Oscar 2012: Best Supporting Actress

I know I’m a bit early in predicting Oscar winners, but this year this particular major category is all but a mortal lock, so I’m going to write about it so that I can concentrate on other categories. Here is the breakdown of the possible reasons why each of these nominees can or will win the Oscar this year.

Bérénice Bejo for The Artist

For her: A major breakout role in a Best Picture nominee, the charming French star Bejo could benefit from her constant promotion of the film at Academy screenings and Q&As. This strategy worked well for then-little-known Marion Cotillard, who won the Best Actress Oscar four years ago for her unforgettable work in La Vie En Rose. This role is a bit of a category cheat, since it’s arguably a leading performance given the amount of screen time she has. (Heck, even the BAFTAs put her in the leading actress category.) Bejo has been nominated for every major guild prize, including SAG, Golden Globe and Critics Choice.

Against her: It’s a non-speaking role in a silent film, and Academy members may want to hear her in a speaking part before deciding to award her with their most glittering prize. Despite her numerous nominations, she didn’t win any of them and is usually considered an also-ran, category-wise. Bejo’s nomination may itself be the reward.

Jessica Chastain for The Help

For her: Another breakout performer, Chastain has no less than six films in play this year, with roles in Ralph Fiennes’s Shakespeare adaptation of Coriolanus, the indie favourite Take Shelter, the little-seen Texas Killing Field, the political drama The Debt and The Tree of Life, the latter making her the only nominee in this category to appear in two of the year’s Best Picture nominees. Chastain’s prolific presence gives true meaning to the term supporting actress. She had a major run of the critics’ prizes, winning awards in almost all major groups whilst sharing in Best Ensemble citations from SAG and Critics Choice.

Against her: The sheer body of work this year may be to her disadvantage, as she has also lined up a number of roles coming out for the next two years. Her versatility could, in fact, indicate to the Academy that since she could become a major star, she may have other chances to be rewarded. Chastain could also split votes with her co-star, the beloved Octavia Spencer.

Melissa McCarthy for Bridesmaids

For her: If ever there was a single memorable scene from any of the five women in this category, it’s likely McCarthy’s character’s unexpected bowel movement in a posh bridal salon. In other words, given the material she had to work with, she just might be the most fearless performer of the bunch. Short-listed for numerous awards and the unexpected winner at the Boston Film Critics, McCarthy is also the most high-profile nominee, since she appears weekly in the CBS hit comedy Mike & Molly, for which she won a surprise Emmy Award last fall.

Against her: That bathroom scene, puerile as it is, may turn off Academy voters who are already allergic to comedy. She also doesn’t have the aid of appearing in a Best Picture nominee or a prestige project unlike her other fellow nominees.

Janet McTeer for Albert Nobbs

For her: Veteran British character actress goes drag king à la Gwyneth Paltrow and Linda Hunt, and may end up being rewarded for her gender-bending performance. She easily received the best notices accorded the film, even from those critics who didn’t like Albert Nobbs. Plus, she has a theatre pedigree, having won a Tony Award in the past and appearing in prestigious British film, TV and stage productions.

Against her: The film doesn’t have the momentum of any of the women appearing in Best Picture nominees, or the sheer wide audience appeal of McCarthy’s movie. She needed critical prizes and not just rave reviews to boost her chances.

Octavia Spencer for The Help

For her: Winner of the SAG, Globe and Critics Choice awards, it’s a scene-stealing turn in a Best Picture nominee and popular hit. She also shared in some critics’ group awards along with co-star Chastain, and her gracious appearances on the awards show circuit have been well-received. She is a popular favourite and has also been seen supporting smaller independent projects at Sundance, proving that she has a wide and varied list of colleagues and friends rooting for her to win. (Some of them are even Academy members and reputation goes a long way. Just ask Eddie Murphy.)

Against her: Possibility of split votes with Chastain, but otherwise there are none to think of. Even those who didn’t like the help agree that her performance was a highlight.

Prediction

Unless she declares her undying love and devotion to Kim Jong-Il or defects to North Korea, Spencer has this one in the bag.

The winner will be: Octavia Spencer.

