Well now that the Oscars are done (my commentary is forthcoming) and we can finally put 2010’s movies to bed, it’s time to look ahead to what 2011 has to offer…and with the release of one of these films now less than a week away, it’s not a moment too soon. As always, this list is based on the films I know about at this point, and there are even more that I’m looking forward to than I had room to include here. I’m sorry, for instance, that I didn’t list either of the two movies Steven Spielberg is directing this year, but what can I say? Neither War Horse nor The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn (both due for release days apart in December) are all that compelling to me at this stage. But I shouldn’t feel like too undevoted a Spielberg fan, as he is definitely connected to one of my top choices. Anyway, here goes…
20. MARGARET – Kenneth Lonergan’s debut film as a writer/director was 2000’s You Can Count On Me, a very good movie that earned a Best Actress nomination for Laura Linney, a Best Original Screenplay nomination for Lonergan and introduced moviegoers to Mark Ruffalo (in a role that should have been Oscar nominated as well). Lonergan was nominated again as a co-writer on 2002’s Gangs of New York. So expectations were high when he began production in 2005 on his second effort as a writer/director, Margaret, starring Ruffalo, Anna Paquin and Matt Damon. That’s right…2005. Turns out the film became bogged down in creative and legal quagmires, as detailed by the Los Angeles Times two years ago. Last summer it was reported that Margaret would finally be released this year. That’s the last I heard, so I don’t know if it’s still on track or not. Curiosity factor lands it on my list. After all that time and all the entanglements, can a good movie emerge? I hope we’ll get to find out. (Fall…maybe)
19. TAKE THIS WALTZ – There may be no more intriguing a match of director and actor this year than Sarah Polley and Seth Rogen. Polley is the young actress, writer and director behind the quiet, mature 2007 film Away From Her, about a couple dealing with the wife’s slide into Alzheimer’s. It earned Oscar nominations for Julie Christie and for Polley’s adapted screenplay. And Rogen, well, we more readily associate him with the hilariously crude tomfoolery of Judd Apatow films than the more indie, dramatic leanings of Polley (although she did go commercial as star of the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake). Not knowing the tone of the film, said to be a love triangle involving two guys and girl, it’s hard to say whether Polley or Rogen is the one stepping farther into unfamiliar territory. The fact that Sarah Silverman co-stars might suggest more of a comedy, but the main female role actually belongs to Michelle Williams, so…wow…this is quite the fascinating line-up of talent. (Fall)
18. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO – I have yet to get swept up in the literary phenomenon of Stieg Larsson’s Milennium Trilogy. I haven’t read the books, nor seen the Swedish films that launched actress Noomi Rapace to international stardom. But the American version is directed by David Fincher, so…’nuff said. Rooney Mara, who made a strong impression on Fincher as Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend in the opening scene of The Social Network, takes on the role of hacker Lisbeth Salander, with other key parts filled by Daniel Craig, Robin Wright, Stellan Skarsgaard and Christopher Plummer. (December)
17. J. EDGAR – Leonardo DiCaprio teams up with director Clint Eastwood to play the famed FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in this biopic written by Milk Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black. I don’t actually know if the movie is scheduled for release this year; it just began production in early February. But given the efficiency with which Eastwood shoots and edits, he’s probably handing his final cut into he studio right around now. Alright, maybe not that fast, but a 2011 release seems likely. Eastwood’s last two outings – Invictus and Gran Torino – left me underwhelmed. But with DiCaprio in another strong central role, heading an ensemble that includes Judi Dench, Naomi Watts, Josh Lucas and The Social Network‘s breakout star Armie Hammer, this could be Eastwood’s return to form. (Fall/Winter)
16. RANGO – We’ve entered an era where the lines between live-action and animated films have become increasingly blurred. The Star Wars prequels found actors performing on stages against greenscreens, their environments digitally constructed around them, while Robert Zemeckis, James Cameron and Peter Jackson have led pioneering work in motion capture technology (with some results more successful than others). Now we’re seeing directors who’ve traditionally worked in one medium cross over to the other. Pixar’s Andrew Stanton and Brad Bird are working on their live-action feature debuts, and now Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski follows Wes Anderson into the world of animation. Rango tells of a lizard (voiced by Johnny Depp) who finds himself in an Old West town. How or why that happens I don’t know, but the animation looks great and early glimpses suggest a quirky, unique animated adventure. As you can see from the video below, the buzz has been building. (March)
15. HANNA – Popular film has gifted us many trends over the years: body-switching movies, erupting volcano movies, asteroid movies…and now we seem to be in the midst of a new trend: young girls killing the shit out of everyone in sight. Last year gave us the hilarious, hyperviolent Kick-Ass, a movie which was nearly stolen by pint-sized Chloe Grace Moretz as the blissfully homicidal Hit Girl. This year brings Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch, but far more intriguing to me is Hanna, re-teaming director Joe Wright with his Oscar nominated Atonement star Saorise Ronan as a deadly tween on a mission…or something. I don’t know exactly, but it looks pretty damn cool based on the trailer. Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana also star. As it happens, Ronan will stick with this trend in the upcoming Violet & Daisy, playing another teenage assassin alongside Alexis Bledel and Tony Soprano himself, James Gandolfini. Girls just wanna have fun…by tearing your fucking head off. (April)
14. THE BEAVER – I know that I’m supposed to be completely disgusted by Mel Gibson these days, but I’m not. His personal demons are his personal demons, and I hope he works through them. As long as he doesn’t beat, maim, rape or kill, then it’s all just sticks and stones. Or not. I don’t know. The guy is a good actor, a good filmmaker and I still look forward to his work. The Beaver, directed by Gibson’s close friend and Maverick co-star Jodie Foster, centers on a man whose life is falling apart and who is so depressed that he can only communicate by using a beaver hand puppet. Sounds wonderfully weird. Early buzz on the film (which was filmed before The Great Meltdown of 2010), and Gibson’s performance in particular, is strong. And it certainly sounds like an original. Before Foster came along, the script was featured on the 2008 Black List, a Hollywood executive’s annual scroll of the best unproduced screenplays kicking around the industry. (Incidentally, Take This Waltz appeared on 2009’s list). Frankly, I can’t wait to see what Gibson does with this role. (May)
13. THE TREE OF LIFE – I know…we’ve been here before. This is the third year that Terrence Malick’s “new” film, featuring Sean Penn and Brad Pitt, has appeared on my list, but this time it’s really, really coming out. I swear. It has a poster, a trailer, a release date…everything an actual movie coming to a theater near you is expected to have. I don’t know too much more about it than I did the past two years; the trailer is somewhat cryptic, teasing a story as epic as the cosmos and as intimate as the relationships between fathers and sons. So what took so long? Apparently it got caught in limbo when there was a shake-up at the studio originally set to distribute it. Fox Searchlight picked it up last September, but decided to hold off on releasing it until they could market it properly, with the care warranted by a Malick movie. Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if the director was still tinkering away on it all that time. But believe it or not, he’s already shooting his next film – his fastest turnaround ever. So look for that one to show up on this list next year. And the year after that. And the year after that. (May)
12. WIN WIN – I don’t know much about the premise of Thomas McCarthy’s third film as writer/director, but the fact that it’s written and directed by Thomas McCarthy is good enough to place it on my list. He’s given us The Station Agent and The Visitor, both of which are simple, unique and wonderfully acted. His newest stars Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan and Bobby Canavale. How can you lose? (April)
11. SOURCE CODE – One of 2009’s best cinematic surprises was Moon, the feature directing debut of David Bowie scion Duncan Jones. His follow-up finds him sticking with a sci-fi premise but significantly ramping up the action. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a soldier tasked with reliving an 8-minute period prior to a train crash over and over again until he can determine who is responsible for setting the bomb that caused the derailment. Vera Farmiga, Michelle Monaghan and Jeffrey Wright co-star…but for me, Jones is the one to watch. (April)
10. THE DESCENDANTS – Hard to believe, but Alexander Payne hasn’t directed a feature film since 2004’s Sideways (he did contribute one of the best segments to the anthology film Paris J’Taime, and has kept busy with other projects). How nice it will be to have him back. His leading man this time around is George Clooney, and the actor’s impeccable eye for material makes his team-up with Payne all the more tantalizing. I don’t know much about the story (that’s quite a pattern, isn’t it?), but I’m further excited by the casting of Judy Greer and Matthew Lillard. Payne has shown a gift for matching actors to material, and has done so with people both on and off the A-list. He gave Virginia Madsen and Thomas Haden Church career-resurrecting roles in Sideways, so I’m crossing my fingers that Greer, a great actress whose long resume includes Adaptation, Arrested Development and many films and TV shows that aren’t as good as she is in them, will finally have a role rich enough to bring her the level of attention she deserves. And Lillard is usually seen as an over-the-top goofball in not-so-great movies, so I can’t wait to see if Payne can reign him in and show us another side of him. (Fall/Winter)
9. CARNAGE – Roman Polanski’s follow-up to last year’s gem The Ghost Writer is this adaptation of 2009’s Tony-winning Best Play, God of Carnage. The dark comedy is about two couples who meet to discuss a fight between their school-aged children, but prove as the night goes on to be not much more than children themselves. Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly will play one couple, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz the other. That’s one damn awesome cast, though I can’t help feel a bit of disappointment that the original Broadway quartet wasn’t tapped for the film. After all, we’re talking Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden (who won a Tony for her role; all four were nominated). That’s not exactly a slate of no-names. But then, the Broadway cast weren’t the originals either. The play ran in London prior to arriving in New York, and featured Ralph Fiennes and Janet McTeer. Despite the revolving door of performers, we’re surely in for a treat with Foster, Winslet, Waltz and Reilly tearing up the meaty script, adapted by Polanksi and the play’s author Yasmina Reza. (Fall/Winter)
8. THE IDES OF MARCH – In addition to his starring role in The Descendants, George Clooney steps back behind the camera this year as well, and may just have another Good Night and Good Luck on his hands with this story, based on the play Farragut North, about a dirty political campaign. (Is there any other kind?) I’m not sure if the film is a satire or straight-up drama, but whatever it is, this cast has me sold: Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Marisa Tomei, Paul Giamatti and Evan Rachel Wood. (October)
7. MONEYBALL – Here we have an adaptation of a book by The Blind Side author Michael Lewis, recounting how the Oakland A’s used unconventional statistics to put together a competitive team despite a significantly smaller budget than big spenders like the Yankees. That may not sound like gripping cinema, but neither did The Social Network…and like that film, this one boasts a script by Aaron Sorkin (re-writing a draft by Steven Zaillian). Ready for another killer cast? How about Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman (again), Robin Wright, and going against-the-grain, Jonah Hill and Parks and Recreation‘s Chris Pratt? Capping off the roster is director Bennett Miller, who made 2005’s stunning Capote but has been MIA ever since. With a talent line-up like that, the bases are clearly loaded. (September)
6. CONTAGION – No one enjoys catching a virus, but catching a good virus movie can be an entirely different proposition. There’s the slightly cheesy but highly enjoyable Dustin Hoffman flick Outbreak; HBO’s And the Band Played On is a great detective story about the early days of the AIDS epidemic; and post-apocalyptic tales like 28 Days Later, I Am Legend and 12 Monkeys all have a virus to thank for nearly wiping out mankind. So okay, Contagion doesn’t exactly cover new ground. But with Steven Soderbergh in the director’s chair and Kate Winslet, Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law and Laurence Fishburne all on the hunt, it’s ground I’ll be happy to tread. Soderbergh is shooting the film in 3D…which makes it the first movie since Avatar that I actually want to see in 3D. (October)
5. YOUNG ADULT – Four years after collaborating on Juno, director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody reteam with the story of an author who returns to her hometown and pursues an ex-boyfriend, now married with children. Charlize Theron stars, along with Patton Oswalt and go-to handsome guy Patrick Wilson. Reitman has emerged as one of the brightest storytellers in Hollywood, which makes anything he’s doing worth getting excited about. (Fall/Winter)
4. SUPER 8 – As someone who came of age in the Age of Spielberg – the suburban adventures of Close Encounters, E.T., Poltergeist, The Goonies and Gremlins fueling my imagination – the notion of J.J. Abrams writing and directing a film that pays homage to Spielberg’s 70’s and 80’s classics kinda makes me giddy. In many ways, Abrams is the second coming of Spielberg. He shares the youthful and infectious enthusiasm for movie magic, his work balances sentimental with scary (without going too far in either direction), he’s great at staging action, he draws good work from child actors…and he just pretty much rules. With Spielberg onboard as executive producer, and a trailer indicating that Abrams is clearly on the right track (which is more than can be said for the clip’s freighter train), I’m pumped for a smart summer movie that promises both a sense of discovery and taste of the wonderfully familiar. (June)
3. THE MUPPETS – Like the movies of Steven Spielberg, The Muppets were a major part of my childhood. And as I’ve never really grown up, they remain a source of serious joy. So when I heard a few years ago that Jason Segel was plotting to bring them back to the big screen, it was like music to my ears…if the music in question was a psychadelic, hard rockin’ jam by Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. Segel stars in the film, which he co-wrote with his Forgetting Sarah Marshall collaborator Nicholas Stoller. Flight of the Conchords director James Bobin is at the helm, and Segel is joined by Amy Adams, Chris Cooper and in keeping with Muppet tradition, a slew of big name guest stars. (November)
2. HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART II – I had my usual issues with Part I of the final installment of Harry’s journey, but all in all I thought it was one of the best entries in the series. I’m sure I’ll have my issues with this grand finale as well (I’m already concerned by shots in the trailer that suggest Harry and Voldemort’s showdown takes place in isolation, rather than surrounded by their respective followers as it does in the book). But the final film has arguably the best cinematic potential of all the books, because its centerpiece will be the epic Battle of Hogwarts. An opportunity like this is one where, for as much as J.K. Rowling was able to accomplish on the page, the screen can just do so much more. I expect the filmmakers will draw out the battle, add details and generally go for broke. But I think more than anything, I’m looking to see how the filmmakers handle a chapter from the book called “The Prince’s Tale,” in which we finally learn the many hidden truths about Severus Snape. Alan Rickman, this is your moment. I know you won’t let me down. (July)
1. HUGO CABRET – Martin Scorsese’s career has covered a wide variety of ground, and after all this time the director is still exploring new territory…in this case, a children’s book. The Invention of Hugo Cabret is described by its author Brian Selznick, in a letter on the book’s Amazon.com page, as a story of “Paris in the 1930’s, a thief, a broken machine, a strange girl, a mean old man, and the secrets that tie them all together.” As usual, Scorsese has assembled a terrific cast, featuring Ben Kingsley, Chloe Grace Moretz, Christopher Lee, Jude Law, Emily Mortimer, Sacha Baron Cohen and Ray Winstone. Most intriguingly, the director makes his first foray into 3D filmmaking to bring the book’s acclaimed pictures to life. I haven’t bought into the recent 3D explosion, but when filmmakers like Scorsese (and Steven Soderbergh, as mentioned above) embrace the technology, I’m eager to witness the results. (November)
“New Rule: If they’re going to make a historical epic full of British actors in period costumes about Queen Elizabeth II helping her father get over his speech impediment, why bother having the Oscars at all? You win. Unless someone in America is making a movie where Meryl Streep teaches Anne Frank how to box, we give up.” xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher, 9/24/10
BEST PICTURE
Bill Maher may have called it earlier than anyone. It would seem that The King’s Speech is poised to be the big winner on Sunday night, with a Best Picture win and several others along the way. Despite The Social Network conquering the first half of the season, its chances are now slim to none. Ditto for everything else, even though True Grit and The Fighter, in particular, are bound to have their supporters. So…not a lot to say here.
