Feature : My Academy Award Predictions 2012

It's Oscar time! And that means I have to make meaningless predictions for a meaningless awards ceremony. I've decided to only bother predicting the main categories for once because when I try to predict best documentary short and best sound design it just gets embarrassing. Not as embarrassing as Olivia Colman and Tilda Swinton's snubs though, right? Right? HEY-YO!

Best Picture

Warhorse / The Artist / The Descendants / Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close / Hugo / Midnight In Paris / The Help / Moneyball / The Tree of Life


Like so many Best Picture years gone by, there is only one winner. The Artist, 85 years after the birth of the talkies, would be a very deserving winner and a swift two-fingers at David Cameron who thinks British cinema should all be mainstream (not that The Artist is British...but...you know). A black and white silent love story should have merely been a curiosity but it's pure magic and as a result is not simply a matter of "don't believe the hype".

I'm still not a fan of the large amount of films which now can be nominated. 5 would certainly have been enough this year as the inclusions of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and the distinctly average Midnight In Paris were completely unnecessary. And if you're going to have 9 films nominated why on earth isn't one of them We Need To Talk About Kevin?

Best Director

Woody Allen (Midnight In Paris) / Martin Scorsese (Hugo) / Michael Hazanavicius (The Artist) / Terrence Malick (Tree of Life) / Alexander Payne (The Descendants)

With just a handful of films in his 40 year career, Terrence Malick cannot be accused of chasing the awards. Though Michael Hazanavicius, Alexander Payne and Scorsese are all very strong contenders in this pretty hot category I have a feeling this could be Malick's year for a film which I didn't find remotely pretentious. Maybe that says more about me than the film...

As for snubs, not including Lynne Ramsey for We Need To Talk About Kevin seems a massive oversight. And where is Steve McQueen, who gave a minimalist directing masterclass in Shame? Woody Allen certainly didn't need yet another nomination when his effort this year was not exactly Annie Hall.

Best Supporting Actor

Kenneth Branagh (My Week With Marilyn) / Max Von Sydow (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) / Jonah Hill (Moneyball) / Christopher Plummer (Beginners) / Nick Nolte (Warrior)

He's probably actually the least likely to win in this strong category but Jonah Hill's performance in Moneyball was so strong and such a break-out that I'd love to see him win. I'm essentially taking a bullet when the excellent Christopher Plummer will probably win.

Best Supporting Actress

Bernice Bejo (The Artist) / Jessica Chastain (The Help) / Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids) / Janet Mcteer (Albert Nobbs) / Octavia Spencer (The Help)


I was dead chuffed to see Melissa McCarthy get a nod for her brilliant performance in Bridesmaids. It's just a shame that in a film with such a strong ensemble only one of those ladies got nominated. The winner has to be Octavia Spencer. One question though...in The Help, a film full of excellent performances, where is Bryce Dallas Howard's nomination? For me she was the strongest of a very strong bunch.

Best Actor

Brad Pitt (Moneyball) / George Clooney (The Descendants) / Demien Bichir (A Better Life) / Jean Dujardin (The Artist) / Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)

This is probably a one horse race but Jean Dujardin could provide an 'upset' (if you can call it that). Just as last year was finally Firth's year, this year is finally Clooney's.

But where is Michael Fassbender? For my money he would have given Clooney a real run for his money for his performance in Shame.

Best Actress

Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) / Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs) / Rooney Mara (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) / Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn) / Viola Davies (The Help)

Yawn, it's Meryl's year. This category verges on the ridiculous. All the women nominated give fine performances but none as fine as Carey Mulligan in Shame, Tilda Swinton in We Need To Talk About Kevin and Olivia Colman in Tyrannosaur (who gave the best performance of 2011 and probably of the next 5 years too).

Best Original Screenplay

The Artist / Bridesmaids / Margin Call / Midnight In Paris / A Separation


I am yet to see A Separation so maybe I should just keep my big mouth shut but no-one reads this so I'll say what I like. The Artist would be a worthy winner but Bridesmaids is my favourite screenplay here. If Midnight In Paris, a film which points out Ernest Hemingway by saying, "oh look, it's Ernest Hemingway", wins I'll kick a door.

