Early Bird Oscar Predix Nearly Finished !

Working as fast as I can through the first wave of Oscar charts. I realize 'fast as I can' this year is snail-paced but you have to agree that this year has been a slow-starter anyway. Not that things haven't started now. Cannes is in full swing and in addition to the awards speculation for the Palme D'Or, Cannes prompts film sales, too, and thus distributor shuffling. Stephen Frears Philomena (currently in post) was picked up by the Weinstein Company and given that they had a full slate already -- especially for Best Actress since they're also representing Streep & Kidman in August and Grace -- it must have been more than Judi Dench that prompted the high priced sale. I've added it to the previously completed charts because it's just one of those projects that felt right to me when I first heard about it. Isn't it about time for Stephen Frears to get his mojo back? I've added that new contender to the prediction charts.

But for now, let's talk about the visual and aural categories. What follows is not my predictions but just a few thoughts to kick off a conversation. You can see predictions on the charts here (for visuals) and here (for sound) 

Cinematography
It may finally be Emmanuel Lubezki's year. The truly great cinematographer has always been overshadowed by non-discriminatory love for competing films in his nominated years -- in fact he's one of the very rare frequent below the title nominees that does not require any degree of Best Picture heat to be in the conversation. In fact only 20% of his nominations come from Best Picture nominated films. So you know they really love his work and it's not just coattails from the movies. This year he has the now-important advantage (sigh) of working with a ton of visual effects with his frequent collaborator Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity. For reasons that are still unclear to me Oscar voters now view Cinematography as an extension of the Visual Effects category; in the last four years the winners of both categories have been the exact same film. This is a terrible trend since cinematography is an art that's been producing myriad breathtaking works long before anybody had ever heard of CGI. Still... if this is what it takes to finally get Lubezki the Oscar... [more]

Click to read more ...

The Modern Bias in Best Cinematography.

Jose here. When the New York Film Critics began announcing their awards yesterday the biggest shock, for me, came early on as they decided to award Greig Fraser with Best Cinematography for Zero Dark Thirty. Don't get me wrong. I have absolutely nothing against Mr. Fraser and up to that moment I hadn't even seen the movie (I did later and ZOMG!). Anyway, what surprised me the most is that a contemporary movie had been recognized for an award that usually goes to period or fantasy movies. It's as if awards bodies don't feel that modern life is "pretty" enough to give it a photographic award. 

Yet the fact that people assume that "best" cinematography instantly means "prettiest" cinematography might be the greatest mistake in a category whose winners sometimes defy all logic...

Click to read more ...

"Gravity" is Now Test Screening

One of 2012's most anticipated features, Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity, is far enough along now that it's test screening. All we know (and want to know!) of its plot is the synopsis which goes like so "The lone survivor of a space mission to repair the Hubble telescope desperately tries to return to Earth and reunite with her daughter."

Sandra and Child and George Clooney on the set of "Gravity"

I heard from a Film Experience reader in California shortly after he exited a test screening and I thank him for not telling me plot details! (I can't be the only one who wants to be surprised at the movies anymore). He guiltily prefaced things with "I know I'm not supposed to speak about the movie" but he was too excited not to share calling Cuarón "insanely monumental" though he confirmed my suspicions that the film will prove divisive. 

Gravity is Cuaron’s masterpiece. It’s gonna be divided. Half will think it’s a self-indulgent borefest and half will think it’s amazingly brilliant. The movie is 80% just Sandra Bullock!

He went on to say that he thinks its her best work, particular in the final fifteen minutes (from which he assumes they'll draw an Oscar clip should that time come) but that the film is Cuarón's. He called likely nominations for Visual Effects, Picture, Director, Editing ("breathless" action), and Cinematography which he calls "amazing". Regarding the latter, though, did anyone expect less from eternal Oscar bridesmaid Emmanuel Lubezki (The Tree of Life, Children of Men) and Michael Seresin (Midnight Express)? 

Sandra on set. Bruise makeup?

You'll recall that the ambitious project had great difficulty finding its film-carrying female lead (supposedly Angelina Jolie turned it down twice and Natalie Portman once). So as for Best Actress...

If this is a runaway crowd pleaser, then count Bullock in."

Are you counting Sandy and Gravity in?

Related: Oscar Predictions & Oscar discussions

Tues Top Ten Pt 2: 84th Oscar Takeaways

It's (almost) all over but the dresses. But first we're counting down the ten takeaways from Oscar's 84th year. Your takeaways may vary of course but these are the ten things I expect I'll keep thinking about beyond the big night....

10 Direction is Everything
09 Fincher's Oscar Stride
08 Leggy Angelina Jolie
07 Movie Stars on Movies
06 A Separation's Win

Jessica and her Nana

05 Jessica Chastain is a Girly Girl
Just when we started thinking of her as a Serious Serious Actress she showed up in awards season all giggling, bouncy, girlish. This doesn't mean she isn't a serious actor of course but it was rather a shock, even after speaking with her. Celia Foote's uninhibited enthusiasm in The Help might be the closest we've seen to the real woman behind the chameleon. This impression continued on Oscar night when she brought her Nana and went all womanchild shy and cuddly after her clip. Later during the Best Actress presentation she looked enormously worried for Viola Davis. No wonder she's an actress; her face registers every flush of big feeling. 

04 Emmanuel Lubezki Is Never Going To Win an Oscar
I was more sure that "Chivo" aka Emmanuel Lubezki would lose the cinematography Oscar for The Tree of Life than I was sure who would win it. I predicted The Artist but the prize went to Robert Richardson (Oscar #3) for Hugo.  Lately AMPAS seems much more interested in cinematography as a complicated technical profession rather than a spiritual one that's all about light and tone and feeling. For the past three years Oscar has definitely preferred heavily processed CGI behemoths here. We hope they one day get back to movies that feel crafted by hand... and God. Like There Will Be Blood (which miraculously won).

