Oscar's Fabulous Five

Keira Knightley in Atonement, Alex Bailey

It’s been an emotional journey, but this year’s 80th Academy Award ceremony will be going ahead as planned after US film and television writers voted to end their 100-day strike last Tuesday.

The strike, bringing scores of US shows to a standstill, may have been enough to trigger a coronary in Hollywood’s beating heart, but for us mere mortals it’s brought welcome relief from the slew of big star talk-show appearances which never fail to dominate the pre-Oscar build up.
The time has passed for profile-boosting on US prime-time shows, and come February 24, the 5829 voting members of the Academy will be making up their own minds as to who is hot, and who is merely Oscar-nominated.
Winners will be basking in the golden aura of Oscar glory for years to come, attracting hordes of media attention and higher salaries, not to mention the skyrocketing box office sales for the film scooping Best Picture.
But of course this accolade’s all about honouring outstanding achievement in motion picture production, and this year sees a meaty spread of contenders from bloody epics by established film makers to an earnest indie breakthrough from a gutsy newcomer. 
We look at the five nominees up for Best Picture.


THERE WILL BE BLOOD
This artfully spun tale, a loose adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil!, charts the rise of ambitious misanthropist Daniel Plainview from silver miner to mighty oil tycoon when he strikes it big in the California desert.
Armed with his young son H.W. (played by child actor Dillon Freasier), Plainview sets about building his empire one well at a time, until young man Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) provides valuable information on a piece of land rich in black gold – the Sundays’ ranch in Little Boston.
There he meets Paul’s brother, evangelist Eli Sunday (also played by Paul Dano), and our closely-guarded anti-hero begins to unravel.

Leading man: Daniel Day Lewis.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Chance of winning the Oscar: High. Anderson’s fifth and most compelling feature, hailed as a masterpiece in the league of all-time great Citizen Kane, boasts a gifted director, timeless subject, and a class performance from an Oscar-winning leading man - prime Oscar material.
You leave the film feeling: Uneasy. Its exploration of America’s capitalistic ideals, and the heartless monsters they spawn, strikes a resounding chord with its audience.
It inspires you to: Watch John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the film Anderson obsessively played while writing There Will be Blood.
Do say: It reminds me of Greed, Chinatown, and Days of Heaven.
Don't say: ‘It’s a departure from Anderson’s early work’ – the pigeon-holing refrain of the film’s critics, and a bugbear to the director himself who insists he just wanted to put on a good show.


JUNO
Razor-sharp 16-year-old Juno MacGuff finds herself pregnant after a one night stand with the lovelorn but clueless Paulie Bleeker.
She cannot go through with an abortion, and finds a picture perfect couple in the Pennysaver classifieds who will take the baby off her hands. These are yuppies Vanessa and Mark Loring (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman).
Juno forms a bond with failed muso turned commercial sell-out Mark, preferring to spend time watching slasher flicks at the Lorings’ idyllic home than at her own.
She slurpy-sips and smart talks her way through the best part of nine months, but when it emerges that all is not as it seems in Mark and Vanessa’s relationship, she must negotiate a new happy ending for herself and the baby.

Leading man and lady: Ellen Page and Michael Sera make their debuts.
Director: Jason Reitman
Chance of winning the Oscar: Slim. The jury’s out as to whether this is an indie gem, or just another film about teenage/unwanted pregnancy. Ellen Page steals the show (she’s up for her own award, as is writer Diablo Cody), but altogether Reitman’s offering is more samey than edgy. 
You leave the film feeling:  Slightly repelled by the sight of child-like Page bouncing through high-school with baby bump in tow; like a Bratz doll, only foul-mouthed and pregnant. It’s just wrong.
It inspires you to: Buy the soundtrack.
Do say: "Wizard," " Kudos," and "Tore up from the floor up."
Don't say: Knocked Up (Judd Apatow’s 2007 rom-com). Juno is infinitely superior. It’s up for several Oscars after all.


NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
This faithful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s bleak novel deals begins with the bloody aftermath of a botched $2 million drug deal.
Trailer-trash Llewelyn Moss gets in way over his head when he carries off the cash, closely shadowed by ghostly sociopath Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) who must recover the swag, while being pursued himself by weary Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones).
What follows is a stop-and-start chase through the parched Texan landscape as Chigurh follows Moss from motel to motel, leaving smatterings of dead Mexicans in his wake, and the Sheriff to pick up the pieces.

Leading men: Javier Bardem, and Tommy Lee Jones.
Director: Joel and Ethan Coen.
Chance of winning the Oscar: Very, very good. No Country and There will be Blood lead the nominations with eight nods each. As a good story, impeccably told, and with its stellar cast (including Kelly MacDonald and Woody Harrelson in minor roles) it should win, but it's slightly off kilter, wicked sensibility may see it pipped to the post.
You leave the film feeling: Stunned. The Coens have this talent for freezing their audience like a rabbit in the headlights. It’s blood-curdling stuff, but I challenge you to turn away.
It inspires you to: Check every cupboard and under every bed. And never, ever put your ear to a door.
Do say: Blood Simple and Fargo. Thank the Lord the Coen brothers are back on form.
Don’t say: Men in Black. Jones as a jaded age-worn Sheriff.  Sound familiar?


MICHAEL CLAYTON
Michael Clayton (George Clooney) is a ‘fixer’ for a top New York law firm, doing all the messy work necessary to brush its dirty dealings under the carpet.
A class action suit against the firm’s biggest client U-Form (unethical manufacturers of weed-killer) is about to fall in U-Form’s favour, when top litigator Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson) begins very publicly to go off the rails. Disillusioned Clayton is tied to the firm’s boss (Sydney Pollack) by his own complicated history, and he’s called in to smooth things over.
When Clayton hesitates, grappling with his inner contradictions, U-Form’s venomous corporate lawyer Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) steps up to the task, stopping at nothing to get the job done.

Leading man and lady: George Clooney, Tilda Swinton (up for Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress).
Director: Tony Gilroy (the writer behind the first two Bourne films).
Chance of winning the Oscar: It’s a very adult, sophisticated feature, with a stylish aesthetic. But for all its elegant sincerity, it’s just not ballsy enough to compete with the other nominees.  
You leave the film feeling: Confused and dissatisfied. A two minute unbroken close-up on an enigmatic Clooney. Yawn. We don’t know what he’s thinking, and we don’t really care.
It inspires you to: Put another jumper on. All those shots of air conditioned offices will send a shiver down anyone’s spine.
Do say: It marks a return for Clooney to a weighty role; he portrays a man crumbling from the inside out, a ruined product of the corrupt forces at work in the world of high commerce.
Don’t say: We preferred him as Danny Ocean.


ATONEMENT
This sensuous 1930s tale of forbidden love, heartache and one irrevocable error, played out against the backdrop of war, brings another Ian McEwan bestseller to the big screen.
During one long hot summer, Cecilia Turner (Keira Knightley) succumbs to her desire for local groundsman’s son Robbie (James McAvoy). Cecilia’s younger sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan), also with a secret desire for Robbie, is witness to their forbidden tryst, and is crushed.
The young girl’s overactive imagination and a wicked lie result in Robbie and Cecilia’s separation – a tragedy for which she will always feel solely responsible.    

Leading man and lady: James McAvoy, Keira Knightley.
Director: Joe Wright
Chance of winning the Oscar: It’s got love, war, and English Patient style accents to cut glass. It also won Best Film at the Baftas, and Best Drama at the Golden Globes. The odds are good.
You leave the film feeling: Underwhelmed. Vanessa Redgraves’s turn as Briony, fully grown and attempting to atone for her mistakes, is beautifully acted but offers a contrived conclusion to this otherwise ambiguous morality tale.
It inspires you to: Re-read books about the repercussions of childhood betrayal, such as LP Hartley’s The Go Between.
Do say: Joe Wright’s fashionable feature, with its shimmering lakes and flowing frocks, lives up to McEwan’s spectacularly popular novel. 
Don’t say: It’s an instant classic. Because everyone else has.  

Rosie Jackson

Watch live Oscars coverage on Sky One, 23.00, Sunday 24 February.
    

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