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When I think of the male performances of the year I think there is Leonardo DiCaprio and everyone else. Setting aside Michael Fassbender, for the moment, Michael Shannon, Gary Oldman and Woody Harrelson – those actors who transformed themselves into wholly other people, I am still left with what Leo did with J. Edgar Hoover. I know that it isn’t the popular choice right now for one of the best performances of 2011, but I do know it’s one I can’t forget.
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“I’d imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn’t be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason.” — Hugo
This year saw films by arguably the greatest directors America has ever produced — Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg. Those guys are the reasons many people have become filmmakers at all. Whole schools of filmmakers, generations flooding film schools everywhere, cut their teeth on their films. And they happen to be my own personal favorites. You might say my whole life has been shaped and decided by what I saw in films by these men over the past three decades. It is a strange turn of events that they will be in the race the same year. Though all three of their films are so good — even with their weaknesses they are still better than almost everything else we’ve seen this year. But of the three, only one has directed a masterpiece. And this because he’s telling the story from his heart, telling the story for his daughter, and at the same time, delving into the evolving technology of 3-D. In other words, Martin Scorsese is still growing, not resting on his laurels.
These three directors, though, have led three different schools of thought where filmmaking and storytelling are concerned. They all three started in the 1970s — was there ever a better decade for filmmaking? The 1970s was a time for open minds, when Fellini and Bergman were the flavors that changed how people thought about movies. The 1960s loosened the knot but the future of American film had its biggest quake in the ’70s because it signaled the beginning of Allen, Scorsese and Spielberg.
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If there were any doubts before, there are no doubts now. The black and white silent French film, The Artist, has taken the lead in this year’s Best Picture race, according to we Gurus of Gold and of course, over at Gold Derby. There is always that point in the year when you just know. And there is no stopping this movie. If there had been any stopping it it would have happened months ago. But the hype is not destroying it. If anything, it’s helping it. It reminds me of the Slumdog Millionaire year, where there was just this one movie that took everything in front of it. If we go by Anne Thompson’s branch-by-branch theory, The Artist has it all: actors, check. Director, check. Writers, check. Art directors, check. Cinematography, check. Costume, check. Score, check. Editing, check. Sound, mais bien sur! Well, let’s say imaginative sound mixers would nominate the Artist for its clever and specific use of sound. What it’s missing: gravitas. That old song Oscar requires so that something feels bigger and more “important.” Of course, Chicago didn’t have it and that movie had what the Artist had (yes, Weinsteins pushing it but also) it was just a good time to be had by all. The universal appeal of The Artist is what has it winning critics, industry and audiences alike.
Universal appeal is what gets the big house votes, the 9,000, the 6,000, the 100,000 guild voting blocks – ain’t no way they’re going to grow a pair and pick something outside that realm of “you can sit anyone down in front of it and they will get it if not love it.” What can override that, of course, is love for the filmmakers (Coens, Scorsese), or the desire to push forth real change (Bigelow). But mostly, yeah, you get the idea. What pleases, massages, comforts the most people wins. It’s as simple as that. As far as those kinds of movies go, if the Artist wins it will be one of their better choices.
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We’re counting down the best performances of the year here at Awards Daily (we’ll also do that with Picture and Director, hopefully). We’re starting with number 5 of our top five and it has to go to Andy Serkis for his mo-cap, or performance-capture ape Caeser in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Sure, it defies all definitions of what acting is supposed to be but somehow, by god, it works. It has to be the best performance Serkis has ever given in a performance capture environment, which is saying a lot, considering all that we’ve seen Serkis do. And in truth, much of the credit goes to the dazzling, incomparable special effects that accompany Serkis. But there is no denying that what we see on screen is the work of an actor, not a computer. And therein, I think, lies the difference. After all, how far is it a leap to go from what Nicole Kidman did in The Hours, or what other actors who wear so much makeup on do? It is makeup but it’s digital makeup. It achieves the same result, in the end. The actor still must do most of the work.
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If you came of age in the 1980s, you lived through a time when American actresses did not depend on conventional, youthful good looks, or hotness, to get on the A list. The good parts went to those who took the craft seriously. A lot has changed since then. If you look at the Best Actress race of the 1970s, 1980s and even into the 1990s, the Best Actress race was dominated by strong roles, with established, respected actresses, many of them homegrown here in America, with well-earned clout in Hollywood — clout that was built on their talent, not just how much money they brought in. Their Oscar nominations bolstered their dominance. But something shifted. Was it the moment the young, fresh, charismatic but untrained Julia Roberts became a box office sensation, thus rendering actresses who couldn’t “open” movies obsolete? Was it the general globalization of the film industry overall? Was it the rise of the target demographic aimed at young boys?
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Since there aren’t five Best Picture nominees to be had this year, although the rapid about-face the Academy did from last year to this leads me to believe that they will go back to five in the near future, we have a very strange way of going about finding the Best Picture nominees. We are looking mostly at number 1 choices. A movie can’t be nominated for Best Picture unless it has 300 number 1s. It’s generally accepted that the Best Picture slate will wind up being between 6 and 9.
