10 Surefire Ways to Score Oscar Recognition
10 Surefire Ways to Score Oscar Recognition
This Year's Crop of Contenders Are Wooing the Academy With Tried and True Tactics
By SHEILA MARIKAR
Feb. 2, 2009
Daniel Day-Lewis in "My Left Foot." Tom Hanks in "Philadelphia." Gwyneth Paltrow in "Shakespeare in Love." All are Academy Award winners; all fit into a set of unwritten criteria believed to be the Oscar "type."
Yes, like women who veer toward bad boys and men who seek out trophy wives, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has a type. And if filmmakers play to it, they have a surer shot at scoring the most prestigious trophy in the industry.
This fact becomes the stuff of spoof during Oscar season. On a recent episode of NBC's "30 Rock," the self-absorbed Jenna Maroney wailed about wanting to win an Oscar playing a disabled version of '60s crooner Janis Joplin: "The academy loves dead singers and the handicapped, and Janis was both!"
Insensitive? Perhaps. But entirely off base? No.
Looking at the roster of Oscar-winning films, it's easy to come up with a checklist of criteria capable of wooing academy voters.
Below, check out ABCNews.com's take on 10 ways movies can win an Oscar -- or at least get nominated for the award -- and see how this year's crop of contenders might fare.
( 1. Jenna Maroney was right... )