Visual Category Madness... and Guild Nominees for Makeup/VES

This just in. Here's a quick Oscar chart update on all the Visual categories... (You can see the index of Oscar Predictions here - we're almost finished -- but of course everything gets taken down and rebuilt tomorrow - whew). I have worked through the sadness as I removed predictions for Carol in no brainer should be easy get categories like Production Design (seriously sometimes Hollywood make-a-me-crazy). The one I left in that I'm very worried about is Cinematography. It's one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. Watch them replace it with something basic like The Hateful Eight or The Martian (sigh). 

MEANWHILE... The Makeup and Hairstylists Guilds and the The Visual Effects Society, which have much larger voting bodies than their correlatives within the Academy released their nominations so we'll share those after the jump if you're interested with a few comments on each...

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The Razzies Are Here (Though You Wish They Weren't)

Kieran, here. The Razzie Awards, “honoring” the worst cinematic offerings of the year have announced their nominees and it’s pretty much as expected—knee-jerk, steeped in misogyny and patriarchal nonsense (more on this later) and generally indicative that they don’t care about quality filmmaking any more than the offenders they’re highlighting. A little background on who votes on the Razzies—voting is actually open to the public. People who want to vote pay an annual fee or you can pay a whopping $500 for lifetime membership. Why would anyone ever pay to be part of this unseemly orgasm of fruitless schadenfreude, you ask? To quote Sarah Paulson’s Abby in Carol, “I can’t help you with that”.

Anyway, here are the nominees...

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Jacob Tremblay is frighteningly good at being a celebrity already. But will he be Oscar nominated?

Recently Scott Feinberg added Jacob Tremblay to his actual predictions for Best Actor nominations. Yes, Best Actor. While Tremblay is obviously the leading man of Room (he co-leads the first half and essentially takes over in the second) he's been campaigned as supporting because he is a kid and that's how kids are campaigned invariably -- remember when they tried to pretend that Keisha Castle Hughes (Whale Rider) was supporting even though her movie had no other leads. LOL. Not so good times.

Tremblay in Best Actor would be a surprise but it maybe isn't a bad call given the seemingly passion-free zone that is the presumed leaders in that particular race. Though I think we'll only see that "promotion" happening if Room is strong enough to nab a Best Picture nomination (I think it is --see the updated Best Picture chart). On the other hand the actors branch, like most organizations, is subject to the whims of the patriachy and as such little boys have a much harder time nabbing Oscar nominations than little girls probably because no one feels comfortable, subconciously that is, making grown accomplished men step aside for children (but accomplished grown women? "Get out of the way for that little cutie, you old hag!"). The most recent valid comparison point in terms of acclaim and size of role might be Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense (1999) who co-led that picture with Bruce Willis and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. In that case though the co-lead was of the same gender and Oscar is generally pretty forgiving of category fraud in those cases. At least since 1991's Thelma & Louise, the last film to be nominated for two leading players of the same gender.)

If Jacob Tremblay were to be nominated in Best Actor (and we hope he is) he'd be the second youngest of all time. His exact age is the subject of question; Wikipedia says he was born in October 5th, 2006, which would make him 9 years old right now but IMDb has no birthdate and recent reporting at Entertainment Weekly refers to him as an 11 year old boy. But regardless of where he is between 9 and 11, if he is nominated tomorrow he will not become the youngest Oscar nominee in either male acting category. The record in Best Actor will continue to be held by Jackie Cooper who was nominated for Skippy (1931) when he had just barely turned 9 and he enjoyed a very lengthy showbiz career thereafter (he passed away in 2011). The record in Supporting Actor will continue to be held by Justin Henry from Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) who was nominated at 8 years of age. Unlike Cooper, though, he did not become a showbiz fixture. 

Anyway remember that time in December that Oscar Isaac was talking about his face on Yoplait "go-gurt" and people went crazy for it? So that popped up again on Jimmy Kimmel with Jacob Tremblay as a guest and the child star handled the crowd with future leading man charm offensive... this is all very Dakota Fanning territory if you ask me. Definitely a kid but a kid with hyper-developed confidence who has eery instincts for sitting at the grown up table like he already belongs there and plans to stay.

Well, I do have a delicious face."

