Monday, December 3, 2012

Awards Season Preview: What to See

Awards season will soon be upon us! This is the time of year when all the movies that are Oscar bait are released, which makes December and January a busy time for film-goers.

I find that awards season is so much more fun to experience when you've seen the movies that are nominated. It allows you to be an active viewer with your own opinions and favorites. So, to help you decide which movies to see and which ones to avoid I've come up with a list of films you may want to see to prepare yourself for awards season.

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
Directed by David O. Russell


Silver Linings Playbook is about a man (Bradley Cooper) with Bipolar Disorder who returns home after a stay in a mental hospital. In the movie he tries to reconcile with his parents and ex-wife and meets an mysterious, troubled woman who also has a history of mental illness (Jennifer Lawrence).

Possible Nominations:
Best Picture
Best Director - David O. Russell
Best Lead Actress - Jennifer Lawrence (Tiffany)
Best Lead Actor - Bradley Cooper (Pat)
Best Supporting Actor - Robert De Niro (Pat, Sr.)
Best Adapted Screenplay

LES MISERABLES
Directed by Tom Hooper


The first stage-to-screen adaptation of Claude-Michel Schönberg's and Alain Boublil's masterpiece musical. Les Miserables takes place during the French Revolution and follows the life of Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), an escaped convict attempting to live an honest life. The story also follows the life of Fantine (Anne Hathaway), a factory worker-turned-prostitute and her daughter Cosette (Amanda Seyfried).

Possible Nominations:
Best Picture
Best Director - Tom Hooper
Best Lead Actor - Hugh Jackman (Jean Valjean)
Best Supporting Actress - Anne Hathaway (Fantine)
Best Supporting Actress - Samantha Barks (Eponine)
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Cinematography
Best Art Direction
Best Costume Design
Best Sound

LINCOLN
Directed by Steven Spielberg


Set in 1865, the film follows President Abraham Lincoln's struggle to pass the 13th Amendment and end slavery as the Civil War rages on.

Possible Nominations:
Best Picture
Best Director - Steven Spieberg
Best Lead Actor - Daniel Day Lewis (Lincoln)
Best Supporting Actor - Tommy Lee Jones (Thaddeus Stevens)
Best Supporting Actress- Sally Field (Mary Todd Lincoln)
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Costume Design
Best Cinematography
Best Art Direction
Best Makeup
Best Original Score - John Williams
Best Sound

HITCHCOCK
Directed by Sacha Gervasi


Hitchcock is about the relationship between legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife Alma Reville (Helen Mirren) during the filming of Psycho in 1959.

Possible Nominations:
Best Lead Actor - Anthony Hopkins (Alfred Hitchcock)
Best Lead Actress - Helen Mirren (Alma Reville)
Best Makeup

ARGO
Directed by Ben Affleck



Argo is about the 1980 joint CIA-Canadian secret operation to extract six fugitive American diplomatic personnel out of revolutionary Iran.

Possible Nominations:
Best Picture
Best Director - Ben Affleck
Best Actor - Ben Affleck
Best Supporting Actor - Alan Arkin
Best Supporting Actor - John Goodman
Best Supporting Actor - Bryan Cranston
Best Adapted Screenplay

DJANGO UNCHAINED
Directed by Quentin Tarantino


In Django Unchained a slave-turned bounty hunter (Jamie Foxx) sets out to rescue his wife and get revenge on a brutal Mississippi plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio).

Possible Nominations:
Best Picture
Best Director - Quentin Tarantino
Best Lead Actor - Jamie Foxx (Django)
Best Supporting Actor - Leonardo DiCaprio (Calvin Candle)
Best Supporting Actress - Kerry Washington (Broomhilda von Shaft)
Best Original Screenplay
Best Cinematography
Best Costume Design
Best Sound

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY
Directed by Peter Jackson


An Unexpected Journey is the first installment in what will become The Hobbit Trilogy. Based on J.R.R. Tolkien's novel, The Hobbit is about Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit from the Shire who is forced into a long and dangerous journey lead by group of dwarfs and  the wizard Gandalf. They are journeying to The Lonely Mountain to reclaim their treasure from the dragon called Smaug. Parts 2 and 3 are set to be released in December 2013 and 2014, respectfully, and are titled The Desolation of Smaug and There and Back Again.

Possible Nominations:
Best Picture
Best Director - Peter Jackson
Best Supporting Actor - Andy Serkis (Gollum)
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Makeup
Best Visual Effects
Best Sound
Best Costume Design
Best Cinematography
Best Original Score - Howard Shore

LIFE OF PI
Directed by Ang Lee


Based on the best-selling novel, Life of Pi tells the story of a young man who survives a disaster at sea and must survive on the ocean in a tiny boat with a Bengal tiger as his only companion.

Possible Nominations:
Best Picture
Best Director - Ang Lee
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Cinematography

CLOUD ATLAS
Directed by Tom Twyke, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski



This movie is so hard to describe that I had to enlist the help of IMDb: "An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution."

Possible Nominations:
Best Picture
Best Lead Actor - Tom Hanks
Best Lead Actress - Halle Berry
Best Cinematography
Best Costume Design
Best Makeup
Best Visual Effects

FLIGHT
Directed by Robert Zemeckis


When an airline pilot (Denzel Washington) saves a plane from crashing, the investigation into the crash reveals his troubled lifestyle.

Possible Nominations:
Best Picture
Best Lead Actor - Denzel Washington (Whip Whitaker)
Best Original Screenplay

THE MASTER
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson


In The Master a naval officer (Joaquin Phoenix) arrives home after World War II with severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and finds a cult that aims to clear the emotions. The more time he spends with the leader of the cult (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the deeper his involvement becomes.

Possible Nominations:
Best Picture
Best Director - Paul Thomas Anderson
Best Lead Actor - Joaquin Phoenix
Best Supporting Actor - Philip Seymour Hoffman
Best Supporting Actress - Amy Adams
Best Original Screenpay
Best Cinematography

ZERO DARK THIRTY
Directed by Katherine Bigelow


Zero Dark Thirty follows the decade-long hunt for Osama Bin Laden and the mission of Navy SEAL Team 6.

Possible Nominations:
Best Picture
Best Director - Katherine Bigelow
Best Lead Actress - Jessica Chastain
Best Original Screenplay - Mark Boal
Best Original Score - Alexandre Desplat
Best Sound

GINGER AND ROSA
Directed by Sally Potter


Ginger and Rosa follows two teenage girls living in London in the 1960s.







Possible Nominations:
Best Lead Actress - Elle Fanning (Ginger)
Best Original Screenplay

RUST AND BONE
Directed by Jacques Audiard


Rust and Bone, a French film, is about Stephanie (Marion Cotillard), a killer whale trainer whose life changes when she is attacked and wounded by an orca.

Possible Nominations:
Best Lead Actress - Marion Cotillard
Best Foreign Film

Other films to keep in mind:
The Sessions
Beasts of the Southern Wild
The Impossible
Promised Land
Anna Karenina
The Dark Knight Rises
Skyfall
End of Watch
On the Road