A new year. Hurrah.

So anyways, it's hella early, but from what I can tell these are 5 of the biggest pre 2006 Oscar movies. Like Munich, Brokeback, Memoirs, The New World, it's gauging time.

The 5 I chose were Flags of Our Fathers, The Departed, The Good Shepard, Dreamgirls, and The Sightness of Sound(David Straithairn is a teacher travelling the world and selling encyclopedias).

So who's your choice for big player? Mine is The Good Shepard. De Niro will own next year.

And if you have any other 2006 players to set the stage, feel free to add them by voting for Other.

The Departed is going to win multiple awards as Scorsese takes home his first Oscar.

Sight unseen, I want Sicko at the big dance. Let another genre break barriers.

I actually don't think The Departed will be as big award-wise as people think.

Here are some other major contenders on paper:

Goya’s Ghosts (Two-time oscar-winning director Milos Forman, starring Natalie Portman and Javier Bardem; needs a distributor though)
A Good Year (Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe again? It has to be up there)
Hotstuff (Focus possible No. 1 card for the year, Phillip Noyce directing)
Little Children (In the Bedroom's director Todd Field; should win Kate Winslet her first oscar)
The Good German (Steven Soderbergh and Cate Blanchett combo)
Breaking and Entering (Anthony Minghella is back at it again)
A Prairie Home Companion (Robert Altman; already getting good early reviews at IMDb)

Eastwood's movie will have no chance at directing or picture, because he just bloody won both a year ago and had another of his movies nominated for the big prize in 2003 (Mystic River). I hold out hope that, unlike Mystic and MDB, Flags of our Fathers will actually be a great movie, but the prospect of fantastic performances being coaxed from the likes of Paul Walker and Ryan Philipe is a dubious one at best.

The Good Shepard seems like it will be a serious contender, with De Niro at the helm (who previously directed the supremely underrated A Bronx Tale) and a truly awesome cast.

The Departed will have to overcome the fact that it's a remake and its genre to really become a huge player this year. But this will be Scorsese back in his crime drama niche and we could see great things out of him and his assembled cast, which includes the man himself, Jack Nicholson.

I would love for each of the 5 Best Picture nominees to gross at least $100 Million with budgets north of $50 Million as a fuck you to indies.

What happened to All the King's Men?

Both Lynch and Almodovar have new films coming out this year, too.

Eastwood has soooo much love in hollywood it wouldnt matter if he won 5 years straight. Im gonna say a split though in director and picture. Flags will get picture while Marty gets director, unless the movie is shite.

Eastwood will get all the respect this year for making two movies showing two different sides of things with Flags of our Father and Red Sun, Black Sand. The man will make two classics in one year.

Good Shepherd, I would love to say it'll be a contender but I mean DeNiro directing? Bronx Tale was a good film, but it wasnt anything special. I doubt he has much creativity as a director.

If that movie turns out to be a great movie, Sony really needs to kick themselves square in the nuts for not getting their act together and putting it out last year, could've been an easy win.

Departed seems like its going to be more like action thriller like Colleteral than oscar bait. Well Im just basing that on how Infernal Affair was done

I wonder why A Good Year is being released in April. It sounds like an osar contender since its a period piece with Rusell Crowe and Ridley Scott

Departed always gave me that film noir feel.

Aside from Spielberg and maybe Clooney, I don't think any of the best director nominees this year showed much creativity in their direction and yet there they were with Oscar nominations. It's going to come down to the script with DeNiro's film and the rest will take care of itself. The Academy loves to acknowledge the actor turned director.

Well since I was on acid and put the post in the wrong thread i'll put it here now.

If some people havnt seen the trailer for All the Kings Men yet, here ya go http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeECinyKvtk

The movie based on the trailer looks fantastic and the cast seems incredible, but theres got to be something up if they decided to move it to 06'

I know De Niro hasn't really proved himself yet. For that reason, I think Director might go to Marty just to finally give him his dues while Shepard takes Best Picture.

!!!!!! Yay.

A Prairie Home Companion = sure bet GG contender.

It will be a tough race between Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett I think. Nicole has FUR, which is getting ready for Venice and Cannes, and Cate has THE GOOD GERMAN.

i really think DREAMGIRLS could be heading out on the same path as MEMOIRS. But you never know.

...


It looks like the studios will be fighting it out = which is also fun to watch.

