Wednesday, November 27, 2013

86th Oscar Supporting Actor Updates (2013-2014 Awards Season) (11/27/2013)

Oscar loves to reward villains in the supporting actor race, and they’ve got one of the cruelest possible in Michael Fassbender’s rendition of real-life slave owner Edwin Epps. Fassbender has plenty of competition from Jared Leto, Tom Hanks and a host of possibilities seen and unseen, but his biggest competition may come from the overwhelming critical success of his own movie. There have only been a handful of times that Oscar has rewarded the same film with both Lead Actor and Supporting Actor wins (the most recent example was a decade ago with Mystic River), and the near certain wins that 12 Years A Slave will be picking up in other places could mean that supporting actor is an easy place for voters to spread the wealth to another film, especially if Fassbender refuses to hit the campaign trail. Still, I think he’s the best bet until the precursors point us clearly in another direction.



1. Michael Fassbender in 12 Years A Slave (Predicted Winner)
2. Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club
3. Tom Hanks in Saving Mr. Banks
4. Bradley Cooper in American Hustle
5. Jonah Hill in The Wolf Of Wall Street



Alternates:
6. Barkhad Abdi in Captain Phillips
7. Daniel Bruhl in Rush
8. James Gandolfini in Enough Said
9. Harrison Ford in 42
10. Will Forte in Nebraska
11. John Goodman in Inside Llewyn Davis
12. Matthew McConaughey in Mud
13. Jake Gyllenhaal in Prisoners
14. David Oyelowo in Lee Daniels’ The Butler
15. George Clooney in Gravity
16. Ryan Gosling in The Place Beyond The Pines
17. Geoffrey Rush in The Book Thief
18 Dane DeHaan in Kill Your Darlings
19. Sam Rockwell in The Way Way Back
20. James Franco in Spring Breakers
21. Josh Brolin in Labor Day
22. Jeremy Renner in American Hustle
23. Steve Coogan in Philomena
24. Chris Cooper in August: Osage County
25. Bradley Cooper in The Place Beyond The Pines



26. Ben Foster in Ain’t Them Bodies Saints
27. Casey Affleck in Out Of The Furnace
28. Matthew McConaughey in The Wolf Of Wall Street
29. Paul Dano in Prisoners
30. Woody Harrelson in Out Of The Furnace
31. Keith Stanfield in Short Term 12
32. Tahar Rahim in The Past
33. Javier Bardem in The Counselor
34. Joel Edgerton in The Great Gatsby
35. Paul Dano in 12 Years A Slave
36. Bobby Cannavale in Blue Jasmine
37. Tony Danza in Don Jon
38. Andrew Dice Clay in Blue Jasmine
39. Tobey Maguire in The Great Gatsby
40. Sharlto Copley in Elysium
41. Benedict Cumberbatch in August: Osage County
42. Colin Farrell in Saving Mr. Banks
43. Ben Foster in Lone Survivor
44. Brad Pitt in The Counselor
45. Cuba Gooding Jr. in Lee Daniels’ The Butler
46. Brad Pitt in 12 Years A Slave
47. Ewan McGregor in August: Osage County
48. Michael C. Hall in Kill Your Darlings
49. Tommy Lee Jones in Emperor
50. Johnny Depp in The Lone Ranger


As always, check the Tracker Pages in the upper right hand corner of this blog for the most updated predictions in all categories!
See Supporting Actor predictions for other years HERE.
Or check out the Lead Actor, Lead Actress and Supporting Actress predictions.
See predictions for other categories at the 86th Oscars HERE.
Switch to another year:  87th,  88th,  89th  
.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

86th Oscar Animated Feature Updates (2013-2014 Awards Season) (11/19/2013)

The Animated Feature race is always fascinating to me, not least of which because half of the submission list comes from international entries. Personally, I think that every category should be that way, since there are, after all, a whole world worth of actors, directors, costume designers and all out there.

This year the top competition comes from Disney’s yet to be released Frozen and Hayao Miyazaki’s final work The Wind Rises, with Pixar’s Monsters University feeling like a close third. I’ll be closely following Frozen’s reception and box office when it opens during the U.S.’s Thanksgiving weekend, but for now I’m thinking that the sentimental vote will propel Miyazaki’s swan song to the win.



