Oscar Rankings and Predictions

I know I've been M.I.A. lately and there have been two reasons for that: 1) There hasn't been any movies worth my time in theaters, and 2) It's been a long, cold, snowy winter here on the East Coast and I've barely left my house for the last two months (it doesn't look like it's letting up anytime soon, either). But I'm back because my favorite holiday is this weekend: Oscar Sunday!! Once again, I've seen nearly all of the nominated films in the major six categories, so below, I've ranked them from best to worst. Also, every year my friend Dane and I have an Oscar party and we always try to see who can predict the most winners correctly. I'm not very good at this (I always pick who I want to win, I think) but below I've tried to pick who will win (and should!) in the same major six categories. Maybe I can help with your Oscar party! (On second thought, don't listen to me at all!)

BEST PICTURE
01. Her
02. The Wolf of Wall Street
03. 12 Years a Slave
04. Captain Phillips
05. Dallas Buyers Club
06. Gravity
07. Philomena
08. American Hustle
09. Nebraksa (N/A)
Who WILL Win: Right now, it looks like this might be the closest race in years. Earlier this year at the Producers Guild Awards (which is the best predictor of Oscar), Gravity and 12 Years a Slave tied for Best Picture. It was the first tie ever. That's how close things are. All the Oscar pundits are predicting Gravity, but I honestly can't see a way a movie with virtually no story (sure, it looks great) wins, so I'm all in on 12 YEARS A SLAVE.
Who SHOULD Win: Her was my favorite movie of the year, but frankly it's way too weird for Oscar. I'd be find with 12 Years a Slave winning big, but I'd prefer if THE WOLF OF WALL STREET took home the big prize. But, I'm not sure the Academy will vote for a movie that wild and crazy.

BEST DIRECTOR
01. Martin Scorsese - The Wolf of Wall Street
02. Steve McQueen - 12 Years a Slave
03. Alfonso Cuaron - Gravity
04. David O. Russell - American Hustle
05. Alexander Payne - Nebraks (N/A)
Who WILL Win: Again, this is probably a tight race between McQueen and Cuaron, but the one thing about Gravity that works is the technical achievements and it took a great director to truly reign in all the special effects, and truly effective performance, so I think ALFONSO CUARON takes home the gold.
Who SHOULD Win: I've said it before and I'll say it again- MARTIN SCORSESE is 70 years old and still making fresh, young, wild, out of control, brilliant films.

BEST ACTOR
01. Matthew McConaughey - Dallas Buyers Club
02. Leonardo DiCaprio - The Wolf of Wall Street
03. Chiwetel Ejiofor - 12 Years a Slave
04. Christian Bale - American Hustle
05. Bruce Dern - Nebraska (N/A)
Who WILL Win: The only way the winner of this category will be a surprise is if Christian Bale somehow manages to win on Sunday. That is NOT going to happen. (You can listen to me on this one, anyway). Any of the other four actors could win, but I think all the momentum is still with MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY and his amazing performance as a homophobic AIDS patient who changes peoples lives for the better.
Who SHOULD Win: Listen, I loved McConaughey's performance, but I've been a fan of LEONARDO DICAPRIO for decades and he deserves an Oscar and he deserves it now. His performance is absolutely mesmerizing, a live-wire, can't be contained, balls to the wall sort of performance. I'm secretly hoping he FINALLY wins it all this weekend.

