Each year there are movies and performers that don’t just fail to get nominated for the Academy Awards but aren’t even in the conversation. This is where the Anti-Oscars were born.
Blogs, critics and Oscar pundits spend a lot of time discussing what’s in and less discussing what’s out. So although I’ve taken the time to do actual Oscar predictions, hopefully this piece can shed some light on under the radar work while placing it in the context of this behemoth we call the Oscar race.
Best Picture
- Prisoners
- The Spectacular Now
- Spring Breakers
- The Place Beyond the Pines
- Upstream Color
- Frances Ha
- This is the End
- The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Some of this year’s actual Oscar nominees are as strong as they’ve ever been, and yet it still boggles the mind that the Academy considers there to be nine better movies than “Before Midnight”. That nominee, along with “Blue Jasmine,” “All is Lost” and “Fruitvale Station,” will likely miss the cut, but they were at least on someone’s radar.
Movies like “The Spectacular Now” and “Frances Ha” are those indie gems that never get noticed by the Academy, maybe an Original Screenplay nod if they’re lucky. They represent the modernity and the youth often missing in the Oscars. They’re actors’ films with minimal story but an exploration of a point in life, and they share the style that makes them distinctly cinema.
“Spring Breakers” and “Upstream Color” are on the other end of the spectrum, indies too weird and polarizing to even be considered by the old fashioned Academy, even if their membership is slanting younger. Both utilize excessive style and their directors’ daring vision to create jarring, innovative films, one about way too much and the other arguably about nothing at all. Both however are beguiling, hypnotic mysteries.
In the middle are “Prisoners” and “The Place Beyond the Pines,” both midsize thrillers that were labeled as either too ridiculous or too portentous. They stretch storytelling boundaries with their ambitious screenplays, and they earn major thrills that even some of the likely Best Picture contenders can’t muster.
And last are the two studio movies, “This is the End” and “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” one a bit more massive than the other. These movies are why most people go to the movies, and they’re the ones that almost never show up on Hollywood’s most important night. They combine massive movie star appeal with rambunctious and accessible storytelling. But most of all, they’re fun. If the Oscars can be self-serious homework, these movies are a different sort of escapism.
Best Director
- James Ponsoldt – The Spectacular Now
- Harmony Korine – Spring Breakers
- Denis Villeneuve – Prisoners
- Shane Carruth – Upstream Color
- Sarah Polley – Stories We Tell
This year’s Best Director race is either stacked with established auteurs (Scorsese, Coens, Payne, Allen) or the auteurs-elect (Cuaron, McQueen, O. Russell, Jonze, Greengrass), so it’s hard to fault the Academy front-runners. But the directors I’ve selected are no less individualistic or iconoclastic.
If you want an auteur in the true sense of the word, look no further than Shane Carruth, who directs, writes, stars, edits, produces and composes for “Upstream Color,” all in just his second film.
Harmony Korine is not far behind him. His name will now forever be associated with a particular brand of polarizing stylists. He specializes in the ugly and the abraisive, and he’s an acolyte of Werner Herzog and Lars von Trier. He’s one the Academy will likely never recognize.
Sarah Polley is still remarkably young to be labeled such a visionary, but then what is a worthy Best Director nominee but a person who can make a film as personal as “Stories We Tell” and not have it be pretentious or self-centered?
My remaining two nominees still have some growing to do, but they’re on their way. James Ponsoldt is on his way to the Hollywood mainstream, soon to be the old-guard brand of director who makes movies about people. He is such an actor’s director with characters that reflect the best of people like Frank Capra, and “The Spectacular Now” allows him to step back and never show his hand. It’s his best work. Denis Villeneuve is on his way too, having completed his second English language film after earning a Foreign Language Oscar nomination for “Incendies.” “Prisoners” is him asserting his big storytelling choices and immense themes in a huge way.
Best Actor
- Robert Wieckicwicz – Walesa Man of Hope
- Tye Sheridan – Mud
- Ethan Hawke – Before Midnight
- Mads Mikkelsen – The Hunt
- Simon Pegg – The World’s End
The Best Actor field typically honors performers who make their movies work in a big way, and a win for them can be more of a lifetime achievement than a pat on the back for a job well done.
It’s that reason why the more understated work of the year not surprisingly goes under the radar. Tye Sheridan is just 17 (younger at time of filming) with only his second movie under his belt, and yet he’s as much the heart of “Mud” as Matthew McConaughey. He shows range and reserved maturity beyond his age, and although he is being campaigned for lead actor, it’s always a hard stretch to see someone so young as the lead in anything.
Julie Delpy may do her best work yet in “Before Midnight,” but Ethan Hawke isn’t just along for the ride. He’s grown and developed his character Jesse along with her, proving this relationship doesn’t only go one way.
