Projections for Sunday's Oscar ceremony

After months of speculation, the Oscars will finally be awarded on Sunday. So before you print out your Oscar ballot and mark your choices, take a look at Screener's picks and talking points for the leading categories..

Best Supporting Actress
Anne Hathaway for Les
Misérables. There is zero chance of an upset here.

Best Actress
My vote is for Jessica Chastain. This is the best chance for Zero Dark Thirty to get recognition.
Kathryn Bigelow didn't get a directing nomination, and Mark Boal will face competition from Django Unchained and Amour in the Original Screenplay category. That being said, those that favor Silver Linings Playbook may want to reward star Jennifer Lawrence in this prominent category. If voters split on that category, Emmanuelle Riva may win for Amour. The movie on aging was a favorite with the older demographic that belongs to the Academy. Riva is already the oldest nominee in the category, ever, and if she won she would be the oldest winner. If there's one thing the Academy loves, it's firsts.

Best Picture (and Best Director)
What will win: I'm betting on Argo. Ben Affleck won the Directors Guild Award, which traditionally predicts the Oscar winner for Best Picture and Best Director. The catch is that Affleck didn't even receive a nomination for Best Director at the Oscars, and Best Director and Best Picture almost always go together. My predicted split: Argo for Best Picture and Steven Spielberg for Lincoln. Argo is also the lead in the Adapted Screenplay category, though, again, it's a tough race, and both Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook have people batting in their corner.

Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln. Chastain was pretty much a lone wolf in Zero Dark Thirty, but Day-Lewis had lots of help from Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones, who were also nominated for their performances. But that doesn't change the fact that Day-Lewis' performance is critical to the success of Lincoln. Great actor, great part = Oscar.

Best Supporting Actor
Some are leaning towards Philip Seymour Hoffman for The Master in this category. Although I can't vouch for that performance (one of the few I missed), it has gravitas, which is something the Academy tends to like. Robert De Niro's performance as a bookie father (who cries!) in Silver Linings Playbook is also a frontrunner. Personally, I think Tommy Lee Jones' chuckle-inducing performance as Thaddeus Stevens has been woefully unheralded among the press. He provided some much-needed comic relief in a sometimes dour historical account. Seeing this social liberal compromise in order to pass the amendment was an emotional and intellectual highlight of Lincoln, and Jones is my underdog favorite.

With tight races among great films, this should make for one of the most exciting ceremonies in recent memory. There will also likely be more viewers watching. This year, seven out of the nine nominees for Best Picture have earned over $100 million, which has helped build interest compared to years dominated by micro-indies. And did we mention that Seth MacFarlane is hosting?

 

'Cars 2' starts its engines

By Sarah Sluis

Pixar's summer animated movies have become draws for kids and adults alike, but adults won't find a crowd-pleaser like Up in Cars 2 (4,115 theatres). The sequel to the 2006 hit is more of a kids' movie, centering on talking cars with stereotypical characters (redneck, arrogant Italian, British spy, sultry secret agent). "That's not the Pixar adults know and cherish," critic Kevin Lally notes, but the visuals remain on the cutting edge, especially "the travelogue aspects," which Lally dubbed a "knockout, from the blazing neon colors of its Tokyo, to a Les Halles spare-parts bazaar in Paris, to an eye-poppingly beautiful Italian Mediterranean city called Porto Corsa."

Cars 2, made post-Disney/Pixar merger, also shows what happens once a movie becomes just a launching pad for everything else. Advertisements (Mater sings the State Farm jingle, a paid endorsement), both in the film and out, will make a lot of money for Disney/Pixar. In fact, the first film generated $10 billion in merchandise sales. Disney will also use its expertise to create a straight-to-video spinoff "Planes," and an attraction at its California theme park. The international locales, besides just being a story element, will also help market these films to worldwide audiences. Is it a coincidence that the blandest Pixar movie is also the best platform for tie-ins and spin-offs? Tracking suggests the animated film will bring in $50-60 million, less than the original. With 3D suffering, many eyes will be trained on the performance of 3D and IMAX screens.

