Oscar Nominations 2012: Predictions

After months of movie watching, analyzing and conjecturing, the 2011-2012 Awards Season will move into its final phase early tomorrow morning, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announces the nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards. It was a really great year in film, even if Oscar ignores some of my favorite films, and I'm looking forward to waking up to watch the nominations tomorrow. Let's see how closely I can guess the big six categories.

Note: I've included my picks for nominations along with an alternate or two and, if something struck me, a performance or film that I would have nominated in the given category.

Best Picture

The Artist

The Descendants

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Help

Hugo

Midnight in Paris

Moneyball

War Horse

Alternates: The Tree of Life, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Should be here: The Ides of March

Since The Artist pretty much has Oscar night sown up already, and since most of the acting categories are either relatively locked or firmly in the "two horse race" phase, the most exciting aspect of the season could be watching what happens with the Best Picture nominees tomorrow. After two years of ten nominees (after decades with five), the Academy has switched their nomination policy for this category again, allowing for anywhere between five and ten nominees, depending on the percentage of votes received. While I'm certain the number of nominations won't make it to ten, there's a fair amount of wiggle room here beyond the five or six consensus picks. Support has been surprisingly strong for Midnight in Paris, a film I found good, in unspectacular, and it now sits as a lock for a nomination in this category. Also in that category are the season's three biggest players (The Artist, The Descendants and Hugo), as well as the big summer hit The Help (with its stellar ensemble cast), and pleasantly strong support for the Aaron Sorkin scripted Moneyball will put it in this category as well. The biggest question mark is War Horse, as the Spielberg epic has fallen from early frontrunner status (you know, before anyone saw the film), and has missed several key precursor nominations from the Directors' and Producers' Guilds. Still, I think Spielberg's popularity, as well as the film's undeniably strong production value, will land it here.

The other big question mark is whether or not the Academy will go for the dark, atmospheric subject matter of David Fincher's Dragon Tattoo. I never thought the film would be an Oscar contender, but recent nominations from the PGA and the DGA are hard to ignore, and it's likely to duplicate that success here. As for outside chances, Tinker, Tailor could easily have a large enough faction of support to land a nomination, though I question whether the film's labyrinthine plot fits in a category that generally tends to play closer to the mainstream side of things. Ditto for Terrence Malick's massively ambitious and polarizing epic (The Tree of Life), which likely came out too early to generate the necessary buzz for a nomination. Extremely Loud is the real wild card: the film has received divisive reviews, but it's an emotionally resonant work that hit at just the right time, and it could have stuck in the minds of enough voters to sneak in with a surprise nomination.

Meanwhile, I'm still a bit disappointed that a handful of my favorite films of the year (Ides, Like Crazy, We Bought a Zoo, Drive, The Lincoln Lawyer) are all going to miss here, and their absence will lead to the first year in awhile where my favorite film of the year is not among the nominees for Best Picture.

Best Director

Michel Hazanvicius, The Artist

Alexander Payne, The Descendants

David Fincher, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Martin Scorsese, Hugo

Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris

Alternate: Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life

The "real" Best Picture nominees almost always end up landing in the director category as well, and it's hard to doubt the DGA nomination line-up, which I've replicated in my predictions above. Some pundits predict the Academy to recognize Malick for his massively ambitious undertaking in The Tree of Life, but I don't see a director slipping into this category without a Best Picture nomination. Fincher is the only remote question mark here, but if Dragon Tattoo gets in for Best Picture, it seems like a sure bet that he'll score here as well, especially since some Academy members may still be feeling some residual good will towards his direction for last year's The Social Network (which I still maintain should have won the category). Again, I must express puzzlement that Allen's work is likely to slip into this field, but it's a small gripe for what really is an impressive collection of films.

