The Oscar Race: Then, Now, Next Three Months
Thursday, September 25, 2014 at 12:12PM 
THEN...
One final honor for last year's best picture winner 12 Years a Slave (2013). We've heard talk of this before but it's official now: The National School Boards Association has partnered with the filmmakers and Peguin Books to make 12 Years a Slave and its study guide available to high schools across America. When I attended a Steve McQueen event last year in LA this dream was literally all that he wanted to talk about with the moderator despite the panel being called "On Directing" and his movie being an Oscar favorite.
The news was official a few days back
“I am thrilled that my dream of having 12 YEARS A SLAVE available to high school students is finally a reality. Solomon Northup’s powerful story needs to be shared and remembered for generations to come. This is a wonderful opportunity for our youth to learn about the past. I truly appreciate the efforts of Montel Williams, the National School Boards Association, New Regency, Penguin Books, and Fox Searchlight for making this happen,” said Steve McQueen, director of 12 YEARS A SLAVE.
Congratulations to all and to America, come to think of it, because if the utterly irrational reaction to the Obama era in some quarters has taught us anything it's that racism is a poison that isn't easily cured and destroys the brain first.
We're at war here."
- Anna Morales (Jessica Chastain) in "A Most Violent Year"
NOW...
None of 2014's Oscar hopefuls thus far have had the kind of seismic impact that Gravity and 12 Years a Slave were beginning to exhibit this time last year, which means that the race is wide open and the battle will be bloody and heated for attention. This is both exciting and dull simultaneously since anything might possibly happen but people need things to obsessively root for to stay interested and the films this year don't seem to be grabbing moviegoers en masse apart from, you know, the superhero blockbusters. The Oscar Charts are updated in every single category for your punditry pleasures!
Best Actress, which we should know better than to call "weak" in any given year, is suddenly heating up with Julianne & Reese looking more and more like battling locks for the statue and Jessica Chastain switching over there, too -- news from A24 -- from the previously assumed supporting position for A Most Violent Year.
INDEX | PICTURE | DIRECTOR | SCREENPLAYS
ACTRESS | ACTOR | SUPP. ACTRESS | SUPP. ACTOR
FOREIGN FILMS with SUBMISSION CHARTS
VISUALS | SOUND | ANIMATED FEATURES
Sound off in the comments. You know what to do.
THE NEXT THREE MONTHS...
While several key films have yet to nail down release dates here's what we're looking at for the final months of the year (links go to reviews if we've seen them).
October:
Reitman's Men Women and Children (1); Fincher's Gone Girl, The Good Lie and Venezuelan Oscar submission The Liberator (3); One Chance, The Judge, crowdpleasing Whiplash, Bill Murray seeks career honors in St. Vincent, Hilary Swank in You're Not You and Jeremy Renner in Kill the Messenger (10); Brad Pitt as "Wardaddy" in Fury, the buzzy Birdman, very colorful animated hopeful The Book of Life and Studio Ghibli's The Tale of Princess Kaguya (17); John Hawkes is Low Down and Sweden's Oscar submission Force Majeure (24); Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo reportedly wow in Nightcrawler (31)
currently the nomination prediction leader
November:
Animated hopeful Big Hero 6, senior romantic comedy Elsa and Fred with Shirley Maclaine & Christopher Plummer, Oscars-for-acting-seeking marital bio Theory of Everything, Jon Stewart's Rosewater and Chris Nolan's Interstellar (7); Bennett Miller's wrestling triangle Foxcatcher and western The Homesman (14); People's Choice winner The Imitation Game (21)
December:
Israel's Zero Motivation (3); Reese Witherspoon goes Wild (5); P.T. Anderson's adaptation of Inherent Vice and Ridley Scott's oldschool whitewashed Exodus: Gods and Kings (12); Yet another Hobbit movie (17); Musical remake Annie, remake of The Gambler, and Mike Leigh's Mr Turner (19); Foreign Film Submissions Force Majeure from Sweden, Two Days One Night from Belgium, and Beloved Sisters from Germany all on Christmas Eve? Weirdness. They'll be ignored. sigh (24); Tim Burton's artist bio Big Eyes, the musical Into the Woods, Clint Eastwood's American Sniper, civil rights bio Selma and WW II drama Unbroken (Christmas); Russian Cannes hit Leviathan and J.C Chandor's A Most Violent Year (31)
Basically Waiting Until Early 2015 - but some will surely get a qualifying week run in LA:
Still Alice, Song of the Sea, Maps to the Stars, Mommy, Clouds of Sils Maria
Reader Comments (37)
I saw the preview for Big Eyes and that has potential to be one of Tim Burtons best films ever! I am definitely going to see it when it comes out!
www.blakeancell.com
Nat: Dude. BLACKHAT. From the moment they stuck their date at early January, I was actually suspecting a huge Oscar push, and the trailer clinches it for me. Michael Mann is a BRAND at this point, unlike anyone in A Most Violent Year and I think we could have just gotten the one to beat for Best Picture.
