In Contention
By Josh Spiegel
February 24, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
We’ll start as big as they get, with Best Picture. As I’m sure you vaguely remember (or will remember on Oscar night with an utterance of, “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.”), there are 10 Best Picture nominees, ranging from Toy Story 3 to The Social Network to 127 Hours. My final pick remains the one that’s become more and more apparent in the past few days: The King’s Speech. While The King’s Speech has not won every important precursor award (most notably, it lost the American Cinema Editors’ award this past weekend to The Social Network), the wave of love (or, mostly just like) for this movie is inescapable. A handful of film writers and critics have already written off this film’s presumed victory as one of those movies that, a decade after the fact, most people are embarrassed to know is a Best Picture winner.
Are they right to do so? I’m no big fan of the film, but for recent frustrating victories, I have to point to Crash. Everyone assumed that Brokeback Mountain had the heat to win the Best Picture for 2005, but it lost to this multi-character drama about how the world is small, racism is bad, and other obvious and trite statements. Crash isn’t the worst Best Picture winner ever, but I would argue that it’s just not a good movie, even though it appeals to the base instincts of the typical Academy voter: lots of actors, set in Los Angeles, talks about social issues, and so on. The King’s Speech has many faults, but should it win, there will be no surprise. As I’ve said in weeks past, I want surprises from the show, and a surprise in this category would be any movie aside from The King’s Speech or The Social Network winning. As it stands, this is a two-horse race, and the winner is going to be the King of England.
But are there any dark horses in the category? Could there be a third film in the running, something that sneaks behind the top two movies? Some of the Best Picture nominees have about zero percent of winning — I love Toy Story 3, but it’s not taking the gold, sadly — but there are a few films worth watching. My pick for a dark horse winner is as simple as the film is: True Grit. What does True Grit have going for it? It’s directed and written by two recent former Oscar winners, Joel and Ethan Coen. Though they’re still very quirky filmmakers, the Coens have been embraced by the Academy (why else would A Serious Man have gotten a Best Picture nomination last year?). It stars last year’s Best Actor winner, Jeff Bridges, in an iconic role once played by John Wayne.
The film also stars Matt Damon and Josh Brolin, includes a great supporting performance, and is a Western. What’s more, just like The King’s Speech, True Grit isn’t a movie that’s receiving much hatred. One of the reasons why Black Swan, for example, isn’t likely to win Best Picture is because those who love it, love it, but those who hate it, really loathe it. No one really hates The King’s Speech (not even me), and no one hates True Grit. On a preferential ballot, that is very important. True Grit is still not a guaranteed spoiler in this category, but if I have to pick one, I’m sticking with Rooster Cogburn.
Next up, Best Supporting Actress. It’s been discussed just about everywhere in the last week about how the front-runner of the category, Melissa Leo of The Fighter, got some negative heat when she bought out ads in the industry trade magazines advertising herself. Not the film, mind you. Herself. Whatever your opinion of these ads (I’m no fan, but I also don’t despise her for doing it), it’s not getting her the right amount of attention. I continue to hold steady with the following tack, though: if an Oscar voter doesn’t vote for Leo in this category, it better be because they didn’t think her performance was worthy, not because of these ads. Right now, most pundits are pointing to Helena Bonham Carter as the potential winner for her barely-there role in The King’s Speech, but watch out for Hailee Steinfeld. There is historical precedent for teenagers winning in this category, in the form of Anna Paquin and Tatum O’Neal. She could steal it.
The final category I’ll talk about today is Best Cinematography. As a reminder, the nominees here are Matthew Libatique for Black Swan, Wally Pfister for Inception, Danny Cohen for The King’s Speech, Jeff Cronenweth for The Social Network, and Roger Deakins for True Grit. Many people have assumed that Deakins is going to win, mostly as a would-be lifetime achievement award. (It is noteworthy to point out that Deakins, arguably the most prolific and finest lenser working in Hollywood right now has never won an Oscar. If you don’t know his work, look him up on IMDb, and remind yourself: he’s never won.) While Deakins deserves an Oscar, and may well pick it up for his work on True Grit, the American Society of Cinematographers didn’t give their award to him this year, but to Pfister for his work in Inception.
Does this mean Deakins will remain the latest version of the Susan Lucci of the Oscars? Deakins still has the front-runner heat, but Pfister (and, as a dark horse, Libatique) could take it away, thanks to his consistent and amazing work with director Christopher Nolan (Pfister’s worked with Nolan on all his films, except for his first, Following). I will be happy no matter who wins in this category, presuming that Cohen doesn’t win. While I’m sure he’s a nice guy, the camerawork in The King’s Speech is the wrong kind of distracting, often trying too hard to be artsy. Everyone else in the category—especially Libatique — did amazing work. I’m sticking with Deakins here, but in this category, True Grit may not be the dark horse candidate.
Next time, we’ll go over the winners, and I’ll likely make fun of something relating to the Oscar hosts, Anne Hathaway and James Franco, or the jokes they’re being forced to tell. With all luck, all we’ll be talking about is wild surprises. In all likelihood, we’ll be discussing...well, The King’s Speech, Toy Story 3, The Social Network, and a few other films. My fingers are, as always, crossed, but I don’t plan on keeping them that way for too long. We’ll be live-blogging the show at Box Office Prophets Sunday evening, so keep an eye out for that. It’ll be a billion times the snark, so you are warned, friends.