Let's hope Tremblay has great grounding at home and people on his professional team who care more about him than his earning potential. The child star path can be treacherous. Historically speaking child stars take one of these four roads after their first burst of fame 

1. Become a Cautionary Tale: petty crime, drug arrests, self-destructive (too many names to mention)
2. Enter the 'Where Are They Now' Lexicon Hall of Fame: a disappearing act either because showbiz wasn't for them or showbiz didn't want them after all... or some combo of the two.
3. Become Showbiz Troupers: many child stars stay in the business when they grow up with wildly varying degrees of success but their initial child star fame remains a crucial part of why they're famous (Anna Paquin, Drew Barrymore, Roddy McDowall, Christina Ricci, Jackie Cooper, etc...)
4. Ascend: Here's the rarest of outcomes. The actor or actress becomes so popular as an adult movie star once they're grown up that their childhood ascendance becomes an anecdotal part of their history but not anyone's chief focus (Jodie Foster, Christian Bale, Natalie Wood, Liz Taylor)

So best wishes to Tremblay and his team if they choose to pursue the long game of outcomes #3 or #4 or if they take a healthy #2 out if he doesn't stay interested in a few years time. 

OSCAR PREDICTIONS: ACTOR & SUPPORTING ACTOR (Supporting Actor is particularly difficult this year. It's possible to imagine virtually any combination of the top ten as long as Mark Rylance and Sylvester Stallone are accounted for)
NATHANIEL'S BALLOT: My votes in these two categories coming up shortly

Who will be nominated for Best Picture? Our Final Predictions.

The wisest thing to do in Oscar prediction in most years is a holistic approach. Start with Best Picture and let everything flow outward from that. Many technical or acting nominations throughout Oscar history are headscratchers unless you notice that their housing film was up for the big prize. People love what they love and they love blindly. Or, well, that's not right. That's... ungenerous. I don't think anyone is willfully myopic  -- which is why diversity in Academy membership is so important -- it's just that we all have our limitations and our fields of vision can be narrowed by any number of things including time spent looking at options.

If there were still only five. Oscar.... so manly!

For my own awards -- which statistically always include more movies than Oscars field each year -- this is probably because I see more movies and I probably fuss over my ballot more than 90% of Academy voters. They're inside the raging storm (and as some of them have told me over the years they either see movies very early before they're out in the world or well after the fact depending on their connection to the filmmakers studios and demands of current projects) while we're outside the storm looking at it and able to consider it from more vantage points. Of course that always brings the danger of overthinking it, the #1 easiest trap for pundits. "Guilty!" I shout, knowing myself

How many of these pictures will also be nominated? Last year we had 8 nominees in total.

Best Picture is unusually competitive this year and it's been a  clogged up mess. The sudden lurching away from critical darlings  Carol & Mad Mad Fury Road -- no secret at all that they're my two favorite films of the year -- that some pundits were predicting to lead the nomination tallies as recently as a week or two ago, toward more traditional Oscar Bait like The Revenant and The Big Short (read: heavily masculine, more traditional in form and message) has been a bit disheartening. I go on about this and the gender bias of Best Picture in my intermittent column at Towleroad. I am hopeful that Carol will be nominated still but it's no sure thing. I expect Carol and Room and Brooklyn are in the same 'could go either way' boat .. and together with longer shots Sicario and Inside Out -- well it's hard to miss that these are all extremely well reviewed films with female leads. So why are none of them sure things? Oscar might me walking into an #OscarsSoMale situation tomorrow morning. But we'll cross our fingers and hope voters realized during balloting that women are 50% of the human race and their stories aren't any less important and when they're told so gorgeously it'd be a real shame to pass them over. 

UPDATED CHARTS: PICTURE | DIRECTOR | ACTOR | SUPPORTING ACTOR | ALL SOUND CATEGORIES 

Judy by the Numbers: "The Texas Tornado"

Anne Marie back with the next installment in our new Judy Garland series. Before she was a legend, Frances Gumm was a contract player. This meant that MGM could loan her out to other studios. It was common practice for both large stars and minor players. But what makes you Frances unique is how rare it was for her. Today's musical marks the only time MGM loaned out Judy Garland; the rest of her contract with the studio would be spent snugly - if not comfortably - within the white walls of Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Judy's next short would kick off the Garland legend, and jumpstart the young teen's career.

 

The Movie: Pigskin Parade (20th Century Fox, 1936)

The Songwriters: Lew Pollack (Music), Sidney D. Mitchell (Lyrics)

The Players: Stuart Erwin, Patsy Kelly, Betty Grable, Jack Haley, Judy Garland, directed by David Butler

The Story: Already under contract to MGM at the age of 14, the newly renamed Judy Garland's first feature film was a loan out to 20th Century Fox. Pigskin Parade was a low-budget musical - Fox's favorite kind - that cashed in on the early 30's fad for college crooners. Judy plays the hick sister of a barefoot football prodigy (Stuart Erwin) who's invited by accident to play for Yale. Judy gets a handful of numbers, all shot and sounding more or less exactly like this one: she stands, feet planted, and belts pep songs in medium closeup. Young Judy hasn't quite mastered lip synching yet, but already one of her defining features shines: she looks like she's having a hell of a lot of fun performing.