Next weekend, a surefire Oscar hopeful hits the screens as Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies opens. The Cold War era thriller stars Tom Hanks in his fourth collaboration with the famed director. Costars include Mark Rylance, Alan Alda, and Amy Ryan.
The Disney property premiered at the New York Film Festival last weekend and immediately became fodder for Academy Awards talk. Sitting at 86% on Rotten Tomatoes currently, Spies appears to be a strong contender for a Best Picture nod and for Rylance in the Supporting Actor category (critics have really singled him out). Spielberg and Hanks could see their names called as well in Director and Actor.
These adult themed dramas typically don’t have massive openings and tend to play well from weekend to weekend. For comparisons sake, 2012’s Best Picture winner Argo debuted in October to $19.4 million while October 2013’s Captain Phillips featuring Hanks opened with $25.7 million. That seems like a pretty sensible range for where Bridge of Spies will start out. I’ll predict it doesn’t quite reach Phillips gross while slightly outshining Argo.
Bridge of Spies opening weekend prediction: $21.2 million
In the 2014 Oscar race, one major question has been out there for several months: where will Unbroken fit in? It’s based on a huge bestseller by Lauren Hillenbrand. It’s directed by Angelina Jolie. The screenplay was written by Joel and Ethan Coen. The true story of Olympic track star Louis Zamperini, who was stranded in the Pacific and then held captive at Japanese POW camps during World War II, seems right up Oscar’s alley. Conventional wisdom is that if Unbroken was a critical darling, it would be a force to be reckoned with during awards season.
Today marked the day when reviews trickled out. The verdict? Mixed. Very mixed. It currently sits at just 50% on Rotten Tomatoes (a number that will probably rise). Industry Bible Variety wasn’t impressed. Add that up and I’ll make a declarative statement I couldn’t make until now:
Unbroken is not going to win Best Picture.
Whether it gets nominated is another story. It could still be a big hit at the box office, which wouldn’t hurt. And its source material is well-regarded which could sway voters to at least include it among the eight to ten likely Best Picture nominees. It’s no guarantee anymore, but I’ll still predict Unbroken manages a nod.
Angelina Jolie’s inclusion in the Director race is now very questionable. She would appear behind Richard Linklater (Boyhood), Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Birdman), Ava DuVernay (Selma), and Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game), as well as other potentials like Christopher Nolan (Interstellar), David Fincher (Gone Girl), James Marsh (The Theory of Everything), and Rob Marshall (Into the Woods). She could still sneak in, but it won’t be as easy as once thought.
The Best Actor race is seen as four-way competition between Michael Keaton (Birdman), Benedict Cumberbatch (Imitation Game), Eddie Redmayne (Theory of Everything), and David Oyelowo (Selma). Jack O’Connell, who plays Zamperini, is receiving positive notices and could nab the fifth slot, but his serious competition includes Steve Carell (Foxcatcher), Oscar Isaac (A Most Violent Year), Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner), and Bradley Cooper (American Sniper).
I have included Japanese singer Miyavi in my Supporting Actor predictions over the past couple of months. He plays the role of a sadistic Japanese army sergeant and I still believe he stands the best shot at a nomination (reviews have singled him out).
Luckily for Unbroken, the Best Adapted Screenplay race is pretty weak this year and it could still earn recognition for the Coen Brothers screenplay.
However, beyond its seemingly now non-existent chances of a Picture win, Unbroken is unlikely to win any of the categories mentioned above. What a difference a day makes.
Tonight on the blog – we review the Oscars from 2007, continuing with my series of Oscar History posts. 2007 was a year in which the brilliant Coen Brothers finally received some Academy love. Their critically lauded No Country for Old Men won Best Picture and earned the twosome the Best Director prize. It’s hard to argue with the Academy’s choice of this terrific pic for the top prize.
In my view, There Will Be Blood would’ve been another deserving recipient and it was nominated for Best Picture, along with Joe Wright’s Atonement, Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton, and Jason Reitman’s Juno. I likely would’ve left Atonement and Juno off the list and considered David Fincher’s meticulously crafted Zodiac and/or Ridley Scott’s American Gangster.
A running theme of my Oscar posts has been the Academy’s consistent lack of comedy inclusion and, for me, the genre’s 2007 highlight was Superbad, one of the finest raunch-fests in quite some time.
I was also a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s ode to B movies, Grindhouse.
There Will Be Blood director Paul Thomas Anderson was included in the Best Director race along with Gilroy and Reitman. Atonement director Joe Wright was the lone director left out whose film was nominated and Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was a bit of a surprise nominee. As mentioned, they all lost to the Coens. I would have certainly included Fincher’s work in Zodiac.
