Unbroken has made nearly every list of presumptive 2015 Oscar contenders that I've so far come across, boosted no doubt by the impressive sneak peek timed for the Winter Olympics. But even before a single still from the film was released, it was already circling high on the pundits' radar on the strength of Louie Zamperini's remarkable story, Laura Hillenbrand's bestselling book, and especially the impressive behind-the-scenes talent led by Oscar favorites the Coen brothers and Roger Deakins.
The beautifully shot and emotionally stirring preview which NBC aired during its Sochi Olympics telecast not only validated
Unbroken's status as a contender, but further cemented its position as a frontrunner. If it turns out to be at least as good as the preview suggests, it will almost certainly be among the 5 to 10 films vying for Best Picture. The race for Best Director is tighter if only because there are fewer slots available and its harder for a relative neophyte to join the club. But Angelina's popularity has surged in the last year or so and I am certain her warm and gracious manner towards Sidney Poitier earned her a few new fans among the mostly older Academy directors' branch members. So at this point I think odds are great that
Unbroken will have at least Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography and Soundtrack nods.
-- Fussy
HollywoodElsewhere
Jeff Wells
Nobody knows anything and I’m obviously just guessing at this
stage, but here are the films I’m presuming will be among the final
picks:
1.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s comedic
Birdman (seen in a rough version by a friend last July and described as AGI’s “best, most humanistic work!”); 2.
J.C. Chandor‘s
A Very Violent Year (’80s-set,
Sidney Lumet-ish Manhattan crime drama); 3.
Ridley Scott‘s
Exodus (
Ridley Scott/
Kingdom of Heaven treatment given to Biblical tale of Moses, Egyptians and Hebrew slaves); 4.
Angelina Jolie‘s
Unbroken (World War II survival saga,
All Is Lost/Life of Pi + Japanese prison camp); 5.
Jean Marc Vallee‘s
Wild (makeup-free
Reese Witherspoon discovering herself and the American character on a long-distance hike); 6.
Saul Dibbs‘
Suite Francaise (married rural-residing French woman has affair with German solder during World War II); 7.
Michel Hazanavicius‘
The Search (remake of
Fred Zinneman‘s same-titled 1948 film, relationship between a woman and a young boy in war-torn Chechnya,
Berenice Bejo and
Annette Bening costarring); 8.
Jason Reitman‘s
Men, Women & Chidren (ensemble social-sexual dramedy with
Adam Sandler, Jennifer Garner, Judy Greer, et. al.), and 9.
Sarah Gavron‘s
Suffragette (British-set, turn-of-the-century drama about female voting-rights struggle, script by
The Queen‘s
Abi Morgan, costarring
Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter and
Meryl Streep).
Read the rest at
HollywoodElsewhere
theplaylist
Features
by
Oliver Lyttelton
March 5, 2014 1:19 PM
....
And that generally means one thing: the 2014/2015 awards season is
getting underway. Like it or not, campaigns are being planned for the
months to come, and distributors are ready to start the whole damn thing
again. We'll be doing our best to ignore it for as long as possible,
but to put a cap on our awards coverage until the end of the summer, and
as we've done the last few years, we're going to pick out some of the
films that look likely to dominate proceedings over the next 51 weeks.
Our track record isn't too bad — if you exclude "
Foxcatcher" and "
Monuments Men," whose release dates were delayed into this year,
we called five of the nine Best Picture nominees correctly last February, and
all five of the best Director nominees,
which isn't too shabby. Will we have the same luck this time? You can
take a look at our Top 10 Best Picture picks and 5 That Could Surprise
below, in rough order of likelihood, and stay tuned for our look at the
acting categories next week. As ever, have your own say in the comments
section below.
Our Top 10 Picks
"Unbroken"
A little under ten months from release, and this
true-life tale already looks like a potential heavyweight (even a
frontrunner) on paper, and
Universal have already started selling it as such,
debuting the first-look at footage,
which lays out the story, during the Winter Olympics. So why is this
one already high in the mix? For one, the film is directed by Oscar
darling
Angelina Jolie — two awards, including her humanitarian
prize this year — it's written by a team equally familiar with the
Academy Awards stage (
Richard LaGravenese, nominated for "
The Fisher King";
William Nicholson, nominated for "
Shadowlands" and "
Gladiator"; and the
Coen Bros, who have four Oscars and fourteen nominations between them), and it's based on the book by
Laura Hillebrand, who also provided the source material for Best Picture nominee "
Seabiscuit."
