The Nominees
Theatrical Motion Picture The Diving Bell and Butterfly, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood
Animated Bee Movie, Ratatouille and The Simpsons Movie
Documentary Body of War, Hear and Now, Pete Seeger: The Power of Song, Sicko and White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
This changes nothing. OK, something. Diving Bell continues to look surprisingly strong. In a year with so many strong American films, can a foreign language offering really land on Oscar's shortlist? Today's snubbed: Into the Wild and the Globe winners Atonement and Sweeney Todd. What a stubbornly crowded Best Picture race this remains. I love it. How many years are there still 8 films in contention right up to the last week? Not many.
Past motion picture awards this decade (winners in red)
2006 Babel, The Departed, Dreamgirls, Little Miss Sunshine, The Queen
2005 Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash, Good Night and Good Luck, Walk the Line
2004 The Aviator, Finding Neverland, The Incredibles, Million Dollar Baby, Sideways
2003 Cold Mountain, Last Samurai, LotR: Return of the King, Master and Commander, Mystic River, Seabiscuit
2002 Adaptation, Chicago, Gangs of New York, LotR: Two Towers, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Road to Perdition
2001 A Beautiful Mind, Harry Potter, LotR: Fellowship of the Ring, Moulin Rouge!, Shrek
2000 Almost Famous, Billy Elliott, Crouching Tiger..., Erin Brockovich, Gladiator
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31 comments:
ugh, I give up.
on what? predicting best picture?
it is difficult this year, isn't it?
8 films. 5 slots.
i'd say SWEENEY TODD is least likely so maybe it's 7 films. 5 slots. but still... those 7 are pretty tough to decipher
If Best Picture is hard...how about the 5th Director slot! Now that's hard! Burton, Gilroy or Wright? I'm saying Gilroy...though I'm not cewrtain at all.
I know NCFOM and TWBB will get Picture Noms. Other than that...I'm stuck. Well...I know Sweeney won't.
I gave up after the Writers Guild announced their nominations! With all this talk of screeners and dates, i dont know what to think.
I dont think the guilds will be as indicative as they were in other years. This line-up seems too male-centric, and i cant see voters putting Juno in their number-one spot.
I have seen "Michael Clayton" today and I can't understand why this picture is receiving so much award attention.
I think the BP Oscar nominees will be:
Into the Wild
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
It seems to me like the nominations will be:
Into The Wild
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country For Old Men
There Will Be Blood
The real contest in my eyes is Best Director. I can't see Gilroy or Reitman getting the nod but I also don't think they'll have two lone directors (anyone know the last time that happened?).
2001, at least. Ridley Scott and David Lynch instead of Baz and Todd Field.
Oh yeah, of course. It's pretty rare though, rare enough to almost guarantee it won't happen again this year.
I can imagine Gilroy getting a nomination but he's the weakest of the legitimate candidates, even behind Joe Wright, I'd say.
I'm gonna predict:
Atonement
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Into the Wild
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
But maybe Juno instead of Diving Bell? Who knows? I still can't see Atonement missing out, but it's probably wishful thinking. Oh well.
It is hard to see Atonement out after the globe (and likely BAFTA) win. I personally think there've been issues with the screeners to guild members that we haven't been made fully aware of. I'm thinking:
Atonement
Into the Wild
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
I just saw Sweeney Todd tonight, and I don't think it's making it. However, one could argue that American Gangster is still very much in contention. So that's sort of 9 films.
Right now, I think American Gangster has a better shot (SAG nomination, after all) than Atonement. There's just no overlap between Oscar voters and the HFPA, and with the awards season compressed like it's been lately, we've seen the Globes become less and less influential. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in a year where the fun part of the show -- the drunken partying and sometimes unexpected winners -- was cancelled, it does make them kind of pointless. This year.
Adam, that line-up would be amazing if it happened - the best I could hope for anyway.
I believe Atonement will eventually manage to get in. Then somebody has to snubbed in favor of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly whose buzz seems irresistibly strong. Well, that somebody is Into the Wild.
My Predix:
Atonement
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
So glad Diving Bell is being remembered.
I'm sticking with "Atonement" to the bitter end. Sigh guilds.
BP:
"Atonement"
"Juno"
"Michael Clayton"
"No Country for Old Men"
"There Will Be Blood"
HOWEVER . . . only 3 of these guys make it into director.
BD
Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"
The Coen Brothers, "No Country for Old Men"
Tony Gilroy, "Michael Clayton"
Sean Penn, "Into the Wild"
Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Crazy?
I think Michael Clayton misses. Does anyone actually love that movie? C'mon:
Atonement
No Country for Old Men
Diving Bell and Butterfly
Juno
There Will Be Blood
No Country and TWBB split the critic/arthouse vote and Atonement wins. 1996 all over again (if you squint really hard, Ellen Page looks like Tom Cruise).
Sweeney Todd = Evita with more blood
I don't actually think Director is that hard:
Coens
Schnabel
Anderson
Wright
Penn
Reitman and Gilroy have no chance. Burton's the only one who can sneak in here.
how does GILROY have no chance? He's a DGA nominee. They always have a chance. Especially when you consider that the people voting on established auteurs have more than enough choices to split votes.
i'm not saying he's going to be on the nominees but it's a possibility. just look at past years.
