Fixed: The contest form now allows you to choose more than one option on the doc and animated categories.
Since we got our new form to generate contests, making them is going to be a lot easier. Therefore, for the second time this week we’re introducing another contest. Predict the PGAs! (If you haven’t yet entered our Golden Globes contest, it’s here.)
A quick check on awards calendar tells us that the Producers Guild will announce January 3rd, and the Writers Guild and Scripter awards will announce January 5th. The following Monday, January 9th the Directors Guild will announce, and the Monday after that, the Eddies. By then, we should have our Oscar picture mostly taking shape.
We will know if we Oscar pundits were very right or very wrong. We will know if the critics will have any impact at all this year. And we will know if the industry is embracing certain titles – like Tree of Life, or Drive, or Harry Potter or Rise of the Planet of the Apes. None of these are expected to hit in the major categories so if they start showing up that could signal possible presence at the AMPAS.
And of course, our scary scary Oscar nominations drop bright and early Tuesday morning January 24th. Are you ready? I’m only barely ready.
Last year, while the industry was busily rallying the troups to help save the UK Film Council (meanwhile, American box office – worst ever), the Oscar run for The King’s Speech started with the Producers Guild. Not saying the King’s Speech crew didn’t deserve it – after all, any movie that cost $15 million and made over $100 million domestic box office and did it without being a sequel or an animated film is impressive. That is the model moving forward for adult entertainment – strong on story, low on cost. Low on cost was equally important the year before when The Hurt Locker won — that movie, made incredibly for only $12 million. And the year before that, Slumdog Millionaire of course, because it was winning everything (again, made for around $15 million), and the last Best Picture to match with the PGA was that year’s glorious winner, No Country for Old Men. Before that, going back three years, we saw a mismatch. They didn’t go for the Departed, they went for Little Miss Sunshine (cost less, made more), and before that, Brokeback Mountain and then we find a match with Return of the King.
Last year’s PGA rundown was almost a perfect match with Oscar — it went 9 for 10. They chose The Town over Winter’s Bone. Winter’s Bone, though, seemed right up their ally, didn’t it? But alas, it didn’t happen. It took the Oscar voters to rescue that movie — and it was one of their finer moments, I must say. Last year, two films directed by women were nominated for Best Picture. Good luck ever seeing that happen again now that they’ve removed the ten Best Picture nominees out of the equation.
This year, of course, Oscar isn’t choosing ten. They’re choosing between 5 and 10. We’re all guessing it’s going to fall closer to 5 than 10, somewhere maybe around 7 or 8. We know that Winter’s Bone would have gotten the shaft under that system.
With ten Best Picture nominees, you knew all five directors would see their films represented; it was a no-brainer. But now, with the new system, will all five directors match Best Picture still? For those predicting either Terrence Malick or Tree of Life now predict either, neither or both? With 5 best picture nominees you could see Malick getting in but Tree of Life missing. With 7 to 8 to 9 possible nominees, will Malick get the shaft but the film make it in? These are questions we’ll have to wait to rip our hair out about.
We should know once the guilds announce, more or less what our ten would be and what our five would be. Our five is going to be the DGA five or thereabouts. It is more likely for a film directed by a DGA nominee to get in for Best Picture, in fact, than to get in as Best Director. Therefore, you have to start with the king daddy of them all — the Directors Guild.
The producers are going to confirm much of what we already know — there are easily ten Best Picture candidates. What the Producers might do is launch the notion of Harry Potter into the mix. They also might throw in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (wishful thinking, I know). Had Mission Impossible (is it 3 or 4, I lost count) come out earlier it might have seen more action at the Critics Choice and perhaps the PGA, since it’s doing so well. But let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that we’re not talking about exiled genre movies but all inclusive Oscar movies. And let’s build a chart.
It’s looking, on the average, pretty good for the Tree of Life, hitting all three — the NBR, the AFI and the BFCA. A few minutes hit there but stopped short making it to Oscar – like The Wrestler, Into the Wild and The Dark Knight. Into the Wild also got the SAG and the DGA and failed to get a Best Pic nod, but that was when there were only five Best Picture nominees. I was debating this with Anne Thompson on Twitter last night and I’d come to the conclusion that Tree of Life couldn’t get in since it had a C rating on Yahoo Movies. No film going back ten years has ever gotten anything below a B- and made it through the Best Picture race. So that stat is a bit better than this stat, on the other hand, I think predicting Tree of Life is a wee bit less risky looking here. Oscar voters aren’t big on films that have no plot – even 2001 is a little less vague than Tree of Life and even it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. But allowing for the extra fat this year could allow Tree of Life to make the cut where it might not with five.
Therefore, my predictions for the Producers Guild are:
The locks:
The Artist
Hugo
The Descendants
War Horse
Midnight in Paris
The Help
And then:
Moneyball
Tree of Life
Dragon Tattoo
Harry Potter
Other strong possibilities would be Drive and Bridesmaids.
