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Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Tech Categories Examined/The Artist/Shame/Separation/Kevin/Awards and Oscars

Good Morning on this Thursday...

Here's a Film Awards Clearinghouse Extra



TECH CATEGORIES (AND MORE) EXAMINED


Among the items for this Thursday’s blog, I thought I’d jump into a breakdown of the “down ballot” categories for this year’s Oscars before we get to the end of the year and try to get a sense of the lay of the land in terms of what might be expected for total Oscar noms.  I do plan to do at least one more big analysis of the Big 8 categories before we see the calendar turn over to 2012.  I took a quick measure of these categories from predictions publicly posted by Sasha Stone at Awards Daily, Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter, Kris Tapley of Incontention.com, Film Misery and Film Experience.  So with that in mind…

FILM EDITING
This category often aligns with Best Picture nominations.  Heaviest favorites are: Moneyball, The Artist and War Horse.  Hugo is next likeliest followed by Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and a little love for Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Out front are: Hugo, War Horse, The Artist and The Tree of Life.  Dragon Tattoo has the best shot at the 5th slot (at least for now, among these 5 Oscarologists).

ART DIRECTION
Out front are: The Artist, Hugo and Harry Potter/Deathly Hollows.  Also in the mix: War Horse.  Battling for the last spot: Tinker, Tailor, J. Edgar, Tree of Life and The Help.

COSTUME
Out front are: The Artist, Hugo, and Jane Eyre.  Also in play are: War Horse, Anonymous, W.E. and Tinker Tailor.

ORIGINAL SCORE
Out front are: The Artist, War Horse, Adventures of TinTin.  Also in play: Hugo, Extremely Loud.  Possibles: Moneyball, Tinker Tailor.

ORIGINAL SONG
Out front is: The Help.  Also in play are: The Muppets (twice), Captain America and Albert Nobbs (wouldn’t it be weird if THIS is where Glenn Close gets nominated instead of Best Actress???  It could happen!)

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Out Front are: A Separation, In Darkness.  Also in play are: Le Havre and Where Do We Go Now.  Possibles: Pina, Footnote.

ANIMATED FEATURE
Out front is: Rango.  Also in play are: Kung Fu Panda 2, Adventures of TinTin, Puss in Boots, Arthur Christmas.  Possibles: Rio, Cars 2.

MAKEUP
Out front are:  J. Edgar, The Iron Lady.  That’s the entire consensus here for now and even it isn’t terribly strong.

VISUAL EFFECTS
OUT FRONT ARE: Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Hugo, Harry Potter/Deathly Hollows and Transformers.  Also in play: The Tree of Life

SOUND EDITING
Out front are: War Horse, Adventures of TinTin, and Transformers.  Also in play: Super 8 and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  Possible: Hugo

SOUND MIXING
Out Front is: Transformers.  Also in play: War Horse, Adventures of TinTin, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Super 8, and The Tree of Life.

(Documentaries, Animated Shorts, Live Action Shorts...later)

Ultimately, when taken with the results of the latest analysis of the Big 8 categories (posted on Nov. 23before the NBR, NYFCC, Gotham and Indy Spirit announcements) this is the snapshot of the overall Oscar race at this point,

The Artist would lead all films with 10 nominations.  War Horse would have 8 with another 2 possible.  The Descendants sits at 5 nominations in the Big 8 categories and not a single other nomination is likely.  Other possible big players include Extremely Loud with 4 noms and 3 others possible.  Also in the 4 nomination club are: TinTin, Moneyball (with another 2 possible).  

Then there’s Hugo which was sitting at 2 possibles (Picture, Director) in the Big 8 categories just two weeks ago but is now considered a much stronger challenger.  I expect that it will be among the probable nominees when I crunch the numbers in a few days and not in just those two categories.  I expect it to make a play in Adapted Screenplay as well.  Add that to the 4 nominations and 2 possibles among the tech categories and Hugo has the potential to be the most nominated film.  More stunning is that none of the nominations would be in any acting category.

Finally, the Telluride effect…I’ve been saying (virtually since the Festival came to a conclusion) that this year would NOT provide the same number of nominations as last year (or 2009 either).  That continues to look like the case.  At this point (including Foreign noms) TFF #38 projects to 22 total nominations with another 4 possible.  That does NOT include the doc and shorts categories…which could nudge the needle closer to 2009-like numbers.


THE ARTIST



As you can see from the above entry, The Artist is holding on quite well, thank you.  It continues to have considerable press attention as well.  Below are some of this week's links to stories centered on The Artist

Interview with Berenice Bejo by MovieLine:
http://www.movieline.com/2011/11/brnice-bejo-on-the-artist.php

HollywoodNews provides a recap of the week's awards chatter and such:
http://www.hollywoodnews.com/2011/12/05/the-artist-surges-over-the-weekend-awards-alley/

SHAME



Still making noise in limited release, the year's Best Film, Shame, also continues to get its fair share of press:

Steve McQueen talks to Vanity Fair:
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2011/11/Director-Steve-McQueen-on-Shame-Its-Not-About-Sex-Its-About-Giving-Audiences-Something-to-Think-About

Variety focuses on Michael Fassbender:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118047036/

Two Carey Mulligan clips direct from Fox Searchlight:
http://content.foxsearchlight.com/inside/node/5052

And my Telluride acquaintance, Mr. Leonard Maltin, gives Shame a middling review:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/awards-season-backlashalready

A SEPARATION



The likely favorite for Best Foreign Language Oscar has a new trailer.  Here are a couple of links:
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/trailer-oscar-foreign-language-contender-a-separation/

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/sony/aseparation/

And let's OccupyOscar and get this nominated fro Best Original Screenplay.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN



A nice piece from The Playlist about Kevin star and potential Best Actress nominee (and TFF#38 tributee) Tilda Swinton:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/tilda-swinton-on-we-need-to-talk-about-kevin-lack-of-maternal-instinct-and-winging-it

AWARDS SCORECARDS

From Metacritic:
http://www.metacritic.com/feature/2011-film-awards-and-nominations

And also from The Daily Mubi:
http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/awards-and-lists-2011-index

OSCAR PREDICTIONS

The latest from The Gurus of Gold at Movie City News...look at Hugo!
http://moviecitynews.com/2011/12/gurus-o-gold-december-6-2011/

Also the latest from Dave Karger at Entertainment Weekly:
http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/12/06/oscar-predictions-national-board-of-review-dc-critics/

AND FINALLY, WGA WEIRDNESS

The Writer's Guild of America has rules...that means some scripts will not qualify for their awards...like these  (thanks to this article from Reuters):
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/05/us-writersguildawards-idUSTRE7B42Q120111205

See you Monday for the next MTFB/FAC installment.  Until then follow me on Twitter @Gort2

RIP Harry Morgan 1915-2011..."So long, farewell and Amen"

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