Calling the Splits

Serious Film's Michael C. here to ask an inconvenient question. As predictions are being finalized around the web it becomes clear that a large bloc, if not a majority, of pundits are predicting a picture/director split with The King’s Speech taking picture but David Fincher claiming the director trophy. 

No doubt there is some wishful thinking at play by those still stinging from The Social Network’s flame out at the guilds awards. “Okay, maybe those Philistine voters will deny Social Network the big prize but how could they bypass an established master like Fincher in favor of Tom What’s-His-Name?”

The King Speaks. (The king being Fincher. His movies do rule.

I don’t mean to throw cold water on a plausible scenario that I would much prefer to a Speech sweep, but the burning question is this: When has a picture/director split ever been predicted? The answer: No time I’m aware of.

Here are the 6 times in the last 30 years picture director split along with the expected winners going into the ceremony:

2005 - Crash/Ang Lee
Brokeback Mountain was widely favored to win both prizes. There was, to be fair, an inkling of a Crash win here and there, but the vast majority called it for Brokeback early on.

2002 - Chicago/Polanski
The conventional wisdom that the only thing preventing a Chicago sweep would be the urge to give Scorsese an overdue win for Gangs of New York. Instead we got a Polanski win predicted by exactly nobody.

2000 - Gladiator /Soderbergh
Pundits thought they saw a spilt coming this year as most predicted DGA winner Ang Lee to repeat at the Oscars but popular favorite Gladiator to take top honors. They were half right. Traffic’s Soderbergh blindsided Lee. 

1998 - Shakespeare in Love/ Spielberg
Do we need to go over this one again? Private Ryan was thought to be a lock for both prizes.

1989 – Driving Miss Daisy /Oliver Stone – The smart money was on Born on the Fourth of July to take Picture along with director. Miss Daisy pulled an upset.

1981 - Chariots of Fire/Beatty
If anyone was going to upset the epic Reds in the top category it was assumed to be box office hit On Golden Pond, not tiny, foreign Chariots of Fire.

And here are two more widely predicted splits that never happened:

2006 - Little Miss Sunshine or Babel /Scorsese
Many imagined that voters would be satisfied looking elsewhere for picture after finally giving Scorsese his due. Nope. They genuinely loved The Departed.

1995 - Apollo 13/Gibson
The prevailing mood was that DGA winner Apollo 13 would take picture and, since Howard missed a director nomination, the acting branch would carry Gibson to a directing trophy. Braveheart took them both.

Fincher supporters can take solace in the fact that splits appear to favor big name auteurs in the directing category, or that we're due for a split since they seem to occur about every five years. Other than that, history suggests either the most obvious of outcomes or a wild card that nobody sees coming.  

My knowledge of what was predicted gets hazy before the 80's. Is there some precedent for a Speech/Fincher split I'm missing? Let me know in the comments.

The Highs and Lows of Oscar Afterglow

Kurt here from Your Movie Buddy

Even barring the obvious perennial faves like Meryl Streep and Randy Newman, don't the Oscar nominations continually feel like class reunions? For every John Hawkes, there's an Amy Adams. For every Aronofsy, a Coen brother. Of this year's nominees in the eight major categories (that'd be producers, actors, directors and writers), 20 of them earned prior nominations within the last six years. Now, this is of course partly due to the fact many of these folks are indeed the best in the business (if Scott Rudin promises to produce a movie like The Social Network every year, I'll start digging a mine just for the purposes of throwing gold at him), but it also joins December's annual jam-packed awards-bait schedule as further proof that the Academy's short-term memory dictates much of their decision-making.

And that can yield some positive outcomes for Oscar-watchers. Harvey Weinstein's gag-me-with-a-doily campaign for The King's Speech aside, Colin firth deserves every bit of the praise – if not, perhaps, every freakin' award – he's received for his heroic star turn, and if his recognition for A Single Man helped that along, then all the better. Likewise, if a recent victory at the Kodak podium is what caused a performance like Javier Bardem's in Biutiful to derail a veteran bone-throw to Robert DuVall, I'm all for it.

YOU AGAIN: Bardem, Firth, Bridges

But then there's the issue of undeserved honorees who choke out the worthy competition because of who they are and how freshly familiar they are among the comfort-over-quality voters. I don't think there's any way Melissa Leo's LOOK AT ME!! white-trash theatrics weren't going to get the attention they demanded, so I won't waste sentences describing my personal distaste for the performance (I know Nathaniel feels differently)and the belief that a Frozen River paved her road. But how about Jeff Bridges? Isn't his Rooster Cogburn, however amusing, a rather snoozy portrayal that would have been passed over if not for the newly-Oscared man behind the eye patch?

The Coens: Oscar's power coupleAnd what about those Coens? It's thrilling that their richly deserved No Country For Old Men win has given them carte blanche in Hollywood, but did they really need to be in the running yet again? They already snagged a preposterous, space-filling Best Picture nod last year with their most outre effort to date, and now they've unseated Christopher Nolan, which they themselves have acknowledged with innuendos. What's it going to take for them to alleviate all the Academy swooning? A black-and-white, foreign-language documentary about black transgendered prostitutes? (Get crackin', boys!)

Of course, this whole phenomenon isn't new (one need only look at the careers of guys like Tom Hanks and Johnny Depp for evidence of Oscar's afterglow tendencies), but it does seem to be an increasing norm, and not just because the nominees are pros in their primes. Per the pattern, we don't exactly need a crystal ball to envision which of this year's hopefuls may well be back in 2012. David Fincher has The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which already has the combination of proven craft and surefire box office to make it a contender. If Like Crazy can ride the same Sundance-to-Oscar wave as Winter's Bone, then co-star Jennifer Lawrence could find herself in the discussion again. And we're certainly all familiar with James Franco's output. Who's to say he won't be the next to shine in the afterglow light?

Fincher, Lawrence and Franco: Future afterglow beneficiaries?

Do you think Oscar afterglow is good? Bad? Both? Some of this year's nominees will surely be benefitting soon.

"Chris, that was no dream"

Too funny not to share, though I was suspicious at first. Hilarious, really, all told. The video pokes good fun at Black Swan, The Social Network and Christopher Nolan's Inception in particular and has the smarts to end before the 3½ minute mark. [Thanks to Jorge for the tip]

Tuesday Top Ten: Actress Psychic ~ The Winners

As faithful readers know, The Film Experience has been doing a little contest called ACTRESS PSYCHIC for the past four years. It goes like this: Readers have to pick their 5 predicted BEST ACTRESSES in the first week of April and those actresses earn points throughout the year through special events, nominations, wins, certain magazine covers, etcetera. In other words, guessing LONG before there is much buzz at all outside of Sundance entries. In 2010 Nathaniel (c'est moi) majorly biffed this contest due to time constraints and a series of unfortunate events. Points were never tallied and the drama of the contest was lost.

 
And boy would there have been drama. I definitely picked the wrong year to drop this (crystal) ball. The shame, the shame.

BEST ACTRESS was unusually competitive this year and a lot of the women that readers picked would have racked up some points here and there like Julianne Moore (The Kids Are All Right) and Noomi Rapace (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo). The most common guess that didn't pan out was Anne Hathaway in Love and Other Drugs... but NO ONE was psychic enough to say "I bet she won't get traction but will become the next Oscar host!" Whod'a thunk it? Hilary Swank in Betty Anne Waters (that's what Conviction was called a year ago) was also a very popular guess. At least the Swankster got a SAG nomination. Helen Mirren in The Tempest and Carey Mulligan in Never Let Me Go were popular guesses that never caught fire in reality later on. The most frequently cited names for films that didn't show up at all (this happens every year) were Hiam Abbas in Miral and Robin Wright in The Conspirator.

I didn't want to let awards season end without sharing a hearty congratulations to a dozen contestants in particular. 12 READERS GUESSED FOUR OF THE EVENTUAL FIVE ACTRESSES THAT WERE NOMINATED. Well done! You're in the tippity top percentile of Oscar Psychics!  The order of the following over-achievers is estimated since we biffed the contest and point tallying but Portman would have obviously been the highest point earner (wins and celebrity ubiquity) and Williams worth the least points (not an Oscar newbie, low profile and not showing up in each battle.) From the people who were not nominated Hathaway, Moore, Swank, Rapace and the like would have probably been worth the most due to Globes, SAG or BAFTA recognition.

THE TOP TEN PSYCHICS

Best Actress 2010: Portman, Williams, Lawrence, Kidman, Bening

10 (3 WAY TIE)  Ryan RM, Ronald R and Chicano1616 guessed 4 of the 5 Actresses correctly but they all chose the wrong film for Annette Bening (Mother and Child which was not an uncommon guess either) and that would have costs them many of the Bening-centric points.

09 DJ guessed everyone but Portman. Whoops: Robin Wright

08 Lucas G guessed everyone but Portman. Whoops: Hathaway

07 Wayne guessed everyone but Portman. Whoops: Hathaway but nailed the tiebreaker by predicting The Kids Are All Right to get 4 nominations.

06 SaveFerris guessed everyone but Williams. Whoops: Jennifer Connelly

05 sasnyder guessed everyone but Lawrence. Whoops: Hathaway

AND NOW OUR MEDALISTS...
Imagine Canada and US national anthems now.

04 (BRONZE)  SCOTT L guessed everyone but Williams (Whoops on Hathaway) but I am estimating that Williams would have been the lowest point earner of the 5 eventual nominees and Hathaway would have been worth a bit.

02 (SILVER MEDAL TIE) RICH AUNT PENNYBAGS missed only Kidman. (Whoops on Swank).
DEREK in NY missed only Williams. (Whoops on Hathaway) They tied on the tiebreaker going over and under the correct answer.

01 (GOLD MEDAL)  MIKE28 is our winner. He missed only Michelle Williams. (Whoops picked Anne Hathaway though she was still worth some points. Saturday Night Live hosting and more.) And his tiebreaker answer for number of nominations for The Kids Are All Right: 4. Spot on.

This is Too Rich...

And by too rich, I mean frugal.

Thanks to Guy Lodge for alerting us via Twitter. It seems that porn producers UKNakedMen may have repurposed The King's Speech's memorable sets for some man-on-man action. And not the kind involving speech therapy though, come to think of it, Colin Firth was seen gagging on balls in the film. (Sorry!)

Mildly NSFW sample / link after the jump 

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