Oscars Roundtable
By BOP Staff
January 26, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
My immediate reaction to the Best Picture nominees was the dearth of recognizable mainstream films, especially with nine films in the field. Really, the only ones might fit that label would be The Help and Moneyball. It brought to mind the 1997 awards with The English Patient, Shine, Secrets & Lies, Fargo and Jerry Maguire. The Tom Cruise/Cameron Crowe project had earned $143 million by the time of the Oscars ceremony and the other four combined had earned $128 million. Incidentally, Jerry Maguire apparently directed itself that year as Crowe’s directing was passed over for Milos Forman’s directing of The People vs. Larry Flynt.
So looking at the actual grosses, this year’s Best Picture nominees are modest to middling earners, aside from The Help’s $169 million haul. The rest fall somewhere between Moneyball’s $75 million and The Artist’s $12 million. Look at the two previous years with ten nominations. In 2010, we had six of the ten that earned between $80 million and $700+ million with Up in the Air on the low end and Avatar, obviously, on the high end and District 9, Inglorious Basterds, The Blind Side and Up in the middle. Last year, seven of the ten earned between $90 million and $414 million, with The Fighter on the low end and Toy Story 3 on the high end and The Social Network, Black Swan, The King’s Speech, True Grit and Inception in between.
As David explained earlier this week, with the new convoluted Best Picture nomination formula, a tenth nominee is omitted this year. If that spot had gone to the final Harry Potter film, then my anticipation would rise exponentially. I wasn’t surprised it was snubbed but still just disappointed.
What all this says to me is that ABC will be sorely disappointed when the Oscar broadcast’s ratings come in Monday, February 27th.
For me the biggest shock came in the Animated Feature category. I fully expected The Adventures of Tintin to not only get a nomination but to take home the award in February. If a Steven Spielberg-directed and Peter Jackson-produced motion capture animated feature can’t get an Oscar nomination in this category, then that method is as dead as silent films…oh wait, silent films are apparently back en vogue with the Weinstein-financed and Oscar frontrunner The Artist.
I love that now thanks to Jim Rash’s screenplay nomination for The Descendants, we can now refer to him as Greendale Community College's Academy Award nominee Dean Pelton. Non-"Community" fans will just have to trust that this is truly great.
Finally, let's congratulate BOP's self-proclaimed poor nomination prognosticator Tom Houseman on doing a bang-up job this year. In the eight main categories, he got 33 of the 44 nominations correct or 75% correct. This is same percentage that Entertainment Weekly's Dave Krager achieved. So, strong work, Tom.
Shalimar Sahota: There were clearly some surprising nominations, and upon seeing them, I'm left hoping that it's a sign of things to come and that the ceremony itself will present some surprise winners. Well, I can hope, but I doubt it'll happen.
Best Actor - "Who the hell is Demián Bichir?" That's what I imagine everyone was saying when his name was announced. Probably the most surprising nomination, in that here is an actor whose name wasn't even considered when it came to the nominations, and now according to my local bookies, he stands a better of chance of winning than Gary Oldman and Brad Pitt. Turns out that screener copies of A Better Life were sent out to Academy voters very early on, and his performance must have lingered. Still, I say it's a two horse race between Clooney and Dujardin.
Best Actress - If I'd like to see an upset in any category, then it's this one. Everyone seems to think that Meryl Streep has already won this for The Iron Lady. However, if anyone is going to ruin her night, I think it's going to be Viola Davis for The Help.
Cinematography - Guillaume Schiffman for The Artist should just make do with the nomination here. Its full frame aspect ratio works, but doesn't compare to the cinemascope spectacles of the other nominations. I think this is between Robert Richardson for Hugo and Emmanuel Lubezki for The Tree of Life. Richardson has won twice previously, and one of those wins was for his work on Martin Scorsese's The Aviator. However, Lubezki has been nominated four times previously, and the way I see it, it's about bloody time. Plus, if The Tree of Life is going to win any of its three nominations, it's most likely going to be this one.
Animated Feature Film - A category that's often been dominated by Pixar during the last decade, yet this year, there's not a single Pixar (or Disney) film in sight. Even more surprising is the omission of the Golden Globe winning (and BAFTA nominated) The Adventures of Tintin. Though I am stupefied as to how the hell A Cat in Paris got in there! Nevertheless, I think this is Rango's area.
I have a general wondering in regards to the highest grossing film of 2011. The Harry Potter films have received a scattershot of nominations in the past, but have never won any. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 has three nominations in Art Direction, Visual Effects and Make-Up. This has to be Harry's time to walk away with something (I think there's a good chance it'll walk away with the former two). It'll be the Academy's way of awarding the whole series by at least offering the final film with something.
Interestingly, Shame, We Need To Talk About Kevin, J. Edgar, 50/50 and Carnage have received no nominations whatsoever, while Drive received only one technical nod.
