Early Oscar Predictions: Original Screenplay

Guess what, guys: It's officially the first day if Spring (though try telling that to the weather), and what better way to kick off the season of new life than by Springing forward into the new Oscar season with some early predictions!

Each Friday until the end of April, I'll be adding new categories to the sidebar with accompanying articles. In the spirit of the filmmaking process, the category order will be based on the order of steps of making a movie. "Loosely" based, at least. There's nothing about these early guesses that isn't completely loosey goosey anyway. But one thing we can assume with some degree of certainty is that most films start with a screenplay, so too will that be our starting point.

First off, even though some pundits have already read many of 2015's buzz-
worthy scripts, landing a nomination depends much more on how well the film is received overall than on the calibre of the writing. It makes spitballing these categories as much of a crapshoot as Best Picture, but there are some distant Best Original Screenplay contenders that certainly look promising enough on paper.

One Category at a Time: Original Screenplay

This category seems pretty up in the air if you ask me. With neither of the two strongest Best Picture nominees in contention here, it feels as though this prize could go a few different ways. A similar situation arose last year when Django Unchained, Amour, and Zero Dark Thirty all seemed to have an angle in this race because none of them had a hope of actually winning Best Picture (whose highest contenders were adaptations). I can also envision three of this year's nominees as potential winners, so let's start with the one I am picking (with trepidation) for the win.

One Category at a Time: Director

The Best Picture race is a dead heat this year, which is such a rare occurrence in this age of the preferential ballot (which famously failed to determine the PGA's preference), that for the first time in the years I've been following the Oscars, we have to consider the Best Director race apart and separate from the Best Picture race. Now I hear you exclaim, "But, Awards Prognosticator!... We had to do that last year when Argo won Best Picture and Ang Lee won Best Director!" This is true. But last year was an odd exception wherein the DGA vote came so late, that it was unable to influence the Academy's directors branch into even nominating the Best Picture winner for Best Director. This year, however, there is little doubt that whichever film wins Best Picture will be one of the contenders for Best Director as well, but we still have to analyze that contest separately from Best Picture due to the closeness of the race. We can't afford the luxury of simply assuming that whatever wins the top prize naturally wins for its director too. It may well be the case at the end of the day, but we can't assume that as we have in years past. This time, there's more nuance than that.

Firstly, the frontrunner...

Review - American Hustle

American Hustle opens, as one might expect from a movie about scammers and con-artists, with a con job; But not a con job that has anything important to do with the plot. The con job in question is a man's toupée. Spending several meticulous minutes brushing on paste, applying the shabby tuft of a hairpiece, and then elaborately combing over his side hair so that every follicle is in precisely the right place, this man, Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), is attempting to con the world at large into believing that he has no bald spot.

American Hustle, the latest from writer-director David O. Russell's career reinvention as a helmer of madcap character pieces, can itself be described like that toupée: A tangled, messy, unruly concealment of a script littered with bald spots, and yet we can't help but stare in enjoyment at the sight of it. That wig, however insubstantial, is a lot more fun to watch than a head of real hair.

NY Critcs surprise with American Hustle

Even in a year as strong as this one, the New York Film Critics Circle managed to make a Best Picture selection that has many pundits baffled: David O. Russell's American Hustle, whose reviews from recent press screenings have been mixed. Obviously, we won't be in a position to assess the NYFCC's decision in until we get to see the film itself in a little less than a month, but it certainly wasn't what many people expected to see triumph here. It also won for Screenplay and Supporting Actress Jennifer Lawrence.

Picking up big acting wins were Robert Redford of All Is Lost (a movie that continues to piss me off in its coy reluctance to open wide), and Cate Blanchett of Blue Jasmine (this just might be the first of a long list of awards leading up to an eventual Oscar win). Dallas Buyers Club's Jared Leto nabbed Supporting Actor while Steve McQueen took Best Director for 12 Years a Slave.

One final note, I'm super thrilled to see Sarah Polley claim the prize for Best Non-Fiction Film for her brilliant Stories We Tell, and hope it translates into an Oscar nod.

Full list of winners below:

One Category at a Time: Adapted Screenplay

The contest for Best Adapted Screenplay is stuffed with the four leading Best Picture contenders, which makes it rather tricky to anticipate this year. We have a difficult literary adaptation from a popular potential sweeper, a quirky screwball comedy that a lot of pundits seem to be underestimating, a verbose historical drama that glows with eloquent language, and a zingy crowd-pleaser that appears first in line to win Best Picture. Joining them is a scrappy indie whose best shot at winning anything may come in this category (not that it's a great shot).

One Category at a Time: Director

For an Oscar year as weird as this one to ultimately yield another no-brainer Best Picture winner (from where we stand, at least) is a bit disappointing. Thankfully, all the uncertainty and unpredictability that was once thought to cloud the Best Picture race has instead been concentrated into the competition for Best Director, which is up for grabs in Ben Affleck's conspicuous absence.

In recent years with a Best Picture/Best Director split, Best Director has often gone to the presumed runner-up for Best Picture as a sort of consolation prize. To cite the examples, it certainly seems like Brokeback Mountain, The Pianist, and Traffic all came about as close to winning Best Picture as you can get without actually winning. But it begs the question: Which movie is in the runner-up position? Will that even matter?

Directors Guild nominees

The DGA has confirmed what most prognosticators have been assuming are the top five films in the hunt for Best Picture; the directors of Argo, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, and Zero Dark Thirty were all nominated by the huge guild who often serve as a Best Picture bellwether. Mind you, that may not be the case this year since this precursor comes after the Academy's voting deadline, but it still serves as a good indication of what the industry at-large thinks.

