Slant Predicts the Oscars

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OSCAR RACE 2008: NOMINATION PREDICTIONS

(all preferences by Ed Gonzalez)

We're through the looking glass here people. Suddenly, the Oscar race is being headlined by a pair of uncompromising, boldly conceived pieces of formalism. A pair of films helmed by established neo-auteurist superstars unabashedly admitting their works to be inspired not by Paul Haggis, but instead the likes of Robert Bresson, Orson Welles, and Stanley Kubrick. A pair of films that are celebrated by the critical establishment (the two split the four critics' awards that matter) and punkass fanboys alike (they are currently the two highest ranking films from 2007 on the IMDB top 250 master list). Thanks to No Country for Old Men (which we loved too) and There Will Be Blood (which we're deeply conflicted on, but will take any day over most Oscar contenders), we've finally arrived at what we assumed was a mirage in the desert all this time: an Oscar ceremony in which artistic quality actually appears to be the foremost quality, a ceremony that helps us remember that this is also the organization that gave Best Picture nominations to both Nashville and Barry Lyndon in 1975. And now, naturally, it's possible the entire ceremony could vanish into thin air in the wake of the prolonged WGA strike like the cinephile pipe dream it so feels like; and I caught one sound bite earlier this week in a post-Golden Globes wrap suggesting some writers are starting to feel the mad rush of power that shutting down Hollywood's biggest night of self-congratulation would give them. So, while we're personally behind any developments that could potentially invalidate (more so) the careers of the so-called "journalists" like Dave Karger, who seem to make entire careers out of telling the Academy what they feel, we also admit we'd feel a tad bummed to miss out on what figures to be the one Oscarcast of late whose possible winners wouldn't make us want to stuff wads of Oscar ballots in our eye sockets. (E.H.)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (E.H.)

In November, it seemed a dead certainty that Cate Blanchett's interpretation of Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes's insufferably academic I'm Not There would be the sort of stunt that the critics' awards wouldn't be able to ignore. (The stunt being not so much that she was a woman playing a man, but rather that she played said man more femininely than she did Katherine Hepburn.) By the end of December, Amy Ryan's performance as an unapologetically dumpy, arrogantly stupid but still aggrieved mother in Gone Baby Gone had made a near clean sweep. A few of the late-season awards finally broke Blanchett's way (as happened with the National Society of Film Critics), but the damage was done and Ryan is clearly the one to beat. It certainly helps that she's competing against a lot of other nasty girls. (Ruby Dee may be the only one that generates honest goodwill with a titanic slap worthy of the category's "season vet" slot.) But Tilda Swinton's pallid, clammy executive in over her head is more than matched by Saoirse Ronan, who (spoiler alert!) is the category's most hateable character in a walk for being the author of Atonement itself (and even the film's fans would have to admit that it's Vanessa Redgrave, playing the older version of Ronan, who nets all the sympathy points). If anyone's capable of crashing this line-up, it's probably Catherine Keener in Into the Wild, slightly more animated than she was in Capote, but just as blandly good-hearted. It's either her or King of Kong's long-locked Billy Mitchell, if some voters mistake his supreme bitchery for him having an actual vagina.

Will Be Nominated: Cate Blanchett for I'm Not There, Ruby Dee for American Gangster, Saoirse Ronan for Atonement, Amy Ryan for Gone Baby Gone, and Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton

Should Be Nominated: Ruby Dee for American Gangster, Julie Kavner for The Simpsons Movie, Fernanda Montenegro for Love in the Time of Cholera, Samantha Morton for Control, and Vanessa Redgrave for Atonement


BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (E.G.)

