Halfway House 2012. Best Picture (Thus Far)

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! We're taking stock and talking 2012 crop now that the year is half over. If you asked me to nominate for "Best Picture" right now, here are the titles I'd scribble in the air with sparklers... in alpha order.  I fully expect 2 or 3 of them to be written in ink at the end of the year in my top ten list.

 

The Avengers (review)
Let's not overstate. Popcorn entertainment occassionally does come better than this but The Avengers is still pretty damn fun and clever as it hurdles the complicated 'how on earth do you combine all these franchises into one?' question with confidence and humor. It's easy to forget how wrong this could have gone. Well done Joss Whedon. Extra bonus points for redeeming the two most previously disappointing characters (The Black Widow and The Hulk) by making them the unexpected key pieces of this jigsaw puzzle.

Beasts of the Southern Wild (capsule)
Benh Zeitlin's evocative utopia/dystopia journey is like nothing you've ever seen. So get to seeing it the first chance you get. We'll obviously be talking about it more as the year wears on and top ten lists and awards begin looming.

Bullhead (review)
Michael R. Roskam's brooding tragedy-laced crime drama about a lonely cattle farmer and illegal growth hormones was nominated for Best Foreign Film last year. It finally hit US cinemas this year. They always make us wait. 

Declaration of War 
Valérie Donzelli's restless, experimental retelling of her own traumatic experience as a new parent of a sick child with then boyfriend Jérémie Elkaïm(also playing a version of himself) was a bracing experiene and even an oddly joyful movie. Though it was clearly a longshot for Oscar play (they didn't nominate it for foreign film) I'm glad France submitted it bringing it to our attention here. 

 A Festive 4th of July with Dallas and the Kings of Tampa

Magic Mike (review)
Steven Soderbergh's nuanced observational portrait of a stripper/entrepeneur facing the uncertain future has stylish filmmaking, good solid laughs, and better character portraits than you usually get on the peripheries of the narrative. 

Moonrise Kingdom (capsule)
Not since The Royal Tenenbaums have Wes Anderson's form and content enjoyed a marriage this whimsical, aching and bittersweet. It's multifaceted and, better yet, enjoyable on serious and silly levels depending on your mood. Seems likely to reward us on future viewings. 

Runners up? Not really. Those six stand head and shoulders, even groins in Mike's case, above the pack. Don't miss any of them. If I had to make a top ten list this early with so few films seen (yikes) 7 through 10 in descending order would go to... no I can't it's too unsatisying... I can't I ca... oh, all right. 

JUST 4 OSCARY FUN...
Try to imagine what would happen if the year ended right now. Which films do you think would make Oscar's BP list? It has to be films that are eligible (i.e. released already) so I'm feeling like there's no way it wouldn't be these five: Avengers, Beasts of, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Hunger Games and Moonrise Kingdom... with Hunger Games losing a Best Director opportunity to Steven Soderbergh for Magic Mike. I've got this alternate reality all figured out! Marketable skill.

Those five movies are arguably the only five that'll have enough devotees to cry "it's going to happen!" in five more months... even if it isn't in most of those cases. Do you agree? Or do you think something heartwarming / messagey (like The Intouchables?) or something critically supported but divisive (like Magic Mike) would surprise and knock the not-beloved-but-way-successful Hunger Games out?

Most importantly: What would your ballot look like so far? And do you think anything we've seen yet is going the distance to an Oscar nomination.

Read Also "Best Of..." Actress, Actor , Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress

April Foolish Predictions: Best Picture

Every year in the first week of April we try to mentally project ourselves forward several months. This is not easy to do due to the pesky problem of films being so much different on screen than they are "on paper". Drama is Oscar's favorite category and the year has already produced two hit dramas in The Grey and The Hunger Games, one a surprise the other a bonafide phenomenon but they're both essentially genre movies so that's one strike against them. And they'll be old news when voting occurs. Strike two.

We're projecting forward anyway.

