Hollywood's Oscar takes a summer holiday

Hollywood’s Oscar takes a summer holiday

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Running the gantlet. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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The great escape. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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In force. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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The promised land. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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Hooray for Hollywood? (David Horsey/Los Angeles Times)

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Director Martin Scorsese’s “Wolf of Wall Street” presents filthy greed and wretched excess in a way that seems to excite moviegoers. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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Heading into the Super Bowl, big mouth Richard Sherman may be the most famous, or infamous, football player in America. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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Two women in the news this week -- Katie Couric and Miley Cyrus. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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The A&E cable network may have laid an egg over its “Duck Dynasty” controversy. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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Gunplay in PG-13 movies has tripled since 1985, a study shows. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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Netflix has been making further strides into mainstream Hollywood, irritating TV networks and theater owners with talk about changing the rules of the movie and TV distribution game. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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Now that Charlie Hunnam has dropped out, the race is on to find a male lead for “Fifty Shades of Grey.” (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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Should there be a special line of undergarments to prevent awards show slip-ups? (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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The celebrated Kardashian glam-fam is in the news again, this time over a holiday card shot by celebrity photographer David LaChapelle. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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Embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is the host and star of his own reality show, blurring the lines separating politics, journalism and entertainment. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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Neither right nor left, the CNN viewer is more interested in national disasters than national affairs. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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Sandra Bullock could be experiencing the weightlessness of Oscar. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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Horsey on Hollywood: Summer blockbusters (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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Horsey on Hollywood: Comic-Con (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

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Movie moguls and their lawyers are fighting about who owns what parts of the movie rights to J.R.R. Tolkein’s timeless novels. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

By David Horsey

Aug. 28, 2013 5 AM PT

Oscar pretty much gets to take the summer off. The hot months are filled with big-budget blockbuster movies that make or break studios, but few, if any, are contenders for the major Academy Awards categories. Those contenders arrive with the cooler days of autumn when the kids are back in school and the adults start showing up at the cineplex.

In the coming weeks and months, heading all the way to the last week of December, the films that the studios believe will appeal to the Academy voters will be vying for attention and buzz. Experience has shown that a movie with an earlier premiere -- say, in March or April -- may not be remembered when the winners are being picked nine months later. Thus, most of the “serious” films get held until this time of year.

PHOTOS: Horsey on Hollywood

George Clooney is involved with three fall movies that could be considered for honors. He is a producer on “August: Osage County,” the adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize-winning play starring Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. He also is a lead actor, director, producer and writer for the World War II drama “The Monuments Men.” And Clooney stars in the space adventure “Gravity.”

The Martin Scorsese story of corruption in the world of high finance, “The Wolf of Wall Street,” could be a big award winner. So might a couple of Tom Hanks vehicles, “Captain Phillips” and “Saving Mr. Banks.” There are also three strong films with racial themes -- “The Butler” and “Fruitvale Station” (in theaters already) and “Twelve Years a Slave” (still to come).

The list of worthies is long, and it is still too early to predict which will come out on top. It is easy, though, to say which ones will not be in the running. Just pick any one of the summer budget busters that tanked. You can safely bet that “The Lone Ranger” will be feeling especially lonely when the Oscars get handed out.

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