Well, one thing. It’s been irritating over the last three or four weeks to see Oscar pundits suddenly jumping on The King’s Speech bandwagon and saying that they really knew all along it would be the favorite and that The Social Network never really had a chance. Because that’s not what they were saying at all before the Producer’s Guild of America, Director’s Guild of America and Screen Actor’s Guild awards all turned the tide away from Social and toward King’s Speech. Although The Social Network did kick ass amongst the critics awards like few films have (in recent memory at least), it was never an obvious Best Picture choice; not to anyone who has actually paid attention to the kind of movies that appeal to the Academy. Everyone was so sure it was gonna be The Social Network, until The King’s Speech started getting love from the guilds. Suddenly these people who had already declared Social‘s victory claimed they really figured that Oscar fortune would favor King’s Speech. Bad form, chaps.
Personal Choice: Inception
BEST DIRECTOR
Now here we actually have some suspense. I don’t think King’s Speech director Tom Hooper has this locked up. The two biggest things in his favor are: a) the movie is the likely Best Picture winner, and Picture and Director usually go hand-in-hand; and b) he won the DGA award, which is a pretty reliable indicator for the Oscar – only six times have the DGA and the Academy diverged since the DGA started its awards in 1948. But of those six times, three have been in the last 15 years. And in the same time period, Best Picture and Best Director have gone to different films on four occasions. (Take that stat with a grain of salt though; Best Picture and Best Director have split 21 times, and many of them happened in consecutive years or just a couple of years apart. So it’s not a trend that has picked up speed in more recent years. In fact, it really has no relevance at all. Why am I pointing it out then? I…I don’t know. I can’t help it. This is like a drug addiction.)
Another thing that could favor Hooper is the exclusion of Christopher Nolan. Sort of. One of the criticisms leveled at Nolan (which is mentioned in this article from The Daily Beast that examines possible reasons for his omission) is that his films, dazzling and engrossing as they may be, are cold. I happen to disagree with this assessment of his work. If you look at Memento, The Dark Knight (and Batman Begins, to a lesser extent), The Prestige and Inception, there are love stories running through all of them, often fueling the protagonist’s actions. I mean, nobody’s going to mistake the guy for Nora Ephron…but I think his work has more heart than say, Stanley Kubrick’s.
I’m getting off-topic. Point is, similar complaints of coldness have been leveled at David Fincher throughout his career (and Hooper’s loss would be Fincher’s win. There’s been no precedent to suggest it would go to Russell, Aronofsky or the Coens). Even when Fincher directed The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which is a romantic movie both in its style and content, many still deemed it icy. All this to say that Nolan’s snub may suggest that the Director’s branch wasn’t interested in cold this year. They wanted warmth, and The King’s Speech has that.
On the other hand, Hooper is not well known in Hollywood. Such unfamiliarity didn’t stop American Beauty‘s Sam Mendes or The English Patient‘s Anthony Minghella from winning, but a guy like Fincher may appeal more than Hooper to art directors, sound designers, visual effects artists and others whose particular trades are well-represented in his movies. Beyond that, some voters may have the clarity to see that The King’s Speech is just not as powerful a directorial accomplishment as The Social Network. Really, I’m still stunned Hooper won the DGA…and though his Oscar chances are strong, I would like to think voters will realize there’s more impressive directing work to choose from. There is voting crossover between the DGA and the Academy, but the DGA has a much larger voting body and includes the diversity of commercial and television directors, who may have been excited by Hooper’s successful transition to feature films. He comes from TV, where his credits include HBO’s John Adams miniseries. (Interestingly, that series nearly swept the 2008 Emmy Awards – Best Miniseries, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor…but Hooper lost Best Director. I maintain it was the excessive use of dutch angles, which I must point out whenever possible. So obnoxious. He also directed the network’s Elizabeth I with Helen Mirren, and did win an Emmy for that.)
The last clue that tells me Hooper is vulnerable is that he lost the Best Director at the British Academy of Film & Television Awards. This shocked me, as Hooper was on his home turf and The King’s Speech took seven awards, including Best Picture, Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress (we’ll talk about the latter two further down). A BAFTA win or loss is by no means a clear bellwether for the Oscar, but there is some crossover in voters, so the fact that they went for Fincher over Hooper is not insignificant…though it should also be pointed out that at the BAFTA’s, only directors vote for the winning director whereas at the Oscars, the entire membership can vote.
So what’s it all mean? The tea leaves could be read both ways, but I’m giving the edge to Fincher. That might be based a little too much on my personal feeling that Hooper doesn’t deserve this award, but there it is.
Personal Choice: In the still baffling-to-me absence of Christopher Nolan (despite what the article above claims), I’d actually give the prize to Darren Aronofsky. I think Black Swan has its problems, but Aronofsky puts on a hell of a show, and it’s because of his vision and talent that the film is so compelling.
BEST ACTOR Colin Firth pretty much has this in the bag, so there’s no need for a lot of analysis. But since I haven’t been able to comment on it from personal experience as of yet, I should say something about Javier Bardem. I wasn’t crazy about Biutiful, but you can’t say that Bardem didn’t pour himself into the role. He demonstrates a deep commitment to the part and he is compelling, but it’s a hard performance to love. The film is just so steeped in misery, and Bardem wears that well…but as far as actors going deep and exposing themselves, raw nerves and all, I’d rather have seen Ryan Gosling nominated for Blue Valentine.
As for Firth, the praise he’s earned for The King’s Speech is not unfounded, and while there are aspects of the role that definitely offer him the chance to do that showy, externalized Acting! to which Academy members have a Pavlovian response, it should be said that there are plenty of quiet, subtle elements to the performance as well, as Firth’s duke-turned-king struggles internally. So it really is the complete package voters are looking for…even if I think Firth was even more deserving last year for A Single Man. If you really want to see an example of screen acting at its finest, watch the scene from that film in which Firth receives a phone call about his partner’s car accident.
Personal Choice: I like all the performances but can’t say I’m super-excited about any of them. So I guess I’d fall in line and root for Firth. It’s nice to see a guy who’s been in the game so long, standing on the sidelines while others around him got all the accolades, finally having his moment to shine. (Not a reason to vote for him…just an opinion.)
BEST ACTRESS
When Black Swan was released and it became clear that Natalie Portman was going to be a major player this awards season, I wondered if the late January release of a likely-tepid romantic comedy with Ashton Kutcher would be the Kryptonite that sank her chances, just as (it’s widely believed) Norbit destroyed Eddie Murphy’s Oscar bid for Dreamgirls a few years back. I haven’t seen Portman’s No Strings Attached, but I doubt it’s as dismal as Norbit.
Okay, I haven’t seen Norbit either, but I’m a sentient being with a mild awareness of the movie. That’s pretty much all it takes to make a ruling on that one. Anyway, it seems pretty clear by now that Portman isn’t in any danger. 2011 is her year, no doubt. She turned No Strings Attached into a box office hit and has three other movies due in the months ahead, representing her interest in different types of films (one is a stoner comedy, one a comic book adaptation and one a low-budget indie). The pregnancy thing doesn’t hurt either. And then there’s her performance in Black Swan. You know, the thing that she’s actually supposed to be judged on. It’s terrific, and reflects the dedication of rigorous physical training – the kind of extra heft those Academy members eat up like M&M’s.
It is sort of a bummer that Annette Bening will likely lose again to another younger actress, though to be fair – and to take nothing away from Bening’s awesome performance in American Beauty – Hilary Swank totally deserved the win in 1999 for Boys Don’t Cry. Whether she deserved it in 2004 for Million Dollar Baby is more debatable in my mind, though I can’t make a case for Bening either, having still never seen Being Julia. Sympathy for Bening – a sense that her time has come – could prove to be a spoiler, but I don’t see it happening.
As incredible as Michelle Williams is in Blue Valentine, it’s the kind of performance that’s almost too real, too natural, too naked to win an Oscar. Academy members rarely go for subtle and natural. They wanna see you work for it. And besides, I’m sure Blue Valentine hasn’t been seen widely enough. Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Lawrence were both excellent, but they’re along for the ride this year. Portman takes it.
Personal Choice: Natalie Portman
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR It’s too bad that Mark Ruffalo faces such stiff competition, because he really is excellent in The Kids Are All Right. He does so many interesting things with that character. And as impressive as John Hawkes is in Winter’s Bone, his prize is the recognition. Ditto for Jeremy Renner.
The frontrunner is of course Christian Bale, who has won most of the key Supporting Actor races along the way, but I wouldn’t be shocked (disappointed, but not shocked) if Geoffrey Rush pulled an upset. I’m not expecting that; I think the Academy loves The Fighter, and a vote for Bale is the most obvious way to honor the film, not to mention a great, overdue actor and a tremendous performance. Besides, who could resist the chance, however unlikely, that Bale would pull a repeat of his infamous tirade from the Terminator: Salvation set and start screaming obscenities at the random girl who hands out the trophy, cussing her out for moving around too much while he makes his speech? “WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM? DID YOU JUST WIN AN OSCAR? DID-YOU-JUST-WIN-AN-OSCAR?? NO! NO YOU FUCKING DIDN’T. SO STOP FUCKING WALKING AROUND WHILE I’M TRYING TO GIVE MY SPEECH. IT’S DISTRACTING, IT’S FUCKING DISTRACTING!! HOW HARD IS IT TO STAND IN ONE FUCKING PLACE? FUCK!!!”
Nah, the truth is that Bale has been a teddy bear on the awards circuit this season. Affable, grateful, smiling, enthusiastic and generous with his praise for his co-stars and his real-life counterpart Dickie Eklund and the Ward family, whose lives The Fighter depicts. Still, I have to wonder if a contingent of cinematographers and maybe other below-the-line Academy members will refuse to vote for him, as a belated “fuck you” for his behavior that day. There’s no way to ever know of course, but I’d bet anything Bale will lose at least a few votes for that outburst. Enough to hurt his chances? Probably not. If Bale loses, it will more likely be due to Rush benefitting from all that affection for The King’s Speech. Even with the film’s understandable popularity in England, Rush’s BAFTA win was unexpected. Again, there’s no reason to think it foreshadows an Oscar victory, but there is a nagging voice in my head suggesting Rush has gained ground. Despite the praise I’ve heard from others, I don’t see this as an Oscar-winning performance. I enjoyed it, but it hardly blew me away. I’m sticking with Bale for the win, but I’ll be watching this one nervously.
Personal Pick: Christian fucking Bale.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS It seems like Best Supporting Actress is often the most wide-open, anything-could-happen of the top categories, or the one where the unexpected is most likely to happen. Marisa Tomei, Marcia Gay Harden, Anna Paquin, Tilda Swinton, Juliette Binoche…all relative-to-huge surprises.
If we go with the flow of the precursors, then not only is Bale a lock to win, but things look good for his co-star Melissa Leo as well. Yet despite wins at the Broadcast Film Critics, the Golden Globes and SAG, I’ve still seen Leo as being vulnerable. And things may have changed even more dramatically in the last few weeks. The first sign of trouble I see – the one that’s been there for a while, and which is utterly arbitrary – is that you can really tell how much Leo wants it. There’s nothing wrong with hunger, nothing wrong with working the campaign trail if that’s how the game is played (though Mo’Nique proved last year that playing the game isn’t a requirement), but on every awards show I’ve watched this season, as the camera holds on the faces of the five nominees, you can just see Leo on edge, desperately hoping she gets the prize. It’s not that I think this hurts her chances, but rather that her barely contained desire cosmically positions her to lose the big one. Watching her in those moments, it seems like she’ll barely be able to keep it together if they call another name. And in a way, it’s understandable. She’s the kind of actress for whom an Oscar is probably the most meaningful. For a working actress like that – not a big star, not a household name, but a good, strong performer who has done consistently fine work for years in television and film – I have to think the validation of an Oscar would be pretty special. I first saw Leo back in the early 90’s when she was a regular on NBC’s great police drama Homicide: Life on the Street, and it’s been satisfying to see her hitting such a stride in her career of late, getting good material and opportunities. So it makes sense to me that she really wants it. My feeling that she’s fated not to win it for that very reason is nothing more than a bizarre gut feeling.
More concrete, and more recent, is the fact that Leo put out her own For Your Consideration ads right in the middle of the voting period. Actors have successfully self-campaigned before, but usually to win a nomination. As the article points out, however, it hasn’t gone so well for those already nominated now seeking the win. From various pieces I’ve read, reaction to Leo’s move has been mixed. Some have applauded her while others have deemed it crass. Some Academy members have said that the move will cost Leo their vote. Which is total bullshit, because let’s face it, Academy members: the entire system you’ve set up for your award is kind of crass. Any regular Oscar observer knows by now that this is a fantasy, but we still like to proffer it: the award should be about the PERFORMANCE. Yet Winning an Oscar can be as much about the campaigning. Studios and publicists force actors and directors to run a months-long gauntlet of screening Q&As, press interviews and party appearances to schmooze Academy members and woo votes. So here you have someone who, in addition to doing all of that, tried another path as well. And suddenly she’s going to be penalized for it? There are ways one could promote themselves that would be pretty obnoxious; Leo hasn’t crossed that line. Most leading Oscar pundits (oh yes, there is a thriving subculture out there around movie awards) have supported Leo, and here is one piece that makes some good points in her defense.
