86th Academy Awards: Predictions, Surprises & Snubs

A short while ago, the nominations for the 86th Academy Awards were announced. To be honest, 2013 was one of the best years for movies in recent history. There are a good number of great or exceptional films out in theaters or on home video and most of them have some kind of presence on this list of nominations. I was genuinely surprised at some of these nominations so there will be some good speculation in the next few days before the ceremony in March. Let's get to it, shall we?

Best Picture:

12 Years a Slave, American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, Philomena and The Wolf of Wall Street

Winner: 12 Years a Slave

The Dark Horse: Gravity

This is a pretty tight race between the historical epic and the space epic. They tied at the Producer's Guild Award but !2 Years has been winning most of the Best Picture awards (including the Golden Globe). But Gravity scored the highest number of nominations (10, tying with American Hustle). For the most part, the Academy likes historical movies so I think in the end, the award will go to 12 Years. 

Major snub: Both Saving Mr. Banks and Inside Llewyn Davis were speculated to be heavily-nominated films but neither made it to the shortlist. Also, All is Lost, The Butler or Fruitvale Station could easily have been here.

Best Actor:

Christian Bale (American Hustle), Bruce Dern (Nebraska), Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street), Chiwetel Ejiofor (!2 Years a Slave) and Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)

The Winner: McConaughey

The Dark Horse: DiCaps/Ejiofor

For the longest time, I had Ejiofor as the frontrunner (and he could still win) but McConaughey has been winning a good number of pre Oscar awards (including the Golden Globe and the SAG Award). Also, the Academy loves physical transformations. That McConaughey's career did a complete 180 in the last 3 years or so is what works in his favor the most. DiCaprio's win at the Golden Globe and his previous losses could spin a win for him also. 

Major snub: Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips), Robert Redford (All is Lost), Joaquin Phoenix (Her) and Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis) were all serious contenders and could have easily gotten onto the shortlist.

Best Actress:

Amy Adams (American Hustle), Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine), Sandra Bullock (Gravity), Judi Dench (Philomena) and Meryl Streep (August: Osage County)

The Winner: Blanchett

The Dark Horse: Adams/Bullock

Cate Blanchett had this award in the bag all way back in July when Blue Jasmine premiered. There is absolutely no way she's not winning this award. Personally I would love if Sandra Bullock pulled a surprise win but it's not happening. There's a slight chance that Blanchett could lose because of the Dylan Farrow NYTimes article (which strangely name-dropped Blanchett) but I seriously doubt the Academy would punish Blanchett for getting dragged into that mess. 

Major snub: Most people thought Emma Thompson was a lock for her role in Saving Mr. Banks. Guess not. My guess is that Streep took her spot.

Best Supporting Actor:
Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips), Bradley Cooper (American Hustle), Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave), Jonah Hill (The Wolf of Wall Street) and Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club)
The Winner: Leto
The Dark Horse: Fassbender
Dallas Buyers Club is an Oscar favorite (scoring a surprising six nominations) and Leto's performance has been much praised. But Fassbender has also won some awards for 12 Years. It may be more of a toss-up than you think. The Academy loves 12 Years but they also love physically demanding roles. Still, in the end, I think Leto will take it.

Major snub: Tom Hanks for Saving Mr. Banks. Again, I'm surprised that movie was shut out of the major awards. Also, Daniel Bruhl for Rush could have been a surprise nomination.

Best Supporting Actress:
Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine), Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle), Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave), Julia Roberts (August: Osage County) and June Squibb (Nebraska)
The Winner: Nyong'o
The Dark Horse: Lawrence
I know J-Law is like everyone's favorite person but I have a feeling Nyong'o will win the Oscar. I could be completely wrong. But the Academy isn't as starstruck as the Golden Globes and Nyong'o won the SAG award and the Critics' Choice Award. Back-to-back Oscar wins are rare in acting categories; Tom Hanks was the last one for his one-two punch of Forrest Gump and Philadelphia. And is the Academy really prepared to put J-Law on the same level as T-Hanks? My money is on newcomer Nyong'o. In my honest opinion, her performance was just better; she owned the film and made her tragic character heroic through her suffering.

Major snub: Scarlett Johansson for Her, Oprah Winfrey for The Butler and Octavia Spencer for Fruitvale Station seem to be missing from the list.

Best Director:
Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity), Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave), Alexander Payne (Nebraska), David O. Russell (American Hustle) and Martin Scorsese (The Wolf of Wall Street)
The Winner: Cuaron
The Dark Horse: McQueen
Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron won the Director's Guild of America award and the Golden Globe; the victories seem to suggest he is the major frontrunner for the Oscar. The Academy will want to give Gravity at least one major award and this will be the one, honoring Cuaron as the team captain for the achievement that is Gravity. However, the Academy might want to have its Best Picture/Best Director be from the same movie which might give 12 Years the edge.

Major snub: Paul Greengrass for Captain Phillips was a possible contender but for some reason the Academy chose Alexander Payne. Haven't seen Nebraska but it doesn't really seem like a Director's Movie like Phillips did. It should be noted that Greengrass was nominated for the DGA over Payne, which is interesting.

Best Animated Feature:
The Croods, Despicable Me 2, Ernest & Celestine, Frozen and The Wind Rises
The Winner: Frozen
The Dark Horse: The Wind Rises
Frozen has the edge here because it is universally beloved. I hadn't even heard of Ernest & Celestine and The Wind Rises until the awards season started. The Wind Rises, however, is respected director Miyazaki's final feature film which could give it the edge over Frozen.

