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| Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone) in La La Land. an Entertainment One release. |
Early award contenders are rare beasts, and this year is no
exception when it comes to Best Picture. Sure, some categories have healthy
frontrunners and maybe even potential winners with films that hit the screen
between January and August. Finding Dory
is a plum pick for Best Animated Feature, while oodles of docs like Gleason, Miss Sharon Jones!, and Weiner
are all viable contenders. Best Adapted Screenplay has two probably nominees
with Whit Stilman’s delightful Jane Austen romp Love & Friendship and James Schamus’s powerful Indignation. The former film is stronger
than the latter, but Schamus is certainly a player after so many years at the
helm of Focus Features.
Meryl Streep is in the running for her 20th
nomination for Florence Foster Jenkins
and while the film might be a little long on the shelf between its release and
Oscar eve, reports during the summer said that Academy members are generally over the moon
with this performance. A screening push and an inevitable Golden Globe
nomination should keep Streep steady in a competitive field and this easygoing
comedy might pop up elsewhere, especially if Hugh Grant’s team campaigns in the
relatively weak supporting field.
The only solid Best Picture contender to debut before the
festivals is David Mackenzie’s bullseye Hellor High Water. Jeff Bridges has a Best Supporting Actor nomination in the
bag, while Taylor Sheridan is bound to nab the Original Screenplay nomination
he should have found for Sicario. Hell or High Water is the highest grossing independent film of the year so far and this fact really
means something in a year filled with disappointments. Here’s a film that draws
an audience organically through strong word of mouth and legitimate critical
enthusiasm, which matters because all the upcoming campaigning means little if
people don’t actually like the film and Hell
or High Water is one of few movies in the race that could appeal to the
broadest range of tastes and sensibilities. It’s nice to have a film that
stings so hard with the genuine sense of discovery. (Read the Cinemablographer interview with Hell or High Water director David Mackenzie here.)
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| Natalie Portman in Jackie. Photo by Pablo Larraín. © 2016 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved |
The Festivals
Chalk up one spot for TIFF People’s Choice Award winner La La Land, which has everyone floating
at whichever festival it appears. The Emma Stone/Ryan Gosling musical is
hitting the festival circuit quite aggressively for a film with such strong
commercial prospects. Ditto the push for Kenneth Lonergan’s ensemble drama Manchester by the Sea and its strong
presence on the festival front that keeps building support for the film and
particularly for the performances by Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams. Both
films have their hurdles as La La Land
carries the enormous weight of expectations, although it arguably did going
into TIFF and held steady, while Manchester
has the unenviable task of sustaining buzz from Sundance, premiering only days
after last year’s nominations were announced. No Sundance film has yet to win
Best Picture and if Boyhood can’t do
it, can anything?
Jackie and Arrival are two other major threats
depending on whom one asks. Both films have passionate supporters and Natalie
Portman and Amy Adams seem to be among the safer bets of the increasingly
competitive Best Actress line-up. Adams in particular has the added boost of
her equally award-worthy performance in Tom Ford’s spectacular Nocturnal Animals to give her more
exposure and merit for a good year. Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve looks
strong in terms of finding his way back to the Oscars as his phenomenal feat of
direction in Arrival is simply too
good to ignore—and arguably unlikely to be overlooked given that Arrival is one of the few mainstream
films of the year to deliver something satisfying and original. In a field of
independents, Villeneuve has an edge. Jackie,
on the other hand, brings an overdue biopic about the iconic First Lady and
reports from Venice and TIFF (where the film won the competitive Platform
prize) are unanimous that Natalie Portman deserves her second Best Actress
nomination. Crossover appeal between arthouse audiences and mainstream viewers
make it a contender for one of those flexible 6-10 Best Picture slots.
