This Oscar year is similar to the some of the years before the Academy pushed their date forward six weeks, before Telluride and other film festivals became the premiere Best Picture launching pad. The Revenant’s last minute dominance — after seeming to miss the first wave of critical acclaim — is reminiscent of the years where films like Braveheart and Million Dollar Baby won. In both their respective years, two other films were barreling towards Best Picture, but neither could be decided upon, so voters turned to a newly emerged alternative.
In the year of Braveheart, 1995, Sense and Sensibility and Apollo 13 were sharply dividing the industry and the critics. No one was really considering Braveheart because its reviews were somewhat mixed. But when neither Ron Howard nor Ang Lee received Best Directing nominations from the Academy, that left only two films that could win with a traditional BD-BP twofer: Braveheart and Babe. Next to Babe (which is by far the better film, sorry but it is) Braveheart seemed liked the ultimate Oscar epic. “So let it be written, so let it be done.”
When Million Dollar Baby headed down the pike, it, too, was a tad mixed on reception. But it was King Clint and it hit its target mightily. Two other films were also hard competing that year as well: Sideways (SAG Ensemble award winner) and The Aviator (PGA choice). Clint swept in, took the DGA, then took Best Picture. The other thing Braveheart and Million Dollar Baby had in common is that they both won the Golden Globe for Best Director (though not Best Picture).
Now, we have King Alejandro and his second at-bat in as many years with The Revenant. The season was earlier dominated by primarily two films — The Big Short (PGA) and Spotlight (SAG Ensemble). Now that The Revenant has taken the DGA it, seems poised to take Best Picture, maybe even a sweep, as Erik Anderson at AwardsWatch is predicting. Anderson said he thinks it could be the biggest sweep since the days before the preferential ballot.
Sweeps occurred more commonly before the expanded Best Picture slate. There was more diversity of winners, too. Now, with more than five Best Picture nominees, the majority of wins in other categories come from Best Picture nominees, like 90%. The Best Picture nominees tend to divide up the awards in less predictable ways, and have often aligned Best Director, in split years, with those films that score with technical achievements. This happened with Gravity in 2013 and it happened again with Life of Pi in 2012. Those years were two-film races, however. And therein might lie the biggest thing about this year that has allowed The Revenant to dominate in the 11th hour; no one can really make up their minds between Spotlight and The Big Short, so many may opt for the epic, the film that fits the profile of the typical tried-and-true Oscar Best Picture winner.
What’s most unusual about The Revenant is that it’s divisive. Although the makeup of film criticism — and the people who write it — has grown and expanded and evolved over the past 15 or 20 years of Oscar history, so this makes it hard to compare similar situations in years past. But a divisive film is a divisive film.
To find out how divisive, you can take a look at the Rotten Tomatoes negative score. That doesn’t tell you the whole picture. But The Revenant’s loss at the PGA already suggests that it is divisive. In order to win Best Picture on a preferential ballot, a film has to either come up with a hefty 40% or more of #1 votes from the entire membership on the first round of counting, or else it has to be able to collect a substantial number of redistributed ballots where it was ranked #2 and #3. If it doesn’t, it just can’t win. Probably not if as few as 25% of ballots have it at #1 in Round 1, and the rest of the voters rank it at #6, #7 or #8. Because all those ballots where Revenant is ranked #6, #7, or #8 will go instead to rival movies that appeal to everybody during the middle rounds of voting. It’s as simple as that. Both Spotlight and The Big Short will have no problem landing on ballots in the top three ranks, and may even collect many of the ballots where they are ranked in the middle. But if The Revenant has a strong enough lead heading in, it could still win if enough people push it to the top of their ballot as their #2 or #3 favorite, liking it – not loving it, but not hating it.
Argo and Birdman were films that probably hit the crucial 35% or 40% mark of #1 support heading into the Best Picture vote count. How do we know this? They were both winning on both kinds of ballots across all the guilds – PGA/DGA/SAG. That this year has three separate winners in the three top guilds could signal that none of them are likely appealing to 50% + 1 of the voters. Extremely unlikely. (These neck-and-neck frontrunners could be winning plurality ballot Guild awards with as few as 20-21% of the voters, but we suspect that number is closer to 35-40%). What will make the difference for The Revenant is whether this last minute enthusiasm for Iñárritu can make people switch their previous “against it” to a vote “for it.” Think: Martin O’Malley voters switching their vote because they know he can’t get the nomination.
But let’s take a closer look at this in three different parts. First, let’s look at The Revenant’s strengths, as well as its weaknesses. Let’s then look at previous divisive Best Picture winners on the level of The Revenant. And finally, we’ll compare Iñárritu’s run at a back-to-back Best Picture win, making Academy history.
