Atonement has the class to spoil the Coens' night; THE OSCARS.Byline: Jeremy Chapman weighs up who could make their mark in Tinseltown UNLESS you punt in thousands, making money out of this year's Oscars is not going to be easy as the bookmakers have put up prohibitive prices about the three obvious choices, Daniel Day-Lewis Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis (born 29 April, 1957) is an Academy-Award winning and Golden Globe-award nominated actor. Born in London, England, he became an Irish citizen in 1993. , Julie Christie and Javier Bardem. Day-Lewis is a short as 1-8 to win Best Actor for There Will Be Blood, Christie is 2-5 for Best Actress for the miserable Away From Her and Bardem is 2-9 to land the Best Supporting Actor supporting actor n → attore m non protagonista gong for his portrayal of a vicious psychopath psy·cho·path n. A person with an antisocial personality disorder, especially one manifested in perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior. in No Country For Old Men. So we won't get rich backing them unless you put them in a treble, but there's more fun to be had from trying to find something at a decent price to turn them over. Outsiders do win: Crash at 14-1 took best picture in 2006 and last year veteran Alan Arkin landed a 10-1 punt in the supporting actor category. Nominations came out yesterday for Hollywood's big night on February 24 that is under threat because of a writers' strike. And although the Brits have the iconic Christie to root for, there were major disappointments with Keira Knightley, Helena Bonham-Carter, James McAvoy, Albert Finney and Atonement director Joe Wright all fancied but ignored. From a personal viewpoint, it is a shame that the two best films seen recently, The Kite Runner and Sweeney Todd, have not made the final five, although Britain does have a runner in Atonement, which won the Golden Globe for best drama and is second favourite behind No Country For Old Men. With so many of the entries not yet seen in the UK - There Will Be Blood, Juno, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, Gone Baby Gone Gone Baby Gone is a crime thriller adapted and directed by Ben Affleck, set in Boston, and based on the novel of the same title by Dennis Lehane. It stars Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan, as Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, two private investigators hunting for an and The Valley of Elah The Valley of Elah is the valley of the terebinth (Arabic Wadi es-Sunt), best known as the place where the Israelites were encamped when David fought Goliath (1 Sam. 17:2, 19). It was near Azekah and Shochoh (17:1). are just five - it is hard to evaluate their prospects against ones we have had the chance to see, but here goes... BEST PICTURE No Country For Old Men is odds-on because of its immaculate pedigree - directed by the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan, of Fargo fame, from a novel by the muchlauded Cormac McCarthy - but I hope it gets beat. Full of violence, greed, drugs and general nastiness near the Mexican border in the 1980s, it is a sort of modern Western with a plea for gentler times but loses its way in its final section and an abrupt ending leaves much up in the air. The American accents are as impenetrable as they were in Brokeback Mountain and the dialogue often hard to follow. So that's a no from me, then. But it will probably win. Even so, the classy Atonement won the Golden Globe for best drama earlier this month and is a reasonable alternative. The film of Ian McEwan's novel of period romance, unrequited passion and devastating lies is up for seven Oscars, one fewer than No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood. The other contenders are the dull Michael Clayton and surprise hit Juno, a comedy about teenage pregnancy teenage pregnancy Adolescent pregnancy, teen pregnancy Social medicine Pregnancy by a ♀, age 13 to 19; TP is usually understood to occur in a ♀ who has not completed her core education–secondary school, has few or no marketable skills, is which has been huge at the box office in the States. But dramas usually win - as Little Miss Sunshine and Sideways backers found to their cost in recent years. Recommendation Atonement 1pt 7-2 Ladbrokes BEST ACTRESS My main Oscars bet is French actress Marion Cotillard to beat Britain's odds-on Julie Christie, who plays an Alzheimer's sufferer in the depressing Away From Her, an art-house film that nobody went to see when it played in Britain early last year and which received very mixed reviews from our critics, so mixed it put me off going. But the Academy loves rewarding great stars on the comeback trail like Christie, who won an Oscar in 1965 for Darling, and no doubt it is an impressive performance. Even so, it cannot match the verve and versatility of Cotillard, who plays the sparrow-like chanteuse chan·teuse n. A woman singer, especially a nightclub singer. [French, feminine of chanteur, singer, from chanter, to sing; see chant.] Edith Piaf from teenage years to drugriddled early death at 47. Although the film, La Vie En Rose, is nothing special, Cotillard's performance is a sensational tour de force, the like of which has rarely been seen, and Boylesports' 9-2 is massive. Against her chance is that the film's in French with subtitles, but the Academy did give best actor to Italy's Robert Benighi for the subtitled Life Is Beautiful 11 years ago and as they have nominated another foreignlanguage film in Best Director category, it is by no means impossible that this Golden Globe winner (for best actress in a comedy or musical) will get the reward she deserves. Ellen Page, very pregnant in Juno, is the surprise name here but she, Cate Blanchett (for Elizabeth: The Golden Age) and Laura Linney (The Savages) look also-rans. Recommendation Marion Cotillard 3pts 4-1 Boylesports, Hills, Ladbrokes BEST ACTOR Irish actor Daniel Day-Lewis is a solid favourite. He won with My Left Foot in 1989 and turns in a bravura bra·vu·ra n. 1. Music a. Brilliant technique or style in performance. b. A piece or passage that emphasizes a performer's virtuosity. 