I found this interesting article on MSNBC.com.
I'm not sure if I total agree with this.

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Five ways to turn your film into Oscar bait
Lots of movies try to give the Academy what it wants, but few succeed

COMMENTARY
By Alonso Duralde
Film critic
msnbc.com contributor
updated 5:01 p.m. PT, Mon., Jan. 5, 2009

Some of my recent favorite reviews from other film critics involve calling out movies that were clearly made with awards on the brain.

Take blogger Paul Matwychuk’s dissection of “The Reader,” in which he places it among “end-of-year Miramaxian prestige pictures” that feature impeccable “actors’ accents and costumes…noticeably impeccable, in a way that makes you feel you’d be remiss not to comment on them approvingly.”

Or the observation by Andrew Tracy of ReverseShot.com that “in any sane world, ‘Revolutionary Road’ would be laughed off as a joyless embarrassment before we moved on to more pressing business. Yet while this latest Oscar-baiting turkey will doubtlessly find its ultimate fate in the critical memory hole, the reason for the season demands that we speak of it as if it deserved serious consideration.”

But "Oscar-baiting” is the name of the game in Hollywood. It’s as though the industry were seeking penance for 10 months of mindless romantic comedies, teen slasher flicks and breathless action movies by cramming all of its Quality-with-a-capital-Q movies into the last six weeks of the year.

Not that 2008 was a year that required enormous amounts of penance — while “WALL-E” and “The Dark Knight” are topping most of the year-end critics’ polls, many of those critics would no doubt rather sit through a second viewing of “Iron Man” or “Role Models” than “Seven Pounds” or “Australia.”

In taking a look at this year’s would-be awards fodder and holding it up to the Oscar nominees of recent years, a pattern definitely emerges regarding what films have the right elements to get some love from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Here’s a peek at the movies that sucked up to Oscar just right, as well as a few that were either too awful — or too cool — to get an invitation to the Kodak Theatre:

Strategy 1: Reduce historical events and personalities to easily-chewable, bite-size nuggets

Complexity is for academics. If you can’t boil it down to good guys and bad guys — and keep it at around two hours — voters can’t be bothered.

2008 examples: “The Reader,” “Milk,” “Frost/Nixon,” “Defiance.” Whether it was World War II, post-Watergate fallout or the dawn of the U.S.’s gay political movement, there was no history-making story so complicated that these movies couldn’t transform it into digestible entertainment. Extra brownie points to “Milk” and “Frost/Nixon” for tying into the zeitgeist thanks to, respectively, the renewed battles over same-sex marriage and Bush/Cheney sharing Nixon’s notions about presidential power.

Recent Oscar faves: “The Queen,” “Blood Diamond,” “Letters from Iwo Jima,” “Munich”

Oscar won’t like: “Che,” which assiduously avoided the clichés and shortcuts of the Hollywood biopic in portraying the life of revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara. It’s a movie that doesn’t tell you what to think, nor does it try to tame the messiness of history to fit in a neat package. Oscar-wise, it’s doomed.

Runner-up: “Australia,” not because it was even-handed by any stretch, but for plopping a storyline about the “Stolen Generation” of Australian Aboriginals amidst sweeping romance and epic magical cattle drives.

Strategy 2: Showcase a single bravura performance

Even if your movie gets ignored in almost every other category, spotlight one extraordinary piece of acting — preferably, but not necessarily, by a movie star working way outside of his or her comfort zone — and your movie will get as much mileage out of the Oscars as the multiple nominees do.

2008 examples: “Gran Torino,” “The Wrestler.” Both films have their fans, but it’s clear that each film’s best bet to be a player in the upcoming Oscar race is to focus on the male lead. There’s even a good sentimental hook: Clint Eastwood says that “Torino” will be his last lead acting role — oh, and he’s never won an acting Oscar, incidentally — while Mickey Rourke’s stunning turn in “The Wrestler” gets extra juice by having the role (a washed-up ’80s star gets another shot at fame and redemption) so closely mirror the performer.

Recent Oscar faves: “Monster,” “Boys Don’t Cry,” “Monster’s Ball”

Oscar won’t like: “Seven Pounds,” even though star Will Smith snagged a best actor nomination for “The Pursuit of Happyness,” his previous collaboration with director Gabriele Muccino. This time, Smith gives an inert performance in a script that could kindly be called bonkers, so it’s unlikely that this specific lightning will strike twice.

Strategy 3: Take a complex play or novel and streamline it for the screen

When I lived in Dallas, it was often noted that no artists from that city were ever taken seriously unless they had moved to New York or Los Angeles and found success there first. Hollywood has a similar inferiority complex when it comes to the theater and the published word; adaptations from other media always get the tiniest bit more respect from the picture people.

