Completely pointless and fun Oscar predictions

I don’t know why I’m possessed to do these right now, but why the hell not? If I’m wrong, I’ll shake it off and say “these were just fun” but if I’m right on any of ‘em, I’ll say “told you so!”

Best Supporting Actress

Mo’Nique in Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire

Mo’Nique’s kinda had this in the bag all year since the film debuted at Sundance. Until a month or so ago, the buzz was there with hesitation, but now that people are seeing the movie and confirming that she is, in fact, the shit, she’s got this, hands down.

Stiff competition:

Julianne Moore in A Single Man

Other competition:

Saoirse Ronan in The Lovely Bones if they push her as supporting for what is likely a lead role.

Susan Sarandon in The Lovely Bones

Any of the Nine girls: Penélope Cruz will likely end up here with Kate Hudson and Judi Dench other possibilities, depending on how strongly the film catches on.

Anna Kendrick in Up in the Air, depending on how much critical praise and how many awards she can sneak from her stiffer competition.

Best Supporting Actor:

Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds

This category’s kinda up in the air at this point. Waltz has had the most buzz so far and I think he’s pretty much a lock for at least a nomination. Whether he wins or not remains unseen, but if they’re going to honor the film (and I think the Academy will want to), they can do it here.

Stiff competition:

Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones. Like Waltz, if the Academy wants to honor The Lovely Bones somehow, I think they’re most likely to honor Tucci’s performance. He’s one of those “past due” actors and if the movie catches, he’ll likely be the one to get the awards bling.

Other competition:

Any number of actors. Perhaps some Alfred Molina in An Education, perhaps someone from Clint Eastwood’s Invictus, perhaps someone from Avatar if that film gets critical kudos, perhaps someone from The Last Station. ::shrugs::

Best Actress:

Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe in Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire

This one’s gonna be a tough one to call. It will likely come down to Sidibe, Meryl Streep, and Carey Mulligan. A lot of how this race will play out is going to depend on how critical kudos get doled out, but all three are pretty much locks for nominations. Mulligan’s lost steam and she needs a critical push if she wants to eek out a win, and Streep is Streep, so she’s fine. Precious is likely going to become the steamroller movie of the season, I think, and Sidibe is a large part of the film’s success (I get to see it Wednesday night and am beyond excited). It’s a tough race right now, but it’s also only late October. Don’t hold me to this if I’m wrong – Sidibe has a lot going against her: she’s young, she’s a newcomer, and she’s black. All things the Academy shies away from in this category, but hey, stranger things have happened, and if the movie and the performance click like I think they will, we could see her a big winner.

Stiff competition:

Meryl Streep in Julie & Julia

Carey Mulligan in An Education

Other competition:

It doesn’t really matter. One of these three will win. I’ll say it here, though: Marion Cotillard will be pushed as lead actress in the Oscar race for Nine and I wouldn’t be surprised to see her nominated here.

Best Actor:

Colin Firth in A Single Man

A Single Man got picked up by The Weinstein Company, and they’re notoriously pushy in their Oscar campaigns, and Firth has already been winning mantle bling for his role here. He’s the safest bet right now.

Stiff competition:

No one yet. Depends who rises to the top.

Other competition:

James McAvoy in The Last Station

George Clooney in Up in the Air – he’ll likely get a nomination, but we’ll see if he has a shot at winning.

Best Director:

Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker

At this point, I’m banking on The Hurt Locker and Precious fighting it out for the bulk of major prizes. While predicting Bigelow here is risky (women just don’t win Oscars for directing), I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened. It’s a long shot, but it’s what I’m going with – at this point, I don’t see both films winning both director and picture, so I’m splitting the vote.

Stiff competition:

Lee Daniels for Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire

Jason Reitman for Up in the Air – I see the movie being too straightforward “prestige” and “adult drama” and “look at the acting” and “look at the emotional moments” to catch on for a whole lot of wins. Reitman’ll win eventually, but I think he’s got bigger competition elsewhere.

Other competition:

Clint Eastwood if Invictus gains traction.

Rob Marshall if Nine gets traction beyond the actors and technical nods.

