Oscar Update: What's There to Talk About?
Things sure aren't moving at a very quick clip this year
Is it just me or is the awards race this year a little boring? Nothing is moving the dial as Oscar pundits seem to have had their hands when it comes to tossing out much early praise.
So far the one film that should have everyone standing up cheering is Lee Daniels and Lionsgate's Precious, but I don't even want to speculate as to why people are now only focusing on the negative and wondering if Mo'Nique is killing her Oscar chances. EW's Dave Karger is the latest to bring it up wondering if dirt-digger Roger Friedman's piece on Mo'Nique's demands for appearance fees will hurt her chances. Karger remembers his interview with her from earlier in the year when she said, "Any buzz is appreciated. The NAACP Image Awards, the Oscars, the SAG Award, the award they might want to give me down at the Maxine Waters' Preparatory school, it's always appreciated. But the moment Mr. Daniels said to me when we wrapped that movie, 'You gave me what I needed,' that was my Oscar."
Personally I love the play, if Mo'Nique deserves the Oscar, give it to her. Politicking in the Academy Awards race is the worst part and I am beginning to feel Precious, the best dramatic film I've seen so far this year, is going to be a victim of several things keeping it from the top prize, and the silence from the Oscar circles is just another sign. I haven't seen Jason Reitman's Up In the Air yet, but it is going to need to be pretty damn good to convince me it's better than Precious and it seems to be the current front-runner in terms of films that have been seen.
Speaking of Up in the Air another Original Song brew-ha-ha is a brew-ha-ha'ing as Steve Pond at The Wrap reports the song titled "Up in the Air" which plays during the second half of the end credits won't be eligible for a nomination. The fact it isn't positioned properly inside the film is one demerit against it, but the more important piece of the equation is the fact it wasn't written specifically for the film. St. Louis musician Kevin Renick handed a cassette to Reitman after the director did a Q&A at Webster University and Reitman listened to it, liked it and put it into the movie. It's titled "Up in the Air" even though Renick didn't know Reitman's movie existed at the time. It looks like this will have to merely be a good story and not an Oscar-nominated story for the musician.
As we abruptly move on… Where the hell is anything related to Clint Eastwood's Invictus? I'm sorry, but this late season Oscar baiting from Eastwood over the past few years is just about as annoying as it gets. I was no fan of Gran Torino and was happy to see it didn't sneak into Oscar consideration last year, and with Warner Bros. yet to release a teaser trailer or even an official still from Invictus — even though we are now less than two months away from its release — is just baffling. It is the only film still to be released this year without any kind of marketing whatsoever and based on pedigree alone it is considered a top contender.
Other, yet-to-be-seen and discussed possibilities include Rob Marshall's Nine which was moved into December, James Cameron's Avatar, Jim Sheridan's Brothers and the possible De Niro five-spotter Everybody's Fine. Of the bunch I think we can all pick and plot where a potential nom will come from, but I can't help but wonder if Brothers has the power to really capture critic and audience attention.
Photo: Sony Classics
We have also now learned of a last minute addition to the schedule as Sony Pictures Classics will release Michael Hoffman's The Last Station this December, a film that stars Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren, James McAvoy and Paul Giamatti. I guess it just wouldn't be an Oscar race without Mirren eh? The film is based on the final months in the life of Leo Tolstoy with Plummer playing the role of Tolstoy as Pete Hammond at the Los Angeles Times writes, "In addition to Plummer and Mirren, the film sports a couple of outstanding supporting roles for Giamatti and particularly McAvoy as Tolstoy's new secretary." The image above is just one of 14 images I just added to the site, get the rest right here and you can read the full synopsis here.
Next we move to an Academy Award category that has never appealed to me, the Oscar Short Documentary category as the Academy recently announced the eight films that made the short list. Of course, any fanboy blogger out there is instantly going to gravitate toward Tell Them Anything You Want, the Spike Jonze and Lance Bangs-directed doc on Maurice Sendak, author of "Where The Wild Things Are." The list is just below.
- China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province, Downtown Community Television Center, Inc.
- The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner, Just Media
- The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant, Community Media Productions
- Lt. Watada, Chanlim Films
- Music by Prudence, iThemba Productions, Inc.
- Rabbit a la Berlin, MS Films
- Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak, Outside Productions
- Woman Rebel, Women Rebel Films
The next list to recently be completed is the list of 63 Oscar Foreign Language submissions. I recently finished compiling the list with the addition of films from Bangladesh and the United Kingdom. You can check out the complete list right here.
As for predictions, I only updated my Best Supporting Actor category bumping Richard Kind in A Serious Man out of the top five and moving Bright Star co-star Paul Schneider into the five-spot, but this is the one category that really is dominated by the current list of top four contenders and of that bunch two are still unseen wild cards. Right now Alfred Molina (An Education) and Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) are the leaders in the clubhouse while Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones) and Matt Damon (Invictus) are the top still-to-be-seen stars. I moved Tucci into that top spot for reasons I detailed in my last update.
As I said last time, I will also begin listing off the presumed Oscar contenders I have not seen and after seeing The Road and Where the Wild Things Are yesterday, this is where I stand in terms of films left to see:
- Amelia
- Avatar
- Broken Embraces
- Brothers
- Everybody's Fine
- Invictus
- The Last Station
- The Lovely Bones
- Nine
- A Single Man
- Up in the Air
There are others, of course, such as some of the animated contenders and The White Ribbon among other foreign films. I did recently see Antichrist and Coco Avant Chanel, but the list above is primarily made of films thought to play a potentially major role in the upcoming Oscar season and may grow as things move on, but chances are it will get smaller before it gets any larger.
And there you have it, you can check out all my current Oscar Predictions by visiting The Contenders or clicking on any one of the following links to get started. Each opens in a new window so just close the window to return to this post.
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