The results from the festival circuit also help scratch a
few names off the lists. Ewan McGregor’s American Pastoral remains the undoubted casualty of the Toronto International Film
Festival. (It’s a letdown, but not nearly as bad as everyone says.) The film is
a great example of the danger in adapting only the story of a book and not the structure
and thematic complexity that make it so beloved in the first place. Ang Lee’s
adaptation of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime
Walk also seems to have taken a bullet after screening at the New York Film
Festival where word on the film’s much-anticipated 3D 120 fps high frame rate
was overwhelming negative. Only two theatres in the USA actually have the capacity to screen the film in this format, so screeners could always save it
although industry types will probably want to see it in its intended format due
to professional curiosity.
Birth of a
Nation is the wild card of the race. If one looks back to Sundance where it received a standing ovation before it even screened and won both the
Grand Prize and the Audience Award, it seemed like the film to herald the end of #OscarsSoWhite. Then look to the summer
where news emerged that Nate Parker and the film’s screenwriter Jean Celestin allegedly sexually assaulted a woman during university and the event led to her
suicide, and it now sits as the elephant in the room. Parker denies the charges, but the fact remains that he keeps using the incident to make a case for his present character and essentially fuel an Oscar campaign, which seems totally at odds with the film given
that Parker positions Birth of a Nation
as a film about confronting truthful accounts of history. Covering the film is
basically a no-win situation given that one is either a rapist or misogynist
depending on whether one’s thumb points down or up, and voters might steer
clear of the film with the same caution. The film seems to have survived its
controversy with a relatively incident-free return at TIFF, where it notably
got a pass on the stringent rule against non-World or North American Premieres playing
at premium venues on the first weekend, but weak box office shows that
audiences don’t want much to do with it. However, part of the film’s
record-breaking Sundance deal with distributor Fox Searchlight, which took 12 Years a Slave to Best Picture,
includes an awards campaign. Searchlight might be better off to acknowledge
that Parker’s case is a roaring dumpster fire that can’t be contained, but the
film needs awards traction to make its money back at this point. There are far
more viable and controversy-free films that voters can use to add some diversity
to the race, like Moonlight or Loving.
Moonlight is the
fall festival circuit’s genuine discovery. It’s one of the most perfectly
composed and performed indies of the year and guaranteed to be a favourite
among critics come awards time. Expect a nom for Naomie Harris’s devastating
performance as a drug addled mother and a screenplay nomination for
writer/director Barry Jenkins regardless of the category in which he finds
himself eligible. (The film is based on a drama school project by Tarell Alvin
McCraney that was never produced or performed, so it’s likely to remain in the
original category in which it’s currently being campaigned.) Buzz is also
strong for House of Cards star
Mahershala Ali, arguably the film’s MVP, but his role is very small and he
disappears quickly. A Best Supporting Actor bid is no easy get with so little
presence in a film this small. But, then again, Anne Hathaway won for a brief
appearance in the beginning of Les Mis,
so anything’s possible. Moonlight might
be one to watch for those flexible slots, too, if its breaks through to a wider
audience.
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| Jessica Chastain stars in Miss Sloane. Courtesy VVS Films |
Late to the Game
Here’s where it gets tricky. It’s now the tenth anniversary
of the last time a film won Best Picture without hitting the festival circuit:
Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. The Telluride-TIFF
one-two punch is important for building loyalty and creating strong word of
mouth, but a festival run is equally important simply for the fact that awards
voters consider the full term of the year less and less. Films don’t deserve to
be punished for having a December release, but major critics groups now value
the immediacy of a vote over an informed decision. Just look at last year’s
mess with the Critics Choice Awards where members retroactively added Star Wars to the ballot after they voted
before seeing the film. Members resigned in protest over the compromise to the
integrity of the awards, but rather than learn from the mistake, the group moved
its award show for this year over a month earlier with awards now being handed
out on December 11—around the same time that nominations came out last year.
If voters want to find an acceptable substitute for, say, Birth of a Nation, they’ll have to rally
to see Fences and put it atop the
screener pile. This drama directed by Denzel Washington looks to be a promising
remedy to #OscarsSoWhite over the excellent, but arguably “smaller” Moonlight. The film adapts the Pulitzer
Prize winning play and re-teams Washington and Viola Davis in the roles that
earned both of them a Tony Award. Paramount might be smart to campaign Davis in
the embarrassingly thin Best Supporting Actress field lest it risk cancelling
out either of its safe Best Actress contenders in Streep or Adams. (Adams could
easily have her own bit of category play since she has less screen time in Nocturnal Animals than either of the previous
two winners for Best Supporting Actress does in their films.)
