Oscar Preview: What Movies to Watch to Prepare for the Oscars in March
The Oscars is annually the most prestigious award show for actors. However, a lot of fans are turned off by the awards because they aren’t familiar with the movies being nominated. While everyone is going to see movies like the Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean, much smaller movies like Hotel Rwanda, Million Dollar Baby, and Good Night and Good Luck are the ones receiving the Oscar nominations.
Sometimes it’s not even that the movie goers wouldn’t like the serious story in these movies, but rather they just don’t even know about them. So I thought I would help you all out and give a list of ten movies that could be receiving Oscar nominations this year. That way you can be sure to look for them and maybe this year you’ll have some idea of who should win the Oscar.
Dreamgirls
Dreamgirls follows the rise of a group of women who have formed a promising trio called the Dreamettes. They are discovered by a manager, Curtis Taylor, Jr. (Jamie Foxx) who gets them a spot as a backup singer for a headliner James Early (Eddie Murphy). Eventually thanks to Curtis’s direction the Dreamettes get their own chance at the spotlight. The lead singer, Effie (Jennifer Hudson), gets replaced by the more attractive Deena (Beyonce Knowles).
Eventually Effie gets kicked out of the group completely and the Dreamettes enjoy success, but with success comes a lot of other problems.
Possible Nominations – Best Picture, Best Director (Bill Condon), Best Actor (Jamie Foxx), Best Actress (Beyonce Knowles), Best Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Hudson)
Flags of our Fathers
Flag of our Fathers, directed by Clint Eastwood, recounts the ultimately tragic tale of five young United States Marines, and one United States Navy corpsman photographed raising an American flag atop
Mount Suribachi in the midst of the great Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II. The movie is expected to focus on what happened to the men after the famous battle. Flag of Our Fathers will show the difference between the truth and the myth of the event, the meaning of being a hero, and the essence of the human experience of war.
Possible nominations – Best Picture, Best Director (Clint Eastwood), Best Actor (Ryan Phillippe), Best Supporting Actor (Adam Beach, Jamie Bell and/or Barry Pepper)
Babel
When two Moroccan boys set out to look for their family’s herd of goats an accident causes the lives of four separate groups of strangers on three different continents to collide. Caught up in the accident are a vacationing American couple (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett), a rebellious Japanese teenager (Rinko Kikuchi) and her father (Koji Yakusho) and a Mexican nanny (Adriana Barraza) who without permission takes two American children across the border.None of these strangers will ever meet despite the sudden connection between them and they all will remain isolated due to their own inability to communicate meaningfully with anyone around them.
Possible Nominations – Best Picture, Best Director (Alejandro Gonzalez), Best Actor (Brad Pitt), Best Supporting Actor (Gael Garcia Bernel), Best Supporting Actress (Cate Blanchett and/or Rinko Kikuchi)
Little Children
Kate Winslett, Patrick Wilson, and Jennifer Connelly star in Little Children, the latest work from Oscar-nominated writer/director Todd Field. Based on the novel by Tom Perotta, Little Children centers on a handful of individuals whose lives intersect on the playgrounds, town pools and streets of their small community in surprising and potentially dangerous ways.
Possible Nominations – Best Picture, Best Actor (Patrick Wilson), Best Actress (Kate Winslett), Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Connelly)
The Last King of Scotland
In The Last King of Scotland a Scottish doctor (James McAvoy) on a Ugandan medical mission becomes entangled with one of the world’s most barbaric figures: Idi Amin. Impressed by Garrigan’s attitude under pressure in a moment of crisis, the self-appointed Ugandan President Amin hand picks Garrigan as his personal physician. Garrigan is at first flattered and fascinated by his new position but eventually realizes Amin’s savagery and tries to right his wrongs and escape .
Possible Nominations – Best Picture, Best Actor (
Forest
Whittaker)
The Departed
The Departed is set in
South Boston, where the state police force is waging war on Irish-American organized crime. Young undercover cop Billy Costigan (DiCaprio) is assigned to infiltrate the mob syndicate run by gangland chief Frank Costello (Nicholson). While Billy quickly gains Costello’s confidence, Colin Sullivan (Damon), a hardened young criminal who has infiltrated the police department as an informer for the syndicate, is rising to a position of power in the Special Investigation Unit.
Each man becomes deeply consumed by his double life, gathering information about the plans and counter-plans of the operations he has penetrated. But when it becomes clear to both the mob and the police that there’s a mole in their midst, Billy and Colin are suddenly in danger of being caught and exposed to the enemy-and each must race to uncover the identity of the other man in time to save himself. But is either willing to turn on the friends and comrades they’ve made during their long stints undercover?
Possible Nominations – Best Picture, Best Director (Martin Scorsese), Best Supporting Actor (Jack Nicholson)
Goya’s Ghosts
In 1792 in Spain, amidst the turmoil of the French Revolution, renowned painter Francisco Goya becomes embroiled in the Spanish Inquisition after his beautiful muse Ines is accused of being a heretic and put on trial. Goya must beg for her life to be spared through his old friend Lorenzo, a power-hungry monk who is spearheading the revival of the Inquisition. Ines is imprisoned, tortured, and left to perish in the dungeons, while Lorenzo is eventually banished from the Spanish church. Some twenty years pass, and Goya is at the height of his creativity, but he has become deaf and somewhat insane. The three meet again after the French abolish the Inquisition and set the prisoners free, and Lorenzo becomes Napoleon’s chief prosecutor against his former Spanish allies.
Possible Nominations – Best Actor (Stellan Skarsgard), Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem), Best Supporting Actress (Natalie Portman)
Factory Girl
A beautiful, wealthy young party girl drops out of Harvard in 1965 and heads to
New York
to become Holly Golightly. When she meets a hungry young, artist named Andy Warhol, he promises to make her the star she always wanted to be. And like a super nova she explodes on the
New York
scene only to find herself slowly lose grip on reality…
Possible Nominations – Best Actor (Guy Pearce)
Fur
Nicole Kidman stars as legendary photographer Diane Arbus. Set in New York in the late 1950s, the film explores an unlikely romance that leads Arbus into a strange new world, sparking her evolution into one of the most provocative and visionary photographers of all time.
Possible Nominations – Best Actress (Nicole Kidman), Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey Jr.)
The Prestige
From the time that they first met as young magicians on the rise, Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) were competitors. However, their friendly competition evolves into a bitter rivalry making them fierce enemies-for-life and consequently jeopardizing the lives of everyone around them. Full of twists and turns, The Prestige is set against the backdrop of turn-of-the-century London, the exceptional cast includes two-time Oscar winner Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansen and David Bowie.
Possible Nominations – Best Picture, Best Director (Christopher Nolan), Best Actor (Hugh Jackman and/or Christian Bale)