For another, it tells the true story of Olympian Louis Zamperini, an
athlete who fought in World War II, survived a plane crash and 47 days
at sea, before being held for three years in a POW camp. So, yeah, it
has Oscar written all over it (and it's shot by
Roger Deakins too). It might be lacking in traditional star power, as it has relative newcomer
Jack O'Connell in the lead, with
Domhnall Gleeson, Garret Hedlund and
Jai Courtney among the supporting cast. And while Jolie's first film "
In The Land Of Blood And Honey"
failed to get much traction. But that film was tougher (and in a
foreign language), whereas this seems tailor-made for awards success as
long as it's even halfway decent.
Read the rest at
The Playlist
awardscircuit
By Joseph Braverman on March 6, 2014
Why it Could Succeed: One of the biggest female movie stars in the world,
Angelina Jolie
can disappear from the movie scene for a long period of time and come
back with as much salivating support from fans as when she left. I’d
even venture to guess that Jolie’s grand return to film will be one of
the biggest selling points of
Unbroken, despite not starring in
it. You see, folks, for only the second time in her career, Jolie is
taking off the makeup and strapping on her work boots — she’ll be
directing this passion project of hers with the assistance of an
extremely laudable group of screenwriters (Coens, anyone?), a cast
filled with some of the most promising up-and-comers, and a
cinematographer of legendary proportions, Mr. Roger “Oscar-less”
Deakins.
Unlike the War in Iraq/Afghanistan, WWII seems to dominate the box
office like no other period of worldly conflict, so it shouldn’t be too
difficult for Jolie’s film to find success, especially given the fact
that distributing studio Universal has had a consistent outpour of hits
since 2012′s
Les Misérables. Their hot streak is nowhere near
over. Jolie’s close ties to the subject at the center of this WWII
drama, POW survivor and former Olympic athlete
Louis Zamperini
(who is still alive at age 97!), adds an emotional reinforcement to the
film that will no doubt play a major part in the upcoming awards
campaign. Given her dedication to getting this incredible hero’s story
just right, you can pretty much assume Jolie will go for both the
jugular and heart in equal measure. In other words, you better run to
Costco and start loading up on Kleenex before it’s too late.
It also doesn’t hurt matters that
Unbroken is adapted from a biography written by non-fiction author
Laura Hillenbrand, who if you remember penned
Seabiscuit,
the book that was adapted into an Oscar-nominated movie which competed
for the “Best Picture” prize in 2004. HIllenbrand’s work is no stranger
to the Academy Awards, so don’t be surprised if her second novel
also becomes an Oscar fixation. All these ingredients that make up
Unbroken,
who’ve individually gone over well with AMPAS in the past, are bound to
swoon voters once more. Also, don’t for a second think Angelina Jolie’s
Honorary Oscar is going to stop the Academy from heaping more accolades
on this very deserving thespian/humanitarian.
....
Awards Speculation: It’s no doubt crossed people’s minds that if Angelina Jolie were to win
Best Director and
Best Picture for
Unbroken, she’d be the second female ever to do so…
and once
again with a war film. There’s a bittersweet feeling that emerges upon
this realization. On the one hand, I would love to see Jolie win if her
work was stellar and fully deserving of cinema’s highest prize. On the
other, it doesn’t for one minute escape the sad realization that this
would be the second time a woman wins “Best Picture” for a film
belonging to a male-centric genre, with male characters leading the
narrative charge (see: Kathryn Bigalow’s
The Hurt Locker). For
the record, I in no way disapprove of the direction Jolie took on her
second directorial effort, but I do believe that working in a genre
beloved by the old, white male majority that dominates AMPAS’ current
membership
is extremely advantageous. If Jolie, let’s say, were
to direct a romantic comedy or female-driven drama, her stepping stones
to the Oscar ceremony would be wider apart than they currently are
with
Unbroken.