John Madden returns to the Oscar race after Shakespeare
in Love scooped the top prize
for 1998. Jessica Chastain is in it to win it for her turn as a feisty lobbyist
fighting for gun control, and the film’s a wild card given that distributor
EuroCorp USA is new to the race. OpenRoad won on its first stab with Spotlight last year, although that
film had the benefit of a TIFF/Telluride boost, while Madden’s film hits
theatres in December after forgoing the early fall festival circuit. Instead,
if the film plays where audiences may consider it instead of running from one movie
to the next, it stands a chance of tapping in to the cultural pulse of America
at a time when mass shootings are too common and (presumably) President-Elect
Hilary Clinton will make history as Washington’s most powerful woman. Chastain
stars as this pantsuit wearing powerplayer alongside an impressive roster of
veterans like John Lithgow, Sam Waterston and Mark Strong and hot newcomers
like Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alison Pill, and Jake Lacy so Miss Sloane is one to keep in mind for ensemble prizes, too,
if the film and the lobbying deliver.
Finally, Martin Scorsese seems ready to crash the party once
again. After sneaking in and shaking up the race with The Wolf of Wall Street in 2013, he’s back at the last second with Silence. This film is Scorsese’s passion
project years in the making as he adapts the novel by Shusaku Endo that
chronicles the persecution of Catholic priests in 1600s Japan. Concerns about
the film’s reportedly bloated running time now give silence for news of a
modest and manageable 160-ish minute cut, but how much of Scorsese’s vision
endures remains to be seen. This book can’t be an easy one to adapt. However,
in a race without much noise, Silence
could be a last-minute juggernaut like The
Revenant to give the season some drama.
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| Casey Affleck and Lucas Hedges in Manchester by the Sea. Photo by Claire Folger, Courtesy of Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions |
First round of Oscar predictions:
*Unfortunately, I don't have the same ability to review as many films as I used to, but see links below or on the sidebar where available.
Best Picture:
Fences
Jackie
La La Land
Loving
Manchester By the Sea
Miss Sloane
What about: Allied, Billy
Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Birth of a Nation, Lion, Hidden Figures, Love & Friendship, Moonlight, Nocturnal Animals, Silence, Toni Erdmann, Sully, 20th Century Women
Best Director
Damian Chazelle, La La
Land
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester
by the Sea
Jeff Nichols, Loving
Denis Villeneuve, Arrival
Denzel Washington, Fences
What about: Maren Ade, Toni
Erdmann; Pablo Larrain, Jackie; Ang
Lee, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk; David Mackenzie, Hell or High Water; John Madden, Miss Sloane; Mike Mills, 20th
Century Women; Martin Scorsese, Silence;
Robert Zemeckis, Allied
Best Actress
Amy Adams, Arrival
Jessica Chastain, Miss
Sloane
Natalie
Portman, Jackie
Emma Stone,
La La Land
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins
What about: Kate Beckinsale, Love & Friendship; Annette Bening, 20th Century Women; Sonia Braga, Aquarius; Marion
Cotillard, Allied; Viola Davis, Fences; Sally Field, Hello, My Nameis Doris; Isabelle Huppert, Elle; Ruth Negga, Loving
Best Actor
Casey Affleck, Manchester
By the Sea
Ryan Gosling, La La
Land
Tom Hanks, Sully
Dev Patel, Lion
Denzel Washington, Fences
What about: Adam Driver, Paterson;
Ethan Hawke, Born to Be Blue; Jake
