Welcome to the penultimate edition of Movieline's Oscar Index, your bulletproof weekly guide to the ups, downs, spins, twists, turns, bumps, bruises and other noteworthy happenings in the 2010-11 awards race. Our Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics has issued its latest breakdown of the current competition, and it's... volatile (to say the least). Let's have a look:
[Click the graphs for larger images]
The Nominees:
1. The King's Speech
2. The Social Network
3. Black Swan
4. True Grit
5. The Fighter
6. Winter's Bone
7. Inception
8. The Kids Are All Right
9. Toy Story 3
10. 127 Hours
Notes: So the BAFTA Awards happened, lauding The King's Speech with seven prizes including the ultra-rare combo of Best Picture and Best British Picture. Naturally this ignited a new round of hand-wringing and history-parsing for the Oscar homestretch -- the mystifying, reductive reads ("[T]he powers that be at BAFTA will surely be pleased that they gave out their gongs first," wrote Time's Glen Levy), the painstaking analyses ("[I]f The King's Speech wins, it will be a film that has won Best Picture with the least amount of critics awards since 1944," noted Sasha Stone) and the obligatory outlier studies ("Clearly The Social Network is still hanging in there, and based on my conversations with Oscar voters, so is The Fighter," added Pete Hammond).
Indeed, David Fincher's Best Director win last weekend implies that The Social Network is more than "hanging in there" -- it still retains at least some industrial sway and, per Scott Feinberg's powerful reminder, the statistical benefit of the doubt:
In the 66 years that the National Board of Review, New York Film Critics Circle, and Hollywood Foreign Press Association have been concurrently giving out awards, no film that has been named best picture by all three groups -- as has The Social Network -- has not gone on to win the best picture Oscar. The eight films that won all of those precursor awards and went on to win the best picture Oscar were On the Waterfront (1954), Around the World in 80 Days (1956), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Tom Jones (1963), A Man for All Seasons (1966), Ordinary People (1980), Terms of Endearment (1983), and Schindler's List (1993). [...]
When a non-British person beats a British person in a close race at the BAFTA Awards -- as was the case today when David Fincher (The Social Network) "upset" Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) to win best director -- that person will almost always go on to win the Oscar. (And at the Oscars, best director almost always corresponds with best picture.) That was the case with Benicio Del Toro vs. Albert Finney (2000), Forest Whitaker vs. Peter O'Toole (2006), Marion Cotillard vs. Julie Christie (2007), etc.
To say nothing of the radicalized Academy population that will reject The King's Speech on the basis that its "hero" is a spoiled, privileged royal with his own moat. Or something.
Honestly I have nothing else to really offer about any of this that you haven't heard/read/ridiculed/drunkenly lamented a hundred times before, so I'll leave you with this sobering yet oddly pleasing observation from Woody Allen (via Tom O'Neil): "I have no regard for that kind of ceremony. I just don't think they know what they're doing. When you see who wins those things -- or who doesn't win them -- you can see how meaningless this Oscar thing is. ... I know it sounds terrible, but winning that Oscar for Annie Hall didn't mean anything to me."
The Nominees:
1. David Fincher, The Social Network
2. Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
3. Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
4. Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit
5. David O. Russell, The Fighter
Notes: As mentioned, Fincher's BAFTA triumph went a long way toward helping anchor what's left of TSN's loyalty among the awards orthodoxy. Upholding his general ambivalence rigorous Dragon Tattoo shooting schedule, the director himself was not in attendance, so for what it's worth, Fincher fans, there's a chance you may have seen the last of your hero's awards-season victory-speechifying at the Golden Globes of all places. We can live that, can't we? It was a good speech, no? Let's revisit:
On a vaguely related note, Christopher Nolan got a healthy helping of payback with Inception shooter Wally Pfister's win at last weekend's American Society of Cinematographers awards -- a prize largely thought intended for True Grit's Roger Deakins, whose own directors, Joel and Ethan Coen, are generally thought to have stolen Nolan's Oscar nom for Best Director. That might be the extent of the backlash, or it might be just the beginning. Either way, Team Nolan, savor what you can of that.