Lubezki is brilliant but it's lost on the general voters. At least the cinematography branch knows his worth. He has the unique distinction of being nominated with frequency despite rarely lensing Best Picture nominees (which is rare) and despite not being inextricably tied to any one specific filmmaker (also rare). His nominations, all of them deserved (rarer still!), come from filmmakers as diverse as Alfonso Cuaron, Terrence Malick and Tim Burton.

03 Best Presenter: Emma Stone
Easy A was such a confident comic star turn that it was inevitable that she would ascend but it's delightful that she's just as funny at the big show as on the big screen. Entering the stage to present strenuously waving, emphatically gesturing, widely grinning, Emma Stone was so keyed up you had to ask if she was for real. Before she spoke you were caught for an instant on the line between 'is this a skit? and 'ohmygod she is really into this' which, as it turns out, was the skit.

We are here tonight to present the award for visual effectsTHIS IS MY FIRST TIME PRESENTING AN AWARD. Hiiiiiii. 

Waitwaitwaitwait let's stop rushing. We should have some banter.

What joy. Emma is just as funny as herself. Or maybe as Anne Hathaway, if you take this as a comic send up of that ill fated Oscar hosting last year. (In tonight's performance Ben Stiller will be playing the supporting of the less stoned but equally dull James Franco there only to bring his partner down). From Stone's unbridled enthusiasm to her ADD Show Person energy to the spontaneous singing... Was it too Mean Girl? I am crazy in love with Anne Hathaway myself but I laughed and laughed.

(Runners up: The Bridesmaids "SCORSESE!!!!!" [knocks back drink]. It was smart to give the six of them the three short film awards as their numbers dwindled on stage. I only wish they could've had a Sound of Music send off or some comic interstitial to shoo each other off the stage 'adieu adieu to you and you and you'. Distant third: Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr in "The Presenter")

02 Meryl Streep's Third Win. Be Careful What You Wish For
As previously discussed... but also the night's best speech. (Streep would have had a rival in Christopher Plummer but for his speech being in syndication for a couple of months now)

01 They Weren't Fooling Around With 'The Year of Nostalgia'
The Oscar Producers will see your Hugo and The Artist and The Help and War Horse and The Tree of Life and Midnight in Paris and every other backwards gazing collage of deeply felt memories, shared at the movies or privately recreated by or vicariously lived through the movies and they'll raise you Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lopez, Meryl Streep Winning, Tom Hanks all over the place, Cameron Diaz, and Billy Crystal thawed from his cryogenic freeze. If you squint your eyes a little this ceremony took place in...1994.

What will you take away from the 84th Oscars? 
Are you already dreaming of the 85th?

BAFTA Nominations: Driver, Marilyn, Soldier, Spy

The BAFTA nominations are out and though we've begun to lose interest in precursors -- 7 days until Oscar nominations are announced -- we should list them anyway! Precursors has two meanings for me. There's the calendar meaning which merely includes all awards that precede the Oscars. But there's a second meaning which is the awards that primarily exist to do just that, precede and thus predict the Oscar. We tend to never lose interest in the precursors that have their own personalities and quickly move on from the others.

BAFTA'S BEST PICTURE. Can you imagine how exciting this year would be if there were only five Oscar nominees again. What the hell would be nominated?

BAFTA's final shortlist is different enough than what we expect Oscar's to look like (Drive and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy both have devout fans but haven't captured that much awards heat in Hollywood) that we are forced into being slightly more interested than usual!

BEST FILM
THE ARTIST - Thomas Langmann
THE DESCENDANTS - Jim Burke, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor
DRIVE - Marc Platt, Adam Siegel
THE HELP - Brunson Green, Chris Columbus, Michael Barnathan
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY - Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Robyn Slovo

Is Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which has won some notice from the guilds and a fair amount of interest at the box office gaining ground towards major Oscar nominations next Tuesday or not? It's one of the big question marks right there along with is the abundant Dragon Tattoo guild love a case of perfect timing or 'crossover appeal and you'll see it at Oscar, too!'

OUTSTANDING BRITISH FILM
MY WEEK WITH MARILYN - Simon Curtis, David Parfitt, Harvey Weinstein, Adrian Hodges
SENNA - Asif Kapadia, James Gay-Rees, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Manish Pandey
SHAME - Steve McQueen, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Abi Morgan
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY - Tomas Alfredson, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Robyn Slovo, Bridget O'Connor, Peter Straughan
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN - Lynne Ramsay, Luc Roeg, Jennifer Fox, Robert Salerno, Rory Stewart Kinnear

OUTSTANDING DEBUT BY A BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR OR PRODUCER
ATTACK THE BLOCK - Joe Cornish (Director/Writer)
BLACK POND - Will Sharpe (Director/Writer), Tom Kingsley (Director), Sarah Brocklehurst (Producer)
CORIOLANUS - Ralph Fiennes (Director)
SUBMARINE - Richard Ayoade (Director/Writer)
TYRANNOSAUR - Paddy Considine (Director), Diarmid Scrimshaw (Producer)

Given that there is no Oscar equivalent of this category and few clues in their nominations as to which of these they loved, we're interested to see who wins this one. I suspect it will be Tyrannosaur but I'll admit I'm personally rooting for Attack the Block. I'm not as crazy for it as Michael is but I do appreciate its energy and no budget invention.

Directors, Actors and everything else after the jump...

Click to read more ...