A First Look at the Oscar Race

The Top 5 things the 2002 Oscars can (possibly) tell us about the 2012 Oscars

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, oh yeah and it’s also the Holiday season. Well Happy Holidays to all of our Nerd 5 readers and let’s dive into the time that I wait for all year, OSCAR SEASON! 

Now, it’s not that I love the Academy Awards and think they get things right all the time (although I do love The Academy itself, but more on that in months to come), in fact last year I couldn’t have disagreed more with some of the things that won (*cough The Artist cough*). I love this season because all the best films of the year are released around this time. Sure summer blockbusters are great and every once in while there is true gem that comes out during that time, but more often than not the best films of the year get national releases between the end October and the end of January. Which means it’s one of the best times of the year to go to the movies.

A quick side note. To be eligible for The Academy Awards that will air on February 24, 2013, your film must be released in at least four theaters in Los Angles and New York by December 31, or have a limited release run by that same time. A film will then get a wider released based upon nominations it receives, the money it makes and the word of mouth/critical praise it receives. Basically the 2013 Academy Awards honor films that were released between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2012. So why does the end of the year become Oscar season? For the simple belief that if your films is seen later in the year it will be fresh in the voters’ minds and be on more ballots. 

Now down to business. Recently I've been studying Oscar history to learn about the films I should see that aren't already part of my general knowledge as a film nerd. During this time I've come across a unique thing in Oscar history. I think the chart says it the best.

2002 Oscar Best Picture Nominee	Film Description	2012 Potential Oscar Best Picture Nominee
Chicago (Winner)	A film adaptation of a highly successful Broadway musical, with a well-known cast, a big budget and a Christmas time release.	Les Miserables
Gangs of New York	A historical epic set in the 1800’s that shaped the future of America directed by an industry giant and starring Daniel Day-Lewis.	Lincoln
The Pianist	A thriller set in a foreign country that tells a story of hiding from a militant political regime while planning the perfect escape.	Argo
The Hours	A character study surrounding an individual dealing with a mental illness and the effect that has on their family and life in general	Silver Linings Playbook
The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers	A visually stunning sprawling epic, based on a book that was assumed unfilmable for many years, that is only finally made possible by the passion of its director.	Life of Pi OR The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Is this merely a crazy random happenstance? Have filmmakers (and studios in particular) figured out the keys to getting an Oscar nomination? Is there a secret pact in Hollywood that a certain type of film will be nominated every ten years? Well, I’ll let the conspiracy theorists think on the last question. I would just say its part crazy random happenstance, and part filmmakers knowing how to get their film in the Oscar race. So what’s to point of all this? Let’s have some fun by seeing if this coincidence has any real predictive value. As the next Nerd 5 top 5. (For the purposes of this article I’m going to use The Hobbit: An Expected Journey over Life of Pi in order to make a more direct comparison however I do believe that Life of Pi has a better shot than The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey) The list is ranked in order of things that I’d be the most shocked to see, 5 being the least shocking thing 1 being the most.

5. Lincoln will be shut out.

Lincoln staring Daniel Day-Lewis as the ground-breaking 16^th president and directed by Stephen Spielberg could very easily walk away empty handed.  There has been a lot buzz about this film so far and most of it is very mixed. It’s pretty much a lock that Day-Lewis will be nominated, but don’t be so sure that he will for sure take home his THIRD statue (that would put him in some very rare company: Walter Brennan, Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman all have three and Katharine Hepburn is the only person with 4 wins for acting). Day-Lewis' previous two wins come for My Left Foot (1989) and There Will Be Blood (2007). Keep an eye out for a dark horse candidate to come on strong here in the last few months and overtake Day-Lewis. Overall Lincoln will have enough name value, buzz, and campaigning to get nominated, but will fall short on Oscar night. Don’t worry, most people involved with this film already have Oscar’s to keep them cozy at night.

4. Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lawrence will take home Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress, respectively.

Two young and up-and-coming actresses will cement their place in Hollywood on this night. Let’s take this one category at a time. Starting with Best Actress, this might be a bit of a stretch due to the fact that Lawrence’s part might not be big enough for a Best Actress nod; however, she is the female lead of Silver Linings Playbook and everyone seems to agree that even though the film itself is nothing special, her performance is. It seems very likely Lawrence will pick up her second nomination in her young career and based on history she’ll take it home as the only win for the film Silver Linings Playbook (and based on this theory we are also going to say that Robert De Nero pick with up his 6^th nomination but fail to capture his third Oscar).