Oscar 2012: National Society of Film Critics Awards

Always with a reputation for being headstrong, the National Society of Film Critics (or the “NSFC”) isn’t really “national” in the sense that they represent a broad cross-section of American cineastes. Rather, the group has a heavy overlap with the New York Film Critics and thus their choices tend to match in their annual awards-giving. They are unapologetically tony and, if there was ever a group that was accused of being snobbish in its choices, this is it.

Best Film: Melancholia

One quirk this group has is that since they have access to every film ever released in the United States, their choices can become head-scratching and extremely obscure. Past winners of their acting prizes include Sylvie, Marilia Pera, Per Oscarsson, Emily Lloyd, Alison Steadman, Yolande Moreau and last year’s winner, Giovanna Mezzogiorno. They tend to favour character actors rather than going with the consensus. Having said that, they have also been innovative enough to recognize emerging talent such as Emily Watson, Chloe Sevigny, Amy Adams and Javier Bardem, each of which earned Oscar nominations on the strength of their victories with the NSFC.

Best Actor: Pitt

This year’s winners are:

Best Film: Melancholia
Best Director: Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life)
Best Actor: Brad Pitt (Moneyball)
Best Actress: Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia)
Best Supporting Actor: Albert Brooks (Drive)
Best Supporting Actress: Jessica Chastain (The Tree of Life, Take Shelter, The Help)
Best Screenplay: A Separation
Best Foreign Film: A Separation
Best Cinematography: The Tree of Life

Best Supporting Actress: Chastain

The status quo appears to be the same with Brooks and Chastain, who are both on romp, nearly sweeping their categories in the run-up to Oscar nominations. The Tree of Life now seems guaranteed for nominations in cinematography and directing, although it might still be too divisive to earn a spot in Best Picture. Pitt gains further strength in the lead actor race, which should now put him head-to-head with good buddy George Clooney. And I had previously indicated that A Separation might earn a writing nomination in addition to foreign language film. Its screenplay victory here, combined with the same prize from the LA Film Critics, means it’s no fluke. So many critics and festival audiences mentioned that the film starts off as one thing but is an entirely different creature, and said that the twists and turns were what made the film so memorable. This win here, despite the lack of a Writers’ Guild of America nomination (its writer is not a member of the WGA), plants it firmly in that category and the sheer critical momentum might propel it to a surprise Best Picture nomination.

Oscar 2012: L.A. Film Critics Association Awards & Boston Film Critics Awards

In continuing Academy Awards-season film-critics-prize-giving coverage, here are the winners announced by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the Boston Society of Film Critics:

Los Angeles Film Critics Association

Scorsese's Hugo

Best Film: The Descendants (runner-up: The Tree of Life)
Best Director: Terrence Malick for The Tree of Life (runner-up: Martin Scorsese for Hugo)
Best Actor: Michael Fassbender for Shame, A Dangerous Method, Jane Eyre and X-Men: First Class (runner-up: Michael Shannon for Take Shelter)
Best Actress: Yoon Jeong-Hee for Poetry (runner-up: Kirsten Dunst for Melancholia)
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer for Beginners (runner-up: Oswalt Patton for Young Adult)
Best Supporting Actress: Jessica Chastain for The Help, The Tree of Life, Coriolanus, Take Shelter, The Debt and Texas Killing Field (runner-up: Janet McTeer for Albert Nobbs)
Best Screenplay: A Separation (runner-up: The Descendants)
Best Documentary: Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Best Animation: Rango (runner-up: The Adventures of Tintin)
Best Cinematography: The Tree of Life
Best Production Design: Hugo (runner-up: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)
Best Music: Hanna (runner-up: Drive)

Boston Society of Film Critics 

Best Film: The Artist (runners-up: Hugo and Margaret)
Best Director: Martin Scorsese for Hugo (runner-up: Michal Hazanavicius for The Artist)
Best Actor: Brad Pitt for Moneyball (runners-up: George Clooney for The Descendants and Michael Fassbender for Shame)
Best Actress: Michelle Williams for My Week with Marilyn (runner-up: Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady)
Best Supporting Actor: Albert Brooks for Drive
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa McCarthy for Bridesmaids(!!) (runner-up: Jeannie Berlin for Margaret)
Best Screenplay: Moneyball
Best Ensemble: Carnage (Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly, Christoph Waltz)
Best New Filmmaker: Sean Durkin for MarthaMarcy May Marlene 
Best Animation: Rango
Best Foreign Film: Incendies (runners-up: A Separation and Poetry)
Best Documentary: Project Nim (runner-up: Bill Cunningham New York)
Best Cinematography: The Tree of Life (runner-up: Hugo)
Best Music: (tie) Drive and The Artist
Best Editing: The Clock (runner-up: Hugo)

