Awards Watch: SAG and Globe Nominations

This past week has been crazy and I am not talking about all the awards frenzy going around. I would have loved to do a separate post about these, especially since I think Globes more often than not get a little weird but my personal timetable has made it impossible to do so. So, like I did last year, I am combining Globes and SAG nominations and my brief thoughts on it in a single post. I also limited myself to the major categories - Acting, Directing and Picture only.

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

                                           Drama                                                                         Comedy or Musical

                           Daniel Day-Lewis - Lincoln                                              Jack Black - Bernie

                            Richard Gere - Arbitrage                                 Bradley Cooper - Silver Linings Playbook

                         John Hawkes - The Sessions                                       Hugh Jackman - Les Misérables

                        Joaquin Phoenix - The Master                                     Bill Murray - Hyde Park on Hudson

                         Denzel Washington - Flight                               Ewan McGregor - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

  
SAG

Bradley Cooper - Silver Linings Playbook

Daniel Day-Lewis - Lincoln

John Hawkes - The Sessions

Hugh Jackman - Les Misérables

Denzel Washington – Flight

I guess I can complain about Joaquin Phoenix not being in the mix-up for SAG but his own doings seems to have bite him. I still think it's between him and Jackman for the fifth spot for the Oscars. Otherwise, this is a pretty standard plate. Gere would have been my choice no.6, so I am happy to see him here and Bill Murray and Ewan Mcgregor in comedy slate - well, they had to nominate 5 people right? 

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role

                                                Drama                                                                        Comedy or Musical

                   Jessica Chastain - Zero Dark Thirty                           Emily Blunt - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

                        Marion Cotillard - Rust & Bone                            Judi Dench - The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

                           Helen Mirren - Hitchcock                                 Jennifer Lawrence - Silver Linings Playbook

                       Naomi Watts - The Impossible                                          Maggie Smith – Quartet

                    Rachel Weisz - The Deep Blue Sea                                    Meryl Streep - Hope Springs

 

SAG

Jessica Chastain – Zero Dark Thirty

Marion Cotillard – Rust and Bone

Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook

Helen Mirren – Hitchcock

Naomi Watts - The Impossible

SAG had Quvezhane Wallis and rest of the Beasts of the Southern Wild cast disqualified, so she isn't here. From the word in the air, I had Helen Mirren high up in the mix but because of the abysmal reviews, I didn't expect to see her. Chastain, Cotillard and Lawrence should be locks for Oscar now. Naomi Watts should get a great boost but personally, I would have loved to see Emmanuelle Riva somewhere in here.

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role

                             SAG                                                                               Globe

               Alan Arkin – Argo                                                                Alan Arkin – Argo

           Javier Bardem – Skyfall                                                   Leonardo DiCaprio - Django Unchained

Robert De Niro – Silver Linings Playbook                                   Philip Seymour Hoffman - The Master

 Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master                                              Tommy Lee Jones - Lincoln

       Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln                                              Christoph Waltz - Django Unchained

Where did Javier Bardem come from? I ain't complaining, I loved him Skyfall but it is so unexpected even after his Critics choice nomination. Everyone seems to be complaining about Matthew McConaughey not getting nominated and Alan Arkin getting nominated but I am OK with both mainly since I haven't seen Magic Mike yet. I might change my stance after but for now, I will keep it shut. Right now my money is on Arkin, De Niro, Hoffman, Jones and someone from Django, hopefully Leonardo DiCaprio, to get nominated for Oscars.

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role

                            SAG                                                                                                   Globe

            Sally Field - Lincoln                                                          Amy Adams - The Master

   Anne Hathaway – Les Misérables                                                    Sally Field - Lincoln

        Helen Hunt – The Sessions                                                Anne Hathaway - Les Miserables

     Nicole Kidman – The Paperboy                                                  Helen Hunt - The Sessions

Maggie Smith - The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel                               Nicole Kidman - The Paperboy

Now, this is where I have biggest problem. WHERE IS AMY ADAMS? She was fabulous in The Master. I won't judge Kidman since I haven't seen her in the film but there is NO WAY Maggie Smith is better than her. For once, I am going to side with Globes and say that's the lineup I want to see. And yes, everyone keeps saying this is Anne Hathaway's award to loose but didn't Sally Field win more critics award? I am not taking sides, I just think it's early to close this race.

