It’s Friday. Oscars are on Sunday. I’ve rattled my brain for hours, days, weeks. It hurts. I can’t. I am fully ready to be wrong in many categories. I also chickened out in several categories.
I wanted to put Max Von Sydow instead of Christopher Plummer. Not happening. Can I get some type of credit if it happens? No? I thought so. I wanted to place “The Artist” winning Original Screenplay over Woody Allen and “Midnight in Paris.” Terrible. I’m usually good at taking the big stabs. I chose Amy Adams when everyone said it was Rachel Weisz. I acknowledged I was wrong but I still went for it. It happens. But I have called great things like “The Hurt Locker” in May or Alan Arkin over Eddie Murphy and when I was in high school and had no idea what I was talking about I said Marcia Gay Harden for “Pollock.” Maybe it’ll be a safe year, maybe it’ll be a complete mind-trip, but at least it’ll be over. And then we can start this painful process again on Monday morning with the Year-In-Advance predictions.
You can check out each category through the Oscar Prediction pages with commentary for each category and my Who Will Win/Should Win. If you read the Davis Awards 2011, then you know my dream nominations and winners. Collectively, they are after the jump.
Kenneth Branagh – My Week with Marilyn
Jonah Hill – Moneyball
Nick Nolte – Warrior
Christopher Plummer – Beginners
Max von Sydow – Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
This category has often been dismissed as a way to award “distinguished” (read: old) actors with Oscars to honor their career as opposed to the individual performance in question. While I do have some major gripes with this category, this particular accusation always struck me not only as ageist (what, senior actors can’t legitimately give award-worthy performances?!) but not as backed up by recent history as the reputation would suggest. Christian Bale, Christoph Waltz, Heath Ledger, Javier Bardem, George Clooney and Benicio Del Toro were hardly old vet actors looking for a swan song trophy. In fact, the last elderly “career-honor” winner we had was arguably Alan Arkin is 2006, and even then it was a close call between him and Eddie Murphy. That’s why this year presents an interesting complication to the debate. With the average age clocking in at 62, this year’s Best Supporting Actor slate is the oldest ever, and three of them could legitimately claim this award as a career capper. Read more on Oscar Circuit: Best Supporting Actor…
Best Picture: The Descendants
Best Director: Alexander Payne (The Descendants)
Best Actor: Brad Pitt (Moneyball)
Best Actress: Viola Davis (The Help)
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer (Beginners)
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids)
Best Animated Film: Rango
Best Film Yet to Open in Iowa: We Need to Talk About Kevin AND Project Nim
LOS ANGELES, CA. – January 12, 2012 – The Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA) announced the winners of the 17th annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards earlier this evening. Hosted by comedians Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel, the star-studded ceremony was held at the Hollywood Palladium and aired live on VH1. “The Artist” was named the year’s Best Picture and Michael Hazanavicius won Best Directorhonors for the film.
As the year stands behind us and we gear up for the upcoming award shows including the Critics Choice Awards which will be broadcast on VH1, Thursday, January 12th @ 8pm ET. Make sure you tune in.
As for our own critics here at the Awards Circuit, I am pleased to present the Staff Writers choices for the Top 10 Best Films of 2011. Having a hand in hiring most of these writers that are on board, I am also eager to see the eclectic tastes as we try to form a non-consensus here at the site. We fully embrace how we are all different and look at film in a different way from our next critic or reader. We respect and we view with curiosity. I sincerely hope the readership of the Awards Circuit will share your Top Ten films in the comment section because I’m eager to hear what you guys and gals loved in 2011 as well.
I’ve come, I saw, well, I didn’t conquer but I feel comfortable with the picks thus far. I’ve spent hours analyzing and looking at categories while trying to think like an AMPAS voter. The past eight days or so have presented many answers to questions we thought we knew the answer to. When looking at the Critics Choice, Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, and the two dozen critics’ awards that have announced their favorites for Year 2011, one thing remains clear. This is one of the most open races we’ve seen in years.
