Will I Be All Right On The Night?

As promised here are my predictions for Oscar 2011. I’m going for broke here and including the technical catagories because if it is worth doing it is worth doing boldly and with false confidence and very little technical expertise. It’s rather long, which considering my comments about the importance of good editing further down is a touch hypocritical but it’s my blog and I’ll be self indulgently verbose if want to. But only once a year.
At risk of being hoisted by my own petard on the 27th Feb here goes.

Actor in a Leading Role


In an aside – the academy leaving Ryan Gosling out of this field after his blistering, and emotionally committed performance in Blue Valentine is a complete and utter travesty. There is no excuse for his lack of nomination. One has to wonder who he has p*ssed off?

Javier Bardem in “Biutiful”
Haven’t seen this one and I love Javier but the Spanish language/subtitles aspect will definitely count against him here
Jeff Bridges in “True Grit”
Or “The Dude” on a Horse in a Hat. I adore this guy and it possible he might swing it but overall I think it’s Colin Firth’s year
Jesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network”
It’s not an “actor’s movie’ and although I would need to see him in something else to be sure – I think he was pretty much just being himself.
Colin Firth in “The King's Speech”
Has to be, no question, a pretty much pitch perfect performance.. And he is guaranteed to make a witty, non political and pitch perfect acceptance speech. And he is hot…..which be may shallow of me to mention but is also undeniable
James Franco in “127 Hours”
Although I’ve heard he is very good in Man vs Rock I’m just not feeling an Oscar. Possibly because most of the voters will have watched a good chunk the movie cringing and hiding behind their collective fingers………..which is a little ironic given the subject matter.

Actor in a Supporting Role

Christian Bale in “The Fighter”
My Vote becauseI love that he is just not like anybody else and he is so fearless in his choices. He deserves this. Plus he lost a lot of weight for this film – the academy love performances that incorporate excessive weight fluctuations, they really dig that kind of “commitment” and “passion”. *Note - see also Natalie Portman
John Hawkes in “Winter's Bone”
I haven’t seen it so can’t comment
Jeremy Renner in “The Town”
He was very good but “The Hurt Locker’ was his moment
Mark Ruffalo in “The Kids Are All Right”
I like him, a lot but this is too “movie of the week” for an Oscar
Geoffrey Rush in “The King's Speech”
Great performance but he won’t win. And if he does I’ll eat Jeff’s hat.

Actress in a Leading Role

Annette Bening in “The Kids Are All Right”
Nope – usually love her but she overacted her socks off in this
Nicole Kidman in “Rabbit Hole”
Haven’t seen but as an actress she mostly annoys me so I’m saying no.
Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter's Bone”
Haven’t seen but apparently she is excellent – future winner I think but not this time
Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”
Will win and I would have said should win up until I saw………
Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine”
who blew Natalie right out of her tutu, She won’t win though, the material was too raw and it is Portman’s turn…she was robbed of the Best Supporting Actress for Closer in 2004. However if they were to have a moment of truth and give it to William’s my respect for the awards system would increase immeasurably.

Actress in a Supporting Role

This is always a hard category to predict and I may well find myself ingesting some more western style headgear. I blame some pretty weird choices in previous years for my reluctance to fully commit – two words people “Marisa Tomai” – OK she’s not a bad actress NOW but in 1992 for “My Cousin Vinny”? I don’t THINK so Tim.

Amy Adams in “The Fighter”
I love her but I think she is still seen as a lightweight – possible though
Helena Bonham Carter in “The King's Speech”
Could win but unlikely as I suspect that Colin will queer the pitch in terms of any more Brits taking home the gongs in the acting field
Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”
I’m 85% sure she is going to win this one – she is the clear favorite and would be a popular choice in a tricky category
Hailee Steinfeld in “True Grit”
By all accounts amazing performance but possibly hasn’t really done enough yet to justify a win – and she has plenty of time
Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom”
I wish, I wish, I wish, she was superlatively good and quite the most chilling example of the stone cold matriarch on celluloid since Laura Linney in Mystic River. But most of the voters won’t know who she is and the movie is under the radar in the US. So good to see her included here though.

