The Gurus of Gold over at Movie City News has put out their first full list of the top categories (minus screenplay) for November. The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg is at last a part of the group.
As you can see, top predictors Dave Karger, Steve Pond and David Poland are all sticking with Silver Linings Playbook to win. The rest of us are going for Argo, while Anne Thompson sticks with Life of Pi. Marc Olsen is down for Lincoln.
Last year, roughly around this time, in the lead categories the name in the second slot won the Oscar. The Decendents led, The Artist won. Clooney led, DuJardin won. Davis led, Streep won. That was last year. Go back a year prior to that around the same time, or a little later, Gurus of Gold had The King’s Speech at number one (after Toronto) and David Fincher to win Best Director.
Previously, November charts looked like this:
1. Up in the Air
2. Precious
3. The Hurt Locker* (opened already)
4. Invictus
5. An Education
6. Up
7. Nine
8. The Lovely Bones
9. Inglourious Basterds
10. A Serious Man
The year prior, the earliest Gurus chart I could find was November 18, 2008, here is how it looked:
1. Slumdog Millionaire* (opened already)
2. Benjamin Button
3. Milk
4. Frost/Nixon
5. Revolutionary Road
Only one film was replaced off of this list. Funnily enough, though, the following week, Slumdog and Button had flipped.
Going back to 2007, in early November, more like now, it looked like this:
1. Atonement
2. No Country for Old Men* (opened already)
3. American Gangster
4. Charlie Wilson’s War
5. There Will Be Blood
Michael Clayton was number 6, Juno was trailing at 9.
Going back to 2006, we don’t have an early November chart, just a late one. It looked like this:
1. Dreamgirls
2. The Departed* (opened already)
3. The Queen
4. Babel
5. Little Miss Sunshine
So only Dreamgirls turned out to be wrong. Going back to November 2005, it looked like this:
1. Brokeback Mountain
2. Munich
3. Walk the Line
4. Memoirs of a Geisha
5. Good Night, Good Luck
Argo is sooo overrated! The Town was a better film.
My ten best picture predictions:
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Silver Linings Playbook
Skyfall
The Master
Zero Dark Thirty
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Looper
Amour
I don’t see Argo going all the way. It’s a great suspense thriller but doesn’t have the heavyweight qualities of Lincoln, which seems like the frontrunner to me (and I’m not getting my info from Karl Rove).
I have no idea how many people attending TIFF, HIFF, etc are in the Academy, but neither do the people reporting rapturous crowds at Argo. I’m just saying, if you’re going to use the crowd-pleaser argument for either movie, the edge must be given to SLP.
And IMO Argo’s plot is too thin and shallow to have cultural and political relevance, especially now as Lincoln overshadows it on that front, and on every other front for that matter.
Linda, how many of the people who voted for SLP to win those audience awards do you figure are in the Academy?
Argo has one major thing going for it that SLP doesn’t. Cultural and political relevance.
Speaking of which I think if they had done this poll starting today I believe Lincoln would probably be in either first or second place. Today it shot up to an 88 on Metacritic with 27 reviews. It would be my pick.
I thought Argo was OK, an interesting film, but not a great film, not #1 caliber. I’m more akin to Flight or SLP and with Lincoln opening up, maybe that will take over the #1 spot.
Linda- please don’t rain on my Argo parade honey, I love that movie! I was in the second screening at TIFF for it and that audience was so electric I’m surprised we all didn’t spontaneously combust..maybe the SLP screenings were electric too, I wasn’t in them and I haven’t seen it yet so I’m not ready to vote on which film is the greatest of all….and we still have a few films left unseen.
SLP: let’s see, has Oscar ever had a BP nom film about a 35ish man in a midlife crisis who winds up in a love story with a woman ten years his junior? With a script that Billy Wilder wished he’d written? was it a critical sensation? A career peak for everyone involved? And and and – this is important – was it a big hit?
What if I told you it was all of those things AND it made more money than all the other BP nom’d films combined – like more than $150 mil – AND it still lost. Impossible you say?
If the English Patient can beat Jerry Maguire, Lincoln, Les Mis, or Argo can beat SLP. And I’ll make another bet SLP-unseen: five years from now, people will know fewer quotes from SLP than they do from Jerry Maguire.
QED
Lincoln has a really nice 85 at MC and 94% at RT. It just need strong B.O. and you will see it running this race alone. Plus, not that the recent presidential election hurts it either.
I think Lincoln is being slightly underestimated and SLP overestimated. I know it’s Weinstein but I can’t imagine this film being endorsed by a wide range of branches. It’s very very possible that it scores zero tech nods (it has to take out Lincoln, Les Miserables, Argo, Life of Pi, Zero Dark Thirty and even The Dark Knight Rises, Skyfall, Django Unchained, which all seem more likely contenders… The Descendants scored it last year but 2011 was not a strong year like 2012). Only 5 films have won BP without tech nod were: Ordinary People, Annie Hall, It Happened One Night, Grand Hotel and Broadway Melody… more than 30 years since it happened the last time.
I don’t see how people are arguing for Argo over Silver Linings. At at least two film festivals where they were up against each other, Silver Linings won the Audience Award and Argo fell short. Arguments for both films seem to hinge on the crowd-pleaser element, and obviously Silver Linings is pleasing more crowds. It could be another movie altogether on top, and probably will be, but to put Argo above Silver Linings in any ranking seems misguided and motivated by personal preference.
In internet terms: Stop trying to make Argo happen. It’s not going to happen.
I don’t get all this confidence in Chastain’s role when we don’t really know 100% if it is really a central role or an ensemble. It seems to me that people go with the rumors when no one has seen the movie yet. And Flight I am excited about DW but the movie seems so trivial in comparison to the other one in the list.
Ah, I didn’t see the link for Supporting, thought they didn’t those yet. My bad.
Weird that she’s dropped him, especially since there’s been zero word on the film so far.
Oh, I know that, Nikola – and Sasha has dropped him from the supporting category.
DiCaprio would go under Supporting, Kim.
I’m more surprised at the lack of votes for Hopkins!
Sasha, why have you dropped DiCaprio?
Love that Kathryn Bigelow is listed under Best Director for ‘Zero Dark Forty’. That’s the sequel I suppose.
oh boy….Argo will be lucky to get nominated
its a solid film, but so elemental. Not even close to the greatness that was The Town. How’d that one do?
@Raygo: Argo feels like this year’s Up in the Air to me to. It feels too out of sight out of mind, doesn’t stick with you.
FYI, new Les Mis trailer: http://vt.tumblr.com/tumblr_md69dlJoPI1qhu37u.mp4
We’ll see SLP steadily drop down the list a more worthy candidates start their rise, including Lincoln and Les Miserables. Argo will probably stay where it is, analogous to Up in the Air. A lot of people see SLP as this year’s Up in the Air, but Argo feels more like it.
Interesting.
On last year’s charts in November Hugo was at #11.
At that time no one thought it would get the most noms and shares the most wins with The Artist.