Pre-Predicting Gold: Naomi Watts in Diana

Naomi Watts has been trying to get an Oscar since forever. And you have to admit, she's come a long way.

And as an actress, she's gone through a lot on her quest to the top:

 

 

But based on the trailer for Diana, unless the film throws a huge left turn to reveal that Diana was actually suffering from a debilitating heroin addiction and days away from death anyway when she was run off the road by paparazzi on the fateful eve of her passing, there's nothing to believe that it will be anything more than another generic biopic with a hyped performance to prop it up.



Then again, that didn't get in Meryl's way.

But considering that the film has no other discernible stars or director, no mention of the Prince Charles or The Queen side of Diana (if the cast list on IMDB is correct), and not a single fucking bar of Candle in the Wind in the trailer; Watts is going to either need to be flawless or it's going to need to be a pretty bad year for female performances to walk away with a win for this one.

But who knows, anything's possible right?

 

And the Winners Are...

The 84th Annual Academy Awards will air this Sunday. Some things I can predict for sure about the telecast are this: Billy Crystal will be funny and bring some much needed class to the show, there will be a lot of hyping up how movies aren't just video games anymore and, no matter what is going on outside, the Academy still values the movies that keep the magic and wonder of film alive. This despite how, outside of those nominated, and even some of those too, hardly anything released in 2012 will become a timeless classic.

Still, the Oscars continue to exist in all their prestige and glory and no matter how much we would like to believe otherwise, are a yearly staple for film lovers, especially those bloggers who feel compelled to write daily posts and predictions and updates leading up to the show. So, here is what I predict the show will look like in the major categories:

Best Foreign Language Film:

What Will Win: A Separation
What Should Win: A Separation

There's no real logic to this category for me. Every year I pick the film I feel the most people are talking about. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Best Animated Feature:

What Will Win: Rango
What Should Win: Rango

This is a hard one. Most years it's Pixar vs the world. Not only did they not make the cut this year but there's also two films nominated that not many people in North America will have heard of. Last year, despite it truly being the best animated film, The Illusionist lost, so I'm discrediting those. Dreamworks has two spots but both of them were entertaining but thin, while Rango was the true surprise in that it appealed, not just to kids and not just to adults, but to the entire family without being winky or self referential. I hope it wins.

Best Adapted Screenplay:

What Will Win: The Descendants
What Should Win: The Descendants

In a lesser year Alexandr Payne's The Descendants would have been a front runner to sweep all the major awards. Seeing as this is a writer's movie and the Academy hasn't been afraid to honour Payne's writing in the past, this should be an easy call.

Best Original Screenplay:

What Will Win: Midnight in Paris
What Should Win: Midnight in Paris

Midnight in Paris is not only also a writers movie but it is a love letter to writing as a whole. That factored in with the fact that this has been Woody Allen's most successful movie and how Oscar loves a comeback should seal the deal over The Artist.

Best Director:

Who Will Win: Michel Hazanavicius

Who Should Win: Terrance Malick

The DGA has spoken and Oscar rarely ever disagrees. The director of the Artist will beat out the old masters, despite him having his name on the least interesting film of the batch. Will Oscar throw a curve ball and give it to Scorsese? I have my doubts.

Best Supporting Actress:

Who Will Win: Octavia Spencer
Who Should Win: Melissa McCarthy

The Oscars don't often honour character acting, especially in comedy. They much prefer "Hollywood acting" which is exactly the card that McCarthy doesn't hold. I'm often curious if the voters also take into mind what would make for good TV and after her teary standing ovation at the Golden Globes, who could deny Octavia Spencer the win?

Best Supporting Actor:

Who Will Win: Christopher Plummer
Who Should Win: Christopher Plummer

Plummer is a legend. Not only is his time due but look at his competition. This one is a no brainer.

Best Actress:

Who Will Win: Viola Davis
Who Should Win: Michelle Williams

This is going to be the year Oscar isn't going to be racist with the big acting awards. But Oscar also loves it when Actors play real people (especially one of Hollywood's own), so could Michelle Williams possibly sneak in with an unexpected win?

