Weekly Column! Just in time forweeklychart updates. You heard me!
Let's start with an oft-forgotten fact: there are no "locks" until films are open and seen by the Academy. Even then, positive reactions don't always translate into votes. War Horse would be the right example. It feels like a winner by way of pedigree (Spielberg and Team), topic (World War), intangibles (the Broadway play on the same topic is a hit!) and early peeks (the trailer), but until voters are actually watching any movie from start to finish, you can't know.
Until you have seen a movie there is no way to consider how it tugs at your own heart (or doesn't), how it seizes your imagination (or doesn't) and how your instant reaction sizes up with general consensus. Instant reactions do not happen in lockstep with voting (at least not usually) and consensus -- which is say the wisdom of masses, media favoritism, and opinions from one's own social circle -- absolutely affects individual response though people regularly feign otherwise.
Seeing the pictures is key and without the keys, aren't locks mere abstractions?
J. Edgar is another prime example. It's got the pedigree team, the baity topic and genre, but the second people are watching it things will change, for better or worse. I can't say that I'm hopeful after seeing the dull musty trailer, which plays more like the zombie corpse of an Oscar contender rather than a lively shiny hopeful. But then, I didn't get the Clint Eastwood Appreciation Gene so I readily admit that I am no representative sample.
To win nominations a film (or performance) must not only win hearts, minds and imaginations but it must stack up favorably against its competition. In other words "locks" for films or actors no one has seen are an absurd notion. Take War Horse again... will its message resonate with voters as much as The Help's? Will the young male lead (no, not the horse) inspire them or make them feel as protective as his counterpart in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close might? Will anything within War Horse, stimulate like the wit and adult soul of Moneyball? Does the equine war drama have any lighter moments and are they as effervescent or charming as the best scenes from The Artist or Midnight in Paris?
If nominations were held RIGHT NOW, right this second, and all films that have been seen by a lot of people -- i.e. multiple festivals (whether they're technically open yet or not) were eligible these would be your only "Locks"
I didn't think we'd be getting this trailer so soon but I guess the year is getting on. Wowee - 2011 is half over tomorrow... should we do a "best of"? Herewith, the first trailer for Steven Spielberg's Christmas-time presumed Oscar frontrunner spectacle War Horse. We'll decide how excited we are with our yes, no, maybe so treatment.
Can you imagine flying over a war, and you know you can never look down? You have to look forward or you'll never get home. I ask you: What could be braver than that?
YES If there's any director who excels at capturing the spirit of (boy) wonder, it's Spielberg. The first shot of the lead (Jeremy Irvine as Albert) brings to mind both E.T. and Empire of the Sun in particular as a boy is amazed at the wonderment he beholds ...in this case, a horse rather than an alien or an airplane. The trailer also reminded me of something totally off-topic but that warmed my heart. Do you remember those old ads about indie movie making starring Jesse Eisenberg's little sister Hailee. Remember those? I forget what they were for. She played the world's youngest movie director or something?
My movie is called Horses Are Pretty because horses are pretty.
That they are. Don't think Spielberg won't know how to exploit their innate majesty.
NO "RUN FORREST ALBERT RUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN" [trailer and Oscar commentary after the jump]
Future Live Blog Alert!The Tony Awards are this Sunday evening, June 12th on CBS with Neil Patrick Harris hosting. We'll do a live blog even though we haven't seen most of the productions. It's still the Tonys which means: song, dance, celebrity, weird gaffes that you'd think wouldn't be possible in a show celebrating LIVE performances... i.e. shouldn't they know how to handle live events?
So be here if you're so inclined. Now on to our four theater topics with film tendencies.
1. GHOST THE MUSICAL Since all hit films (from 1984 and onwards) are now required to become stage musicals at some point, this had to happen. Should we predict right now that whoever plays Oda Mae Brown wins the Tony when this hits Broadway?
I was going to write up this "preview" embedded below but sometimes you gotta admit that there's no topping another write up. I challenge anyone to beat Movie|Line's headline... "YOU IN DANGER, LEGIT THEATER"
2. WAR HORSE THE PLAY / MOVIE I've been a bad Oscar pundit and haven't yet picked up the novel on which this hit play and Steven Spielberg's upcoming movie are based. From what I've gleaned about the show and its competitors, I can see where Michael Muston at ArtsBeat is coming from when he says:
“War Horse” is a children’s story. It’s not a remarkable piece of dramaturgy. It’s all in the staging. People are going to conflate in their heads the play with the staging, and it’s going to win the Tony.