Despite any unfounded sense I’ve had that she might not win, the fact is that Leo was entering the Oscars as the frontrunner. She didn’t need to do this. She was in really good shape, and this has definitely become an issue. If she doesn’t win, we’ll never know if it was because these ads cost her too many votes (which seems unlikely to me anyway)…but wow, how terrible will she feel, wondering if she torpedoed her own chances?
There is also the theory that Leo won’t win because she’ll split the vote with her co-star Amy Adams, but I don’t think this is an issue. People talk about the roadblock of vote-splitting all the time, and it’s never made sense to me. You’re evaluating two completely different performances. If a voter prefers Leo, they’ll vote for her. If they prefer Adams, they’ll vote for her. What difference does it make if they come from the same movie or not? Catherine Zeta-Jones beat Queen Latifah for Chicago, F. Murray Abraham beat Tom Hulce for Amadeus, Jack Nicholson beat John Lithgow for Terms of Endearment, Robert DeNiro beat Lee Strasberg and Michael V. Gazzo for The Godfather Part II…hell, director Steven Soderbergh beat himself, winning for Traffic when he was also nominated for Erin Brockovich (not an acting example, but the same logic applies). The split vote is a myth.
So who will get it, if not Leo? Adams is excellent in a change-of-pace role, and the Academy is awfully fond of her. This is her third nomination since 2005. I could see her pulling an upset (and it would be hard for Leo to look – and maybe even feel – too upset if her co-star and friend was the one to beat her). Many are looking to Hailee Steinfeld, who gives a stellar debut performance that’s at the heart of the widely-embraced True Grit. Helena Bonham Carter took the BAFTA award, but though I’ve stated that I could see Geoffrey Rush repeating his BAFTA win at the Oscars, I don’t think Bonham Carter has the same chances. For one thing, she didn’t have to compete against Leo (who was overlooked by BAFTA) or Steinfeld (who was nominated – appropriately – in the Lead race, rather than Supporting). Between that and the general fondness for The King’s Speech, she got lucky. And as for Jacki Weaver, well, it’s an honor just to be nominated.
I don’t know what will happen. For now I’m still giving the edge to Leo, but Hailee Steinfeld could totally nab it.
Personal Choice: Melissa Leo (helped by the fact that I was also really struck by her work in Welcome to the Rileys, a film no one else seemed to see or care about, but which I liked. Not only was Leo’s performance really lovely, but it was a 180 degree turn from The Fighter.)
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Earlier in the year, The Kids Are All Right seemed like a potential winner here, but in the wake of The King’s Speech and Inception, it’s now running a distant third. Is there any reason to hope that Christopher Nolan will win? Will his egregious snub in the Best Director race actually help him here, rallying support from those who feel that he needs some kind of reward for his unique vision? He must have friends, allies and admirers throughout the Academy. All those people I talked about as being potential supporters of David Fincher because his films embrace their crafts…if there’s any credence to that theory, it must apply to Nolan as well. Besides, it’s right there in the name of the category: Best Original Screenplay. Yes, I know that means original as in not based on pre-existing material, but maybe it should count for something else too. Nolan should have won this award for Memento ten years ago. Dare I dream that his time has come?
Probably not. Although Nolan did win the award from the Writer’s Guild of America, he didn’t have to face The King’s Speech, which had been ruled ineligible by the WGA. And I’m afraid that too many people were too confused by Inception. We certainly don’t want to challenge people too much or make them think too hard. Much easier to just speak to their emotions, which The King’s Speech does quite well. The fact that its writer, David Seidler, overcame a stutter himself, will likely pluck at voters heartstrings too. I’m predicting The King’s Speech, but I’m hoping to be wrong. C’mon Academy, show some balls! Reach into that part of yourself that gave Eminem an Oscar for Best Song and honored The Departed as Best Picture. I know you can do it; I just don’t think you will.
Personal Choice: Is it not clear?
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
This should be an open and shut case. By all logic, the words “Aaron Sorkin” and “The Social Network” are already engraved. Throughout this entire awards season, Sorkin’s screenplay has not lost a single award for which it was eligible. Not one. Every critics group that gave only one Screenplay award gave it to The Social Network. Every critics group that recognized both Original and Adapted scripts gave their Adapted prize to The Social Network. It won the Golden Globe, the WGA and the BAFTA. 32 awards in all, if my notes are correct. I suspect, though I haven’t done the research to confirm this, that such a perfect record may be unprecedented. And if not, surely the list is extremely short. Sorkin is probably the safest bet of the night.
And yet, let me just throw out one thing. Last year, Up in the Air was considered a good bet to win Best Picture during the first half of the awards season, much like The Social Network was this year. And last year, the Adapted Screenplay for Air won suitcases full of awards. Even when its Best Picture hopes had faded, the film still went into Oscar night as the heavy favorite to win Adapted Screenplay. Then in the night’s biggest surprise, it lost to Precious. Now, Up in the Air‘s track record for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay wins wasn’t as strong as The Social Network‘s. But the similar set-up does give me a moment’s pause.
Aaaaand….moment passed. The Oscar goes to Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network.
Personal Choice: The Social Network
BEST ANIMATED FILM Pixar’s reign continues. Toy Story 3 wins.
Personal Choice: Toy Story 3
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
The presence here of The King’s Speech is just one of many cases where people’s love for the film allowed it to earn nominations it didn’t really deserve. In some of those cases, it might even win, but probably not in this one. Likewise, The Social Network will have to be content with a nomination. This should come down to a three-way race between Black Swan, Inception and True Grit, and I really don’t know which way it will go. Roger Deakins, the man behind the camera for every Coen Brothers movie since 1991’s Barton Fink and one of the greatest cinematographers ever to commit an image to celluloid, has still never won an Oscar. True Grit could finally change that. Like everything Deakins touches, especially for the Coens, it’s a beautifully shot film, embracing both tight confines and the open plains. I think Inception poses more of a threat than Black Swan, given its varied set-pieces and the fact that it won the prize from the American Society of Cinematographers. But that group has honored Deakins before. The Academy has yet to show him the money, and considering True Grit‘s popularity, this may be the easiest place to honor it.
Personal Choice: As much as I love Deakins and want to see him win an Oscar, on the whole I don’t think True Grit ranks among his best work. I’d be happy to see it win just because I want the man to win a damn Oscar already, but I’m more torn between Inception and Black Swan as the deserving winners.
BEST FILM EDITING I must state again for the record that the absence of Inception in this category is incomprehensible. It should be the winner, hands down. But we must work with what we have, and it is a pretty strong category this year. The least deserving nominee is of course one that has a good chance of winning. Yes King’s Speech, I’m looking at you. This is yet another instance where it’s easy to imagine that voters will just pick the movie they like without really thinking about what they’re voting for. I’m betting they’ll know better in this case, but who knows. The Fighter, Black Swan and 127 Hours are all worthy contenders. But my money’s on The Social Network, with its complex timeline that juggles two legal depositions and the events that led to the lawsuits. Impressive work.
Not quite as impressive as Inception, but still.
Personal Choice: The Social Network or Black Swan
BEST ART DIRECTION Tim Burton films fare well in this category. In fact, of the three Burton films that have been nominated for Art Direction over the years, all have won. So history favors Alice in Wonderland. But I suspect the streak may end this year. Sure, Alice in Wonderland is pretty, but it’s also overstuffed. If the award were for Most Art Direction, it would be a slam dunk. This criticism may not matter to voters who just like the purdy colors, but I feel like they might go a different way. The category also tends to honor period pieces, and The King’s Speech is more likely to benefit from that tendency than True Grit. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I is also in the mix, but probably doesn’t stand out enough for a win. And then there’s Inception, which combines elements of modern, fantasy and period design. That should make it the winner, but I have a feeling voters will go with the straightforward work of The King’s Speech.
Personal Choice: Inception
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
I haven’t seen The Tempest, but based on the images I’ve caught, it does look like it features some impressive costuming. However, I doubt most Academy members have seen it either. Same goes for I Am Love, which benefits from a striking dress or two, but not much more. As this is another category that most often goes for period pieces, we once again have True Grit and The King’s Speech in contention. Grit‘s costumes are good, but there’s not much variety and the colors don’t exactly pop. This is definitely a category where King’s Speech could benefit from Autopilot Syndrome, but this time I think Alice in Wonderland will stand out.
Personal Choice: Alice in Wonderland
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
I’m getting tired of saying this, but it just keeps being applicable: The King’s Speech barely deserves to be here, yet it stands a good chance of winning. The Social Network score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is original and effective, but may be a little too unconventional for more conservative tastes. And Inception may just be too loud and dissonant for older voters. I’m not usually a huge proponent of scores lacking a strong, memorable theme or those that relentlessly pound – characteristics that apply to Inception. But Nolan uses Hans Zimmer’s score as such a key tool in his arsenal, employing propulsive music to constantly keep the tension cranked. If we’re going by the most effective use of a score in a film, this is the one. But in this race, I think voters will prefer the lighter, more classical-stylings of The King’s Speech. Snore.
Personal Choice: Inception
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
This category is tough to call this year. None of these songs have much staying power. The question is whether or not voters take the time to go back and listen to the songs before marking their ballots, or just make a selection based on which film or artist they like or which song they just assume is probably best. (To hear the songs for yourself, mostly courtesy of InContention.com, click on the links below.)
While I have to admit that Gwyneth Paltrow’s got some impressive pipes, I’m ruling out her tune “Coming Home” from Country Strong, if for no other reason than I doubt enough people have seen the film. The Dido/A.R. Rahman collaboration “If I Rise,” from 127 Hours, is the most interesting and original entry, but there’s no guarantee that’s a good thing in a category that generally (though not always) likes to play it safe. That leaves the animated films. Pixar once again turned to Randy Newman to come up with a song for Toy Story 3. The result, “We Belong Together,” is a snazzy, upbeat number, but not all that strong, and not as good as some of his earlier Pixar tunes like “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from the original Toy Story or “If I Didn’t Have You” from Monsters, Inc. (the song that finally won Newman an Oscar after 15 nominations). Finally, there’s “I See the Light,” the love song from Disney’s Tangled. Written by Disney’s longtime go-to composer Alan Menken (working with lyricist Glenn Slater), it’s a nice enough tune with a pretty melody courtesy of Menken. But just as Randy Newman’s song doesn’t measure up to his past work, “I See the Light” is a shadow of the truly great songs Menken created with his late collaborator Howard Ashman for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. I suppose the comparison is unfair and irrelevant, but I can’t help thinking it.
“If I Rise” has spoiler potential, but my shot in the dark is that the award will go to “I See the Light.” The song is sweet, and the scene in which it occurs is more memorable than the song itself. Plus, when you look back at those Menken-Ashman years and beyond to The Lion King, when multiple songs from each film were nominated, the romantic ballad almost always won out over the rousing showstopper. In this case the songs are from two different movies, but I think the same logic will apply, allowing “I See the Light” to trump “We Belong Together.”
Personal Choice: “If I Rise”
BEST MAKEUP The Wolfman is probably the safe bet here, for a few reasons. One, it’s the showiest of the contenders. There’s not a lot of subtlety about a guy turning into a werewolf. The reason this might matter is that none of the nominees, at least based on their box office numbers, were widely seen. Not that this reflects the number of Academy members who’ve seen them, since they get to see all their movies for free. But I’d be surprised if enough voters have seen The Way Back or Barney’s Version to make an informed judgment. So if they’re just looking at the three choices and basing their selection on instinct, they’d probably go with the werewolf. Which they might do even if they have seen all the nominees. Barney’s Version features some really well done aging makeup, while The Way Back‘s work mainly consists of facial wounds that reflect the harsh battle against nature that the characters are up against (cuts, bruises, blistering, etc.). Effective, but not flashy. I figure The Wolfman will nail it.
Personal Choice: The Way Back
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
It’s nice to finally see five films nominated in this category, which has previously allowed only three. I’ll be surprised and disappointed if Alice in Wonderland wins the prize, as its effects were inconsistent. Hereafter features one dynamite effects sequence – a tsunami ripping through a coastal community – but with no other major effects to speak of, there’s not enough to earn the win. Harry Potter and Iron Man 2 both feature high quality, impressive work that would not be undeserving, but you gotta figure that Inception – with its folding cityscapes, crumbling buildings, zero-gravity fights in spinning rooms and so much more – will emerge victorious.
Personal Choice: Inception
BEST SOUND EDITING and BEST SOUND MIXING
Understanding as little as I do about sound work in film, these two categories are always a crapshoot for me. Luckily, I always figure that most Academy members know as little about the category as I do, so we’re in the same boat. I’m going with Inception in both cases. My paper thin justification? For Sound Editing, I expect Inception‘s broad support gives it the edge over the other action movies in the race – Unstoppable and Tron: Legacy. Toy Story 3 and True Grit are here too, but my sense is that when there’s a quality, respected action (or sci-fi or fantasy) film in the running, voters will gravitate toward that.
In the Sound Mixing race, Inception faces more familiar competition – namely The King’s Speech and The Social Network. (True Grit and Salt round out the category). In their ignorance, voters could just go for King’s Speech, as I fear they’ll do in other places…but I actually think this is a category where they’ll display some semblance of logic. Again, the option of an action movie that is widely admired may make them feel like they’re applying their vote in a meaningful way.
Personal Choice: Given that I love the film and don’t know any better, Inception for both.
BEST DOCUMENTARY I can offer no help here, as I haven’t seen most of the nominees and am not aware of what has struck the right chord. While I don’t think it’s favored to win, I do especially want to catch up with Exit From the Git Shop, which sounds pretty trippy. I had no idea who Banksy was until a few months ago when his super-ballsy Simpsons opening aired. I thought this article, about how the Academy wouldn’t let the never-seen artist accept a potential Oscar in any way other than the traditional climb up the stage – was interesting. And I love the Charlie Brown picture. (I think there are other photos of his recent L.A. art floating around online.)
Anyway, for what it’s worth, I hear that Inside Job may be the winner, or possibly Restrepo. But like I said, I can offer no help here. In fact, I can’t help with any of the remaining categories…and since I’m on vacation right now, racing to finish this up in time for you to digest it all before the awards (or choke trying), I’m not even gonna bother making the attempt. I’m afraid you’re on your own for Best Documentary Short, Best Animated Short, Best Live Action Short and Best Foreign Language Film. (Actually, In A Better World may have the edge in the latter category, if the buzz I’m hearing is accurate.)
