Oscar Nomination Predictions

I believe in a week the nominees for last year's films will be released and I thought I'd throw together a prediction list for the biggest awards (acting, director, and picture). I haven't posted a lot lately, I plan on getting around and covering movies I've seen in the last few months as well as continue that list of movies from the 2000s. Though the list isn't as solid as it was when I started I feel it would be strange to stop part way through. So to compensate I thought I'd keep going and finish it and after post corrections, additions, and alterations. But without further delay here are my predictions for the nominees for the bigger awards this Oscar season (nominees listed alphabetically rather than preference or likelihood to win).




















Best Supporting Actor:

Andrew Garfield (The Social Network)
Christian Bale (The Fighter)
Geoffrey Rush (The King's Speech)
Jeremy Renner (The Town)
Mark Ruffalo (The Kids Are All Right)

I would say Bale is a lock for a nomination with Ruffalo and Rush being more than likely. The buzz for Renner has died down since The Town's release though. Garfield sneaks in there and Timberlake has a slight chance since his presence at the Oscars would sure to boost ratings and I would be surprised if I didn't see The Social Network represented as fully as possible. John Hawkes from Winter's Bone has a chance of sneaking in there as well. I would assume Bale is the favorite to win but supporting is a nice race and I'd like to make better predictions once the nominees are actually released.

Best Supporting Actress:

Amy Adams (The Fighter)
Barbara Hershey (Black Swan)
Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit)
Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech)

The Actress nominees is a little tricky this year because of Hailee Steinfeld and the fact that her role in True Grit could put her in either supporting or lead. I've heard they've been pushing for lead but I don't see it going that way, especially after 2007 where Casey Affleck was nominated for supporting in a similar situation. I would say Steinfeld is a lead in the picture but her age and less than notable name recognition will drop her to supporting. Leo and Carter are strong locks and Adams seems very likely as well. Hershey sounds to me as the best bet to represent Black Swan though Kunis is likely as well. Hell I'd like to see Ryder represent Swan for supporting but prediction wise I'll have to go with Hershey. Which may be one of my bigger chances I'm taking since Jacki Weaver from Animal Kingdom has a good chance of filling that other supporting role. Leslie Manville from Mike Leigh's Another Year has a shot too but again I think it may come down to a supporting/lead actress issue. Plus there are a lot of other supporting actresses out there like The Kids Are All Right's Julianne Moore.

Best Actor:

Colin Firth (The King's Speech)
James Franco (127 Hours)
Jeff Bridges (True Grit)
Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network)
Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine)

Can't see Firth, Franco, and Eisenberg missing out this year. Gosling is pretty likely too. Bridges may be knocked out by Robert Duvall for Get Low. It could easily go either way.

Best Actress:

Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right)
Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone)
Leslie Manville (Another Year)
Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole)

Bening and Portman are good locks and Lawrence is highly likely. Kidman is an academy favorite and Rabbit Hole is already going to be underrepresented. And with Manville, again it's a big factor whether her or Steinfeld are put in supporting or leading categories. Plus Michelle Williams is nipping at their heals from Blue Valentine and Hilary Swank, another academy favorite, is sporting a rather conventional but appreciated performance from Conviction. I would find it interesting to see Swank steal a nomination from Manville or Kidman just so Bening could finally win the award over her after losing out twice in the past.

Best Director:

Christopher Nolan (Inception)
Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan)
David Fincher (The Social Network)
Joel and Ethan Coen (True Grit)
Tom Hooper (The King's Speech)

There are a few people who could sneak in here though Fincher is a lock and probably Aronofsky as well. Hooper and Nolan are highly likely. David O. Russell could sneak in there for The Fighter or Danny Boyle could for 127 Hours.

Best Picture:

Black Swan
Inception
The Fighter
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
The Social Network
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

127 Hours is the big name that could knock one of these guys out. The Town and Winter's Bone are probably the main ones that could lose a spot. There are a few other films like Another Year, Blue Valentine, and Rabbit Hole but after 127 Hours I can't see it happening. If The Ghost Writer had come out in November instead of the beginning of the year it would be fighting for one of those wild card spots as well. Though there is always the chance they could pull a Blind Side like they did last year and nominate some purely crowd pleasing film though I would like to think a number of these nominees already satisfy that urge (Inception, The Fighter, The Social Network, The Town, and Toy Story 3). More importantly I think this year has a very solid list of nominations. There isn't a single movie I've seen from those ten that I disliked overall and I could name at least 3 from last year that were more than disappointing to see receive nominations for awards.

I've also been thinking about throwing together a list of my favorite 10 or 20 movies from last year though there are still a few priority things I want to see like 127 Hours, Another Year, Blue Valentine and Rabbit Hole. I have seen all the likely Best Picture nominations so far except Winter's Bone at least. Hopefully I'll be able to see most of my priority movies in the next couple weeks.