As for Steven Spielberg's film version... there hasn't been all that much news yet but when I saw this tweet from MTV's Josh Horowitz I initially interrupted it as "he's seen the movie!". Overexcitability much, Nathaniel?
One assumes, after smelling salts, that Josh meant the play and has already imagined its suitability for hankies, Oscars, and iconic bearded auteurs.
3. SANDRA BERNHARD For my birthday celebration my friends took me to see Sandra Bernhard's new show "I Love Being Me, Don't You?" which was indecent with 'look how many famous friends I have!' shenanigans: Justin Bond, Rufus Wainwright and Liza Minnelli came out for duets and Chaddo Ralph Rucci designed her stunning wardrobe.
Steven Spielberg has two movies coming out this year, a twin trick he's performed five other times: 1989, 1993, 1997, 2002 and 2005. Christmas break brings us The Adventures of TinTin: The Secret of the Unicorn and a week later on December 28th, War Horse opens.
The TinTin Teaser (International)
Yes No or Maybe So ? ;)
Aside from Spielberg's trusted collaborative team (composer John Williams, editor Michael Kahn, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski and the rest), his reliably huge box office results, his male protagonists, and child actors in lead or prominently featured roles, what other commonality do we often see in his work?
Here's one to consider...
If you want Spielberg to direct your script, have an element of chase in it. From his TV movie Duel, his megahits Jaws and E.T., the Indiana Jones franchise, through the two movies starring Tom Cruise and Catch Me If You Can (the title alone!), Spielberg's characters have been on the run. They've been out of breath for four decades. Where are they going? Who is chasing them? Why?
DUEL (1971 TV movie, released theatrically in Europe) A truck driver chases down a driver who had the nerve of passing him.
THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS (1974) Lou Jean and her husband Clovis (Goldie Hawn and William Atherton), an escaped convict, on the run from the law, chased by dozens of police cars.
JAWS (1975) After a shark and a police captain (Roy Shrieder) run people out of the water, three men (including the police captain) go after the killer shark.
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) The search for the lost coven of god. A big boulder chases Indiana Jones, our adventurous archeologist, right to the hands of his enemies, who chase him all the way to his awaiting seaplane, etc. Includes a chase in the crowded streets of Cairo.
E.T. (1982) The government is after the kids hiding the long-fingered alien who just wants to go home. Cue bicycle chase.
INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984) It's one chase after another kicking off with Indy's frenzy to find the antidote to his poisoning, then the leap from a plane - snowy slope - river rapids sequence and finally the Sankara Stones and a chase on mine car tracks.
INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989) The search for the holy grail. Nazis once again. Chases on boats, biplanes and tanks.
HOOK (1991) The boy who never grows up grew up to be Robin Williams. Peter Pan returns to Neverland after Captain Hook kidnaps his children. And the crocodile still haunts Captain Hook with his ticking stomach.
JURASSIC PARK (1993) The dinosaurs cut loose and it's a two-way chase: Dinosaurs vs. Humans, Humans vs. Dinosaurs. As is the case in the horrible sequel THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997).
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998) Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) and troupe race to find a single soldier (Matt Damon) behind enemy lines in WW2.
A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (2001) Android David (Haley Joel Osment) joins Gigolo Joe (Jude Law) who is running from the police on murder charges, and they seek the Blue Fairy.
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (2002) FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks) chases conman Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio).
MINORITY REPORT (2002) John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is continually on the run after being charged with a murder he has yet to commit.
MUNICH (2005) The hunt for the murderers of 11 Israeli athletes in the 1972 Olympic games in Munich.
WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005) Ray (Cruise again) and his kids run from murderous killing machines from outer space.
Spielberg loves a good chase
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008) Harrison Ford, no stranger to marathon runs (see also The Fugitive) is continually on the run when he's playing the world's most famous fictional anthropologist. This is the only movie in the franchises that I've seen but once but I remember a chase involving jeeps in the jungle.
