2006 Oscars - Any Predictions?

[rudeboy]

I haven't had the opportunity to see The History Boys on stage, but I did listen to a complete West End cast performance on BBC radio a few weeks back, and even in audio format only, Griffiths was wonderful. He's an actor I can usually take or leave - his broad theatrical style is reminiscent of, say, Jim Broadbent in that it suits some roles (such as Withnail's Uncle Monty) better than others - but this does seem to be the role he was born to play.

I had no idea a film version was coming out, and this year too! I can absolutely see Griffiths making the line-up with a Nigel Hawthorne-style nomination and maybe as a contender for the win, if the movie takes off.

[Reza]

I think he has every chance of being a serious contender.

I don't doubt that, especially after Hoffman's win. It seems nowadays you don't have to put on any weight to win Oscars. Natuarally fat, coupled with a ''performance'', nets you a win. It gives a lot of us hope that maybe one day we could also end up clutching the damn statuette.

[Precious Doll]

Last night I was fortunate enough to see Alan Bennett's The History Boy on stage with Richard Griffiths in the lead role.

To my delight and anticipation, a film version has been made and is due to be released later in the year by Fox Searchlight.

The film has been directed by Nicholas Hytner who has also directed the play on stage and features most of the cast from the play I saw last night.

The play is sent in Britain in the 1980's. The Britain of Margaret Thatcher, social upheaval and rapid change. In the midst of the uncertainty, a class of clever, witty sixth-form boys, with all the contradictions of youth; at one moment precocious and obsessed with sex, at the next anxious and confused as they prepare to enter the real world. Like all about to enter uncharted waters, the boys look for leadership.

Enter their formidable English master, Hector (Richard Griffiths). Curmudgeonly, dedicated, impossible, inspiring, he is the kind of teacher that can change a student’s life. He is a defender of the old values, a believer in education as a bastion against life, a relic of an age already vanishing from memory. For all the charm and benevolence of his classroom however, Hector has a dark side, and when his conduct provokes questions, loyalties are tested.

The play is a drama with comic moments and should adapt well to the screen.

Whilst the (mostly young) cast was uniformly impressive, it was Richard Griffiths who stole the show. Plenty of great moments for Griffith to display a range he really hasn't had the opportunity to show on the screen before where most of his roles have been smallish and comic.

I believe that the play is due to open sometime this year in New York with the same cast that will be appearing in the film and appeared in the original London production in 2004.

Anyway, for those of you who enjoy making Oscar predictions you should seriously consider Griffiths. If his performance in the film is anything like his stage performance, and I have no reason to believe that it won't be, he could very well nab a few critics awards, paving the way for an Oscar nod.

I think he has every chance of being a serious contender.

[Damien]

Depending on its release date, the proposed Miles Davis biopic starring Don Cheadle will likely be an Oscar magnet: the third Dead Music Icon biopic in as many years.

I hope and pray that all gay friendly Academy voters will vow never to honor another movie in which Don Cheadle is any way involved. :p

[Franz Ferdinand]

Depending on its release date, the proposed Miles Davis biopic starring Don Cheadle will likely be an Oscar magnet: the third Dead Music Icon biopic in as many years. Of course, Miles' story is extremely interesting, and separate movies could be made about the three or four different musical eras of his life (just hopefully nothing past his lamentable 80s comeback). I for one am looking very much forward to whatever they make of it.

[Okri]

Is it just me, or does this look like an even more boring and bland year than ever?

I'm quite looking forward to 2006, actually. Hard Candy looks like it could be fantastic, as does Brick and Bug. The enfant terrible of French literature, Michel Houellebecq, is seeing one of his books adapted (The Elementary Particles aka Atomised) into film and I'm quite curious about that one. Notes from a Scandal is based on a good book too, and it gives Judi Dench a plum (and very baity) role alongside Cate Blanchett. And the geek inside me can't wait for The Fountain.

[Mister Tee]

Mister Tee, what are those "kiddie web-sites" that have made their Oscar predictions for next year? i'd like to know their URLs... thanks in advance!

I guess he means the forums of OscarWatch and what was formerly known as Goldderby. He calls them "kiddie sites" because most people who post there are in their teens or early twenties.

