Oscar Predictions 2012: Acting

Let's take a look at the acting categories.

Best Supporting Actor

Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Max von Sydow, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
Nick Nolte, Warrior

This has been a lock for quite some time and is probably the lock of the night. Jonah Hill never really had a shot this year and Nick Nolte's performance wasn't going to gain any traction despite Warrior being under appreciated. Christopher Plummer has been a Hollywood great for some time and still remains statue-less. With a brilliant performance as a recently out widower he was fantastic in Beginners. Then all of a sudden people remembered that Max von Sydow is also old and doesn't have an Oscar so he looked to be gaining some support but I don't think it will matter as Plummer is the more deserving of the two. And while this was previously mentioned in the comments section by a good friend it is worth repeating how Albert Brooks and Patton Oswalt took their snubs to twitter.

Best Supporting Actress
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Bérénice Bejo, The Artist
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Octavia Spencer, The Help

I know how boring, another lock. The Help's success is directly based off the performance of Spencer and Viola Davis. Spencer has already walked away with an arm full of awards for her performance plus she actually deserves the award. Creeping up behind her is Bérénice Bejo from The Artist, but for her to win would be a huge upset. It may surprise you that I think Bejo is in a better position to upset than Melissa McCarthy who stole the show in Bridesmaids but we all know the Academy hates comedies already, plus she won an Emmy for her movie performance so that has to count for something. While I think McCarthy and Spencer did equally well in their respective movies Spencer should have an easy win of it.

Best Actress
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Viola Davis, The Help
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn

Why won't they let poor Meryl Streep alone, haven't they done enough to her psyche. Forcing her to sit in the front row year after year and knowing she is going to lose. It looks like now she is in second place following the front runner Viola Davis. While Streep may have won the BAFTA award and the Golden Globe for The Iron Lady, Davis won the critics’ choice and SAG award. And doesn't playing Margret Thatcher seem like her begging to win. They may be knotted up in Oscar precursors but it appears Davis has more support from The Academy. Viola Davis will be the 14 th person to beat out Streep for the Oscar.

Best Actor
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Demián Bichir, A Better Life
George Clooney, The Descendants
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Finally a category that is still up for grabs. With both George Clooney and Jean Dujardin having won a golden globe for their performance this is really anyone's race. Dujardin may have the slight advantage having won the SAG award. Since the race is so close we could actually look at the performances themselves. Both men starred as men who were broken and beaten down in their story. No matter how hard you looked it still seemed like Clooney with all his Clooney charm playing the part rather that Matt King on the screen. Dujardin has the advantage of being an unknown but he also had to convey all of his emotion via expression. You still got what he was thinking without more than 5 words spoken and that to me speaks to a better performance. I believe that Dujardin deserves the win more so I'm going with him as my pick.

Tomorrow we'll give a look at Best Picture.

Oscars 2012: First Thoughts

The Road to Wrestlemani...the Oscars have finally begun. Most would agree it was a pretty weak year in film. There are a score of movies that came out last year which would probably be taking home the award this year. That is just not the case though, so let's take a look at some of the nominations or lack there of

Best Picture
“The Artist”
“The Descendants”
“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”
“The Help”
“Hugo”
“Midnight in Paris”
“Moneyball”
“The Tree of Life”
“War Horse”

With different rules this year one of the biggest questions was how many movies would be nominated in this category. In order to be nominated for best picture the movie needed to receive at least 5% of the vote. Many thought that because the field was weak this year it would lead to fewer nominees. Instead it led to more. With the most surprising selection being “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” followed closely by “The Tree of Life.” Both of these movies left critics and audiences highly divided walking out of the theater. Despite the Academy not normally supporting comedies, I honestly thought that “Bridesmaids” would make it through this year, sadly it was not to be as the combination of Tom Hanks and September 11th seems too strong a pull for the older Academy voters. While it was never going to happen weren’t you kind of hoping to see the final Harry Potter movie get nominated, say what you wish about the series, bit if you put away any bias you may have it was a good movie, and one of the best this year. Not an artistic choice, but a really well done movie.

BEST DIRECTOR
Michel Hazanavicius ("The Artist")
Alexander Payne ("The Descendants")
Martin Scorsese ("Hugo")
Woody Allen ("Midnight in Paris")
Terrence Malick ("The Tree of Life")


Four of the five directors nominated also were nominated for the Director's Guild Award. While it may shock some to see Steven Spielberg off the list, the more surprising diss is without question David Fincher for his take on “The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo.” Spielberg is usually snubbed come awards season, it didn't help that his horse movie wasn't as so much good as it was sentimental. Fincher did terrific work, well maybe not terrific but certainly better than Terrence Malick whose own star couldn’t even understand “The Tree of Life.”

BEST ACTOR
Demián Bichir ("A Better Life")
George Clooney "The Descendants")
Jean Dujardin ("The Artist")
Gary Oldman ("Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy")
Brad Pitt ("Moneyball")

Clooney, Pitt, and Dujardin, were obvious selections and while it seems to be a two man race between Clooney and Dujardin many thought that two of the biggest rising stars in Hollywood would get the nod as well. Without a doubt the biggest snubs of the day came in this category with the exclusion of Michael Fassbender and Ryan Gosling. Gosling had three fantastic performances in “The Ides of March,” “Drive,” and “Crazy, Stupid Love” (which would actually get him a supporting nomination). But Fassbender seemed like the bigger snub of the two, though it makes more sense as Academy voters typically don't support naked men. But seriously has anyone seen “A Better Life’ besides Christoph Waltz?

