by Sarah Quraishi for Impact: the University of Nottingham’s official student magazine
The film business moves pretty fast – if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. Is the Academy going to terminate their relationship with Pricewaterhouse Coopers after that historical mishap? Does anyone care? No, because that’s old news and we must now focus on the future, namely: the Oscars, 2018, of course.
From Sundance breakouts, Call Me by Your Name and Mudbound, to the as-yet untitled project about the 1967 Detroit riots (Kathryn Bigelow’s latest bid to be the fifth woman ever nominated for Best Director), here’s a (very, very) early look at some of the movies that might be cropping up over the next year – though, in all reality, the eventual Best Picture winner probably hasn’t even been released yet. But we’ll start predicting anyway…
Dunkirk:
Poor Christopher Nolan, described by many as a prolific director who champions novelty, has not yet to been nominated for Best Director. His follow-up to 2014’s Interstellar, which certainly divided critics, depicts the Dunkirk evacuation during World War II. It features his now-regular collaborator Tom Hardy, who lost out at the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor a couple of years ago to his co-star in this film, Mark Rylance. Also, Harry Styles is in it… But Memento is proof that even Nolan’s craziest ideas have worked out for the best, so here’s hoping he finally gets the nomination he’s long-deserved.
Battle of the Sexes:
Fresh off a win at last week’s ceremony, Emma Stone’s latest sees her team again with her Crazy, Stupid, Love co-star, Steve Carell as they portray ex-world number one tennis players, Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs respectively. As a big fan of both Stone and Carell, it’s impossible not to be excited for this film, if only for the inevitable interviews that they’ll do together.
Based on a true story that saw King and Riggs go head-to-head to see if a woman could beat a man in sports, this film (from Jonathan Dayton and Valeria Faris, the directors of the superb Little Miss Sunshine) should be highly topical and, hopefully, very entertaining.
The Current War:
And another pair of actors that I’m intrigued to see together – mostly because I can’t seem to imagine them as best friends – are Michael Shannon and Benedict Cumberbatch. In The Current War, George Westinghouse (Shannon) and Thomas Edison (Cumberbatch) rush to beat each other in finding the most marketable and sustainable electricity for the American people.
Naturally, Cumberbatch will be hoping that his newest stint as a ground-breaking, insanely clever scientist will win him Best Actor, after his last attempt – as a ground-breaking, insanely clever mathematician – didn’t work out.
Marshall:
In the same vein as critical and commercial success, Hidden Figures, Marshall will turn the spotlight on yet another forgotten African-American figure in America’s history. Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court Justice (played by Chadwick Boseman, whose performance as James Brown in 2014’s Get On Up was overlooked at the Oscars), struggles through one of his early cases in late 1960s America. With a supporting cast consisting of Josh Gad, Kate Hudson and Sterling K. Brown (the latter being my personal favourite, after watching his phenomenal performance as the conflicted prosecutor Christopher Darden in The People V. OJ Simpson), this should hopefully be a corker.
Molly’s Game:
If the words “Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut” don’t excite you, then go watch The West Wing and The Social Network and come back to this.
Not much of the plot has been revealed thus far, but the stupendously long title of the Molly Bloom autobiography upon which the film is based (“Molly’s Game: From Hollywood’s Elite to Wall Street’s Billionaire Boys Club, My High-Stakes Adventure in the World of Underground Poker”) gives a rough idea of what’s to come. The polymath herself, will be played by the criminally underrated Jessica Chastain, hoping to net her first nomination for Best Actress. Given Sorkin’s aforementioned history, expect walking-and-talking galore.
Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson Project:
After 2014’s Inherent Vice failed to resonate with critics, Paul Thomas Anderson’s next project boasts a very interesting subject matter as well as Daniel Day-Lewis, emerging from the shadows of his five-year hiatus, for a reunion with his There Will Be Blood director.
Set in the 1950s, a fashion designer (presumably Day-Lewis) is tasked with outfitting the noblemen and women of London’s high society. Having only started filming at the end of January, there’s a possibility that this won’t be finished in time, but if it is, then this is one to watch.
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Icon and Rocket, outside of Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers. Done for MECCAcon. By Jason Reeves and colors by Luis Guerrero. Courtesy Maia Crown Williams.
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A Cultural Paradox: Students Run From History While Movies Dig Deeper Into The Past
by Michael Cieply
Here’s a cultural paradox: Even as American universities and their students are fleeing history at a frightful rate, movies, at least of the sort that contend for awards, are digging ever deeper into nooks and crannies of the past.
On the academic front, the Harvard scholar Niall Ferguson has described some trends that should depress anyone who would rather study history than repeat it. Accepting an award from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni late last year, Ferguson, in remarks entitled The Decline and Fall of History, noted that the study of history is collapsing at U. S. colleges “faster than Gibbon’s Roman Empire.” The most recent available data shows the number of history undergraduate degrees to be dropping at roughly 10 percent a year, with even steeper declines in the most prestigious colleges. Overall, the percentage of degrees awarded in history and the social sciences dropped from 18 percent of the total in 1971 to 9 percent in 2014. In addition, said Ferguson, the count of history majors kept by the American Historical Association shows that the number of degrees in that discipline will be even lower by 2018.
But the movies are another story. Anyone who follows film has been struck by the long list of titles that have been mining the past, often in search of overlooked stories that seem to delight or instruct in ways that, presumably, academic history does not. Last year brought Hidden Figures, about forgotten African-American women who contributed to the space race, and Hacksaw Ridge, about a heroic conscientious objector during World War II. The list of prominent historical dramas on Oscar rolls in the past five years is too long, and familiar, to repeat. 12 Years A Slave, The Revenant, Argo, Bridge of Spies, The Imitation Game and a dozen others have either won the film world’s top prizes or came close.