On to Supporting Actress, in 2002 Catherine-Zeta Jones and Queen Latifah were both nominated for Chicago and it was pretty much a given that one would win. What does that mean for 2012? It looks like Anne Hathaway and Amanda Seyfried are both in line for nominations and the Academy will give the award to Hathaway for giving a very strong rendition (hopefully, we'll see) of the Les Miserables signature song I Dreamed a Dream, just as they did for Zeta Jones and All That Jazz from Chicago.

3. Les Miserables will (somehow) be viewed as a bigger visual achievement then The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

As crazy as that sounds, if the pattern holds true, Les Miserables is going to take home 4 of the 8 major technical awards, while The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will only take home 2. The major technical awards include: Best Costume, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Makeup, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Art Direction (renamed this year to Production Design, but serves the same purpose). Let’s set aside Makeup and Cinematography (as in ’02 these awards went to other films than the 5 best picture nominees and I feel that will happen here too.) The Sound awards will be split between the two films, and quite honestly that seems fair. Each film presents its own sound challenge, for The Hobbit it will be creating the sounds of Middle Earth, a fictional fantasy world, and Les Miserables will have to make song and orchestration sound good. Oh, and by the way Les Miserables’ songs were all performed live on set, something that simply is not done in today’s Hollywood.  Also, The Hobbit will take home best visual effects, but it stops there. Costume, Editing, and Art Direction will all go to Les Miserables, which is completely realistic.

Traditionally The Academy loves costume period dramas and being set in 19^th Century France. This film fits the bill. It might not be the most deserving film in all technical categories, but if it's nominated it will be a factor in the outcome.

2. Les Miserables will win 6 Oscars including Best Picture.

Chicago, 2002’s Best Picture, was a favorite before the night began, but as the night wore on it looked like The Pianist might actually pull off the upset. Why? The Pianist took home Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay and it looked like a home run that The Pianist would take home Best Picture as well. But when the envelope was opened it was Chicago’s name that was read out. Only one other time in Oscar history has this happened. In 1935 The Informer won Director, Actor, and Writing (as the category was called at the time) but lost Best Picture to Mutiny on the Bounty. So what are the odds that this happens again? I give it  a 2% percent chance (2 times this has happened in 85 years). They say that Les Miserables will likely pick up one of the other awards Chicago did not or it will not take home Best Picture, but who knows it’s happened before it could happen again.

So how can something that has only 2% chance of happening not be my most shocking prediction? Because based on what happened ten years ago...

1.           Ben Affleck will take home Best Director and Best Actor.

…and if he does Affleck would be the person in history to do so. If we hold the 2002 results as a predictor of things to come, then Mr. Affleck will have very successfully removed himself from the Hollywood doghouse and made history while doing it. In ’02 The Pianist took home Best Director and Actor. In order for this to happen again Argo, which Affleck both stars in and directs, will definitely go down in Hollywood history. Let’s put into context what this means. Only 9 people in all of Hollywood history have been nominated for both Actor and Director and only 1 of them for two different films. Let’s get the oddity out of the way.  In 2005 George Clooney become the only person to be nominated for directing and acting on the same night for two different films. He won for Best Supporting Actor for the film Syriana but then opened his acceptance speech with “Well, I guess I’m not winning Best Director tonight” which turned out to be a true statement. That leaves only 8 people to have ever accomplished the feat that Affleck is trying for this year; the coveted Best Director, Best Actor double nomination for the same film on the same night and none of them have won both. In fact no person has ever won both awards in their entire career.

                                                  i.            Warren Beatty – Heaven Can Wait AND Reds

a.    Heaven Can Wait – lost both award

b.    Reds --  won director, lost actor

                                                 ii.    Clint Eastwood – Unforgiven AND Million Dollar Baby

a.    Unforgiven – won director, lost actor

b.    Million Dollar Baby – won director, lost actor

                                                iii.    Orson Wells – Citizen Kane

a.    Lost both awards (although he did pick up best screenplay)

                                               iv.    Laurence Olivier – Hamlet

a.    Lost director, won actor

                                                v.    Woody Allen – Annie Hall

a.    Won director, lost actor

                                               vi.    Kenneth Branagh – Henry V

a.    Lost both awards

                                              vii.    Kevin Costner – Dances With Wolves (1990)

a.    Won director, lost actor

                                             viii.    Roberto Benigni – Life Is Beautiful

a.    Lost director, won actor

So best of luck to you Mr. Affleck! This has been some fun speculation about Oscar night and just the first of many Oscar articles to come this year!

Watershed Moments in Superhero Film History

The superhero genre is relatively new in film history, but though there are dozens of characters and franchises in this category, there are just a few films that have shaped all the rest.

