Where are the future Oscar nominees?Last year by this time -- 4 months and one week into the year-- we had seen three of our eventual Oscar nominees, and two of them were biggies: Adapted Screenplay and Best Actress candidates (Away From Her) and [gulp] a Make Up nod (Norbit). Apart from Iron Man's visual f/x (you can probably ink that down) and maybe sound... is there anything out there that AMPAS could remember by year's end? Will Iron Man's jet-pack ignite the very earliest of the early bird nods? What else is there?
Best Picture, Director, Screenplays? Zilch. The Academy has previously shown a liking for the great playwright Martin McDonagh who wrote and directed the crime comedy In Bruges but despite winning somewhat surprised fans, it didn't make enough waves. Stop-Loss (my review) had the heavy-weight topic you need for awardage but not the reviews or audiences. That's a no go, too.
Performances? There's two leads playing (or about to) that we could conceivably see as eventual Otherwise
Young @ Heart is a real crowd pleasing documentary but it's always risky to assume that any particular film will show up in the documentary race... it's not always even clear which films will prove eligible. I suppose Horton Hears a Who could land itself in the animated feature three-spot but the year is young and much ballyhooed contestants are still to come.
Finally, there's the off chance that an early contender could score in Costume Design. That branch of the Academy isn't as beholden to the rest of the competitive Oscar field as some others. To paraphrase Fleetwood Mac 'they can go their own way... go their own waay--ayy-aay'... The candidates thus far: Louise Frogley did 20s work on Leatherheads. George Clooney loves her --she's provided his threads in five films already. On the other hand, the Academy has yet to notice her strengths; There's period gowns and even a lingerie fashion show from Michael O'Connor (never nominated) in Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day; Most likely given previous track records, AMPAS could opt for the great Sandy Powell's royal and elaborate gowns from The Other Boleyn Girl...
Slave driving two-time Oscar winner Sandy Powell forces ScarJo to mend herown gowns on the set of The Other Boleyn Girl.
Do you see any early birds within Oscar's eventual nominees or do you think Iron Man's cocky "oh yeah. I can fly" visual and/or sound effects will be the only contender from 2008's releases to date?
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As a matter of fact, YOUNG@HEART is unfortunately not eligible for the Best Docu Oscar, because it aired on UK TV or something.
I just saw Iron Man yesterday, and I think it's a no-brainer for the techs. Also, though I haven't seen it yet, there's a great chance we'll see Speed Racer in those categories as well. Early word from those who have seen it is that the visual effects are amazing.
Anyway, I loved Iron Man. Perfect casting. I love Robert Downey Jr. I'm hoping that this gives him a career boost. He deserves it. Love him.
While I doubt they'll get Oscar noms I've found a few early contenders for my own personal awards:
Jamie Bell for Best Actor in Hallam Foe
Gus Van Sant for Best Adapted Screenplay (I've been worshipping that screenplay since I saw it) and Best Director for Paranoid Park (as well as Picture/Cinematography/Sound)
Cloverfield for Art Direction and for Sound Effects/Editing.
And, um, Rambo IV for Best Make-Up. It may be ridiculous and absurd but DAMN there was blood and severed heads and bullet wounds galore in that flick!
sandy powell is pretty much costume royalty and i think she'll be there for Boleyn. They often go for the biggest costumes, not necessarily the best (Marie Anionette over Devil Wears Prada; and Elizabth last year over Atonement)
It would be incredibly awesome if The Other Boleyn Girl survived the critical suckage and the February release date and got nommed for Costume Design -- because they're intricately exquisite. Sandy Powell is a GOD. Seriously.
I forgot Sandy designed those, and now I'm pissed that I missed this. Well, sorta. Does Sandy outweigh Scarlett and Natalie and the pulverizing of history? (Note: probably, she does.)
Saw SPEED RACER on Saturday, and I'm very curious to see how/if it fares in the Visual Effects, Cinematography, Score, Sound categories.
Adrian, the costume branch are the ones who determine the actual nominations so even if every other branch would nominate her, the costumers may not. They can be fickle like that.
er, I meant to mean that it may just be the Academy at large that prefers "BIG!" For all we know if the costume branch were the only ones voting they may have given the award to Atonement or La Vie en Rose.
But surely, action movies never really win Oscars, everyone knows that!
Jamie Bell made my Top 5 for last year for Hallam Foe, as it had a 2007 release in the UK. He's cracking in it, though not sure if the 2007 UK release makes him ineligible for 2008 Oscar. Either way he'd probably have no hope for such a quirky low-key independent.
