April Foolish Predictions: Best Actor

Every year on the 1st of April we begin consulting our well used crystal ball. It's like "the Oscars, again? Don't you wanna know winning lottery numbers or something?" It's foolish to predict the Oscars before practically any of the contenders have screened but foolish can be fun.

This year the contest might be between two men playing beloved US presidents, Bill Murray as FDR in Hyde Park on Hudson and Daniel Day Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln, and even if it isn't that angle will get media play. Streep's win a month ago reminded us that Oscar has always loved political performances (if not overtly political films) and they literally can't go one year without having one of the four acting winners playing a real life character. (Benjamin Walker is also playing Abraham Lincoln this year but he's playing him as a vampire hunter so he doesn't figure into the chart.) 

Ryan Gosling has a few leading roles again this year but after the past few years it's clear that Oscar just isn't that into him. So we look to people they love nearly without fail like Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master. It's possible that he'll overplay the role of a charismatic cult leader but that might actually help with Oscar. They love Clint Eastwood more as a director than an actor but one last chance to honor him for The Trouble With the Curve, a father/daughter road trip drama might be too much to pass up.

At this point I'm most curious about Hugh Jackman's chances for Les Misérables -- I'm guessing they're very good but I'm also guessing that that opinion won't be shared by all -- and whether John Hawkes can fend off dozens of upcoming contenders and keep the heat from his Sundance success in The Surrogate as a man in an iron lung. 

Numerous leading men are coming but only five of them can win Oscar love. Other possibly interesting lead performances are on the way from Bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt, Oscar Isaac, and of course Jamie Foxx as Django Unchained.

Who will it be? Here's my new guesswork.

How would you shift it?
Whose work are you most curious to see? 

A "Game Change" for Julianne Moore

When celebrities play celebrities, the anticipation is half of the buzz.

Will they nail the voice? Will they smile and move like the other famous person? If other celebrities have played this celebrity will they surpass previous incarnations? Will the transformation be all surface or will it dig deep? Can anyone notice the difference since all high profile biopics win acting kudos? How many reviews will work some variation on "________ IS _________ !!!" as the reviewer falls under the actor's spell?

Since most famous actors who are cast in biopics can act, they usually succeed at their impersonations and we move from "will they?" regarding the performance to "will they?" regarding awards wins. In both cases the answer is generally "yes". For reasons The Film Experience has never quite pinned down, these metamorphoses surprise the world each time as if we've never seen their like. Occasionally we even doubt the answer to the first "will they?"

But for all the familiarity of this showbiz narrative, in Julianne Moore's case Game Change may actually be a game change. Her work as Sarah Palin was one of the true nail biters in the realm of modern biographical star turns and here's why...

Click to read more ...

The Linking Cure

Incredible Suit is on the Goswatch to detail four upcoming chances for Ryan Gosling to continue his awesomeness into 2013.
Collider Great news for Viola Davis fans - a second lead role cometh. (Of course she had to make it happen herself.) She'll produce and star in a biopic about the first African American elected to the Texas senate. It's based on the Mary Beth Rogers book Barbara Jordan: An American Hero.

Vanity Fair has a gallery of backstage photos of film/theaters stars in their dressing rooms by Simon Annand including beautiful shots of Rachel Weisz, Tom Hardy, Daniel Craig and Cate Blanchett.
Flavorwire 40 of the best lines from Mad Men's Don Draper (Jon Hamm) or his writing team, rather. Someone make this into a super cut please. One my my all time favorites is:

You don’t cover for me. You manage people’s expectations."

In Contention on the ongoing success and controverseries surrounding Asghar Farhadi's amazing Oscar winner A Separation.
Kenneth in the (212) thinks Rosie's interview show on Oprah's new network is great. Apparently she and Sandra Bernhard talked King of Comedy quite a bit. Ugh, love that movie. (Damnit does this mean I have to DVR another show?)
Boston Review a former president of the American Psychiatric Association reviews A Dangerous Method. Interesting review and it takes time to detour into the theatrical production of "The Talking Cure" (the play that preceded the movie) wherein Ralph Fiennes starred in what became the Michael Fassbender role.
ioncinema oooh, the first photos I've seen from Laurence Anyways the new Xavier Dolan picture. This one stars the wonderful Melvil Poupaud as a man who decides he wants to be a woman.

Today's Must Read
Moviefone's Mike Ryan calls a "John Carter" in 50 states to see if they're seeing John Carter this weekend. Insane, funny, awesome.