One of the ways our friend Craig Kennedy wound up predicting Alejandro G. Iñárritu for the Best Director win at DGA was the exceptional nature of a back-to-back Oscar nomination for Best Picture and Director. Just getting back-to-back Oscar nominations alone is rare enough after a BP-Director double-win. Getting a back-to-back pair of BD-BP nominations and then racking up 12 nominations for the film overall, on the heels of a Best Picture win the previous year is unlike anything Oscar history has ever seen. Ordinary when a director is peaking with back-to-back nominations in consecutive years, it’s the second pair of nominations when he finally wins.
(Best Picture nominations in italics. Best Picture wins in bold italics)
1929/1930 – Lewis Milestone, All Quiet on the Western Front
1930/1931 – Lewis Milestone, The Front Page
1929/1930 – Clarence Brown, Anna Christie + Romance
1930/1931 – Clarence Brown, A Free Soul
1931/1932 – Von Sternberg, Morocco
1932/1933 – Von Sternberg, Shanghai Express
1932/1933 – Frank Capra, Lady for a Day
1934 – Frank Capra, It Happened One Night
– (double wins on the 2nd consecutive BD)
1936 – Gregory La Cava, My Man Godfrey
1937 – Gregory La Cava, Stage Door
1938 – Frank Capra, You Can’t Take It with You
1939 – Frank Capra, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
– (double wins on the 1st consecutive BD-BP pair; loses on the 2nd pair)
1939 – John Ford, Stagecoach
1940 – John Ford, The Grapes of Wrath
1941 – John Ford, How Green Was My Valley
– (It took Ford 3 consecutive BD-BP pairs before he scored a double win)
1939 – William Wyler, Wuthering Heights
1940 – William Wyler, The Letter
1941 – William Wyler, The Little Foxes
1942 – William Wyler, Mrs Miniver
– (It took Wyler 4 consecutive BD-BP pairs! before he scored a double win)
1939 – Sam Wood, Goodbye Mr Chips
1940 – Sam Wood, Kitty Foyle
1941 – Michael Curtiz, Yankee Doodle Dandy
1942 – Michael Curtiz, Casablanca
– (double wins on the 2nd consecutive BD)
1943 – Henry King, The Song of Bernadette
1944 – Henry King, Wilson
1946 – David Lean, Brief Encounter
1947 – David Lean, Great Expectations
1949 – Joseph L. Mankiewicz, A Letter to Three Wives
1950 – Joseph L. Mankiewicz, All About Eve
– (double wins on the 2nd consecutive BD nom)
1950 – John Huston, The Asphalt Jungle
1951 – John Huston, The African Queen
1952 – John Huston, Moulin Rouge
1952 – Fred Zinneman, High Noon
1953 – Fred Zinneman, From Here to Eternity
– (double wins on the 2nd consecutive BD-BP pair)
1953 – Billy Wilder, Stalag 17
1954 – Billy Wilder, Sabrina
1954 – Elia Kazan, On the Waterfront
1955 – Elia Kazan, East of Eden
– (double wins on the 1st consecutive BD-BP pair; loss on the 2nd BD nom)
1957 – Mark Robson, Peyton Place
1958 – Mark Robson, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
1959 – Billy Wilde, Some Like It Hot
1960 – Billy Wilder, The Apartment
– (double wins on the 2nd consecutive BD)
1966 – Mike Nichols, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
1967 – Mike Nichols, The Graduate
1977 – Woody Allen, Annie Hall
1978 – Woody Allen, Interiors
1981 – Stephen Spielberg, Raiders of the Lost Ark
1982 – Stephen Spielberg, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
1992 – Robert Altman, The Player
1993 – Robert Altman, Short Cuts
1992 – James Ivory, Howard’s End
1993 – James Ivory, The Remains of the Day
2003 – Clint Eastwood, Mystic River
2004 – Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
– (double wins on the 2nd consecutive BD-BP pair)
2014 – Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Birdman
2014 – Alejandro G. Iñárritu, The Revenant
We see how how the pattern has been extraordinarily consistent over the years. The closest we ever got to a shock-and-awe disruption of the pattern is the run by Frances Ford Coppola with The Godfather (won producer, not director), American Graffiti nominated the next year (producer), then The Godfather Part II (picture, director) and The Conversation was nominated for BP the same year (producer). The Godfather films won Best Picture twice but Coppola only collected Best Director for Part II. Bob Fosse won Best Director for Cabaret when The Godfather first won BP.
Due to another set of extraordinary circumstances, Craig Kennedy says he felt there had to be something special about this year and this movie and that director. That was one thing I myself neglected to see. In looking at the negative stats against The Revenant, and every other film, I was not looking at all The Revenant’s strengths. The Revenant has just made history twice – in a good way (winning the DGA back-to-back for the first time in their six decade history) and in a bad way (winning the BAFTA without a screenplay nomination. Not having that screenplay nomination still makes it a weak winner because it exposes the fact that the film is perceived to have no depth of story).
