Culture -- 18 days ago
Words: Vincent Lim
Year on year, we hear about the favourites for the Academy Awards’ Best Picture. It can get tiresome at times, and punters have already identified their favourites, such as Mr Turner, Boyhood, and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Sometimes, however, a film such as Shakespeare in Love beats a behemoth like Saving Private Ryan to the film industry’s greatest award. It could happen again.
Whiplash
A film about a young jazz musician, pushed to his mental and physical boundaries by impossibly tough instructor, J.K Simmons, Whiplash looks to be an engrossing masterstroke from Damien Chazelle. The film made an indelible impression on Sundance, where it opened the festival, and the film’s representation of the perfectionism and hard work that goes into creating one’s art may well chime with those at the Academy.
Foxcatcher
Starring Steve Carrell in an uncharacteristically serious role, along with Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher is set to be one of the most gripping crime dramas of the season. If it can achieve the publicity it deserves, despite the infamously poor promotion of Sony Classics, this is sure to be a very strong candidate indeed.
Gone Girl
With such influential stars as Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, and Neil Patrick Harris, David Fincher’s Gone Girl certainly has a plot to match his cast. The film has been adapted from a New York Times Bestseller, and if the performance of adaptation, 12 Years a Slave, is anything to go by, Gone Girl could well go on and take the prize.
The Imitation Game
Although the life of Alan Turing may seem like a rather niche subject for an Oscar winning film, there is every chance that the Academy will fall in love with the quintessential Britishness of the production; with Benedict Cumberbatch and Kiera Knightley being but two of the cast’s famous British contingent, and considering the impressive team behind the film, The Imitation Game may well crack the Oscar judges hearts.
Into the Woods
It’s rare that a Disney film is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and even rarer for a musical to win it, so it would appear the odds are stacked against Into the Woods. However, with a star cast including Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, and Anna Kendrick, amongst others, Into the Woods could be a surprise winner.