And there we have it. Some tough calls in the below-the line categories, and some potential surprises in some of the top categories. As always, I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds. Along with my wishes for a good Oscar night that favors your favorites (unless they conflict with mine, that is), I’ll leave you with this video of James Franco seeking hosting advice from Judd Apatow. Very awesome, and a little NSFW.
#1
INCEPTION
The movie I was most looking forward to all year met and exceeded my expectations, easily becoming the movie I loved more than any other all year. When it ended and the lights in the theater came up, people around me standing and collecting their belongings to shuffle out, I was still pinned to my seat. I had to sit there for a moment and take a breath, very possibly the first I’d taken in at least an hour. I couldn’t wait to see it again. Not just because the twisty plot requires multiple viewings, but because I wanted to get back into the cinemascape so brilliantly conceived by master filmmaker and storyteller Christopher Nolan. I never knew what was coming. That’s true of many good movies of course, but here every moment carried the thrill of what would happen next.
The world of the film is our own, but here there exists technology that allows Extractors like Leonardo DiCaprio’s Dom Cobb to infiltrate a person’s subconscious and steal an idea. It’s the latest form of corporate espionage, and although Cobb is the best, he’s paid a heavy price for living inside the mind. It has separated him from his family, and the only way back to them is through his most difficult job ever, involving a task many deem impossible. The assignment will take Cobb and his team into the mind of an heir played by Cillian Murphy, where they will have to move through multiple levels of his subconscious to complete their task. It’s head-trippy stuff, but Nolan keeps confusion at bay. Not that the movie is simple; you can’t sit back and let it wash over you. You need to participate in it, make the connections, follow closely the how’s, who’s, why’s, where’s and when’s. And I still can’t say that I understand every single piece, but the whole thing is so damn thrilling that a few loose strands hardly matter. The ride sweeps you willingly along.
Standing out among the strong ensemble is Marion Cotillard as Cobb’s wife, a complex character whose presence is a wild card in a job that relies on careful planning. Joseph Gordon-Levitt continues to prove just how effortlessly cool he is, handling some of the most mind-boggling action in the movie with total commitment. As the newest member of Cobb’s team, Ellen Page is a smart and appealing surrogate for the audience, learning truths about Cobb that even his longtime associates don’t know, and helping him from losing his way in the recesses of their subject’s mind. But the real star of the movie is Nolan, who gives us personal filmmaking on an epic scale and orchestrates it with flair and dexterity, guiding brilliant work from his usual team of collaborators which includes cinematographer Wally Pfister, editor Lee Smith and composer Hans Zimmer. Inception is a grand, cerebral spectacle with an emotional core that, fittingly, will remain lodged in my mind for a long, long time. It’s literally a dream movie.
#2
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
During a press conference to promote The Social Network, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin said, “It might seem counter-intuitive, this marriage of director and material. David is peerless as a visual director. I write people talking in rooms.” The David he speaks of is, of course, David Fincher. And while Sorkin is right that the marriage may seem an odd one, the resulting offspring is the latest evidence that opposites attract. Remove the players from the equation and you’re still left with an unlikely premise: that a movie about the founding of a website – even one as game-changing and ubiquitous as Facebook – would make an interesting movie. But against the odds, The Social Network – like The Insider – takes court depositions and related events that don’t seem inherently cinematic and spins them into movie gold. It’s been hailed as a generation-defining work by film and cultural critics, but I’ll leave that to the professionals. For me, it’s just a great story well told.
Set largely on a Harvard University campus that seems perpetually cloaked in night, the film traces the creation and skyrocketing ascent of Facebook, and the personal conflicts born as a result between founder Mark Zuckerberg and some of the people he steps on along the way. While based on factual events and legal documents (the film is actually adapted from Ben Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires), there is no way to know how close the Zuckerberg of the film is to the real man, but in the hands of Sorkin, Fincher and actor Jesse Eisenberg, he’s a fascinating figure – arrogant, awkward, brilliant, selfish, petty, lonely, pathetic, bold and often inscrutable. It’s a great performance by Eisenberg in which he adds a harder, darker edge to his frequent persona of the fast-talking geek. There’s always been something sharp about the actor’s speech; his words, with their staccato cadence, always sound pointy. Here, more so than in his past work, they truly cut like a knife.
One of the movie’s more interesting elements is the friendship between Mark and Facebook’s co-creator Eduardo Saverin, played in a breakthrough performance by British up-and-comer Andrew Garfield (also on this list in Never Let Me Go). Eduardo is the movie’s most sympathetic character, a nice guy who is a much better friend to Mark than Mark ever is to him, prompting one to wonder what he ever got out of the relationship. Facebook’s popularity soon brings them into the orbit of Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake, also very good), and Garfield does excellent work as the rapid growth of Mark and Eduardo’s creation comes between them and Mark becomes increasingly worshipful of Parker.
The other revelation in the cast is Armie Hammer, who gives two great performances playing the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, who accuse Mark of stealing Facebook from their idea. In most movies, these guys would be reduced to just douchebag antagonists, but Aaron Sorkin doesn’t do one-dimensional. The twins are, in some ways, everything Mark wishes he could be: attractive, wealthy, privileged…and yet his jealousy of those same qualities is what drives him to create his own site rather than labor under them as a programmer-for-hire. As the twins struggle with the right course of action to take after Facebook goes live, Hammer impresses with his ability to offer distinct shadings to the brothers while making them more than athletic pretty-boys. One would also be remiss not to mention actress Rooney Mara, who plays a small but critical role in the film, most of her screentime coming in the outstanding, much-heralded opening scene. Like Garfield and Hammer, this will surely prove to be a breakout role for her (Fincher has already cast her as the lead in his next film, an English language adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.)
Fincher’s direction is confident but unintrusive. Whereas many of his other movies deliberately call attention to the ruse of filmmaking, here his camera (guided by cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth) is not self-conscious. He lets Sorkin’s script and the actors take center stage, and reinforces their work with fine editing by Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, as well as a terrific, moody score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
I know many people, young and old, who have no interest in Facebook, but you don’t need to “get” the site, or be a user, to enjoy this story of its creation. Facebook is the MacGuffin in a story about ambition, isolation, creation and betrayal. The Social Network, and its incredibly compelling main character, leaves you with plenty to discuss.
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#3
TOY STORY 3
I know, I know…the continual act of marveling at Pixar’s accomplishments is getting old, and yet they just keep defying expectations and producing movies of such incredible quality that marveling can’t be helped. How often do we reach the third movie in a series (a series that, it’s important to note, was not conceived as a series; this isn’t Star Wars or Lord of the Rings) and find that not only has there been no drop in quality whatsoever from one film to the next, but that it’s arguably better than its predecessors?
We pick up with Woody, Buzz and the rest of the gang as their owner Andy is about to depart for college and must decide what to do with his once beloved and now largely forgotten childhood playthings. They wind up at a day care center called Sunnyside, which seems to promise them a good life of attention and adoration. Instead, they face dangers both from over-enthusiastic children and some of their new fellow toys, prompting them to stage an elaborate escape that would make the likes of Steve McQueen and George Clooney proud. Along the way, some new characters are introduced, including an avuncular pink bear called Lotso (voiced by the great Ned Beatty), the foreboding, near-silent Big Baby, a theatrical porcupine ingeniously named Mr. Pricklepants (Timothy Dalton) and Barbie’s love interest Ken, hilariously portrayed as a fashion-loving metrosexual and voiced by Michael Keaton. The movie is often laugh-out-loud funny, and Ken is often the reason.
I try not to get into spoilers here, but I can’t talk about Toy Story 3 without bringing up its thrilling climax, so stop reading if you haven’t seen it yet. As you know if you’re still here, the toys find themselves at the city dump facing the threat of incineration, and I credit the team at Pixar for making that threat entirely real. I honestly believed that it might happen, not just because of how the writers and director (John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich receive story credit, while Little Miss Sunshine scribe Michael Arndt wrote the script; Unkrich directed) presented the scene, but because of how the character animators sold the emotions. When Buzz looks at Jessie and reaches for her hand, the expression on his face that says, “This is it; don’t fight it” is stunning, and was instantly seared in my memory. It’s a moment of unspoken communication to which any flesh and blood actor should aspire. The subsequent moments of the toys grabbing hold of each other and staring down what seems an inevitable, fiery demise is as powerful an image as any I saw all year. The toys do survive, and of course I felt foolish for ever thinking they wouldn’t; this is a G-rated family movie. But that’s how well done it is. And the movie still has one last high to hit: its pitch-perfect coda, in which Andy delivers the toys to a little girl in the neighborhood, introducing them one by one and joining her for one last round of playtime. With that scene, the Toy Story trilogy – never intended to be a trilogy when the first movie announced the arrival of Pixar fifteen years earlier – came to a brilliant and beautiful close that could not have been more satisfying. I hope the filmmakers are smart enough to stop here. These characters should endure as the stars of short films, but in terms of another feature, there’s simply nowhere else to go. Not even the phenoms of Pixar can up the emotional ante of Toy Story 3. They nailed it. Again.
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#4
THE FIGHTER
Loved this movie. From first frame to last, it had me. Mark Wahlberg has been on a years-long crusade to bring this true-life story to the screen, and how gratifying for him and fortunate for us that it arrives in such stellar shape. Although boxer Mickey Ward (played by Wahlberg) is the central figure, it’s the characters around him that give the story its color. Wahlberg is smart enough as the film’s producer and generous enough as its star to let the other actors flex their muscles, and the result is aces. Christian Bale dominates the movie as Mickey’s step-brother Dickie Ecklund, a one-time fighter himself whose own potential was squandered to a drug addiction. Bale’s performance is natural, moving and completely commanding. As the boys’ mother Alice Ward, Melissa Leo chews plenty of scenery as well. Alice manipulates Mickey by playing the “importance of family” card (she manages him, while Dickie serves as his trainer) even as their handling of his career threatens to end it. And into the close family fold, which includes seven fierce and funny sisters mostly played by non-professional, local actresses from in and around Lowell, Massachusetts (where the movie takes place and was shot) comes Mickey’s love interest Charlene, played with gusto by Amy Adams in yet another display of her talent and range. As a story, the movie is fairly traditional, but under the direction of David O. Russell and the tremendous skill of the cast, it’s a perfect combination of commercial crowd-pleaser and award-caliber artistry.
The Rest:
ANIMAL KINGDOM
When his drug-addicted mother dies, 17 year-old “J” goes to live with his grandmother and uncles. Unfortunately those uncles are criminals fresh off a robbery that has the police hot on their trail, and through no crime other than proximity, J finds himself caught between cops hungry for blood and family practicing self-preservation at any cost. This Australian thriller is a taut gem, full of surprises. Actor James Frecheville has a tricky task in making J interesting despite being so numb, and he pulls it off nicely, holding himself with a rigidity and blank stare that invite concern and empathy. Guy Pearce, always a welcome presence, plays a decent cop trying to help J make the right decision, and Jacki Weaver has won raves, critic’s awards and an Oscar nomination for her role as J’s grandmother, fiercely loving and protective of her boys. But even more chilling than Weaver is Ben Mendelsohn as the eldest of J’s uncles and the one most worried about his nephew’s ability to toe the family line. His performance, in particular, got under my skin. I realize this may not be the best way to convince anyone to see it, but to play on the title’s jungle metaphor, Animal Kingdom is the movie-watching equivalent of an anaconda attack. It grabs you, holds you, tightens its grip and doesn’t let go. But, you know…in a good way…and minus the killing you part. Trust me. See it.
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BARNEY’S VERSION
While I certainly enjoyed this movie, it wouldn’t have quite made my list for favorites of the year were it not for the tremendous performance by Paul Giamatti as Barney Panofsky. Perhaps my affection for the movie also stems from the fact that, in a circumstance that’s rare for me, I knew nothing about it in advance. I had no idea what the movie was when I walked into it, and even as I watched the first half hour or so, I still wasn’t sure. Was it a murder mystery? A tale of an older, lonely man recalling his more colorful youth? A warts-and-all love story? The movie turned out to be all these things and more. Mainly, it’s the story of a man’s life – a man who loves women, hockey, a good drink and a good cigar. It’s a life as ordinary as it is interesting and flawed. Good, bad and ugly, Giamatti nails it all. He had me rooting for Barney’s highs and shaking my head in disapproval for his lows.
Even with the glowing lead performance, Barney’s Version has room for other actors to shine as well. Dustin Hoffman portrays Barney’s father, and what a treat to watch Giamatti and Hoffman play off each other with that warm, father-son dynamic. The two enjoy a great rapport. Rosamund Pike gives a graceful and tender performance as Miriam, the love of Barney’s life who stands by him even when he hurts, embarrasses and disappoints her. Together, Giamatti and Pike beautifully portray a true marriage – one with ups and downs, but never without love. Like Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine (see further down), they make the relationship so real and recognizable. Among many other things, Barney’s Version is a wonderful depiction of an adult relationship, maybe the best I’ve seen since 2008’s Ben Kingsley/Penelope Cruz drama Elegy.
I wish Giamatti had scored an Oscar nomination for this, one of the highlights of his admirable career. He did just win a Golden Globe award, surprising many who had predicted the award would go to his heavyweight competition Johnny Depp (nominated for both The Tourist and Alice in Wonderland) or Jake Gyllenhaal for Love and Other Drugs. Their roles may have been in higher profile films, but anyone who saw Barney’s Version shouldn’t have been surprised by Giamatti’s victory. Unfortunately the movie was a victim of poor marketing, released too late in the year with too little fanfare against too stiff competition. The market was saturated with award-hopeful movies, and this one was given no room to breathe. I think had it been released more strategically or advertised more aggressively, Giamatti would at least have been a more prominent part of the Oscar conversation, even if he eventually got squeezed out. But if you see the movie, the performance is a reward in itself.
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BLACK SWAN
This is one fucked up movie. I debated whether or not to include it since, in a way, I’m not sure how good it really is. Watching it, I was riveted, sucked in by Darren Aronofsky’s bravura, operatic direction. But strip away all the razzle-dazzle – the bold directing, the committed performances, the art direction, the cinematography, the costumes, the music, the makeup – and what’s really left on the page? What is it all built on? Is it a house of cards? A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing? Maybe that’s going too far, but the script is pretty flimsy. Yet in the end, despite the thin foundation, I was taken in by its extremes and how creepy and darkly funny it is. It’s brazenly over the top, but Aronofsky beat me into submission with the sheer force of his filmmaking skill. In a strange way, it’s not unlike what Michael Bay does. Maybe I’m more willing to go along with Aronofsky because he at least has loftier aspirations.