BEST ACTRESS
Glenn Close ("Albert Nobbs")
Viola Davis ("The Help")
Rooney Mara ("The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo")
Meryl Streep ("The Iron Lady")
Michelle Williams ("My Week with Marilyn")

A lot of people are surprised that Rooney Mara made the list; I am not one of them. She did well but many of the experts thought that took away from Tilda Swinton for Let's Talk About Kevin. I didn't see this one so can't speak to it. Moving on.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Kenneth Branagh ("My Week with Marilyn")
Jonah Hill ("Moneyball")
Nick Nolte ("Warrior")
Christopher Plummer ("Beginners")
Max von Sydow ("Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close")

Love that Nick Nolte got nominated for “Warrior.” This was one of my favorite movies of the year and I suggest every guy out there go out and watch this one. This is one of the reasons that Tom Hardy got cast as Bane. The movie was marketed wrong initially, but it had a lot of great action sequences and was a fun watch. I did not think that Jonah Hill was going to get nominated either, but was glad to see him on the list. Now the question is did Albert Brooks deserve the nomination. He certainly was good but I completely forgot about his performance until people kept talking about it which may be the most telling sign of his deserving the honor.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Bérénice Bejo ("The Artist")
Jessica Chastain ("The Help")
Melissa McCarthy ("Bridesmaids")
Janet McTeer ("Albert Nobbs")
Octavia Spencer ("The Help")

It is surprising that Bejo got nominated in this category and not for lead actress, but that was her decision to make as she submits herself into the category. Melissa McCarthy getting nominated was well deserved for her performance and also a way to make up for the fact that her movie didn't make it to the big one. But everyone knows this award will belong to Octavia Spencer by the end of the night.

Best Animated Film
“A Cat in Paris”
“Chico & Rita”
“Kung Fu Panda 2”
“Puss in Boots”
“Rango”

How did Puss in Boots get nominated? And while “Cars 2” didn't make it, and didn't deserve to make it I'm still surprised it didn't make it. This will be the first year in a while that Pixar won't walk away with the major award, which means this field is wide open.

Finally how are there only two songs nominated for Best Song. Man or Muppet will go head-to-head with Real in Rio. But where is the love, for songs from Elton John, Mary J. Blidge, and this year's Golden Globe winner Madonna all being left off the list. Even with the prospect of a Muppet performance at The Oscars it is surprising not to see more nominations, and for that matter where is the love for last year's winner Trent Reznor. His score for “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” is what garnered a lot of the early buzz for the movie. You certainly could take off one of John Williams’s two nominations for scores as that are completely interchangeable and sound like every other Spielberg movie he worked on
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Those were my thoughts. What did you think? Let me know.

The Help

Based in the racially charged Deep South during the sixties The Help takes a look at the perspective of the hired help and what they were forced to grin and take during Jim Crow. The heart of the story is in the right place. Everything else seems to be scattered from the emotion to the narrator. This fluctuation may work for a book but in the movie the story seems to be all over the place.

The story itself is very convincing and connects itself to the audience. There didn't seem to be any over dramatization for the sake of getting a reaction. Although it seemed there was plenty of room for just such an action as one can't help but feel nervous for the main characters as they attempt to do what they feel to be the right thing. Instead the story is told true to what life could have been during this tumultuous time. The story seemed so natural that I believed it to be a true story.

The Help follows the action of two women attempting to share the story of their town with the rest of the country. Emma Stone plays Skeeter a fledgling writer living in a well to do Mississippi town. She is looking to make the move from small town journalist to novelist and to do that she needs to find a subject to speak to that people around her seem to be missing out on. After noticing the way her friends and family treat the hired help, she believes she has found her subject. No one is willing to talk to Skeeter about what really goes on in these white homes fearing the repercussions until she finally convinces Ailbileen Clark played by Viola Davis to speak about her life. While the story is about the black workers and the voiceovers are done by Viola Davis, Emma Stone’s character seems to be the one pushing the plot along. Only Hollywood could take a movie about the plight of Black workers in Jackson, Mississippi during the sixties and have it star a white woman.

The book features three different perspectives both the point of view of Skeeter and Ailbileen along with Ailbileen's friend Minny. In the movie Minny, played by Octavia Spencer takes a back seat and provides more comic relief than perspective. The movie is at its best when the focus of the movie turns to Davis and Spencer. As you can expect Davis, a Tony and Oscar nominated actress, brings in a powerful performance. All her emotions dazzle through the eyes of this performer and it is her character that can raise you up or bring you down. Spencer does not convey her fears as well as Davis, and while she obviously fears for her livelihood at time she does much better with sass.

Their white counterparts do a fine job. It is easy to see why Emma Stone is in so many movies, she is charismatic, talented, and cute. She does a great job in the movie but is probably given too much to do, including a romance that has no bearing on the story, and in fact takes away from the idea that this movie is about strong independent women. Her romance is the only male prominently featured in the movie; all others are pushed out of the scene or are only there at the whims of their wives to showcase the women of the time. No better example than queen bee and president of the Junior League Hilly Holbrook, played by Opie's daughter Bryce Dallas Howard. Hilly holds the most power in her group of women and has ostracized those who would get in her way. Howard really gets herself into the character, pushing those around her to maintain the status quo of the town all while wearing a perfect smile. Howard does a great job bringing to life a deplorable character.

With such strong talent in front of the camera most of its waywardness can be attributed to the relatively new director Tate Taylor. Taylor is a close friend of the novel's author Kathryn Stockett and may have been convinced to keep too much of the story. While not necessarily a bad thing to stay so true to a beloved book, there is no need to keep everything, and someone with such little experience or sway may not know how to correctly pace a movie.

The movie itself though is fine, it doesn't get bogged down or overzealous, though it is often fairly overt on what the characters are thinking and how you should feel. The movie concerns itself with making sure fans of the book can cherish the story and share it with those who have yet to read it, and in that respect the movie accomplishes its goals. If you allow yourself to be taken into their world you will surely feel better for it. C