Spring is in the air. As the warmer
weather thaws me out of post-Oscar hibernation, it's time to start
looking ahead to next winter in search of potential awards projects
that just might tickle the Academy's fancy. I was going to hold of on
this ludicrous practice until after the Cannes Film Festival wrapped
up, but it's not like that would make my crystal ball any less foggy,
so may as well get it over with.
Last year's early predictions turned
out to be a typically imprecise 44/96, but believe it or not, that's
actually the best I've ever done! Can I improve?
This is the first of five early
predictions pieces I'll be posting this month. I'm starting out this
week with Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Actress. Next Monday
I'll finish off the major categories.
Best Picture
Two titles seem to be topping
everybody's lists for the hottest awards tickets next season: Martin
Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street, and George Clooney's The
Monuments Men.
Scorsese came close last year with
family charmer Hugo, but I can't be the only one eager to see
him return to adult drama, and this tale of corruption and crime
amongst the finincial movers and shakers of New York sounds enticing.
The Wolf of Wall Street also features a highly anticipated
star turn from Leonardo DiCaprio, who, along with Scorsese, is one of
the film's producers, and may reap multiple nominations.
The Monuments Men has a baity,
prestige premise about art historians working to protect priceless
works from the Nazis in occupied France. The combined slants of art
preservation and WWII might prove too irresistible for AMPAS. Clooney
and co-writer/co-producer Grant Heslov are fresh off a Best Picture
win for Argo, and could turn the trick two years running if
their script and their starry ensemble got the goods.
Clooney and Heslov are producing
another one of this year's prestigious dramas: the film version of
Tracy Letts' Tony-winning play August: Osage County. Being
handled by Harvey Weinstein – and already generating rumours of
quality from not-so-secret screenings – is basically a green light
for awards pundits, although with a sophomore director at the helm,
we shouldn't assume anything just yet.
Producer extraordinaire Scott Rudin has
a couple of titles in play as well, courtesy of the Coen brothers'
Inside Llewyn Davis and Paul Greengrass' Captain Phillips.
The former follows a character (Oscar Isaac) exploring the
independent music scene of the 1960s, while the latter tells the true
story of a cargo ship captain (Tom Hanks) hijacked by Somali pirates
in 2009.
Hollywood adores movies about itself,
and that has put John Lee Hancock's Saving Mr. Banks on a lot
of prognosticators' radar. The behind-the-scenes look at Walt
Disney's screen version of P.L. Travers' Mary Poppins books
star Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson as Disney and Travers. Hancock
ushered The Blind Side to an unlikely Best Picture nomination
two years ago. Can he do it again?
My most anticipated film of the year
(and I doubt I'm alone on this) is Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity,
which will finally touch down after years of floating through the
cold dark space of distribution limbo. The film could be this year's
technical marvel, but its high concept and intimate two-person cast –
George Clooney and Sandra Bullock – make it even more tantalizing.
Will genre bias hurt it, though?
Rounding out my ten are Bennett
Miller's Foxcatcher, Jason Reitman's Labor Day, and
Ridley Scott's The Counselor. Miller and Reitman have been
successful enough in recent years to justify predicting them, but
Scott hasn't been in Oscar's good graces in a while. What interests
me about that project is the original screenplay by No Country for
Old Men author Cormac McCarthy.
So for now, these are the ten I'm
predicting:
August: Osage
County
Captain
Phillips
The Counselor
Foxcatcher
Gravity
Inside Llewyn
Davis
Labor Day
The Monuments
Men
The Wolf of
Wall Street
Saving Mr.
Banks
Also consider: Before
Midnight, Fruitvale, Nebraska, Twelve Years a
Slave; Untitled ABSCAM project
Best Director
George Clooney, The Monuments Men
Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
Paul Greengrass, Captain
Phillips
Bennett Miller, FoxcatcherMartin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street
Also consider: Coen brothers, Inside Llewyn Davis; John Lee Hancock, Saving Mr. Banks; Jason Reitman, Labor Day; Ridley Scott, The Counselor; John Wells, August: Osage County
Best Actor
Before this past awards season was even
wrapped up, Leonardo DiCaprio was plugging his Wolf of Wall Street
performance as the best of his career. Never too early to start
campaigning, I guess. Add the fact that he hasn't won an Oscar yet to
some residual sympathy from his Django snub and he may indeed
have a winning formula.
Matthew MacCounaughey is set to have a
big year. Coming off glowing reviews in 2012 for Magic Mike,
he stars in three of this year's big titles: The Wolf of Wall
Street, Mud, and Dallas Buyers Club. You'd think he
has to be nominated for one of them, right?
I'm going with:
Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
Leonardo DiCaprio, The
Wolf of Wall Street
Tom Hanks, Captain
Phillips / Saving Mr. Banks
Matthew MacConaughey, Dallas
Buyer's Club
Also consider: Christian Bale,
Untitled ABSCAM project; Idris Elba, Mandela: Long Walk to
Freedom; Chiewetel Eljoifor, Twelve Years a Slave; Michael
Fassbender, The Counselor; Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis
Best Actress
I predicted Naomi Watts for her
Princess Diana biopic last year before it got bumped to 2013. I see
no need to axe her from my predictions now. Will she have a leg up in
a field that seems (from this early point, anyway) to be largely
comprised of previous winners?
Meryl Streep, August: Osage County
Emma Thompson, Saving Mr. Banks
Naomi Watts, Diana
Also
consider: Marion Cotillard, Lowlife; Julie Delpy, Before
Midnight; Nicole Kidman, Grace of Monaco; Jennifer
Lawrence, Serena; Carey Mulligan, The Great Gatsby
