“Dreamgirls” is out. So what’d the Bagger tell you? Oh yeah, he said that the day it premiered in New York it would win everything. And while it was nominated for almost everything — eight nods in all — it didn’t make the Big Five lineup, so this is a crushing result for Paramount/Dreamworks The rest of the best picture stuff went as planned, but the slot that everyone thought would go to “Dreamgirls” went to “Letters From Iwo Jima.”  What happened? Mainly, Clint Eastwood, deep into his career, innovated midstream and came up with a Japanese take on the Battle of Iwo Jima. It’s the kind of artistic and entrepreneurial performance that merits recognition and the Academy gave it. Oh, and by the way, “Letters” is a great movie in any language.  “Dreamgirls” also got skunked when it came to best director, perhaps because the voters had seen it before in “Chicago.” Still, the movie is an exquisite restaging of the stage musical and seemed worthy of a nomination. But the Academy, and this is just the Bagger typing in a hotel room, apparently decided that that there was not enough movie in the movie. The Bagger fell for all the stitching between songs, but others did not.  Some will suggest that it is a race thing, that an all black cast has a hard time with the Academy, but check out the diversity among the actor nominations and ignore that excuse.  It is an irony of the process — and a very interesting wrinkle going forward –that the one movie that seemed to have Oscar as a hood ornament will be going to the show without a shot at best picture. So which of the five nominees is now the favorite?  Put another way, who’d want to be the favorite in this race? Look instead for all the best picture hopefuls to claim that they are the underdogs and that their rivals are the frontrunners.
David Carr of The New York Times reports on the money, power and competition that make movie awards full contact sports.