For Your Consideration

It's getting closer to that time of the year, Oscar season is arriving. I can't wait to be disappointed in a few months time. New sites from studios pushing films for this Oscar season are popping up.

Focus Features

Warner Brothers

Lions Gate

The Weinstein Company

Dreamworks Animation

Roadside Attractions

Sony Pictures

Walt Disney

From these my personal favorite is Focus Features. My current two favorite films I've seen this year are both being pushed by Focus, The American and Greenberg. Plus Somewhere is my most anticipated film of the year behind Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist. If any of those will win anything is different a story. Coppola's Somewhere I can assume will get a nomination though I have my doubts whether it'll win anything. It's been received rather well, even winning Best Film at the Venice Film Festival so I'm assuming it'll grab a spot in that category. Though it's still too soon to be making a lot of Oscar predictions.

Next we have Warner Brothers with Inception, Hereafter, and The Town as their front runners it seems, all from popular film makers though Eastwood's Hereafter received less praise than could be hoped for when it came out.

Next we have The Weinstein Company with The King's Speech as their big Oscar contender, I can make a good assumption that it'll pick up a handful of nominations.

Roadside Attractions' film Winter's Bone has gotten a lot of attention recently so maybe that can pick up some momentum though I don't know how likely that'll be. Though they also have Biutiful starring Oscar winner Javier Bardem and from another well liked director.

Disney's Toy Story 3 is their crown jewel while the other films they're pushing are mainly technical award stuff and Tangled which will sure to take an animated feature nomination. Which doesn't look good for Dreamworks Animation, though How to Train Your Dragon is one of their better features I can't see it coming up on top against something like Toy Story 3, which has a chance to be the second Pixar feature to take a best picture nomination.

We also have Sony Pictures which is pushing probably the main certainty for a best picture nomination, The Social Network which also has a good chance of winning best picture this year as well. I would expect it's currently the front runner, but it's too close to call especially since we haven't even seen nominations yet.

Though this is only a glimpse of what's to come. I'm sure Fox Searchlight's Black Swan will have a lot of attention this Oscar season as well as the new True Grit adaptation from the Coen brothers among other films like Danny Boyle's 127 Hours.

I'm With You in Rockland.

Howl (Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, 2010)
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Howl, based on Allen Ginsberg's momentous poem of the same name, by known documentary filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman is an experimental film consisting of several sections: The 1957 obscenity trial held to determine the artistic merit of the poem, Ginsberg's historic Six Gallery debut reading of Howl, surreal animated sequences that accompany the words of the poem, and an interview with Ginsberg (James Franco) which explores important moments of his life and reflections on writing. Rather than delivering a standard biopic about Ginsberg, Epstein and Friedman have made a film that uses the poet's past as an expression of individual and personal discovery and celebration while using his poem to discuss writing, and in a broader sense art as a whole, as an extension of the writer or artist. Espstein and Friedman are generally known for documentary films such as The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) and The Celluloid Closet (1995) but with Howl they step out of their comfort zone and take a chance on something different, a film about the complexity of art and the importance for expressive freedom which blurs cinematic lines as it combines their documentary style with a dramatic retelling of Ginsberg's reflections and surrealist visual imagery.

Franco's performance as Ginsberg is one of the many highlights of the film. During the interview segments Franco is direct and displays openness in his portrayal of the poet while never overblowing the performance. During the Six Gallery reading he delivers Ginsberg's words with conviction and exuberance. The focus of Ginsberg's life revolves around his realization about his homosexuality and the importance that it had on discovering who he was as an individual and a writer. Howl uses this revelation as encouragement in a broader sense, it isn't only about one man accepting his own sexual orientation but about people being proud of who they are in general and not allowing themselves to be ashamed if they don't fit into social norms.

The scenes during the obscenity trail work not because of the anticipation of an unknown outcome, since it's documented history we don't need to worry about that, but because of the content of the proceedings. The prosecution and defense call a series of expert literary critics as witnesses to discuss the apparent or absent artistic value of Ginsberg's work. There are naysayers and there are admirers of the poem. None of the admirers appear to claim they have complete understanding of everything Ginsberg wants to express but they try their best to interpret their feelings and thoughts on the poem. The naysayers can be summed up by those who are offended, unaware of it's value, above it, or combination of the three. One of the finest moments of the film is when one of the witnesses is asked what a few lines of the poem mean in a narrative sense and they reply by saying "Sir, you can't translate poetry into prose, that's why it is poetry." On the other side there's the testimony of Professor David Kirk (Jeff Daniels) who claims to discredit any of the poem's literary value with quantifiable standards based on his judgment of its form and content. I find this the worst kind of critic, one more concerned with their own expertise and opinion than the work they happen to be discussing. His efforts only proceed to confine artistic value, not define it.

