Leo
or Eddie? Brie or Cate? The Revenant
or Spotlight? My Picks and the
Odds-On Favourites
By
Anna MM Vetticad
The
world’s most sought-after awards for cinematic achievement are once again up
for grabs. The race this year is tough. Will the spotlight fix itself on Spotlight or The Revenant? Will the day belong to a small film about paedophilia,
religion and good old-fashioned investigative journalism or to a gory, big-budget
extravaganza about a clash between humans and nature, between settlers and the
original inhabitants of a vast, challenging land?
The
answers will come on the night of Sunday, February 28 in Los Angeles, that is
Monday, February 29, morning here in India.
The Academy Awards a.k.a. the
Oscars are given away by the US’ Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
each year. Winners are picked by Academy members’ votes, with the final results
already lying secured in well-guarded envelopes.
Before their
secrets are unwrapped by some of Hollywood’s most glamorous hands (remember, our
very own Priyanka Chopra is a presenter this year), arguments will continue
worldwide about who will walk away with the honours.
Until
then, here are my predictions for the four most-watched trophies of Oscars
2016:
BEST PICTURE:
Nominees:
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight
The Best
Picture race this year appears to be a three-way fight between Spotlight, The Big Short and The
Revenant.
Spotlight – a perfectly paced newsroom drama
about The Boston Globe’s series of
exposés on
sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in the United States – was an early
favourite in this category. The film was even praised by the RC Church whose
failings it sought to highlight.
Its
toughest initial competition was from The
Revenant, a film that is almost seven times more expensive and infinitely
larger in terms of spectacle.
However,
the tide turned as the film awards season rolled on, with The Big Short winning the highly predictive Producers Guild of
America (PGA) Award. The Big Short is
a comedy drama, an unlikely genre considering that its setting is the US financial
crisis of 2007-08. Going by certain trends, now this is the film to beat on
awards night.
From 1990 till
date, only seven times has the Best Picture Oscar not gone to a film that won
the year’s PGA Award.
Here is an even
more convincing statistic: since 2008, the PGA winner has gone on to collect
the Best Picture statuette every time, with 2014 being an unusual year only
because there was a tie at the PGA between Gravity
and 12 Years A Slave. Then too, 12 Years went on to win the numero uno
spot at the Oscars.
Before you think
this means the deal is sealed though, keep in mind that Spotlight has picked up the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award for its entire
cast, widely viewed by commentators as another Oscar indicator.
And
as if that is not enough to confuse the hell out of bookies, The Revenant – a late release compared
to the other two – appears to be picking up momentum, riding high on its rising
earnings. It won a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Drama in early
January, scooped up the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award in early
February and the Best Picture BAFTA just two weeks back, which suggests that the
buzz around it is peaking at the right time.
Let me
place this on the record: two out of my three least favourite films in this
category are poised to win the Best Picture gong. The Big Short, to my mind, lacked the clarity it was aiming for,
both The Revenant and Mad Max lacked soul. Spotlight is a better film by a mile,
followed by Room. Ah well, c’est la vie.
Likely winner: The
Revenant
Possible spoilers, and very close: The Big Short, Spotlight
My personal favourite: Spotlight
Should definitely have been nominated:
Inside Out, Pixar’s delightful 3D
animation flick about the inner workings of a little girl’s mind that has even received
salaams from psychiatrists and child psychologists in the West
Should have been in the reckoning: Carol, Beasts of No Nation (FYI the rules
permit 10 Best Picture noms)
BEST DIRECTOR:
Nominees:
Alejandro
Gonzales Inarritu for The Revenant
Adam McKay
for The Big Short
George
Miller for Mad Max: Fury Road
Lenny
Abrahamson for Room
Tom
McCarthy for Spotlight
This one
appears to be a foregone conclusion in favour of Alejandro, considering that he
has already swept the major awards so far: a Golden Globe and a
BAFTA for Best Director, and – the clincher in this slot – the DGA Award. According
to the Directors Guild website, “Only seven times since the DGA Award’s
inception has the DGA Award winner not won the Academy Award.” That would be
only seven times since 1948.
Since 2004, there
has been only one occasion when the DGA winner did not go on to get a Best
Director Oscar. That solo exception came in 2013 because Ben Affleck was not
even nominated for helming Argo,
though his film did win the year’s Best Picture Oscar.
