Supporting Actress has proven to be one of the best categories recently for the Academy Awards. For every year there was a clear front runner (Spencer, Monique, Hudson), there was another year when we had no idea who was winning (Leo, Swinton, Weisz, Cruz). Although after a few award shows, it’s clear that this year’s race is shaping up to be one of those “Frontrunner wins everything” years, there’s still an interesting slate of nominees and narratives to discuss.
On Wednesday, January 16th, Lincoln: An American Journey - a behind-the-scenes special on the making of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln - premiered on iTunes. Lincoln has crossed the $150 million mark at the box office, and pulled in a field-leading 12 Oscar nominations. The special dives into the 12 year adventure the filmmakers went on to bring this film to the big screen, and features interviews with Steven Spielberg, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Sally Field. Have a look at the press release after the jump.
The stars have aligned for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. They announced their nominations for the 70th annual Golden Globe Awards. For the first time, their nominees don’t seem as blatant for trying to have the biggest stars in Hollywood join together for a dinner party. Of course, there are some glaring omissions from a few categories but many of the films and performances cited were for the most part, respectable.
Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln leads the tally with seven nominations including Best Picture and Director. Daniel Day-Lewis nabbed his seventh nomination along co-stars Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones. Lincoln remains a definite favorite to win in nearly every category. To some surprise, Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained was able to grab five nominations including a double Supporting Actor citation for Leonardo DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz. Tarantino was also nominated Best Director and Screenplay. Missing in the director’s field, Tom Hooper for the dynamite musical Les Miserables, which did grab four nominations in total. Read more on Analysis of the Golden Globe Nominations…
The SAG bells rang today but they rang for many surprising and jaw-dropping exclusions. As going on record stating this is the most competitive Oscar race I’ve covered in years. Not one category seems assured with their lineups and we got many curveballs thrown at us this morning.
In Best Supporting Actress, Amy Adams was left off for performance in The Master, a turn many of cited wasn’t in the same league as co-stars Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Sally Field in Lincoln, Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables, and Helen Hunt in The Sessions, all made their appearances as expected. With Maggie Smith announcing she wasn’t going to be campaigning, she still managed to pull in four nominations for herself including her performance in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Nicole Kidman jumped back into the race for a film that was pulverized by critics. While her role in The Paperboy is quite extraordinary, the film that surrounds her doesn’t do any favors. Older members of the Academy might find it difficult to get passed some of the more controversial scenes. Also missing big here was Ann Dowd from Compliance, something that really needed a boost from the acting branch. Many pundits have speculated on the possibility of Samantha Barks finding wiggle room into the race along side co-star Hathaway for Les Miserables. That notion may have just been put to bed. Read more on SAG Nomination Analysis – What Does It All Mean?…
Winners to be announced live on the CW Television Network from the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica on January 10, 2013.
BEST PICTURE Argo Beasts of the Southern Wild Django Unchained Les Miserables Life of Pi Lincoln The Master Moonrise Kingdom Silver Linings Playbook Zero Dark Thirty
The New York Film Critics have announced their winners for the best in cinema for 2012. The East Coast group that awarded Best Picture to Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist last year chose the brilliant Zero Dark Thirty directed by Kathryn Bigelow. The film won a total of three awards from the coveted group including Cinematography for Greig Fraser and Director for Bigelow. The film has put itself in a prime position for the Oscars.
