What a week for Movieline's Oscar Index, which spent hours upon hours parsing all the riffs, renouncements, meditations, hyptotheses, 140-character Burlesque dismissals, projections and whatever else the punditocracy managed to summon in a frame overwhelmed with year-end awards frenzies. How does it all apply to the Oscars? There is only one way to find out. To the Index!
[Click the graphs for larger images]
The Leading 10:
1. The Social Network
2. The King's Speech
3. Black Swan
4. The Fighter
5. Inception
6. True Grit
7. The Kids Are All Right
8. 127 Hours
9. Winter's Bone
10. Toy Story 3
Outsiders: Blue Valentine; The Town; Rabbit Hole; Shutter Island; Another Year
Notes: Basically this week's movements came down to two principal factors: critics awards (where The Social Network has cleaned up) and Golden Globe Award nominations (where The King's Speech reasserted its authority). Some will tell you both distinctions are irrelevant, and yet others will assert that the more prestige conferred before Jan. 1, the better (wherever it comes from). "People get upset with me at this time of year when I dismiss The Precursors because, they scream, it's not all about Oscar," wrote David Poland on the one hand. "Bullshit. It's all about Oscar. It's all about Oscar for every person who believes they can win that prize, until they don't. And then, the precursors they won become much more valued." Jeffrey Wells disagreed: "[I]f The King's Speech doesn't win a Best Picture award with any critics groups at all (which it may not), then at the very least Academy members will be facing the fact that if they vote for it and not The Social Network and/or The Fighter, the world will regard them as tired, backward-gazing traditionalists and quality-deniers."
The reality, as always, is somewhere in the middle. Last year, the critics' approval hardly hurt The Hurt Locker, while Harvey Weinstein -- a dyed-in-the-wool Oscar-favoritist -- wrung whatever momentum he could from their plaudits for Inglourious Basterds. Meanwhile, Avatar coasted into the home-stretch on box office alone, playing the awards-circuit game but never bothering to pretend it was anything less than wholly focused on Oscar night. That class disparity won't likely exist this year -- not with a hit David Fincher film (about <a href="Time's Person of the Year, no less) also leading the world in early-season critical accolades and contenders like King's Speech, Black Swan and The Fighter_ roaring out of the theatrical gate as well. These are films people are seeing and will continue to see. That they're critical darlings -- and now have the Golden Globes imprimatur to further market their wares to moviegoers -- levels the playing field even more, thus entitling Academy members to vote for the film they actually like as opposed to David, Goliath, or the slingshot that always comes between them.
And despite what we've seen from The Social Network in the last week, it's difficult to know which of this year's frontrunners belongs to each of those roles. I mean, Black Swan set a record with 12 Critics Choice nominations (whose founding body, the Broadcast Film Critics Association, openly considers itself the most accurate Oscar predictor out there), while every pundit and his/her mother seemed to size The Fighter up as the scrappy, audience-friendly underdog of 2010. The Weinsteins reinforced The King's Speech's creds by leading the Golden Globe noms and keeping Colin Firth in front of the actor race.
Then there's Inception -- lurking quietly, waiting to make a lunge at Picture starting with the Globes. Focus Features, too, notched a kudos lift for Kids with its showings from the NYFCC to the Globes. True Grit and 127 Hours are fading fast -- and may continue to do so as Paramount and Fox Searchlight push Fighter and Black Swan to the finish line. I still like Social Network FTW, but bet conservatively (if you must bet at all).
The Leading 5:
1. David Fincher, The Social Network
2. Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
3. Christopher Nolan, Inception
4. Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
5. David O. Russell, The Fighter
Outsiders: Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit; Danny Boyle, 127 Hours; Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right; Mike Leigh, Another Year
Notes: Let's see... Uh... Quantify every factor I listed for the films above, divide it by the number of total crew behind the camera on each film, and whatever you're left with is the ranking of their directors in this race. It's as reasonable as any other method of sorting through this, right? Anyway, consensus among most observers is that Fincher's still the guy to beat, Russell is on his best behavior to make the cut, and look out for Lisa Cholodenko. More calculus to come next week...