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

                                               Drama                                                                 Comedy or Musical

                                                 Argo                                               The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

                               Django Unchained                                                Les Misérables

                                     Life of Pi                                                    Moonrise Kingdom

                                      Lincoln                                                 Salmon Fishing in Yemen

                                 Zero Dark Thirty                                           Silver Linings Playbook

SAG

Argo

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Les Misérables

Lincoln

Silver Linings Playbook

I know I am comparing Best Ensamble SAG with Best Film in Globes but I think that is the only way. What's with Marigold Hotel over The Master or maybe Zero Dark Thirty? Isn't that a critic darling or something? I could complain about Globes Comedy but they have three serious contenders and again, they HAD to fill 5 spots right? Right now I think that Argo, Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Linings and Les Misérables will make it in Oscars. I don't know beyond that and I don't even want to predict how many nominees will be there?

Best director - Globes

Ben Affleck for Argo

Katherine Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty

Ang Lee for Life of Pi

Steven Spielberg for Lincoln

Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained 

I am happy for Tarantino though personally I was expecting PTA over him. I am also not sure how much does it affect Tom Hooper or David O. Russell's chances since as far as I know, they were in much more contention than QT. As per the rest four, Affleck, Bigelow and Spielberg are pretty much lock I think and I also think Lee has a very good chance of getting in. Come Oscar time however, I think Hooper or Russell would still close up the group.

What do you think? Who do you think was snubbed? Any unexpected surprises?

Making the case for: Rosemarie DeWitt

So the local celebrity down in Dannervike, New Zealand, Stevee Taylor @Cinematic Paradox, announced a neat, little blogathon last week. Since the award season has already started with some of the critics award, idea is - in her own words - "The subject is Making a Case for Movies that Probably Won't Get Any Awards Recognition this year. Basically, just think of the movies that won't figure highly in awards season, but you think they should. Maybe you want The Dark Knight Rises or Skyfall to get Best Picture. Or maybe you want to look at some performances, like maybe Matthew McConaughey in Killer Joe or Emily Blunt in Looper. You could even look at editing/cinematography/music alone. If you're doing a film, you're not limited to one category to look at. Think creatively." I have been thinking about this performance since the day I saw it and when I saw her description, the first thought that came into my mind was - Rosemarie DeWitt for Your Sister's Sister(2012).

I will not say that I am a big fan of Rosemarie DeWitt because honestly I am not. Not that I do not like her but I haven't seen enough of her movies to say that. Probably like most of us, I first saw her in Rachel Getting Married(2008) and even though Anne Hathaway stole the show, I thought she was equally impressive in it as well. According to IMDb, she was in Cinderella Man(2005) very early in her career which I have seen quite a few times but I do not remember seeing her in it at all and even though I have been meaning to, I still haven't seen Margaret(2011). So practically, Your Sister's Sister(2012) was a second movie I have seen her in and hence it is safe to say that I am not very well versed with her. Now, I am a big fan of Amy Adams. So if she stands in a corner of a room for 2 and half hours and releases it as a movie, there is a good chance that I will still call it great because a) She is Amy Adams and she will find a way to make even standing in a corner look really interesting and b) She is AMY ADAMS. She is freaking gorgeous!! So the point is in case of Rosemarie DeWitt, it takes a really good performance from her for me not only to take notice but to rave about her so much. And she apparently did because when the Independent Spirit Award nominations were announced, people were talking about all the nominations for Silver Linings Playbook(2012) and Beasts of the Southern Wild(2012) or the lack of The Perks of beingWallflower(2012) or Matthew McConaughey getting nominated. Not that I don't care about any of that, but the fact that made me most happy is her getting nominated for Best supporting Actress.

I probably got a little ahead of myself. So let me take a step back and talk about the movie first. A year has passed since the death of Jack's brother but he still is in mourning. For some reason, it looks like he just does not want to let it go. To help him sort out his own emotions and probably find some catharsis in his own company, his brother Tom's ex and his very good friend Iris sends him on her family cabin on an island somewhere Northwest Pacific. When Jack reaches there, he finds someone Iris' sister Hannah already in the house. Hannah also has come to the cabin looking for a solitude since she just had a very serious brake up after a long time relationship. After they overcome the initial awkwardness and drain down the entire bottle of taquilla, they start to kind of bond but eventually end up in bed together. When they wake-up next morning, they find Iris knocking on their door. Even Iris has no idea of Hannah being at the cottage and hence gets a very happy surprize but for some reason Jack thinks it will be a good idea to keep the last night's proceedings a secret from Iris. It turns out that Jack and Iris have feeling for each other that they have never spoken about and even Hannah has a secret that she is keeping from them both. With all these secrets and feelings thrown into the mix, this place of solitariness where Jack and Hannah came hoping to find some answers of their own, creates further more questions for them. Apparently writer-director Lynn Shelton didn't have a traditional script ready for the actors, she never does. Lot of the dialogues spoken in movie were improvisations by the actors themselves, on multiple occasions what we see is the first hand reaction to the words spoken for the first time ever and 4 characters that have significant dialogues are all listed as creative consultants in the credits.