What’s interesting about the back-to-back wins of Birdman and The Revenant is to look at it as a thesis statement and then a backing up of that thesis. Riggan in Birdman seeks to do something unequivocal — make a masterpiece that elevates him above the kind of crap society has become and the industry has become. The film industry backed him up — way up — on that thesis. “Yes,” they said, “We agree. We hate the direction Hollywood is headed.” The next year, Iñárritu does the impossible — he makes the far more ambitious, massively difficult reach to deliver a work of art of the kind that Riggan could only dream about having made.
Its success was teetering on its box office performance, and it was touch-and-go for a while there. A very expensive art movie (with a budget of $135 million) needed to make a lot of money or it was going to be a monumental flop of epic proportions. It could have gone either way but it went, mercifully, in Inarritu’s favor as the film has indeed made lots of money. People flocked to see what all the fuss was about with the bear, the hubbub about the violence, and to maybe see the movie that might finally win Leonardo DiCaprio the Oscar. So, all systems go, right? It wins the DGA and nearly sweeps the BAFTAs. Now, it’s a formidable frontrunner.
But here’s the problem. The Revenant is hella divisive. It’s more divisive than any film has been since Crash. When Crash won Best Picture it was such an embarrassment for the industry that they never awarded a badly reviewed film again after that. Before Crash, they had routinely ignored the critics and went their own way.
Once again, Rotten Tomato negatives, going back 20 years:
2015 – The Revenant – 50 negatives
2002 – A Beautiful Mind – 50 negatives
2005 – Crash – 57 negatives
2014 – Birdman – 21 negatives
2013 – 12 Years a Slave – 11 negatives —SPLIT
2012 – Argo – 13 negatives — SPLIT
2011 – The Artist – 7 negatives
2010 – The King’s Speech – 14 negatives
2009 – The Hurt Locker – 6 negatives
2008 – Slumdog Millionaire – 20 negatives
2007 – No Country for Old Men – 18 negatives
2006 – The Departed – 24 negatives
2004 – Million Dollar Baby – 23 negatives
2003 – Return of the King – 14 negatives
2002 – Chicago – 34 negatives — SPLIT
2000 – Gladiator – 44 negatives —- SPLIT
1999 – American Beauty – 21 negatives
1998 – Shakespeare in Love 10 negatives —- SPLIT
1997 – Titanic – 21 negatives
1996 – The English Patient – 12 negatives
You can see that The Revenant is not just divisive, it’s among the three most divisive in the last 20 years. This could partly explain why it didn’t win the Producers Guild – it just couldn’t overcome the number of people heading in who either didn’t go see it or else saw it and hated it.
On the other hand, the Craig Kennedy narrative of THe Revenant being such an unusual trajectory for any director, let alone the one director “of color” in a year of #OscarsSoWhite could easily override, I think, the divisiveness of the movie.
I would not rule out, however, The Revenant winning a whole bunch of Oscars but just not Best Picture. Spotlight and The Big Short are still going to have many supporters heading into the race. That means, we still have a possible opening for a surprise on Oscar Night.
The other thing we can’t discount, in terms of wondering whether The Revenant can hit that 50% + 1 level of support heading in is that it does have nominations in almost every category at the Oscars. Sure, it could have more support from the actors (SAG Ensemble nomination) and more support from the writers (that crucial missing screenplay nomination).
Since we’ve already looked back at the years with the preferential ballot to see whether films without screenplay nominations won Best Picture in a split year, now let’s look at the preferential ballot years in non-split years, to see what The Revenant’s precedent there might be.
1944 – Casablanca wins 3: Picture, Director Screenplay. 8 nominations total. It was up against Song of Bernadette, the Golden Globe winner, with 12 nominations, including Screenplay.
1943 – Mrs. Miniver wins 6: Picture, Actress, Supporting Actress, Director, Screenplay, Cinematography
1942 – How Green Was My Valley wins 5: Picture, Director, Supporting Actor, Cinematography, Art Direction. 10 nominations total, including Screenplay.
1939 – Gone with the Wind – 8 wins + 2 honorary: Picture, Director, Actress, Supporting Actress, Art Direction, Cinematography, Screenplay, editing. 13 nominations in all.
1938 – You Can’t Take it With You – 2 wins, just Picture and Director. 7 nominations in all, including Screenplay.
1935 – It Happened One Night – 5 wins out of 5 nominations: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Writing.
Prior to this year, there were often only three nominees per category.
No matter how you slice it, split or no split, with a preferential ballot having a screenplay nomination helps.
