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| Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Brian d’Arcy, Michael Keaton and John Slattery in Spotlight, an Entertainment One release. Photo by: Kerry Hayes |
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| Michael Fassbender in Steve Jobs. |
Story #1: Spotlight and Steve Jobs – Frontrunners?
Out in front (ish) are Spotlight
and Steve Jobs. Both films carry
strong word from the festival circuit, as Spotlight
opened to raves at Venice, Telluride, and Toronto, while Steve Jobs wowed Telluride and New York.
Critics give mad props to the strong scripts and ensembles of both films, but Spotlight might have the edge so far for
one simple reason: it’s played consistently. As one of the few films to hit the
triple crown of the festival circuit (i.e.: Venice/Telluride/Toronto) with a
third place ranking for the People’s Choice Award at TIFF, it seems to have the
crossover appeal for smarthouse and general audiences alike. (I can’t see Spotlight until November 16—so there’s just the story (ish) for
now.)
Steve Jobs, on the
other hand, had a wild debut at Telluride based on reports and reviews,
but the premiere was relatively insular given the festival’s emphasis on
exclusivity. (It’s worth noting that the Danny Boyle film skipped TIFF even
though the director credits the festival with saving Slumdog Millionaire from the bargain bin, so the film’s outcome on
Oscar night could be a great loss/gain for either Telluride/TIFF.) The film
appeared to be on solid ground, especially for performers Michael Fassbender
and Kate Winslet and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, until it went into wide release
last weekend tounderwhelming results. The film ranks among several adult dramas strugglingalongside showier films like The Martian and Sicario, and many of the same
reasons Variety cites for the film’s
box office disappointment could also be detractors for its frontrunner status
given the film’s resemblance to The
Social Network, which fell short for similar reasons, like unlikable
characters, among others. Steve Jobs
is better than The Social Network,
though, and the sure-fire nominations for Sorkin’s script and for the
performances will keep in play. Box office is no indication of merit, anyways!
Room, on the other
hand, emerges as the dark horse in a recent narrative taking shape in awards
corners with Awards Daily citing reasons why it
could be a major playing and with Variety saying it has the goods to
win. The film’s an obvious contender given its enthusiastic (but not unanimous)
raves on the festival circuit and with its People’s Choice Award win from TIFF
offering a bellwether of wide appeal and emotion that invites people to vote
for it. Room, which adapts the
spectacular novel by Emma Donoghue, strikes me as a contender for major awards
like Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actress for Brie Larson, but not necessarily
Best Picture, since it’s more of a film that one feels strongly in the moment
than one that stays with a viewer forever. (I really have to see it again to be
fair, since I saw it just hours after sampling far too many cocktails at the Septembers of Shiraz.)
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| Alicia Vikander and Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl |
Story #2: Category Fraud for All!
Category fraud, the scenario in which a distributor
campaigns a lead or supporting performance in the opposite category to gain an
advantage, is an annual affair, but it’s worse than ever this year. Several awards
watchers note that the supporting categories are replete with lead
performances, with blatant lead roles such as Rooney Mara in Carol, Alicia Vikander in The Danish Girl, Paul Dano in Love & Mercy, and Jacob Tremblay in Room competing in the supporting categories
despite heavy support and praise for their work as headliners of their
respective films. Mara is a favourite given her Best Actress win at Cannes and
gets a supporting mention presumably for the shape of Carol, which puts her subdued Therese as a counterpart/observer to
the comparatively more dynamic Carol, played by Cate Blanchett. Blanchett
competes against herself in the Lead category with Carol and Truth. Tremblay,
alternatively, has more screen time in Room
than Brie Larson does and he is presumably being campaigned in the
supporting category for the sole reason that he is a child. Give The Academy
some credit for being open minded—remember Quvenzhané Wallis and Keisha
Castle-Hughes?
Alicia Vikander, on the other hand, deserves to win the
Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for her spectacular
work in The Danish Girl, and Focus
Features’ efforts to secure her a Best Supporting Actress gong instead almost
diminishes the strength of her work by placing it in the less showy category. (And
simply isn’t fair to legitimately smaller parts that can’t compete elsewhere.)