In a surprising mention, Rachel Weisz won Best Actress for her portrayal in Terence Davies’ The Deep Blue Sea. Buzz for Weisz’s performance and film had been dead for months and with her highly praised work, she has regained some momentum for an Academy Award nomination. After winning for The Constant Gardener (2005), Weisz has not been on critics’ radar. Her film performed minimally at the box office and had a very early release date. Is this mention to be taken seriously for a nomination? Let’s see if she shows up in more places for the season. She wasn’t the only surprise however; Matthew McConaughey beat out Philip Seymour Hoffman and Tommy Lee Jones to be named Best Supporting Actor for his works in Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike and Richard Linklater’s Bernie. Has a spot just freed up for the character actor in this year’s Oscar race? Read more on McConaughey and Weisz Surprise with NYFCC, Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln take 3 awards…
With two (really one) contender left to be unveiled, this is the most exciting awards race I’ve covered in all my years of Oscar prognosticating. Every category is competitive and with races like this, anything can happen. Along with updating the official Oscar Predictions, I’ve updated the major precursors such as the Golden Globe Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
As New York gets ready to lift on Monday, which I’ve attempted to take a stab at, the National Board of Review and Los Angeles Film Critics will start the chain reaction of the awards season. Before anyone knows the winners, I’m seeing this as a three-horse race between Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, and Ben Affleck’s Argo, more particularly the first two films. Currently I’m foreseeing Hooper’s film to lead the way on Oscar nomination morning with 13 nominations, assuming lead Hugh Jackman and standout Eddie Redmayne can plow through some of the veterans in their categories. Read more on Oscar Circuit – Music vs. History…
The Sizing Up Series continues with a look at the slate of Best Supporting Actress contenders. As always, this is as large a grouping of the hopefuls as possible (excluding some no shot contenders and members of bigger ensembles…or else this could have 50 or more people in the article), categorizing them by their assumed likelihood of a nomination come the big morning. Oftentimes, more than a few of the Best Picture nominees wind up with some form of representation here, and this year I think there will be more than a little correlation, but of course absolutely anything is possible with the Academy. We shall see what happens in the end, but enough talk for the time being. I know what you’re all here for, so let’s go right ahead and take a look at the contenders for Best Supporting Actress and size up the field! Read more on Sizing Up: Best Supporting Actress…
In Lincoln, Steven Spielberg brings the 16th President’s turbulent final months in office to life, and with it bequeaths upon us one of the great history lessons in the annals of cinema. While President Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) tries to unite a country by bringing an end to the Civil War, his principal focus is to abolish slavery and change the fate for the millions of lives that will follow.
After its slight head start last week, Lincoln opens nationwide this weekend. Much to the joy of fans (and non-fans), part two of the finale of the Twilight series finally hits theaters. Expect the box office to reflect my doubts about the rumors of Abe’s past as a vampire hunter. And if you’re in the mood for actual comedy (the kind you won’t feel guilty for afterwards), Silver Linings Playbook offers a uniquely offbeat brand of the funny stuff. I already regret that it’s going to be overlooked in many ways, but Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina serves up a visual feast.
Capping off Bond Week at the Awards Circuit is the much anticipated release of Skyfall. Spielberg’s grand biopic Lincoln gets a limited head start to its nationwide release next week.
The Oscar race is beginning to formulate itself. As it stands the Academy Awards have positioned themselves to be the wildest of wild cards of the Oscar season. Since Oscar ballots are due January 3rd, the nominations will be one of many awards ceremonies coming down like wildfire.
The Screen Actors Guild Awards announce their nominee choices first beginning on December 10th. The Broadcast Film Critics Association will name their best of the year with the Critics Choice Movie Awards being announced the next day on December 11th. The Hollywood Foreign Press will follow-suit with their Golden Globe nominations on December 13th. Mark my words; those four days will likely be the most important and telling aspects of the awards season. If you start hearing the usual suspects, back-to-back and over and over, Oscar will be referring to these groups for citations for their own nominees when they’re announced on January 10th. Read more on Oscar Circuit: “10 Weeks to Go”…
Steven Spielberg delivers his finest work since Minority Report (2002) with his politically charged and emotionally timely film, Lincoln. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis in the pivotal role of Abraham Lincoln, the film tells the story of the last months of Lincoln’s presidency and his mission to abolish slavery during the time of the civil war.