Natalie Portman’s Nina Sayers is a timid ballet dancer in New York’s premier company who lands the dual-lead in Swan Lake. While Nina dances the elegant White Swan role to perfection, she struggles to tap into the rougher, darker persona of the Black Swan. Mila Kunis plays Lily, a confident and sensual new dancer to the company who tries to help Nina tap into her wild side. Kunis does good work, as does Vincent Cassell as the company director, Barbara Hershey as Nina’s overbearing mother and Winona Ryder as the company’s aging star, but the movie rests on Portman’s shoulders. Black Swan, more than any film I’ve seen in a long time, fits the description “psychological thriller,” and Portman is marvelous as she depicts Nina’s increasing instability. I still don’t know what was real and what wasn’t, what to believe and what to doubt, but I know that the actress gives it her all. Playing meek or strong, unraveling emotionally and mentally, and delivering on the physical demands of portraying a top ballerina, this is a tour-de-force for Portman.
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BLUE VALENTINE
The dissolution of a marriage is hardly new terrain. From Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf to The War of the Roses, from Carmela and Tony on The Sopranos to Revolutionary Road, this is territory that has been frequently explored in literature, on stages and on screens large and small. That doesn’t mean there’s not more to say on the subject. As long as people continue to struggle in marriages, the topic will be explored through drama. The latest example stars Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling as Cindy and Dean, a couple whose relationship is cracking under everyday pressures and the shifting expectations they carry of themselves and each other. Though the marital strife does sometimes escalate to bouts of screaming, mostly the movie is made up of smaller moments that show the marriage fraying. These scenes, which take place over the course of just a day, are juxtaposed with the sweet courtship and romance that brought them together. Derek Cianfrance writes with an ear for realism and directs in close-ups that bring the viewer right into Cindy and Dean’s personal space. His background as a documentarian allows him to approach his first fictional film with unsentimental observation, and while this is a piece driven by writing and acting, he shows an eye for composition as well, filling the movie with reds, blues and blacks that help it come alive.
Williams and Gosling are Cianfrance’s partners every step of the way, acting with raw intimacy and intensity that is remarkable to behold. Neither character is completely right or wrong, and the movie doesn’t lead you to sympathize with one over the other, though you may well find yourself choosing a side. From the city streets where they get to know each other to the kitschy, “future-themed” hotel room where they try to save the relationship, Blue Valentine gives us a front row – almost invasive – view at the life of a couple: love, sex, regret, secrets and hopes. It isn’t always comfortable, but it’s pretty damn powerful.
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CYRUS
A good script and good performances distinguish this dark comedy from writer-directors Mark and Jay Duplass, whose indie film background (they come from the mumblecore movement) probably explains why they wring more authenticity and emotion from a story that, in mainstream hands, would likely be much more shallow. John C. Reilly has a great role as John, a sad guy who has failed to move on since his marriage fell apart. Then he meets Marisa Tomei’s Molly, and the two connect almost immediately. Things get complicated when John meets Cyrus (Jonah Hill), Molly’s creepy, live-at-home son, who does not approve of John’s intrusion into the uncomfortably close relationship he shares with his mother.
Aside from being so funny, it’s the realism and restraint that impress me most about Cyrus. When the building tension between John and Cyrus explodes for all to see, the brothers Duplass play the aftermath in a way that respects an audience’s intelligence. A lesser movie would have villified John, or failed to include the scene where he fully explains the situation to Molly. But by not going too broad with the humor, the movie earns the right to include that scene and to allow Molly to actually hear what John has to say…and then, in turn, to have an honest conversation with Cyrus. It’s such a simple thing, and yet it’s what makes a movie like this so much better than, say, Meet the Parents, in which Ben Stiller’s character is made out to be an asshole by everyone around him, never given the benefit of the doubt or an opportunity to explain himself. Don’t get me started on that tangent…the point is that Cyrus avoids that kind of nonsensical plotting, and instead scores with humor that is heightened but believable.
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THE GHOST WRITER
Skillfully directed by Roman Polanski, this quiet, elegant political thriller stars Ewan McGregor as a writer hired to complete the memoirs of Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), Britain’s recently exited Prime Minister, after the original ghost writer dies in an accident. He journeys to the house on Cape Cod where Lang and his wife Ruth (Olivia Williams) are staying, and quickly finds that the job is not nearly as simple – or safe – as he expected.
It seems to come across onscreen how much fun Polanski is having with this clever mystery, and following its twists and turns is just as much fun. In addition to a strong and engaging story, the film’s pleasures include its outside-the-box casting, with James Belushi, Kim Cattrall, and Timothy Hutton among the familiar faces popping up, and a super score by composer Alexandre Desplat. The Ghost Writer is also a triumph of contemporary art direction, with the interior design of the beach house contributing intangibly but unmistakably to the movie’s air of intrigue. And the ending…well, having directed Chinatown, Polanski is responsible for one of the great movie endings of all time. The Ghost Writer‘s final moments may not be in that hall of fame, but they’re pretty memorable.
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HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART I
As we move toward the finale of this grand adventure, director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves continue to do a mostly admirable job of translating J.K. Rowling’s story to the screen. The three lead actors are excellent (Daniel Radcliffe, while still lacking in certain areas, has done his best work under Yates’ guidance), and this time more than ever before, the film is truly on their shoulders. Rather than returning to Hogwarts for the final year of school, Harry, Ron and Hermione are on the hunt for hidden fragments of Voldemort’s soul. Destroying them all is the only way to defeat him, but their journey is perilous and exhausting. Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson convey the weight of the task as the characters struggle to keep their spirits up and their friendship intact. Some viewers may find the journey drags, but I appreciated the filmmakers staying faithful to the idea that the trio must keep moving even without always knowing where they’re going or what to do next. As the days stretch on, Voldemort’s Death Eaters tighten their noose on the wizarding world while the Dark Lord himself pursues a tool he believes will make him truly invincible.
Although much of the film tracks Harry, Ron and Hermione’s wanderings across the countryside, the supporting cast isn’t entirely absent. In particular, Brendan Gleeson, Helena Bonham Carter and Imelda Staunton all get good (if brief) moments to play. As usual, the production values are top notch – art direction, cinematography and score are all noteworthy, and the visual effects are the best and most seamlessly integrated we’ve seen in all the films. While no Potter movie can ever live up to the one in my head, Deathly Hallows Part I left me quite satisfied and excited for the conclusion.
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HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON
“Dragons is sooo stupid.” So said Yosemite Sam’s Black Knight in the classic Looney Tunes short Knighty Knight Bugs. If only he’d had Hiccup on his side. The protagonist of this film adapted from a series of children’s books by Cressida Cowell, Hiccup is a boy in the seaside Viking village of Birk, where for generations man has battled dragons. Not exactly the warrior type, Hiccup finds he has other gifts when he begins observing and then interacting with a wounded dragon. As the two enemies take stock of each other, Hiccup discovers a more complicated truth about the creatures that his fellow villagers are determined to destroy.
Dreamworks Animation often seems to build its movies around a star-studded vocal cast, so it’s ironic that the success of this outing – which emphasizes story and character – is so connected to the central vocal performance. Jay Baruchel’s distinctive voice, with its sarcastic overtones and inherent likability, makes Hiccup an enormously appealing hero, and the vocal work is matched by the excellent character design and animation that bring Hiccup to life. Together, Baruchel and the animators make Hiccup into a character that’s easy to root for because he’s got scrappy, underdog appeal. As he surprises the village and himself with his cleverness and bravery, the movie proves a funny, charming and moving adventure.
THE KING’S SPEECH
Okay, just because my Oscar ramblings make clear I’d rather see something else win Best Picture doesn’t mean I don’t think The King’s Speech is great. Cause the movie is great – an entertaining examination of one man’s personal triumph set at a fascinating moment in history when Hitler was on the rise and the advent of radio was changing the way people were connected and informed. It really is an instance of truth being stranger than fiction that against that backdrop, Prince Albert – known to loved ones as Bertie and eventually to the world as King George VI – would find himself having to overcome a debilitating stutter. When nothing and no one seems able to help, his wife Elizabeth turns to quirky Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue, whose unconventional methods begin producing results. As the movie goes on, Bertie and Lionel’s relationship moves beyond doctor-patient and into a friendship that proves as vital to Bertie’s growth as the attack on his stammer.
Colin Firth’s layered performance as Bertie is impressive for more than just his handling of the obvious handicap. He shows us a man whose fear exceeds public speaking and extends to whether he has it within him to lead the nation – a role that, as the younger sibling, he never expected to fill. Geoffrey Rush has fun with Logue’s eccentricities and sense of humor, his loose style flying in the face of the stiff formalism of Bertie’s world. As a member of Britain’s royal family, with its protocol and pomp, Bertie doesn’t quite know how to deal with Logue’s directness and attempts at familiarity, and sparks fly between the actors and characters as Logue increasingly tries to dig beneath the surface of Bertie’s life not only to get at the root of the stutter, but also to encourage him to embrace his inner strength. It’s more fun than you’d think to watch these two match wits. In fact, for a period piece about British royalty, it’s more fun than you’d think, period.
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NEVER LET ME GO
Despite earning high praise, Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel Never Let Me Go didn’t do much for me, so the fact that it was being made into a movie was barely on my radar. I wasn’t particularly eager to see it, but when the opportunity came up, I took it. And I’m glad I did, because it turned out to be one of my favorite movies of the year…obviously, given its place on this list. The story covers a 16 year span, and feels like a period piece even though it begins in 1978 (which, some might say, does in fact make it a period piece). It concerns three friends at a boarding school called Hailsham, nestled in the English countryside. And like the most famous English boarding school (Hogwarts, of course), Hailsham is a place for special students…and I’ll say no more than that. As with many normal relationships, the one between this trio of friends – Kathy, Ruth and Tommy – is complicated, both because and irregardless of what makes them special.
In the last two-thirds of the movie, which take place after the Hailsham days, Kathy, Ruth and Tommy are played by Carey Mulligan, Kiera Knightley and Andrew Garfield, and they create a familiar and believable dynamic that pays off in the story’s quiet but powerful endgame. Mulligan’s Kathy is the central character and narrator, and she gives an especially good performance, conveying a lot through silence and stillness. Where I felt the book meandered and went too far at times into Kathy’s disjointed memory, the film streamlines events and makes more immediate the delicate entanglements between the three, resulting in a movie that I found sad, beautiful and moving…none of which I got from the book. There is one sequence toward the end, when Kathy and Tommy encounter someone from their Hailsham past, that does suffer in the film from being too abbreviated. In the book, the scene is actually too heavy with exposition; here it’s too light. I wish the filmmakers could have found the middle ground. But in the end the movie packs a punch thanks to the open performances and the stark visual composition brought by director Mark Romanek. This was one of those movies – there seems to be at least one every fall – that arrived with high expectations and award-season pedigree yet didn’t seem to catch on. But I suspect and hope that in time, people will find their way to it and be as touched by it as I was.
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SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD
Movies don’t get much more fun than Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which is based on a graphic novel series about the titular 23-year old musician/video game enthusiast/heartbreaker/geek (played by Michael Cera) who falls for the aloof, alluring Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) but must defeat her seven evil exes in order to be with her. It’s a movie that adheres to absolutely no laws of realism, logic or gravity…and therein lies its huge appeal. At the point mid-movie when Ramona pulls a gigantic sledgehammer out of her bag as casually as if it were a case of mints, it didn’t even phase me. I barely noticed the oddity. I was on my third viewing of the movie before I stopped to think, “Hey, where did that ridiculously large sledgehammer come from?” But that’s par for the course in this movie that plays like a gonzo mash-up of comic book and video game without being at all vapid or brainless. For all the loopy fantasy the movie basks in, it provides Scott with a worthy character arc and even has something to say about the baggage people bring into their relationships.
Much of the credit for the film’s success belongs to the direction by Edgar Wright, not just for so inventively realizing the story onscreen, but for so successfully communicating his vision to the cast. Watch the movie and then try for a moment to imagine the actual on-set filming of, just for one example, the fight which finds Scott squaring off against the flamboyant Matthew Patel. It’s ludicrous enough (delightfully so) in the finished product, but what must it have been like to actually shoot it, in the moment, without the music, editing, and sound and visual effects to tie it all together? Seriously…how much trust do you need to have in your director to play that scene?
That down-for-anything ensemble cast, one of the strongest of the year, includes the welcome return of Kieran Culkin (back in the smart-ass mode he nailed so well in Igby Goes Down), Up in the Air‘s Anna Kendrick, a wonderfully deadpan Allison Pill and among the exes, Chris Evans, Brandon Routh and Jason Schwartzman. Cera, meanwhile, continues to mine variations of the awkward persona he perfected on Arrested Development. I know some people have grown tired of him and think he just does the same thing from movie to movie, but I still find him hilarious and see distinct shifts between his roles in Development, Juno, Superbad, Youth in Revolt and this.
Comparing a movie to a video game is usually intended to denigrate it, but not so in this case. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World asserts that a movie can play like a video game and still offer intelligence, wit, originality and heart.
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TRUE GRIT
Having never seen the 1969 classic that won John Wayne an Academy Award, the only baggage I carried into the remake by Joel and Ethan Coen was my love of their films. They did not disappoint. With their usual cadre of collaborators, including the brilliant cinematographer Roger Deakins, the Coen Brothers spin the story of 13 year-old Mattie Ross, who hires the formidable marshall Rooster Cogburn to find and kill her father’s murderer, Tom Cheney. Determined to personally see the job through, Mattie insists on accompanying him…and there’s just no winning an argument with Mattie Ross.
While the film’s star and presumptive main character is Cogburn, played by Jeff Bridges in his first collaboration with the Coen Brothers since they gifted The Big Lebowski unto the world, the true main character and star of the film is Mattie, played wonderfully by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld. This modern teenager slips effortlessly into the skin of a girl living in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s, left to help manage her family’s affairs and seek justice by her own means. She’s a great character, and Steinfeld plays her to the hilt, displaying strength, subtlety, confidence and a mastery of the verbal acrobatics provided by the Coens (and by Charles Portis, author of the book on which the film is based). Steinfeld would outright steal the movie were it not for Matt Damon, adding yet another feather to his cap in the role of LaBoeuf, a Texas ranger who’s also in pursuit of Cheney. Damon is often hilarious without ever playing for an obvious laugh. His take on LaBoeuf is perfect and priceless, and I’m consistently amazed by his ability to occupy the role of Movie Star and yet continue to be so versatile and surprising. With Steinfeld and Damon commanding so much of the spotlight, it might seem like there’s none left for Bridges, but he makes a great Cogburn, lending the character the toughness to match his reputation, as well as the grim humor required for sparring with Mattie and LaBoeuf. Once again the Coen Brothers meld violence, humor and intensity into a hearty stew. More please.
