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Award Season '09: Oscar Buzz
Atomika
Live fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered User regular
Live fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered User regular
It's just one month until the cut-off date for movies' consideration by the Academy, and the year is shaping up somewhat disappointingly. In the first year of the newly-expanded "Best Picture" category, many pundits are standing around scratching their heads, wondering if ten good films were released all year long.
So what's your picks for "Best ________?" Let's use this thread as a flimsy pretense to hurl invective at each other based on nothing more than personal opinion! I'll start:
Best Performances:
Maya Rudolph - Away We Go
Billy Crudup - Watchmen
Robert Downey, Jr - The Soloist
Michael Caine - Is Anybody There?
Mark Ruffalo - Bros. Bloom
Rachel Weiss - Bros. Bloom
Sam Rockwell - Moon
Johnny Depp - Public Enemies
Zoe Deschanel - 500 Days of Summer
Adam Sandler - Funny People
Leslie Mann - Funny People
Meryl Streep - Julie & Julia
Sasha Grey - The Girlfriend Experience
Christoph Waltz - Inglorious Basterds
Brad Pitt - Inglorious Basterds
Diana Kruger - Inglorious Basterds
Michael Fassbender - Inglorious Basterds
Patton Oswalt - Big Fan
Matt Damon - The Informant
Peter Sarsgaard - An Education
Carey Mulligan - An Education
Michael Stuhlbarg - A Serious Man
Charlotte Gainesborg - Antichrist
Monique - Precious
Best Picture:
The Brothers Bloom
Away We Go
Moon
500 Days of Summer
In the Loop
Funny People
Inglorious Basterds
A Serious Man
An Education
Where the Wild Things Are
Antichrist
Precious
Best Animated Feature:
Up
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Coraline
9
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
Naturally, that list may evolve as December (and thanks to expanding release schedules, January and February) gets the typical cream-of-the-crop of the award season. There are no fewer than eight Oscar-bait pics coming out in the last month of 2009, with the most buzz going toward Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (starring George Clooney and Jason Bateman) and Clint Eastwood's Invictus (starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon). Freeman seems especially poised for nomination, due to past considerations and his playing of the iconic Nelson Mandela. Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, Tom Ford's A Single Man, and Rob Marshall's Nine all look to vie for honors, as well.
As well, given the strange nature of the voting this year could show, a handful of mass-appeal pics have a better than average chance at seeing a "best picture" nod, with Star Trek, District 9, Taken, The Hangover, and possibly Avatar all having dark-horse berths in the race.
So what's your picks for "Best ________?" Let's use this thread as a flimsy pretense to hurl invective at each other based on nothing more than personal opinion! I'll start:
Best Performances:
Maya Rudolph - Away We Go
Billy Crudup - Watchmen
Robert Downey, Jr - The Soloist
Michael Caine - Is Anybody There?
Mark Ruffalo - Bros. Bloom
Rachel Weiss - Bros. Bloom
Sam Rockwell - Moon
Johnny Depp - Public Enemies
Zoe Deschanel - 500 Days of Summer
Adam Sandler - Funny People
Leslie Mann - Funny People
Meryl Streep - Julie & Julia
Sasha Grey - The Girlfriend Experience
Christoph Waltz - Inglorious Basterds
Brad Pitt - Inglorious Basterds
Diana Kruger - Inglorious Basterds
Michael Fassbender - Inglorious Basterds
Patton Oswalt - Big Fan
Matt Damon - The Informant
Peter Sarsgaard - An Education
Carey Mulligan - An Education
Michael Stuhlbarg - A Serious Man
Charlotte Gainesborg - Antichrist
Monique - Precious
Best Picture:
The Brothers Bloom
Away We Go
Moon
500 Days of Summer
In the Loop
Funny People
Inglorious Basterds
A Serious Man
An Education
Where the Wild Things Are
Antichrist
Precious
Best Animated Feature:
Up
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Coraline
9
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
Naturally, that list may evolve as December (and thanks to expanding release schedules, January and February) gets the typical cream-of-the-crop of the award season. There are no fewer than eight Oscar-bait pics coming out in the last month of 2009, with the most buzz going toward Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (starring George Clooney and Jason Bateman) and Clint Eastwood's Invictus (starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon). Freeman seems especially poised for nomination, due to past considerations and his playing of the iconic Nelson Mandela. Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, Tom Ford's A Single Man, and Rob Marshall's Nine all look to vie for honors, as well.
As well, given the strange nature of the voting this year could show, a handful of mass-appeal pics have a better than average chance at seeing a "best picture" nod, with Star Trek, District 9, Taken, The Hangover, and possibly Avatar all having dark-horse berths in the race.
Atomika on
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That just feels wrong.
