The 13th Annual Who'll Be Back?

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Re: The 13th Annual Who'll Be Back?

Post by mayukh »

ITALIANO wrote:
Big Magilla wrote: her role in Therese Raquin is supporting
I've checked and yes, she will be Madame Raquin, the character so memorably played, of course, by Sylvie in the otherwise disappointing Carnè movie. On paper it's a great, pivotal supporting role, but I've learned to be skeptical when it comes to English-language versions of French classics (Cousin Bette and Cheri come to mind). And who on Earth is Elizabeth Olsen?!
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Re: The 13th Annual Who'll Be Back?

Post by ITALIANO »

Big Magilla wrote: her role in Therese Raquin is supporting
I've checked and yes, she will be Madame Raquin, the character so memorably played, of course, by Sylvie in the otherwise disappointing Carnè movie. On paper it's a great, pivotal supporting role, but I've learned to be skeptical when it comes to English-language versions of French classics (Cousin Bette and Cheri come to mind). And who on Earth is Elizabeth Olsen?!
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Re: The 13th Annual Who'll Be Back?

Post by ITALIANO »

The idea that Viola Davis lost because of racism is, of course, absurd, and I find even more absurd that so many Americans (not here, thank God) seriously compare her with a Julianne Moore, a Glenn Close, which is completely wrong not only, objectively, in terms of career, but also, let me say it, in terms of talent - they really seem to think that her performance in The Help was great. But then these are the same people who still think that two front-runners can both lose because of vote-splitting (a split due just to the fact that they are frontrunners!). They are just idiots.

As for who'll be back, I can't read the future but this is what I feel:

Jean Dujardin won't be nominated again, though he may receive a nomination as Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical at the Golden Globes.

Brad Pitt will be nominated AND win as Best Actor soon.

George Clooney will also be nominated AND win as Best Actor.

Gary Oldman may one day be nominated as Best Supporting Actor, but I'm not so sure. Never again for Best Actor.

Demian Bichir's Oscar career is over.

Meryl Streep will be nominated again for Best Actress, more than once of course, and win once more, probably soon.

Glenn Close will never be nominated as Best Actress again, but may be nominated and even win as Best Supporting Actress one day.

Michelle Williams will definitely be nominated again for Best Actress, but unless she really gets a very strong role, she'll be another Laura Linney. A win is always possible but far from certain.

Rooney Mara won't be nominated again soon.

If Christopher Plummer won't be nominated again it will only be because of his age.

Same for Max Von Sydow, who still should and probably will get a Honorary Oscar.

Jonah Hill won't be see at the Oscar again.

Kenneth Branagh may be back one day, and may even win with the right role.

Nick Nolte could be nominated again and probably will, but no Oscar in sight for him at the moment.

Octavia Spencer will vanish from Oscar sight.

Jessica Chastain will definitely be nominated AND win as Best Actress soon.

Janet McTerr might be nominated again as Best Supporting Actress one day.

Melissa McCarthy won't come back.
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Re: The 13th Annual Who'll Be Back?

Post by Sonic Youth »

OscarGuy wrote:I forgot Hudson.

I don't honestly think Spencer has that chance. She's such a niche actress that only certain roles will fit her. Sure, that makes her a bit like Thelma Ritter, but I don't really think Spencer has that capability, not considering her past acting choices.
What makes you think an overweight, unattractive, middle-aged black woman has such a wide array of roles to choose from?

The same question - altering for physicality, of course - goes for Jonah Hill. We'd have a much better idea of what his "taste in roles" are were he to resemble his co-star Brad Pitt.
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Re: The 13th Annual Who'll Be Back?

Post by Big Magilla »

I wouldn't characterize Spencer's previous roles as choices. They were jobs. Now, however, she has choices and Diablo Cody is a smart enough writer to write to her strengths.
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Re: The 13th Annual Who'll Be Back?

Post by OscarGuy »

I forgot Hudson.

I don't honestly think Spencer has that chance. She's such a niche actress that only certain roles will fit her. Sure, that makes her a bit like Thelma Ritter, but I don't really think Spencer has that capability, not considering her past acting choices.
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Re: The 13th Annual Who'll Be Back?

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Octavia Spencer is the fifth black actress to win a Supporting Actress Oscar behind Hattie McDaniel, Whoopi Goldberg, Jennfer Hudson and Mo'Nique and the sixth overall.

Unlike several black actors who have multiple nominations (Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman) and continue to have long star careers (James Earl Jones), even supremely talented black actresses like Cicely Tyson, Alfre Woodard, Angela Bassett and now Viola Davis, have to scramble for roles as well as awards. Someone eventaully has to break the mold. I think Spencer has the potential to do that. She could become the new Thelma Ritter and go on to receive another five nominations, and could even become the first black actress to take home a second Oscar.
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Re: The 13th Annual Who'll Be Back?

Post by OscarGuy »

Here's my take, but with a specific look at what they've got on the horizon and my quick thoughts on each.

