Believe it: It's awards season. Very early in awards season, to be sure, but time nevertheless for Movieline's Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics to reopen its doors and initiate the algorithmic sequences and other complex formulas resulting in the latest edition of our annual Oscar Index.
As noted a year ago in this space, the Oscar Index is a weekly feature dedicated to parsing the latest and most sophisticated punditry about the awards race leading up to Hollywood's biggest night. The goal is an objective read of a landscape littered with spent hype, dirty tricks, aggressive campaigning, and the occasional mink-coated Glamour Shots. The methodology is simply to listen carefully, observe trends and exhaustively read every single thing written about the awards contenders as the season unfolds. And the results? Not bad! Just ask Jacki Weaver.
So! Let's get to it!
The Leading 10:
1. War Horse
2. The Ides of March
3. The Descendants
4. J. Edgar
5. Midnight in Paris
6. The Help
7. The Artist
8. Moneyball
9. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
10. The Tree of Life
Outsiders: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Iron Lady, A Dangerous Method, Contagion
Obviously the rule change in Picture -- five to 10 nominees, with a 5 percent of first-place votes required to make the cut -- means that we have literally no idea who's on the bubble this year. Even in January we'll probably be wondering who, if anyone, qualifies for a sixth spot, seventh spot and/or beyond. So regarding the above, please understand that I'm not necessarily projecting 10 nominees; I'm just projecting the top 10 contenders for a nomination based on that aforementioned survey of the punditocracy.
And did I mention it's early? Where last year at this time we had already seen the clear Best Picture frontrunner by the end of the Toronto Film Festival (indeed, The King's Speech won the fest's audience prize; this year that award went to a Lebanese import), this year we're reduced to remarking how wide open the field remains with such question marks as War Horse, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and J. Edgar (which now at least has a trailer) still months from being seen.
In fact, you could argue at this point, as Kristopher Tapley smartly does, that the surprise hit The Help remains the film to beat perception-wise. Think about the crop of August heavyweights to flex their muscle in the 2009 Oscar derby -- Inglourious Basterds, District 9, Julie and Julia -- and how long a shadow they cast over that year's festival crop. Moreover, look whom The Help is going up against as among the strongest festival contenders to date: George Clooney, whose Ides of March and Descendants have each received Oscar backing from the likes of everyone from Dave Karger ("[I]f you ask me, we now have the first sure-thing Best Picture nominee on our hands," he wrote from Venice about Ides) to Andrew O'Hehir ("More of a muted, bittersweet Hawaiian-themed cocktail than a masterful cinematic experience, Alexander Payne's new family comedy-drama The Descendants clearly emerges from the Toronto International Film Festival as a leading Oscar contender").
Of course, that was the same kind of broad, front-running momentum Clooney and Up in the Air left Toronto with in 2009, and we all know how that went. It's not altogether unlikely for either/or/both of Clooney's 2011 awards-season entries, either: "[Ides s]hould be respected across the board," notes Gregory Ellwood "but Sony is going to have to campaign hard to land the 5% votes they need for a best picture nod." Time critic Richard Corliss, meanwhile, underscored another bottom line for many viewers (and voters) of influence in Toronto: "What The Descendants couldn't quite match were the high expectations on which it floated into town."
Most interesting might be awards wizard Steve Pond calling it early for The Descendants despite a caveat the size of a Chrysler: "I don't see a Best Picture winner in this year's crop of films. Instead, I see reasons why every single film deemed to be a contender will probably fall short." The reality will ultimately vary; this declaration came after films like The Help, Midnight in Paris and The Tree of Life had earned their summer wings and prior to the Oscarrific raves for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and the ongoing questions facing ostensible contenders Moneyball and The Artist. It's a skepticism that reflects the general consensus that this probably a quintessential studio year: That the less we know about something today, the more formidably it can tower over the horizon. Think True Grit or There Will Be Blood... or War Horse.
Frankly, until Steven Spielberg's most lip-smacking awards bait since Munich is officially rejected by the Oscar cognoscenti, it's the only probable contender that has yet to be compromised: No fetish-y marketing, no biopic-y hamfistedness, no Jonathan Safran Foer-y self-awareness. Instead it's got a horse, a World War (the first, Holocaust-less one, but still), some kids, beloved source material and tons of ambition. And, well, Spielberg.
