As of right now, I have a list of 72 individual films that could potentially go on to become 2011 Oscar nominees. If you take into consideration the additional films I currently have listed as animated and documentary contenders the list grows to 85 films. As a result I am going to break up this preliminary list of Oscar contenders into four articles and on the fifth day, this coming Friday, I will publish the list in its entirety. I felt it would be easier to digest everything this way as opposed to offering one massive list you probably wouldn’t be able to look over all at once.
As for the list itself, it should be looked at as a guide to potential nominees, not a guarantee, not a lock, but simply films that could potentially go on to be remembered at the year-end Oscar race. A few of these films may not even be released in 2010. Several of these films still don’t have distribution. A few of these films just started production. Suffice to say, this list, as the headline says, is preliminary.
However, taking that into consideration, each day will be presented in alphabetical order and the following day will pick up exactly where the previous left off. So, if you see a spot where a film may have been overlooked please comment below. I have not yet finished work on the new “The Contenders” section and once I open its doors I hope to have as comprehensive a list as possible. As the year goes on several of these films will drop off the list, others will be added and just like last year we will ultimately end up with our front-runners.
With all that said, let’s get started with the first twenty films…
Quick Thoughts: Directed by Danny Boyle whose last film, Slumdog Millionaire, racked up eight Oscars including Best Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay returns with James Franco, who seems to be an actor just prime for Oscar recognition. With Fox Searchlight handling this film you would have to expect they will know exactly what to do with it should it live up to the billing. Just look what they did at the end of last season with the late run for Crazy Heart and Jeff Bridges sweeping the major awards. I also think the Academy may need to make up for the obvious dismissal of Anthony Dod Mantle’s work on Antichrist and give him a look for what I expect to be some great cinematography with what should be a predominately outdoor and on location shoot.
Quick Thoughts: Oscar-nominated Capturing the Friedmans documentarian Andrew Jarecki directs his first feature length narrative All Good Things and fills his cast with the likes of Ryan Gosling, Kirsten Dunst, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kristen Wiig and Frank Langella. The film is described as an intriguing love story and murder mystery set against the backdrop of a New York real estate dynasty in the 1980s. The Weinsteins are no longer distributing domestically as Jarecki spent several million dollars to regain the U.S. rights and now he and his team at Creative Artists Agency are meeting with potential distributors and hope to have a deal in place shortly.
Quick Thoughts: “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” director/producer Richard J. Lewis is taking a stab at feature film directing for the first time since his debut feature release Whale Music in 1994, but this time around he has attracted a much more impressive cast including Paul Giamatti, Dustin Hoffman, Rosamund Pike, Minnie Driver, Rachelle Lefevre , Scott Speedman and Bruce Greenwood . The synopsis is limited, but the cast makes it an attractive prospect as it tells the story of the politically incorrect, fully lived life of the impulsive, irascible and fearlessly blunt Barney Panofsky (Giamatti). Michael Konyves adapted the story from Mordecai Richler’s novel.