Directors:
Michel Hazanavicius - He has the comedy starring Jean Dujardin and that's it. Directors whose primary work is in a foreign language are rarely ever awarded multiple nominations. Even when the likes of Antonioni, Fellini, Teshigahara, Pietro Germi, Jules Dassin, Jan Troell, Ingmar Bergman, Francois Truffaut, Lina Wertmuller, the Academy doesn't give them (with the exception of Fellini who was a legend) multiple Best Director citations and these were World Cinema directors whose output was particularly influential. Hazanavicius isn't even remotely close to that level of work and his next film just doesn't inspire confidence. This is the last we've seen of him, I think.

Alexander Payne - I wanted to find some precedent for Payne's trajectory, but no name really came to mind, suggesting that he's probably not going to win very soon. However, with both Sideways and The Descendants critical hits and, to some, near misses, I wonder if he might start getting the attention David Fincher does when he makes a new movie. Every one is Oscar gold until it fades into obscurity with a couple of nominations, but nothing impressive. Payne has two films on the horizon. Nebraska has no one attached according to imdb, but could be perfect for Nick Nolte. It's about a booze-addled father who makes a trip with his son to Montana to claim a Publishers Clearing House Prize. I don't know who Payne will pick, but would Nolte even accept a role so close to himself? Or perhaps it would be interesting to cast an actual father-son team and bring James and and Scott Caan to the big screen? Or perhaps even Gary and Jake Busey. The possibilities are endless. Fork in the Road is based on a Denis Hamill novel that I've never heard of. But get this, Payne is directing, not writing it. has no information listed, but the film doesn't list Payne as a writer (It has Kerry Williamson listed). Then again, Nebraska is the same. Could we be seeing a director who wants to prove he can direct and not just write? If either is suitably impressive, he could be back. A win, though, just doesn't seem possible unless his film is more obviously great than his prior efforts.

Martin Scorsese - Before Peter mentioned it, I almost suggested a Clint Eastwood-like trajectory. Hugely popular for a period and then a sudden drop off as people get tired of his work (or he does). But were Hugo not Marty's love letter to film history, would he have even been in the mix? If the same film had been directed by someone like Robert Zemeckis, the tech nominations and prizes would be there, but that's about it, I think. Silence is Marty's next film about two Jesuit priests heading to Japan to find their mentor and proselytize. With a cast like Benicio Del Toro, Daniel Day-Lewis and Gael Garcia Bernal on board, it could be a hit and yield a few acting nominations. And as long as the Academy remains largely old, largely white, largely Jewish, I see little reason why it won't be a smash. Sinatra's the iffy one. I'm sure Criddic will get overly excited about the project, but no one's attached to star yet and without the right casting, I can't see it as a hit. Strangely, I could see Dujardin looking and playing the part, but his English would HAVE to get better for that, so I doubt it. He couldn't be so daft as to bring DiCaprio on again? But if there's an actor who kills directors chances better than DiCaprio, just ask Eastwood. Sinatra will be an Oscar nominee and Marty will likely be back. I could see Marty winning a second Oscar and Sinatra could be his shot as long as it delves into the mob connections of the story. We'll have to wait and see, but I could see him not only getting another nomination and winning again, but I could also see him getting a handful of nominations and never winning again just as easily.

Woody Allen - Woody will be back as a writing nominee, but it may be awhile. Even Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which landed Penelope Cruz an Oscar, didn't get a nomination in writing. The same branch that nominated him so frequently has changed and Woody will have to do something incredibly popular like Midnight in Paris to get back here again. Of course, should he ever return to New York and find something fresh in the genre he helped define almost 40 years ago, he could return. His next film is Nero Fiddled, which already has gone through a number of name changes, though usually it has to be on the verge of coming out before he settles on a name, so this is not very different. It has an interesting international and American cast, but I have the strange feeling it's going to be another European stinker. Has he made more than two films in Europe that have been roundly celebrated (Midnight in Paris and Match Point being those two films)?

Terrence Malick - They do like him even if not everyone cares for him. That he could pull a nomination out this year in spite of his film fading late in the game, I don't see why he shouldn't be back. Like Stanley Kubrick, his perfectionism tends to cause projects to take longer to get to the theater (5 years, 20 years, 7 years, 6 years. Yet, he has four films lined up over the next two years (they won't all come out then, but...). I wonder if he's feeling the end of his life approaching and trying to make more before he goes. Fatality can do that to you. Voyage of Time, an untitled project, Lawless and Knight of Cups are on the horizon. Will they be New World level Oscar-invisibles or will he actually be back? Never showing up to the Oscars hasn't hurt Woody, so I don't see it affecting Malick, but I can't really help but get the feeling that we may be looking at Stanley Kubrick, a director who, despite doing some spectacular work late in his career, never again made it back to the Oscars and his untimely death just prior to the release of his final film didn't do him any good. So yes, I'm suggesting that Malick will die before one of these four films is finished.

Actor:
There's little doubt in my mind that Demian Bichir's nomination is a one-off. Looking at his three films on the horizon, only Oliver Stone's film Savages would seem to have any shot and we all know Stone's late-career track record. Bichir will remain a character actor and like Adriana Barraza will find steady work in native and non-native language films, but will probably never be seen again.