Rosemarie DeWitt plays Hannah. She is just out of seven-year relationship which has been her life for all that time. Now that she ended it, she is not really sure where she wants to go from there. Then she meets this guy and does something terribly selfish without even telling him. She is not a bad person, she probably just did something without thinking much about it or without knowing all the sides of the story in her emotional state. She is smart, she is maybe little smarmy sometimes but not in a harmful way and more importantly, she is a good and loving sister and person. Rosemarie DeWitt displays every single trait of this personality very distinctly in her acting, mainly through her body language. Her acting is very subtle but her face is so expressive that it talks volumes without saying a single word. Probably that was the reason she got Hannh's part but she uses that to perfection. This is probably most evident in scene on their very first night in cabin, alone where Jack comes to see her seating in a hall with a bottle of Vodka. She is kind of playfully curt with him, never giving herself away, constantly keeping him in check. It is like her way of telling him that I maybe vulnerable right now but I am not going to let you take advantage of me. However as it turns out, it's her taking advantage of him. And then after Iris comes and sneaks in her bed in night, we can see that they share a great bond with each other, love to be in each others company but at the same time this battle of the awkward sexual experience between her and Jack is constantly going on at the back of her mind. As I said what she does is extremely selfish and even morally wrong, but the reason I say she is not a bad person is because the earnestness she shows in hanging by Iris, continuously trying to patch up for what she did once Iris finds out.

Even though Emily Blunt hasn't made it big yet as she was expected after The Devil Wears Prada(2006), I can still watch a movie for her. Hopefully, Looper(2012) will provide her some boost. In case of Mark Duplass, this was my first encounter and I can certainly say that I am intrigued. However I will definitely remember Your Sister's Sister as Rosemarie DeWitt's movie. I realize that Supporting Actress pool is really strong this year but I still hope that by the end of this award season, she does get some recognition for this role that she thoroughly deserves. That will basically make this post void and might be the last push I need to push me into the dark, bottomless pit of manic depression. But I guess, I have to choose one or the other. Life isn't always fair, they say.

2013 Blind Spot Series

At around the same time last year, Ryan McNeil @The matinee put out a call to fellow bloggers to join him in 'Blind Spot Series'. I remember sitting behind my desk at then student job and trying to compile the list. I was hardly 6 months into blogging, wasn't sure how long will I go on for. I wasn't even sure what constitutes as a blind spot and what didn't but more importantly, there were far too many blind spots in my knowledge just to pick 12 from then. When he published his 2013 line-up week or two ago, a whole year of blogging and 300 movies later - many of which would have made my list last year, I think I am at the point now that I can be part of it. First of all, to those who don't know what this is, allow Ryan to introduce you. 

“Cull together a list of “Blind Spot” films…movies that we as movie enthusiasts likely should have seen by now, but haven’t for one reason or another. After narrowing the list down to a truly manageable twelve titles, the goal would be to watch all twelve over the course of the next year, and to write one’s thoughts afterwards.”

And my choice of 12 movies goes as follows, in chronological order -

Frankenstein(1931)

Snow White and Seven Dwarfs (1937)

The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948)

Tokyo Story (1953)

The Searchers (1956)

Through a Glass Darkly(1961)

Andrei Rublev(1966)

The French Connection(1971)

Barry London (1975)

The Breakfast Club (1985)

The Lion King (1994)

Sideways (2004)

Off course, I have taken care of covering as many decades as possible. I consciously chose couple of animated movies, couple of silent and few foreign movies as well. I am beginning to wonder if I have a kind of an OCD while making these lists. I highly doubt if I ever make a list and not wonder about whether it covers various genres and times etc. But I digress. So, the point is I will watch these 12 movies, 1 each month next year and then write about it. However instead of writing usual paragraphs about these movies, I was thinking about doing something different with them and Dan Heaton @Public Transportation Snob came to the rescue. I decided to go with Question and Answer format which will consist of me writing answers to some specific questions like these:

First and foremost, what makes this a Blind Spot movie? In other words, why is this film essential?

So, what is the story about?

What did I think of it? What did I like the most about it and what didn't I like?

After having seen it, do I agree with it's 'essential' status? and why?

Does it open few new doors for me? Does this inspire to watch any other movies?

Hopefully, these questions will cover everything that I want to talk about. So, what do you think of my list? Any of your favourites that I should be looking forward to on the list?