Red carpet and rivalry

The Academy has voted and it’s time to present the awards for Best Picture, Best Actor/Actress, Cinematography, Music and much more. That’s right, Sunday night is the 85^th Annual Academy Awards!

 

I’ll be camped out in my living room, drooling over the celebrities on the red carpet. But there will be more than just A-list stars in designer duds on Sunday night. There’s plenty of rivalry between the contenders for the much-coveted awards.

 

Like the tension between Jessica Chastain and Hugh Jackman, whose films “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Les Miserables,” respectively, are competing for Best Picture. The two put their rivalry aside, however, to appear together on the Jay Leno Show this week. In fact, all the nominees put competition on the back burner  “said cheese” and squeezed in close for a group photo.

 

Back in January, some were predicting the frontrunners for Best Picture would be “Lincoln” and “Zero Dark Thirty.” Gary Susman, a critic at MovieFone, had this to say:

 

“There’s room for up to 10 Best Picture candidates, but so far, it’s a two-movie race. Which two movies? Well, early in the fall, it looked like “The Master” vs. “Argo,” but those two have since been overtaken by another pair of sure things, “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Lincoln.” It’s a rivalry that reflects an age-old split in Academy taste. One is an old-fashioned, prestige epic, with lavish period detail, about a flawed hero who rose to the occasion during a great historical upheaval. The other is a contemporary, hot-button, technologically savvy thriller about a team of not-necessarily-likable people who didn’t always behave honorably during a great historical upheaval. In short, it looks like “The King’s Speech” vs. “The Social Network,” or “Pulp Fiction” vs. “Forrest Gump,” all over again.”

 

Others are still banking on “Argo” winning the category. Of course, many are holding out for a “Les Miserables” win. After all, doesn’t Anne Hathway deserve a golden statue for shearing off her gorgeous locks for her role as Fantine?

 

Will you be watching the awards? Who is your number one pick for Best Picture? No matter who walks away with an Oscar, it’s sure to be a night of glitz and glamour, red carpet and rivalry.

 

In February and March, Indiana Humanities is exploring the topic of “rivalry,” as part of its Spirit of Competition theme. This post was written by Valerie Carnevale, intern.