Supporting Actor: Brooks

Martin Scorsese didn’t set out to make a critical darling when he embarked on Hugo, he just wanted to bring a children’s story to life. Boston has always been appreciative of his efforts, and they were in the first group to cite his work for The Departed, which won him his richly-deserved (and so far only) Oscar in 2006. Across-the-board wins and runner-up citations from both groups in the film, director and technical categories, combined with the big wins at the National Board of Review, will likely forecast a number of nominations for the commercially-underwhelming Hugo.

Supporting Actress: McCarthy!

The Tree of Life picked up more momentum and is making its case for a Best Picture nomination, even if it is extremely divisive, with wins for Malick and Chastain. In other words, major nominations, critical citations and appearances on “best-of” year-end lists is rolling it towards an invitation to the big dance. If nothing else, it will win the Oscar for Best Cinematography. Whatever you think of the film itself and director Terrence Malick’s artistic choices – whether you regard it as a profound meditation on the circle of life or think it’s just a hot mess – it was a great-looking picture. Unless he’s somehow disqualified, director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki should start writing his speech now.

We need to consider Moneyball as more than just a box office hit with a good-looking movie star front-and-centre in it. Pitt’s win in Boston, paired with his victory in New York, makes him the distinct frontrunner in Best Actor. The fact that the film has also racked up another screenplay nomination, combined with excellent reviews, makes it a very likely Best Picture nominee, alongside Hugo and The Artist, which appears to be on a roll with its latest win in Boston.

The Descendants hasn’t been doing the same business that director Alexander Payne has had with his previous work, Sideways, but the win in LA gives it leverage in the Best Picture race. Look for the film to land nominations in major categories. The only caveat I will give was that prior to Sideways, Payne’s previous film About Schmidt blew away the LA group’s solar plexus and named it Best Film, but it was left out of the Oscars save for two acting nominations.

Body of work: Fassbender is LA's choice

Fassbender, at last, picks up a major critics’ citation in the Best Actor field. The momentum right now is for Shame, which has garnered attention for its controversial subject matter and NC-17 rating. It appears that the Academy may be privy to more unorthodox choices, even with the formerly dreaded NC-17, given Michelle Williams’s nomination for the similarly-rated Blue Valentine last year. It’s also apparent that they are honouring him for a body of work, and looking at his range in roles this year it wasn’t difficult to justify it. He’s played Sigmund Freud, Mr. Rochester and Magneto all in one year! His ability to move between classic literature, a known historical figure and a fanboy favourite means he’s got wide support. Look for him to lock in for a nomination, but for Shame, the film with the mojo at the moment.

Speaking of Williams, she needed a major boost from a major critics group and she got it. Winning at Boston, on top of her win this week in Washington, is a great shot in the arm for her campaign. The film has received somewhat mixed-to-positive reviews, but universal praise has centered on her performance in particular.

Oscar 2012: National Board of Review Awards

Traditionally always the first film critics’ group to charge out with the year-end prize-giving, the National Board of Review (“NBR”) was beaten to the punch this year by the New York Film Critics. That doesn’t mean that their awards are any less worthy of attention, they are just one of a series of groups that recognize the year’s best in cinema.

Generally, the NBR gives plenty more prizes in cinema that extend beyond Best Art Direction and Best Visual Effects. As they are a juried award-giving body, they have the flexibility to honour films in a list format rather than the standard nominee-and-single-winner scheme, or even just a list of single winners per category. They name a list of the ten best films, and also produce lists for Best Documentary and Best Foreign Language Film, indicating an arguably less competitive and more egalitarian form of award-giving. Here are the winners of this year’s prizes, and a brief analysis of each.

