Awards Watch: What is this year's Million Dollar Baby?

Last year's awards season had to have been one of the dullest in recent memory. Any spark of excitement that might have been just barely allowed to ignite when films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Vera Drake earned early recognition was quickly sapped out the air as Million Dollar Baby began to enact its come-from-behind euthanasia. It's a question some of us have been pondering for months: what would end up being this year's Million Dollar Baby? Which film would show up late in the game and suddenly slam the old-news critical favorites out of contention?

Now that the Golden Globe nominations have been announced, and most of the critics prizes are in, it's hard to say if this year's awards season is going to follow last year's lackluster pattern. On this day last year, the big story was Sideways, which had suddenly swelled from festival favorite into inescapable kudos hog. That film, of course, went on to demonstrate a fair amount of impotence when to came to actually winning awards, but just its early season dominance was enough to distract attention away from supposed much-surer things. Might Martin Scorsese have had a better chance at riding The Aviator to a long-overdue first Oscar win had the little wine comedy not snatched up all the buzz?

It would be easy to call Brokeback Mountain this year's Sideways (and I'm fairly sure David Poland already has). Widely considered a second-tier contender just a week or two ago, it's now shown up at or near the top of most every year-end list announced (for the record: it'll make my Top Ten, but probably somewhere in the bottom half). But does it have any more of a chance than that film – which was ultimately passed over in favor of the more "serious" (read: emotionally manipulative and wannabe relevant) Million Dollar Baby? Brokeback Mountain certainly takes itself seriously, but it's easy to see some factions of the Academy dismissing it as "just a love story" – and that's before the gay stuff even enters into it. At first point, the film has been out in three markets for less than a week, and it's hype machine has already danced dangerously close to the unfortunate altitude of overexposure. It would be wise, I think, to start looking out for spoilers.

As far as I can tell, there are only three films that have a shot of leapfrogging over Brokeback in the middle of the race. Here they are, in ascending order of potential:

• Munich: Weeks ago, early prognosticators were all but handing Steven Spielberg's "controversial" drama the Oscar. How did it go from assumed champ to unlikely player? The answer to that question is surprisingly simple: whilst is surely has its fans, too many voices are piping up to say that it's not as good as it should/could/might have been. Take into consideration the continuing murmurs as to its historical inaccuracies, and the general shrug it received from the HFPA, and Munich's chances look indeed bleak. So why have I put it on a list of potential come-from-behind champions? Because it's Steven Spielberg, and he simply doesn't stay behind for very long. He remembers Saving Private Ryan v. Shakespeare in Love just as well as you and I do. After losing to a romance once, I doubt he's just going to sit back and watch it happen again. Expect him to rip up that so-called press embargo within the next couple of weeks and become a major fixture on the dinner circuit. All he needs is a Best Picture nomination – once he's on the ballot, a good deal of voters too lazy or squeamish to throw their weight behind either Brokeback or A History of Violence will vote for Munich based on brand alone.
• The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada -  Tommy Lee Jones' directorial debut opens on one or two screens this week for Oscar qualifying, and then it'll disappear until early next spring. I haven't seen it; nor have most of the people with whom I gossip about these things on IM all day. But the six or seven critics who have reviewed it have lavished the border-set semi-Western with praise, and a feature story on the film's inception in last Sunday's New York Times seems to be having its desired, buzz-building effect. In short, Burials, heretofore all but ignored by the Critics circles, has the makings of a true, from-out-of-nowhere late season contender. It's also one of the few films left on the 2005 slate that the spoiled/jaded princess writing this sentence is truly looking forward to seeing. It looks like a good thing to keep our eyes on,
• Match Point: Very few normal people have seen Woody Allen's stunner yet, but every critic I know who has had the pleasure has been quietly championing it for months. And yet, if we're talking about underdog victories, it's still got an awful lot going for it. It opens on December 29, which is about as late in the game as it gets, so it'll still be fresh when the season is at its peak; it seems to represent a huge comeback for a filmmaker (Woody Allen, of course) in desperate need of a career revitalization; it's got the ingenue factor going for it, which never hurts (and considering Scarlett Johansson is about the classiest young starlet around, in this case it can only help). The real test will be to see if it catches on with audiences. If the in-transiton Dreamworks doesn't drop the ball on the marketing end (personally, I think it could use a new trailer), I don't see any reason why Woody Allen couldn't take on the gay cowboys and win.