Welcome back to Movieline's Oscar Index, your weekly, bulletproof guide to the ever-tightening contention for next month's Academy Awards. And as with last week's awesome "Steak Eaters" theory, the latest edition is dominated by yet another perennially vexing dilemma: Can Hollywood and its ticketbuying public agree once more on Best Picture? Let us investigate...
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The Leading 10:
1. The Social Network
2. The King's Speech
3. True Grit
4. The Fighter
5. Inception
6. Black Swan
7. The Kids Are All Right
8. The Town
9. 127 Hours
10. Toy Story 3
Outsiders: Blue Valentine; Winter's Bone; Rabbit Hole; Shutter Island
Notes: True Grit was by far the biggest beneficiary of a busy week -- both among Oscar watchers and filmgoers alike. The latter have driven the fine Coen brothers' Western to a gross of nearly $90 million to date, a superb holiday run that prompted a flurry of pundits to wonder how Academy voters would react. Hint: It will be positive. David Poland argued that Grit had "muscled its way into the frontrunner slot to win Best Picture" (Jeffrey Wells wasn't impressed), soon followed by complementary think pieces from the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. Meanwhile the Producers Guild and Writers Guild nominations all but assured the film of top-shelf Oscar nods, and the Academy's actors branch was said to be mulling over Hailee Steinfeld as Best Actress as opposed to Best Supporting Actress, where Paramount has had her all along despite her presence in virtually every scene. (More on this below.)
It's all one collective profile boost at the perfect hour of the race -- when mainstream competition like The Town plows ahead just happy to be nominated (which, if its own PGA/WGA notice is any indication, it will be -- nice knowing you, Winter's Bone), nobody is talking about The King's Speech, and the most The Social Network can muster is a second-tier critics award and a boring, aseptic new Web site that reveals little about the season's most overexposed awards horse. Older voters and Steak Eaters continue to influence the race, and let's face it: Is Inception compared to a "religious experience" by scholars? No. And is there any such thing as a Zuckerbergpalooza where hundreds of Facebook enthusiasts gather in Palo Alto to recite in unison, "If you were the inventors of Facebook, you would have invented Facebook"? Hell no. True Grit has that market cornered:
Anyway, sure: Three weeks remain until Mo'Nique (!) announces nominations, but is anyone really likely to say a lot more can change in three weeks? All I can really foresee is Fox Searchlight making one more push for 127 Hours just to be on the safe side against an aggressive, well-received comer like Blue Valentine. But really, give or take that type of wild-card variation, this looks like your Best Picture class of 2011.
The Leading 5:
1. David Fincher, The Social Network
2. Christopher Nolan, Inception
3. Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
4. Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
5. Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit
Outsiders: David O. Russell, The Fighter; Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right; Danny Boyle, 127 Hours; Mike Leigh, Another Year
Notes: Listen, this category is as flummoxing as it's ever been. I've never pretended to have a good bead on whether or not Tom Hooper could keep his hold on the upper rungs of the frontrunner ladder, or if Danny Boyle could (or even wanted to) sustain all that early momentum of his. The bottom line this week is that if you got a WGA nomination, then you got a bump. Fincher may remain on top overall, and Aaron Sorkin may still lead the Adapted Screenplay category, but the overall trend of recognition appears to be shifting toward writer-directors. We have a very real shot at three among the final five -- Nolan, the Coens and Cholodenko -- a relatively rare phenomenon seen only twice in the last decade and most recently in 2007, when the Coens, Paul Thomas Anderson and Tony Gilroy made the cut. Can Cholodenko pull it off? Like I said, I don't pretend to know, but all things considered, I think you kind of have to like her chances.
The Leading 5:
1. Natalie Portman, Black Swan
2. Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
3. Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone
4. Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine
5. Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
Outsiders: Lesley Manville, Another Year; Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit; Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right; Hilary Swank, Conviction; Tilda Swinton, I Am Love
Notes: Apart from the speculation that Nicole Kidman may sneak through for a major Oscar-night upset (which she won't, but we've got to talk about something), the most-discussed development in both Actress and Supporting Actress at the moment is where, exactly, the Academy wants Steinfeld. Dave Karger's been at the front of this discussion, citing previous nominees whom voters have plucked out of Supporting despite their studios' wishes (e.g. Keisha Castle-Hughes for Whale Rider, Kate Winslet for The Reader), and the uncertain status of Williams, Moore and Manville -- the latter of whom has been subject to some category-fraud considerations of her own. "My only fear," Karger writes, "is that Steinfeld will get as many votes as her competitors but that they'll be so evenly divided between Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress that she'll end up getting nominated for neither." Eek! Stay thy tongue, heathen! Don't make the 'Feld come after you with her blingatude.
The Leading 5:
1. Colin Firth, The King's Speech
2. Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
3. Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter
4. Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine
5. James Franco, 127 Hours
Outsiders: Jeff Bridges, True Grit; Javier Bardem, Biutiful; Robert Duvall, Get Low; Paul Giamatti, Barney's Version
Notes: More stasis, with Bridges's boat creeping ever-so-upward on True Grit's rising tide and Bardem relegated to afterthought status once again, with only Julia Roberts and virtually all of the nation's critics cheerleading while disinterested voters file toward the exits. Anyway, fine. What is awards season without a little vile injustice?
The Leading 5:
1 [tie]. Melissa Leo, The Fighter
1 [tie]. Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
3. Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom
4. Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
5. Amy Adams, The Fighter
Outsiders: Mila Kunis, Black Swan; Dianne Wiest, Rabbit Hole; Barbara Hershey, Black Swan; Sissy Spacek, Get Low
Notes: Karger's reservations aside, I think Steinfeld's category push-pull only benefits her here. The reality is that True Grit is Bridges's film [spoiler alert]: He's the one rescuing Mattie Ross in the end, carrying her to all the way to Bagby's trading post -- not the other way around. She's the narrator, but it's Cogburn's eventual passing that ultimately motivates the recollection of their "lively times." Both display the titular quality, but Cogburn is the exemplar. Not that I necessarily care where Steinfeld is nominated, but hey. The consideration applied to decisions like these is an advantage in this category; look at Julianne Moore. Had Focus not insisted on campaigning her for Actress -- where she barely stood a chance -- she could be vying for a not only a Supporting Actress nomination today, but also the win that many prognosticators envisioned during Kids' summer run last year. Paramount hasn't budged, and now, even if Steinfeld isn't nominated here, the studio still has a 90 percent chance of winning an Oscar in this category. Developing...
Meanwhile, Team Jacki earned roundabout endorsement from Quentin Tarantino and a nice, public bump from the sweeping Village Voice critics poll, which elected her wellllll above her likely Oscar competition. Oh, and Mila Kunis broke up with Macaulay Culkin. Will this be her Norbit? Christ, never mind.
The Leading 5:
1. Christian Bale, The Fighter
2. Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech
3. Andrew Garfield, The Social Network
4. Jeremy Renner, The Town
5. Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
Outsiders: John Hawkes, Winter's Bone; Michael Douglas, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; Armie Hammer, The Social Network; Ed Harris, The Way Back
Notes: Yup, still over. Ruffalo lands where he should have been last week, and the outsiders fall further and further behind in the rearview mirror. And then this: "Might the academy nominate Pete Postlethwaite posthumously for Oscar this year?" Uh, no. Good try, though, Warners!