Oscar’s Christmas treats in cinemas

AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Chiwetel Ejiofor stars in 12 Years a Slave.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Chiwetel Ejiofor stars in 12 Years a Slave.

Published Nov 20, 2013

Share

Around this time of year, many people look forward to gifts under a tree in their living room. But for US film buffs the best gifts are more likely to be in their local cinema.

With Oscar season at the start of the new year, film studios are rushing their Academy Award contenders into theatres now in order to leave a fresh impression on the minds of Oscar voters. The result is a release calendar over-loaded with the high-brow fare that is normally shunted to art houses.

 

So while during the normal course of the year, Hollywood is consumed with blockbuster sequels and superhuman prequels, the attention of movie houses shifts dramatically every November to the exquisitely crafted films favoured by the ladies and gentlemen of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

This change in mood has already yielded a bounty of treats. From the plantation horror of 12 Years a Slave to the extra-planetary thrills of Gravity, and from the heroism of Captain Phillips to the stoicism of The Butler, thoughtful film fans have had plenty to cheer about of late.

The festivities will continue with Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, a biopic of the legendary South African leader, in which Idris Elba is being touted as a best Oscar winner for his portrayal of the fighter against apartheid.

The Oscar race heats up even more next week as past winners jostle for space in front of cinemagoers.

The brilliant Coen Brothers, who won Oscars for No Country for Old Men and Fargo, will once again wow the high-brow crowd with Inside Llewyn Davis, alook at the life of a singer-songwriter in the turbulent folk-music scene of 1961’s Greenwich Village.

Hitting US cinemas a week later, The Hobbit, The Desolation of Smaug, directed by Peter Jackson, cannot be ignored. But more likely to win the Oscar is American Hustle, by the director of Silver Lining’s Playbook, David O Russell.

The movie is a Seventies era true crime drama starring Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.

Tom Hanks makes his second attempt for the Best Actor Oscar this year, following up his role in Captain Phillips by playing Walt Disney in Saving Mr Banks.

The film, by Blind Side director John Lee Hancock, is about the making of Mary Poppins.

Martin Scorsese will be hoping to add to his meagre Oscar cabinet (Best Director in 2006 for The Departed) with The Wolf of Wall Street. It stars Leonardo Di Caprio in the true story of a high-flying stockbroker who falls into a life of fraud and corruption.

And Meryl Streep stars in the film version of the prize-winning play August: Osage County.

The schedule is so crowded that many studios have decided not to play the Oscar game this year, choosing to postpone releases till next year when they will have a better shot at finding an audience in a less crowded market.

Falling into this category are Grace of Monaco, starring Nicole Kidman, and Foxcatcher, a wrestling drama. George Clooney’s Monuments Men, about soldiers on the hunt for masterworks stolen by Nazis, was also postponed.

Oscar voters may be missing out, but for film fans the prospect of having these quality movies to look forward to next year may seem like a never-ending gift. – Sapa

Related Topics: