My Oscars Picks

It's coming up to the Academy Awards and I thought that I would put forward my opinions on the big categories for this years event.

Best Picture

Nominees

• 12 Years a Slave
• American Hustle
• Captain Philips
• Dallas Buyers Club
• Gravity
• Her
• Nebraska
• Philomena
• The Wolf of Wall Street

Out of this list I haven't seen Nebraska or Gravity. The Wolf of Wall Street will be a big frontrunner along with American Hustle. I think 12 Years a Slave will also have a decent chance.

Should Win: 12 Years a Slave

Will Win: American Hustle

Best Director

Nominees

• Alfonso Cuaron - Gravity
• Steve McQueen - 12 Years a Slave
• Alexander Payne - Nebraska
• David O. Russell - American Hustle
• Martin Scorsese - The Wolf of Wall Street

All of these directors are well regarded. Scorsese has already won this in the past, but that doesn't mean that the Academy won't give it to him again. McQueen did an excellent job with 12 Years and it looks like he might be a favourite.

Should Win: Steve McQueen

Will Win: Steve McQueen

Best Actor

Nominees

• Christian Bale - American Hustle
• Bruce Dern - Nebraska
• Leonardo DiCaprio - The Wolf of Wall Street
• Chiwetel Ejiofor - 12 Years a Slave
• Matthew McConaughey - Dallas Buyers Club

DiCaprio's performance was very intense, but based on the Academy's previous grudge against him, I don't think he's going to see a win. Ejiofor gave a good performance but not good enough for a newcomer to American screens. McConaughey gave a fantastic performance, but too many people loved American Hustle.

Should Win: Matthew McConaughey

Will Win: Christian Bale

Best Actress

Nominees

• Amy Adams - American Hustle
• Cate Blanchett - Blue Jasmine
• Sandra Bullock - Gravity
• Judi Dench - Philomena
• Meryl Streep - August: Osage County

Despite all the recent Woody Allen controversy, Blanchett's performance in Blue Jasmine is enough to make people forget about it. Her only real competition could come from Streep. I would support Amy Adams if she was nominated for Her.

Should Win: Cate Blanchett

Will Win: Cate Blanchett

Best Supporting Actor

Nominees

• Berkhad Abdi - Captain Philips
• Bradley Cooper - American Hustle
• Michael Fassbender - 12 Years a Slave
• Jonah Hill - The Wolf of Wall Street
• Jared Leto - Dallas Buyers Club

I wish that they were able to split the award between to people because I want both Leto and Fassbender to win this award. I think Fassbender has a bit more of a chance. But like with Best Actor, I think the popularity of American Hustle will come out for Cooper.

Should Win: Michael Fassbender

Will Win: Bradley Cooper

Best Supporting Actress

Nominees

• Sally Hawkins - Blue Jasmine
• Jennifer Lawrence - American Hustle
• Lupita Nyong'o -12 Years a Slave
• Julia Roberts - August: Osage County
• June Squibb - Nebraska

Nyong'o was fantastic but the heavy-hitters here are Roberts and Lawrence. I didn't fancy Lawrence's performance too much and Roberts did a great job.

Should Win: Julia Roberts

Will Win: Jennifer Lawrence

Best Original Screenplay

Nominees

• American Hustle - Eric Warren Singer and David O. Russell
• Blue Jasmine - Woody Allen
• Dallas Buyers Club - Craig Borten and Melissa Wallack
• Her - Spike Jonze
• Nebraska - Bob Nelson

Both Dallas Buyers Club and Blue Jasmine were masterfully written, but for me Spike Jonze wrote a fantastic film about modern relationships with Her.

Should Win: Her

Will Win: Her

Those are my picks for the big awards this year. I would write my views on all of them, especially the technical awards that I love, but I haven't seen all the films and that would take forever to write about.

Dallas Buyers Club

Lately Matthew McConaughey has really shown that he is the serious actor that he has always been. After a breakout role in Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused, he took on a lot less challenging roles in rom-coms like Fool's Gold, How To Lose a Guy In 10 Days and The Wedding Planner. But over the last few years he is starring in more serious films that showcase his fantastic acting ability. Dallas Buyers Club may be his best ever.

Ron Woodroof (McConaughey) is a homophobic electrician and rodeo cowboy. After a work accident, Ron wakes up in hospital to discover that he is HIV positive and is given only thirty days to live by his doctors. Initially in denial about his condition, Ron soon accepts his fate and begins looking at medicines that can help. After running out of a trial medication, he travels to Mexico to find a doctor who has some medication. The doctor puts him onto a new medication which Ron decides to start selling in the US. In hospital, Ron meets Rayon (Jared Leto), a transgender woman, and the two start doing business together.