The Oscar race doesn't actually begin until summer's end anyway when media and pundit types (guilty!) get all respective about 'the year thus far'. At that point box office and critical heat will hopefully combine for one or two of the blockbusters or sleepers and give us our first real contenders. Fans who never forgave the Academy for leaving The Dark Knight out of the 2008 Best Picture field will surely hope that the magic strikes again for The Dark Knight Rises but I personally can't see it happening. It would have to surpass that film, I think, and even if it does it won't have the unrepeatable tragic connections that elevated the reception of the earlier film. Since I'm doubtful that that could possibly happen and don't particularly think Oscar should feel guilty about that omission (I'm much more pissed that WALL•E missed the list that year) I'd rather dream about an Oscar bid for a certain wild-haired princess. Can Pixar regain their "do no wrong" magic with Brave or did that era run out of gas [*cough Cars 2*] or will Merida strike a bullseye? Sorry to mix metaphors but archery is so hot this year (see also: The Avengers and The Hunger Games).

Late year curiousity and prediction battles after the jump

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The Lady of the Link

Off Oscar. Should You Need a Break
Boy Culture attends Madonna's royal premiere here in NYC for W.E.  
David Bordwell "a guide to the perplexed" for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 
Stale Popcorn We need to talk about "Katniss". Good question: What is it with archery these days? 
THR Two Beauty and the Beast related projects coming. Because in Hollywood there always must be double dipping on the limited idea pool. 

Okay. Back to Oscar. Stop Slacking!
Tom and Lorenzo on Jennifer Lawrence's unfortunate morning as the nominee announcer.
Ultra Culture on the best typography among the Best Pic Nominees. Love this.
Towleroad "Hot Movie Moment" from one of my favorite Best Pictures Wings (1927) the first one!
Indiewire The Oscars are moving to electronic voting in 2013. Cue: thousands of articles about whether or not This. Changes. Things. Oscarologists are so excitable.

In Contention looks at the Art Direction category
Examiner plays an "Oscar Replacement" game for the nominations 
Carpetbagger on Glenn Close and her makeup and wig team for Albert Nobbs 
MNPP A rarity: JA sounding off on the Oscars. Yay. He's one of the only blogging voices we love that have virtually no interest in them. (No interest in the Oscars? I know. I know. Difficult to comprehend.)   

Finally... a sad goodbye to British actor Nicol Williamson (1936-2012), my very first "Merlin" (though I've lost track of how many actors I've seen as the sorcerer since).

Mirren and Williamson owning Excalibur (1981)

Daily MUBI has the roundups of obits for the Excalibur (1981) actor. My most vivid memories of that film, aside from the Lancelot nudity (gasp) was the Merlin/Morgana Le Fay rapport. I was way too young to know that Helen Mirren and Williamson had... history. 

Box Office: Kate Beckinsale Still Unstaked, Oscar Hopeful Money

There's just no killing Kate Beckinsale's career. No matter how many terrible movies she throws at you, her undead heart will go on. I think she avoids Heigl levels of hatred because she doesn't make as many movies. That's my theory. But nevertheless the fourth installment of her werewolf vs. vampire franchise Underworld Awakening took the top spot at the box office, besting the George Lucas' produced war drama Red Tails and the third week of the hit action film Contraband, and the wide release of the presumed to be failing Oscar hopeful Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Steven Soderbergh's Haywire (reviewed) had a rough first weekend coming in fifth but there were a lot of other action films fighting it for dollars. Plus wouldn't people who go "ooh!" when they hear 'Steven Soderbergh' have been seeing the Oscar contenders anyway?

What did you see this weekend?

Oscar Money Talking Points...
The Artist finally got a major expansion though it's per screen average is no longer something to celebrate. Nevertheless this is good news. Within the next couple of weeks it's likely to pass The Hurt Locker's gross so if it wins Best Picture it won't be the lowest grossing BP ever. The film has earned $33 million worldwide to date. That's pretty impressive for a black and white silent. It just passed one of its Weinstein stablemates My Week With Marilyn's in terms of domestic gross. Although it's roughly 47 times better than that film I think it only goes to show how mishandled Marilyn was ... such a small release for such a pre-branded "wide" topic! 