NBR | AFI | BFCA | SAG | PGA | DGA | Oscar |
The Artist | Bridesmaids | The Artist | The Artist | |||
Hugo | Hugo | Hugo | Bridesmaids | |||
The Descendants | The Descendants | The Descendants | The Descendants | |||
War Horse | War Horse | War Horse | ||||
Harry Potter | Midnight In Paris | Midnight In Paris | Midnight in Paris | |||
Drive | Moneyball | Moneyball | ||||
Dragon Tattoo | Dragon Tattoo | Drive | ||||
J Edgar | J Edgar | Extremely Loud | ||||
Ides of March | The Help | The Help | The Help | |||
Tree of Life | Tree of Life | Tree of Life |
NBR | AFI | BFCA | SAG | PGA | DGA | Oscar |
The King’s Speech | The Town | The King’s Speech | The King’s Speech | The King’s Speech | The King’s Speech | The King’s Speech |
The Social Network | The Social Network | The Social Network | The Social Network | The Social Network | The Social Network | The Social Network |
The Fighter | The Fighter | The Fighter | The Fighter | The Fighter | The Fighter | The Fighter |
The Town | Black Swan | Black Swan | Black Swan | Black Swan | Black Swan | Black Swan |
True Grit | True Grit | True Grit | True Grit | True Grit | ||
Inception | Inception | Inception | Inception | Inception | Inception | |
Shutter Island | The Kids Are All Right | Winter’s Bone | The Kids Are All Right | The Kids Are All Right | The Kids Are All Right | |
Toy Story 3 | Toy Story 3 | Toy Story 3 | Toy Story 3 | Toy Story 3 | ||
Another Year | 127 Hours | 127 Hours | 127 Hours | 127 Hours | ||
Winter’s Bone | Winter’s Bone | The Town | The Town | Winter’s Bone |
NBR | AFI | BFCA | SAG | PGA | DGA | Oscar |
The Hurt Locker | The Hurt Locker | The Hurt Locker | The Hurt Locker | The Hurt Locker | The Hurt Locker | The Hurt Locker |
500 Days of Summer | The Hangover | Avatar | Avatar | Avatar | Avatar | |
Where the Wild Things Are | Precious | Precious | Precious | Precious | Precious | Precious |
The Messenger | A Single Man | Inglourious Basterds | Inglourious Basterds | Inglourious Basterds | Inglourious Basterds | Inglourious Basterds |
Up in the Air | Up in the Air | Up in the Air | Up in the Air | Up in the Air | Up in the Air | |
An Education | Sugar | An Education | An Education | An Education | An Education | |
Invictus | Coraline | Invictus | District 9 | District 9 | ||
Up | Up | Up | Up | Up | ||
A Serious Man | A Serious Man | A Serious Man | Invictus | A Serious Man | ||
Star Trek | Nine | Nine | Star Trek | The Blind Side |
NBR | AFI | BFCA | SAG | PGA | DGA | Oscar |
Slumdog Millionaire | Iron Man | Slumdog Millionaire | Slumdog Millionaire | Slumdog Millionaire | Slumdog | Slumdog |
Benjamin Button | Benjamin Button | Benjamin Button | Benjamin Button | Benjamin Button | Benjamin Button | Benjamin Button |
Defiance | Gran Torino | Doubt | Doubt | |||
Frost/Nixon | Frost/Nixon | Frost/Nixon | Frost/Nixon | Frost/Nixon | Frost/Nixon | Frost/Nixon |
Milk | Milk | Milk | Milk | Milk | Milk | Milk |
Burn after Reading | Frozen River | The Reader | The Reader | |||
Wall-E | Wall-E | Wall-E | ||||
Changeling | Wendy and Lucy | Changeling | ||||
The Wrestler | The Wrestler | The Wrestler | ||||
The Dark Knight | The Dark Knight | Dark Knight | Dark Knight | Dark Knight |
NBR | AFI | BFCA | SAG | PGA | DGA | Oscar |
No Country | No Country | No Country | No Country | No Country | No Country | No Country |
Into the Wild | Into the Wild | Into the Wild | Into the Wild | Into the Wild | ||
Michael Clayton | Michael Clayton | Michael Clayton | Michael Clayton | Michael Clayton | Michael Clayton | Michael Clayton |
Bourne | Diving Bell | Diving Bell | Diving Bell | Diving Bell | ||
Bucket List | There Will Be Blood | There Will Be Blood | Hairspray | There Will Be Blood | There Will Be Blood | There Will Be Blood |
Juno | Juno | Juno | 3:10 to Yuma | Juno | Juno | |
The Kite Runner | Knocked Up | The Kite Runner | ||||
Sweeney Todd | Before the Devil… | Sweeney Todd | ||||
Atonement | Ratatouille | Atonement | Atonement | |||
Jesse James | The Savages | American Gangster | American Gangster |
NBR | AFI | BFCA | SAG | PGA | DGA | Oscar |
Little Miss Sunshine | Little Miss Sunshine | Little Miss Sunshine | Little Miss Sunshine | Little Miss Sunshine | Little Miss Sunshine | Little Miss Sunshine |
Babel | Babel | Babel | Babel | Babel | Babel | Babel |
The Departed | Half Nelson | The Departed | The Departed | The Departed | The Departed | The Departed |
Flags/Fathers | Dreamgirls | Dreamgirls | Dreamgirls | Dreamgirls | Dreamgirls | |
Painted Veil | Inside Man | The Queen | Bobby | The Queen | The Queen | The Queen |
Notes on a Scandal | Happy Feet | Notes on a Scandal | ||||
History Boys | United 93 | United 93 | ||||
Devil Wears Prada | Little Children | |||||
Letters from Iwo Jima | Letters from Iwo Jima | Letters from Iwo Jima | Letters from Iwo Jima | |||
Blood Diamond | Blood Diamond |