Filling this space for the first time, let’s begin
by discussing the once-promising contenders that have premiered in the past
week or two.
Pundits had been playing around with Inherent Vice, asking if it’d be too
weird or comical for voters; Gone Girl,
if it’d be too dark or divisive; Fury,
too violent or conventional; Whiplash,
too small or perhaps just short of the critical adoration it’d need.
Depending on who you ask, Gone Girl is either in very good shape or very bad shape after its
premiere. On the plus side, it earned solid reviews and opened to a big box
office, but it’s also played
poorly to the Academy and has already inspired some significant controversy
and backlash. Its critical response, if we’re speaking in terms of the past
few years, is only better than Best Picture nominees The Help, Extremely Loud
& Incredibly Close, Les
Miserables, Philomena and The Wolf of Wall Street (Metacritic).
That’s five out of twenty-seven films, and the Oscar-friendliness of a feel-good
picture like Philomena or The Help – or a musical like Les Miserables – is missing here. In
this day and age it may sound rare, but films that earn solid reviews and do
good box office can still get the cold shoulder from Oscar.
Gone
Girl
is absolutely on the fringe, which is more than can be said for either Fury or Inherent Vice. The former played to pretty weak reviews (again, by
Oscar standards – it hits a 64 on Metacritic) and even a vast majority of those
that have found favor in it haven’t exactly raved. It’s not an Oscar film.
Contrarily, Inherent Vice has earned
excellent reviews, but nearly every one of them has said something along the
lines of “Oscar will not go for this.” So be it. This stoner noir with a
disinterest in plot, facing strong criticism from more conventional circles, will
likely fight for acting, screenplay and technical nominations.
Finally we have Whiplash,
which has raised its stock modestly from a longshot to a maybe-maybe-not player
in this year’s race. Whiplash has
earned some of the best reviews of the year (87 Metacritic), played strong in
specialty box office and is certain to find Oscar glory in other races, most
notably Best Supporting Actor (for J.K. Simmons). That helps it a lot. It’s
still a small indie without that “important” factor that carried a film like Beasts of the Southern Wild, and even
that still wasn’t enough for last year’s Sundance champ Fruitvale Station. So it still has an uphill climb, but with this
excellent opening it at least enters the conversation.
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| Boyhood is a Best Picture frontrunner, while star Patricia Arquette is out front to take Best Supporting Actress (IFC) |
So, as for the state of the race? Even more questions.
Films that have premiered and have been looking good – Boyhood, Birdman, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything and to a lesser extent Foxcatcher – look even better. But
perhaps more relevant to this discussion, pundits are putting a lot more stock
in what hasn’t been reviewed or, in some cases, even screened yet. I’m speaking
of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, Angelina
Jolie’s Unbroken, Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper and Ava DuVernay’s Selma. At this point, they’re on pretty much every major pundit’s
list, in no small part because films like Fury and Inherent Vice
have all but disappeared, and confidence has been lost in Gone Girl.
But even then, that’s only nine films. The
underperformance of many of this week’s premieres keeps hope alive for long-ago
releases like Grand Budapest Hotel as
well as under-the-radar upcoming contenders like J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year and the Mark
Wahlberg vehicle The Gambler.
Assuming each of our “big contenders” pulls through, only six-to-nine slots are
filled depending how Foxcatcher and Gone Girl do, and if the
critically-mixed response to Theory of
Everything will hold up. Rob Marshall could make a comeback with Into the Woods, or perhaps Jean-Marc
Vallée will withstand competition and get a second straight nomination for his Wild. We may be in mid-October, but
there are still a lot of balls in the air.
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| Bradley Cooper (right), contending in Best Actor for "American Sniper," is looking to get an Oscar nod for the third year in a row (Warner Bros.) |
Our lead acting categories are narrowing down
somewhat. In Best Actor, the quartet of Steve Carell (Foxcatcher), Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game), Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) and Michael Keaton (Birdman) remains relatively solid. There’s been talk of Carell
fading if Foxcatcher doesn’t play at
all to the Academy, and Keaton since it’s not a performance typically
recognized by the Academy. But, as far as today, they seem as securely locked
in as Cumberbatch or Redmayne. A slew of maybe-maybe-not contenders have been
all but discounted – Bill Murray after critics didn’t really go for St. Vincent; Brad Pitt with a strong performance
in Fury Oscar voters won’t bat an eye
to; and Ben Affleck for subtler work in Gone
Girl. That last slot remains wildly up for grabs, but now it looks like our
top contenders have yet to reveal themselves: Bradley Cooper in American Sniper, Oscar Isaac in A Most Violent Year (getting
very good buzz), David Oyelowo in Selma
and Jack O’Connell in Unbroken.
Contenders that have been sort-of forgotten about, like Timothy Spall in Mr. Turner and, to a lesser extent,
Chadwick Boseman in Get On Up, appear
to have a better shot than they did a month or two ago.
Julianne Moore and Reese Witherspoon are way ahead
in Best Actress, and unless Amy Adams really lands with Big Eyes or Jessica Chastain with A Most Violent Year, that’s unlikely to change. The category has
thinned itself out. In the second tier of contenders that have been seen,
Rosamund Pike looks solid barring an across-the-board snubbing of Gone Girl, while second billing in The Theory of Everything is the only
thing holding Felicity Jones back from her first nod. At this point, that last
slot looks to be between Chastain and Adams, and if they both break through,
Jones is probably most vulnerable. But those outside contenders – Hilary Swank (The Homesman) and Shailene Woodley (The Fault In Our Stars) – have no heat
on them right now. Perhaps, maybe, Emily Blunt can shake things up for Into the Woods?
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| Longtime character actor J.K. Simmons may earn his first Oscar nomination for "Whiplash" (Sony Pictures Classics) |
Supporting Actor remains an enigma – until we see
which actors (if any) bring the heat to Selma,
Unbroken, A Most Violent Year, The
Gambler and others, predicting the category is futile. But of what we do
know, it’s pretty slim pickings. Assured spots are J.K. Simmons, for his
rousing and breakout turn in Whiplash,
and Edward Norton’s raucous and committed work in Birdman. Assuming a slew of contenders don’t come in to upend the
category, Mark Ruffalo should be pretty good for Foxcatcher as well. After that? Robert Duvall might be able to
withstand bad box office and poor critical response to The Judge, while Ethan Hawke might be able to ride Boyhood buzz to a nomination despite a
relatively small and understated part. Josh Brolin, meanwhile, is supposedly
crazy (pun intended) good in Inherent
Vice, but his chances likely hinge on how much attention the film gets from
the Academy. But that’s really it. Lots of question marks surrounding this
category.
As for Supporting Actress, there’s not too much to
wait on – both Carmen Ejogo of Selma and
Jessica Chastain of Interstellar have advanced good word coming in, but that seems to sum up the contenders that have yet to be
seen. Of course, I’m not including Meryl Streep in that group, but she’s got
such a baity part; that, along with the fact that she’s Meryl Streep, is
probably enough to get her nominated. Patricia Arquette (Boyhood) is a lock, and hovering around in very-likely terrain are
Laura Dern (Wild), Emma Stone (Birdman) and Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game). This group of seven
seems to be battling it out for the final five – Sony Pictures Classics is
planning a campaign
for Kristen Stewart in Still Alice,
and Katherine Waterston did turn some heads in Inherent Vice. But, likely, neither has enough attention or
momentum to crack this field.
That'll wrap discussion for this inaugural week. Predictions will be posted starting next Monday.
More
to come next week!