‘Tis the awards season for many lists and nominations. I’ve had a lot of fun doing this column, but this is probably my last of this sort. Next week I’ll likely take off because of the holiday, and the following week I’ll put together an article of my final Oscar predictions, charting the ups and downs of certain films based on the preliminary predictions I’ve made each week since.
This is the point when most Oscar bloggers say that all that’s left are the Oscars. The Best of lists have started trickling out, the Golden Globes have been named and subsequently ignored and all the movies have been seen. You and I both know that last bit isn’t true, because I’ll likely miss “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Amour,” “On the Road,” “Not Fade Away,” “Searching for Sugarman,” “Rust and Bone,” “How to Survive a Plague,” “The House I Live In” and “The Gatekeepers” and “West of Memphis” before the year is out, and God knows I’m trying much harder than you to see these.
But nevertheless, I’ll cobble together a Best of the Year list myself along with some other fun features in the next few days. So for the last time, here’s this week’s roundup.
Golden Globe Nominations Announced
The Golden Globes have a tendency to be plain embarrassing. They’ll nominate something “The Tourist” to get Johnny Depp in attendance, and their ridiculous split between drama and comedy or musical means that nothing gets snubbed, except of course for things that are actually interesting. Last Thursday, “Lincoln” led the pack with seven nominations, and the only real surprise of a nomination were the multiple for “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.” Okay, whatever, we’ll let you have that one.
Scott Feinberg’s analysis is by the far the best of them, mentioning what a big deal it is to see Nicole Kidman, Rachel Weisz, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Richard Gere, Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor and Leonardo DiCaprio, although he probably lends a little more weight to the Globes than I do. The biggest, yet predictable omissions included “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and “Amour.”
What really piqued my interest in Feinberg’s analysis was one statistic that said people who are nominated for a SAG award, Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe all go on to an Oscar nomination, and he’s got a list of five in the Best Actor race already. Those names are Bradley Cooper, Daniel Day-Lewis, John Hawkes, Hugh Jackman and Denzel Washington. You tell me who’s missing. (Full list via The Race)
Hair and Makeup Category Shortlisted
Here’s the list of the seven films advancing in the newly revised Makeup category that now also includes work for hair dressing.
“Hitchcock”
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”
“Les Misérables”
“Lincoln”
“Looper”
“Men in Black 3”
“Snow White and the Huntsman”
The two big snubs here are “Cloud Atlas” and “Holy Motors,” both of which involve characters going through multiple performances and appearances, and “Holy Motors” especially calls attention to its makeup. I also would’ve liked to see “The Impossible” on this list for the amount of blood stained clothes and Naomi Watts looking ghastly that’s in that movie. (via Oscars.com)
“Zero Dark Thirty” selected by Chicago Film Critics
Hailing from Chicago myself (I didn’t vote. Don’t flatter yourself), I always find these interesting. Announced on Monday, the Chicago critics selected “Zero Dark Thirty” as their winner for Best Picture while granting it four other awards. “The Master” came in second with four awards. This is an interesting list, one that goes against the grain a tiny bit by selecting “The Invisible War” as Best Doc and “ParaNorman” as Best Animated. The full list of winners is below. (Full list of nominees via CFCA website)
Best Picture – Zero Dark Thirty
Best Director – Kathryn Bigelow
Best Actor – Daniel Day-Lewis
Best Actress – Jessica Chastain
Best Supporting Actor – Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Best Supporting Actress – Amy Adams
Best Original Screenplay – Zero Dark Thirty
Best Adapted Screenplay – Lincoln
Best Foreign Language Film – Amour
Best Documentary – The Invisible War
Best Animated Feature – ParaNorman
Best Cinematography – The Master
Best Original Score – The Master
Best Art Direction – Moonrise Kingdom
Best Editing – Zero Dark Thirty
Most Promising Performer – Quvenzhane Wallis
Most Promising Filmmaker – Benh Zeitlin
New York Times Best of the Year Lists
If the New York Times sounds off on anything it’s a big deal, but what I loved about A.O. Scott’s and Manohla Dargis’s lists was the optimism brimming from them about the state of cinema, all this coming from a year where people have been mostly negative. Dargis didn’t rank hers, but Scott picked 25. They’re must-reads. (Dargis’s list and Scott’s list via NYT.com)
Manohla Dargis
Amour
The Deep Blue Sea
The Gatekeepers
Holy Motors
Moonrise Kingdom
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Searching for Sugarman
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
A.O. Scott
1. Amour
2. Lincoln
3. Beasts of the Southern Wild
4. Footnote
5. The Master
6. Zero Dark Thirty
7. Django Unchained
8. Goodbye, First Love
9. Neighboring Sounds
10. The Grey
New consensus emerges from critic polls
I feel Metacritic’s aggregation is fairly comprehensive in terms of evaluating the best movie of the year, but both Indiewire and Village Voice conducted their own critics polls and selected “Holy Motors” and “The Master” respectfully. It’s almost funny considering that it’s likely neither of those will be nominated for Best Picture (but we’ll hold out for “The Master.”) and the other consensus title, “Zero Dark Thirty,” may just win Best Picture. Indiewire also did a cut and dry determination of what the Oscar nominees would be based on their votes, and of the 10 Best Picture nominees, they selected six potential Oscar nominees. Here are the individual critic poll Top 10 lists:
Indiewire
- Holy Motors
- The Master
- Zero Dark Thirty
- Amour
- This is Not a Film
- Moonrise Kingdom
- Beasts of the Southern Wild
- Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
- The Turin Horse
- Lincoln
Village Voice
- The Master
- Zero Dark Thirty
- Holy Motors
- Moonrise Kingdom
- This is Not a Film
- Amour
- Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
- The Turin Horse
- Lincoln
- Tabu
Week 9 Predictions
Best Picture
Front Runners
Zero Dark Thirty
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Argo
Life of Pi
Les Miserables
Moonrise Kingdrom
Amour
Probables
Beasts of the Southern Wild
The Master
Django Unchained
Skyfall
It’s do or die time. No more long shots because this race is too tight as it stands. Any movie that’s not in that list of 12 will be a gigantic surprise to a lot of people. My money is on a list of 10 nominees, with “Beasts” and “The Master” getting those last two spots.
