The Oscars: A Form Guide Part 1
It’s the season for film awards and it seems to me that each year there are more awards ceremonies than there were the year before. Everyone wants to get into the act! Directors’ Guilds, Screen Actors Guild, Foreign Press Association (Golden Globes), Film Critics from various cities, the BAFTAS and even Australia putting in its two cents worth with the newly instigated AACTA Awards (now for their next trick, the Australian Film Industry will produce some decent films!!).
Despite the plethora of awards going, the film award with the most cache is the Academy Awards or Oscars. Now everyone can argue about the merits of the Oscars and be disdainful and cite many glaring omissions (that’s another post entirely but just quickly, Alfred Hitchcock never got one) but, even after all these years (84 and counting), it is the one people pay attention to and by that I mean it is the one people have heard of.
This year’s awards will be announced on 26 February (27 February Australia time) so for those playing at home, I’ll be doing a form guide over the next couple of weeks, as to what and who will, in the words of Jim Carrey (who probably ruined any chance of ever winning one with this quip) take home “the Lord of All Knick-Knacks”. And remember, who deserves an award and who actually gets one are two completely different things.
I’ll start with the BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR category because it is the easiest to call this year. The award will go to Christopher Plummer for his role in Beginners. He has a few things in his favour: He’s 82 years old. He has been overlooked for not just years but decades (I was kind of surprised that this is only his second nomination, the first being a couple of years ago for playing Tolstoy in “The Last Station”) so it is also an award acknowledging a long and illustrious career and possibly for being in “The Sound of Music”. Also, he plays a gay man and Hollywood LOVES it when actors do that. The only plausible competition is Max von Sydow for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. He is also in his 80s and has had a long and illustrious career.
It seems inevitable that Kenneth Branagh would one day play Sir Laurence Olivier and he’s done just that in My Week With Marilyn. Normally playing an acting luminary like Olivier would make him a frontrunner but not this year. Nick Nolte is also nominated for Warrior but this film was released in the middle of last year so isn’t fresh in voters’ minds. Same goes for Jonah Hill in Moneyball. Apparently it isn’t just about baseball…
The hardest category to pick in any year is BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: it is the category most likely to have a winner from left field. This year Octavia Spencer in The Help is the frontrunner, having won the same category at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Golden Globe awards and that’s a useful barometer but nothing is certain. Overall The Help seems a popular movie which the Academy voters would like to acknowledge in some way and this might be the category to do it in. That is in her favour. Not in her favour is that Jessica Chastian has also been nominated for her performance in the same movie. Two actresses from the one film could result in a split vote. I think though that as Jessica Chastain is this year’s Next Big Thing, they will assume she will have chances later.
If The Artist goes for a clean sweep of its categories, Berenice Bejo could be a beneficiary of that (a la Juliette Binoche for The English Patient when Lauren Bacall was expected to win in The Mirror Has Two Faces).
Janet McTeer has been nominated for Albert Nobbs but she should just enjoy the party because I'm not sure how widely seen it is. Also, how awkward would it be if she won but Glenn Close (nominated for Best Actress but likely to miss out for the sixth time) didn’t???? If there is going to be an upset I think it will be Melissa McCarthy for Bridesmaids. She is hilarious in Bridesmaids and giving her the gong might be a way of awarding a movie that did really well at the box office. Not in her favour is that the Oscars have a long history of ignoring comedy. That said, if I was her, I’d prepare a speech just in case.
Next time I’ll cover the BEST ACTOR and BEST ACTRESS categories. Watch this space….
Despite the plethora of awards going, the film award with the most cache is the Academy Awards or Oscars. Now everyone can argue about the merits of the Oscars and be disdainful and cite many glaring omissions (that’s another post entirely but just quickly, Alfred Hitchcock never got one) but, even after all these years (84 and counting), it is the one people pay attention to and by that I mean it is the one people have heard of.
This year’s awards will be announced on 26 February (27 February Australia time) so for those playing at home, I’ll be doing a form guide over the next couple of weeks, as to what and who will, in the words of Jim Carrey (who probably ruined any chance of ever winning one with this quip) take home “the Lord of All Knick-Knacks”. And remember, who deserves an award and who actually gets one are two completely different things.
I’ll start with the BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR category because it is the easiest to call this year. The award will go to Christopher Plummer for his role in Beginners. He has a few things in his favour: He’s 82 years old. He has been overlooked for not just years but decades (I was kind of surprised that this is only his second nomination, the first being a couple of years ago for playing Tolstoy in “The Last Station”) so it is also an award acknowledging a long and illustrious career and possibly for being in “The Sound of Music”. Also, he plays a gay man and Hollywood LOVES it when actors do that. The only plausible competition is Max von Sydow for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. He is also in his 80s and has had a long and illustrious career.
It seems inevitable that Kenneth Branagh would one day play Sir Laurence Olivier and he’s done just that in My Week With Marilyn. Normally playing an acting luminary like Olivier would make him a frontrunner but not this year. Nick Nolte is also nominated for Warrior but this film was released in the middle of last year so isn’t fresh in voters’ minds. Same goes for Jonah Hill in Moneyball. Apparently it isn’t just about baseball…
The hardest category to pick in any year is BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: it is the category most likely to have a winner from left field. This year Octavia Spencer in The Help is the frontrunner, having won the same category at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Golden Globe awards and that’s a useful barometer but nothing is certain. Overall The Help seems a popular movie which the Academy voters would like to acknowledge in some way and this might be the category to do it in. That is in her favour. Not in her favour is that Jessica Chastian has also been nominated for her performance in the same movie. Two actresses from the one film could result in a split vote. I think though that as Jessica Chastain is this year’s Next Big Thing, they will assume she will have chances later.
If The Artist goes for a clean sweep of its categories, Berenice Bejo could be a beneficiary of that (a la Juliette Binoche for The English Patient when Lauren Bacall was expected to win in The Mirror Has Two Faces).
Janet McTeer has been nominated for Albert Nobbs but she should just enjoy the party because I'm not sure how widely seen it is. Also, how awkward would it be if she won but Glenn Close (nominated for Best Actress but likely to miss out for the sixth time) didn’t???? If there is going to be an upset I think it will be Melissa McCarthy for Bridesmaids. She is hilarious in Bridesmaids and giving her the gong might be a way of awarding a movie that did really well at the box office. Not in her favour is that the Oscars have a long history of ignoring comedy. That said, if I was her, I’d prepare a speech just in case.
Next time I’ll cover the BEST ACTOR and BEST ACTRESS categories. Watch this space….
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