George Clooney will be back. Will he win a second Oscar? Yes. He received an Oscar nomination for The Ides of March even though most of us considered the film dead come Oscar season. It re-emerged briefly and snapped up one mention. His next performance comes in Gravity by Alfonso Cuaron seems more like Solaris than any serious Oscar vehicle. And after that, he doesn't seem to have any projects lined up as an actor or as a director. So, my crystal ball is hazy, but I will guarantee he'll be back. But like Cary Grant before him, his next Oscar win will probably be an Honorary Oscar.

Jean Dujardin will probably follow the trajectory of the category's only other foreign language winner (I know it wasn't foreign language, but he was clearly a foreign actor), Roberto Benigni. Benigni of course got steady work in his native Italy, but his presence on American screens had been incredibly limited. Of his next films, The Players, Le Petit Joueur and Mobius definitely don't look like Oscar contenders and he's rumored to be starring with Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil in A Stormy Summer Night, but it's also not the kind of project that gets Oscar attention. I'm afraid that even with his good looks, Dujardin will become an Oscar statistic more than anything.

A long respected actor, Gary Oldman never struck me as the kind of actor who would ever get the Oscar attention he deserved. He's largely appeared in roles that were fun and challenging, but never anything seriously Oscar baity (at least in the last twenty years). Suddenly, he gets the role of a lifetime and snags his first Oscar nomination. Will he back? I want to say yes, but will he. I'm not certain. I don't see Smiley's People listed as a future project on IMDb, so I'm not sure it will ever get made and if it's not directed by Tomas Alfredson, I don't think it will be quite as good. As for his next projects. Oldman is still busy with the new Christopher Nolan film (for which he won't receive a nomination), there's Guns, Girls and Gambling; Wettest County (which might be an Oscar vehicle with Harvey Weinstein behind it); Arthur & Lancelot (rumored to be playing Merlin); State of the Union (rumored); and Motor City. Only the Weinstein project which stars an impressive cast: Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, Oldman, Guy Pearce and others. But will it be another The Shipping News? We'll have to wait and see, but Oldman could be back, but I wouldn't rule this out as a one-off.

Brad Pitt has finally become a respected actor (and humanitarian). Who would have thought this after A River Runs Through It and Seven? But there it is. He's also in the age range where previously nubile actors start taking artistic chances. He's narrating Malick's next film Voyage of Time, but after that he has Cogan's Trade, World War Z and Twelve Years a Slave. Cogan's Trade is discardable genre twaddle, but the other two films have promise. World War Z is Marc Forster, a director who we should never discount when it comes to the Oscars. Or should we? Forster's last major Oscar contender was The Kite Runner which didn't materialize and before that was Finding Neverland. A decade is too long to still be considered relevant. And since World War Z is a genre pic, I don't think it will make an appearance at the Oscars. Twelve Years a Slave, however stars Michael Fassbender and Brad Pitt. I would be shocked if the film weren't a major Oscar contender as its directed by bubbling under director Steve McQueen. Chiwetel Ejiofor is the most likely Oscar nominee in the film, but depending on the role Pitt plays, his next Oscar nomination will likely come for that film. Will he win? I'm dubious, but I can see a future where Brad Pitt turns into the aforementioned Cary Grant, an Oscar nominated actor who never quite found the right knock-em-out role and ended up winning a honorary award years down the road (think Jean Hersholt for Pitt).

Actress:
Glenn Close is a rarity and were it not a passion project, I think the nomination would have just barely missed. She was a cusp nominee if anyone. She only has one film on the horizon, Therese Raquin and it could be a shot at a nod, but I doubt an Oscar will come for it. As was mentioned before, if Close can get Sunset Blvd. made and star in it, I think the Oscar will be hers. Otherwise, she might get a couple of other token nominations and have to wait for an honorary award to take home the gold. Of course, Angela Lansbury who has a similar career, plenty of nominations, and enough Tonys to sink a ship, still hasn't won an honorary Oscar and will likely die before they decide to give her one.

Viola Davis will be backed only because people will feel she was robbed. The haunting statistic of only one other black actress receiving more than one nomination is fairly telling, but the Academy desperately wants to not sound like their old and white as statistics show and those voters who want to make a statement will probably give her a future nod even if she doesn't deserve it. She has three films in the near future: Won't Back Down brings her back to the matronly territory that she worked so well in Doubt, but while the cast list is impressive, the director is not. Beastly was a critical bomb, but Phoebe in Wonderland was delightful. If Daniel Barnz can do something more akin to Phoebe, it could be an Oscar nominee. I could also seeing it as North Country 2 where two actors are nominated, but the film goes home empty-handed. Ender's Game is sci-fi, so I would be surprised if she got any traction for it as director Gavin Hood doesn't really have a solid career to build a solid Oscar contender on, especially when it's genre filmmaking. Which leaves Richard LaGravanese's Beautiful Creatures. LaGravanese has the prior credentials to be an Oscar contender if he were writing alone, but after directing movies like Living Out Loud, Freedom Writers and P.S. I Love You, it will have to be something extra special to get attention. Emma Thompson and Viola Davis starring could do that. I think Davis will show up again, but if she doesn't have the right kind of meaty role soon enough, she won't be back.