You say Cotillard is amazing in the Dardenne's movie. I haven't seen it, but does it stand a better chance than an English-language role, a golden heart hooker, an accent and two languages spoken, plus that TOWERING performance?
I know it's wishful thinking, but Weisz almost got nominated with a Winter release and tiny distribution.
Nat, Spain has chosen "Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed," which won Best Picture at the latest Goya Awards. I saw it a couple of weeks ago, and it's a real crowd-pleaser. I could see it as possibly getting a nomination.
As for the Slovak film "A Step Into the Dark," it's set in the mid-Fifties (after Stalin's death but before Khrushchev's de-Stalinization) in a small town, where there's a lot of back-biting and denouncing of other people. A lot of it is among a group of people who were partisans in the war, resisting the Germans. They're still living out the divisions which beset them a decade earlier. I saw it at the Montréal festival, and it wasn't bad...but I've seen better.
Finally, I certainly hope that "Mommy" gets a qualifying release in the States, if only to get Anne Dorval into the buzz for the Best Actress race.
Totally off-topic, but I got around to seeing I Am Love yesterday. Good lord, what an impeccable, luxuriant, one-of-a-kind, thematically astute film.
You can also add the November 7th release date for Brazil's The Way He Looks. Also, I've read confirmations that Whiplash will be in Original Screenplay.
I'm so excited the best actress race is becoming so dynamic. So many compelling narratives from an overdue veteran, comeback sweetheart to ingenue delivering on promise, surprising discovery to another great role from Oscar's new It Girl. I'm hoping all the performances live up to the narrative and hype.
And I hope that Cotillard somehow makes it back specially for The Immigrant in which she was incandescent. If only to break the so-called Blanchett curse ie those to whom she loses Oscar are never nominated again. Think about it Paltrow, Hudson, Swinton and Cotillard. The last 2 had several opportunities.
1) So The Last 5 Years opening in February means bye-bye?
2) Whatever happened to The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet?
I still think Cotillard will get a best Actress nom along with Witherspoon, Moore and Pike while Chastain, Streep and Swank fight it out for the last spot.
I also see Channing getting a nom before Carrell.
Big Eyes isn't happening. Adams and Waltz will emerge with reputations intact but they aren't either strong enough to carry Burton. Harvey is many things including a very smart man. That trailer was terrible. If he had a great, award worthy film to promote, the trailer would have us chomping at the bit. He also would have done a great deal more early promotion. This roll out looks a lot like AOC did last year and while Adams is respected, she isn't Streep or Julia.
Hayden W - that's why it won the gold medal right here.
Bill - thanks for info
Really, Noah having better shot at techs than Exodus? Okay, then.
Oh, and Alberto Iglesias' is the composer for Exodus. Old news, actually.
Gustavo: As I've already mentioned, what stuns me more is the absolute lack of any category predictions given to THE MICHAEL MANN MOVIE.
Volvagia - it's not even eligible, come on.
Gustavo - I have to make predictive calls or there is no point in making charts... so my hunch is that Exodus will be poorly received. And as for Noah. They are actually campaigning so whenever someone tries they have more chances than the films that don't.
Any confirmation as to whether or not Chastain is Lead or Supporting in A Most Violent Year? She could be safer in supporting, no?
Nat: There HAVE been rumours they're doing a qualifying run, even if it's not officially announced yet. And having seen the trailer that just came out today? Unless they're moving the date ten months or something, they'd be completely foolish not to.
I don't get the MICHAEL MANN MOVIE push. Seriously, I had to look the dude up on iMDB. Looks like a lot of cops and robbers movies, perhaps a genre I'm not normally drawn to.
Marion Cotillard is a very interesting and beautiful actress and has made some great choices in roles. I wasn't a fan of The Immigrant, but hers was the best performance. And I really enjoyed the last three Dardennes features, so I'm looking forward to this one.
Hayden and Nathaniel--Right? I watched that movie five times! Something about the way Tilda glides through every frame...spectacular
I love the hope for a cotillard follow-up nomination every year.
