Oscar Watch: Animal Kingdom

Released criminally early for a film with such Oscar potential Animal Kingdom is starting to get the right momentum from the right places and specifically for a film with the World Cinema dramatic Grand Jury prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival it might just sneak in.
Look to Animal Kingdom to be the surprise package of this years ceremony. Though it doesn’t boast an impressive a box office haul (it barely raked back its budget) and features a cast of relative newbies (bar Guy Pearce) David Michod’s directorial debut is looking to make a name for itself on the international stage.

 

Oscar Watch: The Way Back

Maybe it is me, maybe it is the trailer but something just doesn’t seem right about Peter Weir’s return to the big screen. 7 years after Master and Commander: Far Side of the World he returns with The Way Back, a true story about a group of soldiers who escape a Siberian gulag and then walk to 4,000 miles to India. The trailer just rings rather false to me, and seems as though it’s for some straight-to-DVD docudrama.

But this is only the trailer and a director of this calibre brings with him a certain clout and Academy repertoire. The cast is certainly Oscar-friendly with Ed Harris, Colin Farrel and Saoirse Ronan all heading up the cast. One thing already in the films favour, as evident from the trailer, is the use of accents. Yes, Valkyrie was a rather middling drama but I found the mish-mash of accents between the protagonists (be it Nighy’s think English or Cruise’s glaring American) extremely distracting from any drama the film might have made. No such discrepancies from The Way Back with all characters having regional accents, thank god.

Considered a very, very outside chance for Best Picture it is being geared up, and released, as though it is a hot contender with a ‘fashionably late’ release date. The story line, another ‘based upon a true story’, is very Academy friendly but it does face serious competition in most categories and without the festivals behind it, it could ‘do an Australia’ and disappear come awards season.

 

Oscar Watch: The Kids Are All Right

With Milk getting nominated for numerous awards and Sean Penn winning Best Actor, the Academy has proved that the charge of homophobia that met Brokeback Mountain not winning Best Picture was a either a load of cobblers or something they’ve passed. An ideal time then, for a topical film about sperm donation and same-sex marriage starring 2 of the best actresses in Hollywood today as the heads of this dysfunctional, nuclear family.

Whereas heist films were what up-and-coming directors cut their teeth on in the past, take Resevoir Dogs and The Killing for example; both directorial debuts for 2 directors who are now considered some of the best ever, these days it’s dysfunctional families that all the indie directors are clamouring to portray on the big screen. The Royal Tenenbaums, Little Miss Sunshine and Precious, whilst not all thematically similar, surround slightly, or very, broken families. This year it is Lisa Cholodenko who directs The Kids Are All Right that may well become a sleeper hit and surprise people at the Academy Awards.

Expect this to get nominated in the same categories that Little Miss Sunshine did 5 years ago, with Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay and maybe a Best Picture if they’re lucky. Early buzz is positive, but not overwhelming, for the 3 adult leads but don’t count out the Academy giving Annette Bening or Julianne Moore the award purely as a ‘lifetime achievement’ rather than for this performance, as they’ve been known to do. Mark Ruffalo is long overdue a nomination and though he didn’t get one for Zodiac (this still irks me, he was the most interesting lead in that film) he could well get a ‘lifetime achievement’ nomination and that would go someway to appease me.

The basic synopsis is a gay marriage (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) with 2 children is going smoothly before one of the kids gets in touch with their sperm donor father (Ruffalo) who shakes up the life of the family and may help the marriage become stronger. The critical reception over the pond is positive, describing it as a “warm, funny, sexy, smart movie erases the boundaries between specialized ”gay content” and universal ”family content” with such sneaky authority.”, it just depends how much of an Academy push this film is given and its July release date certainly didn’t do it any favours. As with all films we can wait and see but I’d be surprised if one of the leading ladies doesn’t get a nomination.

 

Oscar Watch: The Fighter

I hope it happens. I want it to happen. I think he deserves it to happen. But will it? I don’t know. Will Christian Bale get his long-overdue Oscar nomination? He certainly looks the part having trimmed to near the weight he was when he filmed The Machinist, which was another stellar role of Bale’s that went unnoticed. A shaved in receeding hairline adds to make Christian Bale look chillingly authentic as a washed up boxer who has turned to drugs and wants to take his younger brother (played by Mark Wahlberg) under his wing.

David O. Russell has directed some good to great films and this is another with an outside chance for Best Picture but I wouldn’t bet on it. Acting wise though Amy Adams is present, having already been nominated before for Doubt, could luck into another and Mark Wahlberg could get one, but it depends upon which side of Mark Wahlberg decides to turn up. He can be brilliant (Boogie Nights, The Departed) and he can be woeful (The Happening, Max Payne), it all just depends upon how well written his role is and for that reason I think we could see a good performance but not quite Oscar-worthy.

Other than that I’m expecting The Fighter to draw a blank but I could be pleasantly surprised. I definitely want to give this a look-see but if I were to miss it at the cinema, I wouldn’t be crying into my popcorn.