Ben Affleck, Kathryn Bigelow, and Steven Speilberg were all presumed safe bets for DGA nods. The only suspense (minor, at that) came in anticipating whom of Ang Lee, Tom Hooper, Quentin Tarantino, or David O. Russell would take the other two. So Les Mis fans can breathe a sigh of relief [phew!!!], as Hooper's nomination shores up the musical's hopes of actually winning Best Picture, but this doesn't necessarily mean he'll be nominated by AMPAS' directors branch, which is much smaller than the DGA. I may as well predict a five-for-five match up, but to see either Lee or Hooper replaced by any of Russell, Tarantino, the Andersons (Wes and P.T.), or even Michael Haneke would not surprise me.

DGA nominees
Ben Affleck for Argo
Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty
Tom Hooper for Les Miserables
Ang Lee for Life of Pi
Steven Spielberg for Lincoln

Review - Silver Linings Playbook

Like the bipolar protagonist at its centre, David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook is prone to wild mood swings at the drop of a hat. Fluctuating between wry humour, dramatic pathos, and earnest romance, it may not bring you any closer to understanding mental illness, but it makes for a surprisingly fun and satisfying picture.

In fact, the film actually downplays the severity of mental illness insomuch as it suggests that everybody is, to an extent, “crazy”. Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) – an undiagnosed bipolar having just completed his stay at a psychiatric hospital following a particularly violent episode – may be the character whose mental issues are addressed most directly, but we come to see how he's less strange when surrounded by his unstable family and friends. Be it his OCD father (Robert De Niro) who superstitiously insists on very specific conditions in order to win money on NFL games, his marriage-smothered best friend (John Ortiz), his mental ward cohort (Chris Tucker), or even his well-meaning but stifling mother (Jackie Weaver), everyone in his life exhibits some degree of “crazy”.

NBR crowns Zero Dark Thirty

Mirroring the NYFCC's decision, the National Board of Review named Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty the best of the year, including honours for Bigelow herself and star Jessica Chastain. The film, which we mortals won't get to see almost until Oscar nominations are upon us, is shaping up to be the critics' favourite throughout the month of December, much to the chagrin of Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master I'm sure, which was perceived to have filled that slot up until just last week when Bigelow's film finally screened for press. Anderson's beguiling opus was shut out here as it was by the New York critics, failing to even make the top ten films list. It had better hope the L.A. critics stump for it in a big way, or it could vanish from the conversation entirely.

Another big winner is David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook, for which Russell won Best Adapted Screenplay and star Bradley Cooper won Best Actor against a wealth of Oscar-luring competition. This is a big boost for him. Costar Jennifer Lawrence is already a likely nominee for Best Actress, but Cooper is on the bubble in a crowded field. His win here is good springboard for his campaign.

One Category at a Time: Director

Flip a coin folks. Much like Film Editing, here's another category that can go either the way of The Social Network of The King's Speech.

It's a funny thing, the mechanistics of the awards race. All through December it became apparent that David Fincher was the man to beat for Best Director, having snagged two dozen critics awards (including the Critics' Choice) and the Golden Globe. Even when The King's Speech stole the PGA and accrued twelve Oscar nominations, thus becoming the Best Picture frontrunner, Best Director was still David Fincher's to lose... until the DGA and its massive voting membership (most of whom work in television) handed their top honour to Tom Hooper. He became the new leader of the pack, but then his fellow countrymen in BAFTA tipped the hat in Fincher's direction again, making this once more, a tight two-horse race.

To predict a split, or not predict a split?

When in doubt, go with the Best Picture winner. And go with it I shall.

Naturally, the nominee who deserves it the most - Darren Aronofsky for his dazzling execution of Black Swan - has the least shot of winning. Figures.

As for the Coens and David O. Russell, I'm happy for them. Honest. But I can't pretend like they belong here over the likes of Christopher Nolan. True Grit was a helluva good popcorn movie, but had so little personality outside of the performances. And The Fighter is simply overrated. Not that I blame Russell so much for its garbled structure and arrhythmia, but I still don't really consider it a great achievement in directing.

Will win: Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
Runner-up: David Fincher, The Social Network

Should win: Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
Should have been nominated: Christopher Nolan, Inception

Review - The Fighter

I really wanted to like David O'Russell's The Fighter. Who wouldn't? An uplifting true story about boxer Micky Ward's triumphant comeback after years of being held back by his family; should be riveting stuff, and make no mistake, there's plenty to like about the film, but I ultimately found it to be a relatively underwhelming exercise in listless filmmaking.

Mark Wahlberg plays Ward, a struggling boxer trained by his crack-smoking half brother Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) and managed by his mother (Melissa Leo). But the under-confident Ward gets a shot in the arm when his new girlfriend (the quite terrific Amy Adams) spells out how his family has been more of a hindrance than a help, all of them more concerned with attaching themselves to Micky's potential glory.

The film has a lot going for it on paper, but an uneven pace and lack of structure subdue its strengths. The first half is more about the charismatic Eklund than it is Ward, removing focus from the central character. Not that Dicky Eklund isn't fascinating to watch, and indeed, Bale delivers an impressive portrait of addiction, but it does prevent us from really getting to know or care about Micky Ward. The stirring title bout at the film's finale is strong enough to leave a good taste in my mouth leaving the theatre, but it doesn't exactly undo the indifference I felt for the rest of it.

All that said, the recent bevy of Golden Globe and SAG nominations shows a clear base of support for the film that will probably translate to a number of Oscar nods: Picture, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress (probably two) at the least, with a possibility of Film Editing as well.

**1/2 out of ****