Yes, it’s that time again. For some of you, Oscar fatigue may have set in around New Year’s, but for others, the announcing of the film industry’s highest honors has been (and always is) an event worthy of the utmost excitement. However, it must be said that this year’s race was a little lacking, in which the snubbed elicited more emotions from fans than the nominees themselves. I myself found it very hard to accept that Leonardo DiCaprio did not receive a nomination for his captivating and transformative performance in J.Edgar. (Similar disappointment was palpable among fans of Ryan Gosling (Drive, The Ides of March), Michael Fassbender (Shame), Tilda Swinton (We Need to Talk About Kevin) and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (composers, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). So, in a year full of slightly sad ballots, should we still care about who ends up actually getting the gold Sunday night? Of course. Inevitability’s no romp, but hey, The Help could still win Best Picture, right?
Best Picture
The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud &
Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight In Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse
Given the unusually wide breadth of films that are nominated this year, deciding which one of them is the most deserving of the title of Best Picture is certainly difficult. One could make the case for why each of these nine films truly deserves to win. The issue is that they’re tremendously different from one another. Is it possible to accurately compare Moneyball with The Artist? Or The Descendants with War Horse? Maybe not.
There are a few frontrunners, namely The Artist and The Descendants. The Artist can be described as a 100-minute long love letter to filmmakers past, making it classic fodder for Academy voters. This is also the case for Hugo, whose plot heavily relies upon the theme of film preservation. One could argue that these circumstances unfairly tip the scales in favor of these kinds of films over ones like The Descendants or The Help, which deal with completely different, but equally significant issues.
The Artist is most likely to win for another reason: it has a total of ten nominations, twice as many as The Descendants. Hugo has eleven, but it’s still nowhere near as favored as The Artist. Math aside, which deserves to win? The Artist, for its sheer innovation and pleasure? The Descendants, for achieving a sublime mixture of crippling grief and sharp comedy? Hugo, for its incredible beauty and technological craft? Or maybe The Help, for being a poignant, touching portrait of a difficult time in our country’s history. These are all reasons worthy of discussion. However, come Oscar night, I’d say the award for Best Picture is The Artist’s to lose.
Best Actor
Demián Bichir – A Better Life
George Clooney – The Descendants
Jean Dujardin – The Artist
Gary Oldman – Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy
Brad Pitt – Moneyball
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: Leonardo DiCaprio (J. Edgar) should be winning this award. But since he can’t, it will most likely go to Jean Dujardin for The Artist. Yet Clooney is a decent contender: however, I don’t think The Descendants proves Clooney’s abilities as an actor any more than his other recent films (like 2010’s Up in the Air), though it still was an excellent performance. Dujardin performed exceptionally well in a role that most actors would be too afraid to take on. After all, an actor’s voice is one of their most powerful tools. Despite this, Dujardin, a first-time nominee, was able to sing, dance and gesticulate in a way that showed the utmost emotion. To put it bluntly, I think Dujardin deserves the Oscar, simply because his technique shown in The Artist was a lot more masterful than what George Clooney had to do in The Descendants.
Best Supporting Actor
Kenneth Branagh – My Week with Marilyn
Jonah Hill – Moneyball
Nick Nolte – Warrior
Christopher Plummer – Beginners
Max von Sydow – Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
No category has as clear a frontrunner as this one. For his role as Hal Fields, a widowed father who, at age 75, decides to embrace his homosexuality, Christopher Plummer has already won numerous awards for his role in Beginners. These include best supporting actor distinctions at the BAFTAs, the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild (considered the best predictor for Oscar winners). Plummer
has had quite the winning streak this award season, and it doesn’t look like there will be any slowing down come Sunday night. If not Plummer, next in line for Best Supporting Actor is Kenneth Branagh, for his portrayal as the iconic director Laurence Olivier in My Week with Marilyn.
Best Actress
Glenn Close – Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis – The Help
Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep – The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams – My Week with Marilyn
With seventeen nominations over the course of her career, Meryl Streep holds the record for most Academy Award nominations by an actor of all time. Michelle Williams amassed much critical praise for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe, for which she spent over a year preparing. Rooney Mara, a first-time nominee at only twenty-six years old, also endured much stress while playing Lisbeth Salander in David Fincher’s (The Social Network) American adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Although Streep is highly favored to win this year, the award will most likely go to Viola Davis, a two-time nominee. Her unique power as an actress was established in 2008, when she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in Doubt, a film in which she had only one scene, lasting about all of ten minutes.
Best Director
Michel Hazanavicius – The Artist
Alexander Payne – The Descendants
Martin Scorsese – Hugo
Woody Allen – Midnight in Paris
Terrence Mallick – The Tree of Life
Hazanavicius is the undeniable frontrunner here, which is not surprising, considering the sweeping nature of The Artist’s nominations. He was successful in completing a daunting task— making a silent film for modern audiences not only tolerable, but also enjoyable. Hazanavicius also displayed a great deal of skill by creating a faithful, vibrant recreation of 1920s Hollywood (complete with musical numbers). Also favored in this category is Martin Scorsese, who although being known for gritty, urban films such as The Departed
(for which he won this award in 2006), was able to masterfully create the CGI fantasy grandeur of Hugo. Personally, I think Best Director should go to Alexander Payne. He took The Descendants’ exotic Hawaiian locale and turned it into a place where people actually live. The result was highly atmospheric and intelligently detailed. Payne’s style gives the film an appearance of starkness, providing a juxtaposition that highlights the actors’ emotional performances.
Best Supporting Actress
Bérénice Bejo – The Artist
Jessica Chastain – The Help
Melissa McCarthy – Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer – Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer – The Help
Not unlike Best Supporting Actor, the race for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards has been largely in favor of The Help’s Octavia Spencer, who was honored at both the Golden Globes and the SAG awards. Spencer’s story in The Help was one of the film’s most poignant, leading to what may be the film’s only major victory on Oscar night. The odds are also fair for Bérénice Bejo and Melissa McCarthy, who have each garnered incredibly high praise from both critics and audiences for their respective roles in The Artist and Bridesmaids.
The Academy Awards, film industry’s biggest night, is always discussed to death in the weeks and months leading up to it. However, we can never truly predict the winners with absolute certainty. There is more than enough room for one of the Academy’s trademark upsets, possibly in the Best Picture or Best Actor category. Through all of the uncertainty of the awards season, we do know one thing without fail — on the night of February 26, all eyes will be on the Oscars.
