He's 13 1/2 inches tall. He wears only a sword. He's shiny. Everybody wants him. He's the Naked Gold Man and this is a new weekly Sunday series --my attempt to keep Oscar discussion corralled in the weekends ...at least until we're truly in the season.

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Let's start with Michael Clayton, a very serious fellow. Some people have rushed to take the legal drama off their Oscar lists due to a solid but non explosive opening weekend and the still sturdier if not hosanna-filled reviews. Anne Thompson worried that Warner Bros was releasing too wide for the "delicate" business of kudos seeking fare. David Poland countered the wave of negativity in the box office articles, reminding everyone that this wasn't a terrible take for a serious fall drama... I'd agree with that assessment. What did people expect?

To paraphrase the movie in question: Michael isn't a miracle worker. He's an Oscar contender. Any pre November Oscar arrival needs sturdier legs more than it needs a splashy entrance. Flashier competition will undoubtedly surface but there's always a chance for a sober entry to stick. And Michael Clayton may prove a resourceful contender.

The most obvious weapon in its arsenal: the cast.

<--- Tom Wilkinson has made almost two dozen movies since his one and only Oscar nomination for In the Bedroom six years ago. That's a lotta acting. Detractors might say he does a lotta acting as "Arthur Edens" too --'too much' in other words. But I disagree. And even if I didn't: Oscar voters don't typically object to a lotta acting. It can't be easy to navigate a mentally ill character with crazy making fecal focused monologues, striptease breakdowns, and inappropriate romantic drives and still keep something valuable in reserve for your character's final act. He does. Wilkinson flips off his crazy switch at exactly the moment the movie most needs him to reign it in and it's a beauty of a scene, forcing the audience to recalibrate their take on his character. If AMPAS voters like the movie at all, he's a shortlister.

But he isn't elevating the movie alone. Michael Clayton triangulates between three big roles. Wilkinson's is but the most obvious sharp point from which to hang Oscar Bait. Once hooked, voters will notice that Wilkinson isn't the only one sweating for the film's success.

For Your Consideration: Tilda Swinton

In the current roster of hardworking frequently brilliant unnominated actors Christian Bale is arguably her only true rival for the throne. She's perfectly ripe for Oscar picking. The closest she came to an nomination was undoubtedly in 2001 when she carried the well received thriller The Deep End (2001). But what a long strange trip this career has taken. She began on the stage and her first film identity was as a queer cinema muse (Derek Jarman being a frequent collaborator) and since then she has seguewayed from avant-garde performance artist to fashion idol to Disney villainess --her global reach has been amazing, her performative range equally impressive. Yet, for all this accomplishment, this actress never seems to break a sweat. That's just one of the reasons her "Karen Crowder" in Michael Clayton is such an attention getter. Consider your first look at her: It's Tilda Swinton sweating in a bathroom stall. In Nick Davis's perceptive review he writes:

Swinton, spinning gold from straw, unspools her entire performance from Michael's cruel and late-breaking line "For such a smart person, you really are lost, aren't you?" and thus plays Karen as a constant and quivering work-in-progress, rehearsing all of her speeches and gestures (and serving as her own severest judge), freezing and rebooting herself amid an abject fear that she's playing an untenable role, or playing the role poorly. Her mendacity is not inborn but desperately manufactured, minute by minute, and the performance is as fascinating as an autocommentary on acting as on white-collar performativity and narcissistic terror.

Swinton's risky performance, which never directly guides the audience toward sympathy or condemnation, but instead stays locked up in its own "narcissistic terror," as Mr Davis so aptly put it, will have detractors (most bravely atypical performances do) but I think she'll find stalwart fans within the Academy's more daring voting cliques. When she gets nominated (note the positive thinking: when!) the Academy will win some much needed cool discernment points. That they'll promptly squander them by lazily giving the actual Oscars to people mimicking famous icons is neither here nor there. It's just how they do. The Academy giveth. The Academy taketh away.

Tilda won't even notice we've moved on to George Clooney --she's still terrified by her own reflection --so let's do that. Of Michael Clayton's three principals, Clooney, the sole Oscar winner among them, is likely to have the hardest time placing in his category. As a character, this fixer rarely cracks a smile and the movie holding his charm under is equally muted and troubled. This is really the film's campaign problem in a nutshell. Michael Clayton is not the type of movie that will typically have people racing from the theater raving about a big "set piece" or experiencing a tearful catharsis. It is the type of movie that invites rumination for a long time after you've seen it. In a diffuse Oscar race like this year may well be, that could be a valuable weapon for this early fall arrival.

Oscar pundits are often quick to pounce on in-the-moment buzz. Everyone who gets caught up in awards season has stumbled at one time or another on limited but emphatically delivered opinions. What always matters in the end is the consensus. Consensus doesn't form immediately. People may grumble that this film or another will be forgotten by December but people are quick to forget that those all December Best Picture years are rare (in the last 20 years there have been only two that I'm aware of: 1988 and 2002). Last year at this very moment 3 of the 5 Best Picture nominees were already in release and a fourth was opening the next weekend.

Awards season success is a tricky thing. It requires a fascinating combo of audience enthusiasm, critical success, media love, industry favor and smart campaigning, group think friendly "hooks" from the PR teams are a must... likeLittle Miss Sunshine's "Little Best Picture" routine last year -- brill'. Warner Bros team needs to keep this fine drama playing on the coasts until the top ten lists and awards precursors act as a minor second wind (approx. seven weeks until those cavalries arrives... though one never knows for sure which movies they'll fight for. Start biting your nails). The awards team would be smart to keep the movie humming in editorials: there's a lot to say about it that's relevant to the here and now --take the movies stinging snapshot of soul crushing debt. That's a truly universal problem for rich and poor, everyone living way beyond their means (including Academy members who may also know something about selling their souls to feed a corporate machine). The Clayton team would be smart to stress the emergence of Tony Gilroy as a major Hollywood player (consider those Bourne screenplays) and fine writer/director. Mainstream media love for George Clooney is already sewn up. That affection shouldn't have any problem lasting until the winter with how many winters its already survived.

I didn't intend for this to read as one giant FYC ad for Michael Clayton but I guess I'm a fan. Hollywood needs to make more movies like this: sharp, thoughtful, dramatic, relevant and populated with classy thespians. I'm rooting for it. But even if I wasn't: is there any reason why Michael Clayton shouldn't be regarded as the top contender at this point? Only Into the Wild and Gone Baby Gone rival it for potential Oscar affection (as current releases go). Only Once and Hairspray are in play from altogether different genres. Statistics favor at least one of these five early contenders making that shortlist.

Easy gets: Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay
Work for it: Picture, Director, Supporting Actress, Lead Actor, Editing
Tough gets: Other Technicals
Fine work but no chance in hell: Costumes

Next episode: The Supporting Actress Stock Shortage

Oscar Predictions
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