Oscar competition thread

[JasonEvans]

Anything from Milk or F/N in the supporting category?

James Franco and Josh Brolin are getting a lot of Supporting Actor talk from Milk. Brolin is also getting some lead actor support for W, but I don't think that is going to happen.

I have not seen Benjamin Button, Revolutionary Road, The Wrestler, or Doubt yet -- but I see the acting races shaping up like this:

Best Actor-- Penn is the favorite. Langella, Pitt, and probably Mickey Rourke are all extremely likely to get nominations. Lots of contenders for the 5th nomination.

Best Actress-- Aside from Meryl Streep being nominated from Doubt, there are no other sure things. I suspect that Anne Hathaway will get noticed for Rachel Getting Married. Frances McDormand may get a nomination from Burn After Reading too. This race is always one of the hardest to predict.

Best Sup Actor-- Heath Ledger will almost certainly win. Philip Seymour Hoffman will be nominated for Doubt. I think James Franco will be nominated for Milk (don't discount the power of the pro-homosexual vote in Hollywood). Lots of other candidates.

Best Sup Actress-- Viola Davis (in Doubt she has a scene where she goes toe to toe with Streep that is supposed to be the acting tour-de-force of the year) and Marissa Tomei (The Wrestler) are locks to get nominations, IMO. Not sure about the rest.

One thing I cannot figure out is where Slumdog Millionaire figures into the acting awards. It may be the Best Picture frontrunner right now. Danny Boyle is a mortal lock to get a Best Director nomination. But, it has to get some acting nomination-- right?

--Jason "hmmm-- perhaps we need a new thread?" Evans

[Lavabe]

James Franco and Josh Brolin are getting a lot of Supporting Actor talk from Milk. Brolin is also getting some lead actor support for W, but I don't think that is going to happen.

I have not seen Benjamin Button, Revolutionary Road, The Wrestler, or Doubt yet -- but I see the acting races shaping up like this:

Best Actor-- Penn is the favorite. Langella, Pitt, and probably Mickey Rourke are all extremely likely to get nominations. Lots of contenders for the 5th nomination.

Best Actress-- Aside from Meryl Streep being nominated from Doubt, there are no other sure things. I suspect that Anne Hathaway will get noticed for Rachel Getting Married. Frances McDormand may get a nomination from Burn After Reading too. This race is always one of the hardest to predict.

Best Sup Actor-- Heath Ledger will almost certainly win. Philip Seymour Hoffman will be nominated for Doubt. I think James Franco will be nominated for Milk (don't discount the power of the pro-homosexual vote in Hollywood). Lots of other candidates.

Best Sup Actress-- Viola Davis (in Doubt she has a scene where she goes toe to toe with Streep that is supposed to be the acting tour-de-force of the year) and Marissa Tomei (The Wrestler) are locks to get nominations, IMO. Not sure about the rest.

One thing I cannot figure out is where Slumdog Millionaire figures into the acting awards. It may be the Best Picture frontrunner right now. Danny Boyle is a mortal lock to get a Best Director nomination. But, it has to get some acting nomination-- right?

--Jason "hmmm-- perhaps we need a new thread?" Evans

Best Actor competition for Langella: What about Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino?

[Lavabe]

As per Jason's suggestion in another thread, perhaps we now have a spot to discuss and preview great Oscar-worthy performances of the year.

Best Actor:
Langella
Jason has yet to review Pitt in Benjamin Button, nor has he made mention of Eastwood in Gran Torino. Sean Penn seems to be the big competition with MILK.

What's up?

[JasonEvans]

Ok, thanks to some of the non-Academy folks coming out with their award lists, we are getting a pretty good idea of who will get Oscar nominations.

For example, the Director's Guild came out with their nominations today. Danny Boyle (Slumdog), Christopher Nolan (Dark Knight), Gus Van Sant (Milk), David Fincher (Button) and Ron Howard (Frost/Nix) are the choices. I've felt for a while that those 5 are the top contenders to get Director noms from the Academy.

On the writing front, the Writer's Guild picked for best orig screenplay--

• "Burn After Reading," written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
• "Milk," written by Dustin Lance Black
• "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," written by Woody Allen
• "The Visitor, "written by Tom McCarthy
• and "The Wrestler," written by Robert Siegel

The Guild adores Woody Allen and I am not so sure he will get an Oscar nom for this flick. I still think you may see a shocker for WALL*E in this category or one of the other prominent categories. It is hard for the animated films to break into other categories because they all operate under non-union deals and so many of the union folks ignore them when voting for the Oscars. Frankly, "Beauty and the Beast," "Toy Story," and probably "The Incredibles" should have been Best Picture nominees when they came out... but that is another discussion.

