The nominations for the Oscars went out this morning and with them, the first round of quick reactions and predictions. After several months of following smaller, but not insignificant awards, here are our official predictions and complaints. Agree? Disagree? Let us know!
Best Picture
The Artist
War Horse
Moneyball
The Descendants
Tree of Life
Midnight in Paris
The Help
Hugo
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Who Will Win: The Artist. It’s had all the steam throughout the early awards season, and it doesn’t appear any of the other films have the clout to take it down.
Who Should Win: Really it’s a wide open category if The Artist loses, but look for The Descendants to take the statue if Oscar voters aren’t into French silent films.
Who Was Snubbed: Young Adult. Not a single nomination for Jason Reitman’s latest. It’s surprising The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo got nothing, but the lack of any love for Young Adult is a travesty.
Best Actress
Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Viola Davis, The Help
Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Who Will Win: Michelle Williams. She’s clearly been the front runner through most of awards season and though Meryl Streep has had a lot of buzz, Williams is by the far the safest bet of all nominees.
Who Should Win: If not Williams, it will be Meryl Streep. The other three nominees are all deserving, but Oscar politics always trump anything else.
Who Was Snubbed: Tilda Swinton. I’m not sure if We Need to Talk About Kevin was eligable for the Oscars, but if it was, it’s a travesty she didn’t get a nod. Also deserving: Charlize Theron, who carried Young Adult.
Best Actor
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
George Clooney, The Descendants
Brad Pitt, Moneyball
Demián Bichir, A Better Life
Who Will Win: George Clooney. He has a Supporting Actor award already, and as is the Oscar way, he’ll win because it’s his time.
Who Should Win: Honestly, this category is dynamite. If it’s not Clooney, expect either Oldman, Dujardin, or Pitt, in that order.
Who Was Snubbed: Michael Fassbender for Shame and Michael Shannon for Take Shelter. Two of the most talked about performances of the year got no attention. I expected at least one to get a nod, and it’s surprising neither of them did.
Best Supporting Actress
Octavia Spencer, The Help
Bérénice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Who Will Win: Jessica Chastain. Sometimes the Oscars are about welcoming people into the community of Oscar winners, and after a huge year, expect Chastain to get that honor.
Who Should Win: This is another loaded category in which anyone has a convincing argument, but if it’s not Chastain, Bejo could steal the show.
Who Was Snubbed: Though she really didn’t get nominated for any other awards, Shailene Woodley from The Descendants deserved at least a little attention for her breakthrough performance.
Best Supporting Actor
Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Kenneth Branagh, My Week With Marilyn
Nick Nolte, Warrior
Jonah Hill, Moneyball
Max Von Sydow, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Who Will Win: Christopher Plummer. This is the closest thing to a lock in this year’s ceremony.
Who Should Win: Honestly, Plummer. He owns Beginners and is truthfully the most deserving.
Who Was Snubbed: Albert Brooks. Without a doubt the biggest snub of the Oscars. Though no one expected him to beat Plummer, not even getting nominated was absolutely crazy. Special Mention also goes to Patton Oswalt for Young Adult.
Best Director
Alexander Payne, The Descendants
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Martin Scorsese, Hugo
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Terrence Malick, Tree of Life
Who Will Win: Martin Scorsese. When Oscar voters are in doubt, they always go with one of the all time greats.
Who Should Win: Alexander Payne. Consider it the consolation prize for The Descendants if The Artist picks up Best Picture.
Who Was Snubbed: David Fincher is notably absent from this list, but given the overall lack of love for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, it’s not too surprising.
Best Original Screenplay
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, Bridesmaids
J.C. Chandor, Margin Call
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Asgar Farhadi, A Separation
Who Will Win: Woody Allen. Midnight in Paris was a phenomenal film, and given his uneven work in the last 10 years, this could be the Academy’s last chance to honor one of the greats.
Who Should Win: Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo have the best shot at sneaking in if Allen doesn’t win. Hazanavicius has a shot as well, but he’ll win elsewhere, leaving the door open for the breakthrough comedy duo.
Who Was Snubbed: Diablo Cody for Young Adult. It’s ridiculous this film didn’t get a single nomination. It rank with Albert Brooks as one of the biggest snubs of the year.
Best Adapted Sceenplay
Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, The Descendants
John Logan, Hugo
Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian, Moneyball
George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Beau Willimon, Ides of March
Peter Straughan and Bridget O’Connor, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Who Will Win: Payne, Faxon, and Rash. Again, look for The Descendants to pick up a bunch of awards that aren’t Best Picture. That’s not to detract from the fact that they actually deserve this award though.
