Oscar Update: Movement In the Predictions, but the Front-runners Remain
Predictions updated and a Twitter list for you to follow
Last year I was pumping out Oscar Updates with ease on a weekly and almost twice-a-week basis, but this year I am slowly groing bored by the news (or lack thereof). A lot of this year's buzz seems to be manufactured, such as those wondering if Michael Jackson's This is It will be a Best Picture nominee. Guess what, no, it won't be. However, there are other bits of buzz that come in, but they hardly stir much emotion as the films are still a couple months out and haven't been widely seen or have quite simply appeared out of thin air.
Should I take Helen Mirren seriously as a Best Actress contender for The Last Station? How about the buzz on Jeff Bridges for the late-to-the-party Crazy Heart? Many now have Bridges as the lead contender for Best Actor and some even have him winning. Who would have thought? I have yet to see either film so how can I be sure? Fact is, I can't, and I also haven't seen Nine, Invictus, The Lovely Bones, Avatar, Broken Embraces, Brothers, Everybody's Fine, A Single Man, Up In the Air or The White Ribbon… just to name a few.
Of course, that's the name of the game, and what makes it fun. Almost every time I post my latest predictions there will be at least one commenter flailing their arms saying, "How can you predict these things when you haven't even seen all the movies?" Well, that's sort of the purpose of predicting. You don't predict the winner of a football game after it's been played.
However, with us being only four months out from the Oscars and just over two months from the Golden Globes I can't help but wonder why even updating my predictions doesn't give me as much joy as it did last year. Steve Pond at The Wrap seems to be asking the same question as he writes:
When more than a dozen bloggers and pundits and prognosticators made their predictions in Movie City News' "Gurus of Gold" last week, eight films showed up on at least 12 of the 14 lists. Only 11 movies were deemed serious competitors for the 10 slots. And a different poll (the Envelope) with slightly different participants resulted in the same top nine, and only one difference in the top 12.
In what ought to be the most unpredictable Oscar race in years, have we really narrowed it down to that few films, that quickly?
Of course, Pond's primarily talking about a group of six films at the top, which include Up in the Air, Precious, The Hurt Locker, Invictus, An Education and Nine. These are your front-runners at the moment, with Invictus and Nine as the pair that has yet-to-be-seen at this time, which leads many to believe we really have a group of at least four films that are certainly being looked at as the leaders in the clubhouse.
The most likely films with the potential to disrupt that group at the top, along with Invictus and Nine, are The Lovely Bones and Avatar. Based on the pedigree involved we are talking about Clint Eastwood, Rob Marshall (Chicago), Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) and James Cameron (Titanic). Yeah, I'd say we still have some game changers, but let's hope they change the game and keep things lively along the way.
So here we stand, four months out and the prediction game is getting underway and some are even predicting the winners already. I just sent in my first batch of predictions to Tom O'Neil and gang at the Los Angeles Times's Envelope and I have updated my own personal batch of predictions accordingly and have linked them below.
I haven't yet bit on the Jeff Bridges (right) for Best Actor possibility yet, but he has made a significant debut at #6 after Steve Pond, Kris Tapley, Dave Karger and Anne Thompson made him a major part of the conversation. Fox Searchlight has set the film for a December 16 release so I will hopefully know soon enough just what kind of contender it really is.
As for that list of names you see above, some may be familiar to many of you and others may be foreign, but thanks to Scott Feinberg at And the Winner Is… we have the easiest way to keep up-to-date on all the Oscar pundits on Twitter and I have taken the liberty and made following them even easier with a Twitter list you can subscribe to. First, for the names:
- And The Winner Is… – Scott Feinberg
- Awards Daily – Sasha Stone
- New York Times Carpetbagger – Melena Ryzik, Paula Schwartz
- Cinemascope – Yair Raveh
- Coming Soon – Ed Douglas
- Deadline Hollywood – Nikki Finke
- Fataculture – Nick Plowman
- Film Experience – Nathaniel Rogers
- From the Front Row – Matthew Lucas
- Gold Derby – Tom O'Neil
- Hitfix – Greg Ellwood, Drew McWeeney
- Hollywood-Elsewhere – Jeff Wells
- In Contention – Kris Tapley, Guy Lodge
- IndieWire – Anne Thompson
- Little Gold Men – Julian Sancton
- Media Decoder – David Carr
- Movie City News – David Poland, Kim Voynar
- Moving Picture Blog – Joe Leydon
- Notes on a Season – Pete Hammond
- Oscar Watch – Dave Karger
- Pop Matters – Matt Mazur
- Risky Business – Steven Zeitchik
- Roger Ebert's Journal – Roger Ebert
- Rolling Stone – Peter Travers
- Rope of Silicon – Brad Brevet
- Showbiz 411 – Roger Friedman
- USA Today – Anthony Breznican
- The Wrap – Sharon Waxman, Steve Pond
If you are a Twitter user, simply click here and subscribe and you will always be one click away from up-to-date Oscar updates whenever they happen. Yeah, the conversation deviates from Oscars quite often, but it's not like you have to dedicate yourself to the page.
Now, like I said, here are the links to my most recent batch of predictions and only one of the categories (Best Supporting Actor) didn't contain any changes. I have also included notes on some of the pages when I felt it was necessary to let you in a little on my thought process. I expect the predictions at The Envelope to be up very soon, which will take all the pundits they include into consideration, and I will be sure to let you know at The Contenders once those are up.
