Sioux City Journal – George Clooney. Meryl Streep. Glenn Close. Steven Spielberg. Jodie Foster. Brad Pitt. Clint Eastwood. Leonardo DiCaprio.
The names who’ll figure into the 2011 Academy Award race are familiar indeed. There’s so much blue-chip stock in this year’s fall films, Americans should urge the government to invest.
Clooney has two films likely to compete — “The Ides of March,” now in theaters, and “The Descendants.” Spielberg does, too, (even though “The Adventures of Tintin” is a long shot).
Streep plays Margaret Thatcher; Close plays a woman masquerading as a man. Foster’s in “Carnage,” Pitt’s in “Moneyball” and Eastwood and DiCaprio team up for the biography of J. Edgar Hoover.
What’s going to win Best Picture? Spielberg’s “War Horse” has plenty of admirers (even though it doesn’t come out until Christmas) but that summer phenomenon “The Help”could trump them all.
Who’s likely to land Oscar nominations? It’s too early to make definitive calls, but here are ones to watch.
BEST PICTURE: “War Horse,” “The Help,” “Moneyball,” “Hugo,” “The Ides of March,” “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” “The Iron Lady,” “The Artist,” “Carnage,” “The Descendants,” “J. Edgar”
BEST ACTOR: Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”; George Clooney, “The Descendants”; Brad Pitt, “Moneyball”; Leonardo DiCaprio, “J. Edgar”; Ryan Gosling, “The Ides of March”; Viggo Mortensen, “A Dangerous Method”; Daniel Craig, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”; Jeremy Irvine, “War Horse”; Joseph Gordon-Levitt, “50/50″