Gyllenhaal, Nocturnal Animals; Logan Lerman, Indignation; Liam Neeson, Silence; Nate Parker, Birth of a Nation; Chris Pine, Hell or High Water; Brad Pitt, Allied
Best Supporting Actress
Viola Davis, Fences
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Miss
Sloane
Michelle Williams, Manchester
by the Sea
What about: Margaret Bowman, Hell or High Water; Linda Emond, Indignation; Sarah Gadon, Indignation;
Greta Gerwig, 20th Century
Women; Helen Mirren, Eye in the Sky;
Julianne Moore, Maggie’s Plan; Alison
Pill, Miss Sloane; Chloe Sevigny, Love & Friendship, Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Best Supporting Actor
Jeff Bridges, Hell or
High Water
Ben Foster, Hell or
High Water
Hugh Grant, Florence
Foster Jenkins
Lucas Hedges, Manchester
by the Sea
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal
Animals
What about: Jovan Adepo, Fences;
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight; Tracy
Letts, Indignation,; Trevonte Rhodes,
Moonlight; Alan Rickman, Eye in the Sky; Mark Strong, Miss Sloane, Tom Wilkinson, Denial
Adapted Screenplay
Arrival
Fences
Indignation
Love & Friendship
Nocturnal Animals
What about: Billy
Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Elle, Lion, Silence
Original Screenplay
Hell or High Water
Loving
Manchester by the Sea
Miss Sloane
Moonlight
What about: Birth of a
Nation, Café Society, The Edge of Seventeen, Jackie, The Lobster, Toni
Erdmann, 20th
Century Women, Wiener-Dog
Best Film Editing
Arrival
Hell or High Water
La La Land
Manchester by the Sea
Star Wars: Rogue One
What about: Miss
Sloane, Moonlight, Sully
Best Cinematography
Arrival
Hell or High Water
La La Land
Nocturnal Animals
What about: AmericanPastoral, Birth of a Nation, Café Society, Silence
Best Score
Arrival
Jackie
Finding Dory
La La Land
Moana
What about: Manchester
By the Sea
Best Song
Gleason, “Hoping
and Healing”
La La Land, “City
of Stars”
Moana, “Because It’s
Lin-Manuel Miranda”
Sing Street, “Drive It Like You Stole It”
What about: Deepwater
Horizon (“Take Me
Down”), La La Land (“Audition - Those
Who Dream”), Wiener-Dog (“The
Ballad of Wiener-Dog”)
Best
Costumes
Florence Foster Jenkins
Hail, Caesar!
Jackie
La La Land
Love and Friendship
What about: Absolutely
Fabulous, American Pastoral, Birth of a Nation, Café Society, The Dressmaker, The Magnificent Seven,
Silence
Best Production Design
Arrival
The BFG
Hail, Caesar!
La La Land
Passengers
What about: American
Pastoral, Birth of a Nation, Café Society, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Florence Foster Jenkins, Love and
Friendship, Silence
Best Visual Effects
Arrival
The BFG
The Jungle Book
Passengers
Star Wars: Rogue One
What about: Deepwater Horizon, Suicide
Squad, Sully
Best Documentary
13th
Gleason
Weiner
What about: Miss
Sharon Jones!, Life, Animated, Into the Inferno, OJ Simpson: Made in America,
Tickled!, Tower,
Best Foreign Language Film
The Ardennes (Belgium)
Ma’Rosa
(Philippines)
Neruda (Chile)
Sand Storm
(Israel)
Toni Erdmann (Germany)
Other submissions reviewed: It's Only the End of the World (Canada), Elle (France), Port of Call (Hong Kong), Fire at Sea (Italy), Very Big Shot (Lebanon), Eva Nova (Slovakia), The Age of Shadows (South Korea), My Life as a Courgette (Switzerland), As I Open My Eyes (Tunisia).
Other submissions reviewed: It's Only the End of the World (Canada), Elle (France), Port of Call (Hong Kong), Fire at Sea (Italy), Very Big Shot (Lebanon), Eva Nova (Slovakia), The Age of Shadows (South Korea), My Life as a Courgette (Switzerland), As I Open My Eyes (Tunisia).
Best Animated Film
Kubo and the Two
Strings
Moana
The Red Turtle
What about: My Life as
a Courgette, Zootopia