You can check out all my latest 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.
Remember to bookmark The Contenders and/or subscribe to the Contenders RSS Feed for continuous awards updates.
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I'm going to make a bold call and say here and now, take The Lovely Bones and Brothers off the list, they might be competent but they will neither be mind blowing or Oscar worthy.
I know that Day-Lewis is usually at the top of everyones list, but musicals haven't always faired well for there leadning-men in recent years. Anyone remember Richard Gere geting nominated for Chicago? Hopefully Bridges can sneek his way in.
I still think The Lovely Bones could have what it takes, especially since nobody has seen it.
If I were to go with 10 I'd go with Hurt Locker, Serious Man, Up in the Air, An Education, Nine, Precious, Invictus, The Lovely Bones, Up, and Inglourious Basterds (I feel like Basterds probably won't get in but not sure what else I'd put in the tenth spot and I think Basterds has a better shot than Avatar, I feel like people are overestimating that movie's chances come awards season).
if you think about it, it's really not a small number of contenders. Were there more than 12 or 13 titles at this point last year that were real contenders for a Best Picture spot? Not really, it's just that now almost all of what we're looking at will get nominated and only 2 or 3 will get left out rather than 7 or 8. As much as i like the 10 Best Picture nominee, it takes a lot of magic out of the chase.
Let me take a stab as to why you don't feel as interested in the Oscar race this year:
1) Now that there's 10 BP noms, the tension is halved, and there are just some movies we know beyond a shadow of a doubt will get nominated. It sort of takes the fun out of it.
2) Actually, this should probably be #1: We just haven't had a lot of Oscar-worthy films this year. Last year was the one that really needed 10 slots. Now, we have 10 slots and we only need 5. Irony, irony.
I can't believe Meryl Streep is still a strong consideration. Sure, she did a great job becoming Julia Child, but the movie was less then par, wasn't it?
I suppose next year Meryl will be nominated again for her terrific performance in Freddy Got Fingered 2?
@William: What does the merit of the movie have to do with the merit of the performance? If Meryl Streep performs an Oscar-worthy performance in Freddy Got Fingered 2, or Transformers 3, or Attack of the Chipmunks, shouldn't she be duly recognized?
@Dan Tralder:
That's actually true, "actress vehicle" and "crap" are quite used in the same sentences, justified or not. I'm not saying that "The Reader" or "Blue Sky" etc. were hot messes of cinema but a lot of people apparently do (I AM basing this on iMDb rating but that's another conversation).
And suck it, Lovely Bones haters. It's gonna be in the race.
Meryl Streep all the way! She is this year's Kate Winslet, she gave us 2 memorable performances: J & J and It's Complicated! Coming from Prada and Doubt last year- it's her turn to win! And I rest my case.
@Dan Tralder: Not when she's getting nominated on name sake rather then truly having one of the 5 best performances of the year. She was great in Prada, but she wasn't one of the best 5 of that year. She just got nominated because she's Meryl Streep, and no matter what she does she'll get nominated, justified or not. I agree with her nomination for Doubt, and if it weren't for Winslet's drought before that, I'd pick Streep to win. But Prada, and if she gets nominated for J&J, is too much sucking up. If the film and her performance is better in It's Complicated, then nominate her for that. But I do take the quality of the film into consideration for the performance to get rewarded, "shrugs", especially if there are better or equal performances for higher quality films that miss out because it's Streep, and heaven forbid she doesn't get nominated.
Same could be said for Dame Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet, and Cate Blanchett. I'd love to see a year where none of those five names where nominated for something.
@William: First of all, I absolutely disagree that Streep deserved the win over Winslet last year (side note).
Anyways: why in the world should the film be taken into account when nominating performances? Shouldn't…. 'the performance' be the only factor? If you folllow your line of thinking, doesn't every category start to look suspiciously like the Best Picture category? In the beginning of your post, you disagree with my Transformers 3 point based on the idea that those big actresses are receiving nominations based on name alone, but now you say that the film itself should be a factor? I emphatically disagree either way, but which is it?
It's both; to me it seems like they're getting nominated on name alone (more so then the performance), and that annoys me when the film is less then adequate.
I should've explained my first post more, which is my mistake. My argument of Streep getting a "nomination for Freddy Got Fingered 2 in the near future" meant that even in the worst of films, if Streep has a good-great performance, she'll get nominated yet again, primarily for her rep and Star Power rather then the performance (even if it is, indeed, good). To me it just gets tiring. Cate Blanchett getting nominated for the mediocre Elizabeth sequel is another example. Whenever I see a preview to a film that one of those women is in I immediately think "there's another Best Actress Nom", and I think that just by seeing the trailer, without seeing the actual film, which itself could turn out to be mediocre, like J&J. Meanwhile another fresher/less rewarded actress will have an equally great performance in a better film will be overlooked come Award season because Streep automatically locked the nom that knocked her out.
Anyway, on a slightly different topic to which you brought up, I think it's easily possible to nominate great performances in "great" films and not have it mirror the Best Picture race (Until this 10 BP year anyway). So what if it mirrors the BP race anyway? Better to mirror that then have a bad film get an accolade for one of its only bright spots. To me it looks like Make-Up Artists getting nominated for their excellent work in Norbit.
But I guess we can just agree to disagree on this subject. That's part of the whole fun of looking into Award season…even when certain trends continually annoy me is all lol.
What about Sandra Bullock in "The Blind Side"?