Oscar may laugh off comedies again

Oscar’s best picture category doubled in size last year from five to 10 nominees. Yet, the number of pure comedies it nominated remained constant: zero.

All five movies receiving Golden Globe nominations in the comedy/musical category last year — “The Hangover,” “(500) Days of Summer,” “It’s Complicated,” “Julie & Julia” and “Nine” — were ignored by academy voters. In fact, in the last five years, only “Juno” and “Little Miss Sunshine” have crossed over from the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.’s comedy category into the Academy Awards.

And, even with the academy maintaining its 10 best picture nominee slots, this year’s rather thin crop of comedies doesn’t look like it will be tickling Oscar’s funny bone when the nominations are announced in January.

The summer indie hit “The Kids Are All Right” is the Globe category’s front-runner right now and may be the movie that crosses over to Oscars too. Like “Sunshine” and “Juno,” Lisa Cholodenko’s film focuses on family. It’s a comedy, yes, but with serious dramatic underpinnings. And in its normal depiction of a lesbian couple raising two adolescents, it will likely win points with voters for its subversive political sensibility.

“We normalized the family situation by not making it a big deal,” says “Kids” co-writer Stuart Blumberg. “Gay marriage in many states is a fait accompli. This isn’t science fiction. This is holding a mirror up to society.”

Two other leading Globe contenders — British import “Made in Dagenham” and Ed Zwick’s “Love & Other Drugs” — aim for importance too, albeit in decidedly different ways. Zwick’s movie boasts a wild array of elements — humor both crass and smart, a lot of sex, a character with Parkinson’s disease — in an ambitious attempt to breathe new life into the romantic-comedy genre. (“Love” lead Anne Hathaway bristles at the genre label, telling The Times that the movie is a “funny love story.”)

“Comedy can be very serious, and it can be about real things,” Zwick says. “Maybe the failure of a lot of those comedies of late is that they have not necessarily been that ambitious and maybe they’ve lessened our expectations about what a comedy or love story can be. But there’s no reason why that can’t be every bit as challenging or interesting or full of ideas as a drama.”

The ideas in “Dagenham” follow a more inspirational, “Norma Rae” path. The movie dramatizes the 1968 strike at the Ford Motor Co. in suburban London through which female machinists successfully won pay raises nearly equal to their male counterparts. There aren’t many surprises along the way, but critics have noted (sometimes begrudgingly) that it gets the job done.

“It’s hard to make a feel-good, positive movie,” says “Dagenham” director Nigel Cole. “Your audience is coming in hoping to be transported, so there’s this expectation, and they’re all sitting there with arms folded, thinking, ‘Go on then, have a go.’ It’s much easier to take them to a place that’s jaded and cynical, particularly these days.”

The remaining contenders are a mixed bag, ranging from big-budget commercial movies such as “Morning Glory,” “Red” and “Alice in Wonderland” to buzz-deficient indies such as “Barney’s Version.” The HFPA loves brand-name stars, so “Burlesque,” the over-the-top musical starring Cher and Christina Aguilera, could find its way in as well.

And look out for dark horse contender “Easy A,” a smart riff on “The Scarlet Letter” boasting a star-making turn from young actress Emma Stone. Critics loved it, likening it to this generation’s “Clueless” in its originality and verve.

Reviewers have yet to weigh in on “How Do You Know,” the James L. Brooks romantic comedy starring Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd. Few others have either. Brooks didn’t deliver the final print to Sony until Thanksgiving week.

Brooks admittedly was still a little too close to the movie, which opens in theaters Dec. 17, to know how it might connect with award voters. But, after some initial resistance, he is fully on board with Oscar’s expanded best picture category.

“I was cranky at the beginning,” Brooks says. “I’m big on tradition. I had tradition for one last dance, but then I saw that the party got pretty good. You had 10 terrific pictures instead of five.”

Even if none of them was a flat-out comedy?

“I don’t think the academy has a bias against comedies, and if there was, it has eroded,” says Brooks, a three-time Oscar winner for “Terms of Endearment” (for best picture, director and adapted screenplay). “I have a sense of humor, and I’m a member.”

We’ll know shortly how much Brooks is smiling these days.

calendar@latimes.com