Another week, another prowl through the sweltering maze of hyperbole and hypothesis that is Oscar season. Put on Take off your thinking cap -- it's time to speculate with the best of them (informedly so, sort of, but still)! On to the Index!
[Click the graphs for larger images]
The Leading 10:
1. The King's Speech
2. The Social Network
3. Black Swan
4. True Grit
5. 127 Hours
6. The Fighter
7. Inception
8. The Kids Are All Right
9. [tie] Toy Story 3
9. [tie] Winter's Bone
Outsiders: Blue Valentine; Rabbit Hole; Another Year; How Do You Know
Notes: The majority of bytes expended on the short week in awards campaigning seemed to revolve around three films in particular. Of those, The Kids Are All Right and Winter's Bone sustained the steadiest buzz among followers of the Gotham Awards and Indie Spirit Awards -- two "competitions" that have exactly nothing to do with the race for the Academy Awards. In terms of visibility and hype, is it important that Kids and Bone (not to mention fellow frontrunners 127 Hours and Black Swan) are consistent? Of course. But if this recognition was worth a damn for any halfway serious Oscar contender, then you'd see The King's Speech and Blue Valentine (especially the latter) paying and playing along with the rest of the crowd. That smattering of Weinstein representation -- a few acting noms here, a directing nod there -- says all you really need to know about the Gothams and the Spirits as influencers.
Talk to me when the critics organizations around the country start flinging laurels at Kids and Bone (though early rumblings hint Bone and actress Jennifer Lawrence should fare respectably in New York and a few other contrary markets); then you'll know there's some upward mobility, not unlike the kind that propelled The Hurt Locker into legitimate heavyweight status in 2009. Kids Are All Right is a quintessential also-ran -- a fine film, successful and pleasing, which is to say: a Golden Globe-winner in the making. Let us cease this yammering about any greater future for it.
True Grit, on the other hand, is officially a comer in the race. Reactions to early screenings have been overwhelmingly positive, citing an old-school Western in the style of Unforgiven and awards-caliber performances by anyone onscreen long enough to qualify (read: pretty much anyone with a character poster). The King's Speech's staggering limited opening adds volumes to the long-term potential for that one, but pound-for-pound, if you had to pick one winner from the Oscar circuit this week, it would probably have to be True Grit. Meanwhile: Watch your back Social Network -- you don't want to be the next Up in the Air, do you?
The Leading 5:
1. Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
2. David Fincher, The Social Network
3. Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
4. Christopher Nolan, Inception
5. Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit
Outsiders: Danny Boyle, 127 Hours; David O. Russell, The Fighter; Mike Leigh, Another Year; Peter Weir, The Way Back; James Brooks, How Do You Know
Notes: Listen, I'll be honest: Nothing makes sense to me in this category. Nothing empirical jumps out; gut instinct tells me very little. It seems Hooper has to be considered the leader at this point for sheer visibility's sake and the perception that King's Speech is so commandingly in the Picture lead, but then here come the Coens with the early True Grit praise, and here comes Nolan with a new interview on the occasion of Inception's DVD release, and Danny Boyle won't be off the trail for long... and who even knows what kind of game Russell's got planned for the next six weeks? Is Fincher right to take a nomination for granted at this stage? Furthermore, for arguably the most competitive race in the entire field, no one else inside or outside the Academy seems to really be talking about it. So! Your guess is as good as mine. Let's hear it.
The Leading 5:
1. Natalie Portman, Black Swan
2. Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
3. Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone
4. Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
5. Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine
Outsiders: Lesley Manville, Another Year; Sally Hawkins, Made in Dagenham; Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right; Tilda Swinton, I Am Love; Naomi Watts, Fair Game
Notes: No movement except among the folks clinging to the bubble, where Hawkins is pretty much sliding off without a prayer and Moore looks to be reentering the mess as an also-ran to co-star Bening and the runaway favorite Portman. Have I mentioned it's Portman's to lose? All right, moving on...