I hate using the word “lock” because as history has told us, AMPAS can “unlock” someone just as fast as we put them in. Think Paul Giamatti in “Sideways.” However, I feel comfortable using the word for a few films thus far. Michel Hazanavicius’ “The Artist” is the clear favorite and the one to beat. It has the Oscar flair that they love and the critics have taken to it in a big way as well. I still feel the same way about it that I did when I first saw it and that means something. “Slumdog Millionaire” which had the same effect on many critics, including myself, aged very poorly and looking back, not necessarily the best film of the year. Not by a long shot. Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants” has made a strong showing. George Clooney is working his magic and has encountered many awards along the way. It doesn’t hurt that he also directed and starred in “The Ides of March,” a film not locked by any means despite the Golden Globe nomination. Steven Spielberg’s great epic “War Horse” has everything that Oscar loves. While it doesn’t carry a strong showing on the performance front, the story alone will get voters checking the film off.
Are we underway now? If so, we start the 2011 Oscar season with a TIE?!?!?!
Yep. A tie. Between two films that could not be more diametrically opposed to one another. Mike Mills’ Beginners and Terrence Malick’s The Tree Of Life each get a tally mark for winning a Best Feature/Best Picture prize.
Some studios have made their 2011 Awards or For Your Consideration sites LIVE. They’re up and running and it’s so fun to look at them when considering what films will or will not be on Oscar’s radar. Not everyone is up yet and some aren’t listing categories but it’s good to see the roster that some of these studios have on their hands. Weinstein has a squad this season. Another Weinstein Oscar ceremony? We’ll see. Check em’ out below.
The Weinstein Company:
-The Artist
-Coriolanus
-The Iron Lady
-My Week with Marilyn
-Undefeated
-W.E. -No categories listed.
20th Century Fox:
-Rio
-Rise of the Planet of the Apes -No categories listed.
Oscar season is nearly in full swing. The screeners and invitations have already started. PR companies, studios, and other industry analysts are fighting hard for films and performances that they hope will resonate with critics’ awards and the Academy Awards. When assessing the race in all categories there seems to be an equal amount of newcomers and veterans in various categories, all fighting for a spot in their respective lineups.
In the Directing category we have the usual suspects of respected veteran directors; Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, and David Cronenberg. Most of these men have won Oscars before and looking for reaffirmation that they’ve still got it. You could easily place Terrence Malick in the same lineup for The Tree of Life, however, Malick seems to be on an island all alone at the moment. His film seems to be so uniquely split between people who love it or hate it, it’s going to be interesting if he makes the cut and wins the Oscar.
Carey Mulligan gets a taste of awards for this upcoming season in the 15th Annual Hollywood Festival and Hollywood Film Awards. Mulligan will be receiving the Best Supporting Actress award for her stunning work in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive and as the sister of a sex-addict in Steve McQueen’s Shame.
The Supporting Actor award was revealed in the past weeks to be going to Christopher Plummer as the terminally ill, gay father in Mike Mills’ Beginners.
Beginners is an absolutely lovely little film. Though ultimately not as delightful as something like Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, this is still one of the better movies of the year. Writer/director Mike Mills is telling an incredibly personal story here, but he’s still managed to make it accessible and enjoyable. It’s a romantic dramedy filled with strong performances and a good sense of purpose, despite a plot that deals heavily with the idea of the crisis of identity. All three main performances are worthy of recognition, as Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, and Melanie Laurent charm you to no end. McGregor is the lead and does some of his best work in years, while I’d argue Plummer has rarely been better in this supporting turn (far better than the work he did in The Last Station that got him nominated, more as a lifetime achievement award than for the movie), and Laurent proves her outstanding performance in Inglourious Basterds was no fluke. Throw in a dog whose thoughts we can periodically see in subtitles (it’s a quirk that works for the film) and a vibe that reminds me of a less ambitious Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and you have a very winning cinematic experience. Read more on Beginners (***½)…
And so the summer flies by, and we Oscar prognosticators can steel ourselves for the “real” contenders to roll out over the fall and winter months. But as we look forward to how this season shapes up, what can we take from this year’s summer slate? What interesting events happened the last three months as far as the big, massive blockbusters go?
