Following in the gloried footsteps of 12 Years a Slave and Colin Firth, the march towards an Oscars dust-up has begun for The Imitation Game and Benedict Cumberbatch, following the former’s big win at last weekend’s TIFF finale.
For the Toronto International Film Festival is the second telling smoke-signal for things to come over the next few months; the People’s Choice Award winner is likely to feature among the Best Picture nominees come February’s Academy Awards and, like 12YaS, The King’s Speech and Slumdog Millionaire in the last six years alone, could well go on and win the whole darn caboodle. (The first – in case you were wondering – is obviously the prescience of this very blog.)
Rhys Darby looked sheepish after asking for a photo with Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley and their mates (Credit: Hannah Yoon/The Canadian Press)
As for its star…it’s ironic, I guess – a film about a man whose sole mission is to prevent the Nazis from taking over the world, played by an actor that is clearly hell-bent on invading and occupying Hollywood. Like a rogue panzer behind enemy lines, Cumberbatch’s otter-faced one-man mission to star in every film ever made continues in debonair earnest. Continue reading →
Toronto may or, indeed, may not be the city of Mounties, Bryan Adams, maple syrup and Greg Rusedski.
Irrespective of the correctitude of the above already equivocal assertion, Toronto is also – presumably by sheer serendipity – home of the Toronto International Film Festival or, if you’re cool like me, TIFF.
“Exactly how cool are you?” you may well rudely ask. Well, let’s put it this way: I wear the face of my watch on the inside of my wrist and sprinkle cinnamon on my Starbucks latte…at the same time (sometimes). That cool.
See, told you ‘TIFF’ was cool. It’s on an orange background, for cripes sake…
I’m also sufficiently cool to know that TIFF is the true starting pistol for the annual Oscars race. Forget the false starts of Cannes and Venice, whose top prizes – respectively the Palme d’Or and the Golden Lion – have only once in 110 attempts gone to the eventual Best Picture winner (that being the Ernest Borgnine comedy Marty(1955, 4 wins, 8 noms) which won at Cannes).
To drag the athletics/Olympics/athletics at the Olympics analogy to its inevitably West Indian limit, the Usain Bolts of recent years that have gone on to break the Oscar finishing tape in first place are The King’s Speech (2010, 4 wins, 12 noms), Slumdog Millionaire (2008, 8 wins, 10 noms) and American Beauty (1999, 5 wins, 8 noms). Chariots of Fire (1981, 4 wins, 7 noms) fittingly completes the golden quartet over the course of the last 34 awards.
Perhaps more interestingly (if you can imagine such a thing) is the fact that of the 20 TIFF winners that are English-language cinematic non-documentaries, 20% of the time they have gone on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. This is a pretty good strike rate, considering that the Oscars ceremony is still five months away, particularly when compared to the lousy 1.6% and 0% conversion figures of Cannes and Venice respectively.
Throw in the likes of Precious (2009, 2 wins, 6 noms), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, 4 wins, 10 noms and former BTV Film of the Week), Life is Beautiful (1997, 3 wins, 7 noms), Shine (1996, 1 win, 7 noms), Places in the Heart (1984, 2 wins, 7 noms) and The Big Chill (1983, 0 wins, 3 noms) and of all Toronto’s cinematic non-documentary winners, a third earn nominations for the big one. Bear in mind that in the vast majority of those contests, the category only allowed five nominees instead of the new system allowing up to ten, and Toronto’s victor now probably has roughly an even chance* of being nominated.
[* Note that this reasoning has been scientifically proven using the empirical measurement known as the ‘Hunch’]
So what does this mean for this year’s TIFF People’s Choice winner Silver Linings Playbook? I should imagine that it means that director David O. Russell and star Bradley Cooper are permitting themselves broad, somewhat smug, grins…
Cooper could almost see the $ signs as Russell described the concept for his Stuck on You sequel (Credit: Chris Opalla (but only for the photo…the joke was all mine))
It also means that it becomes an immediate front-runner for inclusion in the final showdown in February. David O. Russell’s name will be fresh in the hazy memory of the even the eldest of Academy members; a couple of years ago his The Fighter (2010, 2 wins, 7 noms) picked up two Oscars (a pair of supporting actor gongs (a.k.a. a “brassiere”?) for Christian Bale and Melissa Leo) and a further five nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Throw in the hottest thing in Hollywood , Jennifer Lawrence, who herself picked up a nomination two years ago for Winter’s Bone (2010, 0 wins, 4 noms), Jacki Weaver, who lost out to Melissa Leo two years ago, and Robert De Niro, and Silver Linings Playbook – whose plot revolves around two people with ‘problems’ who seek solace in each other’s weirdness – has a great chance of filling the ‘quirky-yet-philisophical’ comedy nomination that the likes of Jason Reitman and Alexander Payne have thrived on over the last few years.
The filmis released in the U.K. on 21st November and, until then we’ll have to make do with the rather annoying trailer (below). But don’t let that put you off; The Kids Are All Right had an annoying trailer too and that turned out to be a brilli…actually, on second thoughts, forget that train of thought.
His name's Adam Marshall and he LOVES talking about himself in the third person. He thinks he's an expert but the truth is that he probably just likes talking about the films and the Oscars and the such.
I hope...that is to say, he hopes...that you like the words that are written down.
Bloscars 