The Best Actor race was over as soon as Daniel Day-Lewis’s work in There Will Be Blood was seen and it would mark his second win after being honored for My Left Foot eighteen years earlier. Other nominees (who truly can say it was just an honor to be nominated after Day-Lewis’s tour de force): George Clooney in Michael Clayton, Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd, Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah, and Viggo Mortensen for Eastern Promises.
Nobody plays a calculating bad guy better than Denzel Washington and I probably would have found room for him with his turn in American Gangster.
In the Best Actress race, Marion Cotillard would win for La Vie En Rose – beating out Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: The Golden Age), Julie Christie (Away from Her), Laura Linney (The Savages), and Ellen Page (Juno).
Leaving out Keira Knightley’s work in Atonement was a surprise. For my dark horse contender, Christina Ricci’s fearless work in Black Snake Moan might’ve made my cut.
Like the Best Actor category, the Supporting Actor race was over when audiences and critics saw Javier Bardem’s amazing performance in No Country for Old Men. Other nominees: Casey Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson’s War, Hal Holbrook in Into the Wild, and Tom Wilkinson in Michael Clayton.
Paul Dano’s performance in There Will Be Blood certainly should’ve been acknowledged here. Two others to consider: Robert Downey Jr.’s work as a boozy reporter in Zodiac and Kurt Russell’s hilarious and sadistic role in Grindhouse.
The Supporting Actress race belonged to Tilda Swinton as a ruthless attorney in Michael Clayton. She would win over double nominee Cate Blanchett in I’m Not There, Ruby Dee for American Gangster, Saoirse Ronan in Atonement, and Amy Ryan for Gone Baby Gone.
I would’ve included Kelly MacDonald as Josh Brolin’s wife in No Country for Old Men.
And there’s my take on the ’07 Oscars, my friends! I’ll have 2008 posted soon.
On this Day in Movie History – January 7 – the Coen brothers remake of True Grit would jump into the top spot at the box office in its third weekend. Budgeted at only $38 million, the Western (based on the 1969 John Wayne original) would end up grossing a fabulous $171 million domestically. Starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, Grit would earn ten Oscar nominations including Picture, Director, Actor (Bridges), and Supporting Actress (Steinfeld), but would go home empty-handed. The Coen Bros, meanwhile, continue to make pictures that tend to garner Academy attention. Their latest is Inside Llewyn Davis.
The Coens comedy classic, 1987’s Raising Arizona, was only their second feature and it stars one of today’s birthday boys, Nicolas Cage. He turns 50 years old today. Delving into Cage’s filmography would take all day… pretty sure he’s appeared in about 487 movies over the past quarter century or so. To say the least, his catalog has been varied, interesting, and wildly inconsistent. Here’s a sampling: he won an Oscar for 1995’s Leaving Las Vegas and was nominated for 2002’s Adaptation. He’s starred in successful romantic comedies and dramas like Moonstruck alongside Cher, Honeymoon in Vegas, and City of Angels. He’s been a huge action star in hits like The Rock, Con Air, Face/Off, and the National Treasure franchise. There’s been critical favorites and cult flicks that run the gamut from Vampire’s Kiss to Wild at Heart to Red Rock West to Lord of War. He’s worked with his Uncle Francis Ford Coppola in Rumble Fish, The Cotton Club, and Peggy Sue Got Married. And he’s worked with Martin Scorsese (Bringing Out the Dead), Ridley Scott (Matchstick Men), and Oliver Stone (World Trade Center). He’s also been Ghost Rider in two moderately successful pics. And yet, there’s also been a bunch of junk: Bangkok Dangerous? Next? Season of the Witch? Snake Eyes? Drive Angry? And, of course, there’s his work in the so-bad-it’s-good remake of The Wicker Man where we all learned Cage’s aversion to “THE BEES”!!!!
Jeremy Renner is 43 today. He broke through in 2009’s The Hurt Locker, which won Best Picture and earned him a Best Actor nomination. The following year he received a Supporting Actor nod for Ben Affleck’s The Town. Since then, he’s immersed himself in successful franchises like the Mission: Impossible series, The Avengers, and as the new Jason Bourne. He can currently be seen in David O. Russell’s Oscar hopeful American Hustle.
As for Six Degrees of Separation between the birthday leading men:
Nicolas Cage in Kiss of Death with Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel L Jackson was in The Avengers with Jeremy Renner
All My Life... I Wanted To Be A Blogster 