Very Veronika

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JA from MNPP here. This weekend marks the 30th anniversary of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's second-to-last film, the glorious Veronika Voss. The film is the final piece in his "BRD Trilogy" (BRD stands for "Bundesrepublik Deutschland," the official name of West Germany and of the united contemporary Germany"), which includes The Marriage of Maria Braun and Lola. It was released at the 32nd Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Bear. Anyone a fan? It's basically his methadone-drenched take on Sunset Boulevard, and one of the most beautiful of Fassbinder's films (which is saying a lot) - the blackest-black-and-whitest-white cinematography by frequent collaborator Xaver Schwarzenberger is a dazzling thing.

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The film's star Rosel Zech, seen up top dialing a phone and smoking like nobody's business - she spends a lot of the movie doing both, and she does them magnificently - just passed away last September, we briefly memorialized her at MNPP. Fassbinder himself died four months after this movie was released in 1982, and his final film, the swarthy homosexual-sailors Genet adaptation Querelle, was released that same September, a fittingly frenetic conclusion to a career that burned very brightly at both ends. I keep desperately waiting for the Fassbinder bio-pic of my dreams - I mean, we have Jeremy Renner to play him now! What else do we need?

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Yes, No, Maybe So: Nicole vs. Juli. September 2012

Since there weren't enough prizes in the world for Claire "Temple Grandin" Danes and Kate "Mildred" Winslet, who will be our next "Her, again?" awards gobbler?

Will it be Nicole Kidman in Hemingway & Gellhorn vs. Julianne Moore in Game Change? The last time they faced off in awards season (2002) they were actually co-stars and Nic' won for The Hours (Julianne losing for Far From Heaven and The Hours albeit in two separate categories) . Or will they both be trumped by someone we're not thinking of yet when the Emmys role around in September 2012 and this whole awards circus begins anew? 

In this corner, Nicole Kidman as Martha Gelhorn in Hemingway and Gellhorn...

Yes - Philip Kaufman is directing and he's made some amazing films in the past like The Right Stuff and Henry & June. The last time Nicole Kidman lowered her voice this noticeably to play a ballsy writer, she won the Oscar.

No - Isn't there a danger of this gorgeous Star strolling through the rubble of war reminding people of Australia? They didn't much like that one. Four minute trailers always have the problem of making the oncoming product seem overstuffed, unduly episodic and desperate for attention. "And then this happened. And then this happened. And then this happened. And then this happened. Interested? No?" Uh... [Cue: flop sweat, razzle dazzle] Uh... Oh... okay the first part is shit but the second part is REALLY nifty! Ok.... she'd go ♫. I'd go ♫. we'd gooooo. ♫"

Maybe So - The success of this may well rest on the chemistry between Clive Owen and Kidman. Do they have it? And can Clive Owen work his way around the very vivid recent memory of Corey Stoll in this role via Midnight in Paris?

In this corner Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin in Game Change... 

Yes - It might be fun to watch Juliannne Moore attempt biopic mimicry because it's not the sort of thing she's known for. And at this point we'll take anything that might win her an award. Has there ever been an actress as major who hasn't won any major prizes? She wins nothing. No Emmys, No Globes, No Oscars. 

No - "Fair and balanced" has been wiped clean of all meaning ever since Fox News took over the world, but where will this film fall on the scale of fair representation? On the one hand, it might be super to watch a take-down of Sarah Palin. But then again, the target is just so easy so it might feel way too cheap shot-like. On the other, excessive humanization of seemingly soulless political monsters through the magic of warm actresses (see also The Iron Lady) comes with its own queasiness, the humanization of dehumanizing idealogies.

Maybe So - Will anyone be ready to sit through more Sarah Palin when she's been so torturously around ever since 2008?  And can Juli work his way around the very vivid recent memory of Tina Fey in this role via Saturday Night Live?

"I have to win this thing. I so don't want to go back to Alaska!"What kind of bet are you laying down?  

Better yet, do you see awards attention beyond our leading ladies for these HBO Movies? Both have amazing casts. Hemingway & Gellhorn is giving us Clive Owen, Parker Posey, Robert Duvall, David Straithairn, Rodrigo Santoro and Molly Parker (in awards bait position of scorned wife). Game Plan is giving us Woody Harrelson, Ed Harris and Sarah Paulson and a ton of others in small roles.

Be brave in the comments and make some Emmy calls now!