 

Oscar Watch: Hereafter

For an 80 year old Clint Eastwood is an incredibly prolific director: 6 films in 5 years. Amongst those 5, whilst none are his best work, none are his poorest either. Heavy buzz for Invictus last year fizzled into disappointment come Oscar season and this year he has re-teamed with Matt Damon for supernatural thriller Hereafter all about the afterlife.

Eastwood’s films have always been ground in reality or even based on real events so Hereafter sees a change of pace and a director stepping out of his comfort zone. The trailer itself has an air of The Sixth Sense and whilst the Academy loved that they’ve been remiss to embrace anything similar to that since.

In fact films about the afterlife which have previously been Oscar favourites generally fail to show up, see The Lovely Bones as an example. In fact the afterlife is a tricky thing to display on film and I maintain one of the few films to do it well is the British classic A Matter Of Life And Death. Reportedly this has the most special effects shots in an Eastwood film since Flags of our Fathers with the majority of them being used to recreated the 2004 tsunami which, from the trailer, pays an important part to the film. Still Eastwood’s films come Oscar time generally only get nominated for the ‘Big Five’ if any at all so eyes on the acting categories.

The script is by Peter Morgan who also scribed The Queen, The Last King of Scotland and Frost/Nixon, well we know how much the Academy hated those. But again this is the first time Morgan has forayed into the supernatural and the first time he’s tried his hand at something which ISN’T based on real events. I expect a nomination but not a win.

As previously noted in my Oscar Watch: True Grit, Matt Damon is certainly a busy bee these days and Eastwood always seems to get the best out of his actors so although the film is receiving middling reviews across the pond at the minute don’t discount him from the Oscar race, he’s more than capable to pull it out of the bag.

Not due in the UK until January 28th (sigh) it has just been wide released in the USA which is quite early for thewith films looking to make an Oscar run but with some heavy publicity, it could mount a challenge.

 

 

Oscar Watch: The Kings Speech

The King’s Speech looks to be the very definition of Oscar-bait,  being a period piece, about British royalty and involving a disability (steers clear of full retard though). So much so that American comedian Bill Maher has chimed in saying “Unless someone in America is making a movie where Meryl Streep teaches Anne Frank how to box, we give up.” How right you are Bill, how right you are.

Will it have any artistic flair? The trailer seems to point squarely towards….staleness. Tom Hooper, though well-regarded in and around Hollywood, has never appealed to me, yes he gets good performances out of his actors, yes his films are well scripted, but where is his joy de vive? His je ne sais quoi? Personally I’d much rather see a director take risks and stylize rather than banking consistently on stock direction.

With the very definition of an all-star cast I predict 3 nominations guaranteed: Colin Firth for Best Actor, Geoffrey Rush for Best Supporting Actor and Helena Bonham Carter for Best Supporting Actress. But between these 3 only Helena Bonham Carter is really trying something new, or rather a change of pace from previous films. Colin Firth is hot-stuff in Hollywood following his superb performance in A Single Man and whilst this doesn’t seem too much of a challenge for an actor who cut his teeth on period, dramatic roles, it’s still more of a step in the right direction than Geoffrey Rush, who seems to be addicted to supporting roles in acclaimed british films (see Shakespeare in Love). It has been a while though since Helena Bonham Carter has played a truly dramatic role and, from the trailer at least, she looks to be a perfect foil for Colin Firths stammering King.

We shall see if this is the Academy Award sweep it seems destined to be but early reviews are unanimous in their praise so expect this to be a hot contender from now until the 27th of February.

 

Toy Story 3

Toy Story has been with me since childhood, the first 2 films setting the bar immeasurably high for future animation films and comedies aimed at children in general. Although we’ve seen a few films match the series for immediate crossover appeal between children and adults, they’ve fallen by the wayside with more recent outings (Shrek and Ice Age). Imagine my fear then when they announce the oft-rumoured Toy Story 3 as an addition to the series, what would they do to my beloved Woody, Buzz and Jessie?

If you were like me then have no fear! What has emerged from the genius of Pixar is not only a charming comedy, a fitting end to the toys who have been with us so many years but also a lament on what it is like for all of us to grow up and leave our childhood behind. A sobering thought and one that hangs heavy over the end of the film. Doubtless this is a melancholy film, a meditation on loss and love but jokes are abound as always, and even if you don’t get the side-splitting laughter that you expect, the end is sure to move you in ways you never thought possible.

Don’t get me wrong, this is still a children’s film at heart but that doesn’t limit it to 3-13 year olds, it’s aimed at the child that is still inside of all of us and reassures us that it is okay to let go of the past, just don’t ever forget it. Pixar, flawless with all of their output, never talk down to there audience and that is perhaps the reason for it’s massive appeal to new and old fans of the brand with each film building on the success of the last.

An unlikely triumph Toy Story 3 is heartwarming end to the series that I really can’t recommend enough, even if you haven’t seen the previous 2 installments or any animated film this will delight and charm anyone who is willing to watch.