Andrew: Hello dear readers! As you may know, the 89th Academy Awards are airing tonight on ABC. You may not know it from our lack of reviews the past year, but we DO still see a ton of movies and we've seen most of the Oscar nominees this season. So that said, Sarah and I carved out a bit of time this afternoon to go through all of the categories and their nominees, picking who we think will win and who we think should win. For each category we'll list the nominees and then our picks. For some awards we'll write up little blurbs explaining our thought process. Let's see how well we do tonight! BEST PICTURE Arrival Fences Hacksaw Ridge Hell or High Water Hidden Figures La La Land Lion Machester by the Sea Moonlight Will Win - Sarah: La La Land Andrew: La La Land Should Win - Sarah: Hell or High Water Andrew: Hell or High Water Thoughts: It's really looking like La La Land will wind up running away from the majority of the awards tonight, and it's a fantastic movie no doubt. But Hell or High Waterwas the film we saw in 2016 that we thought was the best, period. Chris Pine, Ben Foster and Jeff Bridges all give career-best (or near career-best) performances, you can cut the tension with a knife throughout the film, and it's a very acute look at the hardships many Americans deal with on a daily basis - with a cinematic approach to how two brothers decide to face their personal hardships. If we had votes they would go towards David Mackenzie & Taylor Sheridan's crime Western. But La La Land is obviously winning. BEST DIRECTOR Damien Chazelle, La La Land Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge Barry Jenkins, Moonlight Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea Denis Villeneuve, Arrival Will & Should Win - S: Damien Chazelle A: Damien Chazelle Thoughts: The only one of these five films we didn't see was Hacksaw Ridge, and any other year I think there might be a real fight to be had here, but La La Land should be such a steamroller that it'll be a big surprise if Chazelle doesn't walk away the winner. To be fair, 3 out of the last 4 Oscars have seen a Best Picture/Best Director split, but we're confident Chazelle's sharp eye and strong hand over the musical he's worked so long on will be awarded.
Andrew: Hello readers! Tonight Sarah and I will be live-blogging the 85th Academy Awards during the telecast on ABC. The show doesn't start until 8:30pm EST but we'll be kicking off our live blog event at 8:00pm EST. Sarah has to work a little late tonight, so she'll be joining me once the show has begun, and maybe we'll even get a visitor or two from some of our fellow movie bloggers! So come back tonight at 8:00pm when we start up our running commentary and analysis of tonight's Oscars!
Andrew: Hello readers! All week long leading up to this Sunday's 85th Academy Awards, Sarah and I have been discussing some of the acting categories, the screenplay categories, the directing category and a couple others, but it's all been leading up to the big one - Best Picture. Remember, four years ago after many people thought Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight got snubbed in this category, the Academy made the drastic change to up the number of nominees to 10. After two years of that, with some thinking the category was too bloated, the Academy changed the rules again so that between five and 10 films could be nominated based on first place votes. Even so, a total of nine films were nominated for Best Picture last year and we have the same number in 2013.
BEST PICTURE
The nominees for Best Picture are:
- Amour
- Argo
- Beasts of the Southern Wild
- Django Unchained
- Les Miserables
- Life of Pi
- Lincoln
- Silver Linings Playbook
- Zero Dark Thirty
A: Sarah, we saw all of the nominated films except for Amour, and we follow the awards that lead up to the Oscars relatively closely. Taking everything in to account, even though there are a whopping nine nominees, which ones do you think we can whittle it down to that actually have a chance at winning?
Andrew: Hello readers! We're
back with day four of our analysis and predictions for this Sunday's 85th
Academy Awards! Yesterday we discussed the supporting half of the actingcategories, and today we're going to tackle the lead acting categories. Just
like yesterday, Sarah, one of these categories is far more of a certainty than
the other one is, so let's get that one out of the way first.
BEST ACTOR
The nominees for Best
Actor are:
- Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
- Hugh Jackman, Les
Miserables
- Denzel Washington, Flight
- Bradley Cooper, Silver
Linings Playbook
- Joaquin Phoenix, The
Master
A: Okay, Sarah, it's pretty obvious to
people who have been following award season that there's only one nominee here
who should be expecting hear his name be read from a card on Sunday. And that
is...?
Andrew: Hello readers! We're
back with day three of our analysis and predictions for this Sunday's 85th
Academy Awards! Yesterday we covered the two screenplay categories and BestDirector, and today we're going to dip our toes into the acting categories by
discussing Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress.