Tony Kushner adapts the screenplay with clever candor and surprisingly humorous dialogue. Lincoln takes on such a life force of its near two-and-a-half hour runtime but never lets up on its thematic elements or attempts to take the easy route of cheap period satire that wears thin in other films about a dark time in America’s history. The film doesn’t just focus on Lincoln, the political messiah sent to save America from evil, its non-dictum method in retelling a story with so many surrounding characters gives Abe a unique and accessible outlook for a viewer to latch onto, no matter what the viewer may or may not know about him.
We have been waiting for the trailer for Steven Spielberg’s historical biopic, Lincoln, for months and from where I’m standing today, it was well worth the wait. Daniel Day-Lewis stars as the titular 16th President of the United States in a role that seems almost certain to land him his fifth Academy Award nomination (and, perhaps, his third win). The biographical drama takes place at the end of the Civil War, and focuses on Lincoln’s pursuit to abolish slavery and deliver the Emancipation Proclamation, while he desperately tries to hold a divided nation together. Check out the trailer after the jump!
One of the last films we’ve yet to see much from this year has been Lincoln, with Spielberg and company content to hold things close to the vest about this presumed Oscar contender. However, today bring the first peak at the movie with Google Hangout releasing a brief teaser of the trailer that will debut on Thursday. While the teaser doesn’t give much away (naturally), it does give a great sense of the cinematography and somber mood Spielberg is going for in this film. Check it out after the jump!
“…no one can get at it except for me” – Daniel Plainview, There Will Be Blood
That’s how I feel about this Oscar race. I feel I see something that no one else does. I’ve been doing this a long time but I’ve never had the overwhelming feeling like I just figured out the Oscar race in August. I was sitting down to do my Oscar predictions like any other month. Making some switches, moving some contenders, and cleaning out films and performances that we thought would be coming out but still have no release date.
I stared at a few names and had an epiphany. It was as if I was Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, and the code all came off the page and circled my head in an Oscar sensation. On August 25, 2012 I’ve chosen to make my first ballsy prediction of the year. Terrence Malick and his film, To the Wonder wins Best Director and Best Picture at the Oscars 2013. How did I come to this conclusion you ask? I will discuss this in more detail on this week’s Power Hour which premieres on Monday but I’ll attempt to give you the best break down possible in the following thoughts beginning with the Director field: Read more on Oscar Circuit: “There’s a whole ocean of oil under our feet…”…
God, in late August and early September many film critics and Oscar writers (including myself) were predicting it would win Best Picture and a third Best Director Oscar for Spielberg. In fact, if I remember right, it was as though no other films were even in contention that year. Of course come Oscar time the Academy lost their mind in voting Crash (2005) Best Picture, one of the their lamest choices ever, while Ang Lee took Best Director for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which many felt, myself included was the years best film. Spielberg’s Munich (2005) while nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Film, Director and Screenplay won not a single award, and in fact when released, did not earn the sort of rave reviews expected. It was liked well enough, and I believe it to be among his best and bravest films, but there were simply stronger films that year, Brokeback Mountain (2005), and King Kong (2005) among them. Read more on Some thoughts on the Upcoming, “Lincoln”…
Right off the bat, let me get one thing straight. I have no problem with ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ existing. Aside from ‘Spider-Man 2′, I never really fell in love with Sam Raimi’s webslinger trilogy. I like the first one enough, but #3 was a real let down, so I didn’t look at this reboot of the franchise as a huge transgression or anything. I just wanted it to be good, and luckily for me (and everyone else out there), Marc Webb is able to match and sometimes exceed Raimi with this new tale. As a superhero origin story, it’s only slightly above average, but as a coming of age tale, it’s rather remarkable. Webb was hired to take the sensibilities of the romance in ‘(500) Days of Summer’ and apply it to a comic book film, and his direction, along with the screenplay by James Vanderbilt, Alvin Sargent, and Steve Kloves is successful in doing that. They can only do so much though, as they needed to pick the right actor to play Peter Parker and Spider-Man. That’s the real home run of the film, as Andrew Garfield is pretty much the definitive Parker/web slinger. The entire movie is well casted actually, and it’s a credit to Webb that almost all of his choices pay off. Yes, about half of the movie covers the same ground as the original ‘Spider-Man’, but it’s all done in a slightly different fashion, and I found myself preferring this way in almost regards. It’s not perfect, but it’s ridiculously satisfying.