Major snub: I don't know... Monsters University? Epic?

Best Foreign Language Film:
The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium), The Great Beauty (Italy), The Hunt (Denmark), The Missing Picture (Cambodia) and Omar (Palestine)
Winner: The Great Beauty
The Dark Horse: The Broken Circle Breakdown/The Hunt
I've only seen one of these nominees (The Hunt) but The Great Beauty seems to be frontrunner after its Golden Globe win last month.

My picks for the technical categories:
Best Original Screenplay: Her (pictured above)
Best Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave
Best Cinematography, Original Score, Editing, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects: Gravity (duh)
Best Costume Design, Production Design: The Great Gatsby
Best Original Song: Let It Go from Frozen
Best Makeup & Hairstyling: Dallas Buyers Club

The Academy Awards air on Sunday March 2nd on ABC. The ceremony will be hosted be Ellen DeGeneres for the second time. What are some of your picks for the wins? 

And Starring Michelle Monaghan as Everybody's Girlfriend: Hollywood's Sexism Problem

Robert Downey Jr. Jake Gyllenhaal, Woody Harrelson. Patrick Dempsey. Tom Cruise. Casey Affleck. Ben Stiller. Shia LeBeouf. Gerard Butler.

What do these guys all have in common? They all starred in films (or TV shows) in which their leading lady was the very talented, the very beautiful Michelle Monaghan. She has made a career out of being the love interest or the support system for male leads. I can only guess whether or not Monaghan is frustrated with her lack of career choices. Perhaps she's grateful that she has some sort of niche in a business that's got to be tough for anyone but especially for a woman in her late 30s. I also don't know whether Monaghan auditions for these parts or if she's the "go-to gal" for girlfriend roles.

Either way, however, Monaghan is becoming the Poster Woman for one of Hollywood's major problems: sexism.

Ellen Page, the Inception crew's lone female. All these roles are gender-specific?

Substantial, leading parts for women are rare unless they are in films marketed only towards women (or rather, not marketed to men). You'll never see a heist movie starring more women than men (unless it's a heist comedy). Political dramas, war films, thrillers--these are all genres associated with men. Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty is the obvious exception here, but only because her character is based on a real-life woman. I wouldn't be surprised if someone had suggested changing the character to a man.

Production companies believe that men won't go see a movie in one of those genres if there are predominately females in the cast. And maybe that's true (though I believe a good script and direction will transcend gender). But why is the male audience the only one being targeted? I've heard rumors that women go see movies but I haven't any scientific data to prove it.

Part of the problem is the unwillingness to see male actors in traditionally feminized roles. For a female star to headline an action film, her leading gentleman would have to be just the sidekick or love interest with zero agency of his own or, God forbid, having to be saved from some horror. The gender flip of the damsel in distress myth would be too uncomfortable for mainstream audiences. The only example I can think of is Angelina Jolie saving her kidnapped husband in Salt but that guy was played by some non-star August Diehl. You'll never see Chris Pine or Chris Hemsworh or Chris Evans get kidnapped and then rescued by the likes of, for example, Natalie Portman, Olivia Wilde or Amy Adams.

J-Law being awesome in Hunger Games...

Even when a female is allowed to be an action star of her own franchise, like Jennifer Lawrence in the Hunger Games series, the reward isn't more starring roles in films in which her character is the protagonist. Lawrence gets to be Bradley Cooper's totes crazy Manic Pixie Dream Girl in Silver Linings Playbook or Christian Bale's slightly bonkers wife in American Hustle. Granted, she's getting awards attention for those films. But I think a star of Lawrence's clout should be offered something a little more substantial than girlfriend or wife roles. She may steal the movie away from her co-stars but that's only because the film never belonged to her in the first place.

...and then playing a "crazy wife" role in American Hustle.

But not everyone can be Jennifer Lawrence (or Sandra Bullock, who's had some amazing career-changing success with Gravity, The Heat and The Blind Side). Wonder why Jennifer Aniston makes so many comedies? Or why Oscar worthy actresses are clamoring to be in superhero movies? Maybe on some level they enjoy it. But maybe that's all they're being offered. Unless you're Meryl Streep, substantial leading roles in mainstream films just aren't there. Actresses have to take what they can get to pay the bills and raise their profile enough so that they can take a risk with an indie film (like Scarlett Johansson in Under the Skin).

Television is usually a good place to go for women when films let them down. Actresses like Vera Farmiga, Toni Collette for a while, Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Claire Danes, Kerry Washington and Lucy Liu have all successfully starred in critically-acclaimed series. I think even Halle Berry is starring in a CBS drama produced by Steven Spielberg.

American Horror Story: where 40+ actresses get some meaty roles

But television isn't infallible. Michelle Monaghan got a gig on HBO (True Detective) and she plays Woody Harrelson's long suffering wife. Literally, she has no scenes that are about something other than her marriage or her husband. I like the show a lot. And I understand it's a critique of modern American norms of masculinity. As talented as the people are behind the camera, they've really dropped the ball on fleshing out their female lead. It just hurts a little bit to see Monaghan playing the same role when she is capable of so much more.

What's the solution? Obviously, there need to be more female writers and directors who write complex starring roles for women. Perhaps men besides Woody Allen should start writing strong roles for actresses  Maybe studios shouldn't be so afraid of greenlighting a film with female characters who  actually do things. Whatever the solution, there needs to be a major change in the way Hollywood works for its many talented actresses.