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The road to the Oscars starts here…
Oscar season is nigh. We'll have to wait till February to hear the nominations, but the front-runners are already filling our screens. Will this be George Clooney's year? Could Britain’s Carey Mulligan win gold? Will James Cameron repeat the success of 'Titanic' with 'Avatar'? Time Out's film team places some bets
Best PictureFor the first time, 2010 will see ten, rather than five, Best Picture nominees at the Oscars. But only one will follow last year’s ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and walk away with the gold statuette on the night. These are the five that we believe to be the leading contenders.
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Odds: 2-to-1
Lee Daniels’s snapshot of an overweight, illiterate teenage mother in late-’80s Harlem has been generating a buzz ever since Sundance in January. Picking up all-important audience awards at Toronto and San Sebastian, then going on to reap some impressive box-office coin in US cinemas, ‘Precious’ divides critical opinion, but it still feels like there’s no stopping this Oprah-endorsed melodrama juggernaut. The fact, too, that the film pulls no punches in its depiction of the brutalising effects of poverty would make a victory for ‘Precious’ feel prescient in a year when the faltering world economy has been front and centre on the news agenda.
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Odds: 3-to-1
The form is good for this angsty but raunchy musical about an Italian film director who loses his mojo: there are no fewer than six Oscar-winners in the lead roles (Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cottillard, Nicole Kidman, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Sophia Loren), while Rob Marshall’s previous film, ‘Chicago’, won Best Picture in 2003. It's also common knowledge that producer Harvey Weinstein would crawl naked over broken glass to win an Oscar. Add to that the fact that this is Anthony Minghella’s final screenplay, and you could be looking a winner in the face… But let’s not forget the grumbling when ‘Chicago’ won the Oscar. Will the Academy warm to a musical again? Or will a more serious contender steal hearts during these troubled times?
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Odds: 4-to-1
Awards voters love to appear populist by throwing in at least one comedy, even if it doesn’t stand a chance. This year, that could change. ‘Up in the Air’ may seem like another breezy George Clooney romp, all sharp suits, lounge pop and raffish charm, but Jason Reitman’s film has a serious and timely undercurrent, as Clooney’s hatchet-man-for-hire feeds off the downturn by firing employees from hard-hit firms. It may be an outside bet, but as another financial institution crumbles and George flashes that winning off-kilter smile, it seems ‘Up in the Air’ may be the lucky beneficiary of a perfect awards storm.
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Odds: 6-to-1
Clint Eastwood’s historical sporting drama, set during the Rugby World Cup in South Africa in 1995, has ‘Oscar nominee’ written all over it. ‘Invictus’ is set during the early years of Nelson Mandela’s presidency and rides on the feelgood theme of a sporting triumph uniting a country. With the revered Eastwood at the helm and stars Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon playing the year’s most unlikely ‘buddies’ as Mandela and South African rugby captain Francois Pienaa, how could this rousing social drama fail to attract attention? But it’s only five years since Clint swept the board with ‘Million Dollar Baby’. Will Academy voters feel that he’s already had his due?
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Odds: 10-to-1
An Iraq War film mooted for Best Picture? Really? That Kathryn Bigelow’s grunt’s-eye-view drama of life disposing of explosives in Baghdad is even in contention for the main award stands as testament to the film’s ferocity and insight. The left-leaning but still patriotic Academy might take a shine to the fact that this is more about the trials of soldiers than the folly of warfare. It’s not the best bet to win, purely down to the fact that when the Academy chooses to ‘go political’, it’s either woolly and melodramatic (‘Crash’) or boosted with feelgood histrionics and dance numbers (‘Slumdog Millionaire’).
Best Actor
This could be George Clooney’s year: besides doing the movie industry a massive service by single-handedly making Hollywood seem vaguely cool, he also essays his strongest lead role to date in ‘Up in the Air’, using his trademark easy-going charm to mask a character of a cold-hearted schemer. Outside chances include our own Colin Firth for ‘A Single Man’ , Jeremy Renner’s career-making turn as gung-ho bomb disposal junky Sergeant James in ‘The Hurt Locker’, Matt Damon’s vowel-mangling South African rugger bugger in ‘Invictus’ and Michael Stuhlbarg’s widely lauded titular turn as the Coens’ ‘Serious Man’.