R-rated counterprogramming comes in the form of Cameron Diaz as a Bad Teacher (3,049 theatres). I thought the comedy was hilarious, though not everyone warmed to the "foul-mouthed, intemperate, conniving babe," as Diaz's character was described by critic Rex Roberts. He dismisses the comedy as a "series of skits hung on an implausible plotline," but isn't that the basis of most comedies that aim for more than a laugh a minute? I found the eye-rolling stupidity of Diaz's plot to be part of the fun, but if you're not laughing in the first fifteen minutes, it might be a good time to walk out.

If late-night TV lovers can wrest themselves off the couch, they can catch stand-up comedy documentary Conan O'Brien Can't Stop (25 theatres), which has been receiving mainly positive reviews but did not find a fan with critic David Noh. He wasn't that sympathetic for the whining millionaire, concluding that "Behind the scenes, a lot of comics ain't that comic." Paul Weitz directs a pet project about the struggles of illegal immigrants in A Better Life (4 theatres). The overwrought title of Turtle: The Incredible Journey (20 theatres) says it all in this nature documentary, which somehow manages to turn the plight of turtles into an "intrusive melodrama," according to Noh.

On Monday, we'll post the rank of Cars 2 after its first lap, and see if audiences sparked to the misdeeds of Bad Teacher.

'The Rite' finds disciples and audiences crown 'The King's Speech'

By Sarah Sluis

Exorcism-themed The Rite led the box office this weekend with $15 million. More a thriller than a horror movie, the film lured a slightly older audience, and attracted both genders equally. Back in August, The Last Exorcism opened to $24 million, so this movie did well considering its inferior January timeslot.

Action-fueled The Mechanic tied with The Green Hornet, earning $11.5 million. Distributor CBS Films has been struggling to get some hits. This film will be their second-highest opening weekend after The Back-Up Plan.

In the wake of its twelve Oscar nominations, Weinstein Co. release The King's Speech launched an expansion that led to a 40% increase from last week and $11.1 million. Compared to other nominees, this story of friendship between a stuttering king and his speech therapist held back from pursuing a quick expansion. In terms of cumulative gross, it's still behind The Social Network, True Grit, and Black Swan, but it's approaching the total of The Fighter, which is currently at $78 million after eight weeks, compared to The King's Speech's $72 million in ten weeks. New York Times columnist David Carr recently wrote an article talking about Harvey Weinstein's comeback, comparing him to Jason rising from the dead in Friday the 13th. The King's Speech performance, both at the box office and awards shows (it recently won the DGA award for Best Feature Directing and the SAG award for Best Ensemble), is a big win for a distributor that was near bankruptcy a year ago.

127 Hours also launched an expansion in the wake of Oscar nominations, adding another $2 million to the film's coffers. Even as most of the nominated films dropped theatres, True Grit rose 4% to $7.6 million, and The Fighter dipped just 2.6% to $4 million. Black Swan glided down 33% to $5.1 million. Blue Valentine, farther down the list, rose 33% to bring in $1.1 million.

Hispanic-targeted romantic comedy From Prada to Nada opened outside of the top ten with $1.1 million, but its per-screen average of $4,300 bested half of the releases in the top ten.

This Friday, the Super Bowl's not getting in the way of male-targeted releases. Sanctum 3D will enter the fray, hoping to get the adrenaline-fueled crowd before the big Sunday football game. Targeting teen females not interested by the game, The Roommate, starring "Gossip Girl's" Leighton Meester, will also hit theatres.

'Tangled' climbs to the top

By Sarah Sluis

As predicted, Disney's Tangled rose from second place to first in its second week. The Rapunzel retelling dipped 55% to $21.5 million, a strong hold given that last weekend had higher-than-average traffic because of post-Thanksgiving crowds. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I took a steeper dive, falling 65% to $16.7 million. Many Harry Potter fans presumably saw the film shortly after its release, while Tangled should play well to families throughout the holiday season.

The Warrior's Way, a hybrid of the Asian action and Western genres, with some supernatural enemies as a bonus, eked out $3 million its opening weekend, below an estimated $5 million opening. The genre amalgamation follows this summer's sci-fi/comic book/Western flop Jonah Hex, and the (critical, sort of commercial) failure a decade before of another Western hybrid, Wild Wild West. Let it be known: The Western does not take kindly to genre mixing.

Just outside of the top ten, 127 Hours dipped 6% to $1.6 million as it increased the number of theatres showing the film by a third. Love and Other Drugs ($5.7 million) and Burlesque ($6.1 million), which both opened over the Thanksgiving holiday, fell in the 40% range. Thanks to the added holiday receipts, each of these films has each crossed the $20 million mark.

