Oscar Nominations 2007
Submitted by AJDaGreat on Mon, 01/14/2008 - 07:12
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- The writers' strike has made this a bizarre Oscar season, but even without the strike, we would certainly have a hell of a lot to talk about. The Academy Awards have fortunately been moving their taste away from big-budget mainstream fare, in favor of more indie or at least indie-style films that are a little more artistically interesting, at least in my book. But how significant is this transformation? Do Academy members still have a place in their hearts for the actors and elements that they've traditionally liked? And how does this play into the races?
- Best Picture - I went into awards season thinking an Atonement nomination was a sure thing, but at this point, it almost seems out of the race. Probably the best precursor for predicting the Oscars are the guild awards, because the Academy is largely made up of people actually in the industry, and so are the guilds. Atonement has been completely snubbed by almost all the guilds. Neither actors, directors, writers, producers, nor editors nominated the film for anything. It got two guild mention by the cinematographers and the art directors, and of course it did win the Golden Globe for Best Drama, and nobody knows anything, and I've often put my foot in my mouth before, but let's call Atonement out of the race, even if it seems like the kind of film the Academy would traditionally love.
- On the other hand, I also entered the race thinking The Diving Bell and the Butterfly didn't have a chance, but the precursor awards convinced me of how much love there is for this film. It's not a sure thing, but damn does it seem more and more likely every day. Hell, beating the Coen brothers for Best Director at the Golden Globes last night was real solid. Plus it has guild support from the directors, the producers, the writers, the cinematographers, and the art directors. Keep in mind that the film is not eligible to win Best Foreign Film, which may be why the Academy could be willing to give it some of the bigger awards.
- Michael Clayton is the film that confuses me most. I saw it and just didn't feel like I was witnessing a Best Picture nominee, and with so many truly artistically astounding movies this year, I felt a little underwhelmed by it. It does, however, have a lot of guild support, from the directors, writers, editors, art directors, and actors (all three great performances in this film were nominated). It seems likely, but I have my doubts.
- Usually the best predictor of the Best Picture noms is the DGA noms. This year, those are No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Michael Clayton, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and Into the Wild. The first two seem like the only locks in the race to me, but I have no clue what to change about the next three, even with great films like Juno and Sweeney Todd looking like great candidates.
- So without further ado, here are my Best Picture nominations at this point, which may just be guesses:
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
- Into the Wild (very likely)
- Juno
- No Country for Old Men (lock)
- There Will Be Blood (probably a lock)
- Maybe I'm just hopeful that Michael Clayton won't get nominated and Diving Bell and Juno, two far superior movies in my humble opinion, will. Maybe I'm deluding myself, but these are my instincts, though they may of course be affected by personal preference.
- Best Actor - The rest of the categories luckily seem a bit more nailed down to me, or if they aren't, I can't bring myself to care as much. I think Daniel Day-Lewis, George Clooney, and Johnny Depp (despite Depp's SAG snub) are locks here. Viggo Mortensen is on shakier ground, but I think he'll pull off the nomination. The fifth spot is pretty much down to Emile Hirsch or Ryan Gosling. I'm predicting Gosling just based on a vague feeling I have that he'll beat out Hirsch. Of course, maybe the nominations could mimic SAG's, which means Depp will be ignored and both Hirsch and Gosling will pull off noms.
- George Clooney (Michael Clayton) (lock for a nom)
- Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood) (probably a lock to win)
- Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd) (very likely)
- Ryan Gosling (Lars and the Real Girl) (semi-likely)
- Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises) (quite likely)
- Best Actress - Last year it was Best Actor that features performances completely disconnected from any other nominated films. This year it's the actresses. Juno is the only film that features a Best Actress contender that will also likely be nominated for anything else important. As such, I've found it tough to care about this category this year. I will say that even with the acclaim Cate Blanchett's gotten for Elizabeth: The Golden Age, I really don't feel like she's going to get nominated here. The movie's a sequel and it got bad reviews, which should be enough to kill it. Only the SAG nomination could save her.
- My big question mark is Amy Adams in Enchanted. I think she can pull off a nomination. She's a lot of fun to watch, she has a lot of heart, and though her role is light-hearted, the Academy did nominate two actors from Little Miss Sunshine last year.
- Which leaves us with...