2008 examples: “Frost/Nixon,” “Doubt,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Revolutionary Road,” “The Reader”

Or, if you prefer, two Broadway hits, a short story that long resisted adaptation and two acclaimed novels. These five films have more going for them, Oscar-wise, than their respective pedigrees, but don’t think those pedigrees aren’t helping.

Recent Oscar faves: “No Country for Old Men,” “Atonement,” “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” “Dreamgirls,” “Notes on a Scandal,” the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy

Oscar won’t like: The haunting and beautiful “Elegy,” an adaptation of Philip Roth’s “The Dying Animal,” which some critics attacked for not hewing closely enough to the source material. Not that such fidelity matters much to Oscar voters — it’s just unlikely that many of them saw the movie.

Strategy 4: Dazzle them with craftsmanship

Academy members aren’t above being awed by spectacle, so they often ladle on the nominations in technical categories for movies they either didn’t otherwise like, as well as for films that operate in genres (fantasy, science-fiction, musical) that they aren’t always prepared to take seriously. If these nominations for cinematography, costumes, etc. get added onto a film that’s also scoring in the acting, writing and directing categories, so much the better.

2008 examples: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Australia,” “Slumdog Millionaire”

Recent Oscar faves: “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Matrix,” “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series

Oscar won’t like: “Synecdoche, New York,” which has a decent shot at a best original screenplay nomination. Its elaborate and visionary production design, however, won’t be the kind to dazzle Academy voters. It’s complicated in an analog and quotidian way that dares to be confusing on the first viewing, and I suspect its accomplishments will be lost among its razzlier and dazzlier competition.

Strategy 5: Cast Leonardo DiCaprio as your lead

This is one of those chicken/egg conundrums: Does DiCaprio pick the kind of material that the Academy loves, or does the Academy love the material because DiCaprio picked it? In any event, he’s become a fairly steady bellwether for Oscar’s path in the last few years.

2008 example: “Revolutionary Road”

Recent Oscar faves: “The Departed,” “Blood Diamond,” “The Aviator”

Oscar won’t like: “Body of Lies.” Granted, it had the misfortune of being part of a recent wave of War on Terror movies — “Stop-Loss,” “Rendition,” “Redacted,” “The Kingdom,” “Lions for Lambs” — that audiences shunned in droves. Given that the film won’t rank among the finest efforts of DiCaprio, his co-star Russell Crowe, or director Ridley Scott, however, “Body” probably would have been both a box office and Oscar dud whenever it was released.

I've always felt that Adapted Screenplays get some heavy respect, but it still comes back to bite them sometimes; one of Atonement's hater comments was that it didn't capture the novel's theme (even though I feel that the film should be viewed as a seperate piece of 'art,' no matter how loyal it is to the source).

I think the DiCaprio factor is a funny one. Now that I think about it, I haven't seen a film he's in that I've been more or less disappointed in. But he's my favorite actor of his generation, so I might be bias.

I thought that the DiCaprio one was funny too. I like his work. But like Winslet, (I don't know what it is about thses two), but I think that they'll both get nominated many times before they even get to Win one. I think that the his best shot to win was for The Aviator but for that year it went to Jamie Foxx.

quote:

Originally posted by caresa:
I thought that the DiCaprio one was funny too. I like his work. But like Winslet, (I don't know what it is about thses two), but I think that they'll both get nominated many times before they even get to Win one. I think that the his best shot to win was for The Aviator but for that year it went to Jamie Foxx.

I would suggest looking out for Shutter Island, coming out this year. Set in 1954, the events center around a U.S. Marshal named Teddy Daniels who investigates the disappearance a murderess, and ... well, it sounds like Oscar bait. Especially with Scorsese directing.

But the trouble with 2009 is that Johnny Depp, another guy who deserves a golden boy, is playing John Dillinger, a Chicago gangster. I'm excited about that too, and that's Michael Mann directing.

Could this year be a Depp vs. DiCaprio year? Or even better, Scorsese vs. Mann? Fun things to think about.

More than anything, though, I'm curious how Leo's going to do in the title role of Scorsese's upcoming Teddy Roosevelt project. That's right... DiCaprio's playing the Bull Moose.

Yes, I'm looking out for Shutter Island too! More so, because Michelle Williams is in this but I'm excited to see both Williams and DiCaprio finally working together.

It's definitely going to be a tough Oscar race next year as well.

Depp Vs. DiCaprio? Wow! Can't wait to see both performances!