2. A showy manner or display. adj. 1. and already widelyacclaimed performance as a turn-of-the-century oil prospector who makes a mint in There Will Be Blood. As short as 1-8 in places, you won't beat 2-9. Even that will appeal only to high-rollers and yankee punters. The danger is Johnny Depp, who sings well enough and acts mesmerisingly in another feast of blood, Sweeney Todd, the film of Stephen Sondheim's highbrow musical. This is his third nomination following Pirates Of The Caribbean This article is about the franchise. For other, more specific uses, see Pirates of the Caribbean (disambiguation). For real pirates, see Piracy in the Caribbean. Pirates of the Caribbean and Finding Neverland so as Day-Lewis has already got his gong, maybe it will be third time lucky. But with Day-Lewis so dominant, he's worth an interest bet only. The other candidates, George Clooney, Tommy Lee Jones For the musician, see . Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an Academy Award-winning American actor and director. Biography Early life Jones was born in San Saba, Texas, the son of Clyde C. and Viggo Mortensen, terrifying in Eastern Promises, are unlikely to spring an upset. Recommendation Johnny Depp 0.5pt 25-1 Hills BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS A very open section with Cate Blanchett, getting two nominations in the same year, fighting it out with New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of stage actress Amy Ryan and 13-year-old Saoirse Ronan a good outsider as the young Briony in Atonement. Ryan was favourite for the Golden Globe for Gone Baby Gone, a film we haven't seen in the UK because it is regarded as being too close to the reallife Maddy McCann story for comfort, but got turned over by Blanchett playing Bob Dylan (I'll say that again: Cate Blanchett playing Bob Dylan!) in I'm Not There. In fact, the Australian actress looks more like Dylan than the other male actors who represent the old folkie folk·ie also folk·y n. pl. folk·ies 1. A folk singer or musician. 2. One who is an enthusiast of folk music. adj. at other stages of his life. The fact that it is only three years since Blanchett won a supporting Oscar for her not-very-good Katherine Hepburn impersonation Impersonation Patroclus wore the armor of Achilles against the Trojans to encourage the disheartened Greeks. [Gk. Lit.: Iliad] Prisoner of Zenda, The in The Aviator could count against her but how the Academy loves her. Very few get nominated in two different categories. Irish teenager Ronan might be the value here at 14-1 as she was the best thing in a high-profile and well-regarded film but Blanchett's performance is so unusual that she has to be the one. Recommendations Cate Blanchett 2pts 5-4 Boylesports, Paddy Power Saoirse Ronan 0.5pt 16-1 Bet365 BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR The charismatic Javier Bardem is supposed to win this - he's already got the Golden Globe - for his portrayal of Anton Chigurh, who decides whether to kill people on the toss of a coin in No Country For Old Men. Pretty well everybody he runs across gets the full treatment from his stun-gun and it's not pretty. But it's a part to die for and Bardem doesn't miss a trick. Some critics reckon he overacts, and I wouldn't disagree, but there was a turn-up last year when old Academy sentimentalists honoured veteran Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine. They could go the same way with 82-year-old Hal Holbrook's deeply-moving Ron Franz in Into The Wild, an interest bet only at 16-1. Recommendation Hal Holbrook 0.5pt 16-1 Coral BEST DIRECTOR Fairly open with the Coen brothers odds-against for No Country For Old Men and good money for Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood) and Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell And The Butterfly). Schnabel, a New York artist turned film-maker, could be the one. The subject matter is weird and it is made in French, the language of the book on which it is based. It's the story of actor Jean-Dominique Bauby's account of what life is like after he suffers a massive stroke that leaves him with a condition called Locked-In Syndrome locked-in syndrome Neurology Flaccid tetraplegia with facial paresis and complete incapacity of expression–ie, anarthric and aphonic; LIS is due to damage or dysfunction of descending motor pathways or peripheral nerves, 2º to bilateral destruction . Every letter in the book is achieved by blinking his left eye and each word took around two minutes for a collaborator to write. It's a strange one all right, but No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood could be too similar to last year's winner The Departed and the duel between them could let in a third party and one which has already won a gong or two at the Golden Globes. Recommendation Julian Schnabel 1pt 17-5 Bet365 CAPTION(S): Johnny Depp is 25-1 to win Best Actor for his portrayal of Sweeney Todd; Keira Knightley was a surprise omission from the Best Actress section but her film Atonement is up for Best Picture |
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