And the Oscar goes to...

[lokisnow]

I just saw this piece in the New York Times, apparently this year's Best Picture has already been decided:

If “The King’s Speech” met “A Beautiful Mind” on “Brokeback Mountain,” they might add up to this movie.

But the Oscar-ready elements don’t end there.

The running scenes and Alexandre Desplat’s score seem a tribute to “Chariots of Fire,” which was named best picture in 1982. Mr. Turing’s status as a genius who is impaired by some never-quite-named disability distinctly recalls “Rain Man,” which was named best picture in 1989.

They're speaking of the Imitation Game

And of course it's going to be Harvey Weinstein's "big push" this year, so it appears the behemoth may already be unstoppable, unless the counter-strategy of the other studios is to preemptively generate a backlash against the film for being oscar focus grouped pablum that is nothing more than a pastiche of past winners (see above quote, which could be seen as the start of backlash). But attempts to generate backlash last year never took hold last year against 12 Years a Slave, primarily because that film is pretty flawless and undeniably great.

And early reports hold that Imitation Game is utterly stellar, I'm excited to see a film about Alan Turing, for certain.

---

http://boxofficemojo.com/schedule/

all that said, most of the big fall festivals are out of the way, and this year's awards movie contenders slate seems to be firming up. The only film released so far this year certain to get Best Picture, Director nominations is Boyhood.

The season gets started in three weeks on October third with the release of Imitation Game's fellow frontrunner Gone Girl, from David Fincher.

two weeks later, on October 17, we get the third big gorilla of the season, Birdman, expected to sweep up nominations in the double digit realm (this is the film where Michael Keaton plays an actor who is famous for being Batman, I mean Birdman). That same day sees the release of David Ayers WWII film, Fury, with Brad Pitt, it remains to be seen if Fury is any good though, or is good enough or has the right timing to break into the awards season in a major way.

The other notable films in october are mainly those fighting for acting nominations--The Judge, Whiplash, St. Vincent--and Reitman's Men Women and Children, which like Fury is currently on the outside looking in. It might get traction, but it's got an uphill climb. There's also several animated films coming out in September and October that will probably get nominated, such as Boxtrolls and Tale of Princess Kaguya (from studio Ghibli).

November 7 sees the release of two brilliant looking films, Big Hero 6, from Disney is the prohibitive favorite to win Best Animated feature, and Interstellar from Christopher Nolan is yet another awards behemoth expected to scoop up nominations by the bucketful, hopefully Nolan will get his first Best Director nomination for the film, but the year is crowded and the director's branch doesn't seem to like him. Nolan is tied with Rob Reiner for the most DGA nominations for best director but no corresponding Best Director oscar nomination.

The next week, November 14, sees another awards Gorilla be released, the phenomenal looking Foxcatcher. This one's expected to sweep up three actor nominations alone, along with Director and Picture, script and editing. It's from Moneyball Bennett Miller, it's his third film, and both Capote and Moneyball got Best Picture and Best Director nominations.

And to bury the lead, frontrunner Imitation Game drops on November 21 on its way to King's Speech esque Awards dominance. It's hard to imagine a film more tailor made to win awards.

Films chasing other nominations or trying to get traction against the above mentioned awards beasts in November include Jon Stewart's Rosewater, the western The Homesman, and The Theory of Everything.

Reese Witherspoon's second oscar winning role, Wild, comes out December 2nd, and it might get more notice than that. Mr. Turner, coming out a few weeks later will try to steal best Actor for character actor extraordinaire Timothy Spall.

Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice comes out the next week on December 9th. It could easily be yet another gorilla, knocking off one of the previously mentioned top six contenders (Boyhood, Gone Girl, Birdman, Interstellar, Foxcatcher, Imitation Game).

And then for Christmas, on the 24th, we get a quintet of spoilers trying to steal themselves some top slots from the earlier released big seven films of the season, Rob Marshall directing Meryl Streep in the musical Into the Woods, Angelina Jolie directing the jawdropping WWII story of Unbroken, and Clint Eastwood directing Bradley Cooper in American Sniper, Tim Burton directing Amy Adams in Big Eyes, and Ava DuVerney directing everyone in Selma (about MLK and LBJ and the civil rights movie).

So to recap, if we could just get rid of Imitation Game this would be hands down the most competitive, crowded and exciting awards races I can ever remember, unfortunately, it's already decided. ;)

By order of release, the 12 frontrunners for Best Picture:

Boyhood
Gone Girl
Birdman
Interstellar
Foxcatcher
The Imitation Game
Inherent Vice
American Sniper
Big Eyes
Into the Woods
Selma
Unbroken

[polishgenius]

I'm incredibly surprised that

is being slated as an Oscar frontrunner, but I want to see it for sure.

I really don't like films that I feel like are trying to win Oscars (I sometimes find once I eventually watch them that I've been wrong, but not as often as I'd hope, which has led in more recent years to me not watching some key Oscar contenders/winners at all, however unfair that perception really is), and for that reason I have little interest in either The Imitation Game or Foxcatcher.


Thunder, on the other hand, looks cracking, despite Shia LaBeouf.

[WarGalley]

While it's certainly an exciting list, I'd say it's way too early to say this will be the most competitive race in years.

And I amusingly agree that The Imitation Game is ripe Oscar fodder. I can't think of a movie with more award tropes than this one will have have.

[lokisnow]

I think it's competitive because each contender has a plausible path to winning. Most years, really only two or three films have a path to winning, this year feels wide open.