Who Should Win: If the Descendants lose, the safe money is on Sorkin and Zaillian, picking up Moneyball’s consolation prize.
Who Was Snubbed: Yasmina Reza and Roman Polanski for Carnage. Easily one of the funniest films I saw all year.
Last week, Michael headed to the 2011 Savannah Film Festival, getting an early look at some of the films that figure to be Oscar contenders this year and some that disappointed:
Lynn Ramsey’s dark story abut a mother raising a disturbed son drew mixed results for the crowd at Trustee’s Theatre, but stood out as being one of the more interesting and better done films of the festival. Tilda Swinton was terrific as always as a the mother of the titular character, played with menacing evil by Ezra Miller. Flashing backwards and forwards through time before hitting the big reveal at the end, We Need to Talk About Kevin employed visuals better than any other film at the festival, providing a sense of dread the entire time. In a lot of ways, it’s a modern day horror film in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby, where the audience knows something bad will happen and spends the entire film waiting for it to happen. Though I don’t see any Oscar nods in its future, We Need to Talk About Kevin is definitely one of 2011’s must see films.
The latest film from the Mark and Jay Duplass (Cyrus, The Puffy Chair) escaped a lot of attention as one of the last films to be screened, but was among the most enjoyable of the festival. Jeff Who Lives at Home follows the titular character (Jason Segal), a lazy pot-smoker who still lives with his mother (Susan Sarandon). Looking for signs in the world to give him his true purpose, Jeff ends up on a journey around Baton Rouge, where he ends up connecting with his jerky brother (Ed Helms) and sister-in-law (Judy Greer). The Duplass Brothers’ loose, improvisational style gives both Segal and Helms a chance to do their best work on the big screen, each showing depth and range previously unseen. Jeff is also a significant step up for the directors from last year’s Cyrus, a film that failed to meet its potential. In contrast, Jeff features a tighter story and relies more on the emotional beats of characters than emotional beats in the story. Just as it did at the SFF, Jeff Who Lives at Home could fly under the radar for most moviegoers, but if you have the chance, check it out.
After a heavy night with Coriolanus (more on that in a bit) I was ready for some laughs. Thankfully, I decided to see Boy, a hysterical and charming film from New Zealander Taika Waititi. The film follows the titular character, a Michael Jackson-loving 11-year-old kid in a small New Zealand town who is left in charge of a house of even younger cousins and his brother Rocky when their grandmother goes out of town for a funeral. When his estranged criminal father (Waititi) returns, Boy finally has a male role model, albeit one that has him steal marijuana and dig holes to find the money he had stashed in a nearby field. Waititi is pitch perfect as the slightly insane Alamein, making him likable and detestable at the same time. The film started right away with laughs and never let up, even in its heavier moments. Boy may not be on the radar of a lot of film followers here in the U.S. yet, but it should be. Unfortunately, it’s not playing again at the festival, but be sure to keep an eye out for this charming and thoroughly enjoyable film.
In recent years, issues such as climate change, America’s school system, and the financial crisis have been greatly impacted by some incredible documentaries. An Inconvenient Truth changed the way we think about the environment, Waiting for a Superman was watched and mentioned by President Obama, and Inside Job put a spotlight on who was actually responsible for the financial collapse. What made these documentaries so successful was not just that they were well done, but that in some way, they impacted every viewer. Appropriately screening after a panel on how films can change the world, Lee Hirsch’s The Bully Project aims to do the same with a problem that impacts many kids and their parents across the country, hitting all the right notes in the process. The film tackles bullying from nearly every facet, following a middle-schooler facing it in his school, a girl who brought a gun on a bus to stop bullies, a small-town lesbian, and the families of two kids who took their own life because of bullying. Each segment features crushing moments of cruelty that largely goes unpunished or recognized by school and town officials, including one in which an assistant principle tells a boy to just ignore the bully that had told him he would kill him. It’s an incredibly touching film that at times touched very close to home. It may seem bleak at points, but The Bully Project does an excellent job at leaving its audience with a feeling of hope and purpose. What was especially great about yesterday’s screening was walking out and seeing a large group of local students in their seats. All of them were quiet and evidentially shaken by film. As much as it’s a documentary for adults unaware of the issue, The Bully Project is an should be required watching in middle and high schools around the country. See it if you can.