In conclusion, the rarity of Iñárritu’s second turn at-bat the year following a double win (Craig Kennedy’s thesis) could simply override all things, with many voters launching him into the stratosphere of the truly legendary. It’s rare enough to get a back-to-back nominations since the 1970s – thus, making Academy history would seem to naturally follow.
We have no other major awards left to announce from here on out. Taking into account that Iñárritu and Birdman did NOT win last year with the Golden Globe and BAFTAs, the finally tally heading into the Oscar race looks like this in terms of industry awards:
The Big Short
PGA, ACE, WGA
The Revenant
DGA, ADG, ASC
Spotlight
SAG, WGA
Mad Max
ACE
I’d say The Big Short theoretically could still give The Revenant some trouble for the top prize of the night, in light of the kinds of nominations it has — though the DGA win is a risky stat to bet against. The one deciding factor might be the singular male protagonist, which Oscar voters really like, versus an ensemble piece about something more important than “White Man’s Burden.” It’s a toss-up. Still.
I think The Revenant Sweeping is a foregone conclusion at this point.
My gun to my head prediction is Spotlight. I believe it will quite easily be the consistent #2. The Revenent and Big Short are BOTH divisive and if the supporters plan to put some thought into it, they will screw each other by putting the other one last.
I don’t think the Academy considers stats when they are voting. The majority are 60+ and retired, white and male. They aren’t as involved in the industry as they once were.. There have also been an overwhelming amount of reports of people’s spouses, children, assistants, housekeepers who were filling out the paper ballots if the member didn’t get to a lot of the screeners or really has no stake in the vote. The stats are for us nerds.. Whether or not the digital age has refocused members to fill out his or her own ballot, I do not know..
“But when neither Ron Howard nor Ang Lee received Best Directing
nominations from the Academy, that left only two films that could win
with a traditional BD-BP twofer: Braveheart and Babe. Next to Babe
(which is by far the better film, sorry but it is)” And how! It is a definitive classic that stand up to this day, where as many other films come and go and age terribly!
I think Braveheart is better than Babe. That was such a weird year for the Oscars.
Just because I wrote long things does not mean you can’t read it. typo or not, it does make sense. Therefore some of you – namely those who reply as courtesy to anyone who posts – it only fair to them. if you do decide to reply to a post, read it properly. .. Or don’t bother responding. Once again as per my below post the point is missed… I said, regarding directors they deserve to win two back-to- back in a row – not that they did deserve it. Because I thought obviously most are smart enough to work this out, as the poster says these directors didn’t win back to back.
what I meant is until such time, these 3 big directors over the recent very recent (and up till recently the less-than-acceptable prominence of Mr inniratu. In contrast it is unjustified that inarritu is the first before others. others who have done more than inarritu has, others who have done more for holywood for decades. and they get to see the injustice. not to mention the ghosts of the fords, leans, de milles of the past look on in pain and agony as a still lesser known director wins.
To this day inirratu is not talked of in social communal circles anywhere near as much as Spielberg, Scorsese, Scott and Cameron. Take more than two ‘ debut’ feature films as Oscar nominated to earn your stripes to win back-to-back… to some of you who reply but don’t read my posts, is that hard for you to understand my point?
A director’s work speaks for itself. It doesn’t need awards to elevate and no amount of awards will make a directors work great. Many great directors have not been awarded by Oscar but their stand higher than some multi award inners. Many people had doubts about Innaritu last year but to reward a second year without even one great film is laughable. If you asked where he ranks among current directors let alone greatest of all time, I bet he will be well down the list. The Academy has these types of weird crushes from time to time and they will eventually see in the light of day.
Maybe so maybe not. Inarritu may well not be the greatest director working today but he is more distinctive than quite a few. You have to give him that if nothing else. He is also willing to take some big chances along the way that have paid off in spite of a lot of reasons they shouldn’t. Whether that will continue remains to be seen. Directors who continue to take huge risks often flame out. You have to learn how to keep working without always nearly stepping off a cliff. Hard to say if he is one who can really do that. Ridley Scott is a director who clearly has figured it out even though he has no oscars.
[deleted]
nope, braylon, you can’t talk to other readers this way.
ok sry..
s’ok.
No Bobby respectfully sorry but I think u only literally got half the point of my argument and furthermore half the point of the objective of this website. The appeal of this website to all.of you Inc. Myself is that it presents the debate it explores with great credit to Sasha and Ryan, it explores debates two sides of the mystery of what largely wrong and flawed with Oscars and what works. Your half rigtht but only half right. Moat of us accept that indeed Oscar members make the final choice and that some of us don’t get our films. To win. I never said all the time popular films should always win nobody suggesting that. But the second half of the argument on this site is equally critical and for you to dismiss it fall into line to Oscars own rule be so willing to embrace Oscars choices that is laughable why? Because you miss the key linking objective of this site. Awards daily.com. to me and I sure many others is a rational interpretation and rightfully creative in it own vision that bridges the growing gulf between public and the Oscars. By you dismissing the role of the public. You are suggesting as Oscars own history attests to. By their very own testimony that indeed you are saying ‘ gone with the wind’ was not popular for it time it only won cos of members own choice yet that film rose to public prominence.
Fact is nobody in public circles beyond this forum talks bout the revenant..nobody talking bout spotlight beyond the web. And only the really memorable Oscar winners public cares about and respects. If u believe that Oscars has only ever exist and has awarded films regardless of public approval or input then clearly some people like that do not understand the true function of the word ‘ instutution’ but for arguments sake if you represent the minority but growing demographic of those who dare to respect Oscars discriminative politically motivated blindsidednesd then one has to wonder whether Oscars less a inatituion and more a self righteous bunch of pigs. What do pics care about? Hogging as much of the pig sty as much as possible hogging all the food and leaving little left for the others. This is what Oscar done against science themed films, creative brilliantly made fiction, fantasy and above all their mentality against blacks. Think bout the voices protesting with the Oscar so white for a moment. The acting voices within the academy the division is there why? Cos actors listen to their own ethnic background their own communities the black African Americans or other ethnic backgrounds care bout their comrades their own culture and represent that not just themselves. As wrong as it be if innirratu to win for the overrated revrnant which many still majority don’t feel us a worthy winner to be If it wins, He should thank then slam Oscars attitude lack if cultural depth on behalf of ethnicities. Oscar has themselves set up a racially charged awards season when appallingly in a year that two of the finest action science themed adventure drama films in Fury rd and Martian we’re made we should be debating the grwt clash between the visionary genre film vs. Oscar more of the same factual dramas. Instead Oscar bring unwanted attention on their own questions of judgement. As publicly humiliating this year Oscar can be maybe in future years se good bout the poor outcome. If inniratu and revrnant wins 2 for 2 wins frankly it Oscar way of compensating to try to appease the Oscar so white boycott guess what? It won’t work. But my Oscar exposing their racial charged divisions, they pavw the way for further insider Hollywood journalists to put heat on Oscar on the very films that are nominated that acc to experts won’t win
I can’t recall what happened with Crash v BBM amongst the experts before the Oscars?
Did many switch?
This is the only example I can think of in recent memory where the presumed favourite lost, and it’s a case of a late surge.
If TR is favourite and it is the one surging, I can’t see it losing
Before the ceremony, there was talk of the Academy being resistant to BBM. Some big names even made their objections public knowledge. There was also talk of “Crash” being popular among the Academy members. I do believe that despite their objections to BBM that they clearly loved “Crash. Because if they were just objecting to BBM, they could have gone for one of the other great films rather “Crash”. It was a double whammy! Not only were some Academy members homophobic, they were also terrible judges of Best Picture. The stupid and the homophobic combined to reward “Crash” and deny BBM.
Brokeback Mountain was definitely the perceived favorite. Anyone who was around back then will tell you the same thing. A number of people saw the Crash upset coming, but the majority was definitely with BBM.
Is Rotten Tomatoes so important? They’re not the academy, just a few a critics giving a point o view, who do not value the art of a director or the protagonist if it do not like , just to influence others when they never really could make a movie on your own … It’s not the rotten tomatoes awards are the Oscars, and the academy really know about films. The best movie should contain art everywhere you look and listen , not only a great script. My humble opinion. Other films nominated once looked Do return to see ? because they are bored for a second look. The Revenant shows art in almost every scene or spoken word. If 50 critics did not see that, it’s really important for the academy when there are millions of more critical in the world?
do u think a movie that has 44% on RT will be nominated for oscar ?? no….its the general consensus of USA…hardwork is the only thing in favor of revenant..i hope it doesnt win BP….the grey 2011 was better than this over budget movie
The Grey was a good thriller that held my interest but which left my mind quickly. The Revenant while having a few of the same elements like snow, ice and survival still resonates for me. It’s themes and immersive nature into a time of history that has been all but forgotten put it way above The Grey for me. i felt like I was there with the characters.
audience will like transformers…you can’t take box office into account….audience are mostly dumb than filmmakers
Only a few critics today even write well. Some clearly understand filmmaking better than others. However, many have favorites and dislikes just like anyone else which sometimes renders their critiques both valuable and unreliable at the same time. They can reflect the opinions of the people at a point in time but also lack the perspective to appreciate how something might resonate in the future.