There is no category this year whose lineup—and winner—is closest to being set in stone than Supporting Actor. Ignored by the Golden Globes, Hal Holbrook's heart-wrenching performance in Into the Wild was not forgotten by the Screen Actors Guild, which has, of late, become a shrewd predictor of the eventual Oscar nominees. SAG also backed Casey Affleck for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men, Philip Seymour Hoffman for Charlie Wilson's War, and Tom Wilkinson for Michael Clayton. The weakest link is likely Hoffman, though he does have the luxury of representing the only picture of 2007 to address the War on Terror not to get audiences' cold shoulder. That Wilkinson, as Michael Clayton's Queen of Shiva, is a lock speaks to the Academy's affinity for hambone performances, suggesting that Tommy Lee Jones's muted turn in No Country for Old Men has less of chance of squeaking in than John Travolta in Hairspray. Though the Hairspray cast was honored by SAG, as was No Country for Old Men's, meaning Jones and Travolta are probably running a closer neck-and-neck race for the fifth spot than we would like to believe, Travolta may be the only actor this Oscar season who could have used the publicity of the Golden Globes airing this year. But it's not like most actors take Travolta more seriously than Hoffman anyway, and a vote for Hoffman in Charlie Wilson's War is also a vote for Hoffman in The Savages.

Will Be Nominated: Casey Affleck for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men, Philip Seymour Hoffman for Charlie Wilson's War, Hal Holbrook for Into the Wild, and Tom Wilkinson for Michael Clayton

Should Be Nominated: Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men, Stephen Graham for This Is England, Hal Holbrook for Into the Wild, Christopher Mintz-Plasse for Superbad, and Steve Zahn for Rescue Dawn


BEST ACTOR (E.H.)

This is the only one of the four acting categories that seems to have a lot of play left to work with, only it's not because there is a massive pool of can't-miss candidates to choose from but, rather, because almost none of them seem to have what it takes to lock down a position. The two major exceptions are Daniel Day-Lewis for swallowing almost every last critics' award in sight whole (when he took nearly as much time waking up in the film's epilogue as it took 2001: A Space Odyssey's apes to discover the monolith, we knew he had this award pretty well sewn up), and George Clooney for turning in a by-the-numbers example of a glamour-puss reining it in by interpreting his character as having perpetual acid reflux. In fact, had he just taken his strategy to its logical ends and ripped as much ass on the screen as did his co-star Tom Wilkinson, he might have actually stood a chance at giving Day-Lewis's beyond-flatulent performance a run for the trophy. As it stands, he's one of those archetypal sure-thing nominees that no one, but no one, expects to actually win. As for the rest of the category, none of the other contenders have more credits than debits going into this. Johnny Depp would be a stronger possibility if the SAG had demonstrated any affection at all for Sweeney Todd, or if anyone could make a convincing argument that his whispery singing voice shouldn't have been dubbed. Emile Hirsch carries an overlong DV epic on his cute little shoulders; as Michael Musto wrote, he's this year's Ryan Gosling, but for the fact that Gosling is still inexplicably in the mix this year (which makes it the first time a movie about a sex doll has figured into the Oscar race since, well, Little Miss Sunshine last year). For Academy members who prefer their male kink of a more mature vintage, Viggo Mortensen's inked and in-the-raw sauna showdown certainly counts as one of the bravest performances of the year. He may just get the nomination that Cronenberg lamentably couldn't quite manage for Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, or Jeremy Irons. We're going with those three—Depp, Hirsch, Mortensen—but we can't say they have much leverage on James McAvoy (too pretty, but if that prissy little bitch over in the best supporting actress category can survive the Atonement meltdown, maybe he can too), Frank Langella (his bathtub nude scene doesn't quite match Mortensen's, pound for pound), or Denzel Washington (two movies totaling about a half a performance). Such is the state of this category that I wouldn't have ruled out the two stars of the surprise #1 hit The Bucket List had the movie been released a few weeks earlier.

Will Be Nominated: George Clooney for Michael Clayton, Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood, Johnny Depp for Sweeney Todd, Emile Hirsh for Into the Wild, and Viggo Mortensen for Eastern Promises

Should Be Nominated: Benicio del Toro for Things We Lost in the Fire, Viggo Mortensen for Eastern Promises, Gordon Pinsent for Away from Her, Sam Riley for Control, and Thomas Turgoose for This Is England


BEST ACTRESS (E.G.)

