The Real Season Begins - Part Two: Everything Else

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Re: The Real Season Begins - Part Two: Everything Else

Post by Sabin »

I'm not going to do this just yet but having just seen Selma, I'm not optimistic about its chances. While I certainly liked the film quite a bit despite some reservations and I could see some Academy voters liking it as well, it has a few things working against it. It doesn't present a strong journey for Dr. King, it's more of a statement film than a character narrative, and while it starts strong it lets a lot of build up emotions do the heavy-lifting in what third act it has. The filmmakers definitely took the right approach in tackling the entirety of the canvas but it never forms a completely satisfying narrative. I hate to immediately jump to 12 Years a Slave in comparison but Solomon Northup has such a clear, complicated journey through a socio-political canvas of Slavery. Even though he's not your typical active hero (if anything, he's largely reactive) AND I would argue the film doesn't have a totally satisfying third act, you can track his personal narrative throughout and that's what made Academy voters appreciate their medicine. Selma is a different beast. Ava DuVernay wants to express attitudes and convictions.

Right now, I am putting it down low on my Best Picture list and also I have it for Best Original Song.
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Re: The Real Season Begins - Part Two: Everything Else

Post by rolotomasi99 »

I like anonymous1980's format, and am using it for my current predictions.

BEST PICTURE
Locked in:
01. Boyhood
02. Birdman
03. The Imitation Game
Looking good:
04. The Grand Budapest Hotel
05. The Theory of Everything
06. Mr. Turner
07. American Sniper
Fighting for a spot:
08. Gone Girl
08. Nightcrawler
09. Selma
10. Foxcatcher
Possible longshots:
11. Wild
12. Unbroken
13. Whiplash
14. Interstellar
15. Into the Woods

BEST LEADING ACTRESS
Locked in:
01. Julianne Moore, Still Alice
02. Reese Witherspoon, Wild
Looking good:
03. Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
04. Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
Fighting for a spot:
05. Jennifer Aniston, Cake
06. Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night
07. Hilary Swank, The Homesman
08. Marion Cotillard, The Immigrant
Possible longshots:
09. Amy Adams, Big Eyes
10. Emily Blunt, Into the Woods

BEST LEADING ACTOR
Locked in:
01. Michael Keaton, Birdman
02. Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
Looking good:
03. Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
04. David Oyelowo, Selma
Fighting for a spot:
05. Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
06. Jake Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler
07. Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel
08. Timothy Spall, Mr. Turner
Possible longshots:
09. Bradley Cooper, American Sniper
10. Oscar Isaac, A Most Violent Year

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Locked in:
01. Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
02. Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
03. Emma Stone, Birdman
Looking good:
04. Jessica Chastain, A Most Violent Year
Fighting for a spot:
05. Meryl Streep, Into the Woods
06. Rene Russo, Nightcrawler
Possible longshots:
07. Laura Dern, Wild
08. Carmen Ejogo, Selma
09. Naomi Watts, St. Vincent
10. Carrie Coon, Gone Girl

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Locked in:
01. JK Simmons, Whiplash
02. Edward Norton, Birdman
Looking good:
03. Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
04. Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
Fighting for a spot:
05. Josh Brolin, Inherent Vice
06. Robert Duvall, The Judge
Possible longshots:
07. Tom Wilkinson, Selma
08. Miyavi, Unbroken
09. Alec Baldwin, Still Alice
10. Tim Roth, Selma

BEST DIRECTOR
Locked in:
01. Boyhood
02. Birdman
Looking good:
03. The Imitation Game
04. The Grand Budapest Hotel
Fighting for a spot:
05. Mr. Turner
06. Selma
07. American Sniper
Possible longshots:
08. Foxcatcher
09. Gone Girl
10. Nightcrawler

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Locked in:
01. Birdman
02. The Grand Budapest Hotel
Looking good:
03. Boyhood
04. Mr. Turner
Fighting for a spot:
05. Nightcrawler
06. Selma
07. Foxcatcher
Possible longshots:
08. A Most Violent Year
09. Interstellar
10. Ida

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Locked in:
01. The Imitation Game
Looking good:
02. Gone Girl
03. Wild
04. Whiplash
Fighting for a spot:
05. Inherent Vice
06. American Sniper
Possible longshots:
07. The Theory of Everything
08. Still Alice
09. Unbroken
10. Guardians of the Galaxy
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Re: The Real Season Begins - Part Two: Everything Else

Post by anonymous1980 »

Where I think the Oscar race is now (pre-BAFTA's)