Well perhaps it's overstating it to say Gilroy has no chance. But nominating a first-time director of a competently-directed-but-nothing-fancy film seems like a pretty weird way to go considering all the other options.
I guess I liked Michael Clayton less than many (I get the Swinton love -- everything else, not so much) so maybe that's where my view is coming from.
Haven't seen Into the Wild or Diving Bell yet so I'm just going off buzz on those.
I think Michael Clayton misses. Does anyone actually love that movie? C'mon:
I know I sure as hell don't. It irks me to no end that "Atonement" has been shat on left and right this season, but middlebrow "Michael Clayton" of all things has sailed through the guilds with no problems and is looking at a BP nod next week.
being a usual enemy of the middlebrow film I have to say that I feel like everyone who doesn't like Michael Clayton just isn't noticing or doesn't care about what it's attempting to do and how much its succeeding in doing. It's actually quite a fascinating movie and there's a lot of real non-coddling adult stuff in there which is --I'm sure you'll agree --not the modus operandi of the traditional middlebrow choice.
The ideal review for doubters to read I think is Nick's. He only gives it a B but it's a very articular in depth overview of the movies considerable strengths (and fumbles)
it's disappointing to me that people want to compare Michael Clayton to stuff like Cinderella Man (that's middlebrow) I mean, this movie has a brain. A sweating exhausted brain. Yes, it's from an overworked blah genre but so what?
To my mind the most middlebrow of the successful awards season pictures is Into the Wild. Or maybe Juno (which I like more and more on repeat viewings --still hate that first half hour though)
And now you're condescending to people who didn't like or flat-out hated "Michael Clayton" b/c gosh, they just "didn't get it"? Get the hell over yourself already.
it's disappointing to me that people want to compare Michael Clayton to stuff like Cinderella Man (that's middlebrow)
No, no, that's not at all what I'm saying. But compared to Atonement, There Will Be Blood, No Country, and Sweeney Todd, it's definitely middlebrow. Juno we could argue about but Juno has a unique feel and rhythm to it, with a truly winning central performance, while Michael Clayton is much more generic. I just read Nick's review and his conclusion is: "Not everything works in Michael Clayton, and from moment to moment the movie is eminently prosecutable for cutting certain corners or eliding certain truths. But the movie hums along on a lot more engines than most Hollywood products even dream of firing up." I don't disagree with that, but that's a serious curve we're grading on if we're making it an Oscar lock in such a strong year.
I haven't seen Into the Wild, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if that were a ton more middlebrow than MC.
Well, if MC is the most middlebrow film in contention, then this has been a pretty great awards season. It's a hell of a lot of better than most of the stuff we usually see getting a free pass into the oscars. I really really enjoyed it and have yet to hear a good explanation of why it's so undeserving of the praise, under than the generic "middlebrow" charge.
It does some pretty complex stuff emotionally, and just on a craft level, it's really very solid... it gives you that major gut punch and visceral satisfaction at the end without throwing out its brain in the process, and that's quite rare, I think. For a first time directorial effort, it's pretty damn impressive.
I for one am really glad to have a year without a Crash or Finding Neverland or Seabiscuit or A Beautiful Mind or Chocolat or other piece of pandering middlebrow pap.
Though I guess American Gangster could still make it.
"Michael Clayton" is middlebrow, palatable, glossy fare that's getting far more attention than it deserves. It has no place in any kind of best picture lineup, and if George Clooney didn't star in it, people wouldn't give a damn about it. It's no more than juiced-up "Law & Order".
anonymous who doesn't like being condescended to...
nobody does. But if you actually read what I wrote I wasn't being condescending. I'm allowing that some people just don't care about what Michael Clayton is doing (that's different than saying you don't get it)
and if you think it's rude to also suggest that some people don't "get" a movie (any movie actually) well, I don't know what to tell you.
in my opinion ALL movies will have people who don't "get" them --including me. I'm 100% certain that I haven't been right about every movie and that I've missed things that other people have seen in great ones.
I'm not placing myself on any pedestal and looking down at people who don't like Michael Clayton, but I do take offense to people who just keep repeating this annoying notion taht it's a Law & Order episode. Havnig seen both, it's a ludicrous comparison apart from genre.
but i'm sick of reiterating this. If you don't see it, it's just not for you ... agree to disagree
oh and Peter thanks for the clarification. I'd agree that compared to some of the other BP frontrunners (unless there are major surprises on Tuesday it's going to be an unusually strong lineup) it is middlebrow, sure.
It's just that that word usually has connotations that involve a movie being all easy sentiment and no actual ideas. And I don't think that that applies to Michael Clayton
"Michael Clayton"'s middlebrow, and you can write a damn novel about how it isn't, but it still won't change my viewpoint any.
Into the Wild so isn't middlebrow!!
That's totally what I thought it would be going into it - and I'd put it off for weeks - but oh my god I was wrong. It has real grace and soul. It has some of the most gorgeous photography of the year courtesy of the underrated Eric Gautier; it has three astonishing, quiet, unshowy, nomination-worthy performances,;it has a beautiful soundtrack from a genuine songwriting talent on his solo debut.
Sean Penn - big props to him this time - assembled some really fine components for this one.
Will someone please notify John Stockwell that police director larry godwin of Memphis Tenn. is using the name of blue crush.godwin says he has the name trademarked. He has it painted on everything and is on tv all the time talking about blue crush and it's not the movie.
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