Candid Camera- Zachary Attack

Critics Choice Awards highlight top two of this season’s favorites.

Critics Choice Awards highlight top two of this season’s favorites.

Monday saw the announcement of this year’s Critics Choice Awards nominations, with the two films expected to sweep this award season leading the way.  American Hustle, David O. Russell’s historic crime dramedy, and biopic 12 Years a Slave each received a whopping thirteen nominations.  Both films have been receiving recognition ad nauseam, and both are expected to be competing for the top prize at the Oscars early in March.

Early favorite Gravity, arguably the most critically acclaimed film of the year, was a “close” second with ten nominations.  All three films received nominations for Best Picture, along with Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Her, Inside Llewyn Davis, Nebraska, Saving Mr. Banks and The Wolf of Wall Street.  This is nearly identical to last week’s “Top 10 Films of the Year” from AFI, changing out Spike Jonze’s Her for Ryan Coogler’s debut feature Fruitvale Station.

Her, however, has won top prizes at both the National Board of Review and the Los Angeles Film Critics Society, and is expected to give American Hustle a run for the Golden Globes’ Best Picture for comedy/musical.  None of the other films listed are expected to win any major Best Film prizes this year…for now.

(Un)Fortunately, the CCA gives nominations to not only ten films for Best Picture, but also six different performers in each acting category for the most possible recognition.  The only thing possibly more pretentious than this are those of us who force themselves to see all of the films BECAUSE they’re nominated.  The good news is; the nominations are nearly identical to the SAG nominations this year, with the added sixth in each category.

Here a list of the major categories this year:

BEST PICTURE


American Hustle


Captain Phillips


Dallas Buyers Club


Gravity


Her


Inside Llewyn Davis


Nebraska


Saving Mr. Banks


12 Years a Slave


The Wolf of Wall Street

BEST ACTOR


Christian Bale – American Hustle


Bruce Dern – Nebraska


Chiwetel Ejiofor – 12 Years a Slave


Tom Hanks – Captain Phillips


Matthew McConaughey – Dallas Buyers Club


Robert Redford – All Is Lost

BEST ACTRESS


Cate Blanchett – Blue Jasmine


Sandra Bullock – Gravity


Judi Dench – Philomena


Brie Larson – Short Term 12


Meryl Streep – August: Osage County


Emma Thompson – Saving Mr. Banks

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR


Barkhad Abdi – Captain Phillips


Daniel Bruhl – Rush


Bradley Cooper – American Hustle


Michael Fassbender – 12 Years a Slave


James Gandolfini – Enough Said


Jared Leto – Dallas Buyers Club

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS


Scarlett Johansson – Her


Jennifer Lawrence – American Hustle


Lupita Nyong’o – 12 Years a Slave


Julia Roberts – August: Osage County


June Squibb – Nebraska


Oprah Winfrey – Lee Daniels’ The Butler

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE


American Hustle


August: Osage County


Lee Daniels’ The Butler


Nebraska


12 Years a Slave


The Wolf of Wall Street

BEST DIRECTOR


Alfonso Cuaron – Gravity


Paul Greengrass – Captain Phillips


Spike Jonze – Her


Steve McQueen – 12 Years a Slave


David O. Russell – American Hustle


Martin Scorsese – The Wolf of Wall Street

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY


Eric Singer and David O. Russell – American Hustle


Woody Allen – Blue Jasmine


Spike Jonze – Her


Joel Coen & Ethan Coen – Inside Llewyn Davis


Bob Nelson – Nebraska

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY


Tracy Letts – August: Osage County


Richard Linklater & Julie Delpy & Ethan Hawke – Before Midnight


Billy Ray – Captain Phillips


Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope – Philomena


John Ridley – 12 Years a Slave


Terence Winter – The Wolf of Wall Street

BEST ANIMATED FILM

The Croods

Despicable Me 2

Frozen

Monsters University

The Wind Rises

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM

Blue is the Warmest Color

The Great Beauty

The Hunt

The Past

Wadjda

If you’re noticing one strange thing, it’s possibly because Scarlett Johansson received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Her, in which, she never actually appeared on-screen.  Her voice-only role as Joaquin Phoenix’s robotic love interest was deemed ineligible for consideration by HFPA for the Golden Globes, but since it IS a performance, she is deemed eligible for Oscar consideration.