McCaonaughey gives a captivating performance as Woodroof. His magnetic acting skills give Woodroof a deep and meaningful character. One scene, where Ron realises how he managed to contract the virus is a true testament to his skill, not to mention his huge weight loss which really showed his dedication to the role.

Jared Leto's return to the screen is with a mesmerising performance as Rayon. This is Leto's first role since the sci-fi flick Mr. Nobody, but he's also had some good roles in Requiem for a Dream and American Psycho. His performance here is absolutely amazing and heartbreaking at the same time.

Verdict: A fantastic film about about a part of the Aids crisis that I knew very little about.

RoboCop

I was just as skeptical as everyone else when I heard that they were going to remake Paul Verhoeven's 1987 classic RoboCop. There had already been a remake of Total Recall and there's probably one in the pipeline for Starship Troopers (I seriously hope that doesn't happen). I believed that the new film would gloss over the subtext and satire of the original and just make a straight action film. I was totally wrong. It is insanely satirical and ironic and even, in its own way, anti-American.

The set-up and plot are basically the same as the original. Hero cop Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) angers a Detroit crime boss and gets blown up in the process. Multinational conglomerate OmniCorp, which develops military-grade robotics for every country but America is desperate to break into the market in its home nation. They need a product that will appeal to the American people with a human touch, so with the help of Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) they create RoboCop, using the near dead body of Alex Murphy. Murphy soon finds out the capitalist intentions of OmniCorp and it's sleazy CEO Raymond Sellers (Michael Keaton) and embarks on a mission to stop them.

Gone is the original's religious allegory for RoboCop being a metaphor for Jesus, that was something put in at the behest of Paul Verhoeven. Instead this film takes a harsh look at US foreign policy in a pre-credits sequence that takes place in Iran with a US "freedom" operation taking place. This is a reference to the the current unfriendly relationship between Iran and the US. In this sequence, there is a hilarious reference to WikiLeaks hackers attacking Greenpeace in the CNN style news crawl at the bottom of the screen.

I bring that up because the next thing that the film satirises is the far-right news stations in the US, such as Fox News. This show is hosted by an incredibly restrained Samuel L. Jackson, who despite his best effort lets slip his trademark 'motherfucker' line. In his news segments, he attacks the liberal opponents to the integration of robots into society, just like Bill O'Reilly is wont to do on Fox News in opposition to whatever left-wing policy is trying to be passed.

The film is also an opponent of flagrant capitalism that takes place in the US. This was present in the original, but here it takes the concept to a whole new level. The evil Sellers wants to introduce his products into the US because he believes that would yield an extremely higher profit for him. He and his colleagues wish to exploit RoboCop for every dollar he can bring them.

The final nail in the coffin of this film being un-American comes down to its casting. This may be a long shot, so bear with me. When I first saw who was going to be in the film, I felt dismay, great actors such as Gary Oldman and the best Batman of them all, Michael Keaton, had been relegated to acting in remakes of classic 80s films. But now I see that all the casting was strategic. All the 'good guy' roles are played by non-American actors, Joel Kinnaman is Swedish, Abbie Cornish is Australian and Gary Oldman is British, all the antagonists are played by American actors. The sole exception to this rule is Michael K. Williams, but he is the only exception.

Verdict: An insanely satirical film where most of the subtext will fly over some viewers heads, but still a great action film.

The Great Beauty

Much like The Wolf of Wall Street, The Great Beauty focuses on excess. But rather than have a blow-by-blow account of one's excessive lifestyle, the film chooses to reflect on such a life.

Jep Gambadella (Toni Servillo) is a socialite who lives off the fame and fortune brought to him by his early success as a writer in his plush Roman apartment. He spends most of his nghts either attending luxurious parties or dining with his friends.

Paolo Sorrentino has crafted a film that is excellent in its ambiguity. There are questions and emotions that are raised by Jep that are left open ended for the audience to interpret and contemplate in their own time. Most of these questions have to do with relationships, spirituality and the overall meaning of life.

Toni Servillo is fantastic as Jep, a character who is funny and also contradictory, such as when he tells another character the rules for how to behave at a funeral and then immediately breaks said rules in front of that character. Servillo displays the sadness behind the hedonistic Jep with grace.

The cinematography is also a marvel. The film shows the beauty of Rome (indeed it is a great beauty) with such vibrance and the hedonistic parties are shot with amazing dazzling colours and angles that really capture the drunken lifestyles that are had by the revellers. It had such a great affect on me, that I now wish to attend such a party.

Verdict: A beautiful film that searches for the meaning of life in the high life of contemporary Rome.

12 Years a Slave

Steve McQueen makes confronting films. His previous two, Hunger and Shame, were especially confronting for their portrayals of both the struggles of the 1981 Irish hunger strike and a New York sex addict, respectively. 12 Years a Slave is no less confronting than those two films.