Right I am going to rattle through the rest largely sans the verbosity or I’ll still be doing this on the 27th!

Animated Feature Film

“Toy Story 3” Lee Unkrich

Art Direction

““Inception” Production Design: Guy Hendrix Dyas; Set Decoration: Larry Dias and Doug Mowat

Cinematography

“Black Swan” Matthew Libatique

Costume Design

“The King's Speech” Jenny Beavan

Directing

“Black Swan” Darren Aronofsky My Vote – but only because of the performances he extracted from his cast – the film itself – well you already know what I think
“The Fighter” David O. Russell
“The King's Speech” Tom Hooper
“The Social Network” David Fincher
“True Grit” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

Documentary (Feature)
“Exit through the Gift Shop” Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz
“Gasland” Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic
“Inside Job” Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs: My vote
I thought this was excellent “the sub-prime mortgage debacle for dummies” so I’m picking it to win – although my head tells me the Banksy film could easily take this
“Restrepo” Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger
“Waste Land” Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley

Film Editing

“Black Swan” Andrew Weisblum
I know it very well COULD win but it shouldn’t because the film too flaming long and I thought the whole point of “editing” was to actually cut some something (please, anything!) out
“The Fighter” Pamela Martin
“The King's Speech” Tariq Anwar
My vote because it felt neither too long nor too short – like baby bear’s porridge it was just right and that is not easy to achieve, especially with anything historical
“127 Hours” Jon Harris

Foreign Language Film

“In a Better World” Denmark Because I haven’t seen any of them but my boss raved about this for days. It’s not a great reason but it’s all I’ve got so I’m going with it.

Makeup

Can’t believe I recognize NOTHING in this category. Were the other movies this year having a makeup embargo? What about Harry Potter? Hello? Voldemort!! Or are they saying Ralph Fiennes is just aging rather badly? Have they SEEN the nose for crying out loud? That nose took someone hours. And the Black Swan - such amazing use of the smokey eye and not even a mention, very odd.

So yeah, meh! I’m going for The Wolfman – man into wolf – sounds like a challenge I suppose. But still – meh!

“Barney's Version” Adrien Morot
“The Way Back” Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng
“The Wolfman” Rick Baker and Dave Elsey

Music (Original Score)

“Inception” Hans Zimmer

Music (Original Song)

“Coming Home” from “Country Strong” Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey
As I don’t like any of them very much I am crassly basing this on the most likely to win rather than personal preference – I may be fed up with eating hat by this point in proceedings and need a cheap win

Best Picture

Pretty much covered in my previous blog but my money is on The Kings Speech. Purported historical inaccuracies aside it is a little gem and it deserves to shine on the night.

“Black Swan” Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver and Scott Franklin, Producers
“The Fighter” David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Mark Wahlberg, Producers
“Inception” Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers
“The Kids Are All Right” Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Celine Rattray, Producers
“The King's Speech” Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers YES
“127 Hours” Christian Colson, Danny Boyle and John Smithson, Producers
“The Social Network” Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
“Toy Story 3” Darla K. Anderson, Producer
“True Grit” Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
“Winter's Bone" Anne Rosellini and Alix Madigan-Yorkin, Producers

Sound Editing

“Inception” Richard King

Sound Mixing

“Inception” Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick

Visual Effects

“Inception” Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

“127 Hours” Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
“The Social Network” Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
This gets my vote because the writing was good enough that spending over two hours watching people typing wasn’t as boring as could have been despite the lack of a good stiff editing
“Toy Story 3” Screenplay by Michael Arndt; Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
“True Grit” Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
“Winter's Bone” Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini

Writing (Original Screenplay)

