Oscar Index: Social Network, King's Speech Resume Steel-Cage Death Match
The Nominees:
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
Notes: The all-but-confirmed trinity of Leo, Steinfeld and Carter looked on as Adams, Weaver and the two-headed Black Swan hydra of Barbara Hershey and Mila Kunis went fighting it out for the last two slots. As seen above, the final five seemed pretty certain to the Index for the last month (Kunis hasn't been in the top five since Dec. 22. while Weaver hasn't been out of the top five since Sept. 29), but Team Jacki exulted nonetheless as its mascot stamped her ticket to the Kodak Theater. The best part: One Vegas casino has Weaver as a 12-1 long shot to win. Coming in at 15-1? Amy Adams. Let's go, Jacki! 10-1 by the weekend!
The Nominees:
1. Christian Bale, The Fighter
2. Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech
3. Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
4. Jeremy Renner, The Town
5. John Hawkes, Winter's Bone
Notes: As big a blow as the PGA Awards loss might have felt for The Social Network, there was perhaps something more psychically bruising about Andrew Garfield's omission from this category. When you can't convince the actors branch of the Academy that your film had more than one Oscar-caliber performance, the prospects for Best Picture immediately tend to feel threatened, if not outright diminished. Which isn't to say they are -- just ask the makers of The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire, No Country For Old Men. Except all of those won at PGA. The most recent analogue is probably The Departed, which earned one acting nomination (Best Supporting Actor), lost PGA to Little Miss Sunshine, but beat Sunshine for Best Picture on Oscar night. And why? Maybe because Little Miss Sunshine _didn't have a Best Editing nomination? Wait -- that was the Coens this year. But even True Grit has two acting nominations. So confused!
OK, look, I'm just winging it now. Does any of this actually matter? Christian Bale's winning the damn thing, right? I'll drink to that. Like right now.
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Comments
I think this might be an Oscar makeup year. The four acting winners, by your analysis, will likely be people who should have won in a previous year but got overlooked -- Leo, Firth and Benning for sure, Bale, who deserved to be nominated once or twice but was not. Take heart, Mr. Nolan, your day(s) will come.
I think it's up between Speech and True Grit, both great movies, while the smoke clears on Social Network and people realize it was very good but not great.
I know it is an unpopular opinion, but "The Social Network" did nothing for me. It just brings together so many things that I find annoying - Facebook, Aaron Sorkin, entitled rich nerds, Justin Timberlake (yes I know there are overlaps in these categories) - that no matter how well-directed it was I just wanted to get the fuck out of the theater.
I think I was right behind you! Kudos, I was holding back. Everything you said, plus throw in a talky, pretentious bore.
There's a reason for the bruhaha over why no one can agree on who should win Best Actress: the woman under consideration who really did give the best screen performance of the year wasn't nominated. Did you see Paprika Steen in Applause? She was in every scene of the film and gave a nuanced yet gritty look into the life of a narcissistic, not-so-recovered alcoholic mother. Sure it was a foreign film, but should that have mattered? She rocked!