Oscar Predictions: Argo Triumphant

The Oscars are tomorrow night and I'm very excited. This is the first time in years I've seen all nine of the nominated Best Pictures (thanks to Amazon Prime for Beasts of the Southern Wild), all but one of the acting nominees (sorry, Naomi Watts), four of the five feature documentaries (thanks Netflix), all of the animated and live-action shorts. So here are my predictions and I hope to clean up at a friends' Oscar party.

Picture: Argo

I still don't get why this well-made, but conventional thriller is the expected winner. Is it the backlash against the Affleck snub? Is Lincoln too talky? Probably a combination. This is an action-oriented, feel-good picture that gets your heart racing. It certainly did mine in the closing sequence which departed from the truth significantly, I hear. I understand the disguised diplomats just sailed through the airport in Iran without a hitch, but that would have made for a boring ending.

Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln

Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

There has been some movement among Oscar pundits that Emmanuelle Riva might be a surprise winner if Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence split the vote, but Lawrence will probably edge it out since she gets to cry and is American. Chastain had only that one tear at the end.

Oscar Nominee Predictions

I decided not to wait until the BAFTA nominations come up to make my Oscar predictions. That would only leave me one day. We did get the DGA nominations and they were pretty much as expected--Affleck, Bigelow, Lee, Spielberg, the only surprise was the inclusion of Tom Hooper for Les Miz instead of David Russell for SIlver Linings Playbook. I think the Oscar nominators will give him a Screenplay nod. We'll include the DGA in tomorrow's awards wrap up with the BAFTAs.

So here are my predix

Picture: 
Argo 
Amour 
Django Unchained 
Les Miserables 
Life of Pi 
Lincoln 
The Master 
Moonrise Kingdom 
Silver Linings Playbook 
Zero Dark Thirty 
I think there will be the maximum of ten nominees this year since there are so many pictures with strong support. Argo, Les Miz, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings and Zero are definites. There might be a nod to megabox office pix like The Dark Knight or Skyfall or maybe even The Hobbit. I hope they'll include indie fave Moonrise Kingdom and foreign weepie Amour. The final race is between Zero and Lincoln, both political pix. Critics darling Zero may be a problem for Hollywood since it seems to endorse torture and is under investigation. So Lincoln could sneak in as Best Pic and they'd give Bigelow best director as a consolation prize. 

Boston and NYC Online Crix Continue with 'Zero' Crowning

This is getting monotonous. No sooner do I find out the LA crix have broken the trend and awarded Amour, a film I've never heard of, Best Pic, instead of Zero Dark Thirty, but on the very same day, the Boston Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Online give their top prize to Zero. The damned thing hasn't even opened yet and already it's the top contender for the Oscar. (I also keep writing the title as Zero Thirty Dark or Zero Thirty Down.) I'm glad Ezra Miller who played the gay high school senior so movingly in The Perks of Being a Wallflower was recognized by the Beantown scribes in their supporting actor voting.

Here's where we are with all the awards so far: SAG, Critics Circle, and Golden Globe noms will be out this week. Daniel Day-Lewis is in the lead so far for best actor for Lincoln with the most wins. Emmanuelle Riva is the unexpected winningest lead actress with three triumphs. This foreign star's chances of getting an Oscar nod are iffy since so many Hollywood names are vying for the nom. The supporting actor category is the most diverse with each group picking a different winner.


Picture: Amour (LAFCA); Zero Dark Thirty (Bos, NBR, NYFCC, NYO) 
Actor: Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook (NBR); Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln (Bos, NYFCC, NYO); Joaquin Phoenix, The Master (LAFCA)
Actress: Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty (NBR); Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook (LAFCA-tie); Emmanuelle Riva, Amour (Bos, LAFCA-tie, NYO); Rachel Weisz, The Deep Blue Sea (NYFCC)
Supp. Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, Django Unchained (NBR); Dwight Henry, Beasts of the Southern Wild (LAFCA); Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln (NYO); Matthew Maconaughey, Bernie and Magic Mike (NYFCC); Ezra Miller, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Bos)
Supp. Actress: Amy Adams, The Master (LAFCA); Ann Dowd, Compliance (NBR); Sally Field, Lincoln (Bos, NYFCC); Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables (NY)
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master (LAFCA); Katheryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty (Bos, NBR, NYFCC)