Austin888 totally agree with you. Besides, ¿how many critics deserve to be critical to take them as seriously or consider to reward a film based on their opinions? It’s okay to use them as a reference but not reward based on the taste of them. Say that the movie TR is not worth winning is like saying that Golden Globes, SAG and BAFTA are totally wrong. Though of course this year we have several ” Best Pics” which also deserve to win. Regards!
Probably not the best time for this (earlier in the day, and a few hundred comments ago, probably would have been better), but I’m going to try it anyway:
I wanted to do an opinion poll – what is your gun-to-your-head, if-you-get-it-wrong-you’re-dead, prediction of what movie will win Best Picture, right now? (No need for explanations, just the name of the movie you would stake your life on, if you were forced to do so.) Mine is in the first reply…
The Big Short
The Revenant (sad face)
Revenant
Gun to my head, The Revenant.
But on Oscar night, my prediction ballot will list The Big Short. It will be worth the risk.
My ballot will also list The Big Short (but not at AD – here, I intend to continue the tradition of insurance bets this season and go with The Revenant -, at Gold Derby.) But I’m thinking more and more that my actual prediction, the one I’ll allow others to quote me on, will be Spotlight… So many of the less powerful clues point towards it, and The Big Short hasn’t shown as much strength as I’d thought it had after the PGA win… so I’m starting to think maybe I had the right idea before the PGA, when my intuition was telling me Spotlight would win. But, yeah, gun to my head… it’s definitely The Big Short.
So your Gold Derby prediction is The Revenant, your Awards Daily prediction is The Big Short and your Prediction You Want to be Quoted on is Spotlight.
LOL. What conviction! All your bluster about stats and you’re betting on them all. Bye bye credibility
Only one of those is my actual prediction. The Big Short. I can do whatever the **** I want with my contests. I am choosing The Revenant here, but that doesn’t mean I’m predicting it.
LOL
This thread on Awards Daily prediction- TBS
Awards Daily official prediction- TR
Gold Derby Prediction-TR
Actual Prediction- TBS
Prediction you want to be quoted on- Spotlight
Choosing TR to win doesn’t mean predicting it.
Credibility- zero
Current official prediction (everywhere): The Big Short
Potential future official prediction: Spotlight
What I choose to select in whatever prediction contests I enter: My own damn business! (I can select Brooklyn, if I want. I can select Bridge of Spies, if I want. The End.)
Not my prediction anywhere: The Revenant
Do you get it now? No. Why? Because:
Your intellect: zero
LOL Claudiu. You can’t ignore him?
🙂 I could… But I don’t like to ignore trolls. I like to take them on and show them what it’s like when someone trolls your posts.
I’m choosing the Revenant here.
here, I intend to continue the tradition of insurance bets this season and go with The Revenant -, at Gold derby
Your words
(I misunderstood his last comment. I’ll do another reply, so he actually receives it.)
“I’m choosing the Revenant here.
Your words” [That’s the way his reply looked, at first.]
Please explain how that means “my official prediction is The Revenant!” Go ahead! Wow us with your Andrew-semantics!…
“here, I intend to continue the tradition of insurance bets this season and go with The Revenant”
Oh, so you CAN read…
Next question: do you understand the meaning of the word ‘insurance’?
Being a gambler, I like the idea of betting ‘500 points’ on Brooklyn. I love that movie. The Revenant (my 2nd fav) has no Oscar script nomination (Brooklyn has), and only 1 movie in the last 50 years has won BP without one. That’s a huge stat for me.
And I like the idea of betting 500 points on The Big Short, which is another reason why I chose to reserve the straightforward version of my prediction contest entries for the Gold Derby one (because The Revenant will be the favorite there, and will have unfavorable odds, whereas over here odds don’t count), and to go with the insurance version here.
I don’t want to do a version with Spotlight winning anywhere, even though that might end up (Andrew – future tense, remember?) being my official prediction, because it’s also the movie I’m rooting for, and it’s behind according to the stats, so I don’t want to lose both ways if it doesn’t win.
But, apparently, I’m not allowed to think strategically that way, because the great Andrew, the head supervisor of all prediction contests, thinks I’m being facetious by doing so… You’d better watch out – he’s coming for you next! 🙂 How DARE you consider betting on a movie you’re not predicting?! 😮
And what I was saying about Spotlight was that I might switch my actual prediction from what it is now (The Big Short) to that, by the end. Crappy comprehension skills issue still not solved for you, huh?!
Here’s some help:
“But I’m thinking more and more that my actual prediction, the one I’ll allow others to quote me on, WILL BE Spotlight”
Heard about future tense?
gun to my head – Revenant
worth the risk – TBS
Counted.