Mads Mikkelsen is known in America for playing a Bond villain, but none of that shines through in his brilliant work in the Danish drama “The Hunt.” It’s a role where he can sink into melodrama so many times but never does, establishing the character’s true fortitude the movie requires. And the other foreign performer is Robert Wieckicwicz, who plays Polish diplomat Lech Walesa with fiery bravado. “Walesa: Man of Hope” is as of yet undistributed.
The only person who is not under the radar is Simon Pegg, doing by far the most off the chain work of his career as “The World’s End’s” Gary King. A whole other column could be written about why comedic actors aren’t nominated, but you actually feel bad for the layered man-child Pegg portrays.
Best Actress
- Greta Gerwig – Frances Ha
- Julia Louis-Dreyfus – Enough Said
- Shailene Woodley – The Spectacular Now
- Amy Seimetz – Upstream Color
- Scarlett Johansson – Her
If Scarlett Johansson does the unthinkable and becomes the first voice actor to be nominated for an Oscar, then this list will feel somewhat quaint. Spike Jonze might’ve had a much harder time in “Her” without the flinty, sexy familiarity to be found in Scarlett’s voice, and it’s the reason why an Oscar nomination would be no joke.
For my other picks, I was struck by how great Greta Gerwig and Julia Louis-Dreyfus were at doing some of what they do best. Gerwig is the hipster, indie royalty of the day, and Frances Halloway is tailor made for her. But she plays the character with dignity and complexity while also getting at some of her less desirable characteristics. Louis-Dreyfus on the other hand is the queen of the awkward niceties in conversation, and Director Nicole Holofcener builds the film’s entire premise around her.
Shailene Woodley and Amy Seimetz are the two budding stars on this list, one who is as warm, likeable and movie star ready as Jennifer Lawrence was years ago, and Seimetz plays the dark, tortured soul in the modern age as well as anyone.
These actresses all feel like real women, and although the likely nominees share the same skill, they’re veteran actresses all with Oscars under their belts. It’d be nice to see someone new make a splash.
Best Supporting Actor
- James Franco – Spring Breakers
- Andrew Dice Clay – Blue Jasmine
- Matthew McConaughey – Mud
- Jake Gyllenhaal – Prisoners
- Jeremy Renner – American Hustle
James Franco gives about the best performance in a movie I’ve seen this year. To think that people see it as something of a parody or a joke because it’s so outrageous is outrageous in itself. Alien is a scarily good character, emblematic of the American persona and dream Korine so wonderfully lambasts. If characters are made to be iconic, I can’t think of another one this year that is more so.
The rest of these actors fell into the background of otherwise deep casts and fellow performers. McConaughey may well get nominated for his work in “Dallas Buyers Club,” but he puts on an air of mystery and danger not seen in Ron Wooddruff. Gyllenhaal is as good as he’s been since “Zodiac” or “Brokeback Mountain,” showing range and fortitude without really letting us inside his mind or his nervous twitches.
Andrew Dice Clay is the heart of Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine,” the guy who got the short end of the stick because of people like Jasmine’s wealthy husband. He’s a schlub, yes, but you empathize with his lost ambition. And Jeremy Renner is likewise the heart of “American Hustle,” the only trustworthy character in David O. Russell’s lot. He gives a speech midway through the movie like a politician who can really make a difference, and it sends the way you feel about this caper in a whole other direction. Why he isn’t on the Academy’s shortlist is beyond me.
Best Supporting Actress
- Melissa Leo – Prisoners
- Sally Hawkins – Blue Jasmine
- Emma Watson – The Bling Ring
- Lea Seydoux – Blue is the Warmest Color
- Sarah Paulson – 12 Years a Slave
I equate Emma Watson’s Valley Girl caricature in “The Bling Ring” the same way I do James Franco in “Spring Breakers.” The two aren’t just having fun or putting on an accent for the sake of it. They’re representative of something much more systemic in our society, and they truly knock it out of the park with the iconography they bring.
Melissa Leo’s chilling work in “Prisoners” may be too small, Sarah Paulson’s ruthless act in “12 Years a Slave” may just be too little beside the fiery stuff of Lupita Nyong’o and Michael Fassbender, and Sally Hawkins may be too timid and innocent beside the powerhouse of Cate Blanchett, but these performers likewise make up the core of their films. Their performances are central in ways often not discussed by the critics, pundits or Academy.
The same can be said about Lea Seydoux, who is on vulnerable, full tilt display as much as her breakout co-star Adele Exarchopoulos. The Cannes jury was smart to award her the Palme D’Or as well; it’s sadly the only accolade she’ll be receiving this award season.