Trusty favourites will be out in force at the Oscars late tomorrow night. Michael Dwyer, Film Correspondent, predicts who will get the statuettes
The clock is ticking towards Groundhog Day for the film industry. The old - and not-so-old favourites - are out in force yet again. Meryl Streep, a two-time winner who this year is shortlisted as best supporting actress for Adaptation, is on her 13th nomination, a record for any performer in the 75-year history of the Oscars. Jack Nicholson, who has won three Oscars, is back again with his 12th nomination for About Schmidt, the most achieved by a man in the acting categories.
Sound mixer Kevin O'Connell also may be making history. He already shares the dubious distinction - with art director Roland Anderson and composer Alex North - of achieving 15 nominations without a single win. O'Connell could lead the record books if, as seems likely, he loses on his 16th nomination for his work on Spider-Man.
More predictably, composer John Williams is in the arena yet again, for the 42nd time with Catch me If You Can, just three short of the record held by composer Alfred Newman. Even more predictably, Miramax Films, which appears obsessed with collecting Academy kudos, has swept the board, scooping a remarkable 40 nominations as producer or distributor. And thereby hangs many a tale.
Most uncannily, there is the close resemblance between the most heavily nominated films in this year's race and in the 1972 contest. One is a period gangster movie with an extended and troubled production history, directed by an Italian-American and featuring a remarkable actor in his first major role for five years. The other is the movie of a hit Broadway musical written by John Kander and Fred Ebb, and directed by a theatre veteran.
Even the first initials are the same: in 1972, the films were Cabaret and The Godfather; this year, Chicago and Gangs of New York. In 1972 Cabaret collected eight awards from its 10 nominations, including best director (Bob Fosse) and best actress (Liza Minnelli), while The Godfather had to be content with three Oscars, although one was best picture, and another was best actor for Marlon Brando.
Can history repeat itself this year? Conceivably, yes, in numerical terms, but the gangster picture doesn't have a hope of taking best picture. Miramax supremo Harvey Weinstein has conducted such an exhaustive campaign to secure the best director Oscar for Martin Scorsese that the backlash now seems inevitable.
William Goldman, a two-time Oscar-winning screenwriter, had the temerity to opine in Variety that while Scorsese well merited the Oscar in the past, he does not deserve it for Gangs of New York. Goldman went on to despair that the Hollywood parties Scorsese has been attending "must make him want to barf, but there he is, glad-handing any Academy member in the vicinity who might throw him a vote". Miramax crossed a bridge too far when it persuaded the 88-year-old Robert Wise, a former Academy president and an Oscar winner for both West Side Story and The Sound of Music, to write an article supporting the Scorsese campaign, which Miramax used in full-page newspaper advertisements. Even an industry apparently immune to the worst excesses of hype was repelled, and all the more so when it turned out the article was written by a Miramax publicist.
This year's only best picture nominee in which Miramax does not have an interest is The Pianist, Roman Polanski's Holocaust drama, which has also drawn attention for all the wrong reasons.
Even if Polanski wins the Oscar for best picture or best director for The Pianist tomorrow night, Gil Cates, the producer of the televised awards ceremony, has ruled out the option of a live link to Paris, where Polanski lives.
As a fugitive from justice in the US since he jumped bail in 1977, Polanski would be arrested if he travelled to Los Angeles for the awards. Samantha Geimer, who was 13 when Polanski allegedly drugged and raped her in 1977, recently told the Los Angeles Times: "I don't really have any hard feelings toward him, or any sympathy, either. He is a stranger to me." All of which leaves Gil Cates and his team with a plateful of hot potatoes even before the awards ceremony gets underway at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood at 5.30 p.m. - 1.30 a.m. Irish time.
There is the further and inevitable embarrassment of some presenters or award-winners using the Oscars platform - and its massive worldwide TV audience - to attack the invasion of Iraq. Thousands of anti-war protesters are expected to turn up before the ceremony, but the LAPD has declared that it will be cordoned off a few blocks away from the venue.
Even Taoiseach Bertie Ahern can't sleep soundly on Sunday night, given that the only Irish nominees this year, both for Gangs of New York, are U2, up for best original song with their anthemic The Hands That Built America from Gangs of New York, and Irish citizen Daniel Day-Lewis, a best actor nominee. Each has excellent prospects for an Oscar, and the likelihood is that either or both could say awkward things about the war if and when they win.