Were Rooney Mara more like Natalie Portman than Tilda Swinton, I might say her career would take a different direction. Of course both ladies have Oscars, so there's something to be said for similarities. She has two films ahead. The Bitter Pill is a Steven Soderbergh project playing a woman descending into drug addiction. It seems like just the kind of film Oscars were made from, but it's Soderbergh, so you it probably won't be. Lawless is a Terrence Malick film and Malick, like Soderbergh, isn't exactly well known for landing individuals in his ensembles Oscar nominations. But sticking with auteurist directors will help her in the long run. I mean two David Fincher projects plus a Terrence Malick and Steven Soderbergh one. She has good taste now, which may help in the future and I could see a future Swinton-like surprise win, but not anytime soon.

Streep will be back undoubtedly and now that she's won her third, her ardent supporters will be moaning about when she'll win her fourth Oscar. If you doubt that now, you won't next year. The Cult of Streep seems to dominate "Oscarologist" circles, me being the only one seeming immune to it. Both Great Hope Springs and August: Osage County are perfect Oscar vehicles for Streep (though they wouldn't be for any other actress), but Great Hope Springs seems more It's Complicated than Julie & Julia. So, August: Osage County will be her next Oscar nomination in 2013 (unless 2012 proves to be very weak for women) and there will be plenty of calls for her to pick up a record-tying fourth Oscar. Whether it will be deserved or not remains to be seen, but the clamor will be there.

Michelle Williams is today's Kate Winslet. Beautiful young actress whose nabbed a number of nominations for her excellent work. After a short, but impressive career, she'll be given an Oscar for a film she probably doesn't deserve it for. Like Winslet, Williams first nomination came in Support and then she graduated to lead and has been there since. While I would have thought Williams would be of the Portman and Theron variety, winning for being pretty and young, Williams may have to win for feeling deserved. Playing Glinda in Oz: The Great and Powerful won't be her Oscar winning vehicle, but I doubt we've seen the last of Williams. I predict at least two or three more nominations before she wins.

Supporting Actor:
Kenneth Branagh almost disappeared after his Shakespearean emergence, but seems to be coming back (perhaps him devoting too much attention to films like Harry Potter, Valkyrie and Pirate Radio hurt a bit). He doesn't have any movies on the horizon, so I really don't know what to expect. He may be back, or, like Ralph Fiennes, he may return to Shakespeare and find that no one really cares anymore.

Jonah Hill is a one-off if there ever was one. Here's an actor with questionable taste in film roles who obviously wants to earn money before he earns respect. Will getting an Oscar nomination change his ambitions? I seriously doubt it. It never helped Eddie Murphy who continues to make crappy comedies. Hill will continue starring in young adult-friendly comedies and Oscar will go back to ignoring him.

I almost think Warrior was a once-in-a-lifetime role for Nolte. I can't see anything in his stable of future film releases that will earn him attention and I think he'll take this late-career triumph and vanish much like Mickey Rourke.

Plummer is working more regularly now than I think he ever did. And he seems almost as spry as he was fifty years ago. He only has one guaranteed film and one rumored film on the docket. One is a Stephen Frears film, which has potential to bring him back to the Oscars and a Nick Nolte-like role in Five Good Years (rumored). Both could bring him Oscar nominations, but he won't win a second Oscar.

As much as everyone respects and adores Max von Sydow, his nomination for Extremely Loud has more to do with Scott Rudin than it does with anything else. He has won film ahead currently in Truth & Treason, a WWII-set film where he seems to be playing a periphery character. If von Sydow gets another nomination, he could win, but I think his best chance is an Honorary Oscar.

Supporting Actress:
Bérénice Bejo is like most foreign-born actresses, a one-time, one-show kind of event. Her next two films are both foreign language joints and, unlike Oscar winner Marion Cotillard, I just don't see her career in American taking off (Audrey Tautou who almost had an American career, but now doesn't...she didn't even get an Oscar nomination). So, I think Bejo will continue working like Tautou, but won't be like Cotillard, who hasn't been back to the Oscars even when she's heavily touted for such)

Six films in a single year is very impressive and Jessica Chastain has six more currently slated for 2012 (though I doubt all of them will release then). She's been in-demand longer than she's been an Oscar contender. Another Terrence Malick film won't be her Oscar vehicle, Wilde Salmoe might be her chance for a Best Actress nomination, but Wettest County may be her best shot next year. Harvey Weinstein will stoke her star-ascendant narrative such that not giving her a nomination will seem like a slight. She could even rate a double nomination if Harvey can wrangle her starring role in Wettest County as a supporting one, but I don't see voters falling for that.