- Amy Adams (Enchanted) (likely)
- Julie Christie (Away From Her) (lock; will also probably win)
- Marion Cotillard (La Vie En Rose) (lock)
- Angelina Jolie (A Mighty Heart) (very likely)
- Ellen Page (Juno) (lock)
- Best Supporting Actor - This group seems relatively solid, I think. SAG disagrees; they nominated Tommy Lee Jones, but they generally seem more likely to nominate multiple supporting actors from the same film than the Academy. SAG nominated both Matt Dillon and Don Cheadle from Crash, but the Academy picked the more acclaimed performance (Dillon's) and left Cheadle behind. I think the same thing will happen here, which will allow Philip Seymour Hoffman to squeeze in instead. I mean, how could they not nominate PSH? He's been in like every movie this year. And true, the Golden Globes didn't nominate Hal Holbrook, but I really doubt there's any way the Academy will nominate John Travolta, so I think we're safe with these five:
- Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) (nearly a lock)
- Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) (lock; very likely to win as well)
- Philip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson's War) (very likely)
- Hal Holbrook (Into the Wild) (very likely)
- Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton) (lock)
- Best Supporting Actress - Cate Blanchett, Amy Ryan, and Tilda Swinton have their nominations in the bag, methinks. The other two I'm not so sure about. I loved Vanessa Redgrave in Atonement, but it would be tough to predict her given that she couldn't get a SAG or a Golden Globes nomination; besides that, her part may be far too small. We may be stuck with Saoirse Ronan instead. You've also got Catherine Keener and Ruby Dee. I don't really know what to go with here, so I'm going to say the Academy mimics the SAG nominations, since they did so for the past two years.
- Cate Blanchett (I'm Not There) (lock)
- Ruby Dee (American Gangster) (likely)
- Catherine Keener (Into the Wild) (likely)
- Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) (lock)
- Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton) (lock)
- Best Director - I feel very confident predicting Julian Schnabel and the Coens. I'll listen to the DGAs and say Sean Penn and Paul Thomas Anderson as well. Once again, I just can't bring myself to predict the director of Michael Clayton. Maybe a foolhardy move, but I'm sticking with it.
- But who in his place? Ridley Scott? Joe Wright? Tim Burton? All seem equally likely. In my dream world, Sidney Lumet gets nominated for Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. Of course, I'd have to include some acting noms from that movie too. Let's go with my earliest instinct, which was Burton. So that should leave us with:
- Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood) (very likely)
- Tim Burton (Sweeney Todd) (pretty likely)
- Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country For Old Men) (lock)
- Sean Penn (Into the Wild) (very likely)
- Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) (lock)
- Screenplays - It is tempting again to just copy the WGA noms here since I haven't really been following this category well enough, much as I love screenplays. In the process of constructing these nominations, I have attempted to learn more about what's going on and here's what I've come up with for nominations:
- Adapted:
- Atonement
- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
- Into the Wild
- No Country for Old Men
- There Will Be Blood
- Original:
- Juno
- Lars and the Real Girl
- Michael Clayton
- Ratatouille
- The Savages
- My Adapted Screenplay nominations are pretty boring. I'm figuring Atonement will get something so it might just show up here. It could be unseated by Zodiac or Charlie Wilson's War. For Original Screenplay, I basically copied the WGA noms and replaced Knocked Up with Ratatouille, because the latter seemed more likely than the former to me at the Academy Awards. I could, of course, be very wrong.
- No Guts, No Glory - Here are my way out-there nominations, made only for bragging rights in case any one of these unlikely things occurs:
- 1) Before the Devil Knows You're Dead actually gets nominated for stuff. Sidney Lumet for Best Director! Kelly Masterson for Best Original Screenplay! Philip Seymour Hoffman for Best Actor! Albert Finney for Best Supporting Actor!
- 2) Keri Russell gets a Best Actress nomination for Waitress.
- 3) Ed Sanders gets a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Sweeney Todd. That kid was fucking good.
- 4) Either Emmanuelle Seigner or Marie-Josee Croze gets a Best Supporting Actress nomination for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
- 5) David Fincher gets a Best Director nomination for Zodiac.
- 6) This one's not too crazy but I'll predict Kelly MacDonald as Best Supporting Actress for No Country for Old Men.
