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Welcome back to Movieline’s Oscar Index, where each week we take the pulse of the awards chatter en route to Hollywood’s big day. This week both Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables and Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty surged through the ranks after debuting in their first, successful, awards screenings, though Spielberg’s Lincoln still reigns supreme — but Peter Jackson’s 48fps gamble The Hobbit and Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained are right around the corner, gunning for the spotlight…
The Leading 10
1. Lincoln
2. Les Miserables
3. Zero Dark Thirty
4. Argo
5. Silver Linings Playbook
6. Life of Pi
7. Django Unchained
8. Beasts of the Southern Wild
9. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
10. Anna Karenina
Outsiders: Skyfall, Moonrise Kingdom, Flight, The Dark Knight Rises, The Master
Despite strong guild and critic screening debuts for Les Miserables and Zero Dark Thirty, which absolutely sealed their positions as Best Picture top dogs, Spielberg’s Lincoln is still holding onto its momentum and #1 spot in the race in the hearts and minds of pundits. Meanwhile, David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook searches for a way to keep up, while Fox Searchlight’s Beasts of the Southern Wild is making its surge, trotting out Spirit Award-nominated star (and Best Actress hopeful) Quvenzhané Wallis for awards events this week.
Best Director
1. Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)
2. Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty)
3. David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)
4. Ben Affleck (Argo)
5. Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)
Spielberg still reigns atop the race, but this week’s Zero Dark Thirty splash should boost Bigelow above the ranks of Affleck, whose popular Argo treads similar true history ground but doesn’t match ZDT’s weightiness or relevancy. Russell’s staying…
Strictly for auds who enjoy the grisly Grand Guignol spectacle of the Saw franchise but could do without the moral lectures and melodramatic mythology, The Collection is an energetic but utterly weightless exercise in slice-and-dice cinema. This sequel to 2009 chiller The Collector is in many ways bigger (more characters, more locations, more carnage), but in no way better than its predecessor. Theatrical is merely a pit-stop on the road to home viewing for a product with niche appeal even among horror buffs.
Picking up where The Collector left off, The Collection establishes an anonymous urban locale terrorized by a psycho killer with no method to his madness. Without the luxury of the first film’s slow-burn opening act, the sequel leans on pre-existing iconography to build tension: the Collector’s black mask obscuring everything but his beady eyes and predatory mouth; the red trunk he uses to “collect” a lone survivor of each massacre; an ominous tripwire connected to something sharp and lethal. Once filmmakers (and Saw sequel alums) Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton hurriedly introduce new protagonist Elena (Emma Fitzpatrick), it’s off to the races for nonstop, nonsensical brutality.
Elena and pals head to a secret underground club (the password is “nevermore,” natch) where the Collector waits in the shadows with a plan to orchestrate mass murder. In what should be one of the film’s standout setpieces, dozens of clubgoers are simultaneously slaughtered by a massive combine-harvester blade rigged to descend from the ceiling. But the sequence is little more than a jumble of frenetically cut-together closeups, and the first of many examples of the film’s “more is more” philosophy coming into conflict with the constraints of a low budget.
While Elena is dragged off to the villain’s secret lair, the pic reintroduces the…
Once, Nicole Kidman barely had to raise an eyebrow to get awards attention. Now, she barely can raise an eyebrow and her best work in years is being completely ignored in the Oscar conversation. The Paperboy stars Kidman as Charlotte Bless, a damaged attention-seeker who becomes sexually obsessed with a convicted murderer (John Cusack), while cock-teasing the only man—or really, teenager—who truly loves her (Zac Efron). It’s Kidman’s bravest, boldest, and most committed performance ever, and no one cares for the short-sighted reason that the movie is terrible.
How unfair. The Nicole Kidman of To Die For used to have a bright future before that bright future came true and blinded everyone to her comedic gifts. Once Kidman scored her first Oscar nomination for 2002’s Moulin Rouge, she became the prey of the Hollywood awards hunt, in which the chase for For-Your-Consideration goes like this: take one prestigious actress (see Kidman, Berry, Jolie, Swank), make her play someone vulnerable (see Cold Mountain, Things We Lost in the Fire, The Changeling, Conviction), then cross your fingers. This is why we’ve had a full decade of Kidman drifting about in period costumes or, god forbid, stretching herself to play a movie star in Nine. And people, this is why the Oscar season is boring. This formula guarantees a chase to the middlebrow, and it’s why every Best Picture Oscar winner since Silence of the Lambs is something your grandma would see at an arthouse matinee.
There’s only one thing we can do to save the Academy Awards: nominate Nicole Kidman for The Paperboy.
Just because The Paperboy is bad doesn’t void the bravery it took to make it. Kidman’s Charlotte is a balls-out wonder. She’s pure sex and need, at once over-confident and…
After an illustrious career playing intimidating characters, Ray Liotta got to see how the other half lives (and begs for mercy) in Killing Them Softly. I sat down with the actor to discuss his harrowing beating scene — which will be much-discussed after the movie’s opening weekend — and the underlying politics of Brad Pitt and director Andrew Dominik’s stylish film noir.Criminals who listen to NPR? During Oscar season, anything’s possible.
Check out my full interview with Ray Liotta below:
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Iron Patriot, Tony Stark and more are on full view courtesy of Marvel. Marvel’s Iron Man 3 which is set for a May 2013 release and starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley, Rebecca Hall and Jon Favreau, may seem a long way off, but fans are getting a peek at the action/adventure/sci-fi with four new pics.
Directed by Shane Black, the story centers on Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) who goes up against a powerful enemy: The Mandarin. New images depict the Iron Patriot armor (main photo), Rebecca Hall looking a bit scruffed up, Downey, Jr. as Stark in an immaculate goatee and a iron mask in-hand.
Log line:
Marvel’s “Iron Man 3” pits brash-but-brilliant industrialist Tony Stark/Iron Man against an enemy whose reach knows no bounds. When Stark finds his personal world destroyed at his enemy’s hands, he embarks on a harrowing quest to find those responsible. This journey, at every turn, will test his mettle. With his back against the wall, Stark is left to survive by his own devices, relying on his ingenuity and instincts to protect those closest to him. As he fights his way back, Stark discovers the answer to the question that has secretly haunted him: does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?
Starring Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Stephanie Szostak, James Badge Dale with Jon Favreau and Ben Kingsley, “Iron Man 3” is directed by Shane Black from a screenplay by Drew Pearce and Shane Black.
Three additional photos follow:
Tony Stark
Rebecca Hall
Iron Man 3 scene
[Courtesy: Marvel ]
