Jewish hopes at the Academy Awards
IT'S Oscar time and there's plenty of Jewish interest this year. Adam Kamien reports on the contenders and looks at likely winners.
ADAM KAMIEN
THE Academy Awards will be announced in Hollywood on Sunday, March 7 (Monday afternoon Australian time) and as always there are plenty of movies with Jewish filmmakers or themes in the running.
It’s been a long time coming for legendary actress Lauren Bacall, who has received an honourary Oscar after close to 70 years in show business. The former wife of Humphrey Bogart and star of such iconic films as How to Marry a Millionaire, The Big Sleep and The Mirror Has Two Faces, Bacall is still acting at 85.
Quentin Tarantino’s revenge fantasy about a group of Jewish soldiers that brutalise Nazis in occupied Paris, Inglourious Basterds, has eight nominations including best film, while Jewish director Jason Reitman’s Up In the Air received six nominations.
Christoph Waltz’s role as the nefarious Jew Hunter in Inglorious Basterds has earned him a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, while Jewish actress Maggie Gyllenhaal is up for Best Supporting Actress for her role opposite Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart.
Coen brothers Ethan and Joel are up for two awards for their film A Serious Man, about a Jewish man who seeks the counsel of rabbis as he struggles to cope with life in 1960s Minneapolis.
An Education divided Jewish audiences because of its Shylock-like Jewish central character. Nonetheless, it was very well received and is up for three awards.
JJ Abram’s iteration in the Star Trek franchise has been an overwhelming critical and commercial success, the sci-fi adventure, garnering four nods, mostly in the technical categories.
There is a healthy Israeli presence as well. Ajami, named after a poor suburb of Tel Aviv, follows five different stories and has been described a gritty urban crime drama, the likes of City of God or Gomorrah. It has been nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Israeli-born writer/director Oren Moverman is also up for a gong, his film The Messenger, about two soldiers whose duty it is inform families their loved ones have been killed in action, is up for Best Screenplay, with star Woody Harrelson tapped for Best Supporting Actor.
Composer and satirist Randy Newman has achieved the remarkable feat of being nominated twice in the same category, the legendary recording artist nominated twice for the Best Original Song Oscar, for songs he wrote for Disney animated film, The Princess and the Frog
Fantastic Mr Fox, starring Jewish actor Jason Schwartzman’s and based on the Roald Dahl book, has been nominated for Best Animated Feature.