Photo by Fox Searchlight/Magnolia Pictures/Weinstein Company
Last week, when a reporter at the Berlin Film Festival asked Meryl Streep if she still gets butterflies in her stomach when she's nominated for an Oscar, or if it's an act, she quickly set him straight: "No. You feel like that. When you're in a position when people say you have a chance (or that you don't) you feel like you are in a sporting event and suddenly you are doing calisthenics. It's like the Super Bowl."
The Berlin Film Festival, which screened "The Iron Lady" as part of a tribute to Oscar nominee Streep, was the final festival red carpet for this awards season. And, to use Streep's analogy, film festivals function like playoffs on the way to the big game. So, who threw out the first ball?
That would be the press conference at the Cannes Film Festival in May when an uncharacteristically exuberant "Melancholia" director Lars von Trier confessed his family's Nazi legacy with his star Kristen Dunst at his side. Dunst's face during the next 90 seconds was a tribute to grace under pressure as she realized von Trier had stepped into a hole he would never be able to climb out of, taking his masterpiece and her performance with it. She sensed chances for an Oscar for best actress would be collateral damage -- and she was right (although she did win best actress at Cannes).
Other Cannes films included the current front-runner, "The Artist," whose star -- and Oscar nominee -- Jean Dujardin won best actor there. Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" opened the festival, and Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" took home the highest honor, the Palme d'Or. All three are nominated for Best Picture. Allen will likely win for best original screenplay. "Footnote" won best screenplay and is nominated for Best Foreign Language Film.
"Drive's" Nicolas Winding Refn won for best director, but it was a Cannes hit and critics' darling that didn't translate for the academy. However, early in the awards season, it seemed like co-star Albert Brooks, who won a New York Film Critics Circle award among many others, would be an Oscar contender. But sadly he was shut out at the Academy Awards.
Fast-forward to the hectic fall festival season when the first impression was George Clooney up all night with charm to burn. Was that really him, or did he have a body double? "The Descendants" debuted at Telluride and then went on to Toronto, the New York Film Festival, and the Hamptons International Film Festival, among others. Star Clooney was doing double duty. He was also busy promoting his director-writer-co-star political drama "The Ides of March," which premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
"Shame" premiered at Venice and earned star Michael Fassbender best actor. It continued on to Toronto and New York, and seemed to be an early Oscar contender. But, it petered out, most likely due to its in-your-face treatment of sex addiction. Venice was not so kind to Madonna's Wallis Simpson epic "W.E." Harsh festival reviews hounded the film into the Toronto Film Festival and quashed its Oscar chances.
Meanwhile, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" premiered at Venice with no awards love, continued stealthily through the festival season, and moved as quietly as a spy through the critics' awards before netting three deserved Oscar nominations, including one for Gary Oldman as best actor.
"Rampart" premiered at Toronto and, despite an Oscar-worthy leading performance as a dirty cop, Woody Harrelson did not make the Oscar shortlist. This led to a moment of awkward embarrassment when Harrelson got the gig announcing the academy's list of nominees live on TV, only to discover his name was overlooked.
"Moneyball" gained awards momentum at the Toronto Film Festival, but held its world premiere in Oakland, home of the Oakland A's baseball team on which it's based.
Over at the New York Film Festival, opening-night film "Carnage," went from contender -- with promising performances by Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, and John C. Reilly -- to also-run in almost one night. In contrast, Martin Scorsese's film "Hugo" had a rare sneak preview at the New York Film Festival and started the Oscar buzz in one very well-timed night that culminated in the most nominations with 11. "My Week With Marilyn" also premiered at the New York Film Festival, and played the Hamptons, garnering Oscar nominations for Michelle Williams, who plays Marilyn Monroe, and Kenneth Branagh in support as Laurence Olivier.
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Not all major nominees are festival films. Steven Spielberg's "War Horse," Stephen Daldry's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," and David Fincher's "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" all premiered after the festival season despite having obviously Oscar-bait potential. These late-arriving December releases never quite caught up, although both "War Horse" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" have best-picture nominations, and Rooney Mara, who played "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," is up for best actress. None of these are front-runners in their primary categories.
The most notable exception is "The Help," which premiered theatrically in August without awards fanfare, which rose to No. 1 and stayed put. Like "The Blind Side," the female-driven Southern-set movie was poised to surprise. Now it's a serious contender for Best Picture and at the front of the pack for best actress and best-supporting actress.
But "The Help" is definitely up against the machine. Last year, "The King's Speech" could have written the festival-to-Oscar playbook, with a premiere at Telluride, followed immediately by Toronto. It went on to win four Oscars including Best Picture, best actor, best director, and best original screenplay out of 12 nominations.
See the trailer for 'The Tree of Life':
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