This year, you will be able to watch the 19^th annual Critics Choice Awards on you local CW station.  The ceremony will be held January 16^th, 2014.

New York Film Critics kicks off Award Season 2013!

December 3^rd marked the 79^th annual New York Film Critics awards, to officially begin the Oscar race.  In a surprise turn, the currently unreleased American Hustle took away the top prize, as well as Best Screenplay.  David O. Russell’s fictional depiction of the FBI’s Abscam of the late 1970s, came into the new award season with a lot of questions as to its Globe/Oscar potential, despite having a cast full of previous winners and nominees.  Now, after winning the first major critics award, its limited release ten days from now has more anticipation than ever.

Jennifer Lawrence, after having won numerous awards last year for her first dance with David O. Russell in Silver Linings Playbook, was also awarded Best Supporting Actress for American Hustle.  With each award she wins, expect J. Law continue to climb Time’s 100 Most Influential People list as well, en route to taking over the world.

This year’s tightest race in this year’s award season is arguably Best Actor, of which, the NYFCC awarded Robert Redford for his one-man-show All is Lost (not in any way related to what everyone thought of his career).  Redford, an Oscar winner for Best Director, has never before won a major acting award aside from a BAFTA early in his career (for playing the Sundance Kid among other roles).

Cate Blanchett earned what looks to be the first of several critics’ awards this year for Best Actress in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine.   Blanchett has always been a critical darling, having been nominated for 5 Oscars, winning Best Supporting Actress for The Aviator.  She is potentially this year’s victim of the tiring marathon of acceptance speeches.  Time to hire a writing assistant, Cate.

Dallas Buyer’s Club’s Jared Leto nabbed Best Supporting Actor to round out the acting categories.  The film has definitely gained some excellent press leading into this year’s Oscar season, but probably would not do as well during a stronger year.

12 Years a Slave’s Steve Mcqueen scored an expected win for Best Director, for the intricately pieced-together, power-house slave biography.  Of all the “for your consideration” films, this is the only guaranteed regular at every ceremony and every shortlist, and with good reason.  A definite must-see this year.

The race to the Oscars continues tomorrow with the National Board of Review announcing their annual awards, including “the top ten films of the year,” just in case you needed a better idea of what movies to spend your hard earned money at.  Happy viewing!

Cannes Film Fest, what will it mean for the Oscars?

OK everybody,

It seems that I still have work to do in the off season, since festival season never seems to end.

So, after a bit of lagging, here we are, a few weeks out of Cannes, and although we can't watch ANY of the movies yet (except Gatsby if you count that), we can still start to think about the upcoming potential "for your consideration" films we may NEED to see.

Not to begin the Oscar predictions too early, but in each of the last two years we've seen the Palme D'or winner garner major critics awards, propelling them to a Best Picture and Best Director nomination at the Oscars.   The films are The Tree of Life in 2011 and Amour in 2012, both of which happen to be my favorite films of those respective years.

Something tells me this year will be different...

The Golden Palm was given to a three-hour long French film, Blue is the Warmest Colour, based on an ultra-popular french novel.  The film's director Abdellatif Kechiche is no stranger to the film festival circuit, and his fifth feature was a surprise winner, garnering the attention of the jury including Nicole Kidman, Christoph Waltz and last year's Best Director winner Ang Lee, all headed by Best Director loser Stephen Spielberg.

Kechiche's film beat out films by all-time greats Roman Polanski, the Coen brothers, Steven Soderbugh and, oh yes, Takashi Miike, the badass Japanese thriller director.

As the year goes on, and the endless amount of crap releases into theaters, we should follow the American films that were in contention.  Inside Llewyn Davis was a highly-anticipated Coen brothers film that was originally scheduled for release last season, but due to distribution problems, the Coens decided to take their sweet time, and now Coen fans have to wait a whole...nother...year for the next release (December).