What I’m wondering is, will this help or hurt the genre movies? By genre movies, we have to look at those popular entertainment pics that made bank. Of the films that have a chance for Oscar crossover, there are a few that could be seen as genre movies. With a solid ten nominees, we could figure in the “genre movie slot.” But with it being only number 1s that get in, we have to rethink how we imagine the possibilities. You’d be better off still trying to think of five rather than ten.
1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 = $375,934,867
2. Captain America = $172,509,991
3. Bridesmaids = $168,565,795
4. Rise of the Planet of the Apes = $163,570,682
5. Super 8 = $126,569,715
While Academy members are receiving and filling out their ballots, around the same time, beginning December 30, SAG voters will decide on their final winners. Many of the acting races feel wide open. We assume Best Actor will be Colin Firth, at last, winning for not just his entire career but for his extraordinary work in the very popular film, The King’s Speech. But Jesse Eisenberg could upset in what is the most talked about, or second most, performance of the year. He’s likable in the same way Hannibal Lecter was likable: we admire those who can slice and dice with mere words. It is a deceptively complex performance, one that must be viewed several times to fully appreciate. But Firth has it in so many ways, the least of which his body of work, general good nature, and extremely likable character.
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October takes me by surprise every year. I think that things are cruising along at a manageable level and then, wham! October brings Oscar season proper and with it, the good, the bad and the ugly. It didn’t take long for word from last night’s Academy screening of The Social Network to hit the web. The reports varied slightly but somehow the same cast of characters showed up – the odd person who was enthusiastic about it, the odd person who said it lacked emotional something or other, and the odd person who mentioned The King’s Speech as the frontrunner. Pete Hammond at Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter gave slightly upbeat reports, that the Academy members were as entertained by the film as audiences have been.
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The Huffington Post has a piece by Scott Mendelson wondering about Tyler Perry’s upcoming For Colored Girls and its Oscar potential. The film is based on the 1975 play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. Anyone who ever went to acting school is quite familiar with this play as it’s a popular choice for monologues.
“Oscar potential” refers only to the possibility that the AMPAS will like it enough to nominate it, being that it’s a “Tyler Perry movie” and all. The movie just needs the perception of greatness to make it to the Big Show. It can get that by popping up in one or two of the early critics’ awards, specifically the National Board of Review or the New York Film Critics. It could still make it all the way up to Oscar nomination time, sweep the Golden Globes and not get nominated. But with ten slots, not only is anything possible, but we might be looking at a situation where the Blind Side slot could be filled by another fairly emotional money making powerhouse.
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By the time 2010 comes to an ambling close, Michelle Williams will have two very good performances under her belt. Blue Valentine, and Meek’s Cutoff.
Obsessed with Film, underwhelmed by the film but impressed by Williams writes:
Michelle Williams, who is working with the director for a second time, is absolutely, show-stealingly brilliant in her role as one of the travelers. Her face able to register a look of resentment and contempt the likes of which I have never seen. It also features Paul Dano, Shirley Henderson, who is brilliant as the uber-religious one and responsible for the films few comic moments, and Zoe Kazan, whose constant fearful bleating recalls a hyper-ventilating Shelly Duvall in The Shining. All these actors perform well on limited material. Only the titular Meek is played over the top, with Bruce Greenwood sometimes straying into the voice of an old prospector from a bad western. Everybody else downplays it and it works great.
Williams, so heartbreaking in “Wendy and Lucy,” anchors the ensemble with a performance of fierce grit and unflinching moral strength, staring down Meek and firing a rifle with the same bone-deep conviction. Greenwood’s face is almost entirely hidden by a dark beard, but his gravelly voice is instantly recognizable, lending the cocksure Meek an undertow of menace. Fellow travelers Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan and Shirley Henderson have a more difficult time blending in with the milieu initially, while Rondeaux renders the Cayuse captive compellingly unreadable.
Read MoreSuch filmmaking’s near-spiritual devotion to landscape can occasionally swallow human players, but while big names (for this director, at least) like Paul Dano and Shirley Henderson feel a tad lost in the mix, Reichardt once more brings out the very best in Williams. As the story’s principal conduit of reason and morality, Emily could be a dour presence, but the actress is instead softly watchful and drily, unexpectedly, funny: “I want him to owe me something,” she crisply explains when granting the Cayuse intruder an unsolicited favor.
In Williams, Reichardt has found an actor capable of matching her contained integrity and opening it out to a broader audience; long may this partnership continue. Long, too, may Reichardt continue to inquiringly scope out the backyard of American indie film, applying her immaculate technical precision and near-accidentally feminist gaze to more distant milieux. Adventurous, ambiguous and truthful, “Meek’s Cutoff” may be a marvel in itself, but it only sets up greater expectations for the future.
