Best Picture 2013 Oscar Predictions

I'm fascinated by how predetermined the Oscar race already is, and I feel I'm only documenting what is already regurgitated by the Oscar/movie blogging community.  Or, am I only contributing to the status quo by prognosticating the Oscars?  This year, I hope to single out projects that may go underserved and examine their potential.  It will be more time-intensive and bear less frequent posts, but might be a more interesting direction to take this blog.  In the meanwhile, I do enjoy the predicting process.  As it were, I have already compiled some information I've researched, as well as, yes, my one-year forecast for the 2013 Best Picture race [3/4 Note: I just want to acknowledge my top ten is unrealistically biography-heavy]:

1. The Monuments Men (Sony).  Release Date: 12/18.  Now, I'll admit, when I first heard of this film, it sounded like a more upscale National Treasure, but considering the talent involved, on paper, it might be wise to not underestimate this WWII project.  George Clooney, along with Grant Heslov, adapted their screenplay from the Robert M. Edsel book about art curators, scholars, and artists, who used their expertise to save and preserve culture during the ravages of World War II.  Sounds like a fascinating story.  The subject matter had been dealt with before in the 1964 John Frankenheimer film The Train, which got nominated for its original screenplay.  Principle players include the people behind Argo, but could the December release date be a kiss of death?  (The last time an 11th-hour release won Best Picture was for 2004)  Dir: Clooney.  Cast: Clooney, Daniel Craig, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban. Cinematographer: Phedon Papamichael (The Descendants, The Pursuit of Happyness, Walk the Line, Sideways).  Composer: Alexandre Desplat (Argo, The King's Speech, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Queen).  Production Designer: James D. Bissell (Good Night, and Good Luck., E.T.).  Costume Designer: Louise Frogley (The Ides of March, Traffic).

[4/1 Note: It seems grossly obvious that the David O. Russell picture belongs up here, not way down where it is.]

[4/21 Note: As well, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty should be right up here, if not higher.]

[5/4 Note: And, LOL, while I'm at it, Nebraska is way too low and will be joining these ranks in June.]

2. August: Osage County (TWC).  Release Date: 11/8.  While this is on the radar of many, I'm surprised at the lack of strong faith in this film's prospects about an extremely dysfunctional three-generation Oklahoman family who must deal with their recently vanished patriarch.  Let's start with its distributor: The Weinstein Company.  Harvey Weinstein has a full plate going into the awards season this year.  Not only does he have Sundance Audience Award/Grand Jury Prize acquisition Fruitvale, but he has Lowlife, Best Actress-contender Grace of Monaco, The Grandmaster, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Snowpiercer, and, yes, even that imminent train-wreck The Butler.  Not that I think that last title will be nominated for anything (I mean, please tell me your eyebrow didn't go up with the stuntcasting of the last five decades of presidents and first ladies and then not go up further when you saw that sultry, come-hither, bitch-please still of Oprah Winfrey and Terrence Howard).  Let's not forget about new distributor RADiUS-TWC handling Only God Forgives and Lovelace.

Now, the fact that the movie is based on Tracy Letts Tony-award winning play (who also did the film adaptation) doesn't negate a slam dunk.  Often, theatrical translations these days amount to one or a few acting nominations, if anything.  And, yes, it's disappointing that producers didn't line up some Steppenwolf founders who went on to become high-profile film actors in their own right.  Huge missed opportunity.  And, yes, the accents the actors will have to adopt will likely get close scrutiny and roasted across the internet.  And, yes, the main casting choices were shrewdly commercial (makes me think of Les Misérables).  But, I loved the play (I saw a Los Angeles production with Estelle Parsons) and I'm going to keep hoping that they get it right, until proven wrong.  And, I think that E.R. creator John Wells, who just recently got into feature lengths with The Company Men, may be one of them new faces that you didn't see coming in the best director field.  If I had to pick a horse in the race, right now, sight unseen, this would be it.  Filmed on a budget of $25M late last year in Oklahoma and L.A., this was also produced by Argonauts.  Cast: Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Margo Martindale, Chris Cooper, Ewan McGregor, Benedict Cumberbatch, Juliette Lewis, Sam Shepard, Julianne Nicholson, Dermot Mulroney, and Abigail Breslin.  Editor: Stephen Mirrione (Babel, Traffic).  Cinematographer: Adriano Goldman (Jane Eyre, Sin Nombre).  Production Designer: David Gropman (Life of Pi, The Cide House Rules).

3. Foxcatcher (Sony).  Megan Ellison made quite a splash in 2012 with The Master and Zero Dark Thirty.  The Master could have done better at the box office and Zero Dark Thirty should have won Best Picture of the Year, but it's not like you can blame her.  Lawless and Killing Them Softly both developed fanbases of their own.  But, not a bad start, eh?  Director Bennett Miller follows up Moneyball and Capote with the story of a multimillionaire Jon Eleuthère du Pont (played by Steve Carrell) who had an array of eclectic interests and was a sports enthusiast who started a farm that doubled as a wrestling facility.  He eventually shot and killed his friend Olympic gold-medalist wrestler Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo).  The screenplay was written by E. Max Frye (Something Wild) and Dan Futterman (Capote).  Cinematographer: Greig Fraser (Zero Dark Thirty, Killing Them Softly).  Production Designer: Jess Gonchor (True Grit, Moneyball).  Costume Designer: Kasia Walicka-Maimone (Moonrise Kingdom, Moneyball).  Cast: Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller, Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Michael Hall, and Tara Subkoff.  Filmed in Pennsylvania this past October.

