They Shoot Oscar Prognosticators, Don’t They?
Early Look At Lead Acting Races
By J. Don Birnam
December 3, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Surprising few people, the New York Film Critics Circle named Boyhood their Best Film of the year, while the National Board of Review did go out on a limb and gave the top honor to A Most Violent Year. The former seems destined to receive a Best Picture nomination (although I don’t yet buy the win), while A Most Violent Year at least got a boost up the screener pile if nothing else.
But enough of the Best Picture handicap for now. It’s time to start looking at some of the other main Oscar categories for this year’s race and the acting races provide a good entry point into this endeavor.
This year’s Best Actor and Actress races are very similar to most years: There is a wide depth of male performances to pick from, and the ones that get in usually lead strong Best Picture contenders. By contrast, Best Actress choices seem much fewer and far between, with one main performance scorching the earth on the way to the podium, and the others coming from an uneasy mix of indie movie also-rans.
Anything you read about movies these days - the newspaper, Oscar blogs, editorials - points to the disparity between roles for men and women in Hollywood. Cate Blanchett made it the focus of her winning speech last year. I add my voice to the chorus because it only takes one glance at the lists below to see that great roles are available for men everywhere, but not so much for women. Just look at this statistic: approximately 28 Best Actor winners in history were for roles in movies that also won Best Picture. That’s more than one out of every four movies. By contrast, only about 11 Best Actress winners came from Best Picture winners - fewer than one in eight.
A pity, because as strong as some past male winners have been, I feel like strong female roles are always more challenging (perhaps because of their rarity) and therefore perhaps more rewarding. Unfortunately, a similar pattern has emerged this year, leaving us with a seemingly-locked Best Actress winner and a more open Best Actor field.
Best Actor: Keaton vs. Redmayne?
As I mentioned before, there are at least 10 credible performances in this category that could get a nomination. The New York Film Critics Circle awarded Best Actor to Timonthy Spall for portraying the title character in the biopic Mr. Turner, while the National Board of Review gave that award to Michael Keaton. As beloved as Spall is, I think it is fair to point out that it seems like the win is between Michael Keaton’s career-reviving performance as the semi-psychotic actor in Birdman and Eddie Redmayne’s career-defining performance as the paralyzed genius in The Theory of Everything. Both come in much more widely seen and beloved vehicles.
Right now, without more precursors, it’s hard to tell which of these is out ahead. Keaton gives the comeback performance in a critically acclaimed movie. Of course, that didn’t help Mickey Rourke overcome Sean Penn when the former was nominated for The Wrestler. Sean Penn’s character was just more beloved. That fate may befall Keaton as he faces the beloved performance by Eddy Redmayne, equal parts touching and compelling.
A distant third for now is David Oleyowo for his performance as Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma. Although that movie is here to stay in this year’s Oscar race, I haven’t seen it myself so I can’t predict it yet. But it does have all the trappings of an Oscar-darling: portrayal of a real-life character that saves the world. It’s Colin Firth all over again. Will they award a relative newcomer, though? That didn’t stop Jean Dujardin from winning for The Artist, so yeah, it is possible.
Note how the first three mentioned are all headlining likely Best Picture nominations. Right now, I predict these three are in the lead or almost locks for at least a nomination.
The rest of the field is very competitive, however. We have Benedict Cumberbatch for his portrayal of Alan Turing in The Imitation Game - another likely BP nominee and a performance by someone who has dazzled with several great roles in just a few years. Then there is likely Steve Carrell for Foxcatcher, fifth place only because the movie’s BP chances seem uneven, but the performance is actually stronger than most others mentioned thus far. Going outside of the comfort zone as Carrell does here has helped actors like Matthew McConaughey in the past, so don’t count the otherwise goofy Carrell out. And of course there’s Spall.
If I had to bet, I would say that’s your five nominees right now, but there is usually a surprise in this category. Thus, Jake Gyllenhaal for Nightcrawler should not be counted out. A strong showing for Whiplash could propel Miles Teller, and if Unbroken streaks through, then Jack O’Connell will surely get a Jessie Eisenberg-type nomination. But the early reviews are not good on this movie, even though the National Board of Review did give O’Connell a breakout performance award.
And big star names like Ben Affleck, Bradley Cooper, and Mark Wahlberg (Gone Girl, American Sniper, and The Gambler, respectively) could also surprise us. Some of these are likely to receive nominations from the star-minded Golden Globes, inevitably helping their Oscar chances.
It will be a race to watch, with no bad performance among the lot.
Best Actress: Julianne Moore Finally Wins It?
The bad news here, again, is the utter lack of serious and strong contenders. When one spot is likely to go to Felicity Jones for her half-hearted portrayal of Hawking’s wife in The Imitation Game, you know there is a problem. More on that later.
In the meantime, there is some good news. It seems as if Julianne Moore is poised to finally win a long-overdue Best Actress Academy Award. For every Peter O’Toole one can think of in the Best Actor race, there are dozens of Julianne Moores that come to mind - Glenn Close and Laura Linney to name but a few in this era, but Natalie Wood and Debra Winger come to mind as well. Worse, when Halle Berry and Reese Witherspoon have Oscars, it betrays the reason there are arguably more glaring omissions in the female field: the Academy selects one-hit wonder young girls because of a sex appeal factor, and casts aside more serious but older actresses.
In any case, it appears that at least one of these wrongs has a high a chance of being corrected this year should Julianne Moore triumph in her portrayal of an aging woman suffering from deteriorating mental capacities in Still Alice. All critics and bloggers believe that she is currently the one to beat. Let’s not forget Moore’s stunning performances from Boogie Nights to The Hours to Children of Men and Far From Heaven. That she is in the box office smash Mockingjay this year also does not hurt one bit. The march to the podium seemingly began, indeed, with her National Board of Review win.
The field becomes a complete wasteland after that. Not only does Moore not have a serious contender, it is hard to even come up with five names. The New York Film Critics Circle awarded Marion Cotillard for both Two Days, One Night, and The Immigrant. I wrote in my coverage of this year’s New York Film Festival that Two Days is strong, and I sincerely hope Cotillard gets a nod for that role. But, like Mr. Turner, the movie is quite small. The other movie for which she was lauded by New York, The Immigrant, screened in New York in 2013. To put it bluntly, the movie is not very good, even if Cotillard dazzles as usual. Don’t expect to see that among the nominees.
As for others: Felicity Jones is one we have mentioned and some believe Shailene Woodley has a chance for The Fault in Our Stars. Sentimental as that performance is, it is hardly one for the ages.
More likely challengers are Reese Witherspoon for her portrayal of a woman on a journey to rediscover herself in Wild or Jennifer Aniston for her turn in Cake, which won her critical acclaim in Toronto. I haven’t seen either, but the roles seem prime for an Oscar nomination and Aniston certainly has proven in the past (The Good Girl) that she has, no pun intended, the goods.
Beyond that, Rosamund Pike would make a very worthy fourth or fifth slot nominee for her chilling portrayal as Amy Dunne in the brilliant but rapidly fading Gone Girl, and I have heard good things about two-time winner Hilary Swank’s performance in The Homesman. The Academy clearly likes her enough to give her two full wins, so don’t count her out.
I also particularly enjoyed Jessica Chastain’s mysterious and emotional performance in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, but that movie is likely at the bottom of most Academy members’ screeners. Still, Chastain is rapidly rising the ranks into Moore-like status in the number of fantastic roles she turns in without a win. Her performances in Interstellar and A Most Violent Year are also solid, and could together lead to a nomination combination like the year she was up for The Help. I think her time will come eventually.
Next up: Golden Globe and SAG nominations.