Best Actor

George Clooney, The Descendants

Jean Dujardin, The Artist

Michael Fassbender, Shame

Brad Pitt, Moneyball

Leonardo Dicaprio, J. Edgar

Alternates: Gary Oldman, Tinker, Tailor or Michael Shannon, Take Shelter

Should be here: Ryan Gosling, Drive or The Ides of March, Matt Damon, We Bought a Zoo

Here's a category poised for some surprises come tomorrow morning. Three of these gentlemen (Dujardin, Pitt and Clooney) are genuine locks, as they've shown up pretty much everywhere else (including the key SAG nomination). The other two slots are anything but locked, with two critically acclaimed portrayals from a pair of young actors in films that have remained in limited release and aren't likely to show up anywhere else in the nominations. Those performances, from Shannon and Fassbender, represent what many have ranked as the key performances of the year, in any category. Shannon has scored a surprise nod before (in 2008, when he was the lone representation for the very actor friendly Revolutionary Road), and is supposedly utterly fantastic, but have enough voters seen his performance for him to sneak into a field crowded with movie stars? And will Shame's difficult subject matter and NC-17 rating keep Fassbender, who's had one hell of a year, from being recognized? I expect one of those performances will make it, but not both, and I feel Fassbender has more buzz. Elsewhere, Leonardo Dicaprio, the lone survivor of a critical decimation of Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar, received a SAG nomination making him hard to count out, but the overall lukewarm response to the film could leave him out yet again. And Gary Oldman's subdued performance in Tinker, Tailor has been showing up on a lot of predictions lists, but I don't hear the buzz.

As for Gosling, he's set to be snubbed for the second year in a row, and Damon's ridiculously likable leading performance in We Bought a Zoo will be another in his long road to the Oscar that he will, I'm confident, someday win.

Best Actress

Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs

Viola Davis, The Help

Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin

Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

Alternate: Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon TattooShould be here: Felicity Jones, Like Crazy

Not much to say here, as the only one of those five that I've seen is Davis, who is fantastic and deserves the nomination (and ultimately, I think, the win). Still, Mara could easily slip into the field for her portrayal of what has become something of an iconic character in recent years. And Oscar will make its biggest mistake of the year in ignoring Felicity Jones' heartbreakingly real portrayal in Like Crazy, a performance that I still maintain is the best of the year in any category.

Best Supporting Actor

Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn

Albert Brooks, Drive

Jonah Hill, Moneyball

Nick Nolte, Warrior

Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Alternate: Brad Pitt, The Tree of Life

As much as I loved Moneyball, I haven't for a moment understood why Jonah Hill has gained such traction in this Awards season. His performance is perfectly fine and is obviously a step up from his previous work, but for him to be a more sure bet in this category than Nolte and Brooks, who were both fantastic, is a bit wrong. Trade Hill for Pitt and this is the best category of the night, though it's all completely irrelevant since this Oscar is firmly in the hands of the great, long overdue Christopher Plummer.

Best Supporting Actress

Berenice Bejo, The Artist

Jessica Chastain, The Help

Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids

Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs

Octavia Spencer, The Help

Alternate: Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

Should be here: Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life

Shailene Woodley is on the bubble here, which I find a bit ironic, since this is probably the one category where I feel very passionately that The Descendants should score a nomination. The two performances from The Help are pretty much locked, solidifying this category's recent trend of two supporting actresses from the same film showing up. Berenice Bejo is equally locked for a delightful supporting turn, and she is likely Spencer's only notable competition for the Oscar. McTeer and McCarthy both scored SAG nominations and Woodley didn't, so I may be sabotaging myself here, but I personally cannot see the Academy going for Bridesmaids, especially over a performance in a film that's probably in second in the Best Picture race. That said, a similar thing happened in the case of Andrew Garfield last year (snubbed for my favorite performance in The Social Network), whose lack of a SAG nomination indicated a lack of strong support, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the same thing will happen to Woodley. 

The Artist

 The Artist

Warner Bros. (France), 2011

Directed by Michel Hazanavicius

Starring: Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, Jon Goodman

Four stars

Immediately after walking out of The Artist, Michel Hazanavicius' gloriously executed love letter to the silent era of cinema, the first thing I said was: "well, that's the Best Picture winner." It's not necessarily because it's the best film of the year (though a strong argument could be made for just that), but because of the emotions it evoked inside of me, feelings that felt remarkably similar to those I experienced with films like The King's Speech and Slumdog Millionaire. That's because The Artist is, among many other things, an absolute crowd-pleaser. As the credits rolled at the end of the film, the audience (an almost sold-out crowd) erupted with applause, a smile on every face in the theater, and those things, combined with the fact that there is no legitimate competitor, make it an almost surefire winner. And why not? The Artist is a gorgeously, lovingly made film: heartwarming, saddening, jarring and funny in all the right places, and wonderfully acted, meticulously directed and strong in every technical field. It is such an enjoyable and enrapturing experience, in fact, that audiences will forget it's a silent film at all.

I personally have spent little time with silent cinema, but after seeing The Artist, I had to ask myself why that was. In this day and age, I think it has become difficult for many of us to wrap our heads around a film whose narrative revolves more around its score and the facial expressions and body language of its actors than it does around scripted lines (though, of course, lines do pop up on the screen, when necessary), but this is the same day and age where many films emphasize style and special effects over story anyway. Perhaps that's why something like The Artist feels so new and refreshing, even though it is, in reality, a return to a very old way of doing things. But even still, I don't think The Artist will win Best Picture solely because of the "silent gimmick," but because it is such an entertaining and well made film, with a story truly worth telling. If there is a gimmick here, it's that Hazanavicius creates the film as a complete love letter to cinema history (just like Scorsese did with Hugo, or, to a lesser extent, like Nicolas Winding Refn did with Drive, both of which had silent elements about them).

 

The performances, across the board, are strong as well, from Jean Dujardin as George Valentin a silent movie star displaced by the "talkie film" revolution, to Jon Goodman as his colorful producer, to Bérénice Bejo as Peppy Miller, the young actress who becomes the face of "talkie" cinema, and in doing so, essentially replaces Valentin. Dujardin and Bejo share a palpable chemistry built almost entirely on body language and expression, and watching their relationship form and change throughout the film is a marvel. Both actors deserve Academy Award nominations for their work here, and each has a chance to win, which I wouldn't mind at all, as both are fantastic. And then there's the scene stealing dog (how great is that?), who is so remarkable well trained that he colors every scene he's in, both joyful and dire, with a comic charm that would be impossible to recreate outside of the silent genre. The film is a technical tour-de-force as well, from it's striking black and white cinematography (there are more than a few instantly memorable shots throughout this film), pitch perfect film editing, and surprisingly, some truly brilliant sound work. The Artist is obviously notable for its silent aspects, but it's also worth noting that the film makes some of the best use of sound I've seen all year. A dream sequence early on, where Valentin is consumed by an explosion of noise, symbolizing the changing of the guard, is one of the most breathtaking cinematic experiences of the year, and could easily go down as one of my favorite scenes of the decade. While the thought of a silent film receiving a sound editing mention at the Oscars seems a bit absurd, it's worth noting that I have rarely been more struck by the instance of noise in a film. 

 

When The Artist wins the Best Picture Oscar (and I would be willing to place money on it winning), I certainly hope it is not written off as "the silent film," because even though it will be the first film of that qualification to win the Oscar since Wings (the first Best Picture, back in 1927), it really is so much more than that. It's a feast of filmmaking and performance prowess that is nearly unequaled this year, a refreshing change of pace and, at its heart, a wonderful story with well drawn characters. While I'm not sure if I would want to call it the best film of the year myself (there is still so much I need to see!), The Artist is easily one of the most notable films, this year or any other in recent memory, and I won't mind watching it dominate on Oscar night, whether it has a sweep, of sorts (Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actress, Film Editing, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction, Costume Design, Original Score and Make Up all seem to be possible/likely nominations, and it could win roughly half of those), or just walks away with a few prizes at the top. And if the world ends in December (damn you, Mayans!), I think it would be nicely fitting for the last Best Picture winner to be a return to the form of the first. Lolz.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Warner Bros Pictures, 2011