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WINTER’S BONE
Hailee Steinfeld was not the only young actress to impressively leap onto the scene in 2010. Meet Jennifer Lawrence, star of this Sundance breakout that could have gone by the name True Grit just as easily as Steinfeld’s film. As it is, Winter’s Bone is a perfectly apt title for this original and affecting drama set in an insular Ozark community where secrets run ominously deep. Lawrence plays Ree Dolly, a tough, resourceful teen with a rarely-present father and a mentally frail mother. Left to care for her younger siblings, Ree’s already fragile world is threatened when she learns that her father, recently out of prison, is missing and had put the family’s house up as collateral for his bail. If he fails to appear in court the next week, they’ll lose their home. So Ree sets off to find him, but quickly realizes that those most likely to know his whereabouts are not inclined to help. Her determination to protect her family equals a refusal to stop stirring the pot, and her search for answers leads her down a dangerous road.
The script by Debra Granik and Anne Rosselini is a fresh and detailed examination of a community unlike those we normally see in mainstream film. Director Granik palpably captures the chill in the mountain air, though that chill is as much about the mystique of the setting as the temperature. Even Ree’s allies are sketchy and unsettling, most particularly her father’s brother Teardrop, played with a mix of menace and concern by John Hawkes. Ree’s journey into the dark heart of her surroundings makes for a thrilling story of discovery, but for the audience, the movie – and the talent in front of and behind the camera – is a discovery of its own.
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As always, there are other movies that made a positive impression to one degree or another, but these are the ones that I felt compelled to single out. But because I love me a good montage of movie scenes, the following two clips offer another look at 2010’s playlist – good, bad and ugly. The first is much more inclusive, but the second hit some images that I also liked, plus I dig the song.
With the announcement of the Oscar nominations now nearly two weeks past, you’ve probably been aching with anticipation to hear my thoughts. My apologies for the delay, but I figured it would take this long to read my predictions piece anyway, so I had a little time to play with. Ready to get back into it?
BEST PICTURE
This list shaped up pretty much as expected, with 127 Hours muscling in to replace The Town, which I thought would make the cut. I’ve got no problem with that. The Town was a fine movie and another welcome component of the Ben Affleck Career Reboot, but I was surprised it got elevated to the Best Picture conversation in the first place.
Despite the presence of eight other movies, most still see the contest as boiling down to The King’s Speech and The Social Network. Based on recent events, I have to agree. What recent events, you ask? Well, as I said previously, things can change awfully fast. And so they have. The first half of the season clearly favored The Social Network, but in the days since the nominations were revealed, the Screen Actor’s Guild honored The King’s Speech with their top prize – for best cast – and the Director’s Guild selected Speech‘s Tom Hooper as Best Director. (I’m having trouble making sense of that one, but I’ll say a bit more below.) Taken individually, neither of these awards necessarily shore up a Best Picture win for The King’s Speech. But taken together – along with a win from the Producer’s Guild – that scenario now looks likely.
I’m about to go off on a tangent here, but longtime readers know this is nothing new. I possess no filter. The day of the nominations, this article appeared on CNN.com and promptly pissed me off. The author, one Lewis Beale, calls The Social Network an “also-ran” behind The King’s Speech and True Grit because Speech led the way with 12 nominations, Grit followed with 10 and Social tied for third with eight. He says the numbers make Speech and Grit the frontrunners.
No, Lewis. No they don’t.
Speech may well be the frontrunner now, but not because it has the most nominations. And sorry, but Grit isn’t a frontrunner at all. The number of nominations a movie gets has nothing to do with whether it will win Best Picture or with whether the Academy thinks it’s the single best movie of the year. If The Social Network is now relegated to “also-ran” status, that’s not because it doesn’t have the highest nomination tally; it’s because three major awards, voted on by many of the same people who vote for the Oscars, all went to a different film, thereby suggesting a lack of the necessary support. And at the time Beale’s article was published, two of those awards hadn’t even been announced yet. The Social Network was still sittin’ pretty.
The movies that receive the most nominations every year are the ones that hit the sweet spot of having appeal in the top races (Picture, Acting, Directing, Writing) AND the below-the-line races (crafts and technical categories). Fantasy or fanciful films (Lord of the Rings, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and period pieces (Bugsy, Titanic and yes, The King’s Speech and True Grit) are the movies that score the big numbers. A movie like The Social Network is not gonna get nominated for things like Art Direction or Costume Design. That fact has nothing to do with how good the movie is or how much people like it. Contemporary movies almost never get those nominations, fair or not. Fantasy films, science-fiction films and period pieces get those nominations. Simple as that.
There is no reliable correlation between a movie getting the most nominations of the year and then winning Best Picture. Often it happens (Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Titanic) and often it doesn’t (Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Bugsy, Benjamin Button). But guys like Beale try to draw direct lines like these all the time.
To address some of his other points:
If voters disliked Social‘s main character so much, they wouldn’t have nominated the actor who played him.
If voters didn’t appreciate Aaron Sorkin’s script, they wouldn’t have nominated it. And Sorkin is the favorite to win this award by a wide margin.
The film’s supporting actors got dissed because that category is super-competitive and some good work is inevitably left out (like Matt Damon in the more-nominated-than-Social-Network-so-it-must-be-a-frontrunner True Grit).
About the only thing Beale gets right is that The King’s Speech – as enjoyable, well-crafted and audience-friendly as it is – is a bigger-budget Masterpiece Theatre installment that constitutes safe, traditional filmmaking. Although I thought the movie was great, I’d like to see something more interesting singled out by the Academy. But like Ma Kelly in Johnny Dangerously, it goes both ways. Let’s use Benjmain Button again. In 2008, it led the field with 13 nominations, and it was the more traditional, classical movie in the year’s race. But the big winner – taking Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and five others – was Slumdog Millionaire, which displayed a bolder, more modern-style. (Benjamin Button – directed, ironically, by The Social Network‘s David Fincher – won three awards.) To the Academy’s credit, in recent years they’ve been more often swinging away from their traditional safe zone, giving Best Picture to darker, violent movies like The Departed and No Country for Old Men that they have traditionally not annointed. (The Departed, incidentally, was the fourth most nominated film of its year. I guess that was an also-ran too.) So the pendulum may well swing back this year, with The King’s Speech taking Best Picture. But if it beats The Social Network, it will have nothing to do with the latter having received fewer nominations.
Tangent over.
BEST DIRECTOR
I’m not sure what compelled me in the pre-nomination write-up to mention the potential of Christopher Nolan being overlooked, because I really didn’t think it was likely. But there it was. That was easily the biggest shock and disappointment for me. I don’t get it. What does this guy have to do to earn an Oscar nomination for directing? Three citations from the Director’s Guild of America over the past decade, and still not a single nod to match from the Academy. Eight nominations for Inception, so certainly an impressive showing for the film, but I don’t understand the lack of appreciation for Nolan’s undeniable vision and skill. The five nominees (six actually, with the Coen Brothers) all did impressive work, but c’mon – from a directorial standpoint, The King’s Speech is hardly the equal of Inception. Nolan continues to be one of the most exciting directors on the scene right now, and I look forward to the day when the Directing branch of the Academy will wake the fuck up and acknowledge it.
With that out of the way, at least there wasn’t a total rejection of bold, original filmmakers. Darren Aronofsky’s first nomination is cause for celebration, and it’s nice to see David O. Russell embraced by the establishment as well.
BEST ACTOR
Although I still haven’t seen Biutiful, something I’ll soon be able to rectify now that it’s playing at a theater near me, I was happy to see Javier Bardem make the list. Just based on what I’ve heard of the film, it seems like the right move. And it gave the announcement a nice jolt of surprise since his inclusion was by no means a sure thing. Unfortunately, the voters blew it with their omission of Blue Valentine‘s Ryan Gosling. I love Jeff Bridges and enjoyed him in True Grit, but there’s no way that performance belongs here over Gosling’s, whose portrayal of a husband trying to save his marriage is raw and electrifying. The guy literallyacted without a net. His absence stings all the more given that his equally impressive co-star Michelle Williams did get nominated. This is a case of two actors truly doing a dance, relying on each other in every way, each one’s amazing work due in part to drawing amazing work from the other. To nominate only one is an act of blindness.
BEST ACTRESS
The fact that Michelle Williams was nominated while Gosling wasn’t speaks, perhaps indirectly, to the disproportionate number of strong roles for women to strong roles for men. There almost always seems to be stiffer competition for the five Best Actor nominations than for the Best Actress slots. I’d argue it’s at least partly the reason Kate Winslet was nominated for both Titanic and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind while her co-stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jim Carrey, respectively, were slighted. Williams absolutely deserves her nomination; I’m not trying to imply she only made it in because the field was weak. It’s more the point that Gosling didn’t make it because that field had more contenders, which comes back around to the dearth of great roles for women in film. But I digress. My final comment on the subject is that Williams’ nomination thrills me, but also disappoints me because I can’t help but see her recognition as one half of a whole.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Though it was no surprise to see Christian Bale nominated – indeed, his win is as close to a sure thing as we have – it still needs to be said that this recognition from the Academy is long overdue for such a committed and versatile actor. It’s hard to believe this is his first nomination. And while we’re at it, congratulations are also in order for Mark Ruffalo finally making it into the club, over a decade after You Can Count on Me put him on the map. And it’s really nice to see a great working actor like John Hawkes get this level of recognition. Anyone familiar with his work in films like The Perfect Storm and American Gangster and TV shows like Deadwood and Eastbound and Down will surely be happy for him, and will be impressed by his lived-in performance in Winter’s Bone.
The category’s big disappointments are the exclusions of True Grit‘s Matt Damon and The Social Network‘s Andrew Garfield. I made my case for Damon in the previous write-up, so I won’t repeat myself. Except I’m totally going to repeat myself. What the hell happened this awards season to Matt Damon?!? Barely a mention for his essential performance even as True Grit became one of the most acclaimed and honored films of the year. 10 nominations in total, two of those for the acting, and yet no recognition for Damon? These are the same people who nominated him last year for a competent but unremarkable turn in Invictus, yet here overlook the colorful, captivating work he does in what is practically the classic definition of a great supporting performance. The Invictus argument may be unfair, given that a film or performance must be judged against the competition it faces in the given year. Last year’s Supporting Actor field was unusually lacking, whereas this year’s was typically overcrowded. Still, Damon’s work stands among the year’s best.
As for Garfield, I had him pegged last fall as the most likely acting nominee from The Social Network‘s excellent ensemble, but in the end it was Jesse Eisenberg who dominated the awards circuit and gets to carry the flag for the film’s cast at the Oscars. I wish Garfield could be there with him. The role isn’t as showy as, say, Christian Bale’s, but he brings a compelling dynamic to it. I’d even say that much like Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling’s performances work in true sync, so do Garfield’s and Eisenberg’s.
I enjoyed Jeremy Renner’s live-wire work in The Town, but I would absolutely push him to the side in favor of Damon or Garfield. His recognition throughout the season has been a bit of a puzzle to me. But it is nice to see him doing so well of late, nominated (along with Jeff Bridges and Colin Firth) for the second consecutive year and landing a big gig like The Avengers, where apparently he’ll be filling Alan Alda’s shoes in the role of Hawkeye.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Three cheers for the two ladies of The Fighter, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo, both of whom were also nominated in 2008 (Leo as Best Actress for Frozen River, Adams in this category for Doubt). Each did excellent work, all the more impressive considering how easily they could have been dominated by Christian Bale. And although she didn’t quite make my personal list, I was pleased to see Jacki Weaver get the nod for Animal Kingdom…not just because it proved a correct prediction (ten points to Gryffindor, thank you very much), but because it’s nice to see a small movie like this and an actress not well known in the U.S. get such high profile attention. Apparently she is well known in her native Australia, with a long career in films, television and theater (she was recently onstage in Sydney opposite Cate Blanchett in Uncle Vanya). I hope her nomination draws more viewers to the film, which I only saw recently but consider one of the year’s best.
Hailee Steinfeld’s nomination was another quasi-success in my personal Oscar game. I felt she belonged in the Best Actress category, but correctly figured that voters would keep her in the Supporting race, as she was campaigned. As long as she got nominated, that’s what matters. And there’s no doubt that, as a Supporting nominee, she has a much better shot at the prize than she would have had as a Best Actress nominee.
And then there’s Helena Bonham Carter, whose nomination for The King’s Speech was both completely expected and completely unnecessary. I loves me some Bonham Carter, and she does nice work in The King’s Speech (if nothing else, it’s refreshing to see her come out from under the make-up and crazy wigs that she seems to live in onscreen lately). But this is a total auto-pilot nomination (a trend that definitely benefitted The King’s Speech as we work our way down through the categories). She’s being recognized for appearing in a beloved film, and nothing more. Watch the movie and tell me that Bonham Carter really does anything worthy of being singled out for one of the five finest supporting performances of the year. Even the actress herself thinks the attention is misplaced, saying in this Variety article, “I thought it was a boys’ film. Sometimes you get nominated for the wrong things. I’m not knocking it, because I want the good roles, so if it helps me get another really good part, that’s great. For that moment, when you’re nominated, you get offered parts you wouldn’t otherwise be offered. After Wings of a Dove, I got Fight Club. When you are up for awards, they remember you’re still alive.”
Couldn’t voters have expanded their horizons just a little? Where’s Greta Gerwig, who gave a beautiful, should-be breakout performance in Greenberg? How about Marisa Tomei for the conflicted girlfriend and mother in Cyrus, or Imogen Poots as a sexually confident teen with a hidden agenda in Solitary Man? If those are too outside the box, there were choices in the safety zone too. Hello? Julianne Moore for The Kids Are All Right? (A lead role, but hey, it worked for Steinfeld.) Or Marion Cotillard for her balance of tragic and creepy in Inception? And if they were set on Bonham Carter, why not honor her for Alice in Wonderland? She was one of the few good things about that movie, evoking both laughs and sympathy as the cranially-challenged Red Queen. A nomination for that performance would have been a good reminder that even work which appears to be pure fun can earn accolades (after all, it’s been a couple of years since Robert Downey Jr.’s Tropic Thunder nomination).