By early fall, as Prof. Ferguson and his colleagues’ peer anxiously at the empty seats in their lecture halls, film festivals and guild screening rooms will again ring with debate about the reliability and import of history-based dramas like Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit, about that city’s 1967 riot; or Stephen Frears’ Victoria and Abdul, about Queen Victoria and her relationship with an Indian clerk; or Reginald Hudlin’s Marshall, about the young Thurgood Marshall’s role in a racially charged rape case.
In their weaker moments, some of those films will commit the cardinal sin of anachronism. As described by Ferguson, that is “an impulse to judge the past by the moral standards of the present—and indeed to efface its traces, in a kind of modern-day iconoclasm, when those are deemed offensive.”
But the better movies will attempt what the study of history has always done—that is, to challenge easy assumptions by bowing to the often messy facts. Thus, for instance, Marshall, set for release by Open Road Films on Oct. 13, will probe the uncomfortable realities in a 1940 court case that found a black butler, Joseph Spell, played here by Sterling K. Brown, testifying that his white employer, Eleanor Strubing, portrayed by Kate Hudson OOPS SPOILER. NOT SHARING.
History, and the movies, will tell.
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This is from a website called Awards Circuit. I don’t know their process or sources, I’m just sharing:
2018 Oscar Predictions – BEST PICTURE
It’s super early so we’re not going to pretend that we know what will or will not be good. Lots of iconic directors heading to our theaters including Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Spielberg, Todd Haynes, and George Clooney. We’re also looking out for newbies, diversity, and anything that can mirror that outstanding surprise we saw this year with “Moonlight” winning Best Picture.
AND THE PREDICTED NOMINEES ARE:
- “Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson Project” (Focus Features)
Paul Thomas Anderson, Megan Ellison, JoAnne Sellar
- “Suburbicon” (Paramount Pictures)
George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Joel Silver, Teddy Schwarzman
- “Darkest Hour” (Focus Features)
Tim Bevan, Lisa Bruce, Eric Fellner, Anthony McCarten, Douglas Urbanski
- “Mudbound” (Netflix)
Carl Effenson, Sally Jo Effenson, Cassian Elwes, Charles King, Christopher Lemole, Kim Roth, Tim Zajaros
- “Battle of the Sexes” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Danny Boyle, Christian Colson, Robert Graf
- “Downsizing” (Paramount Pictures)
Mark Johnson, Alexander Payne
- “The Post” (20th Century Fox)
Kristie Macosko Krieger, Amy Pascal, Steven Spielberg
- “Marshall” (Open Road Films)
Paula Wagner, Reginald Hudlin, Jonathan Sanger, Jun Dong
- “The Current War” (The Weinstein Company)
Timur Bekmambetov, Basil Iwanyk, Steven Zaillian
- “Dunkirk” (Warner Bros.)
Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan
2018 Oscar Predictions – BEST ACTOR (UPDATED – MAy 1, 2017)
Always a competitive race for the men, this year looks to be no different with some heavyweights in the mix with very high profile projects on the horizon. The most notable is Gary Oldman, finally going for his own trophy with Joe Wright’s “Darkest Hour” and Daniel Day-Lewis, looking to join the company of Katherine Hepburn, with the untitled project from Paul Thomas Anderson. Hugh Jackman has much promise playing P.T. Barnum while Chadwick Boseman takes on Marshall Thurgood. Other notable men playing historic figures include Benedict Cumberbatch, Liam Neeson, John Boyega, and Ali Fazal. The list of intriguing projects on the horizon include those from Armie Hammer (already a Sundance favorite), Oscar Isaac, Joaquin Phoenix, Michael Fassbender, and double doses of Matt Damon, Idris Elba, and Colin Farrell. Lots more to consider as we travel down the road.
AND THE PREDICTED NOMINEES ARE:
- Gary Oldman
“Darkest Hour” (Focus Features)
- Daniel Day-Lewis
“Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson Project” (Focus Features)
- Hugh Jackman
“The Greatest Showman” (20th Century Fox)
- Chadwick Boseman
“Marshall” (Open Road Films)
- Idris Elba
“The Mountain Between Us” (20th Century Fox)
2018 Oscar Predictions – BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (UPDATED – MAY 1, 2017)
Supporting Actors can emerge from any nook or cranny of a picture, which this can be very difficult when looking this far out. Overdue veterans like Michael Shannon (“The Current War”), Ed Harris (“Mother!”), and Bruce Dern (“Chappaquiddick”) could be in play this year. We could be in store for some unexpected players to pop up with notices like Mark Hamill (“Star Wars: The Last Jedi”) and/or Zac Efron (“The Greatest Showman”). If Sylvester Stallone’s nomination in “Creed” taught us anything, it is you can get a nomination for anything, at any point in your career, no matter what proceeded before it. We already have some contenders with buzz like Jason Mitchell (“Mudbound”). Can that carry to the end of the year?
AND THE PREDICTED NOMINEES ARE:
- Woody Harrelson
“The Glass Castle” (Lionsgate)
- Michael Shannon
“The Current War” (The Weinstein Company)
- Steve Carell
“Battle of the Sexes” (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
- Jason Mitchell
“Mudbound” (Netflix)
- Sterling K. Brown
“Marshall” (Open Road)
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