Directed by Guy Ritchie

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Jared Harris

Three stars

The first Sherlock Holmes film was a reasonably enjoyable, if relatively innocuous exercise in the action blockbuster genre, filling the void left when the original Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy concluded and giving the terrific Robert Downey Jr. another role he was practically born to play. Even though I've seen the film twice, I can't speak very definitively about the plot or the villain (it's definitely like the second two Pirates flicks, in that regard), but it hardly mattered, since Downey and co-star Jude Law were such a perfect match. Their infectious banter probably would have made for a better sitcom than it did for a feature length action film, and Rachel McAdams was probably underused, but whoever the hell wrote the script wisely made the Holmes/Watson relationship the center of the film, and as a result, I still rather enjoyed it, even if it will never be a favorite film of mine. It didn't hurt that the film was, across the board, very well made, from gorgeous art direction, to director Guy Ritchie's eye for enjoyable action set pieces, to an exhilarating score from Hans Zimmer (who is a master, in that regard).

 

The follow-up, subtitled as A Game of Shadows, is a more enjoyable film through and through, bringing back everything that made the first film good, and giving the entire team a better script to work with. Downey is as good as ever here, though it does feel like he has less to carry this time around, and he pretty much just gets to goof around the entire time as a result. And I'm once again surprised at how much I like Law, an actor I've never been a fan of, in the role of Dr. Watson. McAdams gets underused again (and gets written out early), with the central female role being filled by Noomi Rapace (from the original Dragon Tattoo films), who also gets...well, underused. Jared Harris steps in as Professor Moriarty, Holmes' archenemy, and he acquits himself quite well. I always felt like Lord Blackwood, the villain in the first Holmes film, was unspeakably dull and, despite his obviously villainous plan, quite unthreatening. Harris plays Moriarty with a slimy friendliness, masking a penchant for evil that only comes out a few times, but is striking when it does. 

What makes A Game of Shadows so much more fun than it's predecessor is that it really amps up its James Bond and Indiana Jones elements, creating a film that is more compelling from the first frame to the last. The screenplay's globetrotting sensibility moves the plot along nicely where the previous film, set completely in London, grew a bit stagnant, racing from scene to scene, action sequence to action sequence, always feeling lie the stakes are much higher this time around. The film is also considerably darker, helped especially by a shattering climax loosely based on Arthur Conon Doyle's The Final Problem, one of the most widely known (and most infamous) stories in the Sherlock Holmes canon. The reference adds a good deal of weight to the proceedings, and while the writers choose to resolve what could have been a terrific cliffhanger of a conclusion, the ending that they do give us is completely appropriate for this version of Holmes, and Downey, of course, revels in it. Despite the fact that he's pretty much been a blockbuster franchise poster boy for the past few years, Downey really is one of the most talented guys working today, and as much as I enjoy his work here and in films like Iron Man, I'm hoping that, once those obligations have settled down a bit, he'll take on some meatier roles. 

Overall, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is a pleasant surprise, the rare blockbuster sequel that really does improve upon its predecessor. The screenplay throws a few borderline examples of deus ex machina at us in the third act, but for a movie that embraces its serious and silly aspects about equally, the writers can be forgiven for that. I was skeptical about this film, but I enjoyed it immensely, and even if it's far from one of the year's best films, it's still a worthwhile piece of work, with plenty of talent on display. And I'll certainly be up for a part three, if the writers decide to veer closer to this film than to the first, and as long as they still have stories worth telling.

The Descendants

 The Descendants

Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2011

Directed by Alexander Payne

Starring: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Beau Bridges

Three stars

When I first saw the trailer for The Descendants, it immediately jumped to the top of my most anticipated films for 2011. It looked like a great mix of comedy and drama, with the always likable George Clooney at the center, and also the return of acclaimed director Alexander Payne, who made Sideways back in 2004, one of the mid-00s Best Picture nominees that I never got around to seeing.  In many ways, The Descendants brought back memories of two years ago and Jason Reitman's Up in the Air, another dramedy which also featured Clooney as a workaholic man re-examining his life after a big wake up call. That film, which, along with my recent topics of We Bought a Zoo and The Lord of the Rings, sits happily on the list of movies I first saw on Christmas Eve, and it ended up being my third favorite film in what I thought was a terrific year. I also think Clooney gave one of his very best lead performances in that film (second only, probably, to his terrificly explosive turn in 2007's Michael Clayton, which wins on the strength of its final scene alone). Unfortunately, The Descendants doesn't quite live up to either of those films, but there's still a lot to enjoy here, and I can certainly see why it's getting so much awards attention, even if I don't particularly agree with much of it.