The Nominees:
1. [tie] Natalie Portman, Black Swan
1. [tie] Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
3. Jennifer Lawrence, Winter's Bone
4. Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine
5. Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
Notes: Another notable absence at last weekend's BAFTA confab was Best Actress winner (and once-prohibitive Oscar favorite) Natalie Portman. I'm not necessarily here to say a pregnant woman should expose herself to the stress and duress of trans-Atlantic flight just to pick up some hardware, but... well, pregnant Natalie Portman maybe should have thought twice about missing the ceremony. Reason being holy crap here comes Annette Bening. After her minor location-location-location coup of the recent Oscar-nominee group photo, it's been all Bening seemingly all the time: She has begun "hitting the campaign trail hard," wrote O'Neil, who later reported:
Last night I was flabbergasted when an Academy member told me who he's picking for lead actress: Annette Bening. [...] He's not just any voter. He's a member of the producers' branch who almost always goes with the winner. He has backed all of the underdogs who ended up winning in recent years -- Crash, Marion Cotillard, Tilda Swinton -- so, at this point, I've learned to take his ballot very seriously when he tattles ahead of time.
ZOMG! I mean, this guy. On the one hand, the wanker sided with Crash. Yet on the other, I just picture this Oracle of Oscar materializing once a year like Punxsutawney Phil, tucking his fat chin down into his chest and surveying the ground for any available solace, seeing his shadow and thus assuring us two extra weeks of chaos, panic and disorder. And when the O of O "tattles," something else funny happens: The awards punditocracy falls in line. Psychic coincidence? Campaign bulls-eye? You be the judge:
· Tim Appelo, THR: "If Bening's not-blue Monday means she wins the Oscar, it won't really be for the excellent The Kids Are All Right, it will constitute a de facto career Oscar for the still more incandescent films that should've won: The Grifters, American Beauty and Being Julia, whose tale of a stage diva crushing a rival ingenue echoes the Bening-Portman showdown. Irascible gay matron or bi babe psycho in a tutu? Oscar will choose one. At 30, Bening had done superb stage work and John Hughes' $41 million, not-great The Great Outdoors; at 30, Portman's done dozens of films grossing more than $3.8 billion. The shortest book in the world would be My Struggle, by Portman. If Bening wins, it will be for old-school, conservatory-trained stage talent triumphing against all movie odds."
· Anne Thompson, indieWIRE: "Annette Bening is a classy theater actress who came late to movies--she was almost 30 when she took her first lead role in Milos Forman's Valmont. She went on to work for future husband Warren Beatty on Bugsy and Love Affair, and had three Oscar-nominated roles, in Stephen Frears' The Grifters, Sam Mendes' American Beauty and Istvan Szabo's Being Julia before landing a fourth for Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right."
· Paul Sheehan, Gold Derby: "The Kids Are All Right co-star certainly has raised her profile in the last weeks of the campaign, just as the expectant Portman takes a break. Last month, Bening was feted by the Santa Barbara filmfest and dropped by The Tonight Show to joke with Jay Leno about being married to the most promising newcomer of 1962, Warren Beatty. And on Wednesday, she is set to appear on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon."
"Wednesday," i.e. tonight, in case you're keeping track. Meanwhile, what does Portman have to show for herself this week besides a BAFTA win/no-show? How about a new Fox Searchlight featurette reminding everyone how haaaarrrrrd she trained for Black Swan, which has been outviewed (by a 4-to-1 margin!) by this video confirming Portman's affinity for... crying:
Sorry, but with a week of voting remaining, this is a new race. I'm firmly Team Portman and have been for more than five months, but let's be honest: If we're so resigned to a spineless, hive-minded Academy rewarding the capable, competent, classic-by-numbers King's Speech over the colder, more technically accomplished and ultramodern Social Network, are we really ready to say that voters get it when it comes to the acting categories? I say prepare to have your heart shattered anywhere and everywhere it can -- including...
