Early-Season Oscar Preview: Movies to Watch

There’s less than three months left in the year, and now that it’s October the last-minute Summer-esque films have all but fizzled out. It’s time to look forward to Oscar season.

This year the Academy, after two years of 10 Best Picture nominees, have changed the rules for nominations yet again. Now, in order to qualify for a Best Picture nomination, films must receive enough votes to meet a certain threshold. As few as five films will be nominated, and as many as ten can still make the cut provided they receive enough votes. It’s what they should have done to begin with- in 2009, nobody can convince me that A Serious Man, District 9, or The Blind Side would have made the cut in a year with 5 nominees. I like this change, because in 2008 there were clearly two films, The Dark Knight and WALL*E, that had multiple nominations and tons of critical and monetary support backing them, but didn’t get Best Picture nominations.

Looking forward to 2011, I think there’s only three possible films that have been released that have a chance at a Best Picture nomination- The Help, 50/50, and Moneyball. The Help is based on an acclaimed novel, has the topic of race as the focal point, and is a well-received crowd-pleaser. It’s got the appeal of both Precious AND The Blind Side, and I think it could surprise with some solid nominations. Speaking of The Blind Side, Moneyball is based on a book written by the author of The Blind Side, with The Social Network screenwriter Aaron Sorkin doing the adaptation. It’s also directed by Capote director Bennett Miller, and stars Brad Pitt. Yes, it’s definitely a huge Oscar contender. 50/50 is the heartfelt Indie dramedy like Juno or The Kids Are All Right. It tackles a serious subject matter, has widespread critical acclaim, and this kind of film tends to do well.

I haven’t seen it yet, but The Ides of March is a movie that could turn out to be a slight disappointment. It’s got a fairly good Rotten Tomatoes score, but other review aggregators have less impressive scores. For comparison, other movies that have higher scores include Dolphin Tale, X-Men: First Class, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II.  Other already-released movies that don’t really have a chance at the Oscars include The Tree of Life, Warrior, Drive, and Midnight in Paris. Warrior is too cliché and Hollywoodized (The Oscars like “grit” in their sports dramas, or at least some kind of handicap).  Drive and The Tree of Life are largely art films that didn’t resonate with people or a number of the critics that saw them. Midnight in Paris will probably get Woody Allen another writing nomination and probably some design nominations, but Allen’s last critical darling (Vicky Christina Barcelona) only made waves in one category.

So, who are the big contenders? I’d say the biggest contenders are The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, J. Edgar, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, War Horse, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. You’ve got high profile directors here- Fincher, Eastwood, Spielberg, and Daldry. They all have bona-fide Oscar hits behind them. The wild card here is Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Gary Oldman is, based on early reviews, being considered a frontrunner for Best Actor. It’s got a stellar British cast and is likely to be the British film that gets nominated. I know that sounds weird, but there’s always a British film getting nominated in each year. War Horse is, well, a horse movie. Seabiscuit had tons of nominations in 2003, and this should be the same. Then you have an adaptation of an acclaimed novel (again), a biopic, and a 9/11 drama. Yeah, this sounds about right.

Unfortunately, there are some big name directors that have films unlikely to compete- David Cronenberg has yet to have a film make major waves at the awards, and A Dangerous Method probably won’t change that. Roman Polanski’s Carnage is a black comedy- not exactly a genre Polanski tends to get nominated for. You also have Alexander Payne’s The Descendants, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, Jason Reitman’s Young Adult, and Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In. The Descendants and Young Adults could pick up steam once we see more of them, but right now they don’t look like real contenders. Hugo is a family film from Scorcese, which may turn off a lot of voters. The Skin I Live In could be a surprise, but there’s always a chance that Almodovar’s intensely European stylings could become a bit tedious.There are also movies that are actors vehicles- The Rum Diary and The Iron Lady are probably going to get powerhouse actors Depp and Streep another nomination each, but won’t be nominated for anything much more.

And for a brief list of other movies to keep an eye out on, just in case, there’s romantic drama Like Crazy, Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo, mental thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene, sci-fi drama Another Earth, and immigration drama A Better Life. I hope this Oscar season is as exciting for you as it is for me.