4. Fruitvale (TWC).  Release Date: 10/18.  Sundance has been giving Oscar fodder for consideration for quite some time and this year will be no different.  The highly awarded and possibly most talked about film to come out of the festival was this story detailing the final day of Oscar Grant, an unarmed young man gunned down by police at an Oakland BART station on New Year's Day 2009.  A Sundance submission has never gone on to become a Best Picture winner.  But, there's a first time for everything, right?  First time feature director Ryan Coogler, if nominated, would be, as I'm sure the AMPAS will be proud to trumpet (because they are SO race-forward), the third African-American to be nominated for film direction.  Filmed last August in the Bay area on a micro-budget, TWC purchased the movie for $2.5M after premiering at Sundance.  Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Octavia Spencer (also a coproducer), and Chad Michael Murray.  Costume Designer: Aggie Guerard Rodgers (The Color Purple, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Pee Wee's Big Adventure).  IMDb: 8.6 (133 users)

5. Inside Llewyn Davis (CBS).  Filmed early 2012 in Minnesota and NYC.  Loosely based on folksinger Dave Van Ronk's 2005 memoir The Mayor of MacDougal (finished posthumously by Elijah Wald) about the Greenwich Village music scene, the Coen brothers wrote and directed the film.  Cast: Oscar Isaac, Garrett Hedlund, Carey Mulligan, Adam Driver, John Goodman, and Justin Timberlake.  Cinematographer: Bruno Delbonnel (Amélie, A Very Long Engagement, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince).  [Roger Deakins was busy with Skyfall.]  Production Designer: Jess Gonchor (True Grit, Foxcatcher, The Lone Ranger).  Costume Designer: Mary Zophres (True Grit).  Scott Rudin produced along with the Coen brothers.  CBS Film, which paid $4M for distribution rights, has never had a Best Picture nominee, let alone an Oscar nod.  In fact, as a distributor, it's fairly new and enjoyed its biggest hit last year with The Woman in Black.

6. The Wolf of Wall Street (Paramount).  Release Date: 11/15.  [Warning: the list of castmembers for this film may contain spoilers.]  Since Gangs of New York, Martin Scorsese has directed four films that have gotten best picture, directing, and screenplay nominations, among many other nominations.  Leonardo DiCaprio headlined three of them.  Only Shutter Island was left out.  So, if their names are on the project, you might as well predict this movie for big things until proven otherwise.  Terence Winter adaptated Jordan Belfort's book about his business antics which led to a criminal conviction.  Cast: McConaughey, Jonah Hill, Kyle Chandler, Jon Favreau, Jean Dujardin, Rob Reiner, Spike Jonze, Christine Ebersole, Fran Lebowitz, Margot Robbie, and Joanna Lumley.  Editor: Thelma Schoonmaker (of course!).  Cinematographer: Rodrigo Prieto (Brokeback Mountain, Argo, Babel).  Composer: Howard Shore (Hugo, LOTR).  Production Designer: Bob Shaw.  Costume Designer: Sandy Powell (of course!).  Filmed in 2012 in New York and New Jersey on a whopper of a budget at $100, Scorsese-directed DiCaprio films tend to gross 1.5x their budget--if they're action/suspense-oriented films.  (Less if they're more drama-focused)  This will be their fifth collaboration.  They're both coproducers, with Irwin Winkler as executive.

7. Before Midnight (SPC).  Release Date: 5/24.  Released as the third installment in the "Before" series dating back to 1995, this threequel was passionately received by critics, industry types, and audiences at Sundance.  The sequel, written by its two stars and director, managed to nab a screenplay nomination eight years ago.  Director Richard Linklater used a lot of his original team including actors Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke (of course), editor Sandra Adair, cinematographer Lee Daniel, composer Fred Frith, and production designer Florian Reichmanm.  IMDb: 8.7 (671 users)

8. The Fifth Estate (Walt Disney).  Release Date: 11/15.  Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, Gods and Monsters) directed this adaptation from a couple of sources about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.  Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Brühl, Anthony Mackie, and Carice van Houten.  Cumberbatch may well end up being the John C. Reilly of Oscars 2013.  Editor Virginia Katz and cinematographer Tobias A. Schliessler have both worked with Condon before.

9. Twelve Years a Slave.  Steve McQueen follows up Shame with his screenplay cowritten with John Ridley based on Solomon Northup's memoir of being sold into slavery during the 1800s as a freeman.  Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti, Paul Dano, Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry, Sarah Paulson, and Taran Killam.  McQueen is using both his editor Joe Walker and cinematographer Sean Bobbitt.  Production designer is Adam Stockhausen (Moonrise Kingdom).  Filmed last summer in Louisiana, this might become the third best picture nominee of Brad Pitt's Plan B Productions.