BEST PICTURE
Locked in:
01. Boyhood
02. Birdman
Looking good:
03. Selma
04. The Imitation Game
05. The Theory of Everything
06. The Grand Budapest Hotel
Fighting for a spot:
07. Gone Girl
08. Foxcatcher
09. Whiplash
10. Into the Woods
Possible longshots:
11. Unbroken
12. American Sniper
13, Interstellar
14. Ida
15. Mr. Turner
16. Nightcrawler

BEST DIRECTOR
Locked in:
01. Richard Linklater, Boyhood
02. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu, Birdman
Looking good:
03. Ava DuVernay, Selma
Fighting for a spot:
04. Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
05. Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game
06. David Fincher, Gone Girl
07. Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher
08. James Marsh, The Theory of Everything
09. Damien Chazelle, Whiplash
Possible longshots:
10. Clint Eastwood, American Sniper
11. Mike Leigh, Mr. Turner
12. Christopher Nolan, Interstellar
13. Angelina Jolie, Unbroken
14. Pawel Pawliwkowsky, Ida
15. Dan Gilroy, Nightcrawler
16. Rob Marshall, Into the Woods

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Locked in:
01. Michael Keaton, Birdman
Looking good:
02. Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
03. Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
04. David Oyelowo, Selma
Fighting for a spot:
05. Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
06. Jake Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler
07. Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel
08. Timothy Spall, Mr. Turner
Possible longshots:
09. Bradley Cooper, American Sniper
10. Oscar Isaac, A Most Violent Year
11. Channing Tatum, Foxcatcher
12. Ellar Coltrane, Boyhood
13. Matthew McConaughey, Interstellar
14. Miles Teller, Whiplash
15. Jack O'Connell, Unbroken

(NOTE: I have a feeling that either Benedict Cumberbatch or Eddie Redmayne will be the surprise snub on Oscar nominations morning since one is cannibalizing votes of the other and only one will come out victorious with a nomination, just a hunch)

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Locked in:
01. Julianne Moore, Still Alice
02. Reese Witherspoon, Wild
Looking good:
03. Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
04. Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
Fighting for a spot:
05. Jennifer Aniston, Cake
06. Marion Cotillard, The Immigrant
07. Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night
08. Emily Blunt, Into the Woods
Possible longshots:
09. Amy Adams, Big Eyes
10. Hilary Swank, The Homesman

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Locked in:
01. JK Simmons, Whiplash
02. Edward Norton, Birdman
Looking good:
03. Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
04. Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
Fighting for a spot:
05. Robert Duvall, The Judge (because his spot has all the earmarks of someone who gets in on all the precursors but stumbles on Oscar nominations morning)
Possible longshots:
06. Josh Brolin, Inherent Vice
07. Tom Wilkinson, Selma
08. Alec Baldwin, Still Alice
09. Tim Roth, Selma
10. Christoph Waltz, Big Eyes
11. Chris Pine, Into the Woods
12. Miyavi, Unbroken

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Locked in:
01. Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
02. Emma Stone, Birdman
Looking good:
03. Meryl Streep, Into the Woods
04. Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
Fighting for a spot:
05. Jessica Chastain, A Most Violent Year (see Robert Duvall. One of them may not be getting in on Oscar morning)
Possible longshots:
06. Carmen Ejogo, Selma
07. Tilda Swinton, Snowpiercer
08. Kristen Stewart, Still Alice
09. Rene Russo, Nightcrawler
10. Laura Dern, Wild
11. Anna Kendrick, Into the Woods
12. Carrie Coon, Gone Girl

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Locked in:
01. Birdman
02. Boyhood
Looking good:
03. The Grand Budapest Hotel
Fighting for a spot:
04. Selma
05. Whiplash
06. Nightcrawler
07. Foxcatcher
08. Mr. Turner
Possible longshots:
09. A Most Violent Year
10. Interstellar
11. Ida

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Locked in:
01. Gone Girl
02. The Imitation Game
Looking good:
03. The Theory of Everything
Fighting for a spot:
04. Still Alice
05. Inherent Vice
06. Wild
Possible longshots:
07. Unbroken
08. American Sniper
09. Into the Woods
10. The LEGO Movie
11. Guardians of the Galaxy
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Re: The Real Season Begins - Part Two: Everything Else

Post by Mister Tee »

I haven't sampled any of the Christmas releases yet (I'm on vacation all this week, and plan to semi-gorge), but a few thoughts based on the late reviews/grosses:

Unbroken remained a critical dud (59 at Metacritic, in a cul-de-sac between Big Eyes and the Gambler), but the book's high-level best-seller status (180 weeks on the list!) and a high-visibility campaign (from both Angelina and NBC, starting at the Winter Olympics) have whipped up a major audience. Does this just make it the Lone Survivor of 2014, or does it revive the frail hopes for a best picture nomination? If so, it'll be no more meaningful than the nod The Blind Side got -- it'll have no chance in the race (thought it might improve Roger Deakin's chances, in a category with no obvious leader), but a few studio folk will hoot with delight the way they did for Bullock's film. This, we may conclude, was the goal of the people expanding the best picture field: to recreate the golden age of best film nods for The Longest Day and Cleopatra.