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Here was one case where I was perfectly happy to get a prediction wrong. I thought Black Swan would make the list, but also made clear that I didn’t think it should. I’m glad the Writer’s branch agreed with me. In its place, they nominated Mike Leigh for Another Year, which I still have yet to see, but which I mentioned as a possible spoiler given the Academy’s fondness for Leigh’s work. I’m not the biggest Leigh fan in the world, and I’ve always found his screenwriting nominations to be frustrating given that his movies are largely improvised and do not follow the traditional screenwriting path. (This article from The Hollywood Reporter briefly describes his process.) But who’s to say there’s a right way to write? I chose Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine script as one of my personal picks to be nominated, and although he worked on that piece for roughly 12 years, he’s the first to admit that much of the end result was born out of improvisations he executed with Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling. So I guess I’ll just take my hypocrisy and get myself to Another Year.
Other than that, the category shook out as I expected. At least Christopher Nolan got nominated here.
BEST FILM EDITING
Nolan’s snub in the Best Director race was definitely the day’s biggest WTF omission, but equally inexplicable to me, if not as high profile, is Inception not getting nominated for Editing. Are you fucking kidding me?!? Lee Smith’s achievement should be the clear winner in this category. The rules of Nolan’s story may have confused some audiences, but thanks to the crisp editing, we always knew where we were even as the film was shuttling between multiple levels of dreams and reality. It was masterful visual storytelling, yet it’s nowhere to be found here while a straightforward film like The King’s Speech makes the list? Editor friends, if you’re reading this, please explain that to me.
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
I commented previously that I had no opinion about the contenders in this race, as no song had stuck out for me all year. The Academy couldn’t even find five songs they liked enough to nominate, selecting only four. But I was a bit surprised that they ignored Burlesque (not that I’ve seen it) and “Shine”, from Waiting for Superman. I do like Dido a lot, so I’m pleased to see her get an Oscar nomination, even if her song from 127 Hours didn’t stick with me after my initial viewing of the film.
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Alexandre Desplat composed scores for four films released in 2010, and of course he earned his Oscar nomination for the least interesting one. Actually that’s not fair; I haven’t seen Tamara Drewe. But Desplat’s compositions for both The Ghost Writer and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I were far more deserving of nominations than his adequate work in The King’s Speech, which proved to once again be selected as if voters were just sleepwalking through their ballot. At least Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross made it in for The Social Network, along with Hans Zimmer’s indispensible contribution to Inception.
Okay, that’s all the commentary I have to offer until the big night looms closer and I weigh in with my predictions. You may have been expecting opinions about every category, but there’s not always much to say at this stage. You can use the hours it would take you to read more of my commentary to instead go catch one of the nominated films you have yet to see. In the meantime, here are two brief gimpses of your hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco getting primed.
Lots of people talking about the Oscars are looking to February and discussing what will win, but I’d like to roll things back a little and actually let the nominations get announced before I start predicting the winners. It must seem awfully old-fashioned of me in this day and age, when so many awards are handed out before the Oscar nominations are even announced that the winners already seem like foregone conclusions. If you listen to the professionals, the endgame for this season has already been inscribed. The Social Network. David Fincher. Colin Firth. Natalie Portman. Christian Bale. Melissa Leo. Toy Story 3.
Yeah, it’ll probably look something like that. But humor me anyway. Since it has apparently become so boring to predict the winners, let’s a least relish the opportunity to predict the nominees – the one part of the process that can still offer some surprises. The winners may already be engraved in gold, but two things can always be expected at this stage: each category has a few slots up for grabs, and some great work is bound to go un-nominated. I for one don’t want to miss the opportunity to cry foul, so let’s not close the book on the 2010 award season before we’ve had a chance to milk it for all we can.
So here we go. My predictions, my personal picks and a little bit of commentary along the way.
Okay, a large amount of commentary along the way.
I should point out that as always, despite a solid effort, not being a Los Angeles-based professional in this game means there are a handful of movies I haven’t seen which might have impacted my personal choices, mostly in the below-the-line categories. Among this year’s possibly-award-friendly crop that I haven’t yet taken in: Biutiful, Another Year, Casino Jack, Megamind, Made in Dagenham, Four Lions, Love and Other Drugs, TRON: Legacy, The Tempest, Burlesque and Country Strong.
BEST PICTURE
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech
The Social Network
The Town
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone
Early on I thought Black Swan would be too polarizing to get a Picture nomination, but it has been a constant presence in the precursor awards and no longer seems like a risky bet at all. I wonder if it would have as good a chance with only five slots. I think a five-film race would likely have been The Fighter, Inception, The King’s Speech, The Social Network and True Grit. I feel somewhat guilty playing into a narrative that suggests two tiers of nominees, but it’s hard not to go there.
Of this list, I’d say The Town and Winter’s Bone are the most vulnerable. The Town has reportedly done quite well with Academy members and it’s managed to hold its ground throughout the awards season thus far, which bodes well for its inclusion. Winter’s Bone, which fills this year’s token slot for the Little Indie That Could, has also made a strong showing thanks to the film critics associations and ten best lists that kept it alive at year’s end, long after its debut at Sundance. Acting and screenwriting nominations are likely, but I’m not sure if it will have enough support from the Academy-at-large to crack the top ten. If it doesn’t, 127 Hours is waiting in the wings to take its place. And while we haven’t been looking at a ten-film race for very long, last year offered at least one big surprise in the nomination for The Blind Side. A few more years of this will tell if we should always expect something unexpected; if we should, keep an eye out for Shutter Island and The Ghost Writer.
Personal Picks: Black Swan, Blue Valentine, The Fighter, The Ghost Writer, Inception, The King’s Speech, Never Let Me Go, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit
BEST DIRECTOR
Darren Aronofsky – Black Swan
Christopher Nolan – Inception
Tom Hooper – The King’s Speech
David Fincher – The Social Network
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen – True Grit
Where I have the Coen Brothers, the Director’s Guild of America nominated David O. Russell for The Fighter. I wasn’t sure what to do there. I went this way out of a sense that The Fighter may come off as more of an actor’s movie than a director’s movie, however much O. Russell is (of course) responsible for the movie being as good as it is. The Coens have become Academy favorites, and their stamp can be felt more on True Grit than O. Russell’s can on The Fighter – not a criticism; just an observation. But this could go either way.
I could also see Tom Hooper being overlooked despite the popularity of The King’s Speech. Hooper isn’t a big name (not that other directors, as the ones doing the voting, would care about that), plus for all its strengths, The King’s Speech doesn’t necessarily come across as a work of bold directorial vision the way Black Swan or Inception do. Still, I think it’s highly unlikely Hooper would be overlooked (even if he still hasn’t quite re-entered my good graces after his obnoxiously excessive use of dutch angles in HBO’s John Adams miniseries). And then there’s Christopher Nolan, who seems a lock for Inception but was snubbed in 2008 for The Dark Knight. Such a slight is unlikely to happen again, but maybe Nolan just leaves Academy members cold (he earned DGA nominations for both Memento and Knight, but has yet to earn an Oscar nod for Directing). With David O. Russell and the Coens vying for that fifth spot, and Danny Boyle’s impressive work on 127 Hours still in the ether, an out-of-left-field surprise seems unlikely. But I can’t say I’d be shocked if Roman Polanski were to sneak in for The Ghost Writer, an admired movie by an admired filmmaker.
BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges – True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg – The Social Network
Colin Firth – The King’s Speech
James Franco – 127 Hours
Ryan Gosling – Blue Valentine
We have two sure things here in Firth and Franco. Beyond that, I think the field is somewhat open. Or at least, I can see vulnerabilities in each of the other frontrunners. Let’s start with Jesse Eisenberg. I’m a big fan of his, so I’ve been pleased to see his strong showing in the season so far. But it’s surprised me too. His unique, high-strung energy and natural fast-paced speech rhythms can make it seem like he’s doing the same thing from film to film, which of course he isn’t. Additionally, the character he plays is not all that likable or sympathetic, which could be a factor voters consider. I think back a few years to Emile Hirsch’s sensational performance in Into the Wild, which some thought may have missed out on an Oscar nomination because voters didn’t like the character, saw him as too selfish, etc. Who knows if that’s true, and obviously it shouldn’t make a difference anyway, but that’s the Oscars for you. If these sorts of things matter, it could be a strike against Eisenberg. On the other hand, he’s part of a film that has much broader support than Into the Wild did; he’s been nominated for the four major pre-Academy prizes: the Golden Globe, the Broadcast Film Critics Association award, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award and the Screen Actor’s Guild award (Hirsch scored two of those four); and he’s also been named by quite a few more critics organizations than Hirsch was, including two that are among the more high-profile: the National Board of Review and the National Society of Film Critics (both of which skip right to naming a winner rather than having nominations). So things do look good for Eisenberg, but I’d say a snub is not out of the question.
Next, Jeff Bridges. Last year’s winner of this award will probably be back in the race, especially given the popularity True Grit seems to be enjoying with viewers in and out of the Academy. But while Bridges is a hoot in the role, is it really seen as one of the best performances of the year? I could see him getting squeezed out. As for Ryan Gosling, I worry that I’m letting my personal feelings cloud my judgment by including him. Not that he’s a longshot; he’s firmly in the running for a nomination. But Blue Valentine‘s unflinching look at a troubled marriage may be more than voters want to put themselves through. Still, actors vote for actors, and given the buzz out of Sundance around the film’s central performances – not to mention the controversy over the rating – I have to think people would look to see what the fuss was about. And I have to think they’d be pretty floored. Although neither of the film’s stars were nominated for a SAG award, the movie was a late release and SAG voters may not have had the chance to see it in time. I’m hoping the extra month or so will have allowed them to rectify that.
If any one of these guys is overlooked, a likely replacement is Robert Duvall for Get Low. I struggled with whether or not to include him. He has BFCA and SAG nominations in his favor, plus he’s Robert friggin’ Duvall. People love him. But have they seen the film? Casting a slightly wider net, the popularity of The Fighter could sweep Mark Wahlberg into the race, but his performance is overshadowed by the more colorful ones around him. He does a fine job, but I don’t see him breaking through. Aaron Eckhart has earned praise for his role as a grieving father in Rabbit Hole, but the award attention so far has all been around Nicole Kidman.
The biggest question mark for Best Actor has to be Javier Bardem in Biutiful. Word is that he went to hell and back for this role and gives an incredibly powerful performance, yet it’s been ignored all season long. Unfortunately, Biutiful has yet to open in San Francisco, and my obsession with seeing as many Oscar-potential movies as possible before the nominations did not extend to taking an L.A. day-trip. You gotta draw the line somewhere, I guess. I hear the film is pretty bleak, so it may be another one that voters shy away from. Then again, fellow actors like Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin and Ben Affleck have sung Bardem’s praises, and Julia Roberts hosted a screening to drum up support. It wouldn’t be the first time Bardem has had some help. Back in 2000, when he was barely known to American audiences, several Hollywood stars (I want to say Jack Nicholson and Winona Ryder were among the champions, but I can’t recall for sure) tried to draw attention to his performance in Before Night Falls. It paid off; he earned his first nomination. Can lightning strike twice? One glimmer of hope for Bardem is that he was nominated last week for a BAFTA award. Oscar voting had already closed by then, so the news couldn’t spur any undecided Academy members into action. But there is some overlap between the BAFTA and Academy membership, so perhaps his nomination suggests a growing awareness of the film and his work.
Personal: Eisenberg, Firth, Franco, Paul Giamatti (Barney’s Version), Gosling
BEST ACTRESS
Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman – Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence – Winter’s Bone
Natalie Portman – Black Swan
Michelle Williams – Blue Valentine
Annette Bening and Julianne Moore have been pegged for nominations ever since The Kids Are All Right played at Sundance last year. But as awards season got underway, Moore found herself sitting on the sidelines while Bening not only got all the accolades, but was heralded the frontrunner. I’m not quite sure why Moore has been so unjustly overlooked, any more than I understand why Bening has been so celebrated. She’s great in the movie, but honestly her character is a variation on others we’ve seen her play before, and I actually felt her character was less interesting than Moore’s. Still, Bening’s nomination is a given; we’ll see if the Academy surprises us by honoring Moore as well. Either way, I think it’s safe to say that Bening’s frontrunner status has been eclipsed by Natalie Portman. But that’s a topic for a later post.
Jennifer Lawrence, the young breakthrough star of Winter’s Bone, has been nominated for just about every award possible, so she’s a safe bet, and Nicole Kidman is likely, though I wouldn’t say a lock. Michelle Williams is in the same boat as Ryan Gosling. In a just world she would be a sure thing, but it could go either way.
Who is poised to sneak in should any of these ladies fail to make the cut? Well, there’s Moore of course. Hilary Swank scored a surprise SAG nomination for Conviction, after being ignored by every other group. Swank did a fine job in the film, but I don’t think the performance merits award attention. Maybe SAG members couldn’t resist another Bening-Swank match-up. (Both of Swank’s Oscar wins for Best Actress came with Bening having been her strongest competition.) Swank’s SAG nomination was even stranger when considering that her co-star Sam Rockwell was not nominated. His performance had Oscar buzz for months in advance, and as usual the actor didn’t disappoint. He did get a few nominations along the way, but the positive word of mouth hasn’t amounted to much.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo‘s Swedish star Noomi Rapace has been mentioned, but I don’t think it will happen. A tougher call to make is Lesley Manville, the British actress who’s earned raves for her role in Mike Leigh’s Another Year. The Academy has been kind to Leigh’s films, but Manville doesn’t seem to have caught on. Though she has definite spoiler potential, I don’t feel confident in her chances. And there seems to be differing views on whether she should be in the Lead or Supporting category…a problem that also affects True Grit‘s Hailee Steinfeld, who I’ll talk about later since I believe she’ll be nominated in the Supporting category (though I definitely see her as a lead).