(but yeah, it's strange that she hasn't been able to get one)
FYI U.S.-based folks: One of TFE's fav, Oscar-nominated actress, Viola Davis' new show is premiering tonight on ABC at 10 pm EST.
as pam mentioned, nathaniel, are you going to post about "how to get away with murder"?
A podcast soon, pretty please?
JOHN - Chastain is confirmed Lead yes. Heard direct from the team on that movie
MARCELO -- of course.
THEIS - already recorded
I am glad that 12 Years a Slave will be made available to schools across America, but that doesn't mean it will be widely read or studied. I remember my high school AP English teacher telling us how hard it was to prepare curriculum for her class because of all the parental complaints she got about the stuff we read ... and this was in a college town. Here's hoping things have improved in the last decade or so.
I was outraged when I just now read here they remade The Gambler, a long-forgotten drama from the 70s starring James Caan that I admired. Then I find out Jessica Lange and John Goodman are in it. Well, that's more like it! YES. Now I gotta, I gotta!
I was outraged when I just now read here they remade yet another 70s movie--The Gambler, a long-forgotten drama starring James Caan that I admired. Then I find out Jessica Lange and John Goodman are in it. Well, that's more like it! YES. Now I gotta, I gotta!
I'm actually pretty interested in how "Guardians" is going to do at the techs. It's a runaway, non-sequel success in a year that sorely needed them, and it was a rather wel-reviewed movie to boot. But The Academy is always ambivalent about the genre, Marvel doesn't like to campaign, and "Interstellar" is going to steal a lot of its thunder.
rabartlett: Really? I'm betting that, based on the trailer, Interstellar is going to get an overall feeling of mixed reviews at best, scathing reviews at worst. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I just can't feel confident that "thunder" is going to get "stolen" as it were.
Well, I have been hearing good word about it, but regardless, it has more "prestige", and it's going to look more imposing, if less colorful, technically.
Pam, something more than an IMDB search - like watching his actual movies - might be called for before dismissing a filmmaker of Michael Mann's stature as "cops and robbers stuff." He's not an Oscar favorite and I doubt Black Hat will change that, even if they do give it a qualifying run (sorry, Volvagia), but it's hardly mystifying why some people are rooting for him.
Roark -- yeah, I like Michael Mann's movies in general. I even liked Public Enemies which a lot of peopel seem to hate. But Oscar doesn't like him much. Even Last of the Mohicans, his most Oscary really (outside of The Insider) only managed a measly 1 oscar nom despite being a hit.
I'm looking forwward to Black Hat mostly for Viola, though, since Chris Hemsworth doesn't do much for me as a leading man. I just hope Viola's not stuck with a stock part.
Volvagia, where are you getting this Mann-lust from? He's not a brand Oscars have really gone for ever. The trailer is strong, I'll give you that, but in a Skyfall kind of way.
That stated, I have seen his movies and dismiss him as easily as Pam.
Nathaniel, I was wondering what you thought of the possibility of Ellar Coltrane being nominated for Best Actor. It does by all means seem unlikely, and there's only a small chance that he'll even be aggressively campaigned for,but do you really think it's so impossible that you wouldn't place him in the "other leads this year" category? I see it more likely at this point than Tommy Lee Jones or Matthew McConaughey nominations..
One more vote for the Michael Mann-agnostics.
I'm always interested to see his films in order to try and understand the love and, for all the brow furrowing, thousand-mile staring and macho posturing, "cops and robbers" just about sums up his filmography.
Also, after 30+ years of movies, how many compelling female characters with an interesting perspective has he come up with? All I can see is stock girlfriends and wives. Maybe Madeline Stowe in Mohicans could have evolved into something interesting - if the movie didn't lose interest in her about halfway through.
(I'm yet to see Gong Li/Miami Vice)
I love Michael Mann and, personal preferences aside, I can't see how a director is good or bad because he or she tells stories mostly about men or women. He is a masterful filmmaker and he has the right to tell the stories he wants! You can on your fingers the contemporary directors that made something as great as Heat, and it's about cops and robbers.
InContention, a site that actually stays up to date on buzz, has Interstellar at #1 on its contender tracker due to the word coming out of advance screenings. So yes, there's a good chance it'll steal Guardians' thunder.
Nat,
Small correction in your Supporting Actor chart. Wallace opposed DEsegregation, not segregation.
Better update the Foreign Language Film predictions, Russia have chosen 'Leviathan' as their submission.