This was Melissa McCarthy's only shot. She's a TV actress and I see her career continuing for years on the small screen. This role just happened to hit at the right time when the Academy was being chastized for hating comedy. After all, Bridesmaids had every indication that it was going to be a Hangover-like Oscar no-show and then suddenly became something of a contender simply because it was women being raunchy and not men. McCarthy's nomination will be her last, I think.

Janet McTeer just doesn't seem like a conventional Oscar candidate, but neither was Tilda Swinton, but McTeer reminds me not only of Swinton, but of another unconventional-looking actress: Thelma Ritter. Ritter's first nomination came in late-forties and continued almost unabated until a few years before her early death. McTeer's first nomination was much longer ago, but I could see her turning her acerbic style into a Ritter-like trajectory over the next few years. She doesn't have anything on the slate at the moment, so I'm not sure what she's going to do, but I'd like to see her back. Her performance in Woman in Black was one of its saving graces and I like McTeer a lot in Nobbs, so I'm hoping she'll keep it up and come back.

Octavia Spencer came from obscurity to become only the third black woman to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar and only the fourth black actress to win an acting award. Spencer won, which means the Academy won't feel the need to award her again and that's largely because Davis looks like she's been wounded and they will want to reward her before they reward anyone else of color. Which is disappointing, but it largely has to do with the dearth of roles for black women in serious major motion pictures. But with the comedy Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife on her resume next year, I just don't see the Academy wanting to revisit Spencer. Yet, she does have a Diablo Cody project coming up, but it's Cody's directorial debut, so we have no idea if it will even be any good.

As for bubbling under actors who I think will eventually make it to the Oscars? I think Michael Fassbender is the obvious choice among the not-previously-nominated set (a case could also be made for Armie Hammer). As for the previously nominated who weren't this year, Leonardo DiCaprio will probably be back, as may be Michael Shannon, Woody Harrelson, Tilda Swinton and Carey Mulligan, but I think Ryan Gosling may be the right person to parley his failure to earn nominations two years in a row into a sympathy nod in the near future.

And because this took altogether too long to write, I'm probably going to disappear for the rest of the day. Too much work to do.
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Re: The 13th Annual Who'll Be Back?

Post by Big Magilla »

I've pretty much tuned out the other Oscar sites so I have no idea what all this talk about racism over Viola Davis' loss to Meryl Streep comes from. Something to write about when there really isn't anything to say?

Streep will be back of course and she won;t have to wait another 29 years when she'll be in her 90s to win again.

Davis may be back, but it won't be for her next film, which is from the director of Beastly.

Unless they film Sunset Boulevard with Glenn Close in the near future I don't see her coming back in the lead category. Support maybe. her role in Therese Raquin is supporting, so it could be as early as next year, but costume dramas haven't been doing well lately so it will take a lot for it to even be on the awards radar.

Michelle Willimas will definitely be back. In the meantime she can keep her head high knowing that she was teh ost awarded actress of 2011. According to E.W. she won two more major awards than Streep.

Rooney Mara looks like a one-time nominee to me. In fact I predict she'll be out of the business in five years.

Geroge Clooney and Brad Pitt are at their career peaks right now. How long that will last is anybody's guess, but for as long it does they will have their pick of material and several more shots at nominations.

Gary Oldman has Smiley's People on the horizon. The sequel to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy centers on his character and gives him a stronger narrative which depending on the competition could easily see him getting another nod for the character.

I think Jean Dujardin will have an international career going forward, but wheterh that will result in further nominations is too soon to tell.

Demian Bichir could be back, perhaps in supporting, now that he has name recogniton and will getting many more parts.

Octavia Spencer is now the go-to actress for all those parts requiring a fesity second banana and could conceivably be nominated several more times, with a win not totally out of the question.

Jessica Chastain was the major find of the year and will be nack many times in lead.

Janet McTeer could be back with the right role. She's young enough to take on all the roles that now go to Vanessa, Maggie and Judi when they retire.

Berenice Bejo I doubt will be back.

Melissa McCarthy has limited ability. I'm surprised she got this far. I don;t see her coming back.

Ditto Jonah Hill, who will go back to cheesy comedies.

Christopher Plummer and Max von Sydow show no hint of slowing down. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see both back. Now that Plummer has his Oscar, if the two of them are ever in contention again, the spotlight should fal on von Sydow.

Nick Nolte will continue to work but has probably seen his last nomination.

Kenneth Branagh seems to be more devoted to televison lately. He could be back, but not for a while.

Martin Scorsese will continue to be a presence in the film industry. Will future projects be awards magnets or will he slowly fade away like Clint Eastwood?

Woody Allen may or may not be back in the directing category, but will contnue to be a contender for writing.

Michel Hazanavicius will probably not be back.

Alexander Payne it's diffcult to say. He now has two Oscars for writing, so the bar becomes a bit higher.

Terrence Malick will probably be back for something or another.
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Re: The 13th Annual Who'll Be Back?

Post by Precious Doll »

The one thing I know for sure is that Meryl Streep will be back again and again and again and again and again and again and again...