With ten Best Picture slots, I suspect that one of the animated films - probably Up, Coraline or The Secret of Kells - may get a nod, to try and satisfy the crowd that think the Academy are backwards thinking when it comes to animation. I doubt it would win, though.
Oh, and I'd add Jackie Earl Haley as Rorschach to the Best Actor list, because I feel he successfully conveyed Rorschach as he was in the comic.
Yeah, it's best that we don't usually see the list of submissions, lest we think the studios completely detached from reality.
On that note, The Hangover has actually been formally submitted to the Academy. Though, in my mind, that's not nearly as egregious as Warners submitting Brandon Routh for best actor in Superman Returns.
EDIT: Here's a link to all the submitted animated features. I'm surprised Disney, with Up, A Christmas Carol, Ponyo, and The Princess & The Frog already representing the Mouse House, went for broke and submitted the nearly-direct-to-dvd Tinkerbell & The Lost Treasure. That takes some serious balls. Or greed.
Wait, isn't Christmas Carol ineligable because a lot of it is motion captured?
Apparently that doesn't matter. It'll be interesting to see in the coming years where Hollywood decides to place captured performances. I mean, should Andy Serkis be automatically disqualified from awards when The Hobbit comes out in 2011, just because it's not his body we see?
It was my understanding, as a result of the Happy Feet/Cars shitstorm, that films that relied primarily on Motion Capture for their animation would be barred from consideration for the Best Animated Film category.
Some of the Best Actor/Actress bits there will probably see some light though, notably Christoph Waltz who I think so far has a solid shot at actually winning Best Supporting. I'd like to see Billy Crudup nominated but that probably won't happen, even if TDK last year paved the way a little bit for something like it. Monique will probably see a nomination too no matter the quality of her performance. A handful of those could be dismissed pretty much outright though, like Maya Rudolph, RDJ (god bless him though), both listed from Brothers Bloom, Sam Rockwell (though he is one of my favorite burgeoning actors right now and I liked him in Moon), Zooey Deschanel, both from Funny People, and Charlotte Gainsborg. Sasha Grey was also pretty abysmal in The GF Experience, though who knows where that could go simply because of the other factors (her being a porn star, the super quick and cheap production) but still extremely unlikely I'd say.
That said, among the Oscar bait due out in December I'm really looking forward to Nine, because I am a whore for some Daniel Day-Lewis. (Although I have a feeling the movie has exactly one too many Fergies for me to not find annoying.)
Gran Torino was really good and so I'm expecting greatness from Invictus.
Also, the Hurt Locker was pretty damn good, it would be a shame if it (and it's actors) didn't win anything.
I've got a feeling Pixar doesn't have this one wrapped up like they usually do. There's a large grassroots movement supporting Coraline, and the best animated feature I saw this year was The Fantastic Mr. Fox.
For me, Up was just a tad too much of standard Pixar quality, which isn't to say it wasn't good, it was just a bit too samey.
Aww, no love for The Secret of Kells.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFhd8RfCqVg
If Up loses, I'm fine with that, because there has been a good spread of animated films this year. Basically the [strike]genre[/strike] medium wins either way.
District 9 I'm torn over. It was such a good premise and the technical execution was flawless, but I consider it one of the biggest wasted opportunities I've ever seen. Right when the story could have turned incredibly touching and interesting (thereby wandering into Oscar land), it instead decided to be all about action and guns and explosions and giant robot exoskeletons. Whatever.
I don't care for this line of thinking. If someone manages to consistently be the best example of the nomination category year after year, then they should be given the award year after year. I know it's hard with our human frailties and all, but the nominees of a category should ideally be weighed up against each other and nothing else. Anything the nominees have won or not in past years should be completely irrelevant.
Of course, I'm not optimistic that anyone could think like that.
This looks kind of amazing
Yeah, so far it's only come out in Europe. I think there'll be a week long screening in Los Angeles at Christmas, and someone's agreed to distribute it on DVD some time next year.
Boom
Not only was he fucking incredible in that movie
He was fucking incredible in 4 different languages
Uh-oh I accidentally deleted my signature. Uh-oh!!
As much as I would have appreciated them taking a less obvious direction, I felt it did action better on a fraction of the budget of most large scale productions. Which isn't to say that "look, it was good and cheap, reward them!", but I guess I found the situation still compelling and enjoyable, even if it didn't live up to what full potential it might've had.
But I suppose that unless the academy is feeling overly generous, it's probably doomed to the technical awards that most people seem to barely give a shit about.
Agreed.
I would be shocked if The Hurt Locker didn't win all sorts of awards.
Okay, that was pretty cool. It's just that I never even heard of this movie until this thread. Honestly, if it was possible, I'd wait until next year to release the film here. The animation competition should be much less fierce then. As it stands, even ignoring the Up/Coraline/Fox/possible Princess rush, Kells will be competing in the "weird foreigny animated movie" category with Ponyo, and Miyazaki is tough to beat.
