Off the Red Carpet: 4 Weeks till Oscars

Oh boy, there’s that Oscar season lull. All the movies have come out, most of the awards shows have had their say and there’s still a month to go.

In other news, I got a job this week! So I haven’t had much time to catch up on Oscar stuff this week anyway, but thankfully the conversation has turned elsewhere.

Adele to perform at the Oscars

Yes! Justice is served! The Oscars will be interesting to watch again! The Academy announced quite literally this morning through Facebook that Adele will in fact perform the Oscar nominated theme song from “Skyfall” on the Oscar telecast.

What was not specified was whether this would be part of a collection of all the Original nominated songs being performed or will be part of the 50^th Anniversary Tribute to James Bond.

Not only is this the first time Adele has performed “Skyfall” live, it will be the first time she’s performed live since the 2012 Grammys. (via Oscars.com)

Sundance in full swing

The annual Sundance film festival, now in its third decade, started on January 17 and continues until the 27^th, meaning that Oscar season 2014 has officially kicked off!

I’m just kidding obviously, but not really, because the crop of movies that I got excited for in researching the line-up is stellar, and buyers have already picked many of them up. Fox Searchlight spent an unprecedented $10 million on “The Way, Way Back,” the first movie from Jim Rash and Nate Faxon, the screenwriting team behind “The Descendants.” Other Sundance hits like the Steve Jobs biopic “jOBS,” the Linda Lovelace biopic “Lovelace,” the Daniel Radcliffe starring vehicle on the Beat Generation “Kill Your Darlings,” the Richard Linklater sequel “Before Midnight” and the wildly loved “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” are all coming to theaters soon.

The real news of the festival however might be the best movie that no one else will ever see, “Escape from Tomorrow.” Filmed guerilla style in Disney World, this black and white surrealist drama exposes the creepy underbelly to what we see as the most magical place on Earth. Even if the footage in this movie is legal, it’s likely Disney will sue the pants off it such that you’ll never see it.

Jennifer Lawrence on “SNL”

Harvey Weinstein may walk “Silver Linings Playbook” home with a few Oscars just yet. The movie is finally hitting its wide release peak in theaters, and Jennifer Lawrence has been doing the talk show rounds at just the right time. The height of her exposure came with her appearance this weekend on “Saturday Night Live,” in which Lawrence’s monologue involved trash talking her fellow Best Actress nominees. It’s pretty corny I know, and it was even disappointing on “SNL” standards, but the golden carrot at the end of the stick is all that matters now.

Breaking News: January movies suck!

Ty Burr wrote an interesting piece in The New York Times proposing a solution to fix January at the movies. He calls it a month to play catch up, a month where people have plenty of options of great Oscar bait and even some surprise moneymakers, but most people with free time on their hands during the holidays use January as a time to revisit things from the previous year that might win awards or take a chance on something forgettable and stupid.

Burr’s solution was for studios to treat January as a “new-release-free-zone.” Let studios re-release underrated and underperforming titles from the previous year so audiences can get another chance at seeing something good that isn’t necessarily Oscar bait, take a chance on indie or Kickstarter projects or release Old Hollywood classics as a way of encouraging a theater going experience. (via nytimes.com)

Week 2 Predictions

Best Picture

1. Lincoln
2. Silver Linings Playbook
3. Argo
4. Life of Pi
5. Zero Dark Thirty
6. Django Unchained
7. Les Miserables
8. Amour
9. Beasts of the Southern Wild

More and more pundits are trying to pick “Argo” to win Best Picture on the basis that this is the “bizarro Oscars,” the one where anything can happen and already has. My wonder is why that logic isn’t applying to “Life of Pi,” a terrific movie that NO ONE is talking about.

Best Director

1. Steven Spielberg – Lincoln
2. Ang Lee – Life of Pi
3. Michael Haneke – Amour
4. Benh Zeitlin – Beasts of the Southern Wild
5. David O. Russell – Silver Linings Playbook

Michael Haneke has currently been making the interview rounds as his movie finally gets into theaters, and “Silver Linings Playbook” is finally hitting its stride, so this race isn’t completely sewn up yet.

Best Actor

1. Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln
2. Bradley Cooper – Silver Linings Playbook
3. Hugh Jackman – Les Miserables
4. Joaquin Phoenix – The Master
5. Denzel Washington – Flight

Best Actress

1. Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook
2. Emmanuelle Riva – Amour
3. Jessica Chastain – Zero Dark Thirty
4. Quvenzhane Walls – Beasts of the Southern Wild
5. Naomi Watts – The Impossible

Best Supporting Actor

1. Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln
2. Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master
3. Christoph Waltz – Django Unchained
4. Robert De Niro – Silver Linings Playbook
5. Alan Arkin – Argo

The thing I recently came to notice is that both Philip Seymour Hoffman and Christoph Waltz could almost be argued as the leads in their respective films. Will their prominent roles boost their chances?

Best Supporting Actress

1. Anne Hathaway – Les Miserables
2. Sally Field – Lincoln
3. Amy Adams – The Master
4. Helen Hunt – The Sessions
5. Jacki Weaver – Silver Linings Playbook

I just rewatched “Silver Linings,” and Jacki Weaver is much better in the role than I remembered. It’s still a small part, but not that small.

Best Adapted Screenplay

1. Lincoln
2. Argo
3. Silver Linings Playbook
4. Life of Pi
5. Beasts of the Southern Wild

Best Original Screenplay

1. Django Unchained
2. Zero Dark Thirty
3. Amour
4. Moonrise Kingdom
5. Flight

Could “Amour” really go home with three Oscars (Riva, Foreign Film, Screenplay) if the controversy for “Django” and “ZDT” is too great?