The Immigrant is another Weinstein-backed indie that remains to really be seen how the critics respond to the film across American before they push it for award season.  the Jaoquin Phoenix drama still has no release date, and if it was as painfully over-the-top as The Master, then we can hope it stays that way.  The film was directed by James Gray (no, not the boxing ringside reporter), who has worked with Phoenix a number of times before.

Behind the Candelabra will not be in American theaters, catch that on HBO, if you can stand the blended and ever-changing, eye-soring color tints which seem to plague most HBO films.

The final film to look at is Alexander Payne's Nebraska, which made huge press at the fest.  Bruce Dern won Best Actor for playing the old father in the touching father-son story.  Also, Alexander Payne has been nominated for five Oscars, and has won Best Screenplay twice, however, this is his first film he did not receive screenplay credit on.  He has also directed five of his actors to Oscar nominations and, although none have won, each film he does certainly brings a huge weight to the Oscar race.

More prospecting to come, let me know what everyone thinks!

Oscar, 85, gets old

As the sun sets on a surprisingly windy February evening, the epic, seemingly endless night in which all the film lovers watch with loving, sparkly eyes, one rich Hollywood person awards another rich Hollywood person.

And we love it.

This year, we were treated with an exceptionally funny opening act, in which Seth MacFarlane does what he has absolutely has perfected in his over-decade long career, make himself look like a complete idiot.  We laugh time and time again, but the true irony is his commentary, even an extremely successful comedian like Seth has to put on the Ritz for the most looked upon award ceremony in the world.  Along with his off-color jokes, he invited some celebrities to sing and dance with him to pop standards in his show-opening, highlighting the theme of the evening, music in film.

In the midst of the giggle-filled night, we actually had some true surprises in some of the most important categories.  The first of which was in the Best Supporting Actor category.  Whilst many were expecting SAG winner Tommy Lee Jones to take home his second Oscar award, the night began with a wide-eyed WAOWW when Christoph Waltz went to pick up his second award.  The center of Mr. Waltz speech was the most deserved Quentin Tarantino, who had directed him to both of his Oscar wins.

But the surprises didn’t wait long to keep coming.  Animated Feature, went to Brave, as many were expecting Wreck-It Ralph or Frankenweenie.  Similarly, Ang Lee collected his second award for Best Director for Life of Pi, over slight favorite Steven Spielberg (Lincoln), and Hollywood veteran David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook).

However, the true surprise came in the multitude of technical awards, where, in fact, we had a TIE!!!  In Best Sound Editing, the winners were Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall.  The was, in fact the first tie since Barabra Streisand and Katherine Hepburn tied for Best Actress in 1969.

Now, I’m sure when the writers were drawing this up, they expected the pacing of this show to be much more timed for the hustle and bustle environment of primetime television.  Then the ideas started to come and wouldn’t stop.  So we viewers ended up with a tiring series of music in the movies tributes, including a stunning performance by Shirley Bassey in an impressive James Bond tribute, a baffling extended-extended play of previous Oscar-winning musicals, and the most random moment in Oscar history, when Seth MacFarlane reenacted twenty seconds from The Sound of Music.  Ok, maybe the streaker was the most random moment.  But, certainly, the theme of music in movies didn’t really draw in a new crowd of viewers to the awards.  In the end, the show still ran a whopping three and a half hours!

After the expected wins of Anne Hathaway for Best Supporting Actress, Jennifer Lawrence for Best Actress and Daniel Day Lewis for Best Actor, we had a final shock while speculating and betting on who was the presenter of the top award.  Now it’s time to collect your payout, those of you who punched in first lady Michelle Obama, who had the ballot flown in so she could read it live from the White House.  Certainly an epic win for Argo!

And with that, the 85^th Academy Awards danced into the books with a silly song from MacFarlane and Kristen Chenoweth, celebrating all the losers.  It reality, there were few losers, all of the Best Picture nominees (save Beasts of the Southern Wild) won at least one award, continuing the trend of the Academy spreading the love around to several films, rather than having a single film sweep.  Life of Pi walked away with the most wins (4), but missed out on the top prize.  Lincoln received the most nominations, but managed to win only two, and Argo and Les Miserables nabbed three.

