Award Contenders

   September has finally arrived (and not a moment too soon)!  For my fellow Oscar geeks that means the awards season is about to officially kick off!  For many, including myself, this is the best time of the year.  Not only are we about to finally see many of the films we have been hearing about since spring, but the weather is cooling down, football is kicking off, and school is starting back up (which means less noisy kids/teens in theatres!!  Woo-hoo!!).

   There will be many movies coming to us shortly, almost too many to keep up with in fact.  Hopefully they will all be worth seeing, but we will know sooner than later from all of the film festival buzz which to move to the front of the list, and which to drop to the bottom.  Before the reports start pouring in, I thought it would be fun to list the 20 films I am most looking forward to.  Some are on the list for the Oscar hype, others make the list purely out of entertainment value.

   Be sure to leave a list of the films you are most looking forward to in the comments section at the top of the post.

   See my 20 most anticipated films for the remainder of 2010 after the jump…
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   I’m just going to let you know right off the get-go that I believe the toughest race this year will be in the Best Lead Actress category.  I can take the actress that I currently have as the frontrunner and drop her to the 10th position without feeling it would be completely nuts.  It’s partly because we haven’t seen the vast majority of the performances that I feel will be considered as contenders, but also because there are a lot of great actresses working with great directors who have yet to win an Oscar.  The field is beyond deep.

   At the top of the list has to be Annette Bening and/or Julianne Moore in The Kids Are All Right.  Both are veteran actresses who have turned in years and years of fantastic performances and are yet to receive an Academy Award.  However, I just can’t see both being pushed for the same category, as it will certainly hurt the others chances at winning.  Will one be moved to Supporting?  If so, which one? 

   My guess is that even though I felt Moore’s performance to be much more awards worthy, the long(er) overdue Bening will get the selection here.  After two grueling losses to Hillary Swank in 1999 and 2004, Bening will absolutely have the sympathetic vote going for her.  And don’t get me wrong, I do feel she was excellent in Kids, I just preferred everything about Moore’s portrayal.  There is no question that Bening standing victorious on stage would create an excellent moment.

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   This week I’ve begun to look a little closer at where we stand in the upcoming Oscar race.  I wanted to get my thoughts out there before the award season kicks off in the next couple of months.  I figured if nothing else it would be fun to look back and see my early predictions after we have seen all of the films.  So earlier in the week I addressed my Best Picture predictions.  If you missed it, click here. 

   Today I am taking a look at the Best Director category, and like Picture, I have The Tree of Life’s Terrence Malick squaring off against The Social Network’s David Fincher.  Both directors have solid resume’s and are due for some award recognition.  A high majority of the time, the movie that wins Best Picture also wins Best Director.  At this point, if I have it between the two films, then it would only make sense to have it be between these two directors.

   It would be a big disappointment to me if Christopher Nolan was not nominated for his brilliant film, Inception.  I have him in for now, and I am hoping nothing changes that come Oscar time.

   Outside of those three, there are several other strong possibilities at this time, including Sofia Coppola (Somewhere) and Mike Leigh (Another Year).  Coppola was previously nominated for her film Lost in Translation (2003), and I have a feeling the Academy is going to start doing a better job of recognizing women directors each year.  Of the several great choices (including Lisa Cholodenko for The Kids Are All Right and Debra Granik for Winter’s Bone), Coppola’s film seems to stand out to me as the best chance to receive a Best Picture nomination, thus I’m giving her the edge.  She has proven before how skilled she is behind a camera, so I will be hoping for the best with her film.  Mike Leigh’s film (Another Year) was a huge hit at Cannes, so I’m feeling that along with Coppola, his film could get him into the big five.

   Other strong possibilities not yet mentioned in this post include Peter Weir (The Way Back), Danny Boyle (127 Hours), Julian Schnabel (Miral), Clint Eastwood (Hereafter), and Edward Zwick (Love and Other Drugs). 

   To see the Big Board and the rest of the director’s on my Best Director radar, click here.

   Who do you think should be the frontrunner at this point?

   Kristopher Tapley at incontention.com brings our attention to this great video from soundworkscollection.com.  The video invites us to witness what went into the sounds of Inception.  With a running time of only 6 minutes, 31 seconds, it’s a great watch for those who have seen the film.

   Inception should at the very least be a contender in a lot of the technical awards come Oscar time.  I’m, however, hoping for much more.

“Inception” Sound for Film Profile from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

   AMPAS has allowed a few rule changes, the most notable being the Visual Effects category will go from 3 nominees to 5. 

   Here is the official statement per Oscars.org:

Since 1963, when the Special Effects award was discontinued and new separate categories for achievements in visual effects and sound effects were established, the only period during which it was possible to have five visual effects nominees was 1977 through 1979. In only one of those years (1979) were five achievements actually recognized. Between 1980 and 1995, two or three productions could be nominated; since 1996 the rules have dictated there be exactly three nominees.

In the Animated Feature Film category, the rule governing running time for a motion picture to qualify was changed from at least 70 minutes to greater than 40 minutes, which is consistent with the running time requirements for feature films in all other categories. The running time for a motion picture to qualify as an animated, live action or documentary short film has been and continues to be a maximum of 40 minutes. The previous 70-minute threshold for an animated feature had left a gap for films that ran between 40 and 70 minutes, effectively preventing them from being able to qualify as either features or shorts.

Also in the Animated Feature Film category, a sentence regarding motion capture was added to clarify the definition of an animated film. The language now reads: “An animated feature film is defined as a motion picture with a running time of greater than 40 minutes, in which movement and characters’ performances are created using a frame-by-frame technique. Motion capture by itself is not an animation technique. In addition, a significant number of the major characters must be animated, and animation must figure in no less than 75 percent of the picture’s running time.”

Other modifications of the 83rd Academy Awards rules include normal date changes and minor “housekeeping” changes.

Rules are reviewed annually by individual branch and category committees. The Awards Rules Committee then reviews all proposed changes before presenting its recommendations to the Academy’s Board of Governors for approval.

   To see what I am currently predicting will be nominated for this category, click here.

   The big Oscar news today is that AMPAS has decided to open the discussion of expanding the category for Best Visual Effects from 3 nominees to 5.  The Executive Branch of the Academy has passed in favor of expansion, and now the Rules Comittee must approve the motion for it to pass.  I would say in this ever expanding era of special effects driven film, it only makes since to go to 5. 

   What do you think?

   Comingsoon.net brings us this story from Entertainment Weekly:

Entertainment Weekly reports that Rachel Weisz is attached to star in Jackie, about the immediate days following President Kennedy’s assassination.

Weisz’s fiance, director Darren Aronofsky will direct and produce, along with his producing partner Scott Franklin and their Protozoa Pictures film company.

The project had been rumored to be a TV film, but it is going to theaters instead. Noah Oppenheim wrote the script.

The magazine says that Jackie ”catalogs the four days between Kennedy’s assassination and his burial, showing the beloved Kennedy at both her most vulnerable and her most graceful.”

   Tell me that this is not perfect casting!  Weisz could find herself with a second Oscar if this is done right (Weisz took Best Supporting Actress in 2005 for The Constant Gardener).

   Logorama is the film that won the Best Animated Short Film Oscar this year.  From everything I understand, you will be happy that it won after seeing it.  I am about to watch it now, but wanted to get it on the site for the rest of you as quickly as I could.  Enjoy!

Logorama from Marc Altshuler – Human Music on Vimeo.