In Saving Stablemate Joey AKA WAR HORSE, a horse named Joey is sold to the cavalry and sent to France. Albert, too young to enlist, goes out to save his horse (Matt Damon?) behind enemy lines in WWI.
And TIN TIN? We'll see. Did I miss any chases in these other pictures? 1941, Close Encounters, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Always, Schindler's List, The Terminal?
Though Spielberg is not at prolific as Clint Eastwood or Woody Allen, he is known as a speedy director. He likes to shoot in more than one setting a day and apart from possibly Jaws (?) he finishes his movies ahead of schedule. Take War of the Worlds for an example of his post-production speed. Filming wrapped in March and the movie was in theaters by June! despite being heavy on the visual effects. This sense of urgency comes through in his movies, which could be one reason he's such a strong action director (I'd argue he's better with action than drama).
Spielberg's cameo in The Blues Brothers
Even when Spielberg isn't directing, he's producing big budget tent poles -- many with chase elements, even non-human ones like Twister (storm-chasing!). Even his rare cameo in The Blues Brothers fits in: he ends the police chase after the brothers.
Always on the run, the search and chase continue.
So my "April Foolish" Oscar Predictions are now complete. I rejiggered two tech predictions once I finally decided on my ten Best Pictures but honestly, any combo of the top 20 listed seems just as plausible as any other so long as the obvious get, War Horse, is there. (It's practically as obvious as The King's Speech was a year out.) We won't know until January how well I did but it's exciting this far out when anything seems possible yes?
BEST PICTURE I didn't expect to get so fully behindSuper 8 but sometimes your own predictions surprise you once you have to work every category out. My wishful thinking pick is David Cronenberg's psychoanalytic period drama A Dangerous Method which is a big old question mark for a number of reasons. But my hunch is that Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender and Keira Knightley will all bring it which will heat up the material which is already sexual conceptually speaking since it's about Freud and Jung. But Cronenberg has never been to the Academy's liking so I'm probably wrong. My wildcard guess -- as in something that's not an obvious contender -- is Oren Moverman's Rampart, a police corruption drama. This film will have the same challenge as My Week With Marilyn in that it will only win real Oscar traction if it feels much larger or more mythic than a telefilm on the same material since both cover topics that have been dramatized on television many times: cop dramas and Marilyn Monroe respectively. My guess for Smallest Nomination Tally But still Best Pic competitor is We Bought a Zoo (just a hunch). My guess for Film With Most Noms That Doesn't Get Nominated For Best Picture (whew) which was Alice in Wonderland last year and Nine the year before (i think?) is The Adventures of TinTin: The Secret of the Unicorn but if I'm wrong on that, I feel certain it'll be Hugo Cabret.
QUESTIONS FOR YOU: Which film am I greatly overestimating? Which movie am I greatly underestimating? Where am I Goldilocks "just right"? I'll admit I had NO idea what to make of Moneyball. You?
BEST ACTRESS Elizabeth Olsen and Felicity Jones were the twin Sundance bids for this category in January and we know how last year and the year before (Bening & Lawrence, Mulligan & Sidibe) turned out: all were nominated. But in a fit of bravery, I'm not predicting either of them.
I'm going with a mostly Previous Nominees lineup. How do you deny Michelle Williams, Glenn Close or Keira Knightley for example this far ahead with juicy roles? As for never-nominated people, I'm totally curious to see what happens with Charlotte Rampling's film The Eye of the Storm.
ACTRESSY QUESTIONS FOR YOU: Anyone think they'll pass on Meryl Streep this year? (I perversely wanted to predict it.) Which actress am I underestimating? Could you see Williams winning for Marilyn?
Note to New Readers The navigation bar up-top has pull down menus for each Oscar charts or you can click on the Prediction Index and investigate from there. Join in the conversation!
Sunday, October 2, 2011 at 7:58PM 
Let's start with an oft-forgotten fact: there are no "locks" until films are open and seen by the Academy. Even then, positive reactions don't always translate into votes. War Horse would be the right example. It feels like a winner by way of pedigree (Spielberg and Team), topic (World War), intangibles (the Broadway play on the same topic is a hit!) and early peeks (the trailer), but until voters are actually watching any movie from start to finish, you can't know.