BEST ACTRESS
01. Cate Blanchett - Blue Jasmine
02. Sandra Bullock - Gravity
03. Judi Dench - Philomena
04. Amy Adams - American Hustle
05. Meryl Streep - August: Osage County (N/A)
Who WILL Win: This category is all about CATE BLANCHETT and her amazing performance in Blue Jasmine.
Who SHOULD Win: This is one category where I agree with the probable future outcome. No one deserves a win here like CATE BLANCHETT.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
01. Michael Fassbender - 12 Years a Slave
02. Jared Leto - Dallas Buyers Club
03. Bradley Cooper - American Hustle
04. Jonah Hill - The Wolf of Wall Street
05. Barkhad Abdi - Captain Phillips
Who WILL Win: This is the biggest lock of the night. There is no way anyone besides JARED LETO is walking home with that statue.
Who SHOULD Win: I love Leto and think he absolutely deserves the gold, but I would give my vote (just barely) to MICHAEL FASSBENDER and his villainous, evil plantation owner role.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
01. Lupita Nyong'o - 12 Years a Slave
02. Sally Hawkins - Blue Jasmine
03. June Squibb - Nebraksa (N/A)
04. Julia Roberts - August: Osage County (N/A)
05. Jennifer Lawrence - American Hustle [Yes, I've seen American Hustle, but I'm confident both Squibb and Roberts' unseen performances (by me) are better.]
Who WILL Win: This one is probably down to the wire between Nyong'o and her absolutely revelatory performance as a slave and Lawrence and her over the top, campy performance as a bored housewife. Lawrence completely ruined Hustle for me and I honestly can't believe this many people have been fooled into thinking that's a good performance. She very well might win back to back gold, but I'm hoping LUPITA NYONG'O edges her out, just barely.
Who SHOULD Win: This was an absolutely atrocious year for Supporting Actresses and the only of these five worthy of gold is LUPITA NYONG'O.

Friday Top Five: Philip Seymour Hoffman (RIP)

It's a funny thing, the reactions people have when celebrities die. We should feel nothing more than a passing sadness, really. We've never met these people, know next to nothing about their personal lives or what they are really like off screen. Some celebrity deaths have had more of an effect on me than others. For example, I remember feeling more than a passing sadness over the deaths of Heath Ledger, Elliot Smith and Brad Renfro. But for me, the closest word I can come up with to describe how I've felt about last Sunday's passing of Philip Seymour Hoffman is to say: devastation. It's not just that he was one of our greatest talents, it's more that every character he portrayed felt like a living, breathing person, not just a character. Identifying with his characters wasn't difficult; he always felt accessible. But, like many brilliant men, he was a tortured artist and the loss of his talents at the age of 46 is heartbreaking for anyone who was a fan of his work.
I remember going to see Almost Famous when I was a teenager and it sparked something inside of me. It's quite possible that this was the movie that turned me into the movie loving crazy person I am today. To loosely quote the movie, I never knew what it was to love something so much before Almost Famous. Hoffman was mesmerizing in that role and he quickly became one of my favorite actors (since I love ranking things, he would have been number 2 after Sean Penn). I literally have never seen a movie featuring Hoffman that I didn't enjoy in some way. While he doesn't look like an actor, like he'd be right for any role, he somehow managed to be perfect for every role he embodied. Ranking his movies was hard for me, and with the exception of numbers 1 and 2, I could trade out any other three movies for the ones I picked. He was that good. To paraphrase something I saw on Twitter last weekend, we don't have many truly great actors. And now we have one less.

05. As Truman Capote in Capote (2005)
The role for which Philip Seymour Hoffman rightfully won an Academy Award for Best Actor, he doesn't so much portray Capote as become him completely. The only reason this movie works is because Hoffman manages to humanize a man we know both so much and nothing at all about. The central relationship between Capote and a convicted killer is intense and complex. He was an amazing actor before this role, but Capote turned him into the legend, the acting giant he is remembered as today.

04. As Andy in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)
One of the more underrated films Hoffman has done, in this film he plays a selfish, manipulative man who manages to give a desperate, wonderful portrayal of a man on the fringe. He's a scheming character, always trying to control everyone around him. His performance absolutely dominates, easily playing both sides of his character - charming businessman by day, slime ball when no one is watching.

03. As Jon Savage in The Savages (2007)
Here was the thing about Philip Seymour Hoffman - the crazy range he had was astounding. In the same year he played a scheming, manipulator in Before the Devil..., he managed to play a calm, relaxed, albeit disappointed, professor. His brother-sister chemistry with Laura Linney is astounding, and together they create a family that feels as lived in as any dysfunctional family you've encountered in real life.

02. As Lancaster Dodd in The Master (2012)
Here is where you pin two acting giants - the incomprable Hoffman and the terribly underrated Joaquin Phoenix - against each other in an epic showdown of acting prowess. These two men play off each other with such an intensity, with such complex charisma, that even though the movie is a tad pretentious, you can't take your eyes off either of them. These are the sorts of performances that create legacies, that dominate every single frame of every shot of every minute. These are the performances that go down in history.