I’ve heard Ang Lee is already the front runner for next year’s Best Director with an upcoming adaptation of Fifty Shades of Gray (only joking).  Whatever happens, the race for Oscars 86 begins NOW!

Finally Best Picture!!

      I know you may be thinking, how can a film that has won Best Picture for the Golden Globe for Drama, the Producer's Guild Award, the BAFTAs, the SAG award's top honor, the DGA top honor, and the Critic's Choice Award can possibly LOSE at the Oscars?  Well, the answer is, it can't.  There has been a lot of speculation over the last few days to whether or not Argo will take the top prize tomorrow or not, as the lack of Best director nomination may actually hurt it's chances.  It is baffling, the Oscars have awarded several Actors turned Directors (Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Kevin Costner and Mel Gibson have all won Best Director).  On top of that, there has been much speculation about how authentic the film really is.  Just yesterday the the real-life Canadian Ambassador (portrayed in the film by Victor Garber) had complained that the film downplayed Canada's role in the actual events.  

       So this is just a few things that are floating around, giving people reason to believe that Argo may NOT win Best Picture.  A film hasn't won Oscar's top award without having been nominated for Best Director since Driving Miss Daisy in 1989, and before then was Grand Hotel in 1931.  It really DOESN'T happen.  Well, rarely.  But the truth is, modern Oscar voters love the little guy.  They won't want to give it to a film like Lincoln, no that's too obvious.  When the nominations expanded to ten, then ten max, rather than making room for big budget blockbusters like viewers had thought, the extra slots were filled in with smaller films.  This year, rather than Skyfall and The Dark Knight Rises, we have Beasts of the Southern Wild and Amour.  

        Not to say Argo is a small picture, but in regards to the award season, it's very neutral.  It's tomato meter is near perfect, yet it's not on EVERY critics top ten lists.  Most viewers feel the same, the film is good, but not necessarily the greatest.  But would anyone complain if it wins Best Picture?  I mean I wouldn't, I punched Amour in the ballot and that has no chance of winning.  Amour is too small of a film to actually win.  Argo is a film that people know, they see, they like.  That is an extreme generalization of todays movie going audiences, but Argo is the safest pick, not being too obvious, while still being seen, for the Oscar to gain more viewers.  Safe is always the way everyone wants to go today, every investor in today's economy, as well as EVERY studio and distribution company.  While people dream of having a time like 20th-Century Fox did with Life of Pi (which also doesn't discredit it's decent chances of a surprising Best Picture win), studios will still shell out an endless array of comic book-based films, films based off of 1990s TV shows, or other epic blockbusters, to avoid taking an epic economic hit. 

        Argo is not just what people think of as the best film of the year, but rather it defines the modern Oscars.  Something good, not fantastic, but something that everyone will like (unlike Zero Dark Thirty).  It's not too small (like Beasts  and Amour) and it's not too obvious (Lincoln). The only other film that really fits this is Life of Pi, which hasn't won every other major award so far.  When filling in your predictions ballot, go with the facts, and hopefully you'll end up with more than a DVD of That's My Boy.

Winner: Argo

My Pick: Amour

The Races Continue (Pawty Numero Quatro)

We almost through the whole Oscar predictions!  We're finishing it off with some tight races, with several potential winners, causing a stir amongst the print and online oddsmakers.  Let's start with the most exciting and unpredictable award in years.  Just to clarify (SMH), "My Pick" is my favorite, not what I would predict.

Best Director:

Two-time winner Steven Spielberg seemed poised to be just the fourth director to win a third Oscar for the category, but not so fast.  Ben Affleck took the DGA top honor, which means that for only the seventh time in history, the DGA and Oscar winner will not be the same.  At the time of the announcing of the nominations, Lincoln received the most, and was expected to sweep.  Now, it seems that voters are gravitating toward other films, especially when Lincoln is already a favorite in other major awards.  What we know is this, Michael Hanake will probably win for Foreign Film, and perhaps also screenplay.  Ben Zietlin has never even made another feature, and has a long career to win an Oscar.  So that leaves Ang Lee, who directed the film that I believe will win the most awards due to the amount of love the film has gotten.  David O. Russell is backed by Dr. Harvey Weinstein, and can easily surprise everyone in the room on Oscar night.  With the press he's gotten in Hollywood, many voters are gravitating toward Russell, but I'm actually going to go with my original theme (read my previous articles to know this is not just a fave-pick), in that Life of Pi is going to come out with a surprising amount of awards.  This would certainly be a surprise.