Sarah, one of
these categories is 100% more up in the air than the other, so let's start with
the one that's more of a sure thing and get it out of the way.
BEST SUPPORTING
ACTRESS
The nominees for Best
Supporting Actress are:
- Amy Adams, The
Master
- Sally Field, Lincoln
- Helen Hunt, The
Sessions
- Jacki Weaver, Silver
Linings Playbook
- Anne Hathaway, Les
Miserables
A: Sarah, which one is the shoo-in for
the little golden man?
Andrew: Hello readers! As you may or may not know, Sarah and
I are celebrating the upcoming 85th Academy Awards this week by posting our
analysis and predictions of various categories. Yesterday we kicked things off
by covering the Best Animated Feature, Best Original Song and Best VisualEffects categories, and today we are going to discuss the two screenplay
categories and the Best Director category. So without further ado…
BEST ORIGINAL
SCREENPLAY
The nominees for Best Original Screenplay are:
- Zero Dark Thirty, Mark
Boal
- Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino
- Flight, Mark Gatins
- Moonrise Kingdom, Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola
- Amour, Michael Haneke
A: At
first glance this appears to me to be a relatively competitive category, and
one that we’re relatively familiar with since we saw all of these films except
for Amour,
but I personally think it comes down to two candidates for the prize. Can you
guess which ones I’m thinking of?
Andrew: Hello readers! It's that time again where
Sarah and I finally start breaking down the nominees for the 85th Academy
Awards that will be held on Sunday, February 24th! Last year we did it in a
pretty basic way and it seemed to go over pretty well, and we really don't want
to over-do it this year, so we'll stick to a relatively similar format.
A difference this
year, though, will be the order in which we break down the different
categories. Starting with this post, we will break down the Oscar nominees in
the following categories on these days:
Monday, February 18th: Best Animated Feature, Best Original Song and
Best Visual Effects
Tuesday, February
19th: Best Original &
Adapted Screenplays, and Best Director
Wednesday, February
20th: Best Supporting Actor
& Actress
Thursday, February
21st: Best Actor &
Actress
Friday, February 22nd: Best Picture and full list of predictions
So Sarah, let's kick
off our analysis and predictions for this year's Oscars, shall we?
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
The nominees for Best
Animated Feature are:
-Brave (Pixar)
- Wreck-It Ralph (Disney Animations)
- Frankenweenie (Disney Animations)
- ParaNorman (Laika)
- The Pirates! Band of
Misfits (Aardman Animations)
Andrew: Hello readers! Once again Sarah and I have rounded up some of the new, best and/or cooler things that we've seen around the worldwide web the past week to share with y'all. So let's get right to it!
THE FIRST FULL TRAILER FOR PIXAR'S MONSTERS UNIVERSITY
A: Yesterday found the online release of the first full-length trailer for Monsters University, the prequel to Pixar's 2001 hit Monsters, Inc. It's actually the international version of trailer (from Great Britain to be exact) so it's different than what we'll probably see Stateside in the near future, but take a look and we'll hit up our thoughts on it afterwards!
A: Personally I'm a little divided after watching this trailer. Sarah knows this, but Monsters, Inc. isn't one of my favorite Pixar movies, and in fact ranks in the bottom half of my personal Pixar film rankings, but the original is still funny and enjoyable enough to watch even now. But this trailer just fell flat for me. It was nice to hear Billy Crystal and John Goodman's voices in the roles of Mike Wazowski and Sully again, but you can definitely tell they've aged by a decade because they just don't sound the same. What do you think of the trailer, Sarah?
Andrew: Hello readers! All week we've been posting our predictions for who we think will be nominated for this year's 85th Academy Awards, and this morning the awesome duo of Emma Stone and Seth MacFarlane announced those nominees.
So...how did our predictions fare? Listed below are all of the nominees that were announced today - nominees that are in italics are the movies that we got CORRECT. (And a reminder that we did not predict the short film categories, so those will not be posted below.) BEST PICTURE Beasts of the Southern Wild Silver Linings Playbook Zero Dark Thirty Lincoln Les Miserables Life of Pi Amour Django Unchained Argo BEST DIRECTOR David O. Russell Ang Lee Steven Spielberg Michael Haneke Benh Zeitlin
Andrew: Hello readers! So the last few days we've been sharing our predictions for who will be nominated in the acting categories, the directing category and the screenplay categories for this year's Academy Awards. Today we're going to discuss and share our guesses for which films (and how many) will be nominated in the big one - Best Picture. We will also be posting our picks for ALL the categories (except the short films) because that is what we need to do for the Oscar Nominations Predictions contest being held by Film Actually.