The riskiest portions of the film are definitely the animated sequences. They are also the most elusive parts of the movie to express my appreciation. They are definitely going to be the hardest for audiences to digest considering they lack a definable narrative and are at times bizarre, unsettling, and even jarring. But at the same time they're graceful and much like Howl itself, liberating. I can't help but think of the sections of Disney's Fantasia (1940), especially the earlier segments, with its visuals that accompany famous music. With Howl however, Ginsberg's words are the musical notes that supply inspiration for the images dancing across the screen. Also, like Ginsberg's poem, the images and visual motifs provide just the same openness and frankness. The repeated images and sounds of a typewriter are seen and heard throughout the picture and compared to modern day computer typing, writing on a typewriter just gives the impression of such stronger purpose as well as a representation of the extension of an artist. To a writer it's a personalized instrument and this enforces the idea that an artist's work is an extension of their own voice and body, what they have to say is of value and importance because only they have the rights to those words, to that voice, to that life. To judge such a film as a common biopic would be as great a crime as to try and convert poetry to prose, to construct boundaries around jazz, to cage art by some arbitrary standards of criticism, to tell man he wasn't meant to fly, or to try and understand the open words of an artist with a closed mind and clenched teeth.

Lives of Future's Past.

81. Millennium Mambo (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 2001)
100 Films of the 2000s

It's been too long since I've last posted something here. I've been busy but I'd like to dive back into this as soon as possible and what better way than with a film that most people have probably never seen? From Taiwan the next movie on my list is Hou Hsaio-Hsien's Millennium Mambo, a movie narrated by a woman reflecting on the past of a young girl, Vicky, caught in the rash turmoil of youth, relationships, and growing into herself as an adult and into the world. I always assumed that the narrator was the young girl in the story though even if this is true, it could also not be true, in that she has changed, grown since then into a different woman and these reflections of the past are of a different life entirely.

Like all the Taiwanese films that will appear on this list (there are a few others, stick with me here) it isn't a film for everyone, especially not most mainstream American movie goers. Many would consider this a slow film and I don't think I could really disagree with them for the most part, but I also don't believe that fast pacing in a film or story is necessarily good pacing. First, it depends on the movie or story in question and what kind of experience it's going to deliver, as well as the quality in executing this, there are some films that while having breakneck pacing they never really carry the audience along with it, coming to a conclusion before it's worth celebrating. With Millennium Mambo and Hsiao-Hsien's other films I've seen he uses his time to slow the picture down, it works so well because this picture is about experiencing Vicky's life along with her, much the way the woman reflecting on the past is trying to understand just the reasons behind her decisions. Why she stuck around in an abusive relationship, why she felt she was in love, or wasn't, or wanted to be, and what it means to be young and reckless and to make much of the same choices and same mistakes.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of the film is the way it uses the past and future, the way it uses perceptions of time to create a feeling in the picture. The events in the film taking place begin in 2001 but the narration states that this occurred ten years in the past. This allows the movie to at the same time be a piece reflecting on the past but also preparing for the future. Not as much a cautionary tale as it is a work about coming of age and what an influential moment young adulthood can be and how it can shape one's future as well.

10 Films of 2001:

8. Millennium Mambo (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 2001)
9. Gosford Park (Robert Altman)
10. Waking Life (Richard Linklater)

A Rat By Any Other Name.

82. The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006)
100 Films of the 2000s

Martin Scorsese's return to the volatile world of crime fiction is perhaps one of the best remakes available. Adapted from the Hong Kong police drama Infernal Affairs (2002) Scorsese's movie lifts the conflict from Hong Kong and places it in Boston. Two stories surrounding separate police officers run parallel, one an undercover cop, Billy Costigan, played by Leonardo DiCaprio infiltrating the Boston mafia and the other, Collin Sullivan, played by Matt Damon who acts as mole for the mob, as a man inside the police department.

Scorsese's crime movies have always done a fine job with walking between the conflicting morality of a life in crime opposed to its allure and benefits and The Departed is no different. Sullivan's ambitions take control over his character. With political aspirations he feels little remorse hurdling over the justice system for personal gain. Sullivan and Costigan's stories run as juxtaposed tragedies showing the cost and loss of both sides of crime. Like stated at the beginning of the film, one of it's strongest themes is that of survival, but the priced payed for that survival and ability to thrive in such an environment is one's own honor and loyalty, that or their life.

