By BRENDAN TENAN
Staff Writer
It seems hard to believe, but in less than one week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will once again be honoring the year’s best films at the 86th Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars. This year features a particularly strong field of nominees, and there seems to be far less outrage over snubs and undeserving nominations than we’ve seen in the last few years (*cough* Ben Affleck for Best Director *cough*).
Like many moviegoers tend to do during awards season, I try to see as many of the Oscar nominees as I can before the big night. While I’m not usually successful in this endeavor, this year I have actually been able to see all but one of the Best Picture nominees as of press time (the one nominee I have not seen yet is the Spike Jonze film Her). Since I was able to see the vast majority of the films that are up for Oscar gold next Sunday, I felt I could make some better than educated guesses about who will walk away with the film industry’s biggest prizes. I realize that at least one of these picks will likely be wrong (hence the title of the article), and there is almost always one winner that is a genuine surprise (see Ang Lee beating Steven Spielberg for Best Director last year, or Crash winning Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain in 2006). With all that in mind, the following are my predictions of the winners of this year’s major Oscar categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress.
Best Supporting Actress: While all of the nominated actresses are certainly deserving in their own right, this category seems to have become essentially a two-person race between Jennifer Lawrence for American Hustle and Lupita Nyong’o for 12 Years a Slave. Lawrence certainly has the popularity among her peers in Hollywood and moviegoers in America, as she’s already landed her second consecutive Oscar nomination (and third overall) before turning 25. While Lawrence stole many of the scenes she was in and delivered a very entertaining performance, I still am struck and moved by the devastating and emotional performance Nyong’o gave as Patsey, a slave who finds herself the object of her master’s desires. Additionally, I believe that Jennifer Lawrence winning Best Actress last year for Silver Linings Playbook will hurt her chances with Oscar voters, who may look to give the award to a newer, lesser-known name. With those thoughts in mind, I am predicting Lupita Nyong’o will win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. However, don’t be too surprised to see a proverbial dark horse like Sally Hawkins win the award for Blue Jasmine.
Best Supporting Actor: This is what I like to refer to as the “scene stealer” category. What I mean by this is that often, the Oscars will give the Best Actor in a Supporting Role award to an actor who may not have been the central focus of the film, but delivered a performance that left a more lasting, indelible impression on the viewer than the lead actor or actress did. Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight and Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds are two recent examples of supporting actors who delivered the best performance in their film, yet managed to not upstage anyone in the process. Rather, they complemented and strengthened the film as a whole.
Following this criteria, it seems like either Barkhad Abdi or Michael Fassbender would be locks for their work in Captain Phillips and 12 Years a Slave, respectively. However, there’s one other thing Oscar voters seem to love even more than a scene-stealing performance, and that’s when an actor makes a physical transformation. For that reason, I’m inclined to believe that the Academy will award Jared Leto for his performance as the AIDS- stricken transgender woman Rayon in Dallas Buyers Club. Personally, I would be more inclined to vote for Fassbender or Abdi if I had an official Oscar ballot. Having said that, I completely understand why voters would give the award to Leto, and he is definitely deserving of it.
Best Actress: While some categories this year seem to have two or three legitimate contenders, the award for Best Actress in a Leading Role has practically been a lock since the nominees were first announced in January. While Sandra Bullock, Judi Dench, Meryl Streep, and Amy Adams all gave performances ranging from solid (Streep in August: Osage County) to terrific (Bullock in Gravity), this year’s best Actress Oscar is Cate Blanchett’s to lose. Her manic performance as a woman suffering from a mental breakdown after losing her place in society in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine has had critics and audiences talking for over six months. Many people have already noted the similarities between Jasmine and the character of Blanche DuBois from the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire. With Allen’s script, which is also up for an Oscar, and Blanchett’s amazing performance, Blue Jasmine is a more than suitable 21st century homage to Williams’ classic. Come Sunday, I will be very surprised if anyone other than Cate Blanchett wins Best Actress.