Most likely winner: Alejandro
Gonzalez Inarritu
Possible spoiler, by a long shot: George
Miller who won the Critics
Choice Award for Best Director
My personal favourite: Tom
McCarthy for his phenomenally controlled direction of Spotlight
My second choice: Lenny Abrahamson for Room
Should have been nominated: Pete
Doctor and Ronnie del Carmen for Inside
Out, Todd Haynes for Carol. If
you’ve read my Best Picture notes, you know whom I would have liked to drop.
BEST ACTRESS:
Nominees:
Brie
Larson for Room
Cate
Blanchett for Carol
Charlotte
Rampling for 45 Years
Jennifer
Lawrence for Joy
Saoirse
Ronan for Brooklyn
The top
contender in this category is 26-year-old Brie with her restrained performance
as a young woman kept hostage by her rapist in a tiny shed for seven years. It
was an exacting role, especially since she had to share that space and its
demands with a prodigious livewire by the name of Jacob Tremblay, playing her
child from the rapist.
She has
already got the year’s Golden Globe, Critics Choice, SAG and BAFTA Awards. A win by anyone else, wonderfully gifted
though they all are, will come as a shocker.
Most likely winner: Brie
Larson
Closest competitor: Saoirse
Ronan
My personal favourite: Brie
Larson
Should have been nominated: Alicia
Vikander for The Danish Girl (she has
received a Best Supporting Actress nom instead)
Should not have been nominated: Jennifer
Lawrence who ought to have got minus marks for her inexplicably deadpan concluding
scene in the unremarkable and joyless Joy
Most probably talked her way out of the reckoning: British
veteran Charlotte Rampling with her comment that this year’s diversity row at
the Oscars is “racist to white people”. An artist’s stupidity should ideally
not affect her chances, but the already beleaguered Academy may avoid her considering
the tongue-lashing it is already getting for ignoring non-white actors for a
second year in a row.
BEST ACTOR:
Nominees:
Bryan
Cranston for Trumbo
Eddie
Redmayne for The Danish Girl
Leonardo
DiCaprio for The Revenant
Matt Damon
for The Martian
Michael Fassbender
for Steve Jobs
Will this
be the year Leo finally makes it? The Titanic
star has been nominated in this category a total of four times including this
year, the other nods he has received so far being for Aviator, Blood Diamond
and The Wolf of Wall Street. He was
earlier a Best Supporting Actor nominee for What’s
Eating Gilbert Grape.
Take it
from me – his disadvantage all this time has been that he is too pretty for
Academy voters. This lot seems to prefer rugged or pared-down looks, best exemplified
by how gorgeous women greatly up their chances of winning when they tone down
their glamour quotient. Cases in point: Nicole Kidman, Hillary Swank, Halle
Berry, Charlize Theron.
This is
not to say that Leonardo is not compelling in The Revenant. He is. He must be particularly lauded for rising
above the limitations of the script to deliver such a heartfelt performance (there
I go again, grimacing at this emotionally empty film). Good for him then that
he has improved his odds by uglifying himself for this demanding role of a fur
hunter in early 1800s America, battling the elements and his own people. His
face is covered with muck, blood or gashes through most of The Revenant, he ate raw bison liver for one scene and went naked
into the belly of a horse carcass in one of the film’s most unsettling moments.
If that does not do it for our boy
Leo, nothing will.
It will be
a huge upset if one of his tremendously talented competitors pips him to the
post.
Likely winner: Leonardo DiCaprio
Possible spoiler, by a long shot: Michael
Fassbender
My personal favourites: Leonardo
DiCaprio and Eddie Redmayne
Should have been considered: Jacob
Tremblay for Room, Idris Elba for Beasts of No Nation, Tom Courtenay for 45 Years
One of them could have replaced: Matt Damon perhaps? I mean, Matt’s likeable as
always in The Martian, but he has
done more onerous roles in the past.
(This article
was published on Firstpost on February 28, 2016)
Original link:
Related article by Anna MM Vetticad: Who’s Afraid of a
Homosexual Woman
Photo caption: (1) The Revenant (2) Spotlight
(3) Room
Posters courtesy:
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