Oscar nominations in...

The 2011 Academy Award nominees were revealed today, a week after I made my own predictions. I'm happy to say that I was mostly right in my guesses, though not entirely. I got 9/10 Best Picture nominations correct, but was wrong when I said 'Monsters' might be in with a shot. I went so far as to list a number of alternate picks that I thought might be included if one from my list were not. But even among all of those I never saw the nomination for 'Winter's Bone' coming. It shouldn't have been too big a surprise though, as the film was met with overwhelmingly strong reviews and touted as an awards contender when it was released last year. I guess the fact that I didn't personally like it all that much forced it out of my mind.

I fared less well in the other categories. I got 3/5 Best Actor nominees, as I thought Ryan Gosling ('Blue Valentine') and Mark Wahlberg ('The Fighter') were certainties. But rather it was last year's victor Jeff Bridges ('True Grit') and previous winner Javier Bardem ('Biutiful') who got the nod. I got 4/5 Best Actress picks right, with my only mistake being to include Julianne Moore ('The Kids Are All Right') over Nicole Kidman ('Rabbit Hole').



I was close with my predictions for Best Director. Though my pick of 'The Kids Are All Right' director Lisa Cholodenko over Joel and Ethan Coen ('True Grit') was a mistake - though not an unhappy one. In the supporting categories I got 6/10 right - but as I said before, those categories are probably the hardest main awards to call. Anyone can get nominated for almost anything. Case in point, Australian film 'Animal Kingdom' gets its sole major nod in the Best Supporting Actress category with Jacki Weaver listed. The young star of 'True Grit' Hailee Steinfeld was also a surprise inclusion. Best Supporting Actor seemed like it might be less problematic, but I also got two of those names wrong. Michael Douglas didn't get his widely expected nod for 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps', but Jeremy Renner ('The Town') and John Hawkes ('Winter's Bone') were included.

I've posted the main categories below (as stolen from Deadline). I've emboldened those who I think will win on the night:

BEST PICTURE
127 HOURS (Fox Searchlight)
An Hours Production Christian Colson, Danny Boyle and John Smithson, Producers
BLACK SWAN (Fox Searchlight)
A Protozoa and Phoenix Pictures Production Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver and Scott Franklin, Producers
INCEPTION (Warner Bros)
A Warner Bros. UK Services Production Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers
THE FIGHTER (Paramount)
A Relativity Media Production David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman and Mark Wahlberg, Producers
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (Focus Features)
An Antidote Films, Mandalay Vision and Gilbert Films Production Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and Celine Rattray, Producers
THE KING'S SPEECH (The Weinstein Co)
A See-Saw Films and Bedlam Production Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers
THE SOCIAL NETWORK (Sony Pictures)
A Columbia Pictures Production Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
TOY STORY 3 (Walt Disney)
A Pixar Production Darla K. Anderson, Producer
TRUE GRIT (Paramount)
A Paramount Pictures Production Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
WINTER'S BONE (Roadside Attractions)
A Winter's Bone Production Anne Rosellini and Alix Madigan-Yorkin, Producers

BEST ACTOR
JEFF BRIDGES - TRUE GRIT (Paramount)
JAVIER BARDEM - BIUTIFUL (Roadside Attractions)
JESSE EISENBERG - THE SOCIAL NETWORK (Sony Pictures)
COLIN FIRTH - THE KING’S SPEECH (The Weinstein Company)
JAMES FRANCO - 127 HOURS (Fox Searchlight)

BEST ACTRESS
ANNETTE BENING - THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (Focus Features)
NICOLE KIDMAN - RABBIT HOLE (Lionsgate)
JENNIFER LAWRENCE - WINTER’S BONE (Roadside Attractions)
NATALIE PORTMAN - BLACK SWAN (Fox Searchlight)
MICHELLE WILLIAMS - BLUE VALENTINE (The Weinstein Co) -though never write off the lobbying power of the Weinstein's!

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
CHRISTIAN BALE - THE FIGHTER (Paramount)
JOHN HAWKES - WINTER’S BONE (Roadside Attractions)
JEREMY RENNER - THE TOWN (Warner Bros)
MARK RUFFALO - THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (Focus Features)
GEOFFREY RUSH - THE KING’S SPEECH (The Weinstein Company)

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
AMY ADAMS - THE FIGHTER (Paramount)
HELENA BONHAM CARTER - THE KING’S SPEECH (The Weinstein Company)
MELISSA LEO - THE FIGHTER (Paramount) -he's the favourite, but I'm backing Adams at the third attempt
HAILEE STEINFELD - TRUE GRIT (Paramount)
JACKI WEAVER - ANIMAL KINGDOM (Sony Pictures Classics)

BEST ANIMATED PICTURE
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (DreamWorks Animation)
TOY STORY 3 (Walt Disney)
THE ILLUSIONIST (Sony Pictures Classics)

BEST DIRECTOR
DARREN ARONOFSKY - BLACK SWAN (Fox Searchlight)
DAVID FINCHER - THE SOCIAL NETWORK (Sony Pictures)
TOM HOOPER - THE KING'S SPEECH (The Weinstein Co.)
JOEL AND ETHAN COEN - TRUE GRIT (Paramount)
DAVID O. RUSSELL - THE FIGHTER (Paramount)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
ANOTHER YEAR, Mike Leigh (Sony Pictures Classics)
THE FIGHTER, Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson, Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson (Paramount)
INCEPTION, Christopher Nolan (Warner Bros)
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg (Focus Features)
THE KING'S SPEECH, David Seidler (The Weinstein Co)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
127 HOURS, Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy (Fox Searchlight)
TOY STORY 3, Michael Arndt, Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich (Walt Disney)
THE SOCIAL NETWORK, Aaron Sorkin (Sony Pictures)
WINTER'S BONE, Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini (Roadside Attractions)
TRUE GRIT, Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (Paramount)