You are deluding yourself …TR will win BD BA and BP at least
The very fact that you feel the need to say that to me as often as you do should, perhaps, tell you something… 🙂
You will never be a risk taker ; you lack the nerve and decisiveness
:)) Or maybe I just have too much good sense…
(Also, do you REALLY think that, if I wasn’t a risk taker, I wouldn’t be predicting The Revenant right now, like everybody else? I don’t see how you justify that claim…)
May your loved ones die of cancer. Scalia is now a good dead conservative parasite.
Revenant
Added.
Gold derby update, another expert has shifted from Spotlight to TR
Current tally:
Experts
TR 14
Spotlight 7
TBS 4
Editors
TR 6
Spotlight 1
TBS 0
Totals
TR 20
Spotlight 8
TBS 4
Clearly, PGA and divisiveness not convincing most of them
Where has Watermelons been at? With Winslet garnering another Oscar nomination, and could be looking at another win, I expected more comments on this season.
One and only screen legend Kate Winslet (Iris, Little Children, Eternal sunshine..) is poised to collect her well deserved and overdue second Oscar this 28th for her iconic masterful performance of the ages in Steve Jobs.
There, I did my best 😉
It would be very surprising if she gets it. Rachel McAdams has a better chance.
you don’t know what I was doing, do you?
Winslet seems to have some traction which really began at the Globes. A surprising, yet very deserving win and wouldn’t the photos of Leo and Kate holding oscars be the headlines of the night! Although, I’m going on record as saying a McAdams win wouldn’t be all that surprising either – It’s somewhat reminiscent of Tilda’s win for Michael Clayton.
Winslet has already won an Oscar for Gahhh’s sake. People seem to ignore that fact. To win your second Oscar, your performance has to be really truly amazing, or it’s been a long time, or you are so beloved. I don’t think Winslet’s this year qualifies for such. GG and BAFTA don’t value their awards as much as AMPAS.
Did you get to see The Dressmaker? I don’t know if it had an American release; it should have been entered so Judy Davis could get a nod and the wonderful costume design; among its other achievements. Winslet once again did a flawless Aussie accent.
Great film, was it eligible this year? Winslet and Davis deserves noms and also techs such as costumes
Pretty sure it’s set for a 2016 US release which will make it eligible. But despite making $20 million in Australia – a massive amount for the kind of film it is and the size of the market (for scale, The Revenant has made $18.5m so far – it’s done really poorly overseas, even in the UK where you’d think it would have momentum.
With that said, it’s very much in the spirit of Muriel’s Wedding (which Dressmaker director Jocelyn Moorhouse produced – should be front-and-centre in the marketing) and Priscilla which both did well in the US and had nominations/wins at the BAFTAs, Globes and Oscars between them. But will it get the push to match them? I’m not so sure.
I didn’t. It was big here in Australia of course. But I didn’t really feel appealed. I will rent it for sure.
That was close! Watermelons would mention a movie that got little to no attention of hers as well, like The Life of David Gale 🙂
Why not Winslet? Would be a welcome upset. Support the true supporting performances.
Yep we could be looking at glorious Kate WInslet joining a group of select women that have a lead and supporting Oscar. Helen Hayes, Ingrid Bergman, Meryl Streep, Maggie Smith, Jessica Lange and Cate Blanchett – an impressive club to be a member of!
can the revenant be the apocalypse now of this year and the big short upsets it like kramer vs kramer did that year ???
Claudiu, if Revenant wins Best Picture, I would not say it would be surprising, but it would be breaking a lot of stats (including one that has lasted 70 years–Hamlet). I think it would most likely reap 5-8 wins if that’s the case. I’ll honestly be fine if it wins exactly five or eight Oscars (not six or seven or nine).
But I honestly think Big Short is the weak frontrunner still, and I hate people who cherry pick stats for their own favor.
🙂 You’re right about everything, in my opinion. Of course it wouldn’t be a big surprise – The Revenant is legitimately in it, like Gravity was. Any winner of at least one of the Triple Crown titles is. But the exceptions it would create to at least 2-3 massive stats would bother me quite a bit…
It’s very possible that the film industry has warmed up to The Revenant more than the critics. If it does win Best Picture, we may have to re-evaluate the disconnect between what critics think (a la Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic) and what the industry thinks.
Yeah, but the biggest stats going against The Revenant are precisely industry stats… that’s the troubling part.
Then again, we may have to re-assess how important momentum can be, especially since The Revenant had a limited PUBLIC release in December (last film to do that was Million Dollar Baby). Also, we would have to wonder why did Revenant win Best Picture without SAG Ensemble when Gravity (despite it’s 7 Oscars) still lost to 12 Years a Slave.
Yeah, momentum might have to be factored in in the future… that’s what I was thinking as well… As for the second thing, Gravity, I believe, was a much earlier release than The Revenant. And it didn’t win BAFTA BP, but lost it to 12 Years a Slave, which gave that one the momentum, I suppose, if we’re going by that theory. Boyhood also won BAFTA, but this after losing all 3 Triple Crown guilds. So, yeah, momentum or no momentum, we can say that the guild stats were too strong a clue that time.
But it’s way too early for all this 🙂 – The Revenant hasn’t won yet.
The oscar voters are not looking at any bloody stats to vote. So that is all that matters….
I think this misses the point about the significance of stats.
I doubt anyone, even Claudiu, our most faithful stats guru, would say that the stats matter because voters look at them and it influences their voting. What the stats do is show a pattern or perspective on how any particular voting bloc (e.g. the PGA members) sees the competitors and that pattern is consistent with how another bloc (Oscar voters) see the same competitors, and the stat is therefore a very reliable predictor of the Oscar outcome.
Marshall Flores is the stats guru.
no disrespect to Marshall or others was intended!!!
if the PGA can have a tie for Best Picture, the stats guru title can be shared…
🙂 It’s OK, I don’t pretend to be any kind of guru – stats or otherwise. Besides, after this year, if it doesn’t turn out the right way, even if I wanted, I might not be able to…
Maybe we should make Marshall Flores the math’s guru and Claudiu the stats guru?
Toots said it all…
Both are right.. Toots is defining what Stats mean.. But George Golden is right. Which means stats are created as years pass..how? by the act of voting which in itself is not influenced by the stats.
No, they are voting according to their preferences and the stats reveal that. All the stats do is reveal their preferences for a period of time. That can change and when it does the stats will reflect that and show these new preferences too.
Haha.. Funny you start with No, because that is exactly what I said.
It is not influenced by the stats. The stats are (very good) clues as to how it is likely to go. I thought I’d made it perfectly clear already that this is my claim, and nothing more. Of course George Golden is right, but he’s also missing the point.
At least this year McKay and McCarthy will win Oscars. Last year Wes Anderson and Richard Linklater got nothing when AGI got three.
“The Revenant is hella divisive.” I don´t even believe that The Revenant is divisive among the Academy. Quite the contrary. The Big Short is probably much more a controversial choice within the the voting body – because it´s a satire, and satires hardly ever win Best Picture.
If there´s a film that has – genre-related – a chance to surprise The Revenant, it´s Spotlight (Mad Max would be an even more unlikely choice than The Big Short).
people who think preferential vote can save the big short are delusional IMHO…..when they give director and actor to revenant…they will think lets give one to TBS and spotlight in screenplay and tell f you to them in BP category…people will have changed their mind between PGA and Oscar..”DIFFICULT SHOOT RESULTING IN DECENT MOVIE IS GIVING OSCAR TO REVENANT”
A PGA winner with preferential ballot has already failed to win Best Picture. That’s the point. The PGA stat was broken. If The Big Short loses, it will be the second PGA winner with preferential ballot to not win BP. The second. Not the first.
Wrong again, just like when you said it before. Surely you don’t expect us to repeat the arguments!
“If The Big Short loses, it will be the second PGA winner with preferential ballot to not win BP. The second. Not the first.”
It would, however, be THE FIRST OUTRIGHT PGA winner (with the preferential ballot) to lose. But, since that doesn’t suit your argument, I guess it doesn’t matter…
My argument is pretty simple and it’s about this stat: “Every PGA winner with preferential ballot went on to win Best Picture”. This stat was BROKEN in 2014, this is a FACT. You’re talking about another stat which is: “Since it switched to preferential ballot the PGA never failed to predict the BP winner”. This stat is intact. But which one is more indicative?
I understand. But the first stat is clearly irrelevant, in my opinion, because it completely ignores the fact that there were two winners in one year (one of which did win BP that year.) The second stat is the only one that should be considered.
Wrong because the first stat is a precedent for Big Short NOT winning BP.
“Gravity” did set a precedent but not the way you think it did. TBS didn’t tie and would have to set a completely different and more relevant stat by becoming the first the PGA winner since the expansion preferential ballot to lose BP to a non PGA winner.
“TBS didn’t tie and would have to set a completely different and more relevant stat by becoming the first the PGA winner since the expansion preferential ballot to lose BP to a non PGA winner.”
This. Answer this!
What about this stat: Every Oscar Best Picture winner since the expansion and preferential ballot has also been a PGA winner. You know very well that your argument is a red herring because as we all know “12 Years A Slave” won Oscar BP in 2014 having tied in first place with “Gravity” at the PGA.
We’re never gonna resolve this dilemma. To some people, the PGA was half wrong and half right as a predictor of the BP winner in the year 12 Years and Gravity tied. To others, the PGA was in essence right because one of the two PGA winners won the Oscar. There is no “correct” answer — both perspectives can be seen as correct, depending on how you see these things.
There isn