And the she win again and again and maybe even again and again.
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Re: The 13th Annual Who'll Be Back?

Post by FilmFan720 »

For the bonus question, the obvious one to me is Leonardo DiCaprio, who much like Brad Pitt seems to have positioned himself as a strong contender for a win down the line. Of course, his 3 nods probably preclude him from this list (as they would to some other near misses...Tilda Swinton, Vanessa Redgrave or David Fincher).

Michael Fassbender seems like he is due any day now for a nomination, but I think he is really going to have to find the right project (and he hasn't found it yet) for the Academy to embrace...much like Gary Oldman before him, he bounces from being exceptional in un-Academy friendly films to being strong in roles in Hollywood pictures that don't have enough flash to them (or prestige to them) to garner awards consideration.

I will put out two possibilites, both a little outside the central Oscar prediction pool (at least come the real awards season) but that seem to have the push here they needed:

Kirsten Dunst has quietly been making the strong transition from child star to bright young movie star to edgy art house favorite in the past few years, and this year picked up a very prestigious acting award at Cannes. Melancholia was never going to pick up an Oscar nomination, but her name hung around long enough in critics awards circles that it signaled proof that she is finally being taken more seriously as an actress. If she can give this same sort of performance, but in a more mainstream-friendly film (Red Light Winter, perhaps?), I could see her making a push towards the theater formerly known as the Kodak.

Tomas Alfredson is now 2-for-2 in most books with the art-house smash foreign vampire film and now the surprisingly-strong-mainstream-yet-arty spy thriller. What is more important is that both of them seem to have crossover appeal...critics and industry folks love them, and when ordinary moviegoers take a risk on them they seem to love them too! There was a possibility that he could sneak into the director race this year (and had Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy been handled better he could well have), but if his next film continues his critical-favoritism than expect him to be a strong favorite for a nomination.
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The 13th Annual Who'll Be Back?

Post by Mister Tee »

13 years I’ve been doing this? How many that I’ve prognosticated about have died in the interim? (If not their earthly forms, their careers) We’re in a different era from when I began; where Spacey once reigned, we have Clooney. Only Streep is eternal.

Let me say at the start, semi-off-topic: I’ve been even more grateful than usual for this place in the past week. If you’ve perused any of the other Oscar sites, you’ll know many have come close to meltdowns over the Streep-beating-Davis scenario. At some places, the idea that Streep might have been a strong contender all along wasn’t even allowed in the conversation (Tapley insisted on Monday that Streep was never in the race; that this somehow rose from nowhere). Charges of racism at the outcome were rife, even at the usually sagacious Nate Rogers’ site (at least he made the suggestion in less-than-inflammatory terms – something I can’t say for the increasingly unhinged Sasha Stone). We’ve had our significant disagreements here, but I don’t think we’ve descended to that level in some time. So, a salute to you all, for keeping it rational.

That said…time for our annual survey of those combatants (or almost-combatants) who came up short this time but we expect might turn up in the near or distant future. And let’s start with that contentious best actress slate.

I’ll be honest: I’d fully expected to be leading off with How soon will Meryl be winning to atone for this loss? Like most, I’d bought into the idea of Viola Davis winning, and thought Meryl would be the headline in Who’ll Be Back? terms. Instead, we must turn our eyes first to Viola.

The one argument raised by disappointed Davis fans that strikes a chord is that The Help, with its box-office success, offered an uncharacteristically excellent shot at the lead actress prize for a woman in Davis’ position -- not only black but also middle-aged. Given the well-known paucity of decent roles for black actresses of any age, many wonder if this was her only shot in a lifetime. Well, let’s not be naïve: Davis will not have the multiple chances that Michelle Williams will in the decade ahead. But I wonder if the manner of Davis’ loss – the fact that she is perceived to have come thisclose to winning – will give her a leg up, not just in casting, but in likelihood of winning the next time she gets in range. In the small group of black actresses who’ve been nominated and lost, only Whoopi Goldberg was in even the same ballpark as far as competing – and she managed a win her next time out, five years later. For the moment, Davis seems to have a busy schedule, and may be back sooner than we think (though I’m dubious about her next effort – summaries suggest an evil-teachers’-union against determined parents plot, and pro-union Hollywood might have the same problems with it that it had with Waiting for Superman). Long term, I like her chances better than many of her partisans do.

As for the others:

I said of Michelle Williams last year that she was maybe the most likely of the group to win an Oscar soon, and I see no need to do anything but reinforce that now. Though she got caught in the crossfire of the epic Streep/Davis duel, and never quite got her due this year, I think voters were quite impressed with her work, and could be returning her to contention regularly. Though I must add, her current IMDB sheet has nothing much scheduled, so there may be something of a lull first.

Poor Glenn Close. To have labored that long and hard on your dream project, and have it amount to so little (yeah, a nomination – one that was stillborn from day one). But maybe it’ll liberate her. Remember: Scorsese got his dream project made, Gangs of New York, and suffered a dispiriting Oscar shutout, but he followed it with three picture/director candidates in eight years, including his first win. Maybe Therese Raquin, which doesn’t have the weight of Close history in the balance, will do more for her in Oscar terms. (And, you know, if she never wins…how bad can you feel for someone with three Tonys and three Emmys on her shelf?)