Let’s be clear: Kathryn Bigalow’s historical win in 2010 for
The Hurt Locker increases
the chance that Jolie will have the same level of success on Oscar
Sunday, 2015. The Coen Bros., recently snubbed for their work on
Inside Llewyn Davis, will likely be given the “Oops…we’re sorry!” treatment for their
Unbroken screenplay,
and many are already claiming 2015 as the year that Roger Deakins will
finally win his first Oscar. There’s too many awards baity factors in
this project to simply shrug off, and if it’s as viscerally and
emotionally captivating as we’re being led to believe,
Unbroken could
very well be next recipient of the “Best Picture” prize. Furthermore,
loud, action-heavy war films — especially if they’re on Oscar’s radar —
do pretty well in below-the-line categories.
The biggest question mark will be for the acting nods, since we all
know that without a SAG nomination, your “Best Picture” prospects are
pretty much dead in the water.
Jack O’Connell could easily deliver one of the many “great breakthrough performances by a young male performer under 25″ that ends up
not being recognized by the Academy. Yet, these
Hurt Locker comparisons
are eating away at me and I can’t help but feel O’Connell could pull a
Jeremy Renner and find himself in the “Best Actor” lineup. Winning? Now
that’s crazy talk at this point in time. If AMPAS wants to show it
appreciates Asian performances more than history states it does (little
to none, by the way), perhaps Japanese rock singer-turned-actor
Miyavi might
be a “Supporting Actor” contender for his work as the abusive Sergeant
Mutsuhiro “The Bird” Watanabe, who ran the interment camp Zamperini was
imprisoned in. Also, let’s not forget
Garrett Hedlund
in that same category, who’s been subtly and slowly rising through the
ranks among the current crop of “great” next-gen actors. All in all, I’d
say the incomparable Angelina Jolie has quite the Oscar contender on
her hands if we’re simply looking at current face value. Let’s hope the
final product is the worth the pre-season buzz.
Oscar Potential:
Best Picture
Best Director — Angelina Jolie
Best Actor — Jack O’Connell
Best Supporting Actor — Miyavi, Garrett Hedlund, Jai Courtney, Domhnall Gleeson
Best Adapted Screenplay — The Coens, Richard LaGravenese, and William Nicholson
Best Film Editing
Best Cinematography
Best Original Score
Best Production Design
Best Costume Design
Best Hairstyling and Makeup
Best Visual Effects
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Mixing
Collider
UNBROKEN
Release Date: December 25th
Possible Nominations: Picture, Director, Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography
True story? Check. Based on an inspiring, beloved book? Check.
Well-respected director? Check. Oscar-winning screenwriters? Check.
Unbroken
has the makings of one of the biggest Oscar contenders of the year, and
for good reason. Plenty of filmmakers were vying for the opportunity
to tell the true story of Olympian Louis Zamperini, who survived a plane
crash in WWII only to find himself in a Japanese POW camp, but it was
Angelina Jolie who landed the job. She nabbed
Joel and Ethan Coen to rewrite the screenplay and enlisted probably the best cinematographer working today,
Roger Deakins, to shoot the picture, so it’s with very high expectations that we await the release of
Unbroken. The film’s
Olympics-themed first trailer
was incredibly promising and Zamperini’s story is one of heartbreak and
triumph, so this one has the makings of a potential Oscar juggernaut.
theatlantic
The Oscars in 2015: Very, Very Early Predictions for Next Year's Awards
It's never too early to semi-blindly predict the rest of the year's critical darlings.
Unbroken
Release Date: December 25
The buzz on
Unbroken is already deafening, and surprisingly,
the words “Angelina Jolie” only play a small role in generating it.
Jolie is directing the flick, the real-life story of Italian-American
Olympian Louis Zamperini, who became a prisoner of war during World War
II. The script is based on the acclaimed book by Laura Hillenbrand. Oh
yeah, and it was written by the Coen Brothers. Combine the Coens' record
of brilliance with the surprisingly refined directing chops Jolie
showed off with 2011’s
In the Land of Blood and Honey, and
Unbroken could be a major contender in multiple categories.
Read the rest at
theatlantic
awardsdaily
Top Tier
Fury (November
14) – starring Brad Pitt, written and directed by David Ayer, “A crew
of Americans in Nazi Germany toward the end of World War II embark on a
brave mission.”
Second Tier Wild Cards
Unbroken (December
25) – directed by Angelina Jolie, lensed by Roger Deakins, co-written
by the Coen brothers. It’s going to have to really suck to not figure
in somewhere.
Other Projects of Note
Maleficent (May 30) – Angelina Jolie as the iconic villain
Read the rest at
awardsdaily