ALL THE KING'S MEN (SONY) Acting noms and best picture nom?
THE GOOD GERMAN (WB) Technical and acting nods?
FLAGS (WB) Best pic, director, technical nods? With Walker in the cast I'm thinking the academy could snub FLAGS
WORLD TRADE CENTER (PARAMOUNT) Nic Cage nom? Screenplay and director?
DREAMGIRLS (PARAMOUNT/DREAMWORKS) Will certainly have box office success!
THE GOOD SHEPHERD (UNIVERSAL) Acting noms?
ASSAINATION OF JESSE JAMES (WB) Could take out some of the
ERAGON (FOX) Best picture nom?
MARIE ANTONIETTE (SONY) Best Actress nom for Kirsten?
NATIVITY (NEW LINE) You never know?
SOUTHLAND TALES (UNIVERSAL) Screenplay? Director?

A Prairie Home Companion, Fur are possible runners in the technical aspects. Sony Classics, Lionsgate, Fox Searchlight have yet to announce their slate.

I think Warner are being over ambitious.

I think JESSE JAMES could be this years biggest snub. I think DEPARTED will find it tough as well.

Hmm. I'm not sure. I'm HOPING it's The Departed because I'm really excited for that, but I agree with everyone else that it seems like it might have a hard time breaking out and being an Oscar film. I do think Martin Scorsese will most likely get a directing nod though, and hopefully a win.

Even though The Good Shephard is one of my most anticipated - I thought it may be more of a Bourne Identity/Spy Game type film than an oscar winner - but you never know.


Dont forget - this time last year we were all touting Jarhead, Geisha and Munich for Oscar glory hehe. Its fun to see how things pan out though.

The Departed will be like Scorces' Cape Fear. It will probably be nominated for actor nods but no best director or picture category. Its a freakin thriller for god's sake.

I wouldn't count out All the King's Men. Miramax pushed Finding Neverland back 13 months because they thought their Oscar slate was too heavy (same reason Sony gave for King's Men.) That got plenty of Oscar attention, and with as great a cast as this they'd have had to have done something seriously wrong to mess it up. And maybe I'm just crazy, but does anyone else think Idlewild could actually get some Oscar glory? The push back to late August didn't seem very encouraging at first, but I honestly could see it getting several nominations assuming the film is as good as it could be.

Flags will win. Next...

I can't see any justification for putting The Good Shepherd up there. DeNiro's prior stabs at direction have been competent but nothing to set the world on fire (nice cast, though). Dreamgirls has obvious potential as a feelgood story with catchy numbers and the pleasures of seeing the girls in lots of 60's fashions. I'm not the greatest fan of Ron Howard but I think it would be silly to deny the potential of The DaVinci Code. Not saying it will win but it's a big mainstream studio pic with a popular cast and it's based on a zillion selling novel. If the reviews and box office are strong then undoubtedly a nominee. Biggest contender for noms - which is all one can predict at this early stage - has to be Clint's WW2 flick Flags of Our Fathers.

To address the tiresome complaint re Paul Walker - Eastwood has directed four actors to Oscar gold in two successive years, an amazing feat. So if Eastwod thinks the guy is suitable then he obviously has good reasons whatever one may think about Walker's previous performances. That aside, a WW2 movie that is only partly about the actual fighting but mainly about what happened to the flag-raisers after they came home should score highly both as intimate drama and as a combat movie ala Saving Private Ryan (reportedly almost half of Flags' $80 mill budget went on the battle scenes).

The biggest question for me is whether Flags can memorialise the Iwo Jima fighters in a manner that is different from that carried out bySPR and Band of Brothers. God knows how Paul Haggis has approached the material but his script seems to feature flashbacks and a wide-ranging chronology that spans Iwo Jima in 1945 (and possibly earlier), the dedication of the monument in 1954 plus footage set in the present day. One of the thorniest issues with the original book was how to personalise the suffering of 30, 000+ marines on Iwo Jima (as opposed to simply showing anonymous soldiers being blown to bits); Haggis seems to have solved this by focusing on the character of Iggy Ignatowski (played by Jamie Bell) and his close friendship with John Bradley. If you don't want to know what happened to Iggy then don't read this spoiler taken from Wikipedia; [spoil] Ignatowski was captured, dragged into a tunnel by Japanese soldiers during the battle, and was later found with his ears, eyes, and fingernails removed, his teeth smashed, the back of his head caved in, multiple bayonet wounds to the abdomen, and his severed genitalia stuffed into his mouth. Bradley's recollections of discovering and taking care of Ignatowski's remains haunted him until his death.[/spoil]
All in all (and given that Eastwood is at the top of his game as a director right now) Flags will likely work as a powerful, thoughtful memorial (and peppered throughout with state of the art combat scenes) to one of the most famous of US victories. At this stage of the game an easy front-runner for Oscar noms.

A few nods probably, like song, costume, things like that. All depends.