As you all know who have been reading this site, we’ve been advocating hard for Paul Dano since first seeing him in Love & Mercy months ago. Dano has, believe it or not, never been nominated for an Oscar for some inexplicable reason. From his work in There Will Be Blood, and in 12 Years a Slave Dano has showed again and again his versatility. He won Best Actor at the Gothams, but is being placed in the supporting category for the Oscars. Dano and John Cusack shared one lead performance, thus it’s perfectly reasonable to see Dano in supporting. This is a well earned, and well deserved win.
“From his work in There Will Be Blood, and in 12 Years a Slave Dano has showed again and again his versatility.”
And Little Miss Sunshine…
Took the words out of my mouth.
I fully agree, well let’s hope the best for Dano ! And I’m a hughe fan for Higgins at odds of 7:1 for the final !
Cheers !
Well, he did win today (6-4 – which you’ll already know if you ended up betting on the match), but he almost botched it – luckily, the other guy gave away enough chances and Higgins did finish strongly, with two great clearances. Hard to say if the spell of really bad misses from 4-1 to 4-4 is a sign of chronic weakness, or was just relaxation. We’ll just have to wait and see. He can’t afford to do stuff like that against Robertson tomorrow, that’s for sure… and he knows it.
Oh, and: Go Spotlight! 🙂
Again, I think Dano should get the Lead nomination (he has more screentime than Cusack, whose half of the film was split with Banks), but the performance was brilliant and deserves to win big.
yeah but it’s a flashback character
I know. Supporting is by far more likely. It’s just a shame, though Cusack’s total snubbing so far is an even greater one.
Best Actor surely will provide us with disillusionment aplenty come nomination morning. I can easily see them filling each of the five(5) slots with a terrible choice. Fucked up.
So happy to see the boost for Dano. I really liked the movie. For some reason I thought he was nominated for “There Will Be Blood.” Probably because he deserved to be nominated and my Oscar memories are often blurred. 🙂
I see some similarities between this and “Shine”. The “older version” of the artist is considered lead, no matter the screen time. Same way Rush got an Oscar for a lead performance, when actually he was supporting (co-lead at best). Noah Taylor was the actual lead, but since he played the younger version all he got was a couple of supporting nods. I guess you just have to get used to these kind of things. Same goes for Jacob Tremblay, who is in every scene of “Room” and the movie is actually told from his character’s perspective, but because of his age no way he’ll ever be pushed for lead. Shame, because it’s certainly one of the best performances of the year.
As far as supporting actor race goes, until last friday it lacked any serious and emotional narrative. Some of the players still remain unknown, but all those in the game were a kind of “meh” choices. Even Keaton’s due/snub story didn’t seem very strong. Of course everything changed when “Creed” came out and I have to say that Sly’s comeback story has all it takes and more to get that man an Oscar. Once Sly winning an Oscar for “Creed” became a thing everything clicked and struck the right chords. On one hand it was pretty much out of the blue, because no one gave him any serious cred before the movie hit the screens. On the other hand, right now it seems so obvious that people are wondering why the hell they didn’t think of it sooner. I don’t know how strong “Joy”, “Revenant” and “The Hateful Eight” will be in the supporting department, but it’s going to take a helluva story and narrative to top Sly. He’s the one to beat right now and may remain unbeaten to the end. He may experience some Murphy/Norbid-type backlash because of his numerous clunckers, but shit man… This is Sylvester “Rocky Balboa” Stallone, a goddamn movie symbol, as recognisable and American as the Coca-Cola logo. A man who came out of nowhere in late seventies and against all odds made a Best Picture of the Year. Right now, nearly 40 years later, after a whole career of ups and downs (mostly downs) he comes back to finish(?) the wonderful “from zero to hero to zero to hero again” story. I mean how the fuck do you compete with that. For this moment Sly has this one in the bag.
I’m sorry. There’s one potential contender, who has yet to reveal himself and if he lands right, he’ll have a stronger narrative than Sly. Harrison Ford in “The Force Awakens”.
Meaningless but funny, the Golden Satellite nominations are out. They presumably didn’t see JOY or HATEFUL EIGHT.
http://www.pressacademy.com/award_cat/2015
Some observations…
– Strong support for THE DANISH GIRL.
– Only a Stallone nomination for CREED.
– THE BIG SHORT only gets Picture/Bale.
– The foreign film choices seem a close barometer of Oscar buzz, although RAMS is missing.
– Documentary seems more of a populist list than I expect from Oscar… THE LOOK OF SILENCE and AMY, the obvious frontrunners, are present.
– STEVE JOBS shut out of Picture / Director (in Editing/Actor/Supp Actress/Screenplay)
– ANOMALISA ghettoized. I think it will break out into Screenplay at least with Oscar.
– Category fraud accepted here… Mara/Vikander/Dano all nominated in Supporting.
– McAdams, Ruffalo and Keaton all pick up SPOTLIGHT acting nominations (Lord knows what for…).
– Somehow BRIDGE OF SPIES gets into Picture/Screenplay/Director but not Supporting Actor.
– Banks and Dano both make it for LOVE & MERCY.
– MAD MAX gets three tech nominations.
– SICARIO is still in this race. Surprisingly BLACK MASS is as well.
– THE MARTIAN continues its fight for the frontrunner narrative, although I think SPOTLIGHT registered even more strongly here.
Keaton wasn’t nominated.