Max Braden: One of the things I'm most interested in about Oscar nominees is how they compare or contrast to the other guild nominees. The first thing I notice here is that the two male acting performances nominated by the Screen Actors Guild for J. Edgar were passed up by the Oscars. Back in the fall, I was expecting Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to be a strong contender, but when the guild nominees were announced it was left out. That's not something I was annoyed at after seeing the movie, since it disappointed me, but I think it's notable that the Oscars nominated it for both acting and screenplay (though they left it out in order to nominate War Horse for cinematography). Also interesting are the acting and picture nominations for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, and directing and picture nominations for The Tree of Life, of which those respective guilds passed up.
The movie that's really surprising me here is Hugo, admittedly because I underestimated it. Sure it's got a good pedigree and has hints of Oliver Twist, but it presents itself as a popcorn movie; based on a children's story (not exactly Scorsese's wheelhouse), plenty of fantasy elements, presented in 3D. I figured it would get a pat on the head, make lots of money, and that would be that. Now here it is with the most nominations, and I can't dismiss it as the movie to beat. Still, I think voters will also like the charm of The Artist (which has already won the Producers Guild Award), and The Descendants seems like an easy sell as your standard Oscar leader.
For quick picks, based on a gut feeling, I'll predict: newcomer Jean Dujardin gets appreciation for his role in The Artist, tried and true Streep as Thatcher in The Iron Lady, Plummer getting career attention with Beginners, Octavia Spencer to show some love for The Help, screenplays for Midnight in Paris and Hugo, and... I feel so on the fence about these: Cinematography, Directing, and picture for The Artist.
For my own favorites I try to avoid "standard" choices. This year I liked Tom Hardy's intense performance in Warrior, Elle Fanning's lovely performance in Super 8, the sincere humor brought by Jonah Hill and Melissa McCarthy, the rollercoaster directing and writing in Moneyball, and the sheer intensity and eye-popping visuals of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. Of the actual nominees, I'd really like to see Melissa McCarthy get the win.
Kim Hollis: When the Academy Awards nominations were announced on Tuesday, I was probably the least excited I’ve been in years. Usually, I can find about five movies to champion in any given year but in 2011, there are several movies that I like a lot, but none that made me feel like a Lost in Translation or The Royal Tenenbaums, or hell, even The Departed. With that said, even though it was hard to work up enthusiasm, that doesn’t mean I hadn’t followed the predictors to determine likely nominee scenarios. While there were very few surprises, there were some that were pretty significant, and not all of them were awesome.
Of course, like everyone else, I was blown away that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close snuck in for the Best Picture race. I guess that Tom Hanks still has some pull in the industry, and obviously Larry Crowne wasn’t getting anywhere near these awards.
The other Best Picture nominees were all expected with perhaps the exception of Tree of Life, but it would be easy enough to imagine that its passionate supporters would be solid enough to get it the 5% of first place votes it needed. I don’t even think there were any true snubs – some have mentioned The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, but I understand why that was a tough pill for the Academy to swallow.
Was Demiàn Bechir a surprise for Best Actor? Sure, but I’d seen discussion of his candidacy in a couple of places (including our own Tom Houseman early in the season) and I was pleased to see that something so out of the mainstream came on for a small victory. I always had a nagging feeling that Michael Fassbender (hot though he is) would have problems securing a nomination due to the overt sexual focus of his film.
A lot of people were pretty stunned by the Best Animation nominees, but something to always keep in mind is that these movies are actually chosen by people from within the field, and that group might see Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Co. to be interlopers amongst their community. A Cat in Paris had gotten decent critical attention earlier in the year, enough that I had it on my radar as a film I wanted to see (it puts me in mind of To Catch a Thief). Obviously, no one was going to predict Chico & Rita, but with five nominees this year, the people behind the nominations could be more capricious than usual.
I think I’m most excited about the nominations for Midnight in Paris, which is a movie I enjoyed a great deal but wouldn’t have thought would have been as big a player as it has been back when it was released in May. Yes, it’s Woody Allen’s biggest movie ever, but usually he gets screenplay nominations and nothing else these days. Also, I know a lot of people are knocking it, but I was really pleased to see Jonah Hill get recognized for Best Supporting Actor. He can annoy the hell out of me when he’s the comedic lead, but he was perfectly utilized in Moneyball, showing a range I wouldn’t have believed he had until I witnessed it with my own eyes.
Now, like many others, I’ll be working to catch up on stuff that I would probably otherwise never have considered watching (Albert Nobbs? Oh, come on!) but I fear that I’ll still never find that one movie that makes my heart sing.
As far as early predictions, I always hate to do this thing so early because you almost always see the tide change between the week of nominations and the actual day of the awards, but I feel like The Artist is pretty certainly the film to beat for Best Picture. Best Actor probably goes to Juan Dujardin, though I think George Clooney can never be dismissed. Meryl Streep seems to have Best Actress locked up, while Christopher Plummer seems to be headed for a win in Best Supporting Actor. I think the only true "lock" in any Supporting category is Octavia Spencer for Supporting Actress.
Things are muddier from here, but I'm going to guess Marty Scorsese gets another award this year for directing, while Woody Allen takes it for Best Original Screenplay. Alexander Payne and Co. win for Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Animated goes to Rango.