01. As Lester Bangs in Almost Famous (2000)
How can it be anything else? This is my first real, true experience with loving something so much. This is the movie where Hoffman manages to steal every single scene of which he is a part. Sure, this is an ensemble (and a crazy good one, too), but it's Hoffman that doesn't leave your brain afterwards. He carves his place in your head and your heart and you can't help but realize you've just watched a man who will change the way you think about life and acting and art. This is the sort of movie I will watch for decades, helping me to remember what a great talent we lost on Sunday.

That Awkward Moment

The saving grace of That Awkward Moment is the fact that they had the foresight to cast two exciting young actors, who take their cliche roles in a cliche movie and give it all they have, often giving the audience a lot more than we're expecting, and definitely more than the daft script asks of them. Make no mistake: Michael B. Jordan and Miles Teller are the only reason to see this movie. They both turn on the charm. Jordan manages to create a three-dimensional man out of a poorly written character, and Teller uses his natural charisma and perfect sardonic comedic timing to bring his character to life. Zac Efron is the weak spot here, but that's not to say he isn't good; he has a very good presence. But he's definitely not as good as his co-stars.

Jordan stars as Mikey, a young man who seems to have it all together. He went to med school, currently works in the ER, married a smart, pretty girl (Jessica Lucas), and everything seems to be going great for him - until he comes home one day to find out his wife is sleeping with her lawyer. Oh, you know, the one she hired to divorce him. (Side note: And here is where you have to suspend disbelief. I would sooner believe that Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man is going to come save me from a disaster than a girl ever breaking up with Michael B. Jordan, who is flawless.) So, Mikey is thrust back into the single world, where his two best friends from college flourish. It's their natural habitat. Jason (Efron) and Daniel (Teller) design book covers by day and hit on and sleep with every available girl in the five boroughs by night. They decide to not only help Mikey get a lady, but also stay single. After all, when will they have this chance again - all being young and single in the city? All things seem to be going fine until Jason starts to fall for a quirky cutie named Ellie (Imogen Poots) and Daniel begins to see his wing woman Chelsea (Mackenzie Davis) in a new light. They try to hide their budding relationships from Mikey and, of course, hilarity (or at least, soft chuckles) ensues.

The major problem with That Awkward Moment is that I'm not exactly sure it knows what kind of movie it wants to be. It's presenting itself as sort of a cross between a good ole' romantic comedy and a raunchy bro movie for dudes. The problem is those audiences don't exactly overlap. Girls want to watch sweet romantic comedies with their friends, while boys want to watch raunchy comedies with their friends. It's not exactly enough of either of those things to completely appeal to either audience. It doesn't ever give in completely to being one thing, but instead carries on for over 90 minutes as if it's having a sort of identity crisis. Also, there's just not enough laughs to justify the problems with it - plot holes, poorly written characters, cliches by the dozen. However, like I said in the first paragraph, Jordan and Teller do what they can to make the whole thing worthwhile. And they succeed sometimes, and sometimes That Awkward Moment is a fine little comedy. I think Poots is probably going to be a star sometime in the near future, but this isn't the movie that's going to do it for her. She's pretty much the most adorable thing I've ever seen, and I'm excited to see what she turns up in next (FYI: a Nick Hornby adaptation!). I like Efron for some reason, although I'm not sure he's destined to be a movie star. He has some sort of IT factor, but he's just not a good enough actor to be anything more than that Rom-Com guy, which is fine. I'd be interested to see him on TV, in some sort of Mindy Project comedy but with a guy in the lead. I think he'd probably kill it week in and week out. But he seems determined to try his hand and movie stardom, and so he's always going to be playing second fiddle to guys like Jordan and Teller. The good news is these three guys have a great sort of bro chemistry that really works and is fun to watch. If only the script around them was better. Because, from where I stand, That Awkward Moment wasn't a great way to start 2014 movie-wise. It wasn't a terrible way either, though.

Grade: C+