truly were a formula, don't you think everybody not releasing a summer blockbuster or horror movie would follow it?
What that article was doing, in a slightly cheeky way, is saying that certain types of productions tend to wind up with a bunch of the nominations, year after year. But that doesn't mean that every single costume drama from the U.K. is any kind of lock for any award, Oscar or otherwise. In general biopics that take themselves seriously (sometimes too seriously) starring actors who have earned nominations or even actual Oscars before tend to be one or two of the usual suspects in the running.
Last year, for example, The Last Station, a piece about the end of Tolstoy's life and his relationship with his wife, garnered nominations for its leads Christopher Plummer, an aging veteran who had yet to be so honored in his long career, and Helen Mirren, a former Oscar winner marking her fourth nomination overall. And that despite the fact that it had almost zero box office in the U.S. But it was that kind of picture, with the right cast.
But even with the Best Picture nominee pool expanding to ten films, The Last Station did not make that cut, and Plummer and Mirren's nods were the film's only chances.
Yet while The Last Station sort of proves that formulaic checklist as a path to Oscar nominations, at the same time other films from last year such as Stephen Frears' Cheri starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Jane Campion's Bright Star, and Young Victoria starring Emily Blunt just as quickly disprove it, since they all had similar ingredients yet did NOT break through for any major Oscar noms. And of course The Hurt Locker, which follows just about zero points from any so-called checklist on how to win major Academy Awards, was named Best Picture. There is no Oscar playbook.
As screenwriter William Goldman famously said of Hollywood, "Nobody knows anything. It's all bullsh!t."
Amen.
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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra
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