I don’t think anyone can really say how much Rooney Mara has to offer. Not that I doubt she’s good – I liked her small bit in The Social Network just fine. But in Dragon Tattoo I felt I was seeing not so much Mara as Lisbeth Salander – a role by now so clearly defined that if Meryl Streep played her she’d come off much the same. Clearly the visibility granted by this role/film will open a lot of doors for Mara, and if she rises to those occasions (Soderbergh and Malick are up next), she can be back in the not-Kodak Theatre before long. But, for me, it’s going to be those next roles that give me a clearer view of her future.

And speaking of Meryl Streep…I’m almost disappointed not to able to write about her trajectory in the wake of a loss here, because it would have been so interesting. The fact that she won proves the point beyond doubt, but I was set to argue that this (hypothetical) loss was different from the ones she’d experienced in the past decade: in those cases, she’d have won only because it was “time”, and because competition wasn’t stellar; here, she’d delivered truly hailed work, and if she failed, it would only be because Davis represented her most formidable competition since Helen Mirren.

The question now: is she correct, when she says she’ll never be up there again, or does she have a future? Had she lost Sunday, August: Osage County would have been set in stone as a major future Oscar hopeful. Is it still? Or is she now excluded from consideration? Let’s not forget: Katharine Hepburn had just won a not-at-all-deserved second Oscar in 1967, but came back immediately with an unexpected win in ’68. Could Streep, with a strong vehicle, match that feat? How high can she fly?

On the male side of the slate, though he inexplicably failed to gain traction in the late stages of the race, I still see Brad Pitt as the year’s big gainer, and now a most likely best actor winner in the decade ahead. Few can match Pitt’s roster of interesting films over the past half-decade; that he’s somehow managed to do this while maintaining his status as major Hollywood star is truly remarkable. It’s odd that awards from both the NY and National Critics this year couldn’t propel him into the race (probably more a sign of the critics’ diminished role in Oscar influence than any knock on him). But if the interesting roles continue to come, I don’t see how he can miss joining the list of best actor winners.

So, Gary Oldman finally made the Oscar list, with an honorable, impressive performance. He didn’t have a particular chance of winning, but he played out the season with good cheer. Does this move him up the ladder toward a someday-Oscar? Well, if there was any “doesn’t play well with others” feeling getting in his way, this year will have done much to offset it – though, honestly, I think that was an overstated, gossip columnist’s take. Oldman was never nominated before because, while he’s been dependably solid over the years, his early breakthroughs (Sid and Nancy, Prick Up Your Ears) were Academy-unfriendly, and after that no performance jumped out quite enough (his State of Grace performance is the only one I can really think of that came close, and that was in a year where psycho gangsters were overly plentiful, with Pesci winning for GoodFellas, and Turturro also left out, for Miller’s Crossing). This nomination may bring Oldman into focus for voters – make them look more carefully at his upcoming work for potential nods. But they’re not going to suddenly nominate him for playing Commissioner Gordon. (Apropos of which: other sites are already revving up their “Nolan will be nominated for The Dark Knight Rises to make it up to him” campaigns – these people will never learn)

Demian Bichir may be a very decent fellow, and a respectable actor, but his scheduled future roles seem at second tier level. This nomination feels very much like a one-off.

Jean Dujardin has apparently charmed a good segment of America, but he doesn’t at this point have command of English, so it’s hard to see how he can parlay this win into a Hollywood or Oscar future. Actors who win on their first nomination actually have a decent record of returning for later nominations, but this strikes me as an extreme case. I’d be significantly surprised were Dujardin to manage any kind of return -- and stunned beyond belief by a second win.

A handicap George Clooney had throughout the season, even when he was winning with the Broadcasters and Globes, was skepticism he’d reached the level of rating two Oscars. Add to that mixed response to The Descendants (a critical and commercial hit, but provoking more online hatred than anything I’ve seen in recent years) and his loss was predictable. However, I don’t think there’s any reason to think his run of success has come to an abrupt end. He continues to work with interesting directors (Cuaron up next), and helps make their projects commercially viable. I think that second Oscar may not be kept away from him permanently.

I’ve never seen A Knight’s Tale, but I see that among Berenice Bejo’s credits, so apparently language is not the insuperable barrier for her that it might be for her co-star. I can’t say I was wowed by her Artist performance in any way, so I’m not inclined to see her as most apt to impress again. But, given her film’s major exposure, she certainly ought to get some chances in the years just ahead

As for Jessica Chastain…either we’ve experienced a major statistical fluke, or we’re going to be seeing a lot of this lady. I’ve been trying to think of a precedent for Chastain’s sudden, seemingly full emergence, and the only thing that comes to mind is that just-over-twelve-month stretch Meryl Streep had with The Deer Hunter, Manhattan, Seduction of Joe Tynan and Kramer vs. Kramer. I don’t think Chastain has shown quite the range Streep did in that run, but from what I’ve seen I wouldn’t bet against her having lots more to show us. Good directors, one presumes, will be anxious to use her right now. I’m guessing she’ll be back on the nomination list within 2-3 years, maximum.

