Posted on 8/21/2007 7:14:27 PM

Brand May Not Get The O'Brien Trophy - But Maybe A Statue

By Charles Jay

Al Gore did NOT win an Oscar. But Elton Brand can win one.

That's right. Read on.

Brand suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon in a workout a couple of weeks ago, and underwent successful surgery just this past week. His agent, David Falk, is optimistic that he might be able to play toward the end of the season, though no determination on that has been made at this time.

But while his Los Angeles Clippers teammate are once again struggling to attain the eighth and final playoff spot in the NBA's Western Conference next spring, Brand may just be walking, er, limping, down the aisle, as it were.

In addition to being one of the NBA's best power forwards, Brand is also a movie producer. Not a budding movie producer or a fledgling movie producer, mind you, but a real, live movie producer with a film in release that may just find itself in contention for some Academy Awards next March.

Brand's Gibraltar Entertainment is at the helm of "Rescue Dawn," the story of Lt. Dieter Dengler, a German-born U.S. Navy pilot who was shot down over Laos in 1966 while flying a top secret mission and, in a depleted state where he weighed just 85 pounds, staged a spectacular escape from a prisoner of war camp. Dengler's remarkable life had previously been the subject of a 1997 documentary, "Little Dieter Needs to Fly", and the same man who directed that documentary - the legendary Werner Herzog - also directs the feature.

Herzog is not as well known as most mainstream directors but he is generally regarded as one of the most inventive artists in the industry. Heralded in his native Germany, his previous credits that are best known to American audiences include "Fitzcarraldo," "Grizzly Man," and "Invincible"- not the football movie starring Mark Wahlberg but a film about a German strongman starring Tim Roth.

Reviews for "Rescue Dawn" were glowing. Kyle Smith of the New York Post wrote, "Herzog has never worked with more glorious effect than in this exhilarating film, the most purely entertaining yarn he has ever made..."

According to Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post, "It's an instant classic of the form, a portrait of courage and sacrifice at their most stirring, but subversively resisting cant and cliche." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly opined, "Out of a harrowing story set in a foreign thicket, Herzog has found American beauty."

Praise for the film is effusive and almost universal, leading to talk that it could be up for one or more Oscars when the nominations are announced in February. As one of its producers, Brand would win an Oscar if it captured Best Picture honors (Gore was not a producer or director of "An Inconvenient Truth," just its "star," and not an official Oscar recipient). There is also an awful lot of buzz about the great Christian Bale's portrayal of Dengler being particularly Oscar-worthy. A summer release (in this case, July 13) doesn't usually help a movie in the Oscar chase, so everything is uphill. But who knows? If Elton Brand can't play in the NBA this season, there might not be a bad consolation prize.

THE CHARLES JAY LINE

Will "Rescue Dawn" get an Oscar nomination for Best Picture?

* No -600

* Yes +500

(Deadline: February 1)

Will Christian Bale be nominated for Best Actor?

* No -300

* Yes +240

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Charles Jay of TotalAction.com is a freelance writer and oddsmaker who contributes with gusto to the BetUS.com Locker Room