One Category at a Time: Best Picture

It's that time of year: This is the point of the season at which we are practically begging for the Oscars to finally be over and done with, as the preordained winner of the Best Picture Oscar waits impatiently (but none too nervously) to hear its title called after more than three long months of rigorous campaigning and precursor award victories. At least, that's what usually happens at this point of the season. This year, however, is unlike any I've observed before. The standard three-month march towards inevitability has been replaced by a three-month build of suspense, as this Best Picture derby has boiled down to a true crap shoot, and one at which multiple contenders (not just the two presumed frontrunners) have a plausible chance of winning.

It all started with the critics. While the highest profile groups went their own way -- New York anointing American Hustle and L.A. ending in an unprecedented tie between Her and Gravity -- it was ultimately 12 Years a Slave that settled in as the favourite with regional critics groups across America. The Golden Globes, though not hugely influential in their own right, shook things up by proving that the harrowing slavery drama could win the top prize on prestige alone, even if not genuinely loved enough to claim any categorized prizes. SAG gave a boost to mainstream option American Hustle, causing reasonable suspicion that it could be the one to beat, but then came the TSN turning point of the season: The Producers Guild of America, heretofore the unblemished harbinger of Oscar, split the decision between Gravity and 12 Years a Slave... with a preferential ballot to boot! (And I thought the LAFCA tie was a shocker!)

One Category at a Time: Actor

What a tight year it's been for leading actors. We all knew that with such a glut of competition, someone was gonna be unpleasantly stiffed on nomination morning, but few of us probably anticipated that two of the season's top contenders (Robert Redford and Tom Hanks) would end up on the outside looking in. Since then, a clear frontrunner was established who it would be unwise not to predict. However, with an extended waiting period between nominations and voting, not to mention a strange BAFTA snub, there's still a lot of wiggle room. But first, the foremost candidate:

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...

One Category at a Time: Supporting Actor

Plenty of variety for Oscar voters to choose from in this category, which didn't deviate too far from my own preferences. The only actor who could claim to be snubbed is Daniel Bruhl, who was excellent in Rush. I must admit I'm saddened by it. I thought he was good enough to be nominated back in 2005 for the wonderful German comedy Goodbye, Lenin, and a nomination looked like it was in the cards this time, especially after being up for the Golden Globe, Critics Choice, and SAG Award. That said, there is a certain justice to this cruelty, as a nomination for him here would've been blatant category fraud, so let's be happy we skirted that controversy.

Anyway, of the actual nominees, a clear frontrunner has asserted himself:

One Category at a Time: Adapted Screenplay

Best Adapted Screenplay was the only category I guessed 100% correctly for nominations this year, but given the how thin the field of contenders was, that's hardly worth bragging about. That being said, I think the final five are a perfectly respectable lineup; Naturally I would think that, having myself nominated all of them for my awards for writing. Still, it would have been nice to see the writing branch look outside the box at contenders like Short Term 12, The Spectacular Now, or Blue is the Warmest Color (The latter two of which I haven't seen yet, but have heard good things).

Anyway, on to the actual nominees, from whom the eventual winner looks to be fairly obvious.

My Award nominations: Editing

Had to make some heartbreaking decisions to whittle this category down to five. Lots of terrific Editing work this year, and in different ways too. Here are the five I ultimately settled on (although I could just as easily substitute any of my "just missed" picks at any time):

Delayed knee-jerk reactions to Oscar nominees

Had a busy day so I never had the time to write a proper reaction piece to this morning's Oscar nomination announcement, but after sifting through the tea leaves a bit, I've gleaned some notes that I feel are worth mentioning/praising/bitching about.

My Award nominations: Adapted Screenplay

I hate to be a downer (the whole reason I blog at all is to celebrate the movies), but I gotta admit: weak year for Adapted Screenplays. I struggled to find five that I felt merited awards consideration. And in a normal year, my "Just missed" titles wouldn't even be third tier contenders.

But it is what it is, and the five that I did decide on are still fine works. Read about them after the cut.

DGA nominees

With four of the Academy's five Best Director slots seemingly sewn up by Steve McQueen, Alfonso Cuaron, David O. Russell, and Paul Greengrass, the only question going into today's Directors Guild of America nominations was who would occupy that fifth slot?

Turns out to be Martin Scorsese, whose Wolf of Wall Street has now hit all the major guilds except SAG (who may have not seen it in time). Now this doesn't necessarily mean Marty is a shoe-in for a Best Director nod from the Academy, whose directors branch is much smaller -- and more prone to left-field choices -- than the DGA. But this does bode well for the film's Best Picture chances. It was looking like a contender on the bubble for a while, but it seems to have caught on with the industry.

Reviews - Philomena and The Wolf of Wall Street

Late December is often a time for family, but it's also a time for glutting on awards season movies, with multiple high-profile titles being released weekly. Naturally, families head out to the theatre on their precious days off in early winter, but finding the right flick for everyone can be a challenge.

To help you narrow things down (ever so slightly), here is a two-fisted review for a double feature I call the “Take-Your-Mom///DON'T-Take-Your-Mom Double Bill”. The comprising films: Philomena and The Wolf of Wall Street.

Now far be it for me to presume your mother's cinematic tastes, but if (like many people's moms) she's one of those Downton Abbey devotees who prefers lite drama of the genteel variety, or is simply convinced that British film and television is 'just better' than everything else, then it's hard to imagine her disliking Philomena.

Based on the 2009 non-fiction The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by journalist Martin Sixsmith (played in the film by Steve Coogan, who also co-produced and co-wrote the screenplay), it follows the travails of a darling old Irish woman (Judi Dench in the title role) as she and Sixsmith attempt to track down the long lost son that was taken from her fifty years ago. The jaded Sixsmith is only there to write a human interest story, a project which the former political correspondent considers quite beneath him. But as a surrogate mother-son relationship develops between the two, it isn't so unpredictable to see that Philomena has more to teach him than he realizes.

Early Oscar predictions - Part 1

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.