- That's all I got. We'll see in a week!
Author Comments:
Eh, eight is enough.
Cloned From:
The Academy Award nominations always surprise me in some way, but there's no predicting whether they'll be good surprises or bad surprises. I feel like one of the more surprising things about the list of nominations is a surprise I'm not particularly invested in because I haven't seen the movie: that is, Into the Wild missing a lot of key nominations. No Picture, no Director, no Adapted Screenplay, no Catherine Keener, no Emile Hirsch... the only nominations it got were Best Supporting Actor and Best Editing. The guilds loved Into the Wild, so I'm guessing it came in 6th or 7th place a lot of times, but there was just too much support for other movies.
I think I predicted Michael Clayton to lose out partially because it was the big contender that I least wanted to get nominated for Best Picture, and last year the contender I least wanted to get nominated was Dreamgirls - and lo and behold, against all odds, it missed the nomination. Michael Clayton is clearly in a different boat though. It picked up the Picture and Director nominations I predicted it wouldn't get, but deep down, I knew it would get them. I just wanted bragging rights in case, by some chance, it didn't happen.
A part of me also knew that Atonement wasn't so dead on the water. I just liked The Diving Bell and the Butterfly better.
The best surprise for me was Jason Reitman getting nominated for Best Director. The Academy must have really loved the movie for that to happen.
It seems like there's usually one big shock among the acting nominations. This year it's Tommy Lee Jones. Dude, how did you pull that nom out of your ass?
Categories I got totally right were Best Supporting Actor and, astoundingly, Best Original Screenplay.
And now, my friends, I must go. I'll be back with some winner predictions fairly soon, I'm sure.
I've said from the start that No Country and Atonement were locks for picture. In the last week, I've been rather convinced that Juno was as well, and though I haven't seen the film (it hasn't opened here yet), I was pretty sure There Will Be Blood was in. That left one slot free, and while I was really hoping Into the Wild would snag it, the cynic in me remembered its odd nature and long running-time and fell into despair.
This means that slot was free, and I honestly didn't know what would pop in there. If you pressed me, I said Sweeney Todd.
So Clayton surprised me, even knowing the late-breaking support for it.
I was also pretty convinced Lee would get nominated somewhere, but I thought his turn in Country would probably be the winner.
After the Globes, we all knew the directing nod for Diving Bell was probably going to happen. I thought the film itself had a shot at that Clayton spot.
Just some thoughts. Good job, especially with the supporting actors and original screenplay - wow!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
I'm actually a little baffled by Atonement's Best Picture nod. Where is this coming from? The Academy isn't just a bunch of conservative film critics; it's made up of actors, directors, writers, producers, all people whose guilds snubbed this movie. I guess, in the end, the Academy represents a very distinct sample that has different taste than the guilds they represent.
I'm not at all surprised to see that the Academy still hates Tim Burton, but Michael Clayton instead of Diving Bell did disappoint me.
The thing about predicting both the nominations and the winners is that I figure 80% of the choices are what everyone expects, 10% are good surprises, and 10% are bad surprises. I just have to know which is which. Well, I hope good surprises abound when they announce the winners!
Atonement is the type of film that time is kind to and that plays even better the second time. It also looks and sounds like an Oscar film.
I'm quite disappointed by the directing slight, but I'm probably alone there.
I feel your final paraagraph, friend.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Eh. Wright's direction was uneven. I agree with the voices that say the five-minute tracking shot was just showing off without any actual substance. It feels out of place and doesn't fit the artistic tone of the rest of the film nor the mood that it's trying to set. I also think the last hour was paced horribly.
I did, however, love a lot of the shots that seemed to shimmer, and I'm not sure who came up with the idea to have a typewriter clacking in the music, but if it was Wright, kudos to him.
Not that I feel Jason Reitman should've taken his place. I loved Juno, but the script and actors were so terrific the movie probably directed itself. I would've preferred Tim Burton, Ridley Scott, or in an ideal world, Sidney Lumet.
Fair enough. I thoroughly disagree and loved the tracking shot; its out-of-place lengthy trail through the beach created a disoriented descent of sorts that makes more sense after you've seen the entire movie once. I loved it, and I think Wright's work is rather wonderful.
Lumet is certainly somebody I would've loved to have seen up there.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs