Oscar-nomics: Best Actor Predictions

This is the category I take most umbrage with, and not because who is in it, the list is respectable, but who is not. I thought Michael Fassbender not only had the biggest breakout year by far but also the best performance in Shame. He threw himself into every scene he was given and gave each scene no less than his all, which he did flawlessly. I was worried he would be snubbed since he failed to land a SAG nomination, but I was hoping the Academy would overlook that mess up and let him in. Oh well, lets see who got in instead, here are the nominees:

Demián Bichir A Better Life
No offense to Mr. Bichir, this is a well earned nomination, but its his nomination I am most upset about. While I am sure his performance is strong, it had a very little release. This, to me is one of those "hmm, maybe I will finally go check out this film," kind of nominees that happen every once in a while (such as Jacki Weaver last year for Animal Kingdom). That being said, he hasn't the momentum or the mentioned release time to truly mount an upset, so the nomination is the reward.

George Clooney The Descendants
This is arguably one of my favorite George Clooney performances. Not only do we see him be the George Clooney we all know and love, we also see his emotional side as a father trying to handle family and business all during a tragic accident. He was long since to be considered your winner, but I am not so convinced now. Lately, there has been a shift in momentum towards a new sheriff in town. I think Mr. Clooney will fall just short of...

Jean Dujardin The Artist
I knew this nomination was coming from a mile away, but I never considered him the frontiersmen. Then I started thinking about it and it actually makes the most sense. Being in a silent film, he must be able to act out each and every scene with only his body movements not his voice, which is hard to do. Granted, it throws subtlety out the window, but after seeing Mr. Dujardin on the awards circuit, there isn't a single bit of subtlety in his bones, and that's actually a compliment. He is a very charismatic man, he is in a Best Picture front-runner, and in a way he does the most acting than all the others combined (and they have the luxury of verbal conversations). I think Dujardin will squeak out a win here, and deservedly so (I mean since Fassbender is out).

Brad Pitt Moneyball
Now, I am really happy for this nomination, and I was hoping he would get more love than he did. Many were playing this category (and to a lesser extent the Adapted Screenplay category) as a Pitt vs Clooney battle. I was pulling for Mr. Pitt because while his is the most subtle of the two but also the most impactful, in my opinion, on the scene at had (Clooney was already surrounded by the emotional context of the scene). Pitt worked the dialogue with intelligence and humor, allowing us to better understand the logic of the game as well as Mr. Billy Beane. I only wish he had gained more momentum to win, because the man deserves to very much. That being said, I think he has been stuck in the #3 spot right now, but hey I'm pulling for you man (and this is coming from a devout Cardinals fan).

Gary Oldman Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Now, if you want to talk about subtle performances, look no further than Mr. Oldman's performance. I personally felt his performance, as well as the film, was too subtle for their own good and the plot kind of got a little muddled because of it. Also, this being his first nomination, you can't help but wonder if the nomination is to say, "See, we have nominated the guy," because he has often been snubbed of an Oscar nomination. That being said, he has no chance of winning, he's not carrying a Best Picture nominee, he's had little award's season love and his performance isn't really much of a standout. The nomination is the reward.

And this was about as restrained as I can be in terms of holding back my hatred of the Academy for snubbing Mr. Fassbender, now if you'll excuse me, I am going to go and blow off some.... steam....

Winner: Jean Dujardin The Artist
Runner-Up: George Clooney The Descendants


Should Win: Brad Pitt Moneyball (but Jean Dujardin would be runner-up in this category)
Should've been Nominated: Michael Fassbender Shame

Oscar-nomics: Screen Actors Guild Predictions

So tomorrow the Screen Actor's Guild will reveal their choices for best in acting, both individually and as an ensemble. They also have this for tv, but I think I will stick with the film side for now. Supporting Actor is pretty well set, Plummer should have no problem. However, I am not 100% on Spencer, and if she were to lose momentum it would be here. This award is pretty much the other nominee's last shot at an upset, as this award is the last major one before the Oscars, and it aligns pretty well most of the time. The lead categories are where most of the action will be, as the Clooney/Pitt and Davis/Streep competition will probably be settled. Clooney and Streep are the safe bets. However, I am pulling for Pitt and Davis because I think they are due and I think they deserve it (Fassbender deserves it more, honestly, but sadly was ignored). I would be happy with any of them winning, so we'll just have to wait and see. Ensemble is between the Help and the Artist. I think the Artist will take it cause it has the momentum, I just see the Help as a possible spoiler, so again we'll have to wait and see. Here is the list below:

Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer The Help
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer Beginners
Best Actress: Meryl Streep The Iron Lady
Best Actor: George Clooney The Descendants
Best Ensemble: The Artist

Oscar-nomics: NBR Awards

Words cannot describe the awesomeness of this picture

Hey everyone, so today was the National Board of Review Awards (or the NBR awards). Again, its a little early to make out true frontrunners, but considering every award wants to be the first out of the gate, have to start somewhere. Here are the winners:

Best Film: Hugo

Best Director: Martin Scorsese, Hugo

Best Actor: George Clooney, The Descendants

Best Actress: Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Best Supporting Actress: Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

Best Original Screenplay: Will Reiser, 50/50

Best Adapted Screenplay: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, & Jim Rash, The Descendants

Best Animated Feature: Rango

Best Foreign Language Film: A Separation

Best Documentary: Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

Best Ensemble: The Help

Breakthrough Performance: Felicity Jones, Like Crazy / Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Spotlight Award: Michael Fassbender (A Dangerous Method, Jane Eyre, Shame,X-Men: First Class)

Debut Director: J.C. Chandor, Margin Call

NBR Freedom of Expression: Crime After Crime / Pariah

Special Achievement in Filmmaking: The Harry Potter Franchise for a distinguished translation from book to film

Top Films
The Artist
The Descendants
Drive
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
The Ides of March
J. Edgar
The Tree of Life
War Horse

Top 5 Foreign Language Films
13 Assassins
Elite Squad: The Enemy Within
Footnote
Le Havre
Point Blank

Top 5 Documentaries
Born to be Wild
Buck
George Harrison: Living in the Material World
Project Nim
Senna

Top 10 Independent Films
50/50
Another Earth
Beginners
A Better Life
Cedar Rapids
Margin Call
Shame
Take Shelter
We Need To Talk About Kevin
Win Win



Overall Thoughts: Kind of surprised by the Hugo win, but not as surprised by the acting wins. This is Clooney's 3rd win, the other two failed to get Oscar gold however (kiss of death?). With the NBR having a bad  track record of aligning with Best Picture (2/10 for the past decade, and the other categories haven't fared well either), I'm not going to back Hugo just yet, or any other choice for right now (even Tree of Life at this point). Surprised there is no love for Woody Allen, but J. Edgar (which critics were meh about), made the cut. Breakout performances were a bit of a surprise, I am now even more excited for Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (if that is even possible). Glad to see Michael Fassbender get some recognition, hopefully he will have a good run this awards season. All in all, a fair choice in each category, lets hope the fact that winning an NBR doesn't hurt their chances in the long rung (to hell with history at this point, I want to see a Plummer/Brooks showdown, that'd be something, wouldn't it?).


Oh, and two more thoughts: great to see Harry Potter finally recognized, hopefully this will carry some good will for it come Oscar season. Also, great list for Indie films, but no love for Martha Marcy May Marlene, what's up with that?

The American and The Town

Hi everyone,

So, I know I was going to do a blog on fall films in general, but I decided to instead do something else. In the span of a month, I have seen three films (two in one weekend). So I decided, rather than talk about fall films (expect a blog for that sometime later), I will focus my attention to these three rather diverse films.

The first film I saw was “The Town” by Ben Affleck, I say “by” because he directs, writes, stars and produces the film. The movie is about a group of bank robbers in Charlestown, Boston. Once on a heist, they take a prisoner hostage, played by Rebecca Hall (quite aptly, not too over the top). Affleck plays Doug McCray, and his crew (Renner, Slaine, Welliver and Burke) then realize she doesn’t live too far from them, which they find a problem. Affleck checks up on her from time to time, sparking romance amongst the two. We then have Jon Hamm of “Mad Men” plays Special Agent Adam Frawley, who is always one step behind Affleck’s crew.

Not going to lie, Boston is becoming one heck of a sub-genre of films when you have such films as the Departed, Mystic River and Affleck’s own Gone Baby Gone set in Boston this past decade. You’re going to notice this is very much a Ben Affleck film, which isn’t really a bad thing. Sure he has had his fair share of misses as an actor (Daredevil and Pearl Harbor to name a few), but as a director, he is 2 for 2. The action scenes are tremendous and the dialogue is quite intelligent and intense (you will never get a more nerve racking conversation of a 20 dollar bill than from Jon Hamm’s character). The cast is tremendous, even with cameos from Chris Cooper as McCray’s dad. I hold the highest honor for Jeremy Renner (Hurt Locker, 28 Weeks Later), who plays Affleck’s best friend Jeb. Renner takes his character to a whole other level as a robber who would rather die than face prison. I put this on my top ten for best picture, Affleck for Director and writing, film editing (flawless), Jeremy Renner for supporting Actor (my frontrunner) among others. I give The Town a solid A. On a side note: for a trailer, they used the song "Not Afraid" by Eminem. After seeing this movie, that song has been stuck in my head ever since.

Another film I saw was the American, starring George Clooney. It has a simple plot, Clooney is an assassin simply named Jack. He takes a vacation to Italy where paranoia kicks in. Not only that, but he seems to have been followed or tracked down. He falls in love and soon everything starts to get complicated as the story unfolds.

I could go on telling the story, but quite frankly, it’s really as generic as I am telling you now. You get very little background, the characters aren’t very interesting and at the end, I didn’t really have much of an interest. Clooney is good here, but he is nothing special. The fact is, coming off of Up in the Air though, I would expect more from Clooney. I would recommend this if you’re a fan of spy films, but as a rental, it’s no Bourne. I give this movie a C.

Film #3 coming soon