“Another Year” Written by Mike Leigh
“The Fighter” Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson; Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
“Inception” Written by Christopher Nolan
Because it is incredibly smart, shouldn’t work but it does ought to be be too clever for its own good but isn’t. somethig so complex and intricately woven should be full of holes and yet the harder you try to outsmart it the more credible it becomes. So well crafted, intelligently plotted that somehow you believe in every improbable twist. If this movie had been a book it would keep kept you up all night until you finished it. As a screenplay it just works – this man is brilliant. In short I rather loved it – could you tell?*
“The Kids Are All Right” Written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
“The King's Speech” Screenplay by David Seidler

*In the interests of fairness I have to point out that I could have done without approx five minutes of the “running around in the snow with guns” scene. I went to the bathroom, I came back, I had apparently missed nothing, that shouldn’t happen.
Although of course I may have missed something, will have to watch it again to find out………………damn ;-).

Dances with Cliches

Last night we headed out to the lovely Capitol cinema with the AmJam (aka Al and Jen) to see if Black Swan could live up to the surrounding pre-Oscar hype-fest.
And straight after seeing it last night I thought that it was visually stunning, brilliantly acted and deeply disturbing.
Al thought it was a cliché-ridden load of old drivel.
I must now reluctantly admit that, having slept on it, I am leaning towards Team Al.
It’s not that it isn’t clever, or well executed, or beautiful to look at but it is also predictable, overwrought and not quite as clever as it thinks that it is.
It certainly had chilling moments but the bits that made me alternatively jump out of my skin or cover my eyes tended to be more of the “ewww that is really gross” as opposed the shivers down the spine, blood running cold variety.
And a lot of the time I jumped because Jen jumped, love, love, love sitting next to Jen in movies – she is so gloriously participative in the best possible way.
There is some very clever stuff with mirrors, some of it quite literally blink and you miss it in terms of subtle creepiness but much of the pivotal character's descent into madness feels more like a paint by numbers guide to portraying a woman on the brink of insanity. It’s all been done before and a lot better.
To be fair though Natalie Portman is excellent, such a complete physical transformation requires enormous dedication and true grit (can’t wait for that one to come out) - she deserves the Best Actress Oscar that she will almost certainly win.
But Best Picture? Nah......not in a field that includes the King’s Speech.......not in a million years.
Mind you if it comes down to a trans-Atlantic showdown you just never know. The Fighter is also a strong (ahem) contender but I think that The Social Network might be too of its time and less of an enduring classic to hold water as a serious Best Picture option. And although it was good it wasn’t memorable in the way that a best picture ought to be and in my humble opinion it doesn’t belong in contention. However it was always going to be included in the lineup and I'm sure it would be a popular choice.
Can’t comment on True Grit – haven’t seen it yet but the Academy does love the Coen boys so you never know..........that said it’s a re-make of a classic and however good it is that may count against it.
And as for the rest of the field. Inception – sci-fi – mind-bendingly clever sci-fi but sci-fi nonetheless – it’s niche market, a lot of people didn’t get it and it won’t win . The Kid’s Are Right – I really enjoyed this film but I still have to say “what the”? It’s sweet and funny and there are some great performances but it doesn’t belong in the best picture category – won’t win, Toy Story 3 – in there for no other reason but to bulk out the category, likewise 127 Hours and Winter’s Bone – which may well both be extremely good films but they haven’t the proverbial snowballs chance of beating out the heavy hitting (and heavily studio backed) competition.
When DID this category get so huge anyway? And why does the academy insist on putting very average movies alongside great movies and expecting us all to believe that they have the same shot at the little gold man.
In reality it is a five way race between True Grit, Black Swan, The King’s Speech, The Fighter and The Social Network which will quite possibly win even though it doesn't really deserve to (according to me at least). Everyone else in this catagory might just as well slip out early, avoid the limo-gridlock and get a head start drowning their sorrows at the after parties.

Next time – just for fun – my Oscar predictions. AmJam I challenge you to come up with yours – loser buys dinner at Barilla Dumpling opposite the Capitol – divine delicious dumplings for four for $23.00. I LOVE our neighborhood!