Best Film and Best Director: Hugo and Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese’s crowd-pleasing new release was an unusual choice, partly because it was not violent (like his The Age of Innocence) and partly because it was a family-oriented picture. It opened to better-than-expected box office over Thanksgiving and was not widely considered major awards bait, but this big prize, combined with steady business and rapturous reviews, should help make the film a contender for Oscar.

Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Screenplay: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley and The Descendants

They love Clooney at this group: love him. This is his third prize from the NBR within the last five years, having also been named Best Actor for 2007’s Michael Clayton and 2009’s Up in the Air. This should get him notice and solidify his slot in the Oscars. Woodley’s victory should only put her in greater steady for Best Supporting Actress, and the script a shoo-in nominee if not outright winner. Curiously, these three prizes mimic three of the four categories Up in the Air won two years ago, with the exception of the Best Picture prize (although The Descendants was named one of the year’s ten best films).

Swinton

Best Actress: Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk about Kevin

Swinton has always been a critics’ darling, if not a major critics’ group champion. Her work as the mother who gave birth to a demon child was long considered the one to beat for Oscar and here she just upped her chances at landing a slot in the big race. She’s already won an Oscar, for Michael Clayton, and has an excellent chance at duking it out with the likes of Meryl Streep, Glenn Close and Charlize Theron in this year’s competitive Best Actress race.

Caveat: the NBR’s choice for Best Actress last year, Leslie Manville, was completely ignored in the Oscar race and didn’t even land a nomination. This was not helped with category confusion as to whether or not Manville’s role was considered a lead of supporting one. However, Swinton’s higher profile should keep her name in the competition.

Plummer, with Ewan McGregor

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer in Beginners

Plummer has, at age 81, only one previous Oscar nomination to date, for The Last Station in 2009. His role as the father who comes out of the closet at age 75 and lives a full gay life before he dies is a touching, subtle one, and considered by many to be a career capper. Not that he needed critic’s notices to stay in the conversation, but this will help him over the long season.

Oscar 2012: New York Film Critics Circle Awards

It’s that time right after Thanksgiving and before Christmas when magazines and other media outlets start naming their “best of the year” selections. That also extends to film critics groups, and their opinions on which films and performances were the most worthy of attention all year. It is also, for less sophisticated or mainstream audiences not privy to artier fare, an opportunity to see what the tastemakers consider the greatest.

Award-winner prognostication is not an exact science, nor is it really an art. It’s more inexact alchemy concocted in a crystal ball and subject to the votes of a group of about 5,000 film industry professionals and the marketing and PR departments hired to influence their choices. In presidential election terms, consider this part of the annual Oscar race the equivalent of the New Hampshire primaries: they may not decide the final outcome, but they at least identify the major players and alert those not named that they have to get their name out there and step up the campaign.

I love awards shows and I love watching and handicapping the races, which produce inevitably and alternatively sensible and baffling choices (I’m still angry that Crash won Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain, but let’s debate that another time).

Today, the New York Film Critics Circle (the “NYFCC”) announced their winners. In this piece, I will attempt to analyze the winners and determine if they should clear off the final weekend of February so that they can be in L.A. and, more precisely, at the Kodak Theater.

Best Film: The Artist

Best Film and Best Director: The Artist by Michael Hazanavicius

This silent comedy opened to rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival and immediately picked up a distribution with The Weinstein Company for the United States. Famed for his impeccable choices in Oscar vehicles, Harvey Weinstein undoubtedly has great plans for making this crowd-pleaser one of the Best Picture nominees, if not the outright winner. Perhaps the big win here might forecast the biggest win of all. Considering that the film also received the most nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards, the film has become, as of this moment (always a key operating term in the next few months as momentum is continually gauged), the movie to beat. What’s strange, however, is that NYFCC did not choose its star, Cannes prize winner Jean Dujardin, for Best Actor, which went to …

Best Actor: Brad Pitt in Moneyball and The Tree of Life

There’s an old story circulating somewhere on the Internet (that’s why you should take it with a pinch of salt) that the NYFCC allegedly chose Cameron Diaz as Best Actress of 1998 for There’s Something About Mary just because the group wanted to invite Diaz to their awards banquet to pick up her prize. That story is an insult not only to the group, but also to Diaz’s expert comic skill (she is, in my opinion, still one of the most underrated actors to this day: Being John Malkovich, anyone?). Does this explain why Brad Pitt was chosen as Best Actor? Again: insulting to both the group and the actor, so let's not go there, and move on.