As prestige, awards-seeking movies make their end-of-the-year debuts, per-screen averages of specialty films have skyrocketed. Multiple films posted averages in the tens of thousands. Leading the pack with the highest average of the week, Black Swan opened in 18 locations to a stunning $77,000 per-screen average. Another Oscar frontrunner, The King's Speech, in its second week, made a comfortable slide into a $55,000 per-screen average as it went from four to six theatres. All Good Things, the true-crime drama, tallied up $20,000 per screen at two locations, just ahead of I Love You, Phillip Morris, which averaged $18,000 per screen at six locations.

This Friday, Tangled will have some competition from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a former Disney franchise that has been passed to Fox. The Angelina Jolie-Johnny Depp smoldering thriller The Tourist will offer adults some fresh intrigue set in an exotic location, and another Oscar contender, The Fighter, will hit select theatres.

Film Journal's Top Ten Films of 2008

By Sarah Sluis

2008 has come to a close, prompting critics to sort and rank the films they've seen over the year, both as a form of mental cleansing during those slow news days post-New Year's, as well as in preparation for awards season. The Village Voice offered its annual survey of dozens of reviewers, and NY Mag took it upon themselves to poll critics on their ten worst films. Stop Smiling, a Chicago-based arts and culture magazine, also posted a list of their favorite films. Now it's our turn.

Our Executive Editor, Kevin Lally, shared his list of top ten films of 2008 in January's magazine, so I've re-posted them online, along with (often prescient) excerpts from our critics' original review:

Wall-E: "a tale that's equally satisfying as science fiction, cautionary satire, gentle love story and purely visual comedy," "its first half hour of beeps and blips "[evoking] classic silent comedy, setting up innumerable clever sight gags and achieving surprising expressiveness within the physical limitations of their adorable mechanical lead." - Kevin Lally

The Class: "a work of jaw-dropping intelligence, humanity and the most subtle cinematic bravura." - David Noh (who also stated it was "probably the year's best film")

Slumdog Millionaire:"a bracingly energetic and original story of struggle,

survival, upward mobility and romantic yearning that should be [and turned out to be] a

major art-house crossover hit." - Kevin Lally

Man on Wire: "a stunning adventure and a study in the ultra-weird, as embodied by the driven hero" - Doris Toumarkine

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days: "a ragtag tour de force, a low-budget, high-drama independent marvel that reinvigorates cinma-vrit." - Rex Roberts

The Edge of Heaven: "takes several German and Turkish families and turns their stories into a mesmerizing philosophical meditation on cultural displacement, how history repeats itself, and the ways in which parents want the best for their children." - Lewis Beale

My Winnipeg: "Maddin delivers another unique, phantasmagorical, handcrafted spectacle that again confirms his place as one of independent film's wittiest, wildest and most singular talents." - Kevin Lally

Frost/Nixon: "one of the most breathtaking bits of acting you are likely to see this year" - Daniel Eagan

Be Kind Rewind: an"unusual, heartfelt valentine to community and creativity, a true movie for the YouTube era" - Kevin Lally

The Visitor: stars Richard Jenkins as a "depressed hero,...hardly the most upbeat of traveling companions. The bumpy road means that this cinematic trip may not generate the kind of word of mouth a film like this needs." (redeemed by its inclusion on this, and other,Top Ten lists) - Doris Toumarkine

The list includes three well-represented Golden Globes nominees (Frost/Nixon, Slumdog Millionaire, Wall-E), as well as probable nominee Man on Wire (the Globes no longer award documentaries). Be Kind Rewind hasn't been showing up on many lists, but the "Sweded" films were some of the most enjoyable comedic send-ups this year. Director Guy Maddin (My Winnipeg) remains a critical/cult favorite, not a crossover one. The Visitor has landed a spot on many Oscar projection lists, but 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and The Edge of Heaven were voted out of the foreign-language bracket last year. The Class, France's Oscar submission, will likely receive an Oscar nod.

Risky Business blogger Steven Zeitchik commented yesterday on the need for a critic to balance mainstream/niche films on their Top Ten list in order to maintain street cred (my words, not his). "Too many blockbusters," he said, "make you look preening." If that's the case, let's notice the film appearing in many Top Tens that's left off this list--a little Batman movie, anyone?