Magnolia Films will release All Good Things some time this December, putting it right in the thick of things for Oscar season. ¬†The film is directed by Andrew Jarecki (Capturing the Friedmans) and also stars Kirsten Dunst. ¬†It’s quite fun going down this particular rabbit hole, due to the mysterious nature of Robert Durst (Gosling, presumably). ¬†While he was never convicted of any murder, he certainly seems to have committed more than the one to which he confessed.
There hasn’t been much buzz on All Good Things, but if it is the right kind of part and the right kind of film, we could be looking at a Gosling vs. Gosling year.
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One of the best things about winning an Oscar is the new-found strategic power a filmmaker has at his disposal when he’s shooting from the hilltop. From that high ground stronghold, Danny Boyle took his certified prestige to leverage an unlikely project that might never have been green-lit without the fortified clout the Academy can confer.
The advantage we got with the [Slumdog Millionaire] success we had was that you had an opportunity to do something with it, and I’ve wanted to make this film since 2005…I didn’t want to do it like Touching the Void, because that was so wonderful and I didn’t want to do it like a documentary. I said I wanted to do it where you are part of the experience, and where the audience is trapped with [Aron Ralston] for the whole 127…Without that [Slumdog] success, we wouldn’t have gotten to make it. Because what you saw in the teaser trailer is the good bit, the fun bit – and after that he’s stuck there.
Boyle framed the wordless conflict by regarding the boulder as a stone-cold Evil Wilson:
The bit after you saw him getting trapped in the trailer has him trying, for hours, to get out. Now we’d fixed it so he couldn’t move the rock; but by God he tried! He tried to rip that set apart. So we had two cameramen every day, because we didn’t have a villain – except for the rock, but it’s inanimate – but we’ll have two cameramen and change them so it gives him something different to do.
Here’s a clip of Boyle at Movie Con in London. Credit to slashfilm for finding this item from Empire.
After the cut, Boyle explains the cinematic handicap that attracted him to the story, and how camcorder culture inspired his approach:
Read MoreUpdate: turns out that Mr. Wells did not base his prediction on the trailer, as described below (and than god for that, right?) but a reaction from a “trusted research screening informant.”
We alll get loopy on the subject of Oscar potential. ¬†Trust me, I know this to be true. ¬†I am ashamed at the amount of time I’ve spent watching Oscar and watching those who watch, drive and turn out Oscars. ¬†But I always think hard when people shoot their wad way early. ¬†I watch because it’s going to go a few different ways.
The first is what the person doing the shooting hopes for, that their own prediction will either come true, or that it will be ground zero for the first wave of buzz. ¬†This I call the God Complex of Oscar blogging. ¬†Not a pretty picture, but occasionally on target. ¬†It could also kill the chances of the potential contender by putting expectations so high they almost always fall short, and you get the old “I shaved my legs for this?” response. ¬†Finally, the third thing is that they have no impact whatsoever but when the prediction turns out to be true the blogger gets supreme bragging rights. ¬†Yes, this is the greasy little game we all play.
At any rate, here is Jeff Wells on Anne Hathaway based on the trailer for Love and Other Drugs:
Prediction:¬†Anne Hathaway is a guaranteed lock for a Best Actress nomination. Honestly? I’m 60% convinced she’s going to win.
I thought he was kidding until I drilled down into the comments and he says, “My nose knows. I can smell it. The film may be this or that, but Hathaway is on it. You’re all a bunch of haters for hate’s sake.”
The hate he speaks of is usually the blowback from the slightly premature adulation.  Meanwhile, Vulture takes the opposite position:
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We did the ladies, now it’s time to focus on the men. With Get Low opening today with decent enough reviews — we have to look at the Best Actor race, and whether a vet like Robert Duvall, who gives a well reviewed performance, can make it for the long haul.
Unlike the Best Actress race, the Best Actor race is still buried in the haze of expectations and unknowns. We wait for so many answers, like Jeff Bridges in True Grit? Brad Pitt in Tree of Life? We just don’t know. Javier Bardem‘s astonishing work in the very depressing Biutiful? Sean Penn again for Fair Game? George Clooney for The American?
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22 Jan 2012
Back in 1999, when Oscarwatch.com first began, the highest of priorities was to correctly predict the Oscar race. There was only one other site, for the most part, that predicted …
(198 Comments)
20 Jan 2012
There are few movies that feel like they could give The Artist some heat: Hugo and The Descendants. Perhaps, as many a Tweeter will tell you, “it’s been The Artist …
(264 Comments)
16 Jan 2012
It was hard not to notice Robin Wright at the Critics Choice awards, striding out onto the stage with her still impossibly youthful legs, and announcing that 2011 was …
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10 Jan 2012
It’s been a funny year for Oscar movies. The trial separation between critics and the industry has widened to a full blown divorce. The Artist and Moneyball are heading down …
(145 Comments)
9 Jan 2012
WOODY ALLEN Midnight in Paris (Sony Pictures Classics) DAVID FINCHER The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Columbia Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures) MICHEL HAZANAVICIUS The Artist (The Weinstein Company) ALEXANDER PAYNE The …
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