Part I by Jeff Carpenter 

1. Superman marks the rise of the superhero in modern cinema, and would set the trend for the next 20 years. The son of Krypton is not only the most over-powered character in comics, but he’s the first to make the plunge into theatres in a serious way. The four Superman films (of which one and a half are good) took the first small steps toward ripping costumed heroes off of their half-tone pages and toward the center of pop culture. The Superman films were bright, colorful, simple morality tales that featured a hero beyond reproach and a shooting style that was deliberately cartoonish. This fairly accurately represented the comic s of the period, though the “mighty-whitey” superheros were already dying out in mainstream comics. It was an ethically safe throwback to a period before Frank Miller and others like him would raise the flag of the anti-hero. Comics were still considered a thing for children, and their heroes were beacons of moral condescension.

D.C. Comics ruled the superhero film landscape for decades, arguably because their main-staple characters were not only more black-and-white, but also because they were technologically easier to tackle. Batman got in on the ground floor of our childhoods because he relied on gadgets and overbuilt vehicles, both of which could be done without CGI. Also, because of the incredibly popular and incredibly groovy television series starring Adam West. However, steps were taken away from the Superman mold with this character due to the direction of Tim Burton, who created a gothic masterpiece and didn’t shy away from giving Batman a few rough edges. Batman, even in his first film iteration, killed people. Michael Keaton (an amazing casting choice) played a character that would, given the motive of his parent’s murder, kill the Joker. Of course he shied away from out and out murder himself, but it moved the genre forward in a few perceptible ways, despite the later bumbling of Joel Schumacher.

2. The next real change to come to comic book movies after their inception with Superman is Bryan Singer’s X-Men. The 2000 release marked a small step for special effects and a huge step for characterization. X-Men featured a small story, which took place over a short span of time, and an intimate cast of characters. Despite the extraordinary powers of its mutant cast, Singer took a “less is more approach.” By doing so he created a world based in realism that was inhabited by extremely relatable, human (or post-human), people. This changed the game. Let me repeat: THIS CHANGED CINEMA.

All superhero movies that came after X-Men were of a different creed than those that had come before. The genre had ‘mutated’. Now all, to varying degrees, would reflect the realism that had been explored with X-Men, and would at least attempt to create characters that were flawed and sypathetic. Gone were the days of a flawless Superman, and a dickless Clark Kent. In the post-X-Men landscape, Marvel stole supremacy and hasn't lost it since.

There is one exception to this rule. I would classify 2002’s Spider-Man as one of the old guard, with more in common with the Superman than the post X-Men generation. Raimi’s Spider-Man is full of over-the-top characters and stylistically is deliberately cartoony. Though it came out in theaters after X-Men, it’s a safe bet that they were in production at the same time. This might explain why it didn't possess the “x gene.” Further proof that X-Men was a game-changer comes with Spider-Man 2, which is much more character based and is shot in a much more mature way. Spider-Man is out of costume for most of the film, and the characters who were simple archetypes in the first film took on some depth. There were still cartoony moments letting us know that this was a Raimi film, but they served the characters instead of stealing the show.

So Superman gave us superhero movies and X-Men introduced realism and flawed characters to the superhero genre, but another film came along that again reshaped the way we view caped crusaders and for that we turn to Josh Darby…

 Part II by Josh Darby

Hey guys, Josh here, and I’m taking on part two of this post. We sit in a world where Superhero films are a very viable film genre. They almost always dominate the summer blockbusters and (good or bad) they make a ton of money. For better or worse the Superhero genre is here to stay. Now like any sub-genre of film it has its peaks and valleys, but at least for the foreseeable future we are going to get for or more superhero films a year. 

How did we get here? Well, as my partner Jeff stated, we started with Superman, which set the tone (with only a two film speed bump known as Tim Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns) that eventually gave way to X-men, but what was the reason for that? America was looking for something different: a hero with layers and rough edges that wasn't so gosh-darn perfect. Well, we got them with X-men, but at some point even that wasn't good enough.

We no longer live in a world where the good guys are all good and the bad guys are all bad. Villains are no longer just evil or crazy without reason, they want something. Heroes aren't born that way, they're made. We no longer want black and white, we want that grey area. With all that said, let’s jump in the way back machine and take a trip to 2008.

3. Iron Man (2008) – Let’s make a brief pit stop with Iron Man, what did this film do so right? It understood two things that would later be perfected: first, don’t send just anyone to make a superhero film. The director of Iron Man, Jon Favreau, was a talented director who understood and was a fan of the characters, story, and material that he was dealing with. This does follow in the tradition of Raimi with the Spider-Man films and Singer with X-Men and X2, but here is where it really got cemented that you need a talented fan to make a good superhero film.