Does it not seem inconceivable that there are so few films exploring any part of the extraordinary life of Abraham Lincoln, the much loved sixteenth President of the United States? Many historians believe Lincoln might have been the greatest President in the history of the office until he was cut down April 14, 1865 while watching a play with his wife in the Ford Theatre. Films about Presidents are a rarity to begin with, but one would think Lincoln would be ripe for exploring given his life, the impact he made on the United States during a time the nation was ripped apart, and the manner in which his presence was felt for years after his assassination. We have to go back to D.W. Griffith’s Abraham Lincoln (1930) to find a biography of any kind on the man, and though critically reviled at the time, it has come to be accepted as “not a bad film”. Character actor Walter Huston does a adequate job as Lincoln, though we never really get to know him, we never leave the thinking we know a little more about the man. I certainly felt that after Oliver Stone’s scathing Nixon (1995) I knew a little more about Richard M. Nixon than I did walking in, and certainly had a degree of sympathy for the man. Stone had the courage to pull no punches and show Nixon for what he was, a brilliant statesman, but deeply flawed man corrupted by his immense power. There were films made about Lincoln in the silent era, including an appearance in Griffith’s masterwork The Birth of a Nation (1915), but again, no penetrating study of his life. It is my fervent hope that Spielberg will do the man justice in his film, and give audiences of this generation something to remember in his study of Lincoln.
It begins. 2011 film year is behind us and we saw Octavia Spencer crowned Best Supporting Actress for her work in “The Help.” As we embark on the 2012 film year together, I will be breaking down each category individually throughout the month of March. I will also unveil the Awards Circuit Staff Predictions one at a time for all of you to enjoy. Trust me, we all have different takes on what the 2012 season will bring.
We break down the Supporting Actress category first. Any supporting category is difficult to analyze because you never know who will hit it out of the park with a mere eight minute screen time or what borderline Lead performance will be pushed in another category. The rankings of the Supporting Actress are ordered #1 through #25 as you see them on the predictions page but there are outside contenders that could just as easily make the lineup given a strong showing with critics and audiences.
Looking into a crystal ball, Amy Adams will be starring in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master” and with three prior nominations (“Junebug,” “Doubt,” and “The Fighter”), Adams could finally score an Oscar. She also has a role in the long-awaited “On the Road” directed by Walter Salles which could catch on. Co-star Kristen Stewart can return to what we loved about her in “Into the Wild.” The question seems to be, is Oscar aching to reward Adams or does she need to be accepted as a leading lady? Have the “Twilight” franchise ruined Stewart forever? Perhaps.
Part of my write-up yesterday (found here in case you missed it) of the event I was at for ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ included an early look at this trailer. Now that it’s up, you all can see what I saw. Here it is, after the jump…
Supporting Actress has proven to be one of the best categories recently for the Academy Awards. For every year there was a clear front runner (Spencer, Monique, Hudson), there was another year when we had no idea who was winning (Leo, Swinton, Weisz, Cruz). Although after a few award shows, it’s clear that this year’s race is shaping up to be one of those “Frontrunner wins everything” years, there’s still an interesting slate of nominees and narratives to discuss.
The stars have aligned for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. They announced their nominations for the 70th annual Golden Globe Awards. For the first time, their nominees don’t seem as blatant for trying to have the biggest stars in Hollywood join together for a dinner party. Of course, there are some glaring omissions from a few categories but many of the films and performances cited were for the most part, respectable.
The SAG bells rang today but they rang for many surprising and jaw-dropping exclusions. As going on record stating this is the most competitive Oscar race I’ve covered in years. Not one category seems assured with their lineups and we got many curveballs thrown at us this morning.