Best Actor
Front Runners
Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln
John Hawkes – The Sessions
Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook
Denzel Washington – Flight
Hugh Jackman – Les Miserables
Probables
Joaquin Phoenix – The Master
Jean-Louis Trintignant – Amour
Christoph Waltz – Django Unchained
Long Shots
Anthony Hopkins – Hitchcock
Richard Gere – Arbitrage
Denis Lavant – Holy Motors
Much as I hate to say it, Scott Feinberg is probably right in his historical predictions I mentioned above. That’s what I’ve got listed here now, but I would bet there’s still room for surprises and that we’ll see Phoenix and Trintignant in there after all. Hopkins and Gere are not dead in the water quite yet, and although it’s clear the Academy hasn’t even seen “Holy Motors,” Denis Lavant’s name is showing up in a lot of places.
Best Actress
Front Runners
Marion Cotillard – Rust and Bone
Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook
Jessica Chastain – Zero Dark Thirty
Emmanuelle Riva – Amour
Quvenzhane Wallis – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Probables
Naomi Watts – The Impossible
Helen Mirren – Hitchcock
Rachel Weisz – The Deep Blue Sea
Judi Dench – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
I refuse to believe that someone as good as Quvenzhane Wallis is in “Beasts of the Southern Wild” might actually be bumped out of this race by someone like Naomi Watts, a performance in which she spends much of the movie moaning in agony.
Best Supporting Actor
Front Runners
Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master
Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln
Alan Arkin – Argo
Robert De Niro – Silver Linings Playbook
Leonardo DiCaprio – Django Unchained
Probables
Javier Bardem – Skyfall
Matthew McConaughey – Magic Mike/Bernie
Eddie Redmayne – Les Miserables
Russell Crowe – Les Miserables
Samuel L. Jackson – Django Unchained
John Goodman – Argo/Flight
It was really hard to finally eliminate so many worthy names from this list, but it had to be done. Bardem earned a nod with SAG and could be the most formidable underdog right now.
Best Supporting Actress
Front Runners
Sally Field – Lincoln
Anne Hathaway – Les Miserables
Amy Adams – The Master
Helen Hunt – The Sessions
Probables
Ann Dowd – Compliance
Nicole Kidman – The Paperboy
Maggie Smith – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Samantha Barks – Les Miserables
Judi Dench – Skyfall
I may have been jumping the gun on saying Ann Dowd was a sure thing last week. If anything she’s got some new serious competition from Nicole Kidman in the polarizing exploitation film “The Paperboy.” This actually leaves me with only four frontrunners, but I’ll make the final call in just a few weeks.
Directing
Front Runners
Kathryn Bigelow – Zero Dark Thirty
Ben Affleck – Argo
Steven Spielberg – Lincoln
Tom Hooper – Les Miserables
David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook
Probables
Ang Lee – Life of Pi
Paul Thomas Anderson – The Master
Michael Haneke – Amour
Wes Anderson – Moonrise Kingdom
Long Shots
Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild
Quentin Tarantino – Django Unchained
I find it hard to swallow that people like PTA and Haneke have been winning these Best Director awards with the critics groups but might not even be nominated at the Oscars. This suggests I’m basing my frontrunners solely on the frontrunners for Best Picture, and that means O. Russell is ahead of Lee.
Best Original Screenplay
Front Runners
Moonrise Kingdom – Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola
Amour – Michael Haneke
Zero Dark Thirty – Mark Boal
Django Unchained – Quentin Tarantino
Looper – Rian Johnson
Probables
The Master – Paul Thomas Anderson
The Intouchables – Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano
Flight – John Gatins
Magic Mike – Reid Carolin
Seven Psychopaths – Martin McDonagh
“Seven Psychopaths” is looking more like a surprise long shot than a probable at this stage, but this list, more than the others, seems to be ever changing.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Front Runners
Argo – Chris Terrio
Silver Linings Playbook – David O. Russell
Lincoln – Tony Kushner, John Logan, Paul Webb
Life of Pi – David Magee
The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky
Probables
Les Miserables – William Nicholson
The Sessions – Ben Lewin
Beasts of the Southern Wild – Lucy Alibar, Benh Zeithlin
On the Road – Jose Rivera
Anna Karenina – Tom Stoppard
This is 40 – Judd Apatow
If there’s a problem with “Life of Pi” in the front runners, it’s that the movie is not very “writerly,” for lack of a better not-a-word. “The Sessions” is a back and forth character drama that certainly isn’t remembered for its visuals, and it’s only being harmed by its less than stellar Best Picture chances.