1. Hayao Miyazaki for The Wind Rises (Predicted Winner)
2. Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee for Frozen
3. Dan Scanlon for Monsters University
4. Stephanie Aubier, Vincent Patar and Benjamin Renner for Ernest & Celestine
5. Kirk De Micco and Chris Sanders for The Croods



Alternates:
6. Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud for Despicable Me 2
7. Hiroyuki Okiura for A Letter To Momo
8. Chris Wedge for Epic
9. Fernando Cortizo for The Apostle
10. Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn for Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2
11. Luiz Bolognesi for Rio 2069: A Story Of Love And Fury
12. Nancy Florence Savard for The Legend Of Sarila



13. David Soren for Turbo
14. Sang-ho Yeon for The Fake
15. Jimmy Hayward for Free Birds
16. Anthony Silverston for Khumba
17. Klay Hall for Planes
18. Yukihiro Miyamoto and Akiyuki Shinbo for Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie Part 3: Rebellion
19. Raja Gosnell for The Smurfs 2



As always, check the Tracker Pages in the upper right hand corner of this blog for the most updated predictions in all categories!    
See Animated Feature predictions for other years HERE.
If you’re really into animation, check out the Animated Shorts also.
See predictions for other categories at the 86th Oscars HERE.
Switch to another year:  87th,  88th,  89th  
.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

86th Oscar Adapted Screenplay Updates (2013-2014 Awards Season) (11/17/2013)

One of the things that Oscar watchers have to explain to the general public each year is that the Adapted Screenplay race includes not only adaptations from books, television and older movies, but also any sequel whose characters are based on an earlier work, and even some films that are very loosely based on a news or magazine article. This year, however, several studios seem to be attempting to change that trend, by campaigning their movies in the original screenplay category instead.

In most cases this isn’t going to matter anyway: The films that are challenging their presumptive categorization made my long list but don’t show up in my top five in either this category or my previously published Original Screenplay predictions. But it does make me wonder what the writers -- and their studios -- are up to. Might they be paving the way toward a new delineation of the categories and a future rules change? Or are they simply trying to position themselves so that the films will be noticed in other places (or at other award shows)?



1. John Ridley for Twelve Years A Slave (Predicted Winner)
2. Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke for Before Midnight
3. Terence Winter for The Wolf Of Wall Street
4. Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope for Philomena
5. Billy Ray for Captain Phillips



Alternates:
6. Tracy Letts for August: Osage County
7. Abdellatif Kechiche and Ghalia Lacroix for Blue Is The Warmest Color
8. Jason Reitman for Labor Day
9. Destin Cretton for Short Term 12
10. Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber for The Spectacular Now
11. Danny Strong for Lee Daniels’ The Butler (if voters don’t accept the “original” campaign)
12. Michael Petroni for The Book Thief
13. Peter Berg for Lone Survivor
14. Steve Conrad for The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty
15. Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce for The Great Gatsby
16. Carl Joos and Felix Van Groeningen for The Broken Circle Breakdown
17. Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck and Shane Morris for Frozen (if voters don’t accept the “original” campaign)
18. William Nicholson for Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom
19. Hayao Miyazaki for The Wind Rises
20. Joss Whedon for Much Ado About Nothing
21. Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro for The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug
22. Robert L. Baird, Daniel Gerson and Dan Scanlon for Monsters University (if voters don’t accept the “original” campaign)
23. Mark Protosevich for Oldboy
24. Daniel Pennac for Ernest & Celestine
25. Abi Morgan for The Invisible Woman



26. Kasi Lemmons for Black Nativity
27. Francois Ozon for In The House
28. Gilles Bourdos and Jerome Tonnerre for Renoir
29. Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof for Star Trek Into Darkness
30. Josh Singer for The Fifth Estate
31. Simon Beaufoy and Michael Arndt for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
32. Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster for The Motel Life
33. David Nicholls for Great Expectations
34. Lem Dobbs for The Company You Keep
35. Tony Briggs and Keith Thompson for The Sapphires
36. Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire for Oz: The Great And Powerful
37. Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard, Damon Lindelof and J. Michael Straczynski for World War Z
38. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg for This Is The End
39. Tom Bradby for Shadow Dancer
40. David Gordon Green for Prince Avalanche
41. Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio for The Lone Ranger
42. William Wheeler, Mohsin Hamid and Ami Boghani for The Reluctant Fundamentalist
43. Carroll Cartwright and Nancy Doyne for What Maisie Knew
44. Morgan Land and Ariel Vromen for The Iceman
45. David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan for Man Of Steel
46. Chris Morgan, Hossein Amini and Walter Hamada for 47 Ronin
47. Drew Pearce and Shane Black for Iron Man 3
48. Malcolm D. Lee for The Best Man Holiday
49. Karl Gajdusek and Michael Arndt for Oblivion
50. Gavin Hood for Ender’s Game



As always, check the Tracker Pages in the upper right hand corner of this blog for the most updated predictions in all categories!    
See Adapted Screenplay predictions for other years HERE.
Or check out the Original Screenplay predictions.
See predictions for other categories at the 86th Oscars HERE.
Switch to another year:  87th,  88th,  89th  
.