The summer movie season of box office wars waged among popcorn flicks and blockbuster spectacles has ended, and critics and moviegoers alike are gearing up for the films to change like trees from green to gold. Awards season brings films built not as cash cows, but as art to be submitted in contest for a statuette named Oscar.
While the Academy Awards always bring some surprises in its particulars, proven track records and politics make accurately predicting best picture nominees possible. Here are my guesses. Last year there were eight best picture nominees. There can be up to ten, however, so, to increase my odds, we’ll go with that.
Already out, but I haven’t seen it yet, the intriguing looking “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them” is probably too fringe for an Oscar nod, but is an ambitious and interesting enough project to warrant a brief look here. Writer and Director Ned Benson originally told this story in two previous films subtitled “Him” and “Her.” Each the exploration of the destruction and attempted reconstruction—I don’t actually know if they succeed or not and wouldn’t tell you if I did—of a couple’s relationship from each of their experiences. “Them” is the reedited single feature film, incorporating both his, played by James McAvoy, and her, played by Jessica Chastain, perspectives. The film received a number of nominations at Cannes.
Oct. 10 brings the limited American release of “Whiplash,” about the cost of success in music. Miles Teller plays a young man seeking greatness as a jazz drummer, and J.K. Simmons plays the teacher willing to break him to get him there. The film appears psychologically taut and won both the audience and grand jury prizes for drama for director Damien Chazelle at the Sundance Film Festival.
Also out Oct. 10 is “The Judge,” where Robert Downey Jr. takes a break from superhero films and comedy to be a hotshot lawyer and defend his estranged father and small town judge Robert Duval in court for vehicular homicide charges. The cast has depth even beyond that pairing and the trailers show a film intent on unpacking father son relationships and all the messy questions of respect, rebellion, and love therein. “Judge” looks to be at the very least an attempt at an American acting master class.
Oct. 17, “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” flies into limited American release. In what I’m sure was a very deliberate move to have art imitate life, Michael Keaton plays an actor, washed up in character at least, who played a popular superhero in his prime, trying to get back in the game with a Broadway production. Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu has been nominated for two Oscars before, and “Birdman” was nominated for a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. In getting in the aging and desperate actor’s head, the film frankly looks insane, in the best ways that film and theatre can.
“Fury” also rolls into theaters on Oct. 17, and I list it here because it’s about heroism in the face of Nazis and everyone, popular audiences and Academy members alike, like watching WWII films. Brad Pitt leads a very recognizable cast of actors you see all the time but can never remember their name as the sergeant in command of a Sherman tank tasked with holding back a German advance. The movie looks to be an attempt not only to recapture the feel of WWII films like “Saving Private Ryan” but also to explore what war, even “good wars” like the fight against Nazism, does to people through the eyes of a rookie tank gunner played by Logan Lerman.
Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated latest project, “Interstellar,” telling a story of future man’s search for survival through the exploration of other galaxies, comes out Nov. 7. Matthew McCaunaughey, Jessica Chastain, and Anne Hathaway are among the loaded cast. Nolan’s last science-fiction work, 2010’s “Inception,” garnered four Oscars, and last year’s Alfonso Cuarón project, “Gravity,” won seven Academy Awards and was nominated for Best Picture. “Interstellar” is almost certain to be nominated for a host of categories, and the Academy’s recent friendliness to science fiction makes a Best Picture nod seem very possible.
Coming out Nov. 14, “Foxcatcher” stars a prosthetics covered Steve Carell in a serious role as wrestling obsessed WASP John du Pont. Channing Tatum plays Mark Schultz, du Pont’s last best hope for an American Olympic wrestling gold medal. Mark Ruffalo plays his brother David. It’s based on a true story that ended in a dead body and an insanity plea and it looks suitably moody to capture the Academy’s attention. Plus, director Bennett Miller has already won best director at Cannes for the film, and was nominated for a Palme d’Or.
In theaters Nov. 21, “The Imitation Game” stars Benedict Cumberbatch as English mathematician, logician, and early computer scientist Alan Turing, who helped crack the Nazi German military’s Enigma code. It has a host of things ensuring Academy members will be aware of it, including Cumberbatch’s ever increasing popularity, the fact that it’s also a WWII film, and Turing’s homosexuality in an England that still prosecuted practicing homosexuals. Moreover, it already won the People’s Choice Award at the prestigious Toronto Film Festival.
With a limited release Dec. 19, “Mr. Turner” paints a portrait of the British nineteenth century artist J.M.W. Turner’s dénouement. Timothy Spall, whom the average American knows only as Wormtail from the “Harry Potter” movies, won best actor at Cannes for his portrayal of the eccentric painter. Trailers reveal a film as lush as the romantic landscapes its title character painted, and cinematographer Dick Pope won Cannes’ Vulcain Prize for his work in it. Director Mike Leigh was nominated for a Palme d’Or and has been nominated for an Oscar seven times to date.
Another WWII film, coming Christmas is “Unbroken,” Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut. The film is based on the eponymous biography of Olympic runner turned bomber pilot turned Japanese POW Louis Zamperini by Lauren Hillenbrand, the author of “Seabiscuit.” It focuses specifically on Zamperini’s WWII experience and his fight for survival and sanity in response to sadism and utter degradation. Even if it doesn’t get an Oscar nod, “Unbroken” clearly wants to be an event and the Coen brothers are co-writers on the script.
There you have them: a few films to keep an eye on as the movies roll into awards season and projections of nominees begin to be on display at publications right and left.
