Comedies, foreign films may be left out during nominations.
The Oscar race is heating up with more critically acclaimed films being released every week.
Films such as “12 Years a Slave” and “Gravity” are locks in many categories, but many films and performances are sure to be overlooked on Jan. 16 when the Academy Award nominations are announced.
Here are some films, actors and filmmakers that audiences, scholars and critics will look back on years from now, scratching their heads, and declare as glaring omissions.
Best Picture — “Like Someone in Love”
“Like Someone in Love,” Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami’s second feature film made outside of his home country, is the best film of the year so far. It is one of the few films in recent years that is truly a work of art that will be talked about decades from now. Most of the film unfolds in real time and never feels manufactured to tell a story or go from point A to point B. Kiarostami directs with such clarity that it all seems so simple and matter-of-fact when it is actually layered with meaning and complexity. Some people will find this film to be slow and boring, but it is rewarding and unforgettable for those who pay close attention.
Best Actor — Michael B. Jordan for “Fruitvale Station”
When “Fruitvale Station” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, some declared that it would be this year’s “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” the little indie that could. Both films are directorial debuts with largely African-American casts that premiered at Sundance. “Beasts” went on to be nominated for Best Picture, Actress, Director and Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards. Sadly, “Fruitvale,” which is based on a true story, is likely to be largely forgotten come Oscar time because it came out in the first half of the year. Michael B. Jordan deserves a Best Actor nomination for his performance as Oscar Grant, a young man tragically gunned down by a policeman in 2009. He makes Grant neither a flawless martyr nor a lowlife felon but a troubled father who was trying to get his life together. He is on screen almost the entire film, and the 26-year-old actor holds the powerful, infuriating film together masterfully.
Best Actress — Julie Delpy for “Before Midnight”
“Before Midnight” is the third film in Richard Linklater’s “Before” series, which started with “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset.” All three films follow two characters, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy), as they walk around beautiful locales and talk. The third in the series is the best so far and is a critical darling, but it will suffer just like “Fruitvale” because it came out early in the year. The two leads and Linklater will very likely get nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, but the actors have little chance of being nominated for their performances. Both actors should be nominated but especially Delpy. Céline is neurotic, funny, brutally honest, and fiercely opinionated, and her chemistry with Hawke is wonderful to behold. The last act of the film is a giant argument between the couple and not much this year in cinema has been more captivating. It seems effortless and natural although it is precisely crafted.
Best Supporting Actor — James Franco for “Spring Breakers”
“Spring Breakers” is the damnedest film of the year. It is juvenile, repetitive and obnoxious but also hilarious, beautifully shot and quite disturbing. It really does get at something dark about this generation’s youth. The wildest thing in Harmony Korine’s latest attack on taste and respectable filmmaking is James Franco’s whacked-out performance as Alien, a rapper with cornrows and grills in his teeth. The performance, like the film, is alternately grating and funny, pathetic and malevolent. Werner Herzog said that the film is “the most important film of the decade” and that Franco’s performance makes Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver” “look like a kindergartener.” Franco gives one of the best performances of his career in “Spring Breakers.”
Best Supporting Actress — Emma Watson for “The Bling Ring”
“The Bling Ring” is the best horror film of the last five years. The film is not actually a horror film, but it did what good horror films are supposed to do — disgust, shock, and disturb — and it did it better than any real entry in the genre in recent years. The characters are mind-numbingly stupid and vapid, none more so than Emma Watson’s character, Nicki. Like Alien, Nicki is both hilarious and terrifying. Knowing the film is based on a true story and Nicki is a real person makes it just that much more absurd and unbelievable. The film got mixed reviews and came out early in the year, and comedies rarely get nominated. So the chances of her being nominated are non-existent.
Best Director — Joshua Oppenheimer for “The Act of Killing”
A documentary has never been nominated for Best Picture or Best Director in the history of the Academy Awards, but the academy should go out on a limb and nominate Joshua Oppenheimer for his extraordinary documentary. In “The Act of Killing,” Oppenheimer convinced Indonesian murderers, who were never arrested for their war crimes, to restage and reenact their atrocities in the style of different film genres. There has never been a documentary quite like it. By revisiting their crimes in such an outrageous fashion, he holds a mirror up to the men who have been blind to their own evil for half a century. The results are astounding, and he should be rewarded for making such a daring, though-provoking film.