Oh, and I completely agree with District 9. It deserves one of the "bonus" Best Picture noms as much as anybody.
Nah, I'd say TFMF was far better done. But then again I’m a big Wes Anderson fan and find that Pixar are just way too saccharine a lot of the time.
I take exception to Unknown Saint's idea that Moon will definitely not be nominated. In fact, I think opening the BP nominees up to 10 almost guarantees the film will get a look. Not only was it beloved by critics, but the people behind the movie are very well liked and respected within Hollywood itself. It's a very comfy underdog to root for if you're in the business. It also greatly helps Brothers Bloom. District 9 will also have an outside chance of making the beauty pageant. I wouldn't count out The Informant! or Away We Go, either.
Up is a lock for Best Picture nom. With 10 films? Easy. Star Trek? Not so easy, but considering the field is opened up so wide specifically so that the televised program can have more clips from recognizable summer crowd pleasers outside of the SFX and Editing categories? I wouldn't be surprised to see it in there.
What I'm guessing it'll look like:
Up
Inglorious Basterds
Up in the Air
An Education
Precious
Moon
The Hurt Locker
A Serious Man
Nine
Star Trek
I figure the 10th slot will be reserved for the blockbuster that doesn't really have a prayer of winning. Star Trek has a tremendous amount of goodwill, but could easily be replaced by Avatar, should Cameron managed to duck significant backlash. Nine is there because the Academy fucking loves Rob Marshall.
The Best Director guesses are going to be a little more complicated - so far as I know, that's still only 5 slots. And since the Director noms are going to be even more of an indicator of who actually has a shot at the thing, that's the category that's more interesting. Although if I remember correctly, the link between Best Editing and Best Picture is much tighter.
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Edit: Apparently he improvised all his dialogue during the eviction scenes? Wow.
And I didnt even really like Inglorious Basterds and the Nazi villain deserves an oscar, he was fucking awesome, he saved the film.
Oh snap, I completely forgot they were expanding the number of nominations. That loosens up the standards a bit, but I still strongly doubt Moon will make it up there. I pretty much stand by that for Star Trek as well, as much as I enjoyed it. Then again like you said, the ten nominations changes things - perhaps in the future we're going to see a lot more nominations for flicks that people enjoyed and wanted to recognize, even if they have no intention of making that movie a winner. (e.g. I can practically guarantee The Dark Knight would have seen a nomination last year if there were ten spots available.)
I am betting at least four of the ten slots are going to movies that have yet to come out, a lot of the lists here aren't accounting for that too much. (Rightfully so, considering it's a lot tougher to predict the success of movies you haven't even seen yet.)
The Hurt Locker had better get nominated for something, though.
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How so, exactly?
It was easily the best action film of the Summer. What expectations did you possibly have to set too high?
It seems that the biggest reason for downing the film was "You got your Rambo in my Zoidbergs List".
Maybe he wanted to see more Prawns hiding in toilets.
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Yet the success of Inglorious Basterds proves that all people really just wanted was Nazis taking machine guns to the face. Go fig.
Plus, the action wasn't even that great.
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Well this is just wrong.
The movie wasn't bad. The action wasn't bad. It just wasn't great and certainly not worthy of an Oscar nomination.
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To me, the biggest problem with the film wasn't the final 3rd, it was the antagonist's propensity for monologuing like Syndrome. Seriously, there's like 4 or 5 moments in the film where that South African Randy Couture guy is menacingly pointing his gun and drawing out his sentences longer than Frank N. Furter, and that gives the plot just enough time to catch up and either kick him in the head, or knock his gun out of the way, or send a spaceship up just 3 feet away from him. Plus the Nigerian gang subplot is necessary to the resolution, but it was implemented pretty unevenly.
Those are pretty minor complaints against the movie, though. It's interesting to see that the major complaint seems to center around that final act.
Regardless, though, it's an outside shot for making that 10 picture beauty pageant. I don't think it'll make it.
For comparison's sake, the internet's earliest and most consistently adjusted prediction site: David Poland's blog, Movie City News' Awards Watch: http://www.moviecitynews.com/awards/awards_central.html
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It's a shame that Viggo Mortensen didn't win for Eastern Promises, but the Best Actor competition that year was brutal. George Clooney, Daniel Day-Lewis, Johnny Depp, Tommy Lee Jones . . . ? 2007 was a spectacular year for movies.
Or it's just an ambiguous ending, which is honestly the perfect way to end a film like District 9.
Now if they do a sequel, I'll be pissed, because no sequel could be good enough to justify retroactively ruining that ending.