Melissa McCarthy is likable, but a limited type, and her TV career is going to consume her for a while. I think of her nomination as borderline fluke, and don’t see her as any strong likelihood for return, short or long term.

Janet McTeer was back after a 12-year absence (one during which she didn’t do a ton of memorable work), and her two nominations together grossed under $5 million. This hardly suggests a major Oscar future. But there’s an upside: she’s a damn good actress, and maybe now she’s at an age where character work – her long suit -- will come along more regularly. Obviously it depends where she focuses her attention, but I see her as a possible return candidate in this decade.

Octavia Spencer…She’s a very specific type, and she’s just gone – at age 40 -- from utter anonymity to an Oscar win. That sounds like “career peak” to me. But she seems a bright, motivated individual (she was instrumental in getting The Help developed), so maybe she’ll be able to take this moment and expand her career beyond it. Another win seems hugely unlikely.

Kenneth Branagh…The illustrious actor/director career that seemed in sight after Henry V is mostly faded hope at this point. But Branagh has kept plugging along, and now – firmly in the character stage – he has the chance to do work that could bring him additional supporting nods. Not the most highly-rated prospect, but one who might surprise.

Jonah Hill…I, like many, was totally unprepared for what he delivered in Moneyball, so maybe underestimating him now is dangerous. But I can’t help feeling this was a one-off. His upcoming schedule offers little encouragement – he’s right back to the mall-pleasing stuff. Perhaps, in the wake of this nomination, he can interest directors in giving him a chance to stretch. My instinct says no, but I’ll stay tuned.

There was a time when a lead acting prize seemed possible for Nick Nolte, but you look at the guy now and figure he’s in character actor city for the duration, with any hope of a prize likely to come under supporting. I think people feel affection for the sheer length of his career, but he doesn’t fall into the beloved zone, so any prizes will need to be earned with truly major performances.

The two senior-senior citizens, Plummer and von Sydow, are of course in actuarial terms unlikely to come back. But Plummer, who managed his first nomination at 80 and followed with a win at 82, has already defied precedent. And von Sydow is of course enough of a legend to get raced to the front of the line with the right performance. I bet against either, but would be happy to be proven wrong.

As for the directors…Alexander Payne is now in the unique position of having won two screenwriting Oscars while failing both times at winning directing. That stat indicates the degree to which voters see him as more writer than director, and the double-win probably forecloses his winning director for anything but a universally hailed best picture choice. On the upside: He’s now had four films in a row score significant Oscar attention, and is likely to show up again in the near future.

Woody Allen doesn’t hold the record for number of years between first and latest nomination, nor for years between latest and just previous – John Huston bests him in both categories, 37 to 34 in the first, 33 to a mere 17 in the second. Still and all…this was quite a comeback for Woody, resulting in his third screenwriting Oscar. Is there more yet to come? It’s hard to imagine him again catching lightning in a bottle quite like this, but if his one-country/one-hit pattern continues, he certainly might get more writing nods, and maybe one of them will extend to directing. A win seems way beyond consideration.

Terence Malick is always a candidate for a David Lynch-ian lone director spot, but it’s hard to imagine him ever drifting into win contention, other than by accident.

Let’s review the tape: entering the millennium (and at a rather advanced age), Martin Scorsese had three nominations for best director. He now has seven (and his first win). Would you bet against him improving that record? The difficulty of mounting personal projects in this era has, ironically, worked to Scorsese’s Oscar advantage – shunted to more commercial projects, he’s able to put his auteur stamp on these efforts and the Academy gets to indulge its long-held affection for him on more accessible work. I say he’s not done.

The question was raised in the Oscar Trivia thread the other day: has there ever been an Oscar winning director who had no significant attention from the Academy before or after the win? Michael Cimino of course crashed and burned right after, but he’d at least had the Bridges/Thunderbolt and Lightfoot nomination a few years earlier. Delbert Mann’s film career wasn’t vastly distinguished past Marty, but a few of his actors were nominated in subsequent films. So, we should say of Michel Hazanavicius that history suggests we’ll hear SOMETHING from him in the future – though the specifics of his career and even of this win suggest there may not be a whole lot.

Okay, now the bonus round – and let’s be specific what the parameters are: pick out the person who was viewed as in the mix for a nomination this year and failed to make the cut, but that you’d bet will push through in future years. I think the obvious candidate is Michael Fassbender, though he feels like stale news since people who can’t follow rules have been pushing him in years past. Beyond him? I guess maybe Elizabeth Olsen – though she could as easily be a one-off. It’s not that rich a year for failed candidates (given a number of them, like Carey Mulligan or Charlize Theron, have already shown on lists past).

And that’s how I see this year’s slate. I of course await general agreement/argument.
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