So while, on the one hand, every Best Picture winner since 2007 (and five of the last six) has gone through Toronto, on the other we've got everyone looking back at Toronto wondering what the hell just happened. (Unless you're looking at Contagion, I suppose, in which case I just don't know what to tell you.) That suggests to me it's time to look forward. For awards season, anyhow, the best must be yet come.
The Leading 5:
1. Steven Spielberg, War Horse
2. Alexander Payne, The Descendants
3. Clint Eastwood, J. Edgar
4. George Clooney, The Ides of March
5. Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Outsiders: Stephen Daldry, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; David Fincher, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo; Bennett Miller, Moneyball; Tomas Alfredson, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris; Tate Taylor, The Help; David Cronenberg, A Dangerous Method; Roman Polanski, Carnage
With the exception of that refreshing cap at five nominees, most of what's written, noted and/or cited above goes for Director at this point as well. It's a mess -- competitive as usual, larded with prestige. A couple things to keep in mind, however:
· Daldry is a perfect three-for-three in this category in his feature-directing career, and there's no real reason yet to consider he couldn't go four-four.
· ""It seems safe to say that, right now, the only sure bet is Alexander Payne for The Descendants," writes Sasha Stone, and she's right. Fox Searchlight pretty much has its director game down to a science: pick one, and push. It usually works, and this year, as we've seen from Toronto, Payne is that director.
· If Harvey Weinstein really wants an awesome awards-campaign advantage, he should consider developing a keyboard shortcut that allows the awards press to bypass typing "Hazanavicius" over and over again for at least the next four months.
The Leading 5:
1. Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
2. Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
3. Viola Davis, The Help
4. Tilda Swinton, We Need to Talk About Kevin
5. Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
Outsiders: Keira Knightley, A Dangerous Method; Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo; Charlize Theron, Young Adult; Emma Stone, The Help, Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene; Felicity Jones, Like Crazy; Michelle Yeoh, The Lady
This is already shaping up as the the most cutthroat race of all, if only for the forces at play and politics at hand. Harvey Weinstein has not one but two lead actresses nearly certain to make the top 10; he'll be pushing to end Streep's 30-year win drought and get the increasingly beloved Williams her second nomination in as many years. Then there's Close, who hasn't even been nominated since the late '80s and has a shapeshifting, gender-bending role to remind the Academy she's not just on TV anymore. Davis belongs in the discussion despite protests that The Help is Stone's movie, if only because regardless of how much The Help makes, one glance at the competition means it's a veteran's race. (That's partly why I don't even entirely scoff at the suggestion that Yeoh could sneak in, though she seems less in the vein of 2008-era Melissa Leo than, say 2010-era Halle Berry.)
Meanwhile GoldDerby asks the fair (and relevant) question, "Are Marion Cotillard and Tilda Swinton one-time Oscar wonders?" Swinton in particular reiterated recently that she couldn't care less about her Supporting Actress win in 2007 ("I don't know what it means. [...] I wasn't brought up on this planet. I never wanted to win anything but the Cheltenham Gold Cup. But I'm not a race horse."), an attitude that won't necessarily advance her favor among voters regardless how much the majority of her peers respects her. That's why I like Mara, Olsen or Jones to vie for either of the last two spots; that would signal the preference toward new, upstart blood that voters showed last year by nominating Jennifer Lawrence over Swinton -- who went bilingual and everything for the celebrated I Am Love.
Incidentally, a few weeks ago after publishing Knightley among the preliminary Oscar Index's possible Supporting Actress candidates, a publicist nagged me within minutes: "Just so you know Keira is a definite co-lead of ADM, she is in it from beginning to end, and definitely NOT a supporting character." Well, yeah. Tell it to Hailee Steinfeld. And has anyone at Sony Classics seen the wasteland that is Supporting Actress this year? Be smart! Move her!