The Descendants just crossed the $50 million mark and will soon leapfrog Hugo and Midnight in Paris for the "Top Grosser That Isn't Named The Help" title among the predicted BP nominees. Unless Moneyball or Dragon Tattoo get nominated in which case this milestone is no biggie.

Best Picture Hopeful Grosses as of 01/22/2012

P.S. I was at a birthday party last night attended by a very international crowd (the birthday girl, a good friend of mine, is German). The movie everyone was talking about was... A Separation. I was surprised how many people had seen it and everyone seemed to love it... though one woman told me she just thought it was "good" until about 20 minutes after it ended when it hit her in full force. It just crossed the 1/2 a million mark at the box office but it's still barely at any theaters. One wonders how well it can expand with word of mouth so strong and potential Oscar glory coming? 

Naturally all of these movies are hoping for a boost next weekend to capitalize on their presumed Oscar nominations. How many of them will keep expanding and how many will wither from people losing interest?

Naked Gold Man: Final Oscar Predictions !

I've never been good at math so predicting this year's Oscar race feels especially challenging. You can tell me that a picture requires 5% of #1 votes or that it's 10% or 406 votes or that you need #2 or #3 placements on 69.3% of ballots with odd #1 choices that weren't already tossed aside... None of it will really sink in. For the first time in well over a decade, I had a flashback to my high school algebra class and how my friends (who were in calculus) kept teasing me about my "polynomials?" confusion.  I hate math!*

But in the end what does it matter? Buzz, also an abstraction, is more fun to play with and closer to the truth for non-mathematicians. Best Picture nominations have long required #1 votes, maybe not in the same configurations but they've always required them. And as Joe recently pointed out on the podcast, we're tricked into thinking too deeply about this each and every year. Who thought Frost/Nixon was the best movie of 2008? Who would ever have voted for Chocolat as the best film of 2000? And yet it happens year in and year out. Focusing too much on #1 votes can cloud this certainty: Any film still being discussed as a possibility this late in the game has a fanbase. The question is just 'is that base big / loyal enough within the Academy to secure it a best picture nomination?'

Mo'Nique reading the Best Picture nominees last year!

What Happens With The Screens Behind the Presenters?
For the first time in modern history we'll have no idea until the names are read whether there will be five, six, seven, eight, nine or ten nominees. In past years when they announced the nominees you'd see the blank boxes where the nominees would be revealed while they read out the names. You knew, for instance, if there would be 3 or 5 animated nominees by how many boxes were there even if you hadn't been paying attention to the number of eligible pictures released.

My current hourly obsession is wondering whether we'll be tipped off to how many pictures there are seconds before we hear the titles...

When we knew there would be ten they simply appeared as they were read but there weren't actually boxes behind the announcers to be filled in as there were in years with five. You follow? So this year if there are, say, 6 nominees will we first see the empty boxes and KNOW there will be six before the names are read? 

PICTURE
If we only had five nominees, this race would be easy to call. Our nominees would be: The Artist, The Descendants, The Help, Hugo, and Midnight in Paris. And in that order of likelihood. (My preference order, just as reminder from my year in review, would be The Artist, Midnight in Paris, The Help, Hugo and The Descendants.) I believe the nomination tally hierarchy is going to be Hugo, The Artist, and The Help way out in front of other films. Moneyball would, I think, be the spoiler in a traditional shortlist year. No matter how you feel about those films on an individual basis, as a group that's a pretty beautiful spread of the film year: message movies, family dramas, cinematic novelties, smart comedies and releases stretching from summer to Christmas, from critical triumphs to sleeper hits. It's representative and we like the Oscars that way.

More after the jump...

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