So, to preface our discussion of the Best Picture nominees, we're briefly going to remind you that the process for voting and determining Best Picture nominees changed last year. Remember in 2009 how the Academy changed the number of nominees from 5 to 10 in large part because Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight didn't get nominated in 2008? Well after two years of having 10 nominees the Academy decided maybe they were watering down the category by letting in a set number of 10.
So last year they changed the process to where there can be anywhere between 5 and 10 nominees in the Best Picture category, but now to get nominated your film MUST receive a minimum of 5% of all first-place votes. That's why last year there were 9 nominees - there weren't that many movies that EVERYONE loved, so a larger amount of films got first-place votes. Could that happen again this year? What do you think, Sarah?
Andrew: Hello readers! Later this week
on Thursday morning, Emma Stone and Seth MacFarlane will be announcing the
nominees for the 85th Academy Awards that will be held on Sunday, February 24th
in Los Angeles. As you may or may not know, we happen to love the Oscars, and
as such we're going to be posting our predictions for who will have their
nominations announced by Mr. MacFarlane and Ms. Stone. We kicked our
predictions off yesterday with our guesses for the Best Supporting Actor and
Best Supporting Actress categories, which you can read here if you'd like. And
today we're going to be discussing whom we think will get nominated in the lead
acting categories.
So, Sarah, which of the two categories would you like to
start with today? Best Actor or Best Actress?
Andrew:
Hello readers! It’s getting to be that time of year when the awards circuit is
moving full-steam ahead. We’ve already had the nominations for the Golden
Globes, the Writers Guild, the Screen Actors Guild and the Producers Guild all
announce their awards nominees, plus we’ll have the Directors Guild announcing
there’s on Tuesday.
But we’re not here to talk
about them, exactly, no. As you may or may not know, the nominees for the 85th
annual Academy Awards will be announced at 8:30 AM EST on Thursday, January 10th.
With that in mind, Sarah and I are going to be taking part in a Predict the
Oscars Nominations Contest that our fellow blogger Squasher88 is hosting over
at his blog, Film Actually. Squasher88 is asking all his contest participants
to predict the nominees for every category except for the Short Film
categories.
So this week, Sarah and I
will be posting our Oscar nominations predictions, starting today with our
predictions for who will be nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Best
Supporting Actress, and building all the way up to our Best Picture nom
predictions and full revelation of the more technical predictions most people
have no clue about on Wednesday.
Alright, let’s get down to
it Sarah! Today we’re just focusing on the two supporting acting categories.
Which one would you like to start with first?
Andrew: Hello readers! We're back from our brief hiatus this week. Our sincerest apologies that we went dark for a few days, especially leading right up to the Oscars(!), but I came down with the flu on Monday and am just now feeling up to it to write a coherent column. So thank you for being patient with us.
Today we begin our analysis and official predictions for the 84th Annual Academy Awards that will be presented on Sunday! In our first installment, we will be tackling the two supporting role awards, Best Original Score and Best Original Song. So, Sarah, which award should we talk about first?
Sarah: Let's start out with the category with the fewest nominees: Best Original Song! Here, I would have to say the award should go to "Man or Muppet" from…well…”The Muppets!” What do you think?
A: See this is the interesting part to me - this category only has TWO nominees! There were over 30 songs that were entered for consideration and the Academy only chose two to nominate, so it's literally a 50/50 coin-toss.
I haven't seen "Rio" so I can't tell you what I think about the song nominated from it, "Real in Rio," but I have seen "The Muppets" and I can firmly state that "Man or Muppet" is awesome and will win this award. (Readers, if you haven’t seen “The Muppets” but want to hear the song/see some clips from the movie, watch this music video!)
"Man or Muppet" from "The Muppets"
S: Ok, "Real in Rio" is a really great song. I have seen the movie and it is colorful and full of life and probably should have been nominated for Best Animated Film. But "Man or Muppet" has is heart and it's not just another animated movie song. (For comparison, here's the other nominee, too...)
"Real in Rio" from "Rio"
Since we are on the subject of music, what are your thoughts on the Best Score category?
