The 2007 Academy Awards Part 1: Best Picture Hopefuls

The movie awards season is upon us.  The Toronto Film Festival has just concluded and soon the critical awards will start flowing in.  My goal here is to produce a series of columns giving thoughts, predictions, commentary and information on the movie awards season leading up to the Academy Awards in January.  I'll start off with 10 films that are currently in the running to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar:

Best Picture:

Flags of Our Fathers: Yet again, this year could EASILY be dominated by the combination of Clint Eastwood and Paul Haggis (director and screenwriter respectively). This story of the famous image of the flag being raised at Iwo Jima and the impact it had on society and the men involved is just the right kind of epic, patriotic, historic picture that the Academy loves. The trailer includes some intense, Saving Private Ryan-esque war sequences as Eastwood recreates the battle of Iwo Jima. Not only does it have all that going for it, but Spielberg is the producer. This might be looked at as an early front runner although the October release date could hurt it a little.

Marie-Antoinette: Sofia Coppola's new film drew wildly differing opinions at the Cannes film festival and apparently there's some serious (albeit deliberate) revisionist history going on but it's going to be a heavily-marketed movie with some ridiculously lavish production (Coppola was actually permitted to shoot in the Palace of Versailles for good portions of the film) along with some big talent involved (Daddy Francis is executive producer) this should get some decent attention.