The Leading 5:
1. Colin Firth, The King's Speech
2. Jeff Bridges, True Grit
3. Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
4. James Franco, 127 Hours
5. Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter
Outsiders: Javier Bardem, Biutiful; Robert Duvall, Get Low; Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine; Paul Giamatti, Barney's Version
Notes: A couple things here, none more important than Franco's automatic odds-downgrading upon assuming the Oscars' co-host slot with Anne Hathaway. Others have crunched the numbers on this, which come down to: It's not unprecedented that a host be nominated or even win, but it hasn't happened in this category since 1958 when David Niven triumphed for Separate Tables. That would be 52 years, folks -- and the most formidable competition Niven faced was probably Sidney Poitier (earning the first Best Actor nod for an African-American) and Paul Newman -- not quite Firth, Bridges and Bardem, the latter of whom is set to pounce a little later this month as Biutiful rolls out in a late qualifying run.
Bridges, meanwhile, is hitched to this week's True Grit buzz and his role's Oscar heritage ("[He] gets under Cogburn's skin more fully, dare I say it, than John Wayne in the original adaptation," writes Kris Tapley) but isn't necessarily likely to stick among the frontrunners if Franco and Bardem have anything to say about it. All of which is a bloated way of avoiding the real point: that Firth remains the emotional and technical favorite to take home the grand prize, and the rest are just playing for runner-up and some nominee blurbage on their films' DVD/Blu-rays.
The Leading 5:
1. Melissa Leo, The Fighter
2. Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
3. Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
4. Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom
5. Amy Adams, The Fighter
Outsiders: Dianne Wiest, Rabbit Hole; Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right; Mila Kunis, Black Swan; Barbara Hershey, Black Swan; Sissy Spacek, Get Low; Miranda Richardson, Made in Dagenham
Notes: Jackiiiiii!!!!! Hold onnnnnn!!! For all the ad visibility of Weaver's campaign from Sony Classics, you can't really beat word of mouth -- at least not at this phase of the race. Scott Feinberg basically gave Steinfeld the Oscar in his initial reaction piece; others argue something like category fraud, noting that the teenager's debut is a lead-actress turn all the way. It hardly matters at this point. The Academy goes young every generation or so, which was good news for the likes of Tatum O'Neal (Paper Moon, 1973) and Anna Paquin (The Piano, 1993), not-so-good news for Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine, 2006), and probably as likely to factor into Steinfeld's odds as anything she leaves onscreen as Mattie Ross. I still get smacked with with a knowledgeable insider's Leo stick every week around this time, though, so we'll see.
And can I just say that unless Focus wants a Julianne Moore snub, it should probably get serious about a Supporting campaign? Again, wave your Indie Spirit hype and golden guru punditocracy hoohah scorecards in my face all you want, but is it not clear that there aren't enough slots in Actress to accommodate two losers from the same film? Just take your sad lot, Juli! You're not winning anyway (nothing against you, doll, but... come on), so just do the Hollywood thing, nudge helpless Jacki and/or Dianne Wiest into oncoming traffic, and rent some diamonds, already. And we'll see you in February!
The Leading 5:
1. Christian Bale, The Fighter
2. Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech
3. Armie Hammer, The Social Network
4. Andrew Garfield, The Social Network
5. Matt Damon, True Grit
Outsiders: Michael Douglas, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; Ed Harris, The Way Back; John Hawkes, Winter's Bone; Sam Rockwell, Conviction; Paul Rudd, How Do You Know
Notes: Watch out for falling Rock... wells. Har. Sorry. The speculation contact-high is clearly getting to me. Anyway, Michael Douglas took the Hogwarts Express and a bit of well-placed blogger love back into the fringe of the spotlight -- where he promptly got in line behind Damon, whose Grit performance has folks chattering about his scene-stealing propensities as Rooster Cogburn's prairie-manhunt foil. That was enough to catapult Bardem into contention three years for the Coens' other Western awards-darling -- and that facial hair is about as undesirable as Anton Chigurh's Prince Valiant coiffure. And Damon's stumping for the film, so let's see how far that gets him.
All of which is to say: Does he have what it takes to be one of the guys to whom Bale pays tribute in his acceptance speech? Developing...