The Leading 5:
1. Michael Fassbender, Shame
2. George Clooney, The Descendants
3. Gary Oldman, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
4. Brad Pitt, Moneyball
5. Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar
Outsiders: Jean Dujardin, The Artist; Woody Harrelson, Rampart; Ryan Gosling, The Ides of March; Tom Hanks, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; Tom Hardy, Warrior; Michael Fassbender, A Dangerous Method
Man, oh man, this will be good: Overdue megastars facing off against a cabal of rookie Euros. Even the Clooney factor being what it is can't hide Fassbender's surge, already the stuff of award-winning, soul-baring legend, not so far removed from the position that we saw Natalie Portman latch on to last year and never relinquish, even as the Bening campaign snapped ferociously at her ballet slippers.
Of course, Fassbender's virtually certain nomination isn't nearly the same thing as Fassbender win. After all, do you really think Fox Searchlight sank money into an NC-17 sex-addict opus because it planned to run Fassbender against Clooney in another Searchlight movie? This is a classic case of buying the competition so you can put it out of business -- not box-office business, mind you, or even awards-season business. They want each nominated. But obviously only one can win, and only one has the clear potential to capitalize on that win in a mass-market, take-the-family sort of way. A nomination that will burnish the other's art-house mythology will do just fine as well. Give this until mid-October, after both have screened at the New York Film Festival, and let's see where things lie.
Elsewhere, Pitt and Oldman are getting some of the best reviews of their careers for their respective films, while DiCaprio has 4,000 makeup-chair hours invested in what he hopes will be his fourth nomination. Scott Feinberg says that it's all down to Pitt and DiCaprio in particular, writing of the latter at THR, "I've heard from people who have already screened J. Edgar, but are not working on its behalf and have no vested interest in its success, that he will be very hard to beat." Harrelson is losing TIFF momentum by the day without a U.S. distributor to take up Rampart's cause, while Dujardin is the ultimate wild-card -- not least because of his film's old-fashioned charm and the types of inspired Weinstein dark arts that lifted Roberto Benigni to a surprising victory back in '98.
The Leading 5:
1. Octavia Spencer, The Help
2. Vanessa Redgrave, Coriolanus
3. Shailene Woodley, The Descendants
4. Jessica Chastain, The Help
5. Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Outsiders: Jessica Chastain, Take Shelter; Mia Wasikowska, Albert Nobbs; Keira Knightley, A Dangerous Method; Sandra Bullock, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
As mentioned earlier, this category is weak. Which isn't to say that it doesn't have some good performances lobbying for inclusion: Spencer and Redgrave both have advantages in that they A) have good movies that should and will win at least something and B) there's no one else showing any signs of challenging them. Even Chastain, who, in some parallel awards universe, could theoretically occupy every slot in this category with her spectrum of great roles this year, will perennially be looking up at her co-star. Most Oscar-watchers seem to agree that Woodley, while semi-revelatory and perfectly nom-mable, is a middle-of-the=pack contender all the way.
Which leaves the fifth spot, which is like, [HUGE SHRUG]. Tom O'Neil has a smart outlook about this slot, invoking Melissa McCarthy's Bridesmaids stint as possibly having influenced this week's Emmy win for Best Actress in a Comedy. Could it work in reverse -- could an Emmy beget newfound attention to Team Bridesmaids, which itself scored one of the biggest successes of the year and might have some late-year goodwill coming its way? Again, [HUGE SHRUG]. Its early. Though, category fraud or not, put Keira Knightley here and she can go down to the wire with Spencer and Redgrave. Just saying!
The Leading 5:
1. Christopher Plummer, Beginners
2. Albert Brooks, Drive
3. Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
4. Nick Nolte, Warrior
5. Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Outsiders: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Moneyball; John C. Reilly, Carnage; Armie Hammer, J. Edgar; Jim Broadbent, The Iron Lady; Viggo Mortensen, A Dangerous Method
I love Hill and Hoffman in Moneyball, and Nolte is superb in Warrior_ (and _especially in the interviews promoting it). Albert Brooks memorably impresses with his bad-guy turn in Drive. Branagh's a question mark but should be typically grand playing Laurence Olivier in My Week With Marilyn. But ask around, and there is but one likeliest ultimate outcome to it all: At age 82, the illustrious Christopher Plummer will finally win his first Oscar. But probably not for his exquisite performance in Barrymore, which would force him into that congested Lead Actor category. Rather, watch him roll for playing a father who flees the closet late in life in Beginners. This is your Christian Bale, this is your Heath Ledger. Engrave the bad boy and let's get to the races.