They doubted me, but then they saw, and then they believed. Yes, it was almost one year ago that I said Marion Cotillard's bold, freakishly technical thesping as Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose was bound for Oscar glory. What I didn't anticipate was that Cotillard's performance would infect audiences like the Rage virus. Could it be that if the actress doesn't win the Oscar, her fans will crash the award ceremony (or press conference) like the vampire zombies from I Am Legend and rip the winner (or Billy Bush—maybe even Dave Karger) to shreds? And if they opt for a more restrained response, will they mount a petition, asking Oscar, as a gesture of comeuppance, to change its name to Edith and forever hand out statues that look like this? This is all to say, if Cotillard is not victorious, blame it on the fans, whose disturbing contempt for Julie Christie's performance in Away from Her can't be doing Cotillard any favors. Both of these fine performances are locks for nominations, meaning the remaining slots are pretty much up for grabs. Or not. If talking heads like Tom O'Neil and Karger stopped, well, talking, trying to affect Oscar voters like the news media unmistakably shapes political elections, then maybe the Pavlovian dogs that make up the Academy's body might have more naturally gravitated to the talents of, say, Ashley Judd and Anamaria Marinca. Instead, the Academy has been told by the award-show pundits that Ellen Paige and Angelina Jolie already have dibs on slots three and four, and that's exactly how they'll vote. As for the fifth spot, eeny-meeny-miny-moe your way between Jodie Foster, Amy Adams, Keira Knightley, and Cate Blanchett, because it's anyone's guess.

Will Be Nominated: Amy Adams for Enchanted, Julie Christie for Away from Her, Marian Cotillard for La Vie en Rose, Angelina Jolie for A Mighty Heart, and Ellen Page for Juno

Should Be Nominated: Julie Christie for Away from Her, Ashley Judd for Bug, Anamaria Marinca for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Parker Posey for Broken English, and Christina Ricci for Black Snake Moan


BEST DIRECTOR (E.H.)

How do you go about predicting this category when at least three of the frontrunners would be considered candidates for the fifth-slot "slip your auteur in here, director's branch" spot in any other year? Do you go all out and presume that this year's non-Best Picture-aligning directors will be even more out of left field than usual? Or do you simply figure that this category will always look roughly the same, regardless of what's going on over in the Best Picture category? The Coen brothers, Paul Thomas Anderson, and, arguably, Julian Schnabel are all pretty close to locks, and even though we're not confident of Schnabel's movie making the Best Picture lineup, he's been cited enough by the precursors (Globes, DGA) to render his capacity for filling out that perceived fifth slot moot. Sean Penn is probably less assured of a nomination, since the days when actors behind the camera getting props from the director's branch peaked a while ago (probably when Mel Gibson stole the Oscar from Tim Robbins; they're still atoning for letting Ron Howard in the building on what should've been David Lynch or Robert Altman's night), but we're pretty sure Penn's film will shape up to be the compromise choice in a number of categories, including Best Picture. Between those four, we have a lineup that represents the juiciest section of the bell curve delineating both directorial excellence and middlebrow credibility. The question is: Will the fifth slot be waxing or waning? There is no shortage of candidates in either category—Christian Mungui, Werner Herzog (though one of us thinks little Dieter needed to remain a documentary), David Fincher, and...brr, Jason Reitman—but the eventual nominee will likely fall somewhere in between. David Thomson has a swell reputation among old school cinephiles for whom all current cinema is stillborn and among everyone who thinks of Nicole Kidman when they wank, and he recently posted a few thoughts about which directors are in the mix. No surprise, he's jazzed up (at least by his standards) by the prospect of Sidney Lumet scoring a nod. We're going to have to veto that idea, since no director who has been in the game should have to resort to both lightening-flash edits and title cards reading "three hours earlier" to indicate flashbacks. Thomson also shortlists the perpetually photo-op-ready Joe Wright, who isn't exactly an auteur in the traditional, Erich von Stroheim sense, so we have to assume he's really just enthusiastic about Atonement's chances, though he apparently thinks very little of the film. We don't think quite so little of it and neither are we very enthusiastic about its Oscar chances. Lastly, Thomson brings up Tim Burton, whose self-flattering take on Sweeney Todd merits consideration, if only because the category's other brand names—Coen, Anderson—branched off in strange directions this year. We predict him to replace DGA nominee Tony Gilroy, completing a category filled with, and we mean this as a comparative compliment, fifth-wheel contenders.