Winner: Life of Pi

My Pick: Life of PI

Best Original Screenplay:

This category is not really all that complicated.  The Vegas guys got it right, predicting a walkover for Tarantino, despite Mark Boal winning his second WGA award for original screenplay.  Again, if a film gets amazing press like Django, it's likely to win the Oscar.  Zero Dark Thirty has some good press, some bad, Django just had some hate from Spike Lee.  Oh, and it won the Globe, which doesn't split the award into adapted and original.  If it was me filling out your book sheet, I wouldn't over think this one.

Winner: Django Unchained

My Pick: Amour

Best Adapted Screenplay:

The other tightest race ever.  Argo is the favorite to win Best Picture, and had also won the WGA award, but can it take this one down as well?  If Spielberg doesn't win Best Director, you may expect to see his film Lincoln take down this category as well.  I know Argo is the favorite, but it's much more likely that Silver Linings Playbook, again back by Weinstein (so it's not about if it will win awards but how many), or Lincoln, which has been praised all year for it's subtle script.

Winner: Lincoln

My Pick: Life of Pi

Best Animated Feature:

This is a toss-up between Wreck-It Ralph and Frankenweenie.  I honestly have no idea how this one will go, but the Producer's Guild gave their animated award to Wreck-It Ralph, and that happens to be the only one I've seen.  If you want to pick another one, then go with Frankenweenie.

Winner: Wreck-It Ralph

My Pick: Wreck-It Ralph

Best Documentary Feature:

This one is actually tougher than it looks.  Searching for Sugar Man was the most popular, and the most viewed.  But voters in this category will reach to see all of the nominated awards, the rest of which are available on DVD already.  Look for a potential upset from the stunning The Invisible War, but that's just a fave-pick, maybe.

Winner: Searching for Sugar Man

My Pick: The Invisible War

Best Foreign Language Film:

Normally the most impossible category to predict, even when a film seems like a lock.  This award, throughout the years, has gone to films on the verge of release at the time of the awards, in order to generate press for the film.  The most recent release is Canada's War Witch, which could be a surprise to, what seems like a lock in Best Picture nominee Amour.  But rarely if a foreign film is nominated for Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film does it lose the latter.

Winner: Amour

My PicK: Amour

And we've almost come to a complete end, I'll discuss Best Picture in the last post!

The Acting Awardz

Oh wow, the epic journey continues!  Let's go to the acting awards, that's what y'all been waiting for, right?  I'll use some colorful photos, just so everyone doesn't get bored.

Best Actor:

No one in the history of the Academy Awards has won the Best Actor award three times.  Daniel Day-Lewis has already won for My Left Foot and There Will Be Blood.  He is also a huge favorite, near even money to win this year for a most impressive performance.  Get ready for history.

Winner: Lincoln- Daniel Day-Lewis

My Pick- Lincoln- Daniel Day-Lewis

Best Actress:

If you are reading every other Oscar odds/predictions, you may be mislead that this is an actual race.  It's an interesting rumor, but unfortunately like all rumors, it's not true.  Jennifer Lawrence has won the SAG award, the Golden Globe, and has Harvey Weinstein backing her.  There has been lots of speculation regarding an upset from Emannuelle Riva, and the other Globe winner, my girl Jessica Chastain, but it just won't happen.  There are plenty opportunities for a surprise on Oscar night, this is not going to be one of them.

Winner: Silver Linings Playbook- Jennifer Lawrence

My Pick: Zero Dark Thirty- Jessica Chastain

Best Supporting Actor:

This is the closest race yet.  Tommy Lee Jones is a slight favorite after having won the SAG award.  Christoph Waltz seems to be an audience favorite, especially after just having hosted SNL, but won just a couple years ago.  Some are actually picking a complete upset in Robert De Niro, who hasn't been nominated in over twenty years.  Silver Linings will most likely have an upset, but it's much more likely that the SAG winner will take the cake.  It's not like we've had phenomenal performances in this category, but each compliments their film nicely (except for Phillip Seymour Hoffman, sorry), but I certainly won't be confident in the pick until the ballot is opened and the winner is announced.  Besides, three time winners used to be rare, we will have one this year already (Daniel Day-Lewis), and one last year (Meryl Streep), so De Niro may be out of luck.

