It was a busy, busy week in Movieline's Oscar bureau, where a few key guild nominations and one of the smartest campaign tricks in years in years left us sorting through the Best Picture-race implications. Plenty more turbulence -- and a Jacki Weaver sighting -- trickled down through Actress and Supporting Actress. What does it all mean? To the Index!
[Click the graphs for larger images]
The Leading 10:
1. The Social Network
2. The King's Speech
3. The Fighter
4. Inception
5. Black Swan
6. True Grit
7. The Kids Are All Right
8. Toy Story 3
9. The Town
10. 127 Hours
Outsiders: Blue Valentine; Winter's Bone; Rabbit Hole; Shutter Island
Notes: Guild recognition met critics honors this week in the Index and beyond, resulting in a nice uptick for some titles and some necessary attrition for others. As per usual, The Social Network took a top-echelon award as the National Society of Film Critics' Best Picture. And while, as Tom O'Neil pointed out, that's portended Oscar glory for only five films in the NSFC's 44-year existence, both Oscar voters and Society voters agreed as recently as last year on The Hurt Locker. So, depending on how you read your awards-season tea leaves, the Oscars either are open to a late, dark-horse move -- or they belong to David Fincher and company for the long run. I lean toward the latter, though at least one tally suggests the overall nomination count between Network, King's Speech and Inception will be close enough to leave room for suspense.
Then there's this whole Directors Guild of America thing, where the Coen brothers wound slipping off the bubble with this week's nominations. That will have obvious-enough repercussions in Best Director, but the attendant perception issue made for a big backward step in Picture as well: After a week spent surmising that the Academy might want to bond with average moviegoers who've contributed $111 million (and counting) to True Grit's coffers, the directors' branch suggested that might not be a unilateral philosophy. When you add the sentiments of close observers who waved off the idea of an "Academy" movie as old-fashioned -- "[T]o see, finally, that the guilds have found a universal liking for The Social Network and Black Swan ought to finally put to rest the idea that voters can't handle the kinds of complexities of story offered up here," wrote Sasha Stone; "THE WORLD HAS MOVED ON... CATCH UP!" echoed Scot Feinberg, a little more forcefully -- it's one big, persuasive case for a field where True Grit and The King's Speech are indeed fair game for Social Network and Black Swan in particular.
And then there's Toy Story 3. Oh, Toy Story 3 -- Jacki Weaver's husband bawled, Louis Virtel extolled, and Disney itself dispatched one of the most intense Oscar appeals since, well... Inglourious Basterds. "Not since..." began a collection of 15 character posters invoking other films that defied precedent the years they won Best Picture. Among them: Mutiny on the Bounty (which earned Picture and nothing else in 1935), The Godfather: Part II (a sequel), The Silence of the Lambs (blockbuster horror)... and plenty more. Clearly, affectionately and knowledgeably demonstrating that an animated film can win Best Picture despite what any crusty old pundit says, Disney has suddenly delivered the year's most beloved film the season's most powerful campaign. Is it enough to win? I still doubt it. But how can you not love the effort?
And in any case, even if the rest of the 2010-11 Oscar race gives us nothing more than David Poland's photo-illustration of Scott Rudin and Harvey Weinstein as Rooster Cogburn and Mattie Ross, then you've got to admit it's been a pretty good year.
The Leading 5:
1. David Fincher, The Social Network
2. Christopher Nolan, Inception
3. Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
4. David O. Russell, The Fighter
5. Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
Outsiders: Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit; Lisa Cholodenko, The Kids Are All Right; Danny Boyle, 127 Hours; Mike Leigh, Another Year
Notes: Speaking of bawling, David O. Russell's admission (or politicking, or whatever) of having cried at word of his DGA nomination was enough to not only lift him out of the outsiders bunch, but also leapfrog him over Darren Aronofsky, who stole the spotlight from his own cinematographer at Monday night's NY Film Critics Circle Awards dinner just so he could bash Armond White. It's called low-hanging fruit for a reason, Darren! Just let it dangle.