The Descendants centers around a Hawaiian man named Matt King (Clooney), whose wife, Elizabeth, ends up in a terminal coma after a severe boating accident. It's only after he is given the news that his wife is never going to wake up that his daughter reveals she was cheating on him, leaving him with a complex web of emotions to fight through, as well as delivering a harsh wake up call as to what his life has become in paradise. King is torn between love for the woman he's been married to for 20-some years and rage that she could betray him in such a way, and Clooney executes both (and everything in between) with the nuance and skill of the true professional he is. Clooney, naturally, has some rage-filled moments, which he has always been great at playing, but there are some strikingly tender ones as well, and those are the moments that resonated me the most in this film. There has been talk amongst Oscar experts that this may be Clooney's year in the Best Actor category (he already won Supporting Actor, for Syriana in 2005), and I really wouldn't mind seeing him take it home: he's a bonafide movie star, a likable guy and easily the best thing about this film. While I would rather have seen him win for Up in the Air (he lost to Jeff Bridges) or Michael Clayton (he lost to Daniel Day Lewis), his work here is certainly among the best performances of the year.

Also notable is Shailene Woodley, who plays one of King's daughters, and serves as the perfect foil for Clooney. The younger daughter is nothing but a nuisance for most of the film, but Woodley brings life and depth to Alex, the one who caught her mother cheating and the one who reveals the information to her father. Woodley, whose only real credit up to this point is as the lead character on ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager (which, I can only assume, is one of those semi-trashy teen soap operas), gives a terrific performance here, and is probably a lock for an Oscar nomination at this point, proving that sometimes, talent can blossom in some pretty unlikely places. Unfortunately, Alex comes with Sid, her pseudo-boyfriend figure, who hangs around for the entire film for seemingly no purpose other than to inject some extremely misguided and misplaced comic relief into the proceedings. His presence is almost justified, though, in a scene where he and Clooney share a late-night conversation in a hotel room. The scene is brilliant, funny and tender, and represents my main problem with this screenplay: it's inconsistent. Sometimes the film is everything this scene is, other times it drags, leaving a film that feels both compelling and overlong, moving at times, and strangely hollow at others. It's a feeling that I can't explain entirely, but I was never completely emotionally invested in these characters, so what's supposed to be the big emotional "pay-off" at the end didn't really strike me like it should have.  

 

One of the Oscar bloggers I follow has always said that a Best Picture winner should be universal, that you could sit anyone down in front of that film and they would get it. The past three years have seen three extremely emotionally resonant films take the top prize (The King's Speech, The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire), and while many (myself included) would rather have seen David Fincher's masterful The Social Network triumph last year, or James Cameron's landmark Avatar take the prize the year before (I was pulling for Inglourious Basterds that year, but I do believe that The Hurt Locker was the best film), and some will still tell you that Christopher Nolan's work on The Dark Knight should have merited a nomination and a win three years back, but the films that ultimately won had involving, emotional climaxes that were borderline impossible not to feel. In that way, I don't think The Descendants can win, because unlike those three winners, I just didn't get it. And the potential was there too: I really expected to leave the theater feeling both viscerally moved and emotionally satisfied, the way I felt with the past three Best Picture winners, but I think the screenplay misses. Ultimately, The Descendants is a good film, not a great one. Clooney is terrific, as usual, but he made a better film himself this past year with The Ides of March, and I would much rather see that film be awarded, even as it becomes increasingly unlikely that it will be. Yet, despite its flaws, The Descendants still works, and it's the onscreen dynamic between Clooney and Woodley that does it. As the two search for the man Elizabeth was "seeing," they form a tangible bond that really gives the film it's heartbeat. Irritating peripheral characters and screenplay inconsistencies aside, that relationship is the thing about this film I will remember the most, and if Oscar does choose to award this film, I hope it's for those two performances, without which it couldn't possibly work. And if Gosling can't win this year, Clooney is more than a worthy stand-in.