Best Picture:

Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire

I have no doubt about the acting recognition this film will likely receive, and I think that especially with ten nominees this year, it’s a lock for a nomination. The reason I think it’ll win (at least at this point in the race) is because I just can’t see anything else having the same combination of acting prowess, audience approval, and emotional impact. If Avatar really does turn into the next Titanic, I think it’ll be appreciated-not-loved. An Education is too small a film to make a huge impact. Nine is too similar to Chicago to duplicate that film’s Oscar successes. Up in the Air is similarly too polished and calculated to generate a lot of wins – plenty of nominations, yes, but few wins, I think.

Stiff competition:

The Hurt Locker

The Lovely Bones if it doesn’t suck.

Up in the Air

Other competition:

An Education – this’ll have to get some critical love at the end of the year to edge out a Best Picture nomination.

Up – likely to be nominated, but doomed to lose, I think. If they wouldn’t nominate WALL•E, I’ll doubt they’ll give Up the win.

Bening vs. Swank again?!

I just read an early rave of Mother and Child from Toronto, the viewer saying it’s got Oscar-bait written all over it and that Annette Bening is amazing in it.

So if the film gets picked up for distribution by the end of the year and Hilary Swank’s Amelia turns into the awards-bait it looks like, might we have a Swank/Bening showdown again? Oscar enthusiasts will remember that Swank narrowly beat Bening in 1999 and that Bening was Swank’s close competition in 2004 when Swank won for Million Dollar Baby. It has been five years, so I guess we’re due.

Though my money’s on Carey Mulligan. It has been since her buzz out of Sundance at the beginning of the year.

Snapshot: Eyes Wide Shut

I do love you. And you know… there is something very important that we need to do as soon as possible.

What’s that?

Just finished Eyes Wide Shut, which I’ve been re-watching in chunks on Netflix Instant Queue for months now. It’s such an interesting movie.

Movie Moment: Fired Up (2009)

Given the reviews for Fired Up, you’d think it’s a total trainwreck. Having now seen it, I must say that anyone who hated it has no sense of humor. I mean, of course it’s fluff – it’s about two high school football players who go to cheer camp to score with girls. But as my roommate and I decided, it’s kind of a borderline parody of all these cheerleading movies. There’s a scene where the entire cheer camp watches Bring it On and everyone at the camp enthusiastically talks along with the dialogue word-for-word. Funny stuff, while also totally acknowledging that this is basically every other cheerleading movie you’ve seen.

Basically, there are only about 5% of the jokes that aren’t funny, and everyone and every aspect of the film is at least twice as good as you’d expect. If you just roll with the fact that it’s fluff and that it’s got a predictable storyline, it’s a really good time. Totally funny one-liners, surprisingly strong chemistry from the cast, and just all-around a surprisingly decent film. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called it “a kind of dumb but also kind of smart-about-being-dumb comedy.” Spot-on. B

Movie Revisit: Synecdoche, New York (2008)

I promised in my original review to revisit this film on DVD and I had the chance to catch it again. It’s still kind of all over the map a bit, but knowing what to expect going in this time around allowed for a more nuanced viewing and there’s a lot of stuff going on beneath the surface, as well as right there on the surface with this film. It’s full of ideas, full of a love for the possibility of film as a medium, so credit for Charlie Kaufman there. The cast is a magnificent group of actresses supporting a wonderful lead turn from Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the film provides several striking visuals.

My main point of admiration for the film, as well as my main frustration is that the film feels like you need a decoder ring or a cipher to piece the film together. It was kind of like Mulholland Drive (one of my very favorite films of all time) where you could spend days piecing the film together and coming up with some sort of thesis. Whereas David Lynch would probably have an unspecific answer for what Mulholland Drive actually means, I think Kaufman knows exactly what he’s doing here with Synecdoche, which is probably why I find the complexity and obfuscation in Mulholland Drive more interesting than here. Mulholland Drive is open for interpretation, whereas Synecdoche invites interpretation but with a definitive correct interpretation, something that equals slight frustration for me.

It’s still an incredibly interesting film, something that won’t get boring upon repeat viewings. And there are so very few of those films around these days. B+

Movie Moment: Gray Matters (2007)

Ooh… this one’s gonna be rough, guys. This went straight-to-DVD (I think – if it didn’t, it got dumped in LA/NY theaters then yanked after a week or two) and it shows. Heather Graham and Tom Cavanagh play siblings who are like Will & Grace in their co-dependency but with the gay reversed – turns out Graham is a lesbian, which she slowly discovers over the course of the film after a drunken make-out with Cavanagh’s fiancée (played by Bridget Moynahan).

