Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Oscars at the Halfway Mark: What We’ve Seen, What We Know

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I wasn’t going to do this, but I see everyone else has– make some lists of Oscar hopefuls and potentials at the year’s halfway mark. So this is what we know: So far in 2013, as usual, there’s not much among the movies that have been released.  Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper were very good in “Place Beyond the Pines.” The movie is top notch too. But Focus hasn’t done much with it, and I don’t see it making a huge awards impact.

“The Great Gatsby” is going to get a huge Oscar push– Best Picture, Director, Actor (DiCaprio), Supporting Actor (Maguire), Supporting Actress (Mulligan), as well as score and technical lines. Right now, it would make the cut. But by October: problematic at best. I’d say that “42” has a chance at some action. But the Golden Globes I’m sure didn’t like it. Harrison Ford has a shot at Best Supporting Actor, however.

Now, to the films I’ve seen and you haven’t: Cannes produced two or three Best Picture nominees. They are the Coens’ “Inside Llewyn Davis,” Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska,” and maybe JC Chandor’s Robert Redford solo shot, “All Is Lost.” From these films you could find three Best Actors– Oscar Isaac, Bruce Dern, and Redford. Plus, of course, Picture, Director, Screenplay. Cannes and Sundance gave us “Fruitvale Station,” a sleeper, a great film that may be more Indie Spirit minded than Oscar. We’ll see.

Some things we know about:

Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine” with Cate Blanchett is going to be an Oscar contender. Blanchett is a lock for a Best Actress nomination.

John Wells’s “August: Osage County” will produce a raft of nominees starting with Meryl Streep.

Lee Daniels’s “The Butler” should put Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey in the running. Of the many supporting actors, we’ll have to wait and see.

Martin Scorsese’s trailer for “Wolf of Wall Street” suggests that Matthew McConnaughey will be in the running for Supporting Actor. McConnaughey also has “The Dallas Buyer’s Club,” for which he lost a lot of weight.

Tom Hanks has two movies with good buzz: “Captain Phillips” and “Saving Mr. Banks.”

George Clooney directs an allstar cast in “Monuments Men.”

Nicole Kidman may have caught lightning in a bottle with “Grace of Monaco.”

So hold on. It’s impossible to predict anything until the movie has been seen. And we have a long hard road ahead.

 

 

 

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
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