Best Actress
We think it’s going to be an open race for this year’s Best Actress, with no single performance (bar possibly Carey Mulligan, see above) shining above all others. Of the possibles, you’ve got to expect Meryl Streep to be in the mix somewhere, perhaps for her funny-voiced turn in ‘Julie and Julia’ or for adding plenty of sass to Nancy Myers’s forthcoming ‘It’s Complicated’ (though we think she was also great as one of the voices cast in Wes Anderson’s ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’). Abbie Cornish may be recognised for her nuanced performance as Fanny Brawne in Jane Campion’s ‘Bright Star’. Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe is also being talked up as a potential victor for her lead turn in ‘Precious’. Outsiders include Penélope Cruz for ‘Broken Embraces’, Audrey Tautou for ‘Coco Before Chanel’ and Hilary Swank for ‘Amelia’.
Best Director
The director’s award generally falls in line with Best Picture, but this year could be different: most critics agree that front-runner, ‘Precious’, is an acting and writing tour de force but a directorial damp squib. Which leaves the field wide open: only a fool would bet against Clint Eastwood for ‘Invictus’, but with three noms and one win in the past ten years, he may have had his time. Kathryn Bigelow is in with a shot for ‘The Hurt Locker’, but don’t count out Jason Reitman, whose unfussy, slickly professional work on ‘Up in the Air’ displays a streak of visual originality, or even Rob Marshall, whose musical, ‘Nine’, looks like a crowd-pleasing catalogue of old-school class.
Best Screenplay
It’s unusual for the adapted and original screenplay nominations to stray far from the main categories. This year, the headline categories will be awash with adaptations, so ‘An Education’, ‘Up in the Air’, ‘Precious’ and ‘A Single Man’ should figure here. But fewer of the frontrunners are likely to be original screenplays, so we may see leftfield choices such as ‘A Serious Man’ and ‘500 Days of Summer’ gain respect in this category. Just as ‘Wall-E’ was nominated last year, so ‘Up’ may feature this time. And who knows? Maybe even ‘Star Trek’ or ‘District 9’ will sneak a look-in?
And don’t forget…
Lukewarm advance buzz makes it unlikely that either ‘Avatar’ or ‘The Lovely Bones’ will stand much chance at the big boys’ table, but expect them to divide the technical awards: James Cameron’s 3D behemoth will conquer the effects categories, while Peter Jackson’s ’70s-set murder story should do well in costume and set design. We’d bet on Morgan Freeman shelving another Best Supporting Actor trophy for his turn as Nelson Mandela in ‘Invictus’. Anna Kendrick in ‘Up in the Air’, Mo’nique in ‘Precious’ and Penélope Cruz in ‘Nine’ should be named in the Supporting Actress category, while ‘Nine’ is likely to take Original Song.
Author: Time Out Film
User comments on this story
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- awww ive already nmcmeoted but algy and celesse i just had to say that i love this webcomic so much that i kept coming and going back to this page, enough that i made the last pannel of little feral as the background picture of my itouch's lock scree said...
- awww ive already nmcmeoted but algy and celesse i just had to say that i love this webcomic so much that i kept coming and going back to this page, enough that i made the last pannel of little feral as the background picture of my itouch's lock screen XD hes even more adorable as a little boy! XD i hope we get to see more little feral/yuen through meela's dreams now that his true appearance has been revealed. too cute!! Posted on Mar 31 2012 04:44
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- ellenbronx said...
- Actually, Colin Firth's perfromance has been getting raves here in New York and has already won first or second place in several critics' awards...I'm looking forward to seeing "A Single Man" for his performance and Tom Ford's driection... Posted on Dec 24 2009 14:12
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- Godfrey Hamilton said...
