Off the Red Carpet: Week of 12/12 – 12/19

‘Tis the awards season for many lists and nominations. I’ve had a lot of fun doing this column, but this is probably my last of this sort. Next week I’ll likely take off because of the holiday, and the following week I’ll put together an article of my final Oscar predictions, charting the ups and downs of certain films based on the preliminary predictions I’ve made each week since.

This is the point when most Oscar bloggers say that all that’s left are the Oscars. The Best of lists have started trickling out, the Golden Globes have been named and subsequently ignored and all the movies have been seen. You and I both know that last bit isn’t true, because I’ll likely miss “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Amour,” “On the Road,” “Not Fade Away,” “Searching for Sugarman,” “Rust and Bone,” “How to Survive a Plague,” “The House I Live In” and “The Gatekeepers” and “West of Memphis” before the year is out, and God knows I’m trying much harder than you to see these.

But nevertheless, I’ll cobble together a Best of the Year list myself along with some other fun features in the next few days. So for the last time, here’s this week’s roundup.

Golden Globe Nominations Announced

The Golden Globes have a tendency to be plain embarrassing. They’ll nominate something “The Tourist” to get Johnny Depp in attendance, and their ridiculous split between drama and comedy or musical means that nothing gets snubbed, except of course for things that are actually interesting. Last Thursday, “Lincoln” led the pack with seven nominations, and the only real surprise of a nomination were the multiple for “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.” Okay, whatever, we’ll let you have that one.

Scott Feinberg’s analysis is by the far the best of them, mentioning what a big deal it is to see Nicole Kidman, Rachel Weisz, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Richard Gere, Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor and Leonardo DiCaprio, although he probably lends a little more weight to the Globes than I do. The biggest, yet predictable omissions included “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and “Amour.”

What really piqued my interest in Feinberg’s analysis was one statistic that said people who are nominated for a SAG award, Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe all go on to an Oscar nomination, and he’s got a list of five in the Best Actor race already. Those names are Bradley Cooper, Daniel Day-Lewis, John Hawkes, Hugh Jackman and Denzel Washington. You tell me who’s missing. (Full list via The Race)

Hair and Makeup Category Shortlisted

Here’s the list of the seven films advancing in the newly revised Makeup category that now also includes work for hair dressing.

“Hitchcock”
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”
“Les Misérables”
“Lincoln”
“Looper”
“Men in Black 3”
“Snow White and the Huntsman”

The two big snubs here are “Cloud Atlas” and “Holy Motors,” both of which involve characters going through multiple performances and appearances, and “Holy Motors” especially calls attention to its makeup. I also would’ve liked to see “The Impossible” on this list for the amount of blood stained clothes and Naomi Watts looking ghastly that’s in that movie. (via Oscars.com)

ZeroDarkThirty

“Zero Dark Thirty” selected by Chicago Film Critics

Hailing from Chicago myself (I didn’t vote. Don’t flatter yourself), I always find these interesting. Announced on Monday, the Chicago critics selected “Zero Dark Thirty” as their winner for Best Picture while granting it four other awards. “The Master” came in second with four awards. This is an interesting list, one that goes against the grain a tiny bit by selecting “The Invisible War” as Best Doc and “ParaNorman” as Best Animated. The full list of winners is below. (Full list of nominees via CFCA website)

Best Picture – Zero Dark Thirty

Best Director – Kathryn Bigelow

Best Actor – Daniel Day-Lewis

Best Actress – Jessica Chastain

Best Supporting Actor – Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Best Supporting Actress – Amy Adams

Best Original Screenplay – Zero Dark Thirty

Best Adapted Screenplay – Lincoln

Best Foreign Language Film – Amour

Best Documentary – The Invisible War

Best Animated Feature – ParaNorman

Best Cinematography – The Master

Best Original Score – The Master

Best Art Direction – Moonrise Kingdom

Best Editing – Zero Dark Thirty

Most Promising Performer – Quvenzhane Wallis

Most Promising Filmmaker – Benh Zeitlin

New York Times Best of the Year Lists

If the New York Times sounds off on anything it’s a big deal, but what I loved about A.O. Scott’s and Manohla Dargis’s lists was the optimism brimming from them about the state of cinema, all this coming from a year where people have been mostly negative. Dargis didn’t rank hers, but Scott picked 25. They’re must-reads. (Dargis’s list and Scott’s list via NYT.com)

Manohla Dargis

Amour

The Deep Blue Sea

The Gatekeepers

Holy Motors

Moonrise Kingdom

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

Searching for Sugarman

Silver Linings Playbook

Zero Dark Thirty

A.O. Scott

1. Amour

2. Lincoln

3. Beasts of the Southern Wild

4. Footnote

5. The Master

6. Zero Dark Thirty

7. Django Unchained

8. Goodbye, First Love

9. Neighboring Sounds

10. The Grey

holy-motors-05

New consensus emerges from critic polls

I feel Metacritic’s aggregation is fairly comprehensive in terms of evaluating the best movie of the year, but both Indiewire and Village Voice conducted their own critics polls and selected “Holy Motors” and “The Master” respectfully. It’s almost funny considering that it’s likely neither of those will be nominated for Best Picture (but we’ll hold out for “The Master.”) and the other consensus title, “Zero Dark Thirty,” may just win Best Picture. Indiewire also did a cut and dry determination of what the Oscar nominees would be based on their votes, and of the 10 Best Picture nominees, they selected six potential Oscar nominees. Here are the individual critic poll Top 10 lists:

Indiewire

  1. Holy Motors
  2. The Master
  3. Zero Dark Thirty
  4. Amour
  5. This is Not a Film
  6. Moonrise Kingdom
  7. Beasts of the Southern Wild
  8. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
  9. The Turin Horse
  10. Lincoln

Village Voice

  1. The Master
  2. Zero Dark Thirty
  3. Holy Motors
  4. Moonrise Kingdom
  5. This is Not a Film
  6. Amour
  7. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
  8. The Turin Horse
  9. Lincoln
  10. Tabu

Week 9 Predictions

Best Picture

Front Runners

Zero Dark Thirty

Lincoln

Silver Linings Playbook

Argo

Life of Pi

Les Miserables

Moonrise Kingdrom

Amour

Probables

Beasts of the Southern Wild

The Master

Django Unchained

Skyfall

It’s do or die time. No more long shots because this race is too tight as it stands. Any movie that’s not in that list of 12 will be a gigantic surprise to a lot of people. My money is on a list of 10 nominees, with “Beasts” and “The Master” getting those last two spots.

 

Best Actor

Front Runners

Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln

John Hawkes – The Sessions

Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook

Denzel Washington – Flight

Hugh Jackman – Les Miserables

Probables

Joaquin Phoenix – The Master

Jean-Louis Trintignant – Amour

Christoph Waltz – Django Unchained

Long Shots

Anthony Hopkins – Hitchcock

Richard Gere – Arbitrage

Denis Lavant – Holy Motors

Much as I hate to say it, Scott Feinberg is probably right in his historical predictions I mentioned above. That’s what I’ve got listed here now, but I would bet there’s still room for surprises and that we’ll see Phoenix and Trintignant in there after all. Hopkins and Gere are not dead in the water quite yet, and although it’s clear the Academy hasn’t even seen “Holy Motors,” Denis Lavant’s name is showing up in a lot of places.

 

Best Actress

Front Runners

Marion Cotillard – Rust and Bone

Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook

Jessica Chastain – Zero Dark Thirty

Emmanuelle Riva – Amour

Quvenzhane Wallis – Beasts of the Southern Wild

Probables

Naomi Watts – The Impossible

Helen Mirren – Hitchcock

Rachel Weisz – The Deep Blue Sea

Judi Dench – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

I refuse to believe that someone as good as Quvenzhane Wallis is in “Beasts of the Southern Wild” might actually be bumped out of this race by someone like Naomi Watts, a performance in which she spends much of the movie moaning in agony.

 

Best Supporting Actor

Front Runners

Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master

Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln

Alan Arkin – Argo

Robert De Niro – Silver Linings Playbook

Leonardo DiCaprio – Django Unchained

Probables

Javier Bardem – Skyfall

Matthew McConaughey – Magic Mike/Bernie

Eddie Redmayne – Les Miserables

Russell Crowe – Les Miserables

Samuel L. Jackson – Django Unchained

John Goodman – Argo/Flight

It was really hard to finally eliminate so many worthy names from this list, but it had to be done. Bardem earned a nod with SAG and could be the most formidable underdog right now.

 

Best Supporting Actress

Front Runners

Sally Field – Lincoln

Anne Hathaway – Les Miserables

Amy Adams – The Master

Helen Hunt – The Sessions

Probables

Ann Dowd – Compliance

Nicole Kidman – The Paperboy

Maggie Smith – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Samantha Barks – Les Miserables

Judi Dench – Skyfall

I may have been jumping the gun on saying Ann Dowd was a sure thing last week. If anything she’s got some new serious competition from Nicole Kidman in the polarizing exploitation film “The Paperboy.” This actually leaves me with only four frontrunners, but I’ll make the final call in just a few weeks.

 

Directing

Front Runners

Kathryn Bigelow – Zero Dark Thirty

Ben Affleck – Argo

Steven Spielberg – Lincoln

Tom Hooper – Les Miserables

David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook

Probables

Ang Lee – Life of Pi

Paul Thomas Anderson – The Master

Michael Haneke – Amour

Wes Anderson – Moonrise Kingdom

Long Shots

Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild

Quentin Tarantino – Django Unchained

I find it hard to swallow that people like PTA and Haneke have been winning these Best Director awards with the critics groups but might not even be nominated at the Oscars. This suggests I’m basing my frontrunners solely on the frontrunners for Best Picture, and that means O. Russell is ahead of Lee.

 

Best Original Screenplay

Front Runners

Moonrise Kingdom – Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola

Amour – Michael Haneke

Zero Dark Thirty – Mark Boal

Django Unchained – Quentin Tarantino

Looper – Rian Johnson

Probables

The Master – Paul Thomas Anderson

The Intouchables – Olivier Nakache, Eric Toledano

Flight – John Gatins

Magic Mike – Reid Carolin

Seven Psychopaths – Martin McDonagh

“Seven Psychopaths” is looking more like a surprise long shot than a probable at this stage, but this list, more than the others, seems to be ever changing.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay

Front Runners

Argo – Chris Terrio

Silver Linings Playbook – David O. Russell

Lincoln – Tony Kushner, John Logan, Paul Webb

Life of Pi – David Magee

The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky

Probables

Les Miserables – William Nicholson

The Sessions – Ben Lewin

Beasts of the Southern Wild – Lucy Alibar, Benh Zeithlin

On the Road – Jose Rivera

Anna Karenina – Tom Stoppard

This is 40 – Judd Apatow

If there’s a problem with “Life of Pi” in the front runners, it’s that the movie is not very “writerly,” for lack of a better not-a-word. “The Sessions” is a back and forth character drama that certainly isn’t remembered for its visuals, and it’s only being harmed by its less than stellar Best Picture chances.

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