Posts Tagged ‘Oscars’

Here are our assessments on this year’s nominees for the 83rd Academy Award category of Best Actress in a supporting role.

Amy Adams

The Fighter

This is Adams’ third Academy Award nomination, with prior ones being for her performances in Junebug and 2008’s Doubt. She has yet to win the award but when nominated she has always had a strong chance of winning. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for her nomination this year. With recent ventures into romantic comedy (Leap Year), children’s films (Night at the Museum 2), and vehicles which present a stage more for her voice than her acting abilities (Moonlight Serenade), her nomination for The Fighter is most likely just an endorsement from the Academy and her peers to stay within the realm that seems to showcase her talents best: i.e. drama. Her role in The Fighter was not all that difficult for her nor was it exemplary of her true talent, which can’t be said about some of the other nominees.

Odds of Winning: Unlikely

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Here are our assessments on this year’s nominees for the 83rd Academy Award category of Best Actor in a supporting role.

Christian Bale

The Fighter

Bale altered his physical appearance and mannerisms and became nearly unrecognizable in order to play drug addict former boxer Dicky Eklund.  The frenetic intensity with which he plays Eklund is positively fascinating to watch.  Though Bale plays Dicky as a man too wrapped up in his former glory to realize he is spiraling out of control, he also endows him with an unwavering devotion to his family.  Dicky may be unreliable, but he more than makes up for it through his commitment to seeing his brother succeed.  Bale likely gives the most extravagant performance of his fellow nominees, and since the Academy tends to prefer bigger performances, coupled with his wins at the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild and Critics Choice Awards, he has a very good chance of winning his first Oscar.

Odds of Winning: Likely

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Here are our assessments on this year’s nominees for the 83rd Academy Award category of Best Actress in a leading role.

Nicole Kidman

Rabbit Hole

Mrs. Kidman has been nominated for an Academy Award for her performances in such films as Moulin Rouge! and The Hours, the latter of which she was awarded the gold statuette. Her nomination for Rabbit Hole is her first since than win. In the film she plays a mother who, along with her husband (played by Aaron Eckhart), tries to find a way of grieving for her lost son that will actually help her get past the life-altering tragedy. The couple’s conflicting forms of mourning threaten to tear their marriage apart, and it is during those scenes when she lets her emotions loose that Kidman’s talents shine brightest. On the surface it looks as though this were the type of performance that would be the most likely to garner an Oscar, however the role is decidedly one-note and doesn’t allow her to do much else besides wallow and argue. This is not to say that she doesn’t deserve the nomination, but when comparing her performance with the other nominees it fails to stand out.

Odds of Winning: Unlikely

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Woody and the gang are back this weekend in Pixar's "Toy Story 3"

ComingSoon.net recently conducted an interview with Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich and producer Darla Anderson. Unkrich has been the co-director for Toy Story 2, Monster’s Inc., and Finding Nemo and has been part of Pixar’s creative team since the company’s beginning, which was why he was given the job of directing the Oscar-winning and highly prestigious studio’s first “threequel.”

In the interview Unkrich and Anderson reveal some interesting tidbits about how Toy Story 3 got off the ground, and how the creative minds behind it were able to make it happen.

For starters, Unkrich and a few others tried getting the film started back when Toy Story 2 was released, ready to continue on to another story involving the characters they grew to love. However, legal troubles with Disney kept the film from being made and so the studio was forced to put the idea of a third movie on the back burner. When Disney eventually bought Pixar, the red tape was finally removed and the studio was free to pursue the project head-on.

Michael Arndt, who wrote the script for the film, was met by Unkrich and the others at Pixar after they looked at a copy of the screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine. They liked his work for that movie so much they immediately wanted to get in touch with him in order to maybe start working together. Later that same year Arndt was awarded an Oscar for Best Screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine, which helped give the studio more confidence that they were working with the right guy.

The interview covers a dozen other issues like these, which help paint Pixar as a company that redefines the word “harmony” when it comes to how its creative teams work together to create such memorable films. Definitely a good read for those of you looking forward to Toy Story 3 opening this weekend.

Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" won Best Picture, but she was also the first woman to win Best Director

Well the Oscars are now over, so it’s time to recap how we did in predicting the winners. All in all we didn’t do too bad. But who out there guessed all of them correctly? Did you? Tell us about how you picked the winners to win, and we might seek you out for your opinions next year!

Here is how things shaped up.

Picks:

Best Picture: Avatar or The Hurt Locker

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker

Best Original Screenplay: Joel and Ethan Coen for A Serious Man

Best Leading Actor: Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart

Best Leading Actress: Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer for The Last Station

Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique for Precious

Winners:

Best Picture – The Hurt Locker

Best Director – Kathryn Bigelow   (*she is the first woman to receive this award)

Best Original Screenplay – Mark Boal for The Hurt Locker

Best Leading Actor – Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart

Best Leading Actress – Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side

Best Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress – Mo’Nique for Precious

View all of the winners here.

It’s been a fun Oscar season for sure, but it’s almost sad to see it all over and done with. Here at Movie-Thoughts we’ll soon switch gears to get you all ready for the upcoming summer blockbuster season, which is shaping up to be a good one. Be sure to stay tuned with all the news, reviews, and various articles we’ll be posting to keep you informed and thinking. See you around!

It's neck and neck between Sandra Bullock and Helen Mirren for the Best Leading Actress Oscar, but Bullock slightly leads thanks to awards by Critic's Choice, Golden Globes, and SAG

It’s almost time! Going through the final few categories will hopefully help you get in the mood for tomorrow night’s festivities, which are sure to be as exciting as ever. Enjoy our newest analysis!

Also See: Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Leading Actor, Best Original Screenplay

Best Actress in a Leading Role

This year’s Best Leading Actress pool is filled to the brim with deserving talent and performances, arguably more so than usual. What isn’t unusual is that it’s a tight race for who is actually going to win the gold statuette. The competition is stiff, but it would appear that the two leaders are Sandra Bullock and Helen Mirren, followed closely by Meryl Streep. Bringing up the rear is, of course, the younger two of the nominees, Carey Mulligan and Gabourey Sidibe, respectfully. Helen Mirren’s performance is said to be the most powerful, however Bullock has earned the majority of the Leading Actress awards leading up to the Academy Awards. Read the rest of this entry »

The Coen Brothers are likely to earn another writing Oscar for their film "A Serious Man," but have stiff competition with Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" and Mark Boal's "The Hurt Locker"

Continuing our breakdown of the major categories for this year’s 82nd annual Academy Awards, here is our analysis of the nominees eligible to receive the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

Also See: Best Supporting Actor, Best Leading Actor, Best Supporting Actress

Best Original Screenplay

The Golden Globes are often a useful bellwether, but since the Hollywood Foreign Press doesn’t separate Original and Adapted Screenplays, Up in the Air’s win there only suggests the outcome of the Adapted Screenplay category at the Oscars.  Quentin Tarantino won the Critic’s Choice for his Inglourious Basterds screenplay so he has a good chance of winning.  However, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, who have two previous screenplay Oscars for No Country for Old Men and Fargo, have just as strong a chance for A Serious Man.  Moreover, they won with the National Board of Review and the National Society of Film Critics so they may edge out Tarantino for the win.  Mark Boal’s powerful screenplay for The Hurt Locker could pull a surprise win since it beat the Coens at the Writers Guild and the winners there typically win the Oscar as well.  Less likely would be a win for Up which, though emotionally touching, may not be able to compete with the more serious fare offered by the other screenplays.  The least likely winner would be Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon’s screenplay for The Messenger, which, though powerful, is the nominee that has received the least nominations from other prestigious bodies.
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Christopher Plummer is this year's frontrunner for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Continuing our Countdown to The Oscars, we are pleased to present our analysis of the Best Supporting Actor category. Like with this column’s previous entries, we examine each nominee’s chances for earning the esteemed Academy Award so that you the reader will have an idea of what to expect come time for the ceremony on March 7th. We here at Movie-Thoughts like to spur debate, so let us know what you think! Tell us if you agree, disagree, and why. In the end, it’s all for fun anyways, right?

