For Your Consideration: Possible Contenders For Awards Season 2015

After an unintended year off last year (honestly, awards season was on me before I knew what hit me), I've dusted off the old crystal ball and am about to indulge in some wild speculation and a little prognosticating on what films I'm expecting to see feature in the upcoming awards season.

Hoping to capitalise on the (pardon the pun) stellar success of Gravity at this year's ceremony, I'm sure Christopher Nolan and the rest of the Interstellar team are hoping for several nominations. A veritable slew of technical awards will no doubt be forthcoming, whilst the twin peaks of Best Picture and Best Director for Nolan are a distinct possibility.

Is Gone Girl too dark and depressing a prospect for award season glory? I'm not sure. This twisted little tale certainly shows off some acting chops in a taut and unforgettable thriller. Of the two leads, I think Rosamund Pike is more likely to feature for her frankly stunning role as Amy but there's every chance that Ben Affleck might get noticed too. There's also the chance of Supporting nominations for Tyler Perry and Carrie Coon.

The Imitation Game is a pretty surefire bet (especially for the BAFTAs). Benedict Cumberbatch's performance as bona fide genius Alan Turing has been mentioned as a potential award winner since it was first seen. Keira Knightley might also get another shot at the Oscar, playing Joan Clarke. It may get a Best Picture nod too.

If you thought this year's results were a shock (elevating Matthew McConaughey from romcom lunk to Oscar-winning actor), then next year might see something equally strange: Channing Tatum as an Oscar nominee. Foxcatcher ticks a lot of award category boxes: based on a true story, with Tatum, Steve Carell and Mark Ruffalo all playing real-life people. Directed by Bennett Miller, who has had awards success with Capote and Moneyball, it's likely to sweep the top categories with Carell's turn as troubled millionaire John du Pont a virtual lock.

If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise... Musicals have had something of a renaissance at the Oscars in the last few years, so expect to see Rob Marshall's take on Sondheim's Into The Woods feature. Will it net Meryl Streep an unparalleled 19th Oscar nomination for her role as the Witch? I'm not sure. But Marshall was nominated for his direction of Chicago and that film also swooped in to win, so anything is possible.

Other films that might get a look in:

Mr. Turner saw Timothy Spall win Best Actor at this year's Cannes Film Festival, which boosts his chances of an Oscar nod somewhat. It's perhaps an outside chance for Best Picture or Best Director, but Mike Leigh has been nominated for Best Screenplay a few times, so that's a possibility.

Joining Spall and Cumberbatch in the Best Actor nominations (almost definitely at the BAFTAs and even possibly for the Oscars) could be Eddie Redmayne who has been winning critical acclaim for his role as Stephen Hawking in The Theory Of Everything. 

Robert Downey Jr and Robert Duvall might get acting nods (Duvall as Supporting Actor, Downey Jr as lead) for their roles in The Judge. Critical opinion seems to be that they are great in an uneven script so one or both may be nominated.

Julianne Moore, who is criminally underrated in some quarters, is gaining Oscar buzz for her lead role in Still Alice, as a linguistics professor who receives a devastating diagnosis.


Reese Witherspoon could be aiming for her second Best Actress Oscar nomination and win for her performance in Wild, playing Cheryl Strayed, a woman who underwent an 1100-mile solo hike as a way to recover from a recent catastrophe. This could also see Laura Dern get a Best Supporting Actress nod as Cheryl's mum.

Big Eyes might seem like an odd Tim Burton project but this drama about one of the art world's biggest frauds (for years, Walter Keane passed off the work of his wife Margaret as his own) boasts some serious acting power with Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz signed on. Perhaps another one where the acting talent reaps the benefits?

The big blockbusters will be consigned to the technical awards as usual- sterling films like Guardians Of The Galaxy and not-so-sterling ones like Transformers: Age Of Extinction will crowd out Sound Editing and Visual Effects. But with the release of the final Hobbit film, could The Battle Of The Five Armies see a Lord Of The Rings-like sweep at next year's Oscars? Be interesting to see.

The timetable for the major awards in 2015 is as follows:

Film Independent Spirit Awards
Nominations announced: 25th November 2015
Awards Ceremony: 21st February 2015

Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award
Nominations Announced: 10th December 2014
Awards Ceremony: 25th January 2015

Golden Globes
Nominations announced: 11th December 2014
Awards Ceremony: 11th January 2014 (hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler)

Producers' Guild Of America (PGA) Award
Nominations Announced: 5th January 2015
Awards Ceremony: 24th January 2015

Writers' Guild Of America (WGA) Award
Nominations Announced: 7th January 2015
Awards Ceremony: 14th February 2015

Directors' Guild Of America (DGA) Award
Nominations Announced: 13th January 2015
Awards Ceremony: 7th February 2015

BAFTA Film Awards
Nominations announced: 9th January 2015
Awards Ceremony: 8th February 2015

Golden Raspberry Awards (Razzies)
Nominations Announced: 14th January 2015
Awards Ceremony: 21st February 2015

Academy Awards (Oscars)
Nominations announced: 15th January 2015
Awards Ceremony: 22nd February 2015 (hosted by Neil Patrick Harris)


As you can see, the Independent Spirit Award nominations are out today. This blog was written before I saw the nominations. A post will follow shortly.