Bos=Boston Society of Film Critics; LAFCA=Los Angeles Film Critics Assoc.; NBR=National Board of Review; NYFCC=New York Film Critics Circle; NYO=New York Film Critics Online

NY Stage Actors in Lincoln

It was wonderful to see Lincoln last night at the Union Square multiplex, not only because it was a great film and will probably win a bunch of Oscars, but also because I have read so many Lincoln books over the past few years. It felt like I knew the people and the era intimately, as if I were living then, or at least had a feel for what it may have been like to live in Washington as everyone's world was turned upside down and inside out by the Civil War. Rather than attempt to encompass all of Lincoln's life or even his time in the White House (as Gore Vidal did in his novel and the TV mini-series), screenwriter Tony Kushner and director Steven Spielberg zero in on a few weeks in 1865 as Lincoln pushes the Amendment to end slavery through the House of Representatives.

My only problem was the occasional "weight-of-history" scenes which felt too much like they were imposed on the action. One example is the scene between Lincoln and Mrs. Keckley (Gloria Reuben), Mary's dressmaker and companion. "What do you see as the future of your people," Lincoln asks her. I doubt if such a conversation ever took place and it seems like a writer's invention to scream at us "Important things are happening here, you people of 2012!"

I predict it will win Best Picture and Spielberg will get his second Best Director Oscar. Kushner will probably get an Adapted Screenplay award, a making him one of the few authors to win a Pulitzer, Tony, and Oscar (I think Alfred Uhry is the only other one). Daniel Day Lewis is a lock for Best Actor and Tommy Lee Jones and Sally Field are strong contenders for supporting Oscars. Hal Holbrook had a very nice couple of scenes as power broker Preston Blair.

Another bonus for me was the strong presence of the NY theater community in the cast. There were many actors in supporting role whom I've seen and reviewed in numerous Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. I had just seen one actor (Byron Jennings) in The 27th Man at the Public just a few days earlier and another (David Strathairn) I had seen in The Heiress the previous week. Many of my favorite stage actors had prominent and featured roles incl. Elizabeth Marvel, Bill Camp, S. Epatha Merkersen, Michael Stuhlbarg, Stephen Spinella, Julie White, Dakin Matthew, Coleman Domingo, Jared Harris, Adam Driver, Boris McGiver, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Christopher Evan Welch (who was just in The Master also).

There were problems with the experience. The Union Square has those rocking chairs which lean back. The person behind me must have had extremely long legs because he kept kicking the back of my chair. It wasn't a constant barrage of violent assaults, but it was just often enough to be annoying. I did turn around once to stare at him and that worked for a while, but there were a few slight taps afterwards. My senses were bombarded from the opposite direction as well. In the row in front of me and few seats to my right, a woman was looking at her I phone, checking her Facebook status, for long intervals during the film.The light from her phone was very distracting. There were numerous admonition to turn off cell phones and not to text during the film. I think she must have thought "As long as I'm not talking or texting during the movie, I'm not bothering anyone." I really should have said something, but I didn't want to cause a scene. But it still bothers me. I mean, didn't this woman know she would be seeing a long, serious film with few battle scenes?  If you're so bored by history that you just have to look at your Iphone pictures, why even go to the movie? Next time I will gently say, "Please turn off your phone, the light and your FaceBook updates are taking me out of the 19th century, you moron."    
            
To continue with the Lincoln saturation, I have ordered used DVDs of two TV mini-series on our 16th president: Carl Sandburg's Lincoln starring Hal Holbrook and Sada Thompson from 1974 and Gore Vidal's Lincoln with Sam Waterston and Mary Tyler Moore from 1988. I've already seen Raymond Massey in Abe Lincoln in Illinois and Henry Fonda in Young Abe Lincoln. I will blog about the differences.