I think the only thing I've seen so far in 2008 that could be campaigned for a couple of nods is Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky. However, it's more Career Girls than Secrets or Vera, so I suspect it hasn't a hope. But if they got behind it then a campaign could be launched for Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress and (perhaps more likely) Original Screenplay.
Rob
I don't know about Supporting nods, but I'm really pulling for Actress/Screenplay for Happy-Go-Lucky.
Well, guys, Sandy Powell also has The Young Victoria coming out this year, and whether or not Blunt gets a nod it's bound to be fresher in the minds of the AMPAS. But she's done the double-nod thing before, so with a strong campaign and a weak category (which I don't forsee, but whatever) she might be able to pull one out for both.
She's basically 2008's Roger Deakins of Costume Design, but I'm afraid the field may be too tough this year. There are so many possibilities.
Even if Young@Heart hadn't aired on British TV, I would question its eligibility. Parts of it -- the music videos in particular -- seemed to cross the boundaries of what constitutes a documentary.
The season here has been quite poor so far.
The best I've seen this year it's the Indiana Jones Trilogy I'm revisiting just to be prepared for the upcoming one ;)
Just as a curiosity, now there is this http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780534/ starring Meg Ryan and Antonio Banderas which has an awful trailer, a terrible title (Mi novio es un ladrón) and that looks as the straigtht-to-DVD movie that gets a theatrical release in Europe.
Iggy
Speed Racer is an interesting pick for sound, Rob, since it's so computer generated that the bulk of the sound was made out of thin air. I'm not sure how people are going to feel about the visuals. It's gorgeous, but it also feels like a video game.
and by gorgeous do you mean garish?
sorry. couldn't resist. I haven't seen it yet but every commercial i'm feeling like "my eyes! my eyes!"
I'm convinced that they've created AT LEAST 17 brand-new, never-before-seen colors for Speed Racer.
*ORGASMS*
Standard Operating Procedure for Best Documentary.
Of course you can never be sure of anything with the documentary branch but certainly an Errol Morris film must be considered a strong contender.
Sandy Powell is a Goddes, no doubt about it, but maybe the Academy will reward her with YOUNG VICTORIA, expecially if the film receives better reviews than THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL (not an impossible task!).
Instead Michael O'Connor will be rewarded more easily for THE DUCHESS.
The great Eiko Ishioka and her astonishing work in Tarsem's THE FALL could be considered to hard to sell to Academy, but actually she'd deserve to be at least considered...
Mirko S.
Patricia Field. Best Costume Design, "Sex and the City: The Movie". Mark it down for an Oscar nod now!
Definitely Iron Man for Visual Effects & Sound.
I would definitely include Cloverfield for sound and cinematography as well. That was crazy.
In cuestion for Hallam Foe it's not necesary ineligible, because the release goes to be in the USA for been an Oscar consideration for a week between LA and NY but could have the real release in the country (In this case UK) a year or even two years ago. Most of the foreign films performances who has nominated used that tecnicism... Ida Kaminska, Liv Ullmann, Sophia Loren, Isabelle Adjani...
It's my opinion, but i don't understand the love of the green dress for Atonement. It's a nice dress but for Best Costume??!! For me it's like Crash crime, instead other good costumes like Sweeney Todd and The assassination of Jesse James or even Love in the time...
My predictions:
*Iron Man: Sound Mixing, Editing and FX
*Sex and City: Maybe Costume (The devil wears Prada) and Song (Fergie at Oscars)
*Famke Janssen: The ISA and maybe the Satellite but Oscars? She needs a very strong campaign and fallen competition...
*Paranoid PArk: Adapted Screenplay, but it's not an opcion because VAn Sant's prime film (MILK)
*Cloverfield: Sound Editing and maybe Sound Mixing
*The other Boleyn girl: Costume but maybe Powell overshadow herself with The Young Victoria
Mirko, unfortunately for Eiko the costume branch didn't bite with The Cell, which had the advantage of being a hit film unlike The Fall, which I doubt will break out of the arthouse ghetto.
And considering The Cell was one of the most visually striking films I've ever seen, it still bums me out to know it only got one lousy make-up nom. No costume, no art direction, no sound.
I thought the sound design for Cloverfield was expertly done (I was actually hearing individual sounds from individual speakers in the cinema) but I think it worked completely against the film's aesthetic. Those handheld digital cameras don't have 5:1 dolby surround sound, surely.
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