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| The Wolf of Wall Street |
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| American Hustle |
The Golden Globes will play an early round of face offs,
since Hustle and Wolf are both late entries in the “Comedy” and Musical category and
are drawing considerable likeness and comparison. Drama, on the other hand,
offers the first big face-off between 12 Years a Slave and Gravity. Slave has fared well so far with minor
critics’ prizes like Boston
and two big critical wins: Best Director at New York for Steve McQueen and Best
Supporting Actress at LA for Lupita Nyong’o. Gravity topped the LA critics’ prizes in a tie with Spike Jonze’s Her, which will compete against Hustle
and Wolf in the comedy category. Her was a surprise winner at the National Board of Review awards, so the Globes will be the first sign whether this
quirky comedy has legs beyond critics.
This week’s set of nominations could be really interesting,
though, since The Wolf of Wall Street
is drawing major Best Picture buzz and similar murmurings for Leonardo
DiCaprio, yet it might not be endorsed by the actors. Wolf’s lengthy editing job and post-production is rumoured to have
delayed the film so much that, as Kris Tapley reports, SAG voters were not able to see it. The same
thing happened last year with DiCaprio’s Django
Unchained. Nevertheless, Leo’s co-star Christoph Waltz managed to scoop
both the Oscar and the Golden Globe without SAG’s stamp. Wolf’s potential absence in half of this week’s nominations could
therefore give a cloudy look at consensus, since the votes from both groups
don’t reflect the same viewing opportunities.
(UPDATE: Wolf did indeed screen for SAG's nominating committee, according to Variety.)
(UPDATE: Wolf did indeed screen for SAG's nominating committee, according to Variety.)
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| Labor Day |
The last minute-scramble with Wolf has also had the unfortunate side effect of Paramount virtually
discarding Labor Day in the awards
race, as they restricted its Christmas Day release to make more room for Wolf and will open it wide in late
January. But it’s been wholly absent for a film seemed to have potential, especially
for Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin, and Jason Reitman in the weak Best Adapted
Screenplay race. Paramount’s been doing double-duty with Wolf and their indie gem Nebraska,
so their abandonment of Labor Day is good
example for how some distributors need to spread their strong dramatic films
around the fall season, rather than cram everything into one busy glut from in
December. Labor Day could benefit from the upcoming SAG and Golden Globe votes, but
word from fellow OFCS members is that they’re “just doing Nebraska and Wolf of Wall
Street,” so appearances in these nominations seem unlikely. I'm very disappointed that this film might not get the recognition it deserves.
The other films that could move up or down this week are Blue Jasmine, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, Captain Phillips, and August: Osage County. All
four are actors’ showpieces and could easily find themselves in a situation
where an acknowledgment for a single performance encompasses kudos for a film
overall (see: Monster, The Last King of Scotland, or even Lincoln if we’re strictly talking wins).
Alternatively, it could be a case where hype for a performance pulls a film
into the Best Picture race or helps a film find the attention it deserves (see:
The Blind Side for the former, Black Swan for the latter). Cate
Blanchett and Blue Jasmine are
sitting prettiest, since Cate looks to be the only consensus so far in the
scant critical gongs. (She won NY and Boston, and tied in LA with Adèle
Exarchopoulos.) The Golden Globes tend to favour Woody Allen, though—they
nominated and/or awarded Midnight in
Paris; Vicki, Cristina, Barcelona
and Match Point in recent years—so
Woody can probably count on a few more citations he doesn’t care about.
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| Lee Daniels` The Butler |
As for the other films: Captain
Phillips seems to be losing steam badly. (Is it because people finally
watched their FYC screeners of A
Hijacking and realized it’s so much better?) The Greengrass film seemed
with a sure thing across the top categories weeks ago, but Wolf (and to some extent Hustle)
probably makes an overlap in tastes. Tom Hanks could easily be squeezed out of
the Best Actor race by DiCaprio, as could Forest Whitaker for The Butler. The Butler might have to rely on the Oprah train come Oscar time, but
Captain Phillips and The Butler are arguably the biggest
“Globes movies” of the Oscar race: namely, they’re mainstream audience fodder
with plenty of big stars, which garners the Globes the attention they need to
have any merit in the first place. If the Cap’n and the butler don’t appear in
either the Best Film or Best Actor line-up, I’d start changing my bets.
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| August: Osage County |
The SAG awards, meanwhile, could offer the biggest boost to August: Osage County. August seemed like a mild favourite for
the “Comedy” Golden Globe before Wolf and
Hustle revealed themselves not to be
dramas, yet it might not net more than an inevitable win for Meryl Streep. The
cast of August, on the other hand,
could easily fill a single category in the supporting ballots, so it could be a
favourite for the top prize of Best Ensemble at the SAGs. One would have to go
all the way back to 1996’s The Birdcage
to find a SAG winner that wasn’t a Best Picture nominee at the Oscars as well,
and given that the film has been screening more favourably in a tightened
version than in the original cut that played the festival circuit, it could
disprove the folks who wrote it off in September. The same goes for festival
hit Prisoners, which could become a
dark horse or a lame horse if the actors go for its strong cast.