The second thing that Favreau and Iron Man did right is understanding that perfect casting choices can lend credibility to a role.

What do the Superhero genre and Robert Downey Jr. have in common in 2007? Both need a revival. Downey needed to prove that he had put his demons in the rear view mirror. He was a man who had struggled for decades with drugs, alcohol, and the pressures of Hollywood, all the while trying to prove himself. What he needed what a second chance and what he got was Tony Stark, a man struggling with alcohol, monogamy, and the pressures of living up to his father while trying to prove a worthy member of society (sound familiar?) It’s about finding the right person for the part and Favreau understood that. Robert Downey Jr. owns Tony Stark because he understands him like no one else could. He brings truth and honesty to the part like no one else could.

So, what does all this have to do with the superhero genre in 2007? Ghost Rider, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and Spider-Man 3 these were the major superhero films of 2007. It looks like an entire genre on the brink of disaster, losing sight of what makes a superhero film great, and in desperate need to put its demons in the rear view mirror. Iron Man was important because it set the stage for…

4. The Dark Knight (2008) – I know, it’s weird, let’s all get used to the fact that I am going to defend The Dark Knight as a great film. Let’s all let that sink in… great… we good to go? Awesome. (Dear reader: this inside joke is reference to the fact that when I drug Josh to see this movie, he whined like a little girl the entire time, and initially swore off the movie in contempt. Pretty much all I need to do to get Josh to hate a movie is say I like it, so it's nice to be vindicated once in a while. Oops, I'll go back to my section of the article now...Jeff) 

Let’s jump in. The Dark Knight, directed by Christopher Nolan and Co-written by Jonathan Nolan, was the second in his re-booted Batman trilogy. The Dark Knight picks up where Iron Man leaves off by putting the right actor in the right part. Heath Ledger is perfectly cast as The Joker. What he brings to the part is a sense of honesty, reality, and believability that has never been seen in a villain before. Ledger so nailed The Joker that even The Academy gave him credit by awarding a posthumous Best Supporting Actor award for his performance. Nolan knows that has every great hero needs a great villain. This is something that is crucial to the success of any superhero film. Also that every character in your film needs to be honest, have motivation, be full of layers, and we need to understand them. The proof of this is also in Aaron Eckhart's performance as Harvey Dent. A superhero film is a story just like any other and needs to be treated that way, with respect and careful storytelling.

Now, for better or worse, what The Dark Knight has given us an even more hightened sense of reality. Audiences will suspend disbelief for super powers and such, but you better be surround that super element with a real world, with real problems that speak what we are experiencing today.

Finally you need a good story. It’s really as simple as that. A hero that we can root for who is trying to overcome not only the villain, but his personal demons. They should follow the hero’s journey, and by the end of the film we should feel completely satisfied even if we know that there are more films to come.

With all that being said where do we stand now? Where has all this lead us? It leads us to the big debate of 2012.

5. The Avengers (2012) vs. The Dark Knight Rises (2012) – so which one of these films gets it? Who will lead the pack astray and who will shape the new path? From my point of view, (and if you've any of our previous blogs you know what I'm going to say) it's The Avengers. Now before I jump into what I think they do right, let me take a quick moment to say what The Dark Knight Rises didn't understand. Simply put, it’s not 2008 anymore. You have to evolve, you can’t continue give us the same thing. The Joker is a terrorist who wants to create chaos and anarchy. He wants to do it for fun and to show all the flaws in our government system. Too much power, too much authority, too much access to people's privacy, these were all prevalent thoughts on our minds in 2008 and that’s what Dark Knight tapped in to. It didn't give us all the answers, that was supposed to be what finished off the story. Four years later Nolan is still trying to tell the same story. We've seen Chris, I’d like something different, like maybe answering the questions you posed in the previous film.

What I see in The Avengers is the evolution of the Superhero, a film that learns from all the films of the past as well telling a story for our time. Its characters feel true and honest, the filmmakers and actors give respect to the material. It’s based in reality, but coupled with a heightened sense of fantasy. It’s an escape from our reality which tells a small story wrapped in larger nut shell. It has a sense of humor and tells a story for our time. I think that’s the important part, it taps into what we want as a society: someone or something to band together to save us from these hard times. We want leaders who will work together and put aside their personal differences to make the world a better place. It’s all of those reasons why I say that The Avengers, not The Dark Knight Rises, is the better superhero film.

Thanks for reading! Join in the conversation!

Jeff & Josh