The Nominees:
1. Colin Firth, The King's Speech
2. Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
3. Javier Bardem, Biutiful
4. Jeff Bridges, True Grit
5. James Franco, 127 Hours
Notes: Colin Firth will win this, and life will go on. But Bardem's Goya Award win last weekend only serves to remind his devotees -- including yours truly -- what a missed opportunity his Oscar "campaign" was. Just a slightly earlier release date and some critics' group love, and this could have been his. Anyway.
The Nominees:
1. [tie] Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
1. [tie] Melissa Leo, The Fighter
3. Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom
4. Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech
5. Amy Adams, The Fighter
Notes: What's gotten into the ladies this week? Especially their supporters -- we already discussed the sudden turmoil around Best Actress, but things still haven't quite calmed down here since last week's Glamour Shot Heard 'Round the World. Melissa Leo continued defending her choice to campaign on her own behalf (Paramount reportedly declined to market one Fighter actress over another, thus necessitating Leo's rogue tactics), telling Marie Claire that she's just glad to have been part of the conversation:
In the true story, when we're 90, we'll giggle and write about the negativity. As we have witnessed before, it's only the generator of the discussion. If there's no negativity, there's no discussion. It generated a conversation and I have no fear of it because I have nothing to hide. I don't think I did a bad. I'm deeply sorry if I offended. That's ignorance on my part. I operate from instinct, and my instinct guided me in the choice to do this. You saw the photo shoot. It's not everything I ever dreamt of for me, either. It is what it is. And it seems to be a part of what I do for a living, so there you have it, unashamed. [...] I know my place. I know my role. I know my people. And when I say I don't know much about this Oscar thing, I mean it. I'm not even a girl that got dressed up and went to the prom, or even dated a lot.
In the same interview Leo mentioned having met Steinfeld, her closest competition, "in an airport. She was doing her pimping, er, I mean promoting in some town, with her mother. I can't remember where she was heading, nor I." Lovely.
Meanwhile, self-described friend of Leo Scott Feinberg went deep on her causes for concern and/or confidence -- like really deep, citing "the BAFTA-AMPAS Disconnect," the "BFCA/HFPA/SAG-AMPAS Connection," and the 140 previous performances affected by each combined. Ultimately the BAFTA-AMPAS thing may be a bigger deal than Feinberg makes it out to be, if only because of the 100+ Oscar winners he lists who weren't nominated for a BAFTA award, a good chunk of them starred in films that were ineligible for BAFTA consideration; The Blind Side, for example, opened in the UK almost a month and a half after the ceremony was even held, and Warners chose not to privately qualify it for voters ahead of the December 2009 screening deadline. The Fighter, however, was qualified late last year -- nearly two full months before its Feb. 2 opening in the UK. That seemed to work for co-star Christian Bale (who nevertheless lost to Geoffrey Rush), but Leo didn't even get nominated.
That could mean trouble for her, especially considering how Carter's BAFTA upswing and Steinfeld's high marketshare of awards-culture goodwill will collide in the Supporting Actress category on Feb. 27. Ultimately, though, the attention generated through Leo's ad and the year's overall tendency toward legacy over technique (not to mention the continued support of virtually every awards prognosticator except Roger Ebert) point to another new race.
TEAM JACKI UPDATE: Why bother with tacky-ass campaign photos when you can just earnestly state your Oscar interest and qualifications to an influential awards-beat writer? Right, Jacki Weaver?
I said this in an acceptance speech before, but when I was younger I had my fair share of awards. And I was very blasé. I used to think, awards aren't important, it's the work that matters. But nowadays, I've done a complete turnaround. I love awards. I embrace them wholeheartedly. It's a basic human need to be told you've done a good job, whatever your job is. And when you're told that by a lot of people all at once, it's even better.
Amen. It's not too late Academy! One you go Jacki, you never go back... i. Ooof. Anyway, can't wait!
The Nominees:
1. Christian Bale, The Fighter
2. Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech
3. Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right
4. John Hawkes, Winter's Bone
5. Jeremy Renner, The Town
Notes: Yes, Rush won the BAFTA. No, Christian Bale should not be worried. That is all.