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Algeria, Hors la Loi (Outside the Law) (Cohen Media Group) - A Tassili Films Production
Canada, Incendies (Sony Pictures Classics) - A Micro-Scope Production
Denmark, In a Better World (Sony Pictures Classics) - A Zentropa Production
Greece, Dogtooth (Kino International) - A Boo Production - I want this to win!
Mexico, Biutiful (Roadside Attractions) - A Menage Atroz, Mod Producciones and Ikiru Films Production

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY
Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) - Matthew Libatique
Inception (Warner Bros.) - Wally Pfister
The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company) - Danny Cohen
The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) - Jeff Cronenweth
True Grit (Paramount) - Roger Deakins

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Exit Through The Gift Shop (Producers Distribution Agency) A Paranoid Pictures Production Banksy and Jaimie D'Cruz
Gasland - A Gasland Production Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic
Inside Job (Sony Pictures Classics) - A Representational Pictures Production Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
Restrepo (National Geographic Entertainment) - An Outpost Films Production Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger
Waste Land (Arthouse Films) - An Almega Projects Production Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley

'Winter's Bone' review:

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival, 'Winter's Bone' is a gritty thriller adapted from a novel by Daniel Woodrell. The story concerns a young girl, Ree, who is forced by circumstances (a drug-addicted mother and a father absent through imprisonment) to raise her two young siblings in harsh surroundings of the Ozark Mountains in Missouri, facing immense poverty. Things quickly get worse for Ree when she learns from the local sheriff that her father has left prison, using the family's meager home as his bail bond and that he is nowhere to be found. Ree then sets on a quest to find out what happened to her father in order to save the family home. Is he dead or alive? That is what Ree must discover, and in doing so she must ask a lot of people a lot questions - and not everybody in the small community appreciates it.

Written and directed by Debra Granik, the film stars the young Jennifer Lawrence as Ree. A compelling young actress, I first saw Lawrence Arriaga's 2008 drama 'The Burning Plain', and she is without doubt the best thing about the film, convincing as a tough and capable girl whilst also seeming vulnerable and often desperate. It is Lawrence who carries the film and it's successes are hers. Also good is John Hawkes as Teardrop, Ree's uncle who exhibits a quiet menace as well as warmth and somehow dignity (in spite of his drug dependency and unkempt demeanour). Ree exists in a small town with few options for people of her social class. It is made clear during one scene (in which Ree walks through her high-school) that the only opportunities on offer for most kids are joining the army or having a baby. It is a bleak look at what I suspect for many poor, working class (well, technically lumpenproletariat) Americans is a grim reality.



Yet 'Winter's Bone' troubled me a little, feeling like a sort of "poverty porn" film, taking pride in its ugliness and spending so much of its time focused on "grim realities" that it began feel a little forced. It's a sort of middle-class oriented poverty safari. I suppose much of the same could be said about last year's Sundance winner, 'Precious', and 'Winter's Bone' is similarly relentless in the way things get worse and worse for our protagonist.

Another thing that diminished the film for me, cutting its impact in half, was the sense that I'd seen much of it before and done better, and by another film with a seasonal title. The 2008 film 'Frozen River' (also a Sundance prize winner and also made by a female director in Courtney Hunt) also looks at American, small town poverty from the perspective of one woman. In this case the woman (the Oscar-nominated Melissa Leo) was looking for her husband rather than her father, but for essentially the same reason: to save her home and protect her two children. But 'Frozen River' feels more authentic, being based on the genuine realities of life for people in that part of Upstate New York, and the harshness of the landscape is more visceral - the cold feels colder - and any suspense or thrill is generated by an emotional interest in Leo's character.



'Winter's Bone' enters more traditional thriller territory, generating suspense by way of threat and even violence, featuring a gang of unfriendly locals that wouldn't be out of place in a horror movie, or even a horror video game. It's riddled with cliché "why don't you just turn around and go on back home missy" dialogue and the people and the mise en scène feel like something out of John Hillcoat's adaptation of 'The Road'. The climax of Ree's story is so obviously tailor made to be edgy and disturbing that it ends up feeling slightly ridiculous.

This isn't the last we'll hear of 'Winter's Bone', however. Jennifer Lawrence is hotly tipped to receive an Oscar nomination, and she will deserve it. I hope and expect that there is much more to come from her. But for Debra Granik, whose first feature ('Down to the Bone') was similarly focused on poverty, drug use and the struggle to raise children under these circumstances, I can only see more Sundance-friendly liberal condescension. Middle-class experience, it seems, is not "real" enough as a subject matter. And the poverty safari rolls on in hope of finding some new tragedy around the next corner. Meanwhile, pampered Hollywood actors prepare to cover their perfect faces in dirt all over again in their continuing quest to win golden statues. Now there is a hideous borgeous reality Granik should know something about.

'Winter's Bone' is out now in the UK on a limited release. It has been rated '15' by the BBFC.