Psst. Wanna know who’s going to win an Oscar? The answers are here!
Check that. The possible, dare we say semi-likely-at-this-stage-of-the-game answers are here. Here being nine and a half weeks before the Academy metes out its gold-plated, britannium statuettes Feb. 22.
A lot could change between now and then, but, realistically speaking, a lot probably will not. Still, while there are favorites and front-runners, unlike last year, there are no locks for three of the four biggest categories yet.
Photo: Invision
But let’s start with what appear to be, thus far (is your newbie Bagger hedging enough?), the sure-thing nominees and likely winners among the actors and feature films. First off, the best supporting actor and actress honors look like they are JK Simmons’ and Patricia Arquette’s to lose.
The director Damien Chazelle gave Simmons a terrifically meaty role in Whiplash as a monstrously perfectionist music teacher, and Simmons, 59, owns it. For audiences, it’s a visceral joy to see such venom pouring from the guy who charmed America as Juno’s avuncular dad, and the Academy’s actors branch — with the biggest bloc of voters — likes to reward character actors who have put in their time. Edward Norton, Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke are almost certain to get nods (for Birdman or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance, Foxcatcher and Boyhood). But Simmons is the one to beat.
Arquette, meanwhile, is mopping up nominations and critics’ awards for her role as the mother, Olivia, in Richard Linklater’s filmed-over-12-years labor of love, Boyhood. Though Arquette had a lead role in the film, strategists opted for the less competitive supporting category. In playing Olivia, Arquette, an indie queen turned television staple, dared to, gasp, age on-screen. She is also charming her way through the circuit with her down-to-earth vibe. (“It’s like a Shetland pony winning the Kentucky Derby,” she told the Bagger, after learning she’d won a New York Film Critics Circle award.) Her competitors will probably include Emma Stone (Birdman), Meryl Has-Three-Oscars-Already Streep (Into the Woods), Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game) and Jessica Chastain (A Most Violent Year) or Laura Dern (Wild).
Next up in the its-theirs-to-lose vein is Julianne Moore for best actress for her titular role as a victim of early-onset Alzheimer’s in Still Alice. The film was directed by the married couple Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer, not long after Glatzer learned he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. Still Alice has a Cinderella story, going into the Toronto International Film Festival as an unknown entity and then getting picked up by Sony Pictures Classics. Though the film has received warm to lukewarm reviews, Moore’s performance has drawn raves. (She will also benefit from her Golden Globe-nominated supporting role in the forthcoming Maps to the Stars). More important, Moore has been nominated and passed over by the Academy four times before — twice for supporting roles, in Boogie Nights and The Hours, and twice for best actress, in The End of the Affair and Far From Heaven.
Her competitors this year include Reese Witherspoon, for her against-type turn as Cheryl Strayed in Wild, Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything) and very likely Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl). This year’s wild card, Jennifer Aniston, earned surprise Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations for her performance in Cake, as a woman suffering from chronic pain; an Academy nod, however, seems a longer shot. But Moore — bolstered heavily by her body of work and luckily not up against Streep — is the runaway favorite.
STRONG MEN
Now we venture into less certain terrain.
Best actor is always one of the most competitive categories, which the Bagger realizes is shocking in an industry largely run by men making movies about men.
For a good part of the year, experts — you can visit their forecasting here at goldderby.com - had Michael Keaton as the leader in this category for his role as a recovering movie superhero seeking Broadway’s validation in Alejandro G. Inarritu’s Birdman.
The film and Keaton’s performance have won critical acclaim, and Keaton’s own comeback narrative adds to the appeal. But the awards are also a popularity contest, and though Keaton has a long career behind him, he is also up against the very winning Eddie Redmayne, who plays Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.
Affable and self-deprecating, Redmayne is an effective campaigner who put in a grueling physical performance and won the praise of Hawking himself. Yet he is young and new as a potential Academy nominee and voters might feel he’ll have other chances down the road. He also is running against another Brit playing a British genius, raising the specter of them canceling each other out: Benedict Cumberbatch, who has been lauded for his performance as the persecuted mathematician Alan Turing in The Imitation Game (and has also become the thinking woman’s pinup).
Storming his way into the race in tandem with the meteoric rise of “Selma” is a third Brit, David Oyelowo, who put in a rousing performance as the Rev Martin Luther King Jr. Then there is Steve Carell for his creepy performance in Foxcatcher (could he win by a nose?). And Jake Gyllenhaal has been gaining awards steam for his equally creepy, bug-eyed performance in Nightcrawler. Strong year for the boys, and as of yet an undecided race.
SURPRISE BELLE
Which brings us to this season’s surprise belle of the ball.
For most of the year, Paramount had been heavily backing Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar as its top Oscar contender. But while that film has been a box-office winner, it has gained little awards traction. It has also been wholly eclipsed by the studio’s Selma, directed by Ava DuVernay, who has been greeted with standing ovations at screenings and last week became the first black woman to earn a Golden Globe directing nod.
Not only has Selma brought desperately needed frisson to the best-picture race, but its release also coincides with explosive real-time racial unrest. The cast and crew have taken a definitive stand, donning T-shirts reading I Can’t Breathe at the film’s premiere. What might this mean for the Oscar race? Unclear. At the very least, it looks certain that Selma will receive a best picture nomination.
But it will have a ways to go to beat Boyhood, which is currently held, at least among prognosticators, as the front-runner. While lacking the sweep and glamor that Academy voters tend to embrace, the film shows how a simple idea, backed by monumental effort, can work.
Its main competitors? Along with Selma, Birdman, which has passionate if not universal backing and The Imitation Game. While arguably smacking of Miramax circa 1995, The Imitation Game, directed by Morten Tyldum, not only has all the Oscar-bait ingredients in place — Nazis, World War II — but it is also apparently hitting the right notes at Academy screenings. Oh, and it comes from The Weinstein Company, i.e., Harvey, progenitor of the modern-day Oscar campaign.
Up to 10 films can be nominated in the expanded best picture category; the remaining slots seem destined to include all or most of the following: James Marsh’s The Theory of Everything, Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher, Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken — despite snubs by the Golden Globes and others — and possibly Into the Woods or Whiplash or David Fincher’s Gone Girl. Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper is winning plaudits but might be too late to the game.
Best director? One of the aforementioned, with Linklater having a solid edge over Inarritu, followed probably by DuVernay.
All this could change, folks! But that, fairly or unfairly, is how your Bagger sees the lay of the land.
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