Meanwhile... can the Coens be saved? Speculation that a late release kept True Grit out of earlier critics' awards contention, and thus harmed its DGA profile, went both ways: on the one hand, said Thelma Adams, "True Grit definitely came late to the gate in a crowded field"; on the other, added Sasha Stone: "It's more common that the DGA and Oscar don't match than do match. [...] A snub is also great publicity." So! It's still anybody's game. Or at least the fifth spot is.
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: Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit; Lesley Manville, Another Year; Julianne Moore, The Kids Are All Right; Hilary Swank, Conviction; Tilda Swinton, I Am Love
Notes: You have got to be kidding me with this Hailee Steinfeld thing. The True Grit star remained the subject of category chatter, with Scott Rudin himself telling Kristopher Tapley that "the Mattie Ross character is really the impetus for change in Rooster Cogburn's character." This is pretty much what I said last week when this whole thing came up (Tapley's not convinced; THR pundit_ Tim Appelo doesn't much care but leans toward Rudin's take), but the very idea that we're still having this conversation when someone like Lesley Manville can't get arrested suggests a bit of prognostocative (?) bet-hedging might be in order.
The Actress category also provided some of the most astute and troubling analysis of the year to date: "Oscar fact: No actress in history has won an Academy Award after looking at Ashton Kutcher's penis through 3-D glasses," wrote Lane Brown. I'll leave her position alone for now, but let's monitor closely in the days leading up to No Strings Attached, OK? Meanwhile Kate Winslet reportedly lobbied on Michelle Williams's behalf during a private screening of Blue Valentine: "I have no personal connection with Michelle. In fact until tonight we met only once but from a distance. I feel as though I have been having a secret love affair with her." Ah. Maybe let's leave her be as well.
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: Snore. Robert Duvall's diarrhea face was about as scintillating as this one got last week. Javier Bardem will probably want a cigarette by the time this campaign is through, because you just know that even Penélope Cruz can't screw him the way the Oscar probably will.
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: What goes for Best Actress and Hailee Steinfeld mostly goes here as well; her Oscar profile swells seemingly by the day, and her running start in the category should have her safely at or near the lead by the time nominations arrive Jan. 25. To be honest, I don't like Melissa Leo in the long run; "chowderhead vérité" aside, Leo might have peaked early, she's polarizing too many viewers, and she just seems both annoyed and annoying all at once:
"It's Method acting. It's not perverse. It's not weird. It's not sick or mental, but if the camera is going to roll on me, who knows when, in five minutes or in five hours, I'd like to be as close as I can to the character when the camera rolls. I'm not there to make friends. I'm not there to look good. Maybe I'll come here and make friends and look good tonight, but when I'm working, and it's just serious. And it's a serious art for me. Think of yourself at your typewriter when you're putting this together -- are you thinking about the story when you're writing it? Or are you thinking about what you're having for dinner?"
Team Jacki update: Jacki Weaver is back in the States for the first time since Animal Kingdom opened last August, collecting awards on both coasts before concluding her trip at Sunday night's Golden Globes. I don't pretend to have any clue how (or why) the Hollywood Foreign Press Association votes, but I have a weird, ticklish feeling in the awards-processing part of my brain that hints Weaver might win a Globe as well. And I haven't heroin-binged since that Saints loss last weekend, so I know it can't be that. I don't know! This could be big! Team Jacki! Woot! We need foam "No. 1" fingers. Maybe bobbleheads? Shirtless male cast members flanking the ballroom with J-A-C-K-I painted on their chests? I'm spitballing here.
Oh, and before I forget like they did, slow clap for the gang at Focus, which finally decided to get at least a weensy bit serious about Julianne Moore as a candidate for... something. "Focus Features finally releases a clip of Julianne Moore's show-stopping soliloquy about marriage in The Kids Are All Right -- and, as a fan of Moore's, I'm furious," wrote Scott Feinberg. "This should have been done months ago when it really could have made a difference, not five days before Oscar nomination ballots are due." Nice to see them really bringing it for Somewhere's Elle Fanning, too. Ahem.
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: Super snore. John Hawkes might still have an outside shot with Roadside Attractions maneuvering and flesh-pressing behind the scenes and Focus doing, well... you know... "what they do" for Mark Ruffalo. But yeah. Only six weeks to go!