“The Aviator” and Jamie Foxx take the top honors in The Malibu Times’ Academy Awards Ballot contest. Sandy Dawson becomes the newspaper’s official Movie Guru.
By Kevin Connelly/Special to The Malibu Times
Quite a bit of stock each winter is put into what various members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decide are the year’s most outstanding films. Their decisions have been known to render even grown men-see “Ray” star Jamie Foxx-to tears.
And The Malibu Times each year asks readers to cast their vote and make their call on who they think will most likely cry at the Academy Awards, with the voter who came the closest overall to the Academy’s decisions earning the title of The Malibu Times Movie Guru.
The winner this year is Sandy Dawson from Pacific Palisades, who made 15 out of 18 correct selections. Three voters came a close second, scoring 14s. In addition to the Movie Guru title, Dawson has won 10 free passes to the New Malibu Theatre.
Here’s how readers voted overall in several categories:
In what proved to be a runaway for The Malibu Times’ Best Picture award, 40 out of a total of 76 local voters thought Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator” soared above the rest. With a modest 21 votes, Clint Eastwood’s “Million Dollar Baby”-winner of the Best Picture Award on Sunday’s award show-could have used a bit more punch.
None of the Academy’s other Best Picture-nominated films-“Finding Neverland,” “Ray” and “Sideways”-received more than eight votes from the newspaper’s readership.
Eastwood quickly bounced back up from the canvas though, garnering 41 Best Director votes and edging Scorsese by a mere seven votes. “Ray’s” Taylor Hackford received one vote, while the other nominated directors-Alexander Payne of “Sideways” and Mike Leigh of “Vera Drake-were shut out.
Hackford’s movie was not completely disregarded by the voters though, rising dramatic star Jamie Foxx received the most votes for any category, 59 for Male Lead, for his role as Ray Charles in the biopic “Ray.” Malibu resident Leonardo DiCaprio did not get much love from his neighbors as he finished second with eight votes for his portrayal of mercurial business tycoon and airplane enthusiast Howard Hughes. Foxx took home an Oscar for Best Actor.
The Malibu race for Male Supporting Actor was not much closer, with “Million Dollar Baby’s” Morgan Freeman flying by the competition with 41 votes to Alan Alda’s 11 for his role in ‘The Aviator.” Freeman, the well-revered Hollywood veteran who has previously appeared in beloved movies like “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Seven,” won the Oscar in the same category, his first such award to date.
In the female categories, “Million Dollar Baby’s” Hilary Swank defended her Oscar with 39 Malibu reader votes for Female Lead while Cate Blanchett did the same in the Best Supporting category with 32 votes for her portrayal of Katherine Hepburn in “The Aviator.” The respective runners-up were “Being Julia’s” Annette Bening, with 27 votes, and “Sideways” actress Virginia Madsen, with 19.
The other top vote-getters from Malibu readers were: “Sideways” for Adapted Screenplay; “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” for Original Screenplay; “The Aviator” for Cinematography, Costume design and Film Editing; “Accidentally in Love” from “Shrek 2” for Original Song; “Super Size Me” for Documentary Feature; “The Sea Inside” for Foreign Language Film; “Spiderman 2” for Visual Effects; “Lorenzo” for Animated Short Film; “Finding Neverland” for Original Score and “The Incredibles” for Sound Editing.