The adapted screenplay Writer's Guild nominees were--

• Chris and Jonathan Nolan for "The Dark Knight"
• Eric Roth for "Benjamin Button"
• John Patrick Shanley for "Doubt"
• Peter Morgan for "Frost/Nixon"
• and Simon Beaufry for "Slumdog Millionaire"

Anyway-- just getting the Oscar conversation moving again... I hope

--Jason "I'll get to the Eastwood acting question in a moment" Evans

[JasonEvans]

Best Actor:
Langella
Jason has yet to review Pitt in Benjamin Button, nor has he made mention of Eastwood in Gran Torino. Sean Penn seems to be the big competition with MILK.

What's up?

As we get closer, I am shrinking my list of contenders for Best Actor a bit. I still think the final race will come down to Sean Penn versus Frank Langella, but I now think there are only 4 or maybe 5 other contenders for the remaining 3 nominations. They are (in order of likelyhood to be nominated, IMO)--

1. Mickey Rourke- The Wrestler
2. Richard Jenkins- The Visitor
3. Clint Eastwood- Gran Torino
4. Brad Pitt- Ben Button

If I had to include one more, it would be Leo for Revolutionary Road, but I don't think he will make it.

In the actress world, it is always harder to fix where the race lies as female roles are fewer and the ladies get less attention. I guarantee a couple things in the Best Actress category--

• First-- Meryl Streep will be nominated for Doubt.
• Second-- Anne Hathaway will be nominated for Rachel Getting Married
• Third-- at least one of the nominees will be from a film that almost no one saw and went completely unnoticed at the boxoffice like Melissa Leo in Frozen River, Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky or Kristin Scott Thomas in I've Loved You So Long.

--Jason "ok, talk amongst yourselves now" Evans

[DevilAlumna]

I still think you may see a shocker for WALL*E in this category or one of the other prominent categories. It is hard for the animated films to break into other categories because they all operate under non-union deals and so many of the union folks ignore them when voting for the Oscars. Frankly, "Beauty and the Beast," "Toy Story," and probably "The Incredibles" should have been Best Picture nominees when they came out... but that is another discussion.

Not to sidetrack the discussion too much, but do you think the organization's whole name/reason for being influences the thinking around cartoons? I mean, it is the "Motion Picture Association of America." Animated drawings != pictures in motion. (At least, if you define pictures as camera images of real-life objects...)

[snowdenscold]

Not to sidetrack the discussion too much, but do you think the organization's whole name/reason for being influences the thinking around cartoons? I mean, it is the "Motion Picture Association of America." Animated drawings != pictures in motion. (At least, if you define pictures as camera images of real-life objects...)

Aren't both a series of still images played extremely fast to create apparent motion by the human eye? Well, at least how they originally did it. With all the digital stuff now, 'motion picture' may be an antiquated term.

[DevilAlumna]

Aren't both a series of still images played extremely fast to create apparent motion by the human eye? Well, at least how they originally did it. With all the digital stuff now, 'motion picture' may be an antiquated term.

Yes, but animation is images of drawn or computer-rendered objects, and pictures are the capture of real life.

(This logic fails when you admit that original cartoons were actually camera photos of drawings...)

[JasonEvans]

Yes, but animation is images of drawn or computer-rendered objects, and pictures are the capture of real life.

(This logic fails when you admit that original cartoons were actually camera photos of drawings...)

You have hit upon a good point. There are thousands of members of the Academy who vote on the Oscars who do not have skills that are of use on an animated film. Many of the technical jobs involved in making a film are not used if that film is drawn instead of real-life. Add in the fact that most animated films are done non-union and you can see the tremendous hurdle that keeps something like WALL*E from getting a Best Picture nomination.

-Jason "IMO, WALL*E unquestionably deserves a Best Pic nom -- not even close" Evans

[JasonEvans]

I just saw this...

The guy who runs the Wynn's sports book has posted odds (not for wagers, just for fun) on the Golden Globes. Here they are:

Best Motion Picture, Drama: Slumdog Millionaire, 9/5, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 2/1, Frost/Nixon, 5/2, Revolutionary Road, 20/1, and The Reader, 25/1.

Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy: Vicky Cristina Barcelona, 2/1, Mamma Mia!, 5/2, In Bruges, 7/2, Happy Go Lucky, 5/1, and Burn After Reading, 12/1.

Best Actress, Drama: Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road, 8/5, Meryl Streep in Doubt, 5/2, Angelina Jolie for The Changeling, 4/1, Kristin Scott Thomas in I’ve Loved You So Long, 8/1, and Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married, 10/1.

Best Actress, Musical or Comedy: Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia!, 9/5, Sally Hawkins in Happy Go Lucky, 2/1, Rebecca Hall in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, 7/2, Frances McDormand in Burn After Reading, 10/1, and Emma Thompson in Last Chance Harvey, 15/1.

Best Actor, Drama: Sean Penn in Milk, 2/1, Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon, 5/2, Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, 4/1, Brad Pitt for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 5/1, and Leonardo DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road, 10/1.

Best Actor, Musical or Comedy: Javier Bardem in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, 2/1, Dustin Hoffman in Last Chance Harvey, 5/2, James Franco in Pineapple Express, 7/2, Colin Farrell for In Bruges, 5/1, and co-star Brendan Gleeson, 12/1.

--Jason "Heath is a lock to win" Evans

[Lavabe]

I just saw this...

The guy who runs the Wynn's sports book has posted odds (not for wagers, just for fun) on the Golden Globes. Here they are:

The Golden Globes?

Please remind us of how they are selected.

More seriously, just how good a predictor of the Oscars are the Golden Globes?

Think the Hollywood glitz and over-the-top spending at these awards tis going to be reduced compared with previous years?

Thanks,
Lavabe

[JasonEvans]

To answer Lavabe's question-- are the Globes a good predictor of Oscar success... sorta.

Recall that the Globes have multiple categories for Comedy/Musical and Drama so that skews things. If Colin Farrell does not even get a Best Actor Oscar nomination does that make his Globe for Comedy wrong?

At the same time, the Globes are worth a lot of attention and they can skew voting a bit. I would give Mickey Rourke a much better chance of winning Best Actor now than I would have if Penn or Langella had won the Globe.

Slumdog was already the front-runner for Best Picture and Danny Boyle was the front-runner for Best Director before last night. Now they both seem to be even more front-runners.

Last night makes Heath even more of a lock to win Supporting Actor. I wonder if Kate Winslet has a chance to pull off an Oscar double in Actress/Supporting the way she did last night at the Globes. That would be really impressive. I thought she was great in The Reader, that's for sure.

But, aside from some nice publicity, I am not sure the Globes carry all that much weight. The group that votes on them is much smaller than the Oscar voters. In fact, I consider the SAG, Writer's Guild, Producer's Guild, and Director's Guild to be better predictors. We will get those over the next couple weeks.

-Jason "I liked Mickey Rourke's rambling speech" Evans

[johnb]

Best Supporting Actor: 13 of the last 24 Globe winners won the Oscar
Best Supporting Actress: 12 of the last 24 Globe winners won the Oscar

I think Winslet is iffy. Hadn't Penelope Cruz been the frontrunner on this one? And I guess Heath is a lock, though he probably wouldn't get my vote.


Best Actor: 15 of the last 24 Globe winners won the Oscar
Best Actress: 19 of the last 24 Globe winners won the Oscar

Because of the Drama and Musical/Comedy split, there are basically ten nominees per category and two chances for Oscar to pick either of the Golden Globe winners.

I suppose this might mean that Colin Farrell has some chance, though I don't think his performance was in the top 5. I'd think Mickey Rourke could win, but my reading is that Sean Penn is slightly favored and that Frank Langella is also out there. I thought all were terrific, but I'd bet that people in Hollywood are far more likely to vote for Harvey Milk than for Richard Nixon.

If the 79% predictive value is meaningful, it puts Winslet as the person to beat, though I'm always surprised when anyone votes against Meryl Streep, and I don't think people would vote for Winslet twice after she already won 2 golden globes.


Best Director: 16 of the last 24 Globe winners won the Oscar


Best Picture: 17 of the last 24 Globe winners won the Oscar
A 70.8% Globe to Oscar win percentage is pretty good odds for Slumdog Millionaire, despite its not being a typical Oscar winner.

[JasonEvans]

Best Director: 16 of the last 24 Globe winners won the Oscar

It will be 17 out of 25.

I dunno about the rest of the awards, but I consider Danny Boyle to be an absolute shoe-in for Slumdog.

-Jason "" Evans