Personal: Lawrence, Carey Mulligan (Never Let Me Go), Portman, Steinfeld, Williams
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christian Bale – The Fighter
Matt Damon – True Grit
Jeremy Renner – The Town
Mark Ruffalo – The Kids Are All Right
Geoffrey Rush – The King’s Speech
Almost always one of the toughest categories in terms of just not having enough room for all the worthy performances. My against-the-grain prediction here is Damon. Including him is foolhardy given that there’s zero precedent in the season thus far. Which I just can’t wrap my head around. Damon is so damn good in this movie, and brings more depth to the part than I was expecting, having heard ahead of seeing it that he was primarily comic relief and that his part was really small…neither of which is true. I find it hugely surprising that he has been virtually shut out of the race thus far, and while it may be my personal appreciation of the performance overwhelming my good sense, I believe he stands an excellent chance of surprising everyone. If people are loving True Grit, how can Damon not be a huge part of the reason for it? And if voters fill the movie out in lots of other categories – which it seems likely they will – I just can’t imagine them not citing Damon too. Hell, if he got nominated last year for Invictus, this deserves to be a slam dunk.
The other risky call here – though much less so than Damon – is Jeremy Renner, a Best Actor nominee last year for The Hurt Locker. I couldn’t decide whether to go with him or with John Hawkes’ terrific performance in Winter’s Bone. Both have done well in the precursor awards, but neither well enough to be considered sure things. They each earned SAG nominations, but Hawkes missed out on both the Golden Globes and BFCA awards, while Renner scored both. That’s why I’m going with him, but it took me a while to commit. And hey, maybe they’ll both make it if I’m wrong about Damon.
Also in the mix – indeed, a highly possible spoiler – is Andrew Garfield, excellent as the moral center of The Social Network. Many consider him to be a lock, but I worry that his chances have faded somewhat and that voters are more focused on Eisenberg. Garfield’s co-star Armie Hammer, who superbly embodied the Winklevoss twins (while actually only embodying one of them, if we want to get technical), also deserves to be in the running. Unfortunately the field is just too crowded. But Armie will be okay; he’s just been cast opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar Hoover biopic. Earlier I mentioned Sam Rockwell, who has been relegated to a distant longshot at this point, and I’d be remiss not to mention two others who were excellent in a film that has been unjustly overlooked due to an ill-advised release strategy: Ed Harris and Colin Farrell in The Way Back. Peter Weir’s first movie in seven years, it was quietly released late in December for a one-week qualifying run in Los Angeles, and just went into wider release last Friday. That’s no way to handle a movie from so illustrious a filmmaker.
Personal: Bale, Damon, Garfield, Hawkes, Ruffalo
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams – The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter – The King’s Speech
Melissa Leo – The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld – True Grit
Jacki Weaver – Animal Kingdom
So let’s talk about The Steinfeld Problem. As pointed out above, I clearly see her as a lead and believe she deserves to be nominated as such. The studio is campaigning her in the Supporting category, and most of the awards and nominations she’s received so far (and she’s received many) have placed her there. But Oscar voters don’t always follow the campaigning, and from what I’ve read, many are putting her down for Best Actress. It could happen. In 2008, Kate Winslet was promoted for Best Actress in Revolutionary Road and Best Supporting Actress for The Reader, but Academy voters chose to nominate her as a lead for the latter. In 2003, young actress Keisha Castle-Hughes was campaigned as a Supporting Actress for Whale Rider, but earned a surprise nomination in the Best Actress race. Which way will Steinfeld go? While she’ll surely earn a lot of votes in both categories, I think the Best Actress field is stronger than Supporting Actress, so if for no other reason than that, I suspect more will stick with Supporting Actress. Plus, those who want her to go all the way know she’ll stand a better chance of winning if she’s in the Supporting race. Kristopher Tapley, who runs the great Oscar website In Contention, reported on a conversation he had with True Grit producer Scott Rudin, who explained his reasons for Steinfeld being in the Supporting category. Tapley disagrees, and both make interesting cases. We’ve already established which side I’m on, and I agree with the point that True Grit is ultimately Mattie’s story, not Rooster’s…just one of the reasons Best Actress is where she belongs.
Moving on, I’ve included Jacki Weaver for Animal Kingdom, but I’m not confident that enough voters have seen the film. She’s made an impressive showing in the season to date, including BFCA and Golden Globe nominations, but she has no name recognition in Hollywood, which could hurt her given the film’s low profile. Still, I couldn’t think of anyone who seemed any more logical. Mila Kunis stands a chance for Black Swan, bolstered by the Golden Globe/BFCA/SAG trifecta. But I just don’t see the Academy nominating Kunis. Maybe it’s my own opinion that there’s nothing award-worthy about the performance (not to say Kunis doesn’t do a great job). Or maybe it’s the sense that she hasn’t quite earned her stripes yet (which wouldn’t matter in the case of newcomers like Jennifer Lawrence or Steinfeld, who give such knockout performances. Kunis’ work just doesn’t compare). But maybe I’m wrong. Her co-star Barbara Hershey is also a longshot candidate, but I think her part is too small to get her in. Lesley Manville, as mentioned in the Best Actress section, could show up here instead, and it’s even possible that Julianne Moore could land here, though that would be pretty unexpected at this point. Other names are floating on the outskirts – Dianne Wiest for Rabbit Hole, Olivia Williams for The Ghost Writer – but they seem like distant shots. I’ll stick with Weaver.
Personal: Adams, Marion Cotillard (Inception), Greta Gerwig (Greenberg), Leo, Rosamund Pike (Barney’s Version)
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Black Swan – Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz, John McLaughlin
The Fighter – Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson
Inception – Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right – Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg
The King’s Speech – David Seidler
It disappoints me to think that Black Swan will make the cut here since the screenplay is clearly the film’s weak link. It’s that much more a testament to Darren Aronofsky’s gifts as a filmmaker that the movie is so strong when its script is so “meh.” But with a lack of other strong contenders – or a lack of attention being paid to a broader range of contenders, I should say – I’m afraid it will likely score a spot. That same narrow scope will probably aid The Fighter as well, which is at least a good, solid script if not really one of the year’s very best.
Mike Leigh is always a possibility in this category, though I don’t get the sense that Another Year has extended its reach beyond being a critic’s darling. I could see Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine sneaking in, which would be a pleasant and much deserved surprise, but I’m not holding my breath. The Writer’s Guild of America nominated the indie dramedy Please Give, but the guild is not the best barometer for the Oscars since its rules render so many would-be contenders ineligible. (A film has to be produced according to certain WGA guidelines in order to be qualify.) In fact, the first two films mentioned in this paragraph – along with The King’s Speech – were left out of consideration for this reason. With all three back in the running, I don’t see Please Give making the cut.
Personal: Animal Kingdom, Blue Valentine, Cyrus, Inception, The King’s Speech
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
127 Hours – Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy
The Social Network – Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3 – Michael Arndt
True Grit – Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Winter’s Bone – Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini
This list looks solid and safe. If anything is vulnerable I’d say it’s 127 Hours, which seems to have faded somewhat from the general conversation (James Franco’s performance notwithstanding). Other worthy contenders that could slide in include The Ghost Writer, Rabbit Hole and The Town (which, along with I Love You, Phillip Morris, earned WGA nominations…likely attributable to Toy Story 3 and Winter’s Bone being cockblocked by the guild).
Personal: Same
BEST ANIMATED FILM
Despicable Me
How to Train Your Dragon
Toy Story 3
I only recently caught Despicable Me, and was less impressed than I expected to be given all the acclaim and box office success. It was cute, but not much more. People seemed to love it though, and with Toy Story 3 locked in and How to Train Your Dragon nearly as certain, I’m guessing Tangled and The Illusionist will miss out. But maybe there’ll be an obscure shocker. Last year, nobody saw The Secret of Kells coming. It’s too bad that once again there will only be three nominees. There were 15 eligible films, and the rules state that only when there are a minimum of 16 can there be five nominees (at least 8 are required for the category to exist at all).
Personal: How to Train Your Dragon, Tangled, Toy Story 3
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Matthew Libatique – Black Swan
Wally Pfister – Inception
Jeff Cronenweth – The Social Network
Robert Richardson – Shutter Island
Roger Deakins – True Grit
Black Swan, Inception and True Grit are the sure bets here. Jostling for the remaining two spots are a handful of great contenders. The King’s Speech and The Social Network rounded out the American Society of Cinematographer’s list, though as is always the case with the guilds, there is rarely a complete match-up. I’m going with Shutter Island, but 127 Hours stands a good chance too. And if there are a few categories where The Way Back may actually be on voters’ radar, this could be one.
Personal: Black Swan, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I, Inception, Shutter Island, True Grit
BEST FILM EDITING
127 Hours
Black Swan
Inception
The King’s Speech
The Social Network
Personal: Black Swan, Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The Social Network, The Town
BEST ART DIRECTION
Alice in Wonderland
Inception
The King’s Speech
Shutter Island
TRON: Legacy
Personal: Get Low, The Ghost Writer, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I, Inception, Shutter Island
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Alice in Wonderland
Burlesque
The King’s Speech
The Tempest
True Grit
Personal: Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I, Shutter Island, The Tempest, The Wolfman (I haven’t actually seen The Tempest, but just based on some photos I can clearly see it deserves to be here.)
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
I See the Light – Tangled
If I Rise – 127 Hours
Shine – Waiting for Superman
We Belong Together – Toy Story 3
You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me – Burlesque
Honestly, I haven’t seen a single movie this year with an original song that left an impression on me. The five songs above have been the most oft mentioned in the season so far, so I’ll go with them. There are a couple of other songs from Burlesque that could conceivably make the cut, although “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me” is apparently Cher’s big number, so I’m sure that will carry some weight. Tunes from Country Strong and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader have been mentioned too, so perhaps one of them will make it in. Also, Eddie Vedder has a song from Eat Pray Love in the mix. I haven’t heard it, but considering that the Academy owes Vedder bigtime after snubbing his Into the Wild contributions back in ’07, maybe they can try to make it up to him now.
Personal: No opinion
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
A.R. Rahman – 127 Hours
Danny Elfman – Alice in Wonderland
Hans Zimmer – Inception
Alexandre Desplat – The King’s Speech
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross – The Social Network
True Grit and Black Swan might have fared a chance here, but both were deemed ineligible due to the large percentage of pre-exisiting music used in the films. I can’t speak to that in the case of True Grit, but certainly Black Swan‘s score is largely built around Tchaikovsy’s Swan Lake. I hope Reznor and Ross make the cut. They’re considered frontrunners, and yet the music branch of the Academy is known for making some tone deaf decisions lately. I have a sneaking suspicion that Reznor and Ross’ outsider status could hurt their chances. Hopefully I’m imagining things.
Personal: The Ghost Writer (Alexandre Desplat), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I (Desplat), Inception, Never Let Me Go (Rachel Portman), The Social Network
BEST MAKEUP
Alice in Wonderland
Barney’s Version
The Wolfman
The Makeup branch works differently than most other branches when it comes to voting, in that the list of contenders has already been whittled down to seven. These are the three I suspect will make the cut (Barney’s Version features nicely done aging makeup, something which often finds a place in the final three.) The remaining possibilities are The Fighter, True Grit, The Way Back and Jonah Hex.
Personal: Alice in Wonderland, Barney’s Version, The Way Back
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Alice in Wonderland
Inception
Iron Man 2
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I
TRON: Legacy
The Visual Effects branch also has preliminary rounds, but for the first time this year, five nominees will be selected from the list of seven, rather than the usual three. Given how much movies today use and rely on visual effects work, it’s nice to see that more films will be recognized…though I can’t quite understand the logic of sticking with the process as it’s been, seeing as only two films from the “semi-finals” will be omitted. The other two contenders this time around are Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Hereafter. My memory of Scott Pilgrim is that the effects were perfectly fine, but not really award-caliber. Hereafter features a stunning tsunami sequence that is certainly worthy of recognition, but I’m not sure it’s enough to justify nominating the film. Alice in Wonderland‘s effects were inconsistent, but I think they’ll win out over Scott Pilgrim and Hereafter. I would like to have seen The Social Network in the running, for the incredibly impressive CGI of the Winklevii (which more than makes up for the overdone, digitally inserted cold breath), but Social didn’t even make the branch’s preliminary list of 15. Nor did Black Swan, which I’d say was also worthy of consideration. But Alice notwithstanding, and without having seen TRON yet, this looks like a good list.
Personal: Black Swan, Inception, Iron Man 2, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I, The Social Network
BEST SOUND MIXING
Black Swan
Inception
Iron Man 2
Toy Story 3
True Grit
BEST SOUND EDITING
Black Swan
Inception
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
This is always a shot in the dark for me, as I never have and likely never will – no matter how many cool DVD special features on sound I watch – understand these two categories. To me, what should be honored – which I don’t think these two categories do, exactly – is overall sound design. How is sound used in the film? What impact does it have? How does it contribute to the experience of the movie? Sound mixing and sound editing obviously contribute to that, but I think I understand enough to know that neither covers the overall sonic experience of the film. I’m making the picks above based on a) instinct, b) the nominations by the Cinema Audio Society and Motion Picture Sound Editors and c) by looking at the nominees in years past and trying to extract some sort of logic from them. We’ll see how I do. The King’s Speech could certainly find a place on one or both of these lists, as could action movies like TRON: Legacy, Unstoppable, Salt or Red. Musicals and animated films also tend to do well here, so perhaps Burlesque, How to Train Your Dragon or Tangled – which combines both – could show up.
Personal: If the category worked the way I, in my infinite ignorance, think it should, I’d be citing Black Swan, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I, Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and…ummm…maybe…I don’t know, lemme get back to you.
That’s as far as I can go. Unfortunately my intake of documentaries and foreign language films is embarrassingly paltry, and I know nothing of the contenders for the short film awards. So I’ll end with this point, to bring it all full circle: the awards pundits had pretty much declared The Social Network the winner of Best Picture, but guess what movie didn’t win the prize on Saturday night from the Producer’s Guild of America? The PGA went with The King’s Speech. Does that mean Speech is now a lock for the Oscar? No. Sometimes the PGA’s pick goes on to win the Oscar, sometimes it doesn’t. All it means is that a lot can happen in a month. Just ask Eddie Murphy, or the producers of Brokeback Mountain.
This thing can’t be over yet; it hasn’t even started.
Lots of people talking about the Oscars are looking to February and discussing what will win, but I’d like to roll things back a little and actually let the nominations get announced before I start predicting the winners. It must seem awfully old-fashioned of me in this day and age, when so many awards are handed out before the Oscar nominations are even announced that the winners already seem like foregone conclusions. If you listen to the professionals, the endgame for this season has already been inscribed. The Social Network. David Fincher. Colin Firth. Natalie Portman. Christian Bale. Melissa Leo. Toy Story 3.
I Am DB 