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: Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right; Lesley Manville, Another Year; Tilda Swinton, I Am Love; Sally Hawkins, Made in Dagenham
Notes: I know, I know: Don't give too much weight to the precursors. Whatever. Let's be honest: The resistance of some critics' groups to bow to Natalie Portman reflects the kind of resistance you'll see all the way through the Academy's actors branch itself. Call it a generation war, call it loyalty, maybe even call it quality control if you must -- and don't think Portman's enemies aren't attempting to hold her Ashton Kutcher/Ivan Reitman sex comedy Friends With Benefits against her already. Portman's narrow advantage remains thanks not only to the assiduous campaigning, but also the fact that, well, her movie is only now in theaters. And this is a make-or-break weekend approaching: an 800-screen expansion that could bolster Searchlight's case and help nudge Portman irrevocably over the top.
The Leading 5:
1. Colin Firth, The King's Speech
2. Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
3. James Franco, 127 Hours
4. Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter
5. Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine
Outsiders: Jeff Bridges, True Grit; Javier Bardem, Biutiful; Robert Duvall, Get Low; Paul Giamatti, Barney's Version
Notes: What a difference a week makes. Franco withstood the Golden Globes' 127 Hours purge (right -- like the HFPA is going to turn away one of the Oscars' co-hosts) while Gosling and Wahlberg crept ahead on their films' growing profiles. True Grit was alarmingly absent this week among most voting bodies' nominees and winners, with the exception of the Critics Choice Awards, which has six slots for actors and actresses and where one might argue Bridges is, in fact, sixth out of those six slots. Bardem keeps coming and going; I expect him back by this time next week, but who knows if he or Roadside Attractions have what it takes to even make the appearance of competing for the win. Alas.
The Leading 5:
1. Melissa Leo, The Fighter
2. Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom
3. Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
4. Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
5. Mila Kunis, Black Swan
Outsiders: Amy Adams, The Fighter; Dianne Wiest, Rabbit Hole; Barbara Hershey, Black Swan; Sissy Spacek, Get Low
Notes: Team Jacki experienced another surge this week as its hero found love with nominations for the Globes and Critics Choice Awards while winning the L.A. critics' prize outright. (San Francisco critics soon followed.) Leo fared a little better if only because, like Portman, she has the advantage of a movie in theaters -- not to mention an Academy presence from a previous nomination. Kunis leapt into the competition at last, bumping off Barbara Hershey, the roundly overlooked Dianne Wiest and the fits-and-starts showing of Amy Adams to mobilize for Oscar. And she's been practicing her best I-slept-through-the-nomination-announcement routine, which is always the truest sign of an awards-hungry contender just trying to play it cool. It's good to know she wants it; that'll go a long way with the Academy!
The Leading 5:
1. Christian Bale, The Fighter
2. Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech
3. Andrew Garfield, The Social Network
4. Matt Damon, True Grit
5. Michael Douglas, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Outsiders: Jeremy Renner, The Town; Armie Hammer, The Social Network; John Hawkes, Winter's Bone; Ed Harris, The Way Back; Sam Rockwell, Conviction
Notes: Between the Globes and Critics Choice notices, all that momentum Hawkes sought over the last few months appears to have swung Renner's way. (With the exception of the aforementioned San Francisco Film Critics, I guess -- congrats, John!) Douglas found a Globes bump this week as well and has the Hollywood sympathy leverage over Renner, but I still foresee the latter powering into the top five by next month. Garfield stands to be the category's only beneficiary of Social Network's largess to date; neither Hammer nor Justin Timberlake are making much of an impression of late. And as usual, Bale's the distant frontrunner anyway. So! Get on the Yogi Bear tip, JT! Let's hear some stories.