By Dankwa Brooks AKA Cool
Black
Of the nine pictures
nominated for "Best Picture" I have seen six of them and they are The
Descendants, The Artist, Midnight in Paris, Hugo, Moneyball and The Help (All posters
from those pictures in the graphic above). My picks for the Oscars will be from
those pictures. (I will also bold in red the correlating nominations.)
My pick will be under “Cool
Black’s Oscar Pick:” These are NOT who I think WILL win; it’s who I think SHOULD
win based on my opinion and those who know me, know I am quite discerning.
As a screenwriter two of my
favorite categories are the two screenwriting ones.
For the record:
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the
Academy Award for the best script not based upon previously published material
and the Academy Award for Best Adapted
Screenplay is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay
adapted from another source (usually a novel, play, or short story but also
sometimes another film). All sequels are automatically considered adaptations
by this standard (since the sequel must be based on the original story).
Writing
(Original Screenplay)
The Artist
Written by Michel Hazanavicius
Bridesmaids
Written by Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
Margin Call
Written by J.C. Chandor
Midnight in Paris
Written by Woody Allen
A Separation
Written by Asghar
Farhadi
Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris. While a lot of people joke that the screenplay for The Artist is about 45 pages because it has no dialogue (average
screenplay about 120 pages) it DOES have a lot of stuff going on and is totally
deserving as is the hilarious Bridesmaids
a really great screenplay with humor and heart, but Woody Allen wrote a truly
wonderful screenplay blending fantasy, humor and real life literary
legends.
Writing
(Adapted Screenplay)
The Descendants
Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon &
Jim Rash
Hugo
Screenplay by John Logan
The Ides of March
Screenplay by George Clooney & Grant Heslov and
Beau Willimon
Moneyball
Screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin
Story by Stan Chervin
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Screenplay by Bridget
O’Connor & Peter Straughan
Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: Steven Zaillian and Aaron
Sorkin for Moneyball. Of the films I saw Moneyball and The Descendents
were the only two worthy of even being considered winning an Oscar. The
screenplay for The Descendents was
great, but the equally great Moneyball made me care about baseball statistics
and baseball trading. Both things I had no interest in.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Artist
Guillaume Schiffman
The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo
Jeff Cronenweth
Hugo
Robert Richardson
The Tree of Life
Emmanuel Lubezki
War Horse
Janusz Kaminski
Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: Robert Richardson for Hugo. Not a real hard choice. Of the
three I’ve seen from the category Hugo’s cinematography clearly stands out.
FILM EDITING
The Artist
Anne-Sophie Bion and Michel Hazanavicius
The Descendants
Kevin Tent
The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo
Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
Hugo
Thelma Schoonmaker
Moneyball
Christopher Tellefsen
Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: Thelma Schoonmaker for Hugo. This was a really hard choice for me as I have seen all five
nominated films and while all good films no editing REALLY stood out above the
others, but if I had to pick it would be Schoonmaker.
Actor in a Supporting
Role
Kenneth Branagh
My Week with Marilyn
Jonah Hill
Moneyball
Nick Nolte
Warrior
Christopher Plummer
Beginners
Max von Sydow
Extremely Loud &
Incredibly Close
Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: Nick Nolte for Warrior. Having seen only
two of these five performances it clearly goes to Nolte. I really like Jonah
Hill’s performance in Moneyball, but
it wasn’t Oscar worthy. Nolte as usual does an excellent job in the underrated Warrior.
Actress in a Supporting
Role
Bérénice Bejo
The Artist
Jessica Chastain
The Help
Melissa McCarthy
Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer
Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer
The Help
Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: Octavia Spencer for The Help. I REALLY
liked the four performances I saw and all well deserved. Melissa McCarthy’s
performance was hilarious in Bridesmaids. She had me laughing out loud from her
FIRST lines. Jessica
Chastain was really great in The Help and Bérénice
Bejo wonderful
and charming in The Artist, but Octavia
Spencer really surprised me in The
Help HERS was my favorite performance in the film.
Actor in a Leading Role
Demián Bichir
A Better Life
George Clooney
The Descendants
Jean Dujardin
The Artist
Gary Oldman
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt
Moneyball
Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: Jean Dujardin for The Artist. This was another hard choice for me. Of the three I saw they were
all great! I joke on Twitter that I’m #TeamClooney because I’m a huge George
Clooney fan for I think he is one of Hollywood
Actress in a
Leading Role
Glenn Close
Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis
The Help
Rooney Mara
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep
The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams
My Week with Marilyn
Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: Viola Davis
DIRECTING
The Artist
Michel Hazanavicius
The Descendants
Alexander Payne
Hugo
Martin Scorsese
Midnight in Paris
Woody Allen
The Tree of Life
Terrence Malick
Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: Truly
hard choice having seen four of these directors work. Martin Scorsese’s
direction was one of the ONLY things I liked about Hugo, the direction in The
Descendents by Alexander Payne was really good as was the direction
by Michel
Hazanavicius in The Artist, but my PICK has to go to Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris, a truly wonderful film.
BEST PICTURE
The Artist
Thomas Langmann, Producer
The Descendants
Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and
Jim Taylor,
Producers
Extremely Loud
& Incredibly Close
Scott Rudin, Producer
The Help
Brunson Green, Chris Columbus
and
Michael Barnathan, Producers
Hugo
Graham King and Martin
Scorsese, Producers
Midnight in Paris
Letty Aronson and Stephen
Tenenbaum, Producers
Moneyball
Michael De Luca, Rachael
Horovitz and Brad Pitt,
Producers
The Tree of Life
Nominees to be determined
War Horse
Steven Spielberg and Kathleen
Kennedy,
Producers
Cool Black’s Oscar Pick: Again
a hard choice among the six of nine I’ve seen. Of those six at least five deserving of the Best Picture nomination. Since I’m sure you’re wondering which
of those seven DID NOT deserve the nomination for Best Picture it is Hugo. Great cinematography and
direction, but the film just was not good to me. The main character had nothing
remarkable about him and the film was long and meandering.
The Help
was a wonderful film. While I understand the underlying reserve about the film (from the black community I should add) THE FILM is great and deserves all of its acclaim (You can read my review here )
Moneyball was a really great film as I said above
elevated by the great performance of Brad Pitt. I’m not a fan of “sports movies”
or baseball like that, but this film made a great picture out of both.
Midnight in Paris
The Descendents
again a wonderful film. As I stated above George Clooney was FANTASTIC and gave the performance of his career. Not
recognized by the Academy was the EXCELLENT Shailene Woodley as Clooney’s
oldest daughter in the film. The film was indeed great and deserving of all the
acclaim.
I DID NOT want to see this film. What did I want to
see some black & white silent film for? Really?! But a lot of my film
friends I made on the @NotherBrother Twitter raved about the film and as I like
to see ANY film I said let me see what all this talk is about and as one of
those friends Rebecca (@FilmFatale_NYC) of Cinema In Noir
stated something to the effect of “I was
the biggest cynic walking in, but afterwards I just can’t’ stop smiling” I
totally agree with that. The Artist was charming, dashing, heart tugging,
funny, EXCELLENT!
My PICK
for BEST PICTURE has
to go to The Artist.
So that’s it, my picks this
year from all the major categories. If it's one travesty this year and I always seem to have one is that Shailene Woodley was not nominated for her role in The Descendants.
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