Will Be Nominated: Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood, Tim Burton for Sweeney Todd, Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men, Sean Penn for Into the Wild, and Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Should Be Nominated: Emanuele Crialese for Golden Door, Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men, Jafar Panahi for Offside, Johnnie To for Exiled, Apichatpong Weerasethakul for Syndromes and a Century

BEST PICTURE

Ten months ago, before the dust of the last Oscar ceremony had completely settled, pundits were already calling Atonement this year's best in show. It didn't seem to matter that the film was still in post-production, only that it was set to open in December and starred an actress who could (easily) squeeze into a size zero. But something happened on the way to the forum: The film opens in the States and audiences more or less react to it the way professional Oscar pundits have told them to, only it gets the cold shoulder from critics groups and industry guilds alike, leaving the same pundits scrambling to figure out why it may now be shut out of the Best Picture race.

Almost all irrationally blame the December opening (as if this were hurting Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood and Julian Schnabel's Diving Bell and the Butterfly), never considering the effects their histrionic, year-long prognosticating may have had on voters. In short: tell someone enough times they'll enjoy tossing your salad, and they will; tell them too many times and they'll feel like they're being forced to like this.

Which is not to say that Atonement is exactly shiteous. In fact, if this thoroughly mediocre period drama were to be nominated and win Best Picture, it would still count as one of the better ones to take the prize in Oscar's 80 years. This sad reality is itself another reason for the potential snub: As a prestige picture, Atonement is too frosty, and the Academy has shown that it prefers its swoony romances to be of a more vulgar vintage (Titanic, The English Patient).

It may have been easy to rejoice an Atonement snub if there weren't more inane films in the running: Michael Clayton, Tony Gilroy's middlebrow homage to the middlebrow legacy of his three producers (Steven Soderbergh, Anthony Minghella, and Syndney Pollock), and Juno, the story of a quirky, pregnant 16-year-old played by a quirky 19-year-old who sounds like a 29-year-old fan of Death Proof. My roommate tells me Michael Clayton is a lock because his parents lurved it, and Juno is one too because—to loosely quote Jack Bauer from the first season of 24—it hasn't been shoved so far down our collective throats that it has yet to be digested by the acids in our stomachs and cling to our intestinal linings.

One thing no one could have told you a year ago was that not one, but two darlings of the critical establishment, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, would be frontrunners in this category. Perhaps the WGA strike has forced AMPAS voters to take their work a little more seriously, or maybe the formalist gumption of these films is just too ginormous even for Olivia de Havilland and Mickey Rooney to ignore. And if you doubt that There Will Be Blood isn't a lock, take a look at its IMDB rating, then read this and tell me that the film isn't, like, City of God times one million.

That leaves one spot. Sweeney Todd, like Atonement, was a big winner at the Golden Globes, but those awards didn't exactly happen. American Gangster appears to have lost its groove, and Hairspray has found it a little too late in the game. The same could be said for Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Into the Wild, but the latter has the edge by virtue of being a homegrown product. Besides, all those SAG nominations don't lie.

Will Be Nominated: Into the Wild, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, and There Will Be Blood

Should Be Nominated: Golden Door, Into Great Silence, No Country for Old Men, Offside, and Rescue Dawn



Edited By Sabin on 1200937039