- And sadly, Colin Firth's magnificent work in Tom Ford's adaptation of Isherwood's 'A SIngle Man', not to mention the brilliant support from Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode and an eye-opening performance from Nicholas Hoult, will probably be lost in the dust, or subject to one of the Academy's periodic bouts of gay panic (i.e choosing 'Crash' over 'Brokeback Mountain', which time has proven was a choice both derisory and laughable. If the Academy won't honour anything by P.T. Anderson, why on earth did it give Best Picture to that ridiculous knock-off of the infinitely superior 'Magnolia'? Answers on a postcard please, with suitably homophobic excuses per pro the Academy.) Posted on Dec 24 2009 07:58
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- ellenbronx said...
- Now that most of the critics awards (NY, L.A., Boston, Chicago, National Board of Review, etc.) and best ten lists are in here in the states, the Best Picture Oscar would seem to be a toss up between "Hurt Locker" and "Up in the Air"--and Kathryn Bigelow has a shot at being the first woman to win Best Director. "The Road"--while respected by most reviewers--seems to be more admired than liked, though Mortenson may have a shot at a nomination. We are not looking forward to the Oscars this year, since ten are too many for Best Pic nods and this new policy dimishes the honor somewhat--especially since the justifiably praised animated films will be relinqueshed to their own separate category. Posted on Dec 24 2009 03:25
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- Derrick said...
- In a world that was fair in handing out these kinds of awards, Charlotte Gainsbourg would win Best Actress in a landslide for her work in "Antichritst." It is easily one of the most powerful and brave performances I've ever seen on the screen. Too bad the Academy usually refuses to award people that actually deserve it. I also second Viggo's performance in The Road. Posted on Dec 23 2009 23:10
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- godfrey hamilton said...
- Just wait 'til you see Nancy Meyers' appalling, unspeakably dreadful 'It's Complicated' (opening here in the US on Xmas Day); between gasps of quiet revulsion at Steve Martin's over-surgeried piggy little eyes, at Alec Baldwin's queeny, purse-lipped non-performance (trying desperately to essay his 30-Rock schtick into a big-screen-filler and failing), at Meryl Streep's game efforts to do anything other than her stock-in-trade tics (and also failing - because there's no script to speak of) you'll find yourself wondering why the hell we are supposed to give a flying fuck about preposterously well-heeled Santa Barbara types, all of them so white it hurts, their world, like that of '(500) Days of Summer' so heterosexual it beggars belief, and you'll be hard put to explain why anyone let Meyers loose with a budget and a camera after the egregiously awful 'Something's Gotta Give' (the movie in which Frances McDormand, as a supposedly mature, intelligent professional woman shrieks like a pre-pubescent schoolgirl over the sight of Jack Nicholson's arse peeking out of a hospital gown). Best film of the year? 'District 9', closely followed by 'Up', imaginative masterpieces way beyond the ken of the likes of Nancy Meyers, but don't expect District 9 to feature highly in the Oscar jamboree (to be hosted, incidentally, by both Baldwin AND Martin... hmmm... ) Posted on Dec 22 2009 02:53
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- ellenbronx said...
- Re: Possible Oscar nominees--"Nine" and "Lovely Bones" are getting bad buzz here and are not making any major best ten lists. With the nominees unfortunately expanded to ten, certainly "Star Trek" has a good chance to make the last. If animation were not a separate category, certainly "Up," "Brother Fox" and "Princess and the Frog" would have had legitimate chances. For Actress--Sandra Bullock has a major word-of-mouth hit with "Blind Side," which score a nomination for her. Posted on Dec 14 2009 00:56
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- s ford said...
- As for best actor, I reckon Viggo Mortenson is a good choice. The Road is a excellent film to showcase his abilities... Posted on Dec 13 2009 11:51
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- s ford said...
- has this year been that bad? it feels like like a lifetime ago that in the same year jesse james, there will be blood, no country and diving bell came out. each film better than any of the films mentioned above.... Posted on Dec 09 2009 23:35
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