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 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…
Film: “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” For Your Consideration: Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role Director: John Madden Screenplay: Ol Parker Realistic Nominations: Supporting Actress Oscar Scene: “I’m gay. Although nowadays more in theory than in practice.”
After Tom Wilkinson received his first Oscar nomination for In the Bedroom (2001), there was nothing I thought he couldn’t do. A string a slightly above average performances in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Batman Begins (2005), and of course his Oscar-nominated turn in Michael Clayton (2007) only confirmed my theory. As Graham in John Madden’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Wilkinson illuminates a romantic sensitivity that stands as one of the year’s best works. Read more on Circuit Consideration – Tom Wilkinson…
As the awards season is underway, multiple scenarios are playing out in my mind suggesting what can occur for the remainder of the year. Films like The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Zero Dark Thirty are still sight unseen with Django Unchained and Promised Land about to get their first set of eyes. Last week Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables debuted a full-length trailer featuring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Eddie Redmayne, and Amanda Seyfried all showing some singing skills. Supporting Actress frontrunner Anne Hathaway was shown singing “I Dreamed a Dream” for the third time in the Universal Pictures marketing, which leads me to my point of the Oscar Circuit.
The trailer for Les Miserables didn’t do the film any favors. The clunky production design, unnecessary wide-angles, and even the live singing on set didn’t seem as great as I’d thought it’d be. In this latest round of Oscar Predictions, I’ve decided to back from Tom Hooper’s film a little bit. Where momentum and prestige is on the side of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and Ben Affleck’s Argo, big stage musicals transferred to film aren’t always safe bets. What makes this notion of the film failing to impress even more compelling is Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master. If Anne Hathaway were to fall out of the Supporting Actress race, who could win the award in her absence? There are arguably three slots taken in Supporting Actress with Amy Adams (The Master), Sally Field (Lincoln), and Helen Hunt (The Sessions). If it’s between those three for the win, Adams will be on her fourth nomination with the other two ladies having Oscars already. Field herself would be 3 for 3 for Oscar nominations, something hard to envision happening. Hunt has had a hard time post-Oscar win and isn’t as beloved as her competitors. This could all work out for the young Amy Adams. Read more on Oscar Circuit – “Master” of Networking?…
The Warner Brothers Awards Site has had their roster listed for a few weeks now. Big contenders like Ben Affleck’s Argo, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, and The Wachowski Siblings and Tom Tykwer’s Cloud Atlas have their respective categories listed. Even Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike is pushing a campaign for Matthew McConaughey and the rest of the cast. Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, a film that our own Mark Johnson has stood by all year-long, has started listing their categories for consideration. Read more on ‘The Hobbit’ submits an Original Song for Oscar Consideration…
Last year I made a sad observation for the comedy genre that often gets overlooked time and time again. As Halloween is canceled on the East Coast due to the storm, I realized the Horror genre gets the finger more often than its comedic counterpart. How many horror films would you throw in a Best Picture lineup over the years? Or a simple Screenplay nomination at least? Films like The Sixth Sense (1999) have powered through their respective Oscar seasons but is that our most deserving film to make the cut? Surely not. As films like Frankenweeniepay homage to the monster genre, could it be more acceptable to embrace the scares for Oscar consideration?
I’m taking a look at a few names that come to mind but I’m sure the great readership will name dozens more after this is said and done.
The Emmy Awards are tonight! Many of the staff members will be LIVE blogging here on the site. If you’re watching, come join us for the party. Listed below are my last minute Emmy Predictions:
So what now? With screenings finished, TIFF closed, and New York’s Film Festival looming, how will TIFF impact the Oscar race? Believe it or not it has already begun; in fact it was happening as TIFF was playing out. You could hear the chatter in the theaters, press rooms, and hallways as critics talked with various producers, studio PR folk, or those in the know about how the Oscar race was changing. One thing I heard over and over is that all eyes are on three films for the year end, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, the musical Les Miserables, and Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty. The feeling seems to be until those films are screened and reaction begins to trickle out, one cannot really, truly predict the race, though as we all know, you cannot do that anyway. A conversation which took place behind me was between two executives who had seen a good portion of the footage from Les Miserables, and one of them stated, “it’s unlike any musical ever made, it captures the emotion of the play.” That is good news, and then Thursday night and Friday morning the talk was the Lincoln trailer, which impressed nearly everyone I heard or talked too, in particular the performance of two time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis. Read more on TIFF and the Aftermath…
We’re talking Oscar Predictions! We are joined by Nathaniel Rogers of The Film Experience for this Oscar-centric Power Hour! We’re talking the Best Actress, Supporting Actress, and a bit of Best Picture as the festivals unveil some answers to some of the big questions circling the race. Some of your questions are also being answered as well.
Nathaniel offers great insight into the race and puts forth some valid points and using the term “weak” in conjunction with the ladies of the race.
Cannes is over. We have a possible Best Picture contender in Michael Haneke’s Amour, which you can see added to the Oscar Tracker. In the past month, trailers for big Oscar contenders have dropped like Roger Michell’s Hyde Park on Hudson, Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, and even as late as yesterday with Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables. Any talk circling around the notion of an Oscar nomination possibility is mere beguilement and an attempt to satisfy our obsessions during this first half of the fiscal year. But that’s why we read the Awards Circuit, isn’t? Read more on Oscar Circuit: “Right Category, Right Time”…
With the recent announcements of Keira Knightley from David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method being campaigned in the Lead Actress category and every actor from Roman Polanski’s Carnage being campaigned in the Supporting categories by Sony Pictures Classics, the Awards Circuit’s Oscar Tracker has been updated.
What do these announcement’s mean awards-wise? Knightley is going to have an uphill climb indeed for her category with seven or eight leading ladies already duking it out. The cast of Carnage might have an easier time especially stars Christoph Waltz and Jodie Foster who have received good early buzz for their performances. If Max Von Sydow is not the performance we think he is for Stephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close or if George Clooney’s The Ides of March buzz dies altogether, Waltz may have a very easy get for himself in the Supporting Actorcategory. John C. Reilly hasn’t been much of an awards talker thus far and I don’t expect anything to change on that regards.
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.