One trend that is not unusual or noteworthy is the number of sequels and remakes that hit us in that time. It does amaze me how seemingly every August some pundit will declare “The Summer of Sequels” or some such nonsense as if franchise pictures haven’t plagued the multiplexes at this time every year for the past decade. True, seven of the ten highest-grossing films of the year domestically were part of franchises (nine of you count The Avengers preludes), but that’s commonplace in this era of shareholder cinema. Read more on Sayonara, Summer!…
Ah, summer. The season when school is out, sun tan is in, and cinephiles like us can look forward to massive studio-produced blockbusters that rake in the big bucks. These movies don’t usually have a strong presence during the awards season, but that’s slowly changing with the recent expansion of the Best Picture nominees to ten (spurred in part by the snubbing of a big-budget superhero film, I might add) and more ambitious treatments of what we used to call “summer flicks.” So what major releases for the months of May to August could be seen again at the Oscars, or *gasp* might actually be great movies?
In previous years, the easy answer to that question was almost always Pixar. They have earned by far more Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature than any other studio, and since the expansion to ten have produced two consecutive Best Picture nominees. So you would think that once again they’re a sure bet to dominate – both financially and critically – the summer slate of family entertainment…unless of course we’re talking about a sequel to their worst film yet. For reasons unknown to me, the illustrious studio has decided that their upcoming films should include a sequel to Cars and, for 2013, a prequel to Monsters, Inc., despite neither film being that good in the first place. But maybe I’m being presumptuous. After all, both of the Toy Story sequels were outstanding and I don’t even know what Cars 2 is about. Let’s check the official synopsis… Read more on The Summer and the Oscars…
We’re entering a new month in the summer, folks, so that means…surprisingly only one action blockbuster opening this weekend.
The only new wide release is the superhero prequel X-Men: First Class, a factor which should work in its favor at the box office. An origin story to the entertaining but very flawed X-Men trilogy that kicked off America’s superhero film obsession, Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr strike up a friendship as young men, founding a school and later a team meant to protect mutants. Despite its now-legendarily bad photoshopped posters and the fact that 99% of prequels are, well, awful, the critical acclaim for this film has been considerable. The vast majority of reviews are calling First Class the most intelligent and engaging installment of the entire series (high praise, considering the bar set by X2), with two widely commended performances from leads James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. Some are even claiming it stands above nearly all other Marvel adaptations so far. Such enthusiastic early reviews and lack of competition (something tells me that The Hangover: Part II will drop quite a bit this weekend) should allow First Class to crush the competition with an $85-90 million take and possibly set the stage for a prequel trilogy. Read more on Weekend Openings (June 3-5)…
It’s been 24 hours and I’m joined by Joey, Robert, Anna, and Joseph to dish on the things of the night. Here’s the agenda.
The only new wide release is the superhero prequel X-Men: First Class, a factor which should work in its favor at the box office. An origin story to the entertaining but very flawed X-Men trilogy that kicked off America’s superhero film obsession, Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr strike up a friendship as young men, founding a school and later a team meant to protect mutants. Despite its now-legendarily bad photoshopped posters and the fact that 99% of prequels are, well, awful, the critical acclaim for this film has been considerable. The vast majority of reviews are calling First Class the most intelligent and engaging installment of the entire series (high praise, considering the bar set by X2), with two widely commended performances from leads James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. Some are even claiming it stands above nearly all other Marvel adaptations so far. Such enthusiastic early reviews and lack of competition (something tells me that The Hangover: Part II will drop quite a bit this weekend) should allow First Class to crush the competition with an $85-90 million take and possibly set the stage for a prequel trilogy. 
