Just about everyone has an opinion on who should — and will — win the top prizes at the 85th Annual Academy Awards. Now you have a chance to turn your picks into something special — a year's pass to Sundance Cinemas.
CultureMap has teamed with Sundance for our Second Annual Pick the Oscar Winners contest.
From now until the Academy Awards ceremony on Feb. 24, we'll ask you to pick the winners in the six top categories (Best Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Director and Picture).
Every correct entry will be entered into a drawing, where the randomly selected Grand Prize champ will receive the year-long pass, along with 10 runners-up, who will each receive a pass to a movie at the cinema complex at Bayou Place in downtown Houston.
To enter, check out our CulturePoll on the CultureMap home page and pick the winner in the featured category. The Best Actor poll kicks off today and the category will change roughly every four days.
For Best Actor, Daniel Day-Lewis is the odds-on favorite for his uncanny portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln, but we really admired Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook. We heard Denzel Washington was terrific in Flight while Hugh Jackman in Les Miserables and Joaquin Phoenix in The Master drew raves for their performances.
There will be chances to vote in other major categories as well:
Best Actress — Feb. 7 - 11
Best Supporting Actor — Feb. 11 - 14
Best Supporting Actress — Feb. 14 - 18
Best Picture — Feb. 18 - 21
Best Director — Feb. 21 - 24
Contest winners will be announced Feb. 25, the day after the Oscar telecast on ABC/Channel 13.
The reasons behind the success of 2015’s The Martian, which earned over $630 million worldwide and got nominated for seven Oscars, had as much to do with the novel written by Andy Weir as it did with star Matt Damon and director Ridley Scott. Weir’s commitment to making an entertaining story that was also scientifically accurate proved to be easy to translate into a blockbuster movie.
The same is true for Weir’s 2021 novel, Project Hail Mary, now a film starring Ryan Gosling. Gosling plays Dr. Ryland Grace, who opens the film waking up from an induced coma, alone on an interstellar spaceship named the Hail Mary. As his foggy mind clears, he — and the audience — learn that he was recruited to help an initiative to save the world after it’s discovered that a mysterious phenomenon is causing the sun to cool down, threatening all life on Earth.
The film toggles back and forth between Grace’s time on the ship and his whirlwind journey of scientific discovery on Earth, with revelations coming on both sides. On Earth, he mostly deals with Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller), the unflappable and unstoppable leader of the international coalition dedicated to solving the problem. And in space, orbiting the far-off star known as Tau Ceti, he encounters another being he names Rocky, a five-limbed creature that looks like a boulder which teams up with him to try to save both of their worlds.
Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, and written by Drew Goddard (who also wrote The Martian), the film melds multiple genres into an astonishingly great whole. It starts off as a mystery, morphs into science fiction, transitions into actual science, becomes a thriller, adds in plenty of drama, and — for good measure — features plenty of comedy along the way. Shifting tones like this film does is tricky for many filmmakers, but Lord and Miller prove to be masterful at knowing just how much of each to include before it becomes too much.
One of the biggest keys to the story is the fact that Grace is not a hero in the movie sense of the word. He’s very smart, but he’s also an everyman, teaching middle school science after being shunned from academia. The circumstances of how he ended up on the Hail Mary are doled out in pieces over the course of the film, but it’s clear from the start that Grace’s talents are not the ones found in your typical astronaut. Ironically, it’s him being forced to do heroic stuff that imbues him with an atypical type of bravery.
The relationship between Grace and Rocky is unique, and Rocky ends up being as endearing an alien that’s been featured in movies despite the fact that he has no face and speaks only in musical tones. The film does a very effective job of putting the audience in Grace’s shoes, having to figure out ways to communicate with Rocky at the same time as he’s trying to figure out how to complete a mission he wasn’t trained to do.
Gosling is the ideal actor to portray a man like Grace. Essentially alone for much of the film, his innate charm and humorous delivery keep the film from feeling like an extended monologue. The flashback scenes to his time on Earth feature solid performances from people like Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall), Lionel Boyce (The Bear), and more, who fill in the pieces of the story without feeling out of place.
Project Hail Mary is a crowd-pleaser in all the right ways, delivering plenty of thrilling action and funny moments while also digging deep into science nerd elements. With a movie star like Gosling in the lead and successful filmmakers like Lord, Miller, and Goddard behind the scenes, the film makes an early case for being one of best of the year.
