Potential Oscar Shocks

The Oscars seem predictable this year, but are there some surprises on the horizon?

The awards season finally comes to an end this weekend with the 84^th Academy Awards, the Oscars, taking place on Sunday evening in Hollywood.  What originally held some promise to be one of the most keenly contested races for quite some time, has, like so many races before, become a procession in favour of one film.

There is no real doubt that The Artist will be dominating the world’s press for the last time on Monday morning, but Oscar has shocked us before and there is the slim possibility that it may do so this year. So, in the most probably vain hope of surprise, let’s go looking for some potential Oscar shocks.

Review: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

The Most Undeserving Best Picture Nominee for a Very Long Time

Well, I didn’t hate it. Not the most encouraging start to a review and I reckon that it’s probably the high point, because Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is one of the most baffling and disappointing Best Picture nominees ever. Often irritating and constantly unmoving, this is a film which completely fails to do justice to the dreadful event of 9/11 which it invokes.

The story is simple enough. A boy, who may have Asperger’s, loses his father in 9/11 and a year later he finds a key amongst his father’s possessions in an envelope simply marked “Black”. Determined that this was left by his dad deliberately, the boy, Oskar (Thomas Horn), goes about New York seeking the lock that the key fits.

BAFTA Preview: Best Actress

There are contenders other than Dame Meryl

A few months ago, the Best Actress category was looking pretty simple. No matter which awards body it was, they were going to vote for Meryl Streep’s incredible, engrossing and moving portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. However, queries have been raised since then about how inevitable Streep’s victory is.