Exactly how weak is the Best Picture contender list? A lot of films so far have fallen by the wayside, and more will follow suit before long. The only dug-in finalists by my barometer are Capote and Brokeback Mountain. (Haven’t yet seen the apparently well-regarded Memoirs of a Geisha.) The highly-rated possibles are Walk The Line, The Constant Gardener, Syriana, The New World and Crash. Tea-leaf readings are telling me Munich will fall short, but that and $1.75 will get you a bus ticket. The reality that nobody seems to want to face up to is that Cinderella Man, easily one of the year’s best, ought to be a finalist. I’ve always felt that the quality of a film ought to be a factor…naive as that may sound.