Best Actor:

Who Will Win: Jean Dujardin
Who Should Win: George Clooney

The Academy will honour the star of The Artist for no better reason than that we can't believe anyone anymore who could A) act in a silent movie while B) looking just like a silent movie star. Much more compelling, subtle and complex was Clooney who managed to shed his movie star hunk image to play a wounded everyman just trying to do what he thinks is best for himself and his family.

Best Picture:

What Will Win: The Artist
What Should Win: Tree of Life

My problem with The Artist, although not as deep, is the same as my problem with Drive: they confidently show that they are able to create homage to bygone days but, really, so what? The Artist is an entertaining but thin yarn about silent movies and the effect the emergence of sound had on the stars. And since this is the year Hollywood decided to go retro The Academy will award the film that went the most retro and picked up the most awards along the way. If Hugo had performed better at the box office and with the year end criticis' awards it would have been the undeniable front runner. Tree of Life, on the other hand was the most beautiful, personal, poetic and profound statement any film made this year. If it had come out 40 years ago it would be a timeless classic, but it also required the audience to work to find meaning in it and that's not okay anymore. Therefore the grand poet of the cinema and America's greatest living director will be put behind the film that knew how to rehash the old conventions in the most obvious and simplistic way. Sigh.

The Oscar Nominations for 2011 Are Out: Here are My Thoughts

• Is it really much of a disappointment that Ryan Gosling didn't get a Best Actor nod for Drive? The movie wasn't very good and he was the least interesting character in it. The true disappointment is the lack of love for Albert Brooks in the Supporting Actor category.
• Support Actor: Good for Jonah Hill. I think he said it right when he said people tend to associate you with your beginnings and he has spent the better part of his career thus far pegged as a comedic actor. But given his impressive dramatic abilities in both Moneyball and Cyrus this will hopefully open up a lot of new doors for him.
• I didn't even know Nick Nolte and Max von Sydow were in The Warrior and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close respectively. Who was it that noted that there was a lot of good acting in sub par movies this year?
• There's no one to win Best Supporting Actor other than Christopher Plummer.
• Actress: Viola Davis gets the nod over Emma Stone for The Help. I think that's a good thing. Either way I can't help but think this list of five, except for Michelle Williams, isn't really an accurate portrayal of the best performances by an actress this year. 
• Merly Streep once again proves that her talent is usually above the movies she's in and if they want to succeed they have to rise to her and not the other way around.
• I haven't seen Albert Nobbs but I've read the script. It wasn't very good.
• Both a white woman and a black woman from The Help have been nominated for Best Supporting Actress. If one of them were to win could we have another Crash vs. Brokeback Mountain debate on our hands?
• Wouldn't it be a wonderful surprise if Melissa McCarthy won Best Supporting Actress? Could this be the year The Academy embraces comedy? Probably not.
• For the first year in I can't remember how long Pixar doesn't snag a nod in the Best Animated Feature category despite the fact that Cars 2 wasn't nearly as bad as everyone said it was and a general improvement over the original. Tintin doesn't even make the cut?
• The 3D in Hugo is probably the best I've ever seen but if  Emmanuel Lubezki doesn't win Best Cinematography for Tree of Life, I'll lose a little faith in humanity. 
• Is The Artist going to win Best Director and Picture? It seems like the front runner despite it's limited market doesn it? It instantly looked like the was between The Artist and Hugo and if Hugo had done better numbers at the box office there's no doubt it would have taken the award. However, Hugo hasn't fared as well with the awards as The Artist and Tree of Life. I think Tree of Life is too "out there" to win Best Picture and Hollywood likes to celebrate itself. This will, I therefore predict, be the year of The Artist. 
• Werner Herzog gets the shaft in the Documentary category again.
• Pedro Almodovar gets the shaft in the Foreign Film category again.
• I haven't seen A Separation so for me the best foreign film of the year is still Le Havre, which is, needless to say, not nominated either.
• Every year, since the decision to have more than 5 Best Picture nominees there's always been a trivial film that connected with a large audience and a faux-prestige picture. This year those nominations go to The Help and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.
• They couldn't have just had 10 nominations and threw that extra one to Bridesmaids?
• Year after year the original song nominees are getting depressing. What a lost art this has become (a bigger post of this to come)