A: My first thought is that I'm still kinda ticked that John Williams got two nominations this year and Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross didn't get a nom for their "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" score. Don't get me wrong - Williams' score for "War Horse" was probably the best thing about the film (in my opinion) and I've heard that his score for "The Adventures of Tin-Tin" is pretty solid (if not derivative of his Indiana Jones' scores), but leaving Reznor and Ross off is still the biggest snub this season.
We saw "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" but I don't remember the score too well. That doesn't bode well for it. We haven't seen "Hugo" yet, but I haven't heard too much chatter about Howard Shore's score for that film; so in the end I say Ludovic Bource's score for "The Artist" takes it. Especially because as a silent film, the score is literally the only thing you hear for 99% of the movie. If it weren’t a good score, the film would've failed miserably.
S: Yea, I really don't think that there should be a rule that the same guy doesn't get nominated more than once, but Williams is a dinosaur in the industry. While “War Horse” did have a great score, I agree that “The Artist” will take home the award, as well as many others.
The fact that “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” didn't even get a nod is a shame.
Now, let's move on to the Supporting Actress category. We have Bernice Bejo for “The Artist,” Jessica Chastain for “The Help,” Melissa McCarthy from “Bridesmaids,” Janet McTeer for “Albert Nobbs,” and Octavia Spencer for “The Help.”
So what do you think?
A: I think at first glance you could make a case for any one of these ladies to win the award, but after seeing "The Help" I think it's Spencer's to lose. Her performance was funny, touching, serious...just an all-around great job.
But let me say why I think two of the others could upset her: I think McCarthy could come away with the award because, while the Academy doesn't generally award comedic roles/films, it wouldn't be the first time a comedic actor upset the favorite - Marisa Tomei did it for "My Cousin Vinny."
And I could also see Bejo sneaking away with the statue because she was the embodiment of a 1920s silent film star. She nailed the expressions, the dancing, the humor, everything. But when all is said and done, after Spencer's racked up 18 awards for the role already, I do think she'll bring home the big one. You?
S: Oh yea, Spencer's got it in the bag. I just don't think that McCarthy will win for this. And while “The Artist” will probably sweep the awards pretty soundly, I think Bejo's performance was lost in the other aspects of the movie.
I actually think that if anyone else were to take it home, it would be Jessica Chastain, since she has been in two of the nominated Best Pictures this year (also in “The Tree of Life'”. We have seen her in two drastically different roles, and she has shined in both.
A: You're 100% right on Chastain, she was great in both films.
Ok, so let's move on to our last category for tonight's post: Best Supporting Actor. Who ya got and why?
S: Well, we got the following: Kenneth Branaugh for “My Week With Marilyn,” Jonah Hill for “Moneyball,” Nick Nolte for “Warrior,” Christopher Plummer for “Beginners,” and Max von Sydow for “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.”
I would have to give this one to Christopher Plummer. He is funny and has heart and definitely upstages his co-star, Ewan McGregor, in “Beginners.” His character also brings something a little newer to the table with an older man coming out of the closet to his son after his wife dies.
But I could be wrong, you never know. von Sydow does an amazing job in his role also, considering he is silent in the entire thing and could come out of nowhere and take the golden man.
A: I do think you have it pegged down to the two most likely candidates. While Jonah does a great job playing against type in "Moneyball," it's not award-worthy. Nolte was great in "Warrior" and I think in most years he'd have a real shot. Branaugh...haven't seen his performance, but it sounds like he deserved his nom and nothing more.
You saw "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" and so I believe you when you say von Sydow does a fantastic job. Any acting gig where you don't speak a single line certainly must be done correctly otherwise it kills the role, and by all accounts he nailed it.
But I think Plummer wins it in a landslide. He performance was funny, charming, touching, sad...just a veritable acting lesson on the screen with how understated he was. He's won 14 awards already, and most of the non-Oscar awards he didn't win went to Albert Brooks for "Drive" and he didn't get an Oscar nom. So I think Plummer is safe.
Alright! So my head feels like it's going to explode, so I'll hand it off to you, Sarah, to do a brief run-down of the films that will be released in theatres on Friday that we're most likely to see! (Sorry again, readers, that we didn't have time to do a preview like normal.)
S: Ok, so while we probably won't be seeing anything this weekend besides the Oscars (because if the walking plague living in my house) we do want to put in the order that we would see them.