Also see: Best Supporting Actress, Best Actor

Best Supporting Actor

We find that this year Christopher Plummer is the most likely to win because of the combination of his age/long tenure as an actor, the quality of his performance, the weight of his performance, the novelty that this is his first Oscar nomination, and the fact that the only thing he has decreasing his odds are the strong suites of the other nominees. Meanwhile, all the other candidates have various issues that could anchor their dreams of delivering a teary-eyed acceptance speech. Critical and/or press momentum haven’t been playing much of a role with this particular category, with the exception that The Lovely Bones (for which Stanley Tucci is nominated) is the only film relevant to this category that has received overwhelmingly negative reviews. With all of this said, let’s get to it! Read the rest of this entry »

With "500 Days of Summer" (above) and "The Hangover" both being critically acclaimed comedies, which film received the bigger Oscar snub?

A recent Variety article by Glenn Whipp takes a (very) light jab at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences by pointing out, as many have done, that comedies have yet again stayed out of the Oscars’ list of Best Picture nominations. Two pics he mentions specifically are 500 Days of Summer and The Hangover. The latter made the American Film Institute’s Top 10 of the year, and the former even made the Movie-Thoughts Top 10. Both films were critically acclaimed, with The Hangover earning 78% on RottenTomatoes.com and 500 Days of Summer earning 86%.

Whipp notes in his article that it is not the concept of comedy that the Academy has excluded, being that A Serious Man has black comedy, Up in the Air has spurts of humor, Up is debatably an action/comedy, and Inglourious Basterds is peppered with tongue-in-cheek fantasy.

So what’s keeping The Hangover away? Crudeness is no doubt the answer, but that’s only an explanation for its brand of humor. In other matters that the Academy judges, which include artistic quality and technical prowess, the film can be said to fall short. The topic of human interest (which couldn’t be a broader label) is another favorite of the voters, so if Judd Apatow’s 40 Year Old Virgin didn’t have a chance, then certainly The Hangover wouldn’t. But what about 500 Days of Summer? A smart, funny film about how to get over what you thought was a great relationship surely satisfies the Academy’s criteria, right? Apparently not. We are left to only guess, which is really all we can do.

This all begs the question of, if we were to consider these two films’ omission by the Academy a snub, which was the bigger snub? Leave your vote in the comments section of this post or via this site’s Contact page. Tell the world what you think!

Disney has two songs nominated from "The Princess and the Frog", either of which they would have certainly been proud to perform. But alas.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences  has announced that this year’s nominees for Best Original Song will not be performed during the Academy Awards ceremony on March 7th. Instead, each song will be shortened and showcased with an accompanying clip from their respective films.

Best Song nominees are -

“Almost There” from The Princess and the Frog, Randy Newman
“Down in New Orleans” from The Princess and the Frog, Randy Newman
“Loin de Paname” from Paris 36, Reinhardt Wagner and Frank Thomas
“Take It All” from Nine, Maury Yeston
“The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from Crazy Heart, Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

Source: Hollywood Reporter

Quick Opinion: I wonder what the impetus was for breaking with tradition? Usually the Best Song performances are some of the more glamorous, theatrical, and overall entertaining parts of the entire show. Hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin will surely provide musical moments of their own that were created specifically for the show, but why not give the actual nominees the same spotlight? The Academy has not released a reason for this move, which naturally prompts negative speculation. My best guess is that the aim is to shorten the lengthy ceremony. Many have complained just as much about how long the awards show is as they did that certain films got “snubbed” for Best Picture nominations. If the goal is to shorten the show and appease audience interests, why then would they scrap the Best Song performances instead of electing to not televise categories most people don’t care about (e.g., Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Documentary Short, Best Live-Action Short and, depending on who you talk to, Best Foreign Language Film as well)? Personally, I’d just be happy if they reduced the amount of those extended commercial breaks.