Focus’s strategy is understandable, since it also has Best Actress contender
Carey Mulligan in Suffragette, and it
risks cancelling out two leading ladies, while putting Vikander as the
supporting player arguably makes her the one to beat in that category, as
performers with heavy screen time (ex: Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls, Christoph Waltz in Django
Unchained, Patricia Arquette in Boyhood)
often beat out true supporting roles. It’s worth comparing Vikander’s supporting
billing to Felicity Jones, Eddie Redmayne’s co-star in The Theory of Everything and Best Actress nominee for the film, for
she and Vikander have comparable screen time with Redmayne while Jones’s role in
The Theory of Everything receives
less dramatic weight than Vikander’s does in The Danish Girl. Vikander has as much screen time as Lead Actor
contender Eddie Redmayne does and The
Danish Girl goes to pains to give both Gerda and Einar/Lili equal dramatic significance,
so the move feels especially unfair. Once again, Oscar logic says that a
‘supportive’ role becomes a ‘supporting’ one, or that a ‘wife’ can be a leading
lady.
But the biggest category fraud of all: There’s a Golden
Globes campaign for The Martian as a COMEDY?
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| Amy Winehouse with Juliette Ashby, Jamon Jamon restaurant, Camden Town, 2003.
Copyright: Juliette Ashby. |
Story #3: Foreign Films and Docs Bring the Fight!
The only real legitimate frontrunner to win in any category
so far is Hungary’s submission Son of
Saul, which has been out in front since Cannes. Calling anything a
frontrunner in the Best Foreign Language Film race is silly, though, given the
category’s highly dubious history of sidelining favourites. It’s a flawed
system that needs an overhaul. Saul,
however, nevertheless stands a decent chance of being among the nine films
shortlisted in December out of the total eighty-one submissions since it’s
consistently wowing festival crowds and its tough subject matter (re: the
Holocaust) often fares well with the nominating committee. It has enough hype, traction,
and support to merit a pull from the special committee if the voters pass it
over. As does Brazil’s beloved domestic drama The Second Mother, and potentially arthouse hits like The Assassin that have enthusiastic
pockets of support. Canada, on the other hand, probably isn’t getting a
nomination this year for the lovely Felix
and Meira, although the film could make the shortlist of nine, since its
understated power could make it either equally memorable or forgettable
On the doc front, which
has 124 contenders, Amy has the
bonus of critical acclaim and box office bills to give it a strong lead. 2015
is the year of the music doc with other (better) films like What Happened, Miss Simone? and Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck adding to
the art form and showing that films about art and culture can do more than rest
on the appeal of their subjects. One must say the same for Amy, though, since Asif Kapadia’s thorough archival film builds a
montage of complicity that says we all killed Amy Winehouse. It’s a worthy doc
to take the title for best of the year.
Joshua Oppenheimer’s The
Look of Silence mustn’t be discounted either, since his Act of Killing lost in a heated race to
Morgan Neville’s 20 Feet from Stardom
in 2013. Silence is more conventional
in form than Killing, yet it’s
equally daring and resonant. Oppenheimer’s likely to face-off with Neville
again, since Neville’s Best of Enemies
is a popular and acclaimed doc that plays well to political junkies and
celebrity seekers alike. One also count discount the fact that Neville debuted three feature documentaries this year
(the others are The Music of Strangers
and Keith Richards: Under the Influence),
which counts for something since they’re all pretty great.
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| Paul Dano as Jimmy, Harvey Keitel as Mick, and Michael Caine as Fred in Youth. Photo by Gianni Fiorito. © 2015 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved |
Oscar Predictions:
Best Picture:
Carol
Joy
Spotlight
Almost put: Inside Out
What about: By the
Sea, The Hateful Eight, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, Sicario, Son of Saul, Straight Outta Compton
Best Director:
Tom Hooper, The Danish Girl
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
Ridley Scott, The Martian
Paolo Sorrentino, Youth
Steven Spielberg, Bridge of Spies
Almost put: Danny Boyle, Steve Jobs
What about: Lenny Abrahamson (Room), George Miller (Mad
Max: Fury Road), David O.