Our Weekend of 2/24 Movie List:
1. "Wanderlust"
2. "Act of Valor"
3. "The Forgiveness of Blood"
4. "Gone"
5. "Good Deeds"
Yeah, I think it's safe to say that we are not Tyler Perry fans. “Wanderlust” has gotten some fun reviews and you can't go wrong with some of Hollywood's funniest people.
Alright readers, get ready for the next couple of days with our Oscar predictions! We know that there will be a ton of other blogs and articles on the topic, but here you will get our honest opinions based on what we know of the actor and how the Academy judges.
Tomorrow’s Post: We will make our predictions for Best Actor/Actress, Best Cinematography and Best Special Effects.
Synopsis: In the early 1960s, Southern socialite Skeeter Phelan (Stone) graduates from college determined to become an writer. Inspired by how her friends treat their black maids, Skeeter tries to get the black women who spend their lives working for white families to tell her their experiences for a book. After finding initial resistance, she is able to get maids Aibileen (Davis) and Minny (Spencer) to tell their stories, leading to both good and bad consequences.
REVIEW
Sarah: Hello readers Many of you, including myself, have
seen Tate Taylor’s “The Help.” Andrew, however, had not seen it. So, in regards
to this being the week before the Oscars, we are catching up on the Best
Picture nominees we missed. I have read the book and seen the movie, and like
most books-to-movies, I thought the book was better, but I do think it’s a very
good movie with great acting.
But I am interested to hear what you thought, Andrew, coming
both from someone who didn’t read the book or is from the South.
Andrew: Well I think those are two separate things, so I’ll
tackle them individually. First, coming from someone who has not read the book,
I really enjoyed the film. I felt that I got the real gist of the book and the
story without missing anything. You’ve told me you thought all of the actors
were casted very well, and I’ll have to take your word for it – but I do agree
in that I thought Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Emma Stone, Jessica Chastain
and Bryce Dallas Howard were all exceptional.
Now, as someone who wasn’t raised in the South like you were
(Sarah was born in Virginia and lived in Alabama for another 5 years, dear
readers), I was totally disgusted with Howard’s character, Hilly Holbrook. I
feel that the depiction of blatant racism is eye opening because of how genuine
the performances felt. I think the film presented that era in American history
quite well. And heck, I’ll go so far as the say that Howard’s character is one
of the best villain’s in film history. I hated her.
S: Yes, I would have to say that Holbrook is one of the
worst characters ever written. She’s just wicked. Now, Jessica Chastain, Octavia
Spencer and Viola Davis are all up for Oscars this year. While I think you will
agree with me that they all deserve the praise and if they could give out two
different Best Supporting Actress awards, Chastain and Spencer both deserve the
praise. What did you think about the other actors that didn’t receive any
acknowledge, like Bryce Dallas Howard and Emma Stone?
A: Well as I just mentioned, I think Howard was perfect as
Hilly Holbrook. She was just despicable; and while not on the same plane as
Hannibal Lecter or Darth Vader, I think her realistic performance deserved more
accolades.
Emma Stone is quickly becoming one of our favorite actresses
(side note: if you haven’t seen “Easy A” yet, readers, you should – it’s
hilarious) and I thought she was great in “The Help.” In regards to her
performance, I really don’t understand why she hasn’t garnered award talk
because I see almost no difference between her job in this film and Julia
Roberts’ in “Erin Brokovich.”
There’s a particular scene toward the last quarter of the
film that Emma’s character, Skeeter, has with her mother (played by Alison
Janney) that really got to me. For that scene alone she should have gotten more
award chatter. I guess in summation, the cast of “The Help” deserved their SAG
Award for Best Ensemble.
S: I agree with your thoughts on the actresses, and I think
they should have gotten more recognition. Now, with the Oscars coming up, what
do you think are the chances of this one?
A: How about we save that conversation for later this week
when we delve into our analysis and predictions of Sunday’s Academy Awards,
shall we? I think our plan for right now is to touch on the Supporting roles
categories on Thursday, the Lead roles categories on Friday and then do Best
Pictures and Best Director on Saturday. Then Sunday we’ll have our complete
Oscar predictions and we’re going to try to do a running blog of the award
show. Sound good?
S: Works for me! And your final grading for “The Help” is?
A: Now that it’s out on DVD, I do think this is a must-see
film for all the performances alone.
Andrew: Hello dear readers! As you may know, the 89th Academy Awards are airing tonight on ABC. You may not know it from our lack of reviews the past year, but we DO still see a ton of movies and we've seen most of the Oscar nominees this season.