Winner: Lincoln- Tommy Lee Jones

My Pick: Lincoln- Tommy Lee Jones

Best Supporting Actress:

This is a weak category.  Weak because it didn't have any real standout performances (except for Helen Hunt), and weak because there is no competition whatsoever.  Anne Hathaway won the Golden Globe and the SAG.  And she was cat woman.  Case and point.

Winner: Les Miserables- Anne Hathaway

My Pick: The Sessions- Helen Hunt

Check back for the final winning ticket!! 

Oscar Predictions Part Deux

We're going to run through ALL the technical awards.  They're mostly pretty tough, so I'm making a lot of "safe" picks, just for future bragging rights.

Also, there will be no Razzie analysis, That's My Boy will sweep.

Best Cinematography:

This one seems to have a clear winner in Life of Pi.  I'm under the strong belief that the film will walk away with the most awards on Sunday.  However, it's not a walkover due to the fact that Roger Deakins, photographer of Skyfall, has never won an Oscar in his now tenth try.  Also his hair glows with the sparkle of the moon.  But still, hard to knock Life of Pi.

Winner: Life of Pi- Claudio Miranda

My Pick: Life of Pi

Best Film Editing:

In a surprising twist, Silver Linings Playbook won the ACE awards, but unfortunately, the ACE awards do not always predict the Oscar winner.  William Goldenberg is the favorite, but for WHICH FILM??!?  Not hard, the correct answer is Argo, due to the fact that more people liked Argo than Zero Dark Thrity (with the large exception of myself).  In many tech categories, that's enough to bank a win.  Also, Argo is a big favorite to win Best Picture, but not to win anything else except this category, so this is pretty much a lock.

Winner: Argo

My Pick: Zero Dark Thirty

Best Production Design:

So the genius Vegas oddsmakers basically split between Les Miserables and Anna Karenina.  Far be it from me to call them crazy, but honestly, the academy is going to honor one of the other GREAT films in the category.  The ADG honored Les Mis along with Django (which isn't up), and I can't say Anna Karenina had nothing more than "interesting" production design.  But sometimes subtlety is the best medicine, so Lincoln should have a legitimate shot (as I would like it to).  But then again, Life of Pi is probably going to do another mini sweep â la Hugo. WOW, what a tight race!

Winner: Life of PI

My Pick: Lincoln

Best Costume Design:

Anna Karenina would seem like a lock, but I genuinely think that voters will vote on what they think to be a better film overall.  No, not Mirror Mirror, although fantasy films have done well in the past.  Still, go with the other favorite, and the deserving film, Les Miserables.

Winner: Les Miserables

My Pick: Les Miserables

Best Makeup/Hair Styling

Gotta be Les Mis. I mean those people looked so eloquently miserable that I just knew they were "the miserables."

Winner:Les Miserables

My Pick: Norbit

Best Sound Mixing

You could go with any of the films, but since this one is hard to predict an upset, I think most will gravitate towards the live signing of Les Mis, making it a big favorite.  Unless voters didn't like the movie that much.  Then look for Skyfall or even Argo to win.

Winner: Les Miserables

My Pick: Skyfall

Best Sound Editing

This category rarely goes to a movie that isn't even nominated for sound mixing, so you think the Vegas Oddsmakers would've done there homework and not heavily favored Zero Dark Thirty.  But, not being the case, I guess there mentality was, it's the only chance the film has at winning anything.  Unfortunately, it will probably be another excuse to give love to Life of Pi, although ZDT definitely deserves some consideration.

Winner: Life of Pi

My Pick: Zero Dark Thirty

Best Visual Effects

Even if Life of Pi doesn't win all of the technical awards, it will win this one.
Winner: Life of Pi
My Pick: Marvel's The Avengers

That's it for now, tomorrow we'll have the rest!!!