10. 42 (WB).  Release Date: 4/12.  Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Mystic River) wrote and directed this biopic about Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) signing on with Brooklyn Dodgers under the leadership of Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) and becoming the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball.  Cast: Christopher Meloni, Lucas Black.  Filmed last Spring in Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. Editors: Peter McNulty (The Master) and Kevin Stitt.  Cinematographer: Don Burgess (Forrest Gump).

11. Captain Phillips (Sony).  Release Date: 10/11.  Dir: Paul Greengrass.  The only doubts I have about this film's Oscar chances right now have mostly to do with its studio already possibly having their hands full.

12. Lowlife (TWC).  James Gray strikes me as one of those directors who is building up to something.

13. A Most Wanted Man.  Dir: Anton Crobijn.

14. Saving Mr. Banks (Walt Disney).  Release Date: 12/20.  The Walt Disney studio is putting out a film about the contentious relationship between its founder, as well as that of the creator of Mary Poppins P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson).  The movie is directed by John Lee Hancock who blindsided us with Bullock's Oscar-winning turn three years ago.

15. Nebraska (Paramount).  How many road films can Alexander Payne make and still get recognized by Oscar?

16. The Way Way Back (Fox Searchlight).  Perhaps Payne's writing team of Nat Faxon and Jim Rash will step in for him this year.  IMDb: 8.1 (103 users)

17. The Place Beyond the Pines (Focus).  Dir: Derek Cianfrance.  IMDb: 7.9 (1,219 users)

18. Gravity (Universal).  Release Date: 10/4 (BOM) or 10/18.  I'm a doubting Thomas on the Oscar chances of Alfred Cuaron's latest film.  I still believe it has the potential of being spectacular.  The presence of Sandra Bullock, as much as I love her, has me wondering, though.

19. Untitled David O. Russell/Abscam Project (Sony).  The only film on this list (I think) besides The Monuments Men, which hasn't actually lensed yet.  It's set to go before cameras this Spring and wrap in the Summer.  With two films already possibly in contention, is there room for Sony to slide another one in?

20.  Ender's Game (Summit).  Dir: Gavin Hood.

21. Her.  Dir: Spike Jonze.  An Annapurna production.
22. The Counselor (20th).  Release Date: 11/15.  Dir: Ridley Scott
23. Ain't Them Bodies Saints (IFC).  Dir: David Lowery.  IMDb: 8.6 (116 users)
24. The Great Gatsby (WB).  Release Date: 5/10.  Dir: Baz Luhrman.
25. Rush (Universal).  Release Date: 9/20.  Dir: Ron Howard.
26. The Grandmaster (TWC).  Dir: Kar Wai Wong.  IMDb: 7.3 (883 users)
27. The Past.  Dir: Asghar Farhadi (A Separation).
28. Knight of Cups.  Dir: Terrence Malick.
29. Lawless.  Dir: Terrence Malick.
30. Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom (TWC).  Release Date: 11/29.  Dir: Justin Chadwick.

31. The Railway Man.  Dir: Jonathan Teplitzky.
32. Devil's Knot.  Dir: Atom Egoyan.
33. The Bling Ring (A24).  Dir: Sofia Coppola.
34. Serena.  Dir: Susanne Bier.
35. Only God Forgives (RADiUS-TWC).  Dir: Nicolas Winding Refn.
36. Grace of Monaco (TWC).  Release Date: 12/27.  Dir: Olivier Dahan.
37. 47 Ronin (Universal).  Release Date: 12/25.  Dir: Carl Rinsch.  The pre-press is almost as bad as that of World War Z's.
38. Thérèse.  Dir: Charlie Stratton.
39. Labor Day (Paramount).  Dir: Jason Reitman
40. Elysium (Sony).  Release Date: 8/9.  Dir: Neill Blomkamp

41. Diana.  Dir: Oliver Hirschbiegel.  I liked the original title: Caught in Flight.
42. Blue Jasmine (SPC).  Release Date: 7/26.  Dir: Woody Allen.
43. Oldboy (FilmDistrict).  Release Date: 10/11.  Dir: Spike Lee.
44. Out of the Furnace (Relativity).  Dir: Scott Cooper.
45. Snowpiercer (TWC).  Dir: Joon-ho Bong.
46. The Invisible Woman (SPC).  Dir: Ralph Fiennes.
47. Kill Your Darlings (SPC).  Dir: John Krokidas.  IMDb: 7.8 (264 users)
48. The Spectacular Now (A24).  Dir: James Ponsoldt.  IMDb: 7.6 (101 users)
49. Dallas Buyers Club.  Dir: Jean-Marc Vallée
50. Malavita (Relativity).  Release Date: 10/18.  Dir: Luc Besson.

51. Man of Steel (WB).  Release Date: 6/14.  Dir: Zack Snyder.
52. The Butler (TWC).  Dir: Lee Daniels.
53. Lovelace (RADiUS-TWC).  Dir: Rob Epstein / Jeffrey Friedman.  IMDb: 6.4 (307 users)
54. To the Wonder (Magnolia).  Dir: Terrence Malick.  IMDb: 6.8 (899 users)