Actually, age is not the determining factor -- there are plenty of people here in the same age range whose opinions I read with great respect. It's the tone ("Reese is SO winning!"), the absence of institutional memory ("the greatest upsets in history" all seem to be from the past six years), and the infatuation with big-budget Hollywood vehicles and stars (at the expense of interesting films) that make me consider the sites' posters (with a few notable exceptions) children.

In fact, I think Sasha, who runs Oscar Watch, is an intelligent, informed lady (even if I sometimes violently disagree with her taste). I just reget that the groupies she attracts aren't of very high calibre.

[VanHelsing]

tootpadu & penelope, thanks for those links... but i know of them already... lol...

any others besides the oscar igloo?

[tootpadu]

Mister Tee, what are those "kiddie web-sites" that have made their Oscar predictions for next year? i'd like to know their URLs... thanks in advance!

I guess he means the forums of OscarWatch and what was formerly known as Goldderby. He calls them "kiddie sites" because most people who post there are in their teens or early twenties.

[Penelope]

Here's one of those early predictions list. Is it just me, or does this look like an even more boring and bland year than ever? On this list, there are only 6 movies I have remotely any interest in seeing:

Dreamgirls
Little Children
A Prairie Home Companion
Marie-Antoinette
Running with Scissors
The Painted Veil

I hope some of the other titles are changed; I love Anthony Minghella, but Breaking and Entering sounds like a bad David Spade comedy.

[Damien]

For what it's worth, in the Village Voice Michael Musto has alrready predicted Dreamgirls as next year's Best Picture winner, calling it "the kind of gay movie everyone can enjoy."

[VanHelsing]

Mister Tee, what are those "kiddie web-sites" that have made their Oscar predictions for next year? i'd like to know their URLs... thanks in advance!

[Mister Tee]

You'd think that, having seen 2005's "clear front-runner" Munich reduced to a barely-made-it/no-chance nominee -- to say nothing of watching two films (Crash and Capote) get on the best picture list that passed by with barely a ripple upon release -- people would stop trying to categorize a race 361 days ahead of time. But, over at the kiddie web-sites, they're already naming front-runners (and runners-up in order) and predicting Golden Globe winners. It's insane: the actual films become almost a sideshow to the fantasized race.

Which is not to deny that, like Reza, I've looked over the lists for 2006, and staked out those for whom I have high hopes. The combination of Cuaron, Owen and Julianne Moore makes me sanguine about The Children of Men. The Good German -- featuring Clooney, Blanchett and Soderbergh, and based on a book I like -- clearly intrigues me more than The daVinci Code. And Black Dahlia, Zodiac, Breaking and Entering and Dreamgirls rate far higher on my personal list than the latest from Innaritu, Ridley Scott or Oliver Stone. Yet...I take for granted that some on my preferred list will fail utterly, while others without appealing pedigree will succeed not just with the Academy, but with me (e.g., Shakespeare in Love -- for whose director I wouldn't have given 10 cents prior or since).

My general expectation of any year's Oscars is, they will include 1-2 films that have been on the radar all along (this year, Brokeback and Munich), 1-2 of which I was aware but not particularly expectant (Good Night and Capote fit that mold), and the remainder will come as a genuine surprise (pleasant or, in this case, not). Trying to narrow down such a field a year out is a fool's game, but, in a desultory time of year, can serve as idle pleasure.

Though there's always the chance V for Vendetta and Thank You for Smoking will give this year an early kick-start... Oh, damn! There I go getting interested again.

[The Original BJ]

With my new resolution to not grant the Oscars more agency than they deserve, I'm not going to bother predicting any nominations for next year at this point. I'm going to try to actually watch the crop of 2006 films without attempting to analyze whether or not they will live up to the uninformed Oscar buzz predictors have placed upon them.

[Reza]

Everyone seems to be having a hard time digesting the big ''upset'' of 2005. Is it too soon to start predicting who will get nominated for 2006? Which are the ''biggies'' that have a chance? Some that come immediately to mind are:

Flags of Our Fathers (Clint Eastwood)
The Departed (Martin Scorcese)
Dreamgirls (Bill Condon)
The Good Shepherd (Robert De Niro)
Sunset Boulevard (is this 2006 or 2007 - if at all?)
Goya's Ghosts (Milos Forman)
Che (Steven Soderbergh)
A Prairie Home Companion (Robert Altman)