The film follows the true story of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a freed slave, who is sold back into slavery in a set of nefarious circumstances. Solomon eventually ends up as the property of Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), a psychotic cotton plantation owner, after attacking a carpenter at his previous plantation. Epps is an especially cruel master and regularly punishes his slaves. Solomon tries many times to get word back to his family, but is unable to, due to the resistance of people around him who are too afraid.

McQueen superbly conveys the pain of his characters in the film. Likewise, he is unflinching in the depiction of violence toward the slaves. At many times the whippings and lynchings are extremely hard to watch. What's even more hard to comprehend is the fact that this actually occurred, not only in the case of Solomon Northup, but to slaves throughout the South in the pre-Civil War period.

Chiwetel Ejiofor (Love Actually) plays Solomon with such pain that I could see through his performance to the reality of both the character and the actual man within who feels for the injustices that happened in the past. Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) is amazing as Solomon's previous master.

The most amazing performance for me comes from McQueen's muse Michael Fassbender (Shame). His ugly and honest portrayal of a southern plantation owner is painful to watch, but that's a good thing. If you like his character there's something wrong with you.

Verdict: An extremely confronting film about a dark time in not just the history of the United States, but the history of man in general.

The Wolf of Wall Street

Leonardo DiCaprio seems to be drawn to movies about excess. And excess is the name of the game in The Wolf of Wall Street.

Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) begins his career working for the shady Mark Hanna (Mathew McConaughey). Belfort loses his job after the firm he works at fails on Black Monday (which is something I'm guessing people in economics will know about). His wife Teresa (Cristin Milioti) encourages him to get a job at boiler room outfit that sells penny stocks, run by Dwayne (Spike Jonze). Once Belfort realises that he can make a higher commission selling these stocks, he begins to accrue wealth and begins a company with Donny Azoff (Jonah Hill), where the two embark on a lifestyle of excess and debauchery. This behaviour grabs the attention of FBI Agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler), who begins to investigate him for a number of financial frauds.

The film is fantastically hilarious from beginning to end. Leo once again proves he is one of the greatest actors of his generation and that he can also be comedic. The film runs for 179 minutes and by the end I did start to feel the effects of that length of time. Although it's a gripping film, I felt as though it ran twenty minutes too long.

Leo's performance is fantastic and he has a great chemistry with the rest of the cast, especially Margot Robbie, who plays his second wife, and Rob Reiner, who plays his father. Robbie is insanely good in this film and I can't imagine how hard it is for an Aussie to pull of a Long Island accent like that or for such a long time.

Jonah Hill also shows that he has game as a serious actor. I know he's been trying for a while and he really breaks through with this film, whilst still drawing on his talents as a comedian. Jon Bernthal is someone who I've had a hard time getting behind (mainly for his role of Shane on The Walking Dead), but his talent playing for playing the scumbag is well utilised in this film. Also the Spike Jonze cameo just made me laugh.

Verdict: Martin Scorsese crafts a wonderful piece of art about the excesses of the Wall Street rich whilst being devilishly funny and accurate. Bonus points for the hilarious joke about cerebral palsy (which I laughed at harder than anyone in the cinema).

Inside Llewyn Davis

The Coen brothers are fantastic filmmakers. They can make light-hearted films (The Big Lebowski), brooding pseudo-action films (No Country for Old Men) and crime films (Blood Simple). Almost all their films are funny. And so is Inside Llewyn Davis. At times. Mostly though, it's just cold and a little sad.

Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is a struggling folk singer. He used to be doing okay until his partner committed suicide. He drifts around staying at his friends apartments in Greenwich Village. The film centres on a week in his life as he tries to get recognised for his solo music, playing gigs, helping his friend Jim (Justin Timberlake) record a new song and traveling across the country to visit a manager.

The film was very weak on story, which is very unlike a Coen brothers film. Normally, they fill a film with so many plot points and characters, it's hard to keep up. But this film is more character based. I'm not sure how I feel about that approach.

On the other hand, the performances are fantastic. Oscar Isaac has really shown that he has what it takes to be a lead actor. In the past he's only been in supporting roles, but he shows an emotional range in this film that can't be ignored. Carey Mulligan (who played Isaac's wife in Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive) is fantastically cold as Jean, a fellow folk singer. There are some great performances by Adam Driver (Girls) and John Goodman (everything!) too.

I was not expecting (and a little stupidly on my part) for all the songs to be played in full. I was a little taken back by this, but it is a movie about a musician so I should have seen it coming. Folk music just isn't my thing.

Verdict: I was a little let down by this film, but then again I don't know what I was expecting. Oscar Isaac gives a fantastic performance.