As
the year comes to a close we are finally seeing the Oscar picture come into
focus. The Golden Globe nominees (http://www.goldenglobes.org/2012/12/nominations-2013) showed little
to no surprises, and although they separate films into two categories: Drama or
Comedy/Musical, they are usually a good indicator of how the Oscar nominations
will break. The Drama category usually
holds a little more weight, and for those looking for nom expectations that’s
where you should turn. The Academy is
doing things a little different this year and the Oscar nominations will
actually be decided before the Globes telecast.
Nonetheless here are the films seen in the past six weeks or so and
their Oscar hopes:
‘Life
of Pi’: More of a director’s piece than anything, ‘Pi’ will certainly get
attention for world-class director Ang Lee and see support in technical
categories for its visual brilliance. A
Best Picture nom isn’t unforeseeable and a Best Actor nomination for Suraj
Sharma would be well deserved but a bit of a surprise considering the field.
‘Flight’:
It wasn’t expected to make much noise, again due to the extremely deep field
this year, and it didn’t. Zemeckis’,
director of ‘Forrest Gump’, first live action picture since ‘Cast Away’ (2000)
was largely uneven and its main character’s climatic revelation seemed
uninspired. However Denzel Washington
gave a gritty performance as per usual and a Best Actor nomination is not out
of the question.
‘The
Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’: What was thought to be the must see film this
holiday season turned out to be a dud, both critically and commercially
(brought home a respectable $86 million the first weekend but in comparison to
the LOTR trilogy it was a major letdown).
It could see some nominations in tech categories like sound and make-up
and although McKellen and Freeman give strong performances as Gandolf and
Bilbo, the film may prove to be too much of a flop to compete in the
ultra-competitive Best Supporting and Best Actor categories.
The
Current Frontrunners: ‘Lincoln’ and ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ will be going head to
head in nearly every major category and each should garner at least two acting
nominations each as well. ‘Argo’,
although an incredibly well received film by critics, is losing steam and seems
to be suffering from too early of a release date. Films that will still have plenty of
nominations but might not have as high of expectations as ‘Lincoln’ and ‘ZDT’
are: ‘Silver Linings Playbook’, ‘The Master’, ‘Django Unchained’, and ‘Les
Miserables’.
Full
reviews are still to come for ‘Django’ and ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ (after I’ve seen
it) and ‘Les Miserables’ may or may not have enough clout to warrant a full
post, if not it will be included in a wrap up.
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