Speaking of Lone Survivor: is that what we think American Sniper will amount to, after its dynamite opening -- or might Eastwood's film (which got significantly stronger reviews than Unbroken) be an Oscar morning surprise, with some major nods?

Obviously I didn't need to worry about Annie stealing Into the Woods' thunder -- Annie is doing, compared to expectation, quite well (should end up somewhere between $85-100 million), but Woods is taking off in a way you'd not expect of a Sondheim musical. Maybe years of licensed high school/college productions have made it a brand name. In any event, it looks like yet another Broadway musical adaptation will cross the $100 million mark, making the genre officially revived.

Will the film also slip into the best picture list? There aren't many hits among the surer contenders (Grand Budapest, at near $60 million, is actually the commercial champ among the central hopefuls), and some voters might be awfully tempted to pump some box office hits into the mix. (And Woods, again unlike Unbroken, got at least decent notices)

Top Five sure looks like a studio screw-up. Thrown into the heart of Oscar season, it doesn't seem to be getting the intelligentsia OR Chris Rock fans, and theatres seem to be abandoning it (my multiplex has only one, inconvenient show scheduled tomorrow). Given the high critical praise, it's hard to believe this couldn't have done significantly better in a slot where it was the clear high-class option -- like in early Spring, a la Grand Budapest last year.
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Re: The Real Season Begins - Part Two: Everything Else

Post by The Original BJ »

ITALIANO wrote:Do you think the system is against movie titles? Anyway, I can't talk about ten movies without naming their titles... Well, hopefully 1984 Screenplays will be easier...
The only thing that works for me against 403 is trying to post bit by bit, and even then, it's highly bizarre the length of post it accepts. For instance, my long Into the Woods post went through no problem, but sometimes I can't post more than a paragraph (or even a couple sentences) if 403 acts up. It's just so random.
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Re: The Real Season Begins - Part Two: Everything Else

Post by ITALIANO »

Big Magilla wrote:Well, it didn't like Lady for a Day and Little Women when I tried to use them in the other thread.
I wonder which movie from 1985 it doesn't like... :)
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Re: The Real Season Begins - Part Two: Everything Else

Post by Big Magilla »

Well, it didn't like Lady for a Day and Little Women when I tried to use them in the other thread.
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Re: The Real Season Begins - Part Two: Everything Else

Post by ITALIANO »

Do you think the system is against movie titles? Anyway, I can't talk about ten movies without naming their titles... Well, hopefully 1984 Screenplays will be easier...
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Re: The Real Season Begins - Part Two: Everything Else

Post by Big Magilla »

ITALIANO wrote: Unbroken may be hated by everyone - yet it got few but enthusiastic words of praise on this board, on the main page. Somebody here obviously loves it.

(By the way, it's still impossible for me to post under the 1985 Screemplay thread...)
I had the same problem with another thread - the Last Seen Movie thread. I tried shortening my comments, changing them, taking italics off of titles and all kinds of things but nothing worked until I gave up using titles altogether and wrote this:

"Every time I try to say something about that movie about Apple Annie I get a 403 Forbidden error so I will just say that it's Jean Parker, not Glenda Farrell who plays her daughter. Glenda Farrell was Warren William's girlfriend."

Maybe you could try something like that.
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Re: The Real Season Begins - Part Two: Everything Else

Post by ITALIANO »

Unbroken may be hated by everyone - yet it got few but enthusiastic words of praise on this board, on the main page. Somebody here obviously loves it.

(By the way, it's still impossible for me to post under the 1985 Screemplay thread...)
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Re: The Real Season Begins - Part Two: Everything Else

Post by Big Magilla »

Thanks for pointing out my error.

So, Justin Chang, the dude who gave 100% scores to The Dark Knight and Inception, and who was hired by Variety after Todd McCarthy was let go, only gives Unbroken a 50% rating. McCarthy gave it 70% at the Hollywood Reporter, the exact same rating he gave War Horse at Variety. He gave The Imitation Game 80% while Scott Foundas gave it the same rating at Variety.

At this point I'd say that unless Unbroken is a major box office hit, it is looking like a War Horse also-ran at the Oscars. The Imitation Game, though, is still a likely Oscar front-runner.
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Re: The Real Season Begins - Part Two: Everything Else

Post by Mister Tee »

Big Magilla wrote: Here's the link: http://www.metacritic.com/movie/unbroken

It still shows a total of 7 critics. I thought maybe they added 4 after I checked it, but nope. Maybe they deleted 4 after you checked? 80, 77 and 75 averages to 77.
OK, one of two things: 1) somehow your link goes to a different, perhaps unrefreshed page; or 2) you didn't scroll to the bottom of the page, where it says "Show all 11 reviews". If you click there, you'll see all the current reviews -- which average out much lower than the ones you're looking at.
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Re: The Real Season Begins - Part Two: Everything Else

Post by Big Magilla »

[quote="Mister Tee"}Not sure what link you have to Metacritic, but I show 11 critics -- and the American critics average is 67, not 77. Not to say I even think throwing out the London critics is legitimate -- the consensus they reached on Imitation Game was roughly the same as their later American counterparts. Unbroken is getting quite sub-par notices; predicting it for best picture at this point is the worst kind of clinging-to-illusion bloggers have brought to the process. (It's almost like they want to bring back the great old days of Dr. Dolittle and Nicholas and Alexandra)[/quote]

Here's the link: http://www.metacritic.com/movie/unbroken

It still shows a total of 7 critics. I thought maybe they added 4 after I checked it, but nope. Maybe they deleted 4 after you checked? 80, 77 and 75 averages to 77.

I don't discount the opinions of the London critics, only their influence on Oscar voters. This isn't Doctor Dolittle or Anne of the Thousand days, which were total crap nominees, but maybe you have something with the comparison to Nicholas and Alexandra which was well-meaning and well-done to a point, but overall a less than great recreation of an era approximately as long ago as the events of 1904-1918 to 1971 as the events in Unbroken are to the current day. It's basically in the same league as War Horse which many prognosticators counted out based on critical disappointment, only to see it emerge as a Best Picture nominee anyway. Unbroken is prime Oscar fodder, which is why it still ranks high on the prognosticators' lists. Whether it stays there is subject to change, but for right now, I think they're right in keeping it there. The continued support for Angelina for Best Director, though, is probably a pipe dream.
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Re: The Real Season Begins - Part Two: Everything Else

Post by The Original BJ »

It'll be interesting to see if, given the limited level of enthusiasm for the field beyond what appear to be the top couple movies, that will have any effect on the number of Best Picture nominees, or if, once again, we'll just get a slate of 9. Back when this sliding system was announced, we were informed that recent years would have varied in Best Picture number if such a system had been put into place, but since it was implemented, we've had only consistency. (This despite a rather big difference between bountiful years like 2012 and 2013, and something more thin like 2011.) I'd say if we get 9 again, folks just need to admit that system has failed, or at least, failed to accomplish what it SEEMED intended to -- allow for more nominees in better years, but not fill up the roster with place-filler in less exciting ones.

I've mentioned to this before -- and Mark Harris tweeted about it today -- but there are A LOT of movies angling for the Best Picture votes of the more old-fashioned claque of the Academy: The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, Into the Woods, and Unbroken (which I saw today...UGH!) I think those movies represent a range of quality -- some have more interesting edges than others -- but it's hard to imagine all of them cracking the Best Picture list, especially these days. And, as Mister Tee says, I think Selma is going to cut into that vote a bit, too, simply for being more traditional/historical. (Though, like Lincoln and Letters From Iwo Jima, I think it's evidence that a movie can be classical without being hopelessly square -- it seems really unfair to lump that in the same group as such a vanilla effort as Unbroken.)
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Re: The Real Season Begins - Part Two: Everything Else

Post by Mister Tee »

Not sure what link you have to Metacritic, but I show 11 critics -- and the American critics average is 67, not 77. Not to say I even think throwing out the London critics is legitimate -- the consensus they reached on Imitation Game was roughly the same as their later American counterparts. Unbroken is getting quite sub-par notices; predicting it for best picture at this point is the worst kind of clinging-to-illusion bloggers have brought to the process. (It's almost like they want to bring back the great old days of Dr. Dolittle and Nicholas and Alexandra)

I've started to think about SAG (coming Wednesday in this crowded week), and discovered SAG Ensemble rivals Original Screenplay this year for "how do you fit them all in?" Last year, only 12 Years a Slave and America Hustle seemed sure things (we didn't yet know what a big deal Dallas Buyers' Club was going to turn into); I remember picking August: Osage County despite already being certain it wasn't a best picture candidate, simply because there was almost nothing else -- as they proved by actually citing The Butler. This year, by contrast, is teeming with prospects: Birdman, Boyhood and Selma seem like they have to show up, but Gone Girl, Grand Budapest Hotel and Into the Woods also seem exactly the sort of film to make the list, and The Imitation Game (given Harvey's long-time success with this group) and Foxcatcher also easily qualify under normal criteria. That's not even allowing for a late surprise, like A Most Violent Year.
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