Oscar Predictions -2012- Acting Awards

Best Actor

Most Likely Winner: George Clooney as Matt King in The Descendants. A complex role, Clooney plays a man dealing with his wife's coma and impending removal from life support, dealing with his two daughters he is not close with and finding out his wife is cheating on him. It involves doing so much its almost more than one role. Clooney pulls off a very difficult ask.

Backup Pick: Jean Dujardin as George Valentin in The Artist. And competing with Clooney is the man they call the French Clooney. A silent role as a falling movie star who refuses to enter into 'talkies'. It's very difficult to capture attention without talking and that alone is enough to warrant a prize.

Most Deserving (My Pick): Gary Oldman as George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I love Gary Oldman. I think its criminal he was never nominated before. For him to win for a spy movie adapted from a John Le Carre novel would be the coolest thing ever.

Best Actress

Most Likely Winner: Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. This movie was super-dull and the only thing that keeps interest is Streep being amazing. As she always is. She is spot on as Thatcher, or at least what I imagine Thatcher is like, which is more difficult to portray than actuality.

Backup Pick: Viola Davis as Aibileen Clark in The Help. I think she had to share attention a bit with Octavia Spencer otherwise she would have been first pick. Playing a black maid in Civil Rights era Mississippi, she manages to convey the slight hope mixed with heavy sadness of the time.

Most Deserving (My Pick): Viola Davis as Aibileen Clark in The Help. As much as I like Michelle Williams as Marilyn Munroe, I'm guilty of picking drama over comedy in this respect.

Best Supporting Actor

Most Likely Winner: Christopher Plummer as Hal Fields in Beginners. Sometimes you forget he's not the lead. Playing a man who comes out after the death of his wife and explores the gay lifestyle, then is diagnosed with cancers and succumbs to it. Its all about Hal.

Backup Pick: Jonah Hill as Peter Brand in Moneyball. I've heard Max Von Syndow in Extremely Loud and Extremely Close is the real backup, but I haven't seen that, so no idea. Hill was impressive as assistant GM, managing the perfect backup to Brad Pitt's Beane, which is much as I imagined the office at Oakland was in 2002.

Most deserving (My pick): Christopher Plummer as Hal Fields in Beginners. The best supporting actor award has been pretty much a sure award for years now because there's always an undisputed best of. This time is no different.

Best Supporting Actress

Most Likely Winner: Octavia Spencer as Minny Jackson in The Help. As I mentioned before, she stole all the scenes she was in with a dominating performance. Compelling and convincing in the role.

Backup Pick: Berenice Bejo as Peppy Miller in The Artist. This is the other kind of supporting role, playing the perfect backdrop to the main performer. And Bejo facilitates the main performance perfectly allowing for memorable input without taking the attention.

Most Deserving (My Pick): Octavia Spencer as Minny Jackson in The Help. Too good not to win

Oscar Predictions-Film Awards (i)

Best Director Most likely winner : Steven Spielberg for Lincoln. Leaving out Ben Affleck, Kathryn Bigelow and Quentin Tarantino pretty much made this Spielberg's to lose. And doesn't reflect too well on the Academy either. Backup Pick : David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook. The production company of Weinstein have been campaigning hard for this and it's a good film with the acting performances set up well. The thing about best director is it's the easiest award to give to someone the academy likes because it's ambiguous and the academy doesn't really love Russell. Most deserving : Michel Haneke for Amour. Haneke has the most carefully crafted film here. All in all it is definitely his film in every scene. His presence is all around the film and it is an excellent film. If they give it for the greatest impact a director has on the film, this is it. Best Adapted Screenplay Most li...

10 (20th century) novels that you can summarize the plot of in two lines. and completely miss what makes it good.

10. Remembrance of Things Past ( À la recherche du temps perdu ) - Marcel Proust - 1913–1927 Summary: A man remembers large parts of his past, involuntarily. All because of an incident where he dips a madeleine into tea. In a book where basically nothing happens except the very ordinary life of the narrator, the story still manages to capture one's attention. Also the author manages to make every experience, thought and emotion seem as something that everyone has either experienced or can relate to. Written with almost every word in the vocabulary, it is condensation of innumerable literary, structural, stylistic, and thematic possibilities. 9.Ulysses - James Joyce - 1922 Summary : The entire book follows a day in the life of Leopold Bloom on 16th June 1904 through the streets of Dublin. A deceptively simple plot but while reading the plot itself becomes secondary or even forgotten. Most of what makes this book a classic are the hundreds of references and allusions to other works...

a list about plays (post 1950)

The general perception is good plays stopped being written. That all the plays being performed which remain popular are classics and there is no place for the playwright in the current dramatic world. The role of the playwright has been diminished but good plays have not become extinct in the 20th and 21st century.This list will attempt to reflect that by giving a selection of excellent plays written (and performed) after 1950. 20. Prelude to a Kiss- Craig Lucas. Premiered in California in 1988. Quick Description: Thought to be a metaphor for AIDS. A story about the switching of bodies between a new bride and an old man and how the husband must find the old man while keeping his love alive. Something of a Sci-fi style and one of the most original works in recent times. 19. Long Day's Journey Into Night - Eugene O'Neill.premiered in Stockholm at the Royal Dramatic theatre in 1956. quick summary: A play about addiction and how it affects everyone around the addict.The characters ...

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