Best Actor: This is another category that already seems to have been decided. However, unlike Cate Blanchett’s all but guaranteed win for Best Actress, I am not as much in agreement with the apparent lock Matthew McConaughey has to win Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance in Dallas Buyers Club.
This is not to say that McConaughey isn’t deserving of his nomination. He gave a terrific performance as Ron Woodroof, a homophobic Texas cowboy who becomes infected with HIV in the early 1980s and finds a way to supply alternative treatments to those who are infected. Furthermore, McConaughey should be commended for his commitment to his craft by losing more than forty pounds for the role. Having said that, this year’s nominees for Best Actor features a particularly strong field, and it’s a shame that these other performances are being so quickly overlooked.
While many fans have lately been making it clear that they want to see Leonardo DiCaprio finally win for his electric, unhinged performance in The Wolf of Wall Street, I personally would like to see the award go to either Bruce Dern for Nebraska or Chiwetel Ejiofor for his portrayal of Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slave. Both men gave performances that were captivating, emotional, and heartbreaking, albeit for much different reasons.
It seems very unlikely that Dern will win the Oscar. However, if he did, it wouldn’t be the first time the Academy decided to recognize a veteran’s great career with an Oscar late in life (see Christopher Plummer’s 2012 Best Supporting Actor win for Beginners as an example). As much as I personally am hoping to see Dern or Ejiofor win, it seems a foregone conclusion at this point that Matthew McConaughey will be walking away with Oscar gold come Sunday night.
Best Director: Of all the major categories, Best Director seems to be the one that is the most wide open, with at least three legitimate contenders for the prestigious award. Each awards show seems to recognize a different director for his or her great work in the last year.
While he has largely left awards shows empty handed this year, Martin Scorsese is always a contender. The Wolf of Wall Street, his tale of corruption and excess among stock brokers, is a timely film that should be seen by people in the wake of the latest recession. Steve McQueen brought a powerful, harrowing true story to the screen with 12 Years a Slave. However, I believe that the award will go to Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity. The film features a great story and is a visual masterpiece, and Cuaron deserves to be recognized by the Academy for his work. When you consider that he’s already won similar awards at the Golden Globes and the Directors Guild Awards, which features many of the same voters who cast ballots for the Oscars, it seems logical to conclude that Cuaron will soon have to make room for another trophy on his shelf.
Best Picture: At last, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Who’s going to win the biggest prize the American film industry has to offer? In my humble opinion, all of these nominees are worthy. Based on some earlier awards, it looks like the top contenders for Best Picture are 12 Years a Slave, Gravity, and American Hustle. This is the one category that I honestly do not have an objective pick for. So, in lieu of logic and analysis, I’m going to go with my gut and pick 12 Years a Slave.
Six of this year’s nine Best Picture nominees are based on true stories: American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Philomena, 12 Years a Slave, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Out of all of these great stories that deserved to be told, 12 Years a Slave is by far the most historically important and the one I would most urge people to see. Director Steve McQueen and a terrific ensemble cast, featuring the aforementioned Ejiofor, Fassbender, and Nyong’o, along with Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti, Paul Dano, Sarah Paulson, and Brad Pitt, told the horrifying tale of slavery and human trafficking in America in a way that had never been done before. There have been films that have featured slavery as a major plot point, but many of them either shy away from the horror and brutality, or, if they do show it, it’s overly stylized and loses some of its impact (last year’s Django Unchained would be the most recent example). The violence, brutality, and horror seen in 12 Years a Slave isn’t stylized in any way. It’s simply there, right in front of the audience, and it’s relentless and uncompromising in its portrayal.
By not flinching or relenting once in his depiction of slavery, McQueen has made what I consider this generation’s Schindler’s List— a great movie that is based on a true story, is directed excellently, and features terrific acting performances. However, because of its harrowing story and depiction, most audiences will be very uncomfortable and won’t want to see it again for some time. Even if that is the case, 12 Years a Slave needs to be seen at least once by as many people as possible, and the Academy should recognize what it has achieved by awarding the film its most prestigious award.
