'American Hustle' wins top NYFC honor

The New York Film Critics Circle has announced its 2013 list of awardees, kicking Oscar punditry, predictions, and proselytizing into high gear. David O. Russell's American Hustle walked away with the Best Picture title, while star Jennifer Lawrence was named the year's Best Supporting Actress (cue mockingjay hand signal of solidarity). The list of winners is below:

 

 Best Picture: American Hustle
 Best Actor: Robert Redford, All Is Lost
 Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
 Best Director: Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave
 Best Screenplay: American Hustle
 Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club
 Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
 Best Animated Film: The Wind Rises
 Best Cinematographer: Bruno Delbonnel, Inside Llewyn Davis
 Best First Film: Fruitvale Station
 Best Foreign Film: Blue Is the Warmest Color
 Best Non-Fiction Film (Documentary): Stories We Tell
 Special Award: Frederick Wiseman

 

Early Oscar 2014 predictions: best actor

With fall comes more than just a cooling of temperatures – within the film industry, the advent of chillier weather signals the heating up of that grand poobah competition, the Oscar race. This year’s crop of contenders is one of the strongest in recent memory. Already, records are being set (Alfonso Cuaron’s ‘Gravity’ pulled in the largest October opening-weekend haul to date), expectations exceeded (haven’t we already seen a million or two little-kid-gone-missing films? Not like Prisoners, we haven’t) and nerves shot (thank you, Paul Greengrass, for inducing a lingering headache after I felt compelled to hold my breath over and over again while watching Tom Hanks attempt to outwit a band of determined Somali pirates in your Captain Phillips). While the women of this season’s Oscar-bait films will be given their kudos in good time – Meryl’s back! – the men vying for the industry’s most coveted, or at least its shiniest, prize are worthy of particular note. The five-nominee limit seems particularly restrictive this year.

Those with the largest amount of buzz surrounding their performances include Chiwetel Ejiofor for Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave, Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club, Robert Redford in All is Lost, Forest Whitaker in The Butler, and the aforementioned pirate captive, Tom Hanks, in Captain Phillips. So that’s five, right? Technically speaking, yes. But with such a talented group to choose from, we wouldn’t be surprised if five or six other actors slipped into one of the coveted nominee slots.

Take Bruce Dern in Alexander Payne’s (Sideways) latest film, Nebraska. The twilight (referring to age, happily no association with the franchise) actor took home the Cannes Film Festival prize for Best Actor for his performance as a sick old man who travels with his son (Will Forte) from Montana over to the titular state in the hopes of claiming a $1,000,000 lottery prize. Word has it Nebraska was a festival crowd-pleaser, a sentimental favorite whose popularity (assuming the Cannes enthusiasm translates to a wider viewership when the film opens next month) could boost Dern’s chances.

Prisoners certainly has widespread appeal on its side, if box-office numbers are anything to go by (according to Rotten Tomatoes, the film is currently tracking at $47.5 million). And Hugh Jackman has been turning the heads of critics who’ve felt a bit lukewarm about the actor since his turn in the “mild box office hit” The Wolverine. In Prisoners, Jackman plays the father of a six-year-old girl gone missing, a man whose natural paternal anxiety evolves into something far darker when the investigation stymies and he feels compelled to take matters into his own hands. Prisoners boasts solid performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and Paul Dano as well, but the movie really is the Jackman show.

Making a strong showing of his own, Idris Elba as Nelson Mandela in the upcoming biopic Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom should also not be discounted. The Academy loves an epic, loves a romance, loves a history film, loves great actors playing giants of politics… it may very well love Elba and the vehicle behind him enough to give him a nomination.

For a few longer, though by no means faulty, shots, there’s Leo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming The Wolf of Wall Street, as well as Oscar Isaac in the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis. After five films together the pairing of DiCaprio and Scorsese could almost be called classic, and certainly one which highlights Leo to great effect. And who doesn’t love a Coen film?

Finally, my particular vote for underdog (for all the aggressive campaigning behind his film) nominee goes to Michael B. Jordan for his star turn in Fruitvale Station. Our Tomris Laffly said Jordan turned in a “remarkably mature and humanistic performance,” one which proves the former cult TV staple (he’s previously appeared on “The Wire” and “Friday Night Lights”) is an eminently watchable adult force to be reckoned with.

