Did you just see that glass of water tremble à la Jurassic Park? Could that distant rumbling be Harvey Weinstein barreling T-Rex style down the endless red carpet leading to the Kodak Theater in February? Indeed, with the announcement this week that Seth McFarlane will be hosting the 85th Academy Awards, Oscar season is now officially under way. Screeners and For Your Consideration ads shall soon be raining down upon us. So this seems as good an occasion as any to assess the buzz around Oscar hopefuls in the major categories.
Prognosticating about the Oscars so early in the race, when many of the most anticipated prestige movies of the year (Lincoln, Django Unchained, Les Miserables) remain to be seen, may be premature, like discussing the prospect of a Gingrich/Perry 2012 ticket a year ago. But what self-respecting pundit waits to be fully informed? After all, the jockeying has already begun.
BEST PICTURE
Like last year, there could be as few as five and as many as ten nominees in this category. The locks so far are Lincoln (a biopic of Abraham Lincoln directed by Steven Spielberg could be made with animated stick figures and it would still be a shoo-in—actually, I’d like to see that…); Les Misérables (a lavish, crowd-pleasing period musical that couldn’t be more upfront about its Oscar ambitions); and Argo (Ben Affleck’s film about a CIA hostage rescue mission in Tehran under the guise of a Hollywood production — Zero Dark Thirty meets Tropic Thunder? — got a terrific jump out of the Telluride and Toronto gates). Silver Linings Playbook, a romantic comedy with just enough of a serious edge to please Oscar voters, also had a solid Toronto run. Ang Lee’s lyrical Life of Pi delighted New York Film Festival audiences last week and there’s every reason to believe the Academy will be just as enchanted, especially since there’s a feeling Lee was screwed over when Crash was voted best picture over Brokeback Mountain in 2005.
Oscar Best Picture 2013 Predictions -- Let the Oscar Index Begin!
I’d be surprised if The Master didn’t get nominated for best picture, but Kristopher Tapley and Anne Thompson over at Indiewire point out that, while the acting and cinematography are spectacular, the film itself left many critics cold. Michael Haneke’s rueful rumination on love and death, Amour, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, is a bit of a long shot since it’s in French. But if Weinstein, who is distributing the film in the U.S., can get a French silent film a best picture Oscar, as he did last year with The Artist, there’s no saying what he can do with a French talkie. Rounding out the frontrunners is the oneiric bayou fantasy Beasts of the Southern Wild, which could provide this Oscar season’s feel-good, indie underdog narrative.
(NB: This category will be shaken up in December, when many major contenders will be released, including Django Unchained; The Hobbit; Promised Land; Zero Dark Thirty; and The Impossible.)
BEST DIRECTOR
Back in 1998, we all made jokes about how Ben Affleck was the luckiest man alive for tying his fate to Matt Damon’s and winning a screenwriting Oscar. But Affleck, who’s proven to be one of the best mainstream directors of his generation, may well get the last laugh — in addition to a nomination for helming Argo. Spielberg’s seat at this table has been booked for years. The Master auteur Paul Thomas Anderson is a near lock, too. Les Miserables director Tom Hooper, who won this award two years ago for The King’s Speech, will almost certainly get recognition for his use of live-action singing, which, to believe the featurette Universal put out last week, has never been attempted before in a musical of this scope. The Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow could get a shot at a repeat victory with Zero Dark Thirty. The same goes for Ang Lee, who took home the best-director consolation prize in 2005, and breaks new ground this year with his innovative use of 3D in Life of Pi. If David O. Russell’s reputation as an on-set tyrant hasn’t blacklisted him so far — and judging from his 2010 nomination for The Fighter, it hasn’t — there’s a good chance he’ll get a nod for Silver Linings Playbook. Rounding out the category are heavy hitters Robert Zemeckis (Flight), Peter Jackson (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey); and Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained).