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Descendants / Hugo / The Ides of March / Moneyball / Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy


A very strong category indeed. The Descendants was excellent but any of these films would be worthy winners. Again, no nod for We Need To Talk About Kevin leaves me scratching my itchy, itchy head.

A follow up post with how many of these predictions were correct will follow. Last year it was 25%, a score that would be terrible if we'd had a 5 year old predicting the Oscars outcome.

Review : 'Shame' (2011)

Buying a single ticket to see Shame on a Monday afternoon made me feel like quite the pervert as all I'd been told about the film was that it had garnered excellent reviews and that Michael Fassbender was packing heat. Let's start at the beginning. Fassbender certainly is packing heat. And now that that's out of the way, here is my review of Shame.

The film is rated 18 due to extremely explicit sex scenes. However, I haven't seen a film this sex-filled and yet so unerotic since I sat through Killer Bitch. We meet Brandon (Fassbender) as he goes through his daily routine in his immaculate flat. His eyes meet a pretty redhead's on the subway and at first she is turned on, then gradually repulsed. She gets off the subway train and Brandon gives chase, eventually losing her. If this were a different film this scene would be accompanied with plink-plonk-laugh-laugh music and the red-head would be played by Emma Stone, eventually being his salvation. Shame isn't that film though. Brandon's endless search for la petite mort means he can fall in love with any number of women in a day for just a few minutes. His life is a series of encounters with random women, with prostitutes and with pornography.

When he returns to his clinical apartment one evening he finds Sissy (Carey Mulligan), his wayward sister. He walks in on her in the shower and they both scream. But she doesn't cover herself up. When he passes her a towel she just dries her face and makes no attempt to cover her nudity. It's a scene which is just right of centre...all the dialogue makes sense but something just isn't right. Sissy wants to move in while she chases her singing career all the same. She is clearly as troubled as her brother - early on we hear her literally begging a presumably former lover to see her over the phone and there are criss-crossing self-harm scars on her arms.

She turns out to be a bewitching singer, performing a stripped-back, melancholy version of New York New York in a nightclub. While Brandon's ridiculous boss David (James Badge Dale) whoops and cheers at Sissy's performance Brandon shows a sad pride. He is certainly proud of her but his agony is palpable. Director Steve McQueen's use of long, unbroken shots force you to confront the characters, often in extreme close-ups. Later, when David and Sissy loudly have sex in Brandon's bedroom he shows extreme discomfort but says nothing as he paces his living room then goes out running.

Why are these siblings so troubled? A terrible childhood is hinted at numerous times. At one point Sissy tells Brandon, "we're not bad people, we just come from a bad place". The 'place' in question is never revealed and recovery of either of the characters isn't promised either. When Brandon begins to fall for a work colleague he finds he cannot have sex with her despite her deliberately being played by an actress more vivacious and beautiful than any of the women we've seen him with before. The depths he eventually sinks too are quite disturbing. His nihilism appears to know no bounds. 

There were elements of other film characters in Brandon. I couldn't help but see a little American Psycho's Patrick Bateman. There was also a fair amount of Travis Bickle. Brandon often does what he thinks he ought to do in an effort to blend in with everyone else. When he begins to fall for Marianne at his office he violently and obsessively clears his flat of all sexual material. He even bins his laptop when just deleting files would be enough - he sees it as cleansing himself. 

Shame is an intelligent film that left me with many questions and stayed with me for days after I saw it. Deliberately ambiguous, it is beautifully written, acted and directed. Fassbender and Mulligan are incredible in very difficult roles. Apart from in a tense argument filmed in one shot near the film's close where Mulligan's accent goes a little English they are faultless in their depictions of Sissy and Brandon. We can only guess where these characters will end up but I certainly cared enough to hope for them.