Russell, (Joy), Ridley Scott (The
Martian), Quentin Tarantino (The
Hateful Eight), Denis Villeneuve (Sicario)
Best Actor:
Michael Caine, Youth
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Jake Gyllenhaal, Southpaw
Tom Hanks, Bridge of Spies
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl
Almost put: Johnny Depp, Black
Mass
What about: John Cusack (Love
& Mercy), Matt Damon (The Martian),
Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant), Ian
McKellen (Mr. Holmes), Brad Pitt (By the Sea)
Best Actress:
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Carey Mulligan, Suffragette
What about: Cate Blanchett (Truth), Emily Blunt (Sicario), Marion Cotillard (Macbeth), Rooney Mara (Carol), Carey Mulligan (Far from the Madding Crowd), Nina Hoss (Phoenix), Angelina Jolie (By the Sea), Helen Mirren (Woman in Gold), Meryl Streep (Ricki and the Flash), Charlie Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road), Lily Tomlin (Grandma)
Best Supporting Actor:
Benicio Del Toro, Sicario
Michael Keaton, Spotlight
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
Jacob Tremblay, Room
Almost put: Harvey
Keitel (Youth)
What about: Emory Cohen (Brooklyn),
Bradley Cooper (Joy), Paul Dano (Love & Mercy), Jeff Daniels (Steve Jobs), Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation), Domhnall Gleeson (Brooklyn), Tom Hardy (The Revenant),
Robert Redford (Truth), Seth Rogen (Steve Jobs), Michael Sheen (Far from the Madding Crowd), Michael
Stuhlbarg (Steve Jobs)
Best Supporting Actress:
Joan Allen, Room
Jane Fonda, Youth
Rooney Mara, Carol
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs
What about: Elizabeth Banks (Love & Mercy), Rachel McAdams (Spotlight/Southpaw), Virginia Madsen (Joy), Kristen Stewart (Clouds of Sils Maria), Julie Walters (Brooklyn), Rachel Weisz (Youth)
Best Original Screenplay:
Anomalisa –
Charlie Kaufman
The Hateful Eight
– Quentin Tarantino
Joy - David O.
Russell and Annie Mumolo
Spotlight – Tom
McCarthy, Josh Singer
Youth– Paolo
Sorrentino
What about: Clouds of
Sils Maria, Inside Out, Mistress
America, Sicario, Straight Outta Compton, Trainwreck
Best Adapted Screenplay:
Bridge of Spies –
Mark Harmon; Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
Brooklyn – Nick
Hornby
The Danish Girl –
Lucinda Coxon
Room– Emma
Donoghue
Steve Jobs – Aaron
Sorkin
Almost put: Carol
What about: Beasts of
No Nation, The Martian, Me and Earl
and the Dying Girl, The Revenant,
Truth
Best Documentary Feature:
Sherpa
Almost put: The
Hunting Ground
What about: Going
Clear, Janis: Little Girl Blue; Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck;
Meet the Patels; Seymour: An Introduction; Sunshine Superman; What Happened, Miss Simone?; Where to Invade Next; Winter on Fire, The Wolfpack
Best Foreign Language Film:
The Clan -
Argentina
The Second Mother – Brazil
Son of Saul –
Hungary
Theeb - Jordan
Theeb - Jordan
A War – Denmark
Other submissions reviewed: Bota (Albania) Felix and Meira (Canada), The Fencer (Finland), Ixcanul (Guatemala), Koza (Slovakia), Labyrinth of Lies (Germany), NN (Peru), Our Everyday Life (Bosnia and Herzegovina), (Brazil), The Wanted 18 (Palestine), The Wave (Norway)
Best Animated Film:
Anomalisa
The Good Dinosaur
Inside Out
The Peanuts Movie
When Marnie Was There
The Good Dinosaur
Inside Out
The Peanuts Movie
When Marnie Was There
Best Cinematography:
Almost put: Brooklyn
What about: The
Martian, The Revenant, Steve Jobs
Best Film Editing:
Joy
What about: The Danish Girl, The Revenant, Room, Sicario, Spotlight
Best Costumes:
Carol
The Hateful Eight
What about? Cinderella,
Crimson Peak, Far from the Madding Crowd,
Love & Macbeth, . Mercy, The Revenant, Suffragette
Best Production Design:
The Hateful Eight
Macbeth
Macbeth
What about: Brooklyn, Carol,
Crimson Peak, Mad Max: Fury Road, Pan, The Walk
Best Original Score:
What about: Ex Machina, Far from the Madding Crowd, Inside Out, Room, Mad Max: Fury Road
Best Original Song:
“Love Me Like You Do” – Fifty
Shades of Grey
“Phenomenal” - Southpaw
Best Visual Effects:
In the Heart of the
Sea
Star Wars: The Force
Awakens
What about: The Walk
Best Sound Mixing:
Star Wars: The Force
Awakens
Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs
Best Sound Editing:
Best Make-Up:
Star Wars: The Force
Awakens
What about: Black Mass,
Crimson Peak, The Revenant, In the Heart of
the Sea, Pan
Best Animated Short
Awaiting shortlist
Best Live Action Short
Awaiting shortlist
Best Documentary Short
Shortlist:
Boy Team 12
Chau, Beyond the Lines
Claude Lanzmann:Spectres of Shoah
50 Feet from Syria
Last Day of Freedom
Mineretia
My Enemy, My Brother
Starting Point
The Testimony
Boy Team 12
Chau, Beyond the Lines
Claude Lanzmann:Spectres of Shoah
50 Feet from Syria
Last Day of Freedom
Mineretia
My Enemy, My Brother
Starting Point
The Testimony
