HAMMOND: Can Indies Steal Oscars Again?

Previously in Pete Hammond’s 3-part series: Woody Allen, Brad Pitt, ‘The Help’ Among Early 2011Oscar Contenders Clooney, Clint, And Spielberg Put Major Studios Back Into Oscar Race After looking last weekat the potential awards landscape for the first eight months of 2011, and then at what Oscar-pedigreed filmsthe major studios have in store for fall and holiday slots, it’s time to turn to the independent world, which has become such a key force in the season. For the majors, Oscars are nice but not vital. For the indies, award strategies are key and could mean the difference between a hit filmor amiss. With little-pictures-that-could Best Picture triumphs in recent years like Crash, The Hurt Locker and last year’s The King’s Speech, indies have proven that with less money to spend,a savvy campaign and a little luck, the right film at the right time can grab the gold. Ever since the advent of screeners evened the playing field to some extent, it’s been a different ballgame. And the indies use the fall festival circuit (starting next weekat Venice, followed by Telluride and Toronto) tostart up the awards buzz.Already this year, indies likeWoody Allen’s Midnight In Parisand Terrence Malick’s Cannes Film Festival winner The Tree of Life are seriously in the hunt for those prized Best Picture slots and, as detailed by the soon-to-be-released contenders from thecompanies below, they may not be alone among upstart pictures this year. Here’s a look at what possible award contendersfrom the indie sector will be coming our way in the last four — and most crucial — months of the year. The Weinstein Company With The King’s Speech last year, the Weinsteins scored their first Best Picture triumph since the heady days of Miramax. Can they do it two years in a row with another British bio, The Iron Lady? Just about everyone agrees Meryl Streep’s still-unseen portrait of Margaret Thatcher in this Dec. 16 release will put her in strong contention to finally win that thrd Oscar, but can the movie score too? Time will tell, although it would seem to be a better shot in the Actress category. Harvey Weinstein had a big Cannes triumph with the crowd-pleasing black-and-white French-producedsilent pictureThe Artist (Nov 23),and it could have the same effect on the Academy audience that it did with the French, therebyleading to one of those Best Picture slots, even though the movie maynot have enough “gravitas”to sneak in. The Weinsteins will get a good ideawhen it launchesin the English-speaking world next week on the fest circuit. Certainly Cannes Best Actor Jean Dujardin is a great bet for a nomination no matter what. With a busy fall, thecompany is hoping Michelle Williams and Kenneth Branagh — who play Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier in My Week With Marilyn (Nov. 4) — will land actingkudosalongwith Ralph Fiennes (who also directed) in the title role of the contemporary Shakespeare adaptationCoriolanus (Dec. 2).As his mother, Vanessa Redgrave isextraordinary in a beefy supporting turn.She should start getting the gowns for the awards circuitready now. Awards prospects are anybody’s guess for Madonna’s latestdirectorial stab,W.E. (Dec 9), which with its storyline involving Wallis Simpson is certainly different for the pop star. And I hear there is the possibility of a late-season qualifying run for the Jennifer Garner filmButter that has been described as a Capra-esque comedy/drama set in the cutthroat world of competitive butter carving. Fest auds will see this first, and their reaction will probably weigh heavily in Weinstein’s decision to enter that other cutthroat competition. Focus Features With a sterling cast including Gary Oldman as British spy George Smiley and newly minted Oscar winner Colin Firth, this latest adaptation of John Le Carre’s novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, could be butter itself for Oscar voters.There’s lots of buzz already around Oldman’s performance, which the world will see when it premieres at the Venice Film Festival in early September, followed closely by its Sept. 16 opening in England. American audiences will have to wait much longer as I have just learned Focus has switched its statesidedebut from the previously announced date of Nov. 18 to the heart of the holiday (and Oscar) season Dec. 9. Focus will also have its Sundance winnerPariah entering the fray in December and is fully committed to campaigning it as well, particularly for its 17-year-old star Adepero Oduye, who plays a Brooklyn high school student who isn’t exactly what she seems, at least to her more conservative parents. Certainly the success of Precious with Academy votersshould giveFocus hope this can follow a Sundance path to Oscar attention, and definitely Indie Spirits. Fox Searchlight The Fox specialty division has enjoyed consistent success with its awards campaigns, landing eight Academy Awards for Slumdog Millionaire and lots of acting awards, most recently Natalie Portman for Black Swan. Searchlight’s two big upcoming fall hopefuls include another Sundance pickup, Martha Marcy May Marlene (Oct. 21),with a breakout performance from Olsen twin sister Elizabeth Olsen, who they hope will be the Jennifer Lawrence of this year. Then Oscar winner Alexander Payne (for Searchlight’s Sideways) is back with the George Clooney Hawaiian-set family dramaThe Descendants (Nov. 23), which along with Sony’sThe Ides Of March gives Clooney a one-two punch. Buzz is strong and we’ll see how it plays in Toronto, and before that almost certainly I would guessin Telluride, where Payne is a favorite and frequent visitor. Searchlight also finally has Kenneth Lonergan’s (You Can Count on Me) 2006 dramaMargaret in a limited opening Sept. 30 after years of legal battles reportedly over an initial three-hour running time. With a cast including Oscar winners and nominees like Anna Paquin, Matt Damon and Mark Ruffalo you don’t want to discount it, but no one seems to be whispering Oscar Oscar on this one. Sony Pictures Classics Fall is always prime time for the now-20-year-old SPC, and co-presidents Michael Barker and Tom Bernard seem to be banking on world-class directors to put them back in the Oscar race, where they seem to be every year. There’s Pedro Almodovar’s creepy