Tez

Review: Interstellar (UK Cert: 12A)

Back at this year’s San Diego Comic Con, Christopher Nolan and Matthew McConaughey gave a press conference that was a masterclass in promoting your film, but telling you nothing about it. That’s the best way to go and see Nolan’s latest multi-million dollar epic; the less you know, the more you’ll enjoy it.

The plot starts off simple enough. In the near future, earth is dying, and food sources are dwindling. Ex-astronaut Cooper (McConaughey) is sent on a mission to save mankind; to search an unexplored galaxy for a planet where the human race can live on. Not only is Cooper concerned with saving our species, he also wants to return home so he can see his family again. That’s all straightforward; then Christopher and Jonathan Nolan (who both wrote the script) throw all sorts of smart, original, occasionally genuinely bonkers scenes at you.

If you search the online reviews for Interstellar, a number of them suggest that Nolan has stolen from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. While some of the space exploration is definitely influenced by Kubrick’s masterpiece, Interstellar has a beating heart underneath the push the envelope visuals. In many ways, Nolan’s latest project is a throwback to the eighties, films such as E.T., The Goonies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the world and the skies above were to be explored: outside your front door, there’s an adventure waiting. Considering Nolan gave us the downbeat, real-world superhero Dark Knight trilogy, Interstellar feels like it came from a more innocent, less complicated time. In Interstellar’s world, you either grow up to be a farmer or the gifted and talented become scientists. Children are taught that the moon landings never happened, just an elaborate hoax to bankrupt the Russians. NASA has been shut down for decades; planet earth has neither the time nor the money to spend on space missions. No one looks up at the skies any more, instead they shuffle round, surviving instead of living. McConaughey’s Cooper is your traditional hero, the same mould as Raiders’ Indiana Jones, or The Goonies’ Mikey. Cooper is a Texan rebel, refusing to be told what to do or have decisions made for him; he was never meant to live an ordinary life, working nine-to-five, only seeing the wonders of the world and beyond it on a TV screen.

As little as four years ago, Matthew McConaughey was the Go-To-Guy for Hollywood’s next lightweight, mediocre film. Drawing a line under his CV and taking lead roles in risky indie flicks such as Killer Joe, The Paperboy, and, more recently, The Dallas Buyers Club, McConaughey is suddenly one of the most talented and surprising actors working today. Once again, McConaughey is on first-rate form here as Cooper. Despite all the science and theories that feature throughout Interstellar, what stands out is its theme of family, how strong the bond is between two people who love and care for each other. McConaughey never squanders this; Cooper might be saving life on earth, but his priority is getting back to his children. It’s not spoiling anything to say that the mission does not go according to plan, and a scene where Cooper is forced to watch the consequences play out in front of him is heart-breaking to sit through. McConaughey has this rare talent of being able to draw you in with a flawlessly judged, absorbing performance, without chewing the scenery or overacting.

As you would expect with a Nolan film, all of the performances are strong, but most deserving of a mention is Jessica Chastain, who plays Cooper’s ten-year-old daughter, Murphy. McConaughey and Chastain’s scenes together are what Interstellar is all about. Murphy is her father’s daughter; unlike her peers, she is obsessed with finding out what our world and the stars have to offer. Chastain is McConaughey’s partner in crime, but she also gives him the dressing down he needs when he goes too far, putting himself in danger. The scene when Cooper tries saying goodbye to his daughter, Murphy refusing to speak to him, pretending he never existed, will have plenty of people welling up at the cinema.

Interstellar needs to be watched on the biggest screen you can find (I saw it on IMAX and it was borderline overwhelming!). Nolan swaps his long-time cinematographer Wally Pfister for Hoyte Van Hoytema (Let The Right One In, Her), Hoytema managing to get the balance just right with visuals that are desolate, but also give a sense of grandeur. Planets made up of skyscraper-sized waves, or frozen clouds, will wow audiences who pine for the summer blockbuster season.

Nolan’s first attempt at science fiction proper just misses the mark of being flawless. Whereas Inception’s dream within a dream rules were carefully and subtly explained, occasionally funny or thrilling to watch, Interstellar bombards you with Stephen Hawking levels of physics and expects you to keep up. Once or twice, I was wishing I had a rewind button so I could go over an explanation one more time. The last hour of the film changes gear and delves into theories such as there being not three, not four, but five dimensions, as well as gravity being a force that can time travel. Personally, I thought the third act was both clever and unpredictable, but I can understand why someone would find it irritating and have no idea what’s going on.

Thankfully, you can overlook the science lesson exposition as it’s all sandwiched between an unashamedly human and touching narrative that will stun die hard Nolan fans. Wormholes, black holes, and the vastness of space all look eerily beautiful (it’s not a rip-off of 2001, it’s 2001 after nearly fifty years of cinematic advances), but Nolan also shows us how family, loving someone and treasuring your memories, can be just as special. For me, my favourite science fiction films are Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, and Duncan Jones’s Moon. I’m adding Interstellar to that list.

5 out of 5

Matt