The film also boasts a terrific cast of household names with the likes of Jack Nicholson, Alec Baldwin, and Martin Sheen joining Damon and DiCaprio. Also, the rest of the players from Ray Winston, Mark Wahlberg, Vera Farmiga, to Anthony Anderson are all in great form as well. It's superb cast elevates the drama and urgency of a picture that already has career topping turns from Damon and DiCaprio. Also accentuating the drama is Martin Scorsese's well known skill for constructing a great accompanying soundtrack. The director really knows his music and The Departed's soundtrack is more proof to that claim, adding excitement and improving emotion when the need arrises. This isn't a movie to be dismissed purely because it's another American remake, though it's understandable if that's an early thought considering what's been done to many foreign movies, especially in the last ten years. Nor would I suggest missing out on Infernal Affairs either (it does star one of my favorite actors, Tony Leung), both Infernal Affairs and The Departed are great pictures well worth seeing on their own.

10 Films of 2006:

7. The Departed (Martin Scorsese)
8. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Tom Tykwer)
9. A Scanner Darkly (Richard Linklater)
10. The Host (Joon-Ho Bong)

Eye of the Beholder.

83. The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh, 2009)
100 Films of the 2000s

From workaholic director Steven Soderbergh comes one of the best sleeper hits of 2009. Based on actual events propelled by one Mark Whitacre, The Informant! is a satirical comedy starring Matt Damon as the infamous Whitacre and proves to be one of the cleverer comedies of the year. Whitacre, working for a large food processing company turns government whistle blower after apparent threats from an outside source as well as attempting to pull the lid off of a huge price fixing operation. However, the further we're pulled into Whitacre's head the more tangled the story becomes when things aren't necessarily what we've been led to believe.

The movie is often times very funny, Matt Damon stars as Whitacre and gives one of his best character performances to date. At times bumbling and flabbergasted he dives head first into the world of undercover FBI operations and the results are quite rewarding. Some of the best comedic moments involve some of Whitacre's almost childlike interactions with the FBI and their operation. It's an interesting comedy to say the least, first off because it's humor is not only propelled by character rather than concept gags but secondly because it's based on true events and actual people. It's true that the real world really can be stranger than fiction.

The movie is smart enough before it even leaps into it's major turning point where we start to see what is actually going on within the story making it far more complex a comedy than expected. It is also revealed that Whitacre suffers from bipolar disorder which goes to explain much of his actions throughout the film, not the bumbling amateur FBI stuff but what's later revealed to be his coaxing with certain facts and falsehoods. We also begin to understand the nature of the monologues we're given by Damon's narration, which are often times very funny. They're another way in which the movie pulls us even further into Whitacre's own head, not to emerge until the end of the picture, and it's an intriguing and often times hilarious excursion.

10 Films of 2009:

8. The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh)
9. Up in the Air (Jason Reitman)
10. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (Werner Herzog)

The Only Thing to Fear.

84. Good Night, and Good Luck (George Clooney, 2005)
100 Films of the 2000s

In 2005 George Clooney directed his second feature film, the black and white Good Night, and Good Luck. The film chronicles the on-air battle between seasoned television host and journalist Edward R. Murrow and senator Joseph McCarthy over McCarthy's anti-communist hearings and investigations in the 1950s. Murrow's program strikes a blow to McCarthy's interrogations though it soon ends following the clash between the media man and the senator from Wisconsin. More importantly however, after that moment the state of television journalism and politics was changed forever.

Though the film documents McCarthy's hearings on alleged communists and communist sympathizers it doesn't merely offer a simple condemnation of McCarthy's witch hunts. It's primary intent is to address the use of our news media and primarily television journalism as an outlet for delivering information rather than just entertainment, to use television to address important issues rather than just run cigarette ads and comedic talk shows. Clooney bookends his film with a speech from Murrow on the state of television journalism and it's uses and above all it's importance. George Clooney stated that the project began interesting him because he felt it was time "to raise the idea of using fear to stifle political debate" (Brooks, Brian. indieWIRE, "Clooney Speaks Out About Journalism and Filmmaking As NYFF Opens." Retrieved: April 24, 2007) and also majored in journalism in school. Not only does Clooney's film succeed in displaying the importance of integrity and responsibility in television journalism it also captures the look and feel of the time quite well with music and sets that represent the 1950s authentically.

What interests me even more about the film is what the state of televised journalism has become today as well as the conflict between opinion journalism and unbiased reporting. Though Murraw's actions blur the line between the two we can see the nobility in his actions. He and his crew saw what they viewed as injustice and took action. However, today not only has the line between opinion journalism and unbiased reporting become almost nonexistent, conflicting news outlets push political agendas almost shamelessly or attempt to create divide among political views for sake of ratings and it seems that Murrow's push for integrity in journalism and its use to inform has been misshapen and discarded. They took what was useful for personal gain and abandoned what was important in principle.

10 Films of 2005:

10. Good Night, and Good Luck (George Clooney)