BEST ACTOR
Daniel Day-Lewis’s elongated, stovepipe hat–wearing silhouette has loomed over this category ever since it was announced that he would be playing Abe Lincoln in Spielberg’s long-awaited biopic. But the underwhelming response to the trailer has loosened DDL’s grip on what would be his third statuette. Lincoln’s high-pitched whine may be historically accurate, but isn’t likely to resonate as loudly with voters as the deep, stentorian rumble of Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood. Right now, it looks like Day-Lewis’s greatest competition is coming in the form of a hunchbacked, wild-eyed Joaquin Phoenix, whose performance in The Master is lauded even by critics who disliked the film. (Unless Philip Seymour Hoffman somehow ends up in the running for the same movie — see Best Supporting Actor below — and they cancel each other out.)
Bradley Cooper’s also been getting nothing but love for not playing a total d-bag for once in Silver Linings Playbook. John Hawkes’s turn in The Sessions as a God-fearing paraplegic looking for nookie could get a nod, as long as the Academy doesn’t feel it’s just too obvious. Nobody’s won best actor for a musical since Rex Harrison in 1963 (My Fair Lady), but Hugh Jackman has made it quite clear how much acting went into his performance in Les Miserables. If Amour gets any play beyond the foreign language category, French screen legend Jean-Louis Trintignan is bound to get a nomination. Finally, there are a few question marks surrounding performances we haven’t yet seen from actors who can never be counted out, including Anthony Hopkins (Hitchock); Denzel Washington (Flight); and Jamie Foxx (Django Unchained).
BEST ACTRESS
The first actress to lock up a nomination in this category was 8-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis, whose performance as a headstrong swamp child in Beasts of the Southern Wild deserves every superlative critics have used to describe it. Silver Linings Playbook star Jennifer Lawrence, who’s just 14 years older, has a good chance to get her second nomination in this category, which would put her on pace to become the next Meryl Streep.
The rest of the field, however, is a bit of a blur. Seemingly at a loss to fill it, pundits have been throwing out every previous Oscar winner they can think of who’s got a movie out, including Streep (for the tepidly reviewed Hope Springs), Helen Mirren (Hitchcock), Viola Davis (Won’t Back Down), and Judi Dench (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,and even — I'm not kidding — Skyfall). Two of the strongest contenders are Frenchwomen: Emmanuelle Riva, for Amour, and Marion Cotillard, who fills the “John Hawkes slot,” playing a double amputee who finds love in Rust and Bone.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
It’ll take a miracle, or at least a mild injustice, to take this statuette away from Philip Seymour Hoffman, whose performance in The Master lives up to the title. But Alan Arkin (Argo), John Goodman (also Argo), Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln), Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook), Hal Holbrooke (Promised Land), and Jim Broadbent (Cloud Atlas) will give it their best shots. Oscar savant Scott Feinberg over at the Hollywood Reporter is long on Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained (who, for me, comes off as a cross between Snidely Whiplash and Foghorn Leghorn), and baker-turned-actor Dwight Henry from Beasts of the Southern Wild. Awards Daily blogger Sasha Stone warns her fellow pundits never to prognosticate with their hearts, but I have the highest hopes for Sacha Baron Cohen as evil innkeeper Thénardier in Les Misérables, which is a meaty enough part to catch the Academy’s attention.
Leading the pack is Sally “You Like Me!” Field, who plays Mary Todd to Day-Lewis’s Abe Lincoln. Amy Adams also seems to figure on every blogger’s list for her turn as a devoted wife, cult acolyte, and handjob artist in The Master. Helen Hunt (The Sessions) is also a pretty common pick. And six-time nominee (and two-time winner) Dame Maggie Smith could clear some room on her mantle for another statuette: her performance in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is as warm and nuanced as the dowager she plays on Downton Abbey is acerbic. Les Misérables’ trio of grisettes Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, and Samantha Barks could all potentially cadge a nomination, although the promos seem to indicate that Universal is pushing Hathaway.
Did I miss anyone? Let me know in the comments.
Julian Sancton is a writer based in Manhattan. He has contributed to Vanity Fair, Esquire and Playboy, among other publications.
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