Extremely Loud-Mouthed and Incredibly Close-Up Oscar Predix
Friday, July 8, 2011 at 7:34PM 
...and everyone is doing it now that the year is half over. Wheeee.
Best Picture
Here are updated predictions in all categories from Best Picture down to Best Key Grip. The new Best Picture rule -- they can have anywhere between 5 to 10 nominees and we won't know until Oscar nominations are announced -- is causing me chart difficulties. I can't figure out, aesthetically, how to divvy up charts with so many different numerical outcomes. If you must know I would like to make this wild July speculation that there will be 6 nominees to include War Horse, The Descendants, We Bought a Zoo, J Edgar, The Artist and new entry Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close which now plans to arrive in 2011.
It's not that I have any particular hunch or faith in that upcoming Stephen Daldry 9/11 film. It's more like anti-wishful thinking: See, I'm allergic to movie representations of that day since I was here in New York City and I tend to find the world's and especially the media's obsession with it absolutely grotesque. (For reasons that have nothing to do with cinema or the Oscars, so let's move on...)
John Williams and Steven SpielbergBiggest Annoyance
The music categories are always high-maintenance in terms of predictions. Original Song has zillions of hard to figure eligibility issues. Plus, there are still so many films that have not announced their composers in the Original Score category. Yes, it's often a late-to-the-party job as movie productions go. But I always suspect that even after the composers are announced that it takes a good long while for that information to trickle onto key pages like official sites and the IMDb. If you know of a better source of who's scoring what, do let me know. (I don't want to have to call 12 production companies!) With J Edgar, however, which also hasn't announced, it feels safe to assume that Clint Eastwood will compose some simple piano motifs for it because that's how he do.
That said, this category might be easier to predict than usual because the King of the Category John Williams will surely take up 40% of it. Oscar's music branch has always trembled for his Treble, zinged for his Strings and mooned over his melodies so they'd never pass up the chance to honor him for The Adventure of Tin Tin and for War Horse now that he's scoring again after basically a six year break from features (excluding that Crystal Skull reprising). John Williams turns 80 next year and chances are strong that they won't want him to retire without a sixth Oscar.
Craziest What If?
The new prediction I'm most enamored of because it's a Winding road way off the well-paved Bait path and because it would be highly awesome if the crazy thing came to pass and I predicted it first is an editing nomination for the Cannes hit Drive (2011). I mean why the hell not, right? It's July. Think outside the Bait Box! The prediction holdovers that I was initially excited to imagine but am now worried about -- though I didn't change them -- were all the Captain America nominations (Costumes, Makeup, Visual Effects). When I went there months ago I was totally confident that it could happen but public fatigue with superheroics makes me wonder if all films from this genre will be snubbed even in seemingly likely places like visual effects. Did Green Lantern leave an emerald stain?
The movies are getting all jumbled in my head now.
Why is Gosling driving off with the good Captain. Where is he taking him? "SHOTGUN!"
And on a final note, looking over Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor the competitions and competitors seem far more interesting than usual. Supporting Actor, for example, seems to have a number of Career Honors vs. Career Honors vs. Career Honors possibilities and in the lead race, could it finally be Leonardo DiCaprio's year? Or maybe the manly half of the acting lineups will get boring real fast and it really will come down to a Close vs. Streep 80s throwback Actress-Off. Maybe it's just the oppressive July heat warping our crystal ball.
Comments? You realize we cry a single tear for every post that doesn't enter double digit comments, right? Don't cause us any more agony. Once you're done contemplating Oscar, hit the gym, the links, and the (Italian) showers. Yeah, yeah, it's summer ...but this blog has air conditioning.
Reader Comments (34)
I love reading your opinions and I agree with most of them.
My predictions for now are close to yours, but I fear you're underestimating YOUNG ADULT a lot. I'm not talking Charlize because that can happen or not but Diablo Cody + Jason Reitman - and you know we'll get the OVERHYPE in Toronto/Telluride as his movies always do and we'll have another year when it will be too hard to resist him.
Seriously, YOUNG ADULT has a bigger shot at it than A Dangerous Method which you placed very high.
And even Charlize... I know she got the nomination on a weak year but she got that 2nd nom for 'North Country' rather easily whereas Joan Allen should have gotten it and didn't. So it's obvious they like her. And they LOVE Reitman. And they also LOVE Cody. And they may love her more since she's now 100% dedicated to the movies again.
And I also believe you're overestimating THE ARTIST quite a bit. Do I need to remember that The Weinstein also picked up last year LE CONCERT, also a big hit in France with Mélanie Laurent and all and it didn't pan out?
I know it's time to think outside the box but I can't believe 'The Tree of Life' won't get 5% #1 votes, for example. And the 'indie' slot will go to JASON REITMAN for sure if his film is any good (no 'Martha Marcy May Marlene' or whatever).
Super 8 for visual effects? The train crash sequence was very good, but other than that the effects were not that great. I really think the nomination is unlikely.
On Original Scores... You're right, John Williams will pick up two nominations (only one if Tintin sucks REALLY BAD - which I don't believe it will; it'll be at least a huge box office hit).
Dario Marianelli WILL get one for 'Jane Eyre'. Alexandre Desplat will get his usual nomination as well (when that man wins I'll go out and drink myself to stupor - he's so deserving).
For the last spot... Giacchino. For what score... I don't know. You're counting out his score for 'Cars 2' which I read somewhere he thought was his best since 'Up'.
And I thought I read somewhere that is was Soderqvist scoring 'Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy'.
And Nathaniel in the cinematography page... It's EDUARDO SERRA. He's Portuguese :)
Jorge - I really have heard no buzz on the new Reitman film, but it does feel like there's a bit of Reitman fatigue going on right now doesn't there? (maybe that's just me projecting my feeling onto everyone). As for Charlize's North Country nod, that feels more like her riding her own coattails (a common Oscar occurrence). I'm not convinced she has staying power.
Nathaniel - I like all these picks. Don't necessarily agree with them (though you'll probably hear more than you want that Tree of Life should be up there, I admit you have a good argument against it's inclusion). Are we sure Keira Knightley will be lead? That trailer just feels so much like it belongs to the two men and her part feels very one note, perhaps a good note but not fully arc'd. Even if she's a lead-level character, it feels like another "lead as supporting" nomination.
Yes Robert but I believe that Diablo Cody's script for 'YOUNG ADULT' won't have to be very good to be considered for a nomination; whereas 'BRIDESMAIDS' will have a much more uphill battle to get there.
I know there is some Reitman fatigue (after that Adapted Screenplay fiasco and all) but if there's a young filmmaker they seem to LOVE LOVE LOVE is Jason Reitman.
I'm not feeling it for We Bought a Zoo, don't really know why. If I had to predict picture right now (which is always crazy this far out, but fun) I think it would look something like this:
1. War Horse (As Munich showed, if he has the frontrunner slot to begin with, Spielberg will find a way in, even if he doesn't win in the end)
2. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
3. Midnight in Paris
4. Tintin/Hugo (one of these two will get in, but I don't think both will)
5. The Artist
6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (A reward for the whole franchise and all the money it's made Hollywood)
7. The Descendants
And the big snub: J. Edgar
I'll give my Best Pic predix too, since all the cool kids are/will be doing it
1. War Horse - Spielberg power.
2. Midnight in Paris - AMPAS loves a comeback
3. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Daldry + self serious = Academy gold.
4. The Artist - Crowd pleaseing & Weinstein power.
5. Tree of Live - Enough passion to get in.
6. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Big hit + leftover Fincher love/guilt
7. The Ides of March - will capture the Obama era political frustration
The Descendants - feels like minor Payne
Hugo - They don't like off/genre Scorsese, and a kids movie at that
J. Edgar - I'll believe they're back with Eastwood when I see it.
We Bought a Zoo - I'll believe Crowe is back in form when I see it (I have anti-Crowe bias).
Score is a nightmare because you never know what the Music Branch will do. Plus, the rules don't literally say "score means underscoring," but that's how it almost always plays out. And then when it doesn't (like The Village), people are left scratching their heads and going "that film?"
I'm predicting because I like them so much, Rango and Jane Eyre will be disqualified for some bs reason a two days before the nominations are announced. Doesn't Jane Eyre have a song in one scene that wasn't written by Marianelli? You never know if they'll say "No. The scene with the woman at the piano is too significant. Disqualified." Why yes, I have grown cynical about this category in recent years. Thank you for noticing.
In my book, DiCaprio's last great performance was in "Catch Me If You Can." When I think of the string of performances from "Gangs of New York" to "Revolutionary Road" to "Inception," I think of something mechanical and under-internalized about his work: Insert tears here. Scrunch my face into big emotion here. Look sensitive and caring here. When Spielberg is on fire in his storytelling, he can really draw out his actors, as he did with "Catch Me," but Eastwood works so quickly that he seems to rely on the sheer talent of his actors to carry the movie, which makes me skeptical that "J. Edgar" will contain a great DiCaprio performance. (Not to mention the fact that Hoover was a repressed freak. DiCaprio's idea of repression is an intense red-faced brow-scrunch thing.)
I absolutely loathe "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close", the novel, and I think it's unfilmable. So if Daldry turns this into anything watchable, he deserves an Oscar.
(By the way, I wrote part of my thesis on Foer's "Everything Is Illuminated", so I don't hate the author. I just really think his second novel is terrible.)
Spy Kids 4 for everything!!!!
First of all anything called "Incredibly Long and Extremely Wordy" or "We Bought a Zoo" will NOT win Best Picture. Both -- OUT!!
Leonardo's best performance? "Blood Diamond" No contest. BogartESQUE.
Definite INs:
War Horse
Midnight in Paris
Tree of Life
J Edgar
Deathly Hallows
Folks, folks, it's all in the Title.
Chris - I totally agree with you about Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close! Yuck. I like a precocious little hero as much as the next guy, but wow, that book really took it to the next (unbearable) level.
@Owen: I've heard that argument about Leo before, but I have to disagree. Those tears, that anguish and pain that he displayed in Revolutionary Road came from a place he had yet to tap into. His was the performance that left the biggest impression on me after watching that film (and that's saying a lot considering the other homeruns in that flick) and the tragedy was so real to me because of what he was able to do.
As for this year, for some reason I've had a sneaky suspicion about Bryce Dallas Howard in The Help. I haven't read the book, but knowing what I know of the character and seeing the few snippets of her performance in the trailer, it has me wondering. Of course there's the controversial nature of her role and the fact that she might push some people away if she plays the character TOO well (I'm assuming we're supposed to hate her), but I think she may have a shot too. I know Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis are the best bets, but it's just a thought.
Also, it would be really cool if someone from Bridesmaids got a nod. I've loved Melissa McCarrthy ever since she was the "original" Sookie on Gilmore Girls! And I'm kinda confused as to where Knightley (God I hope she gets it!) will end up because some are saying she'll go supporting.
Jim Broadbent is so good at the sympathetic husband role that it makes me wonder exactly what point of view Phylidda (I love those British names) will take with the Thatchers. Too sympathetic, and a leftie who blames the Thatchers and the Reagans for many of the problems the two countries face today will bolt from the theaters. Too critical, and the opposite will be true. And too wishy-washy or splitting-the-difference, and you please no one.
I just have pure faith in Daldry in delivering Oscar ready films. He’s a 3time nominee, with 2 Oscar winners, plus Eric Roth wrote the script.
Also sometimes I pick my predictions based on how good they sound when they are announced in the morning. That’s why I choose A Dangerous Method *ooh, dangerous* and I don’t like the sound of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I honestly though it was a kids film before I looked up what it really was.
The Artis also sounds good along with The Tree of Life, so elegant.
Is there some bad buzz about Michelle Williams or something? Because she went from number one to the third tier. I've heard rumors that her performance is more of a supporting role...but the Oscars have taught us that oftentimes co-leads/supporting perfs CAN qualify as lead if the character is uber famous and/or extremely showy (usually both...a la Streep as Julia Child and Whitaker as Idi Amin).
I feel very confident that by January next year War Horse and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close will be nominated for best picture. Spielberg is one of the most beloved director in AMPAS history and the source material has already been critically praised and showered with awards at the Tony's. Daldry has gotten in before with a very divisive and mixed reviewed film before (The Reader...in a year with five nominees, nevertheless). AMPAS obviously responds to his films well, so I think he's a safe bet for picture/director.
I am not feeling We Bought a Zoo...sorry, I think Crowe is a has-been and I still haven't forgiven him for Elizabethtown. The Descendants and Midnight in Paris seem like good bets and I'm just going to go out and say that A Dangerous Method will be this year's Black Swan and ride a waive of critical and audience support to a best picture nomination. And I also think Malick has enough goodwill support to get a best picture nomination even though many hate his film. Weinstein will have a tough job convincing voters to take a silent film seriously, so I have my doubts about The Artist...although he is such a manipulative SOB that I probably am underestimating him and his sleeziness. The Iron Lady will probably end up being the Meryl Streep show (like all her films) and Tin Tin/Hugo will probably be thrown aside as children's films (and War Horse could somewhat fill that void in the lineup).
1. War Horse
2. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
3. The Descendants
4. Midnight in Paris
5. A Dangerous Method
6. The Tree of Life
Another side-note...if Midnight in Paris continues to ride its wave of audience support throughout the rest of the summer and retains its buzz through the end of the year and receives expected pic/director nominations, do you think any of its actors will receive nominations? I love the film, but IMO there isn't a momentous/obvious awards contender a la Penelope Cruz back in '08. However, I was shocked at how much I enjoyed Owen Wilson (his best performance by a mile) and Marion Cotillard was as always warm and enchanting (although she's had trouble catching awards buzz since her win, even with great performances in Nine and Inception). But could there be Actor/Supporting Actress nominations for them?
Until I actually see "Contagion" (and maybe after) I'm putting Laurence Fishbourne on my list for Best Supporting Actor. I was so irritated when I read that his contract wasn't being extended for CSI because he didn't have enough "broad audience appeal" that I immediately wished that he would turn out an Oscar-worthy and Oscar-nominated performance.
Also, Nat, is there a reason you don't have Ryan Gosling for Drive in any of your best actor predictions? I agree that the Ides of March appears more Academy-friendly (and it can't hurt that Clooney is helming it, and he's been on a roll recently), but Gosling did receive raves in Cannes.
No love for Emily Watson for Best Supporting Actress for War Horse? Still early to say, but it seems more likely than Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis.
i don't think williams will get a double nomination this year....only if this fail of a tin-tin attempt will produce a greater score than his hedwig theme. The war horse will be his shoe-in.
marianelli's jane eyre was alright - i would say better than P&P but incomparable to atonement.
perhaps a nomination
also gustavo santaoalla...ugh oscar greedy...but on the road?
maybe a howard shore year with hugo cabret + a dangerous method? i'm anticipating those.
as for desplat - my man - this year doesn't look good for him (oscar-wise). his work for tree of life was barely used by lord malick but his genius in music selection was marvelous - yet detrimental to the eligibilty of "original score." i personally loved the score for it's transient and somewhat minimal quality that is a better version of glass' style.
his work for the deathly hallows part two is rather....controlled. i feel like everyone's expectation of the finale of finales (for the lack of a better word) commercialized his style.
over run by epic cues only his instrumentation and orchestration shine through the bombastic tracks. (i would've placed his work for Part 1 as the nominee instead of king's speech...but it's the oscars)
i dont know what i'll do if the academy nominates reznor and ross again. their work for social network was...catchy...but __________. i guess this is part of the whole conspiracy that the academy is trying to appeal to the youth and hip....and go "cliche" with real music.
(another example 2008s slumdog.....to the oeuvre that is desplat's work for benjamin button....)
whatever - we all know desplat is worthy, he wins every year at the world soundtrack awards....where he always outshines john williams....an oscar will only be the cherry on top of his career....
I loved Desplat's score for HP7-Part 1 and, since the critics are all saying that the score is one of the best parts of the new movie, it might be a way of killing two birds with one stone and reward both Desplat and the Harry Potter franchise with a significant award without compromising the ceremony with a perhaps undeserved best picture nod.
@thefilmjunkie. This is just my opinion, of course, about DiCaprio. I think he's occasionally a superb actor, but that he works too hard in his acting--by which I mean, the seams of his work show. (I remember the interviews from him, Mendes, and Winslet about how he uncovered some new emotions onscreen in "Revolutionary Road"; I just didn't see it in the actual film.) The main problem, I think, is that there is not enough lightness and humor in his work. Even an evil bastard like Javier Bardem in "No Country" or Daniel Day-Lewis in "There Will Be Blood" had some razor-sharp edge of irony or comic extremity that prevented the performance from being strenuous. Two performances of DiCaprio's that I do admire, "Gilbert Grape" and "Catch Me," show he's perfectly capable of what I'm talking about.
@Owen: I actually agree with you to an extent. I haven't seen "Catch Me If You Can" in a while, but I remember liking Leo's performance more than anything else in the film because of that "lightness" that you mentioned. I'd love to see him do more of that as well.
Owen -- i get what you're saying but I would counter to say that I don't think he works hard enough. I think he has a few fallback tics that are really discouraging if you consider how large his innate talent is. He COULD be another Daniel Day Lewis... or at least he seemed extraordinary in his youth... but instead he settled for just being a strong movie star with occasional flashes of brilliance. I really really really wish he'd push himself and get a director who didn't need him to greenlight their movies to push him around or to less predictable places.
So...I guess Sandra is pretty much guaranteed a follow-up Oscar nomination for this, right?
A few things:
Firstly, I've pointed this out before, but Spielberg is NOT the Academy favorite that so many people seem to think he is. Yes, he has won twice, but they only seem to nominate him when it seems like it would be a crime to do otherwise. Consider that both Jaws and The Color Purple received Best Picture nominations WITHOUT earning Best Director nominations for Spielberg. In addition, Spielberg received DGA nominations for Empire of the Sun and Amistad but was eventually snubbed by the Academy for both. Close Encounters wasn't nominated for Best Picture. A.I. had a good showing at the Golden Globes but didn't make a dent at the Oscars aside from Visual Effects and Original Score. My point: Spielberg is not an Academy favorite so much as he is someone who occasionally makes movies that the Academy simply can't ignore.
I have to say that I really don't get all the Best Picture buzz for Midnight in Paris. This doesn't reflect my personal opinion, as I adored the movie, but I just don't see it getting nominated. Maybe if we were still on the 10-nominee system it would have a chance, but getting 5% #1 votes seems a bit unlikely to me. Besides, weren't the reviews for Match Point even better? And that didn't really gain any Best Picture traction. I think Original Screenplay is a good bet, but that's it.
I'm going to go ahead and guess that Knightley will be campaigned as a supporting actress for A Dangerous Method, even if she has sufficient screen time to be a considered a lead. Studios usually don't like to have two lead campaigns unless nominations seem absolutely assured for both of them, like Walk the Line. Otherwise they don't seem to like taking the risk, so if they're able to increase their chances of getting Knightley nominated if she goes supporting, I think they'll do it. I mean, they certainly could have had Christopher Plummer go lead in 2009 for The Last Station, but they already committed to Mirren being the lead, and two lead nominations for that film seemed unlikely. I think this will be a similar scenario.
Some bold predictions based solely on gut instinct:
-J. Edgar and The Descendants will disappoint. They'll get a few scattered nominations between them, but neither will get in for Picture or Director.
-War Horse will be well reviewed but won't get very many actual raves, and it will essentially take a similar path that Atonement did in 2007, meaning it will begin to become doubtful as to whether or not it will be nominated, but in the end, it still will be. It will just be considered a somewhat weak nominee, and it won't be a serious contender for the win. It may even come down to it being nominated for Best Picture but not Director (and it wouldn't be the first time this has happened to a Spielberg film, as I stated earlier).
Nathaniel, I think we're exactly on the same page regarding DiCaprio's mannerisms. I believe when he does his heavy emoting, what I called above his "red-faced brow-scrunch thing," that he's working his ass off in a part--that is, he's straining so HARD to get it right. But he's simply being too literal-minded and heavy-handed and humorless.
Arguably he has the best track record of any current actor with regard to picking directors. But Mendes failed him, Nolan failed him, Scorsese has failed him as often as he's enabled him to do good work (parts of "The Departed" and "The Aviator"), Cameron IMHO was a wash, and only Spielberg and Lasse Hallstrom did good by him. I have strong doubts that Eastwood and a second round with Baz will change matters. So who knows what would make him the actor he could be, except maybe some internal switch that only he can switch on.
To prodIDGal, "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" has too long of a title but "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II" is fine on length? Um...
Plus, I refuse to believe that HP has any chance whatsoever of scoring a nomination. It seems like people are using the LOTR argument, which in my opinion is inappropriate (ROTK may have *won* based on the strength of the series, but that was a win, not a nomination, and the trilogy had garnered dozens of nominations, far more than HP). I could be wrong, of course, but I'll believe it when I see it.
I'm also skeptical of Midnight in Paris. Others have said it and I agree: that seems like a film a lot of people would list on their ballots, but not in the #1 spot. I also think the move back to fewer nominees will lower the chances of a Spring/Summer release getting nominated.
And as for We Bought A Zoo, I don't get the love, Nathaniel. My predix:
1. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
2. War Horse
3. J. Edgar
4. The Artist
5. The Tree of Life (I wonder if this is competing with the Artist for more adventurous voters' support).
6. either Ides of March or Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I'll go with the former.
If asked to be adventurous, I'd add Moneyball or (Moneyball's not adventurous enough for ya?) Crazy, Stupid Love... then again, I long for a return to the late 80s/early 90s when quality cutesy films (Ghost, Field of Dreams) got noms so I'm clearly just having some wishful thinking.
And I also believe you're overestimating THE ARTIST quite a bit. Do I need to remember that The Weinstein also picked up last year LE CONCERT, also a big hit in France with Mélanie Laurent and all and it didn't pan out?
Jorge... Actually the real acclaim of the film came for the American and British critics... Variety, Screen Daily, The Hollywood Reporter, The Guardian. The french response was more reserved. Also, even with mixed reviews; The Concert came with a Golden Globe nom (Not bad for a divisive film)