Never quite a critics’ darling, Pitt’s big win here with the toniest of film critics’ groups is a sign that he’s finally recognized by the pundits and not just audiences as a serious actor. It helps that his role in the crowd-pleasing Moneyball includes plenty of big speeches and wordplay in a Best Picture frontrunner. Actors like big showy speeches and he’s got that in spades in Moneyball, which means he’ll have a wealth of scenes to choose from as his Oscar clip. It also helps that by contrasting this with a dramatic but less verbal role in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, he demonstrates how easily he shifts between more commercial fare and artier offerings. When it comes to getting an Oscar nomination, unless he splits his own ballot (actors cannot be nominated against themselves in any one category and shared-film nominations are not allowed), he’ll likely get called for at least a nomination with Moneyball.

Best Actress: Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady

Best Actress: Streep

With her winning turn as Margaret Thatcher, Streep becomes the most-decorated female actor in NYFCC history. There has been much buzz about her potentially winning a third Oscar, but be reminded that such buzz has been brewing in ebbs and flows since Reagan was still president. Affecting a British accent for the first time since that era, this much-anticipated film will now open at year’s end with more fanfare and the tantalizing possibility of at least a nomination for its star. That being said, remember that Streep’s been tapped as a sure-fire winner in the past decade for Julie & Julia, Doubt, The Devil Wears Prada and Adaptation, not counting her other extraordinary performances in A Cry in the Dark, Ironweed, The Bridges of Madison County, etc. Streep will likely lock in another nomination – which would make this the seventeenth(!!) in her stellar career – but forecasting a win is something to seriously consider in about two months’ time.

Cinematically Inclined: The Tree of Life

The Blogger had a near-religious experience this morning. He attended an advanced screening of Terrence Malick’s long-awaited new film, The Tree of Life. Shrouded and filmed in secrecy, very little of the film’s story has been given away during filming and even the reviews from Cannes, mostly glowing and a few dissenting, were cryptic in their relations of details.

The Tree of Life centres on a childhood, a family, a specific time and place. There is a disciplinarian father (Brad Pitt, in unquestionably his most vanity-free and accomplished performance), who is continually frustrated by life and tries to warn his children of the evils in the world, without fostering premature bitterness in them. Despite the fact that he is no superman, he can see the beauty of life in such things as his faith and classical music. This is a film where the sounds of Berlioz and Toscanini caress the aural senses. The mother (embodied by a masterful Jessica Chastain) exudes forgiveness and compassion, but doesn’t indulge her brood. There is no conventional “plot”, as everything is told in a non-linear fashion. Where Pitt’s performance is filled with words, hers is full of feeling, as Chastain interprets the role like a silent-film actress. Sean Penn plays the now-aging middle child, who is our narrative guide and tie to the present. There are no heroes or villains here, only some damaged, everyday people.

The film opens with a quote from the Book of Job. Malick structures his film like a symphony, with several movements, and each “section” identified not by title cards but by visual cues, all part of a larger thematic work. The family sustains a devastating loss at the beginning of the film, and shows how the memory of that pain has never fully gone away, echoing across the decades. At one point, in a telephone conversation with his elderly father, the son says “no, I haven’t forgotten. I think of him every day.” There has never been a release of the paralyzing grief and shattering pain that has mortally wounded each and every family member. 

Malick juxtaposes the human suffering with images from nature and geography. There is a long section taking us through a long series of natural phenomenon that is achingly beautiful to behold, and even goes as far back as the age of the dinosaurs (the visual effects here are magnificent). Although it may sound absurd on paper, Malick intends us to understand the scope of the family’s grief against the grander scale of the cosmos. He also throws the film’s Biblical overtones into sharp relief, with both Creationist and Evolutionist theories sharing the same film. Yes, there’s also a gargantuan tree, one that anchors the film thematically and visually. Perhaps no other film in the last decade has dared to set human suffering against the cosmos, with the exception of Darren Aronofsky’s underrated masterpiece The Fountain. You could show this drama in 3-D Imax and it would look just as spectacular as Avatar or the next Pirates sequel.