Potentially interesting premise, yes? Of course. However, writer-director Sue Kramer, in her first feature, can’t milk an ounce of verisimilitude out of this film. Every single moment in the screenplay rings of contrivance and plot necessity, from the quickee Vegas marriage that Cavanagh and Moynahan get after only knowing each other a week to Graham’s wacky therapist (Sissy Spacek, clearly in this film because she lost a bet) holding therapy sessions at random venues, let alone the therapist character itself, who doesn’t behave in any manner remotely close to an actual therapist. For example: I doubt therapists react to their mid-30s client’s coming out of the closet with an emphatic “YOU’RE NOT GAY.” Ugh. Even the stuff that does work just seems rehashed from stuff we’ve seen before. Graham’s character, for example, has a trait straight from Sally Albright in When Harry Met Sally…: the complicated and specific orders when eating out was cute and charming on Sally, here it feels rote, regardless of how well Graham tries to sell it.

It’s all just depressing, mainly because Graham and Cavanagh are kind of good in the movie. You can see them trying hard to sell the horrible screenplay, and they’re wholly believable as the co-dependent siblings. I spent a lot of my time watching this wishing that they had been in a better movie together.

This is just another in a long chain of disappointing gay-themed films. When the Precious trailer came out (which you should all totally watch, by the way), a blog I read mentioned how rare it is to find good films made about realistic black characters, and the same is totally true of homosexuality in film. Yes, there are progressive portrayals of gay characters and great films that deal with homosexuality, but there are so few films that are about homosexuality, like this film. What an interesting premise we have here, dealing with a woman who realizes at her sexual peak that she has been playing for the wrong team (to borrow a horribly overused analogy). Pair this with an interesting brother/sister dynamic and this should have been a great launching pad for an interesting film. Alas, we’re left with odd stereotypes, a handful of jokes that land, and two charismatic leads flailing around for something to do. A real disappointment. D+

Movie Moment: The Prestige (2006), knowing the twist

I had the twist for The Prestige ruined for me. Thus, the movie was ruined.

Part of me doesn’t want to fault the film for this, of course, but I’m reminded of a film like Matchstick Men where even though there’s a HUGE twist at the end, the film still offers something upon subsequent viewings. With The Prestige, knowing the twist took away anything to glean from the film. It’s 130 minutes and felt about twice as long, and the film is paced and structured so oddly that it was kind of needlessly confusing.

There’s some really lovely cinematography, though, and the acting is uniformly solid (less so from ScarJo, but she’s still alright), but honestly, when the only thing a film has to offer is a twist at the end, well… knowing that twist going in kind of sucks the fun out of the movie, yes? I have to ultimately grade this a C-, though I’ll never know what I might have thought going into this knowing nothing.

Trailer: Precious

Holy shit, guys. At the very least, Precious boasts an amazingly effective trailer (click the pic above to head over to Trailer Addict to have a look). Other notes:
–Mo’Nique apparently has Oscar buzz for this from people who’ve seen it (at Sundance and other venues). The trailer doesn’t disappoint – looks like a meaty role and she looks credible. Good on her after slumming in Phat Girlz and Soul Plane. ::shudders::
–Mariah Carey looks to FINALLY have an acting role that she can deliver on. Looks like she has a smallish role as a welfare office counselor, and as is usually the case with these deglam roles, it feels a bit like “LOOK AT MARIAH CAREY STRIP OFF ALL THE GLAMOUR AND BE REAL Y’ALL” but she looks good. At the very least, I doubt she’ll embarrass herself.
–Finally: HOLY SHIT this looks intense. Jesus Christ, y’all. I was at a near Dancer in the Dark level of tears by the end of this thing.

Just watch the trailer, everyone. Great trailers can be made from bad movies, of course, but I tend to think that emotionally-effective films are the only ones that can warrant emotionally-effective trailers. This can only bode well for the film’s Oscar chances next year.

Star Trek in a nutshell

It was basically everything the Star Wars prequels could’ve ever dreamed of being. And it was damn good. Full review soon on WBW, but… just wow. A whole lot to really really like (and every cast member was like… super hot omgz).

“I have thoughts!”

The trailer for Julie and Julia has been making its way around. Is it just me or does Meryl Streep look like she’s gonna be kind of either brilliant or insufferable? I get an iffy vibe from her in the trailer, but I’m sure the film is cute. (And for the record: Meryl Streep can do no wrong, so if it her performance is wonky, it’ll all be Nora Ephron’s fault.)