but terrificThe Skin I Live In (Oct 14), which should have won him something at Cannes but didn’t (you made a mistake, jury). There’s David Cronenberg’s period dramaA Dangerous Method (Dec 9), a filmwith tremendous buzz that premieres in Venice on its way to just about every other fall fest. And there’s Roman Polanski’s adaptation of the Tony winning comedyGod of Carnage, now simply renamed Carnage, with a cast including Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, John O’Reilly and Christoph Waltz. With superstar directors like that on your slate, who needs Woody? (Oh wait, they have him too). Another SPC film, Take Shelter, which was a Grand Prize winner during Critics Week in Cannes, comes from director Jeff Nichols, whose only previous feature was Shotgun Stories. But it is just as accomplished as some of the best work from any of SPC’s other directors this year and could figure heavily in the Indie Spirits this year if not beyond. Summit With one Best Picture (The Hurt Locker) already in its young history, Summit’s big fall play is of course The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (Nov 18), the beginning of the end for the Twilight series. While not an Oscar contender unless director Bill Condon is a miracle worker, it should figure heavily just like its predecesors did in the Teen Choice, People’s Choice and MTV Movie Awards if that is any consolation. But in addition to their summer releaseA Better Life, Summit could find serious awards traction in the honest,touching and surprisingly funny cancer drama50/50 (Sept. 30),which offers award-level work from Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anjelica Huston among others. It should play well in Toronto and could be on its way to a niceawards-season run if audiences aren’t turned off by the subject matter. Roadside Attractions With their first Best Pic nominee Winter’s Bone and Foreign-Language and Best Actor nominee Biutiful, Roadside announced last year it was a major new indie force in the Oscar race (it also won Best Documentary Feature for The Cove two years ago). This year its hopes are pinned on the Sundance pickup Margin Call (Oct 21), starring some terrific actors including Kevin Spacey and Jeremy Irons in a riveting dramathat may hit too close to home for stock market investors. Their ace player though could be recent pickup Albert Nobbs, in which Glenn Close reportedly hits it out of the park as a woman who must disguise herself as a man in order to survive in 19th century Ireland. The five-time nominee looks to be back in the race for the first time since 1988, especially if the performance turns out to be as good as the advance buzz among pundits who still haven’t seen it. Toronto is likely their first opportunity. Lionsgate Still a true indie, Lionsgate hasn’t been able to replicate its 2005 Best Picture heist with Crash, one of the all-time great Oscar-campaignsuccess stories. Last year they made a buy of Rabbit Hole at Toronto and turned it around quickly to get Nicole Kidman a Best Actress nod. Failing that kind of quick step again, their hopes seem to ride on the Sept. 9 release of Warrior, an emotional drama from director Gavin O’Connor set in the world of mixed martial arts that has been getting lots of traction in early screenings. Some are comparing it favorably, even more so,to The Fighter.Whether the distrib finds it profitable enough to goon an all-out campaign remains to be seen, but stars Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy are great and Nick Nolte as their n’er-do-well father could land a supporting nod no matter what happens to the film, which will undoubtedly draw strong word-of-mouth. Film District Graham King’s new FilmDistrict boasts Peter Schlessel and Bob Berney on its executive team, some early boxoffice successes like Insidious and Soul Surfer, and now could have the stuff for a few Oscar nominations. With its Cannes-winning (Best Director for Nicolas Winding Refn) noirDrive (Sept 16), Ryan Gosling (who is also in Ides Of March) is great and Albert Brooks is definite supporting fodder as he isuncharacteristically cast as a heavy. Critics will continue to love it, and that could keep it going through the season. Their other contender comes from Angelina Jolie, who makes her directorial and writingdebut with the Bosnian War-set drama In The Land ofBlood and Honey, and Berney tells me she is the real deal and says he was very impressedwhen he saw the film.But we’ll have to wait until Dec. 23 to find out as the film is not currently set to hit the fest circuit. Certainly Oscar voters have rewarded actors-turned-directors, before from Warren Beatty and Robert Redford to Kevin Costner, Clint Eastwood and Mel Gibson. Could Jolie be the first female actingsuperstar to pull off a nomination? Oscilloscope Theboutique company landed a couple of nominations for The Messenger in 2009 and now have their Cannes competition pickupWe Need To Talk About Kevin (Dec. 2) to carry their banner this year. Oscar winner Tilda Swinton’s performance was critically praised, although the filmdeals with heavy subject matter (her son goes on a high school shooting rampage) and got mixed reaction. It won no prizes, although Swinton was certainly deserving.With her serious credin the Academy’s actors branch, she could turn up in a very competitive Best Actress race. Magnolia Magnolia is charging ahead with its beautifully shotend-of-days drama Melancholia evendespite the unfortunate Hitler and Nazi rantings of its director Lars von Trierat his Cannes press conference.Inspite ofhis being banned from the festival, the film still went on to win Best Actress there for star Kirsten Dunst and Magnolia plans at the very leastto make sureawards voters rememberher and not the words of her director. Magnolia quietly qualified the film already in a one-week run deep in the San Fernando Valley. Relativity When Lionsgate said they couldn’t release the film this year, Relativity came to the rescue of Machine Gun Preacher(Sept 23) and are planning their Torontounveiling ofthe true story of a former drug addict turned Christian who helps save orphans in East Sudan. Relativity is hoping to gain traction for star Gerard Butler’s fine performanceina filmthat is much more subtle and affecting than its title might indicate.