We’ll have a (somewhat) clearer idea come Wednesday and
Thursday. We could just as easily get some big surprises, like last year’s
one-two punch of Nicole Kidman’s nominations for The Paperboy, which were pleasant surprises to some. And there’s
always the Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
or The Tourist oddities to count on:
what will be the random choice from the Globes this year?
Without further ado, here are some Golden Globe and SAG
predictions, plus a link to updated Oscar picks at the bottom:
Golden Globe Predictions
(An alternate is included since the Globes sometimes have
more than five nominees.)
Best Film – Drama:
12 Years a Slave
Blue Jasmine
Captain Philips
Gravity
Lee Daniels’ The Butler
Alt: Saving Mr. Banks
Best Film – ‘Comedy’
or Musical
American Hustle
August: Osage County
Enough Said
Nebraska
The Wolf of Wall
Street
Alt: Inside Llewyn Davis
Potential Salmon Fishing in the Yemen: Unfinished Song
Best Director
Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity
Steve McQueen, 12
Years a Slave
Alexander Payne, Nebraska
David O. Russell, American
Hustle
Martin Scorsese, The
Wolf of Wall Street
Alt: Woody Allen,
Blue Jasmine,
Best Actor – Drama
Robert Redford, All is
Lost
Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12
Years a Slave
Matthew McConaughey, Dallas
Buyers Club
Tom Hanks, Captain
Phillips
Forest Whitaker, Lee
Daniels’ The Butler
Alt: Idris Elba, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Best Actress – Drama
Cate Blanchett, Blue
Jasmine
Sandra Bullock, Gravity
Judi Dench, Philomena
Adèle Exarchopoulos, Blue
is the Warmest Color
Emma Thompson, Saving
Mr. Banks
Alt: Kate
Winslet, Labor Day
Best Actor – ‘Comedy’
or Musical
Christian Bale, American
Hustle
Bruce Dern, Nebraska
Leonardo DiCaprio, The
Wolf of Wall Street
Oscar Isaac, Inside
Llewyn Davis
Joaquin Phoenix, Her
Alt: Ethan Hawke,
Before Midnight
Best Actress –
‘Comedy’ or Musical
Amy Adams, American
Hustle
Julie Delpy, Before
Midnight
Greta Gerwig, Frances
Ha
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Enough
Said
Meryl Streep, August:
Osage County
Alt: Sandra
Bullock, The Heat
Best Supporting Actor
Bradley Cooper, American
Hustle
Michael Fassbender, 12
Years a Slave
James Gandolfini, Enough
Said
Tom Hanks, Saving Mr.
Banks
Jared Leto, Dallas
Buyers Club
Alt: Jonah Hill, The Wolf of
Wall Street
Best Supporting
Actress
Sally Hawkins, Blue
Jasmine
Jennifer Lawrence, American
Hustle
Lupita Nyong’o, 12
Years a Slave
Julia Roberts, August:
Osage County
Oprah Winfrey, Lee
Daniels The Butler
Alt: Margo
Martindale, August: Osage County
Best Screenplay
12 Years a Slave
Blue Jasmine
Nebraska
Philomena
The Wolf of Wall
Street
Alt: American Hustle
Best Animated Film
The Croods
Despicable Me 2
Frozen
Monsters University
The Wind Rises
Alt: Ernest et Celestine
Best Foreign Film
Blue is the Warmest
Color, France
The Past, Iran
Wadjda, Saudi
Arabia
The Hunt, Denmark
The Broken Circle
Breakdown, Belgium
Alt: The Great Beauty, Italy
Best Score
12 Years a Slave
The Book Thief
Frozen
Gravity
Saving Mr. Banks
Alt: Rush
Best Song
Frozen, “Let it Go”
The Great Gatsby, “Young and Beautiful”
Her, “The Moon Song”
Lee Daniels’ The Butler,
“You and I Ain’t Nothing No More”
Mandela: Long Walk to
Freedom, “Ordinary Love”
Alt: The Great Gatsby, “Over the Love”
SAG Awards
Best Ensemble
12 Years a Slave
American Hustle
August: Osage County
August: Osage County
Blue Jasmine
Lee Daniels’ The Butler
Alt: Nebraska
Best Actor
Bruce Dern, Nebraska
Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
Tom Hanks, Captain
Phillips
Matthew McConaughey, Dallas
Buyers Club
Robert Redford, All is Lost
Robert Redford, All is Lost
Alt: Forest
Whitaker, Lee Daniels’ The Butler
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, Blue
Jasmine
Sandra Bullock, Gravity
Judi Dench, Philomena
Meryl Streep, August:
Osage County
Emma Thompson, Saving
Mr. Banks
Alt: Amy Adams, American Hustle
Best Supporting
Actress
Jennifer Lawrence, American
Hustle
Lupita Nyong’o, 12
Years a Slave
Julia Roberts, August:
Osage County
June Squibb, Nebraska
Oprah Winfrey, Lee
Daniels’ The Butler
Alt: Octavia
Spencer, Fruitvale Station
Best Supporting Actor
Bradley Cooper, American
Hustle
Michael Fassbender, 12
Years a Slave
James Gandolfini, Enough
Said
Tom Hanks, Saving Mr.
Banks
Jared Leto, Dallas
Buyers Club
Alt: Barkhad
Abdi, Captain Phillips