Kermit, Miss Piggy, and Fozzie got their world premier in Savannah as the secret Director’s Choice on Friday night, a move that 
The closing night selection, Sundance winner Like Crazy, also lead to a split decision from the audience. An entirely improvised film shot on a prosumer camera (the Canon 5D), I found Like Crazy to be a film with terrific performances, a great visual style, and a lackluster story. The film follows Jaccob (Anton Yelchin) and Anna (Felicity Jones), two college students that fall in love and suffer through a long distance relationship after visa problems keep her stuck in her native England. Both Yelchin and Jones are terrific, and the small camera allows the filmmakers to capture some terrific, intimate, improvised moments, but the film’s biggest flaw is its glacial pace and some plot decisions that lack explanation or motivation. There’s a good story in Like Crazy that is largely lost, leading the film to rely on visuals to work. While it doesn’t stick the landing, it’s an impressive low-budget indie that deserves the attention its gotten.
The biggest disappointment of the week came with David Cronenberg’s latest, a period piece about the relationship between groundbreaking psychologists Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender). Dry dialogue, relatively conventional visuals, and poor performances doom the film, which felt like it dragged on forever. Kiera Knightley offers a terribly over-acted performance as a patient of Jung’s that begins an affair with him after he gets her craziness under control. Fassbender breaks his hot streak, playing Jung with virtually no emotion, providing no reason to connect to his character. The film’s saving graces are Mortensen, who is charming and funny as Freud and Vincent Cassel, who turns up for about 15 minutes as a doctor/patient that encourages Jung to pursue his affair with Knightley. Overall, the film is sterile and devoid of any sort of emotional connection with the audience. Though the temptation to see a Cronenberg film may be there, skip A Dangerous Method and to avoid crippling disappointment.
Hands down the worst film of the festival, Coriolanus is clearly the vanity project of director/star Ralph Fiennes. Taking one of Shakespeare’s lesser known plays and setting it in “modern day Rome,” the film is an overindulgent mess that finds Fiennes in constant closeups while forgetting a terrific roster of supporting actors including Brian Cox, Vanessa Redgrave, Jessica Chastain, and Gerrard Butler. If Fiennes knows anything about film directing, it’s not apparent in Coriolanus. Do yourself a favor and spend two hours doing something other than seeing this movie.
Over the course of the last week, I heard several friends tell me they weren’t going to last night’s opening film, The Artist, because they didn’t think they’d have any interest in seeing a silent, black and white French film. Nevermind the critical acclaim or the fact that it was opening night, they all told me that without dialogue, they’d probably fall asleep or be bored. I was intrigued by film, not only for its premise but for the buzz surrounding it. After it screened at Cannes, the audience gave it a 20 minute standing ovation. That seemed a little extreme, but now, I can kind of understand why.My silence-fearing friends missed out big time. The 2011 festival started with a resounding bang with The Artist, a brilliant and beautiful story of a silent film star in the transition to sound. As one of the film’s stars, James Cromwell, said after, it’s textbook filmmaking. Simplicity was the name of the game here, and it worked to tremendous affect. There may not have been a 20 minute standing ovation, but I didn’t run into a single person all night who didn’t like the film. It’s hard to get consensus on the quality of a film from two film buffs, let alone a theatre of them, so it was hard to ignore the overwhelmingly positive response to it. While I don’t think we’ll be heading for a second era of silent films, The Artist is sure to be a film that resonates within those who’ve seen it for a long time.
For the second year in a row, I’ll be hitting the Savannah Film Festival in Savannah, GA. This year, I have the added bonus of a media pass getting me full access to the event, which features some high profile films such as Cannes hit The Artist, Sundance Winner Like Crazy, A Dangerous Method, Carnage, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and a many more. Be sure to check back here, on 
Once again, TUiW is fortunate enough to go to the Savannah Film Festival and get a sneak peak of some of this year’s Oscar contenders before they hit wide release. Headline films include Roman Polanski’s Carnage and Cannes favorite The Artist, and this morning, the festival announced its competition films. Check out the list below and check back when the festival starts to read our thoughts on them.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a die-hard Cubs fan. My great grandfather started the family tradition when he was a kid living in Chicago, and though I’ve never lived in the Windy City myself, I spend every spring getting my hopes up in time for them to be dashed by mid-June. Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS (otherwise known as the Bartman Game) was a particularly painful night for me, one that is still clearly etched into my mind. When I heard about “Catching Hell,” ESPN’s terrific documentary on the incident and scapegoat culture in baseball, my first reaction was to sigh, realizing I’d get to spend two hours reliving one of the worst nights of my sports fan life.
Michael
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