He was:
http://www.pressacademy.com/project/spotlight/
The Site is a shambles, much like the award itself.
Holy crap it’s day one and I’m effing already pissed. Attention to the rest of the precursors out there. .please do not post nominations until you’ve actually seen the rest of the December releases. ..yes I know you’ll miss out on star wars but this includes joy hateful eight revenant the big short concussion and heart of the sea.have a great day! !!
Paul Dano is in the same situation as Saoirse Ronan was in Atonement: it is a leading role, but due to the fact the the actor share the role with other actors, the screen time is reduced and then he/she is put in the supporting category.
The only time I would nominate Dano was in 2007 for There Will Be Blood. In Love & Mercy, the only perform I would consider for awards is Banks.
If Paul Dano got a bump, did your “frontrunner” Brie Larson get a set back?
It is a bit curious that Larson doesn’t seem poised to win even minor awards like this one, on the other hand there are precedents for minor awards bodies opting for actors and actresses that they think don’t belong in the upper echelon of the surreal reality that is Awards Season…
The thing with Larson is that there is a PERCEPTION that she is the frontrunner (or something close to being a frontrunner, depending on who you ask and depending on how much of a slam dunk J-Law delivers, something we don’t know yet, since critics are embargoed), and perception can take you a long way. I think a nomination is a sure thing solely based on this one intangible. It sounds crazy, but otherwise how is it possible that pundits (and the rest of us) invariably end up guessing 80-90 % of all nominees any given year. The reason we are able to do that is not because we are splendid futurologists, but because the actual voters take shape of the race as it’s formulated by the media (and the users of the media).
Ok, but for Larson to WIN the whole damn thing, voters have to actually see the movie and decide: is this the best performance of the year? If ‘Room’ fails to get a BP nom, I think either Lawrence, Blanchett (or Mara, if she’s going lead) or Ronan will surge past her.
No doubt Larson will be nominated, and deservedly so I think. But I struggle to understand how or why anyone is positioning her as the “frontrunner” especially when unknowns (like whether Mara and/or Vikander will be noticed in Lead sted Supporting) still exist. Honestly, if she was easily the frontrunner, how could she possibly lose at the Gothams? I don’t think her loss means she’s out of the race, I think it means no one should consider her a stand-out leader of the pack.
For me, my own dislike of the film aside for a moment, the evidence is quite clear already (and I suspect NBR will continue this tradition) that Room is not a player in the BP field like many pundits still think it is. In fact, I don’t think it’s a player anywhere but Lead Actress and Adapted Screenplay, but I think Gone Girl’s “snub” in A.S. last year is precedent enough to consider that both Nagy and Donoghue will not make it into the race. And Nagy’s work is not only astounding, but comes on the coattails of a more greatly lauded film.
Yes, the Vikander/Mara category confusion thing could turn this whole race around. It would be a shame to see them squeeze out Rampling (who is, by my estimate, clinging to that elusive fifth spot).
Mulligan seems to be fading fast, but who knows, SAG will likely embrace her rather than a representative of an art-house movie…, but Vikander or Mara (or both, maybe even instead of Blanchett or J Law, if the critics fail to be mesmerized by Joy) are strong alternatives.
It’s the same with Dano for supporting actor/actor: Why not campaign him as lead. He probably stands just as good a chance in lead with Depp, Redmayne and Fassbender not exactly looking life glowing candidates at the moment. I won’t vouch for DiCaprio until I see the reviews, and I don’t even consider Damon an absolute lock yet (is the performance too light for voters?).
All I’m saying is, Dano and his people should really consider going for lead. But is it too late to change gear?
No he shouldn’t go for lead, all those actors you mentioned didn’t share their leading role with another actor. He wouldn’t have much against against them. The best way is to go is for the supporting role.
No, losing these precursors doesn’t really hurt… After all, Blanchett lost this to Larson two years ago.
The standard thinking is that it’s more likely to result in a nomination to demote a borderline lead or co-lead performance to ‘supporting’, but the supporting category is unbelievably crowded this year and ‘Best Actor’ is unusually thin so it would be smarter to campaign him for ‘lead’.
Dano was so brilliant. And I do believe he should campaign in Lead, because it’s actually kind of an open field past Leo.
“He won Best Actor at the Gothams, but is being placed in the supporting
category for the Oscars. Dano and John Cusack shared one lead
performance, thus it’s perfectly reasonable to see Dano in supporting”
Uh, no, since it’s STILL A LEAD PERFORMANCE. I’d happily cast a vote for Dano as a Best Actor nominee but it would be outright category fraud if he gets a supporting nomination.
That’s one of my biggets gripes with having seperate “Lead” and “Supporting” categories. They cross over way too often.
Why are they campaigning him in support? It’s such a weak Best Actor year that it seems his chances would be better there.
Good call. If Stallone has the supporting Oscar on lockdown now, and the Spotlight/Hateful 8 guys are good bets for the rest of the field, the studio should switch gears and push Dano for lead.
I’m thinking the same. With Fassbender and Depp not looking as strong as might have been the case a month ago, Dano should go for lead. There might be a spot for him there. It’s the weakest best actor line-up in at least a decade.
*happy dance* it’ll be a travesty if he’s overlooked at the Oscars!
I thought Paul Dano was great, but I didn’t much care for the film overall. But yeah, I’m glad to see him finally getting some awards credit for all his great work lately.