In alphabetical order, then, here is our list of would-be Best Actor contenders for the 2014 Academy Awards:

-Ejiofor, Chiwetel (12 Years A Slave)

-Elba, Idris (Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom)

-Dern, Bruce (Nebraska)

-DiCaprio, Leonardo (The Wolf of Wall Street)

-Hanks, Tom (Captain Phillips)

-Isaac, Oscar (Inside Llewyn Davis)

-Jackman, Hugh (Prisoners)

-Jordan, Michael B. (Fruitvale Station)

-McConaughey, Matthew (Dallas Buyers Club)

-Redford, Robert (All is Lost)

-Whitaker, Forest (The Butler)

'Wolverine' has modest victory with $55 million opening

With so many big-budget tentpoles face-planting at the box office, all eyes were on the domestic performance of The Wolverine. But as it turned out, the Hugh Jackman-led superhero movie opened to $55 million. Sure, that's $30 million less than the 2009 opening of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but great overeas performance, where the film has already earned $86 million, is helping to make up for this gap.

Fruitvale Station entered the top ten in its third week. After expanding into over 1,000 theatres, the fact-based story of a black man who was fatally shot in tragic circumstances totaled $4.6 million. That was enough for it to beat another expanding indie, The Way, Way Back. The lighter, coming-of-age dramedy totaled $3.3 million, another good number, especially since its release was about 20% smaller.

The rest of the top ten was returning releases. Most had drops in the 30-50% range, but one exception was the buddy cop comedy The Heat. The female-driven picture dipped just 26%, its smallest decrease to date. Positive word-of-mouth is often cited as critical for movies that appeal to women, and that appears to be the case here. Its fifth-weekend total of $6.8 million brings its cumulative to $141 million.

The To Do List had great reviews, but a lackluster opening of $1.5 million. The weak interest in the movie is disappointing, but perhaps it will do better in aftermarkets like VOD. Even if it earns several times its opening weekend, it may not break $10 million.

Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine had a much stronger opening, earning an out-of-the-park $102,000 per screen for a total of $613,000. That's a few thousand over the per-screen average of Midnight in Paris, Allen's biggest recent hit. However, right now Allen is playing to his core audience in New York and L.A., so it's a bit early to know if this film will approach the $56 million earned by his vintage Paris-channeling 2011 success.

On Wednesday, The Smurfs 2 will enter a field already crowded with animated features. On Friday, Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington will team up for action flick 2 Guns.

'Wolverine' sole new wide release in indie-dominated weekend

Audiences may be suffering from box-office fatigue, with too many tentpoles hitting theatres this summer, but The Wolverine (3,924 theatres) has one thing in its favor: it's the only new wide release this weekend. Sure, two other superhero movies have released this summer, Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel, but the sixth appearance of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, although the smallest of the bunch, should top $60
million. The previous Wolverine installment, X-Men Origins:Wolverine in 2009, didn't get the strongest of reviews. Although this follow-up has earned positive endorsements from critics, including our Daniel Eagan, it will be an uphill battle to win over audiences. Eagan calls out the feature's "involving script, focused direction
and a powerhouse performance by Hugh Jackman," going on to note that the James Mangold-directed feature "isn't a
run-of-the-mill, effects-heavy comic-book adaptation—it's a solid
drama that's only incidentally about superheroes."

This summer has also yielded a number of strong specialty features. The To-Do List (591 theatres) is a bit in-between an indie and mainstream release. The 1993-set teen sex comedy stars Aubrey Plaza as a high school graduate anxious to get some sexual experience. The "sublimely entertaining female version of

American Pie," according to our critic David Noh, "goes just as far as most male-oriented
teen sex comedies, except its raunch and gross-out humor are
actually funny and, yes, fully empowering." CBS Films is keeping the release small, which will hopefully lead to packed theatres and positive word-of-mouth. It's only expected to open to $2 million, but it could be in for a long run as word spreads, just like last year's Pitch Perfect, which earned ten times its opening weekend.

In its third weekend, Fruitvale Station will expand into 1,064 theatres. That's an aggressive expansion, given the socially conscious drama was in just 34 theatres last week. The move into wider release may also be related to the Weinstein Co.'s upcoming release The Butler, which will open in just four weeks. Both focus on social justice and America's racial issues, albeit in different ways,
which could prove a challenge for the distributor.

The Way, Way Back will nearly triple the locations in its release for a total of 886 theatres. The comedy is so perfect for summer, you can almost feel the sand between your toes, and the casting of Steve Carell has helped bring more eyes to this coming-of-age tale. In three weeks, it's earned over $5 million, and this week should add a significant chunk to that total.

Also opening this weekend is Blue Jasmine (6 theatres). Woody Allen's features always open to sky-high per-screen averages, so his latest should open to at least $70,000 per screen. Allen's auteur status always draws his loyal crowds, but the question is whether his films will catch on with a wider audience, like Midnight in Paris did, or quietly fade out. Blue Jasmine has earned generally positive reviews (82% "Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes), and its light take on timely subject matter, via its focus on Cate Blanchett, the spurned wife of a Bernie Madoff-like character, should propel it forward through the rest of the summer.

On Monday, we'll see if The Wolverine breaks the box-office curse that has plagued many of this summer's would-be tentpoles, and which of the smaller releases shows the most promise.