An indie drama with three impressive performances and a quirky animated film with a dream cast are the two Oscar-baiting entries to hit theaters this weekend. Here’s how The Messenger and Fantastic Mr. Fox might fare in this year’s awards races.
THE MESSENGER
Possible
Best Supporting Actor, Woody Harrelson: He’s the biggest star in the cast and also has the good fortune to be a contender in this year’s weakest major race. He’s also quite impressive in the film’s roughest scenes.
Best Original Screenplay, Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon: With most of the big Oscar guns in the adapted-screenplay race, Moverman and Camon’s understated script could find itself in the running alongside Up and A Serious Man.
Long shots
Best Actor, Ben Foster: The standout from Alpha Dog and 3:10 to Yuma turns in another raw performance as a soldier forced to tell military families their loved ones have been killed. But he may have a tough time competing with his more seasoned competitors.
Best Supporting Actress, Samantha Morton: She’s one of the few actresses who seems to be able to score acting nominations for quieter work—witness her Best Actress nod for In America. And she’s typically stoic as a recent widow. Too bad Precious and Up in the Air may hog most of the slots in her category.
FANTASTIC MR. FOX
Best Bet
Best Animated Feature: With five slots in this year’s race (compared to the usual three), Wes Anderson’s whimsical take on Roald Dahl’s book stands a great chance of competing against the likes of Pixar and Ponyo.
Possible
Best Original Song, “Petey’s Song”: Jarvis Cocker’s countrified ode may not be the most beautiful track in competition this year, but the music branch often goes for the non-traditional choices.
I just saw This is it and it was the most entertaining movie I’ve seen all year. Wish it could be nom’d for “something”, even choreography or camerawork.
They were just in it for the money..
There’s no oscar for choreography…thanks for playing.
Haha monty– youre obviously sick of hearing about this “film” and “Oscar” in the same sentence… i am too believe me
Paige, Best Dance Direction has been retired since 1937. Even if it came back This is it will not be nominated because the dancing wasn’t choreographed for the film but for the canceled show.
Sally, as of right now there’s not a category for choreography, but I wish there was. I think you mean cinematography.
However, given the resurgence of musicals, choreography seems like a natural addition. They give out Emmys for choreography, so why not Oscars?
once you add an award for choreography, suddenly all the musicals will dissapear… What they should do is just give out special acheivemant oscars for choreography…
Best Animation Films should be: 1) Ponyo, 2) Up, 3) A Christmas Carol, 4) Fantastic Mr. Fox.
sadly the academy HATES Robert Zemeckis animation and I highly doubt Xmas Carol will be any different… its gonna be Up, Ponyo, Princess and the Frog, some dreamworks dreck and either Fantastic Mr Fox or Coraline…
Ben Foster is awesome, i have followed him since he did Flash Foward for Disney, he will get an oscar one day.
I totally agree! He’s a fantastic, and extremely underrated actor.
Just wanted to point out that one of your links in your “Blog Roll” section at the bottom is incorrect. Your link for “Hollywood Elsewhere” takes you to some sort of video site, when I think you intended for it to link to Jeffrey Wells’ awards website “Hollywood-Elsewhere.” If you add the hyphen to the web address link, it should fix the problem.
Does Mr. Fox have any chance against Up?
If Up was nominated for Best Pic and Animate feat. then Mr. Fox could win since double noms usually cancel each other out.
Fantastic Mr. Fox should get a Best Picture nom. It’s that great!
Can I just say one big film you forgot: @)!@ in lowercase is 2012! Surely it’s visual effects will get some sort of recognition, or maybe sound editing, or that original song “Time for Miracles”. I demand you update your blog to include your major oversight.
Up is one of the most overrated movies in recent times.
Precious?
Awesome post, keep it up!