The Best Actor field is becoming incredibly crowded, still I'm not getting all the predicitons for Emmanuelle Riva for Best Actress without Jean-Louis Trintignant receiving a corresponding nod for Best Actor. Joaquin Phoenix is vulnerable. He says he doesn't to be in the race, and while that doesn't usually stop them from considering a performance this year may be all the excuse they need to knock someone out of the top five.[/quote]Big Magilla wrote
Jessica Chastain is being promoted as lead. though it's unclear how critics and Oscar voters will actually see her. We should have an idea shortly.
Both of these can be tackled together. I'm not sure that Best Actress is necessarily weaker than Best Supporting Actress in that I am only sure of two nominees for both Actress and Supporting Actress (Lawrence & Wallis and Adams & Hunt). And yet being promoted to lead might actually improve Chastain's chances. You ask why Riva and not Trintignant? I have not seen Amour yet, but I have zero doubt I'll be saying the same thing if/when it happens. The answer? More Oscar-likely contenders for Actor. A friend of mine has just seen Hitchcock and he said that in no way shape or form does Hopkins' SNL-level performance deserve an Oscar nomination, but it's almost designed to be something you bitch about on Oscar morning. So, not only does Trintignant have Bradley Cooper, Daniel Day-Lewis, John Hawkes, Hugh Jackman, Joaquin Phoenix, and Denzel Washington to contender. He also has to contender with [what I can only assume is total nonsense bullshit like] Anthony Hopkins in Hitchcock. Riva does not. She has to contender with Keira Knightley, who needed a historically weak year like 2005 to get nominated for a Joe Wright film but who could not in an only mildly historically weak year like 2007 where she lost out to Cate Blanchett in the sequel to Elizabeth. But that bodes well for Chastain.
Nobody has seen either Hathaway or DiCaprio. I just can't come up with an alternative just yet, so I'm going with the flow. I can't comment on anything specifically regarding The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel because nobody has yet held a gun on me and told me that I have to watch it.Big Magilla wrote
I don't see Russell Crowe as a strong candidate, especially if Hugh Jackman isn't nominated in lead. I also think sight unseen predicitons for Anne Hathaway to win Supporting Actress are a bit much. If anyone's a sentimental favorite in that category it's Maggie Smith unless Judi Dench eats into her support. Dench would be a threat for Marigold but since she insists on being considered for lead for that (for which she has no chance), Skyfall may be her ticket. Oscars voters love to set precedents and an acting nomination for someone in a James Bond movie would certainly be that.
I'm also not getting the sight unseen hurrahs for Dicaprio in Tarantino's latest, which looks like it could go either way.
As I said earlier, my film critic friend in Chicago has seen Hitchcock and says it's essentially My Week with Marilyn Redux. The performers are failed by writing and directing. It's a wiki-film and apparently a giant lie. Hopkins is SNL-lite and Mirren has one good scene. These are coattails noms.Big Magilla wrote
Hitchcok is getting mixed, but generally favorable reviews with superative ones for Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren. A second Oscar for Hopkins may be more appealing to voters than a third for either Day-Lewis or Washington and Mirren could well give early front-runner Jennifer Lawrence a run for her money for Best Actress making them the first lead co-winners since Nicholson and Hunt, though Hopkins faces a formidable threat from Hunt's new co-star (Hawkes).
The more I thing about it, you're right. It's probably not getting in for Picture or Director. I keep thinking that The Tree of Life's nomination bodes well for it, but considering that PTA couldn't get nominated for Boogie Nights or Magnolia, that it took There Will Be Blood to get him in, yeah, the divisiveness of this film means it could very well be a longshot. Actor, S. Actor, S. Actress, and O. Screenplay.Big Magilla wrote
I think The Master is toast as far as Picture and Director are concerned. Supporting nods for Hoffman and Adams seem the film's safest bet at this point, but even they are not secure.
He could. If he wins the Musical or Comedy Golden Globe over Bradley Cooper (and Anthony Hopkins) it could happen. I am just currently feeling like Bradley Cooper has a better chance. I also don't subscribe to the notion that if Hugh Jackman isn't nominated, then Les Miserables is somehow weak, anymore than Richard Gere's "snub" killed Chicago's chances.Greg wrote
Sabin, why no Best Actor nomination prediction for Hugh Jackman?
Also, there were a lot of subsequent comments about The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Last year, I didn't get around to watching Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and I attribute this to the fact that I'm going to die one day and I want to live as good and full a life as I can, and I needn't waste it on a Stephen Daldry movie. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel sounds (to me) like the place you go after you die, a place between heaven and damnation, where minutes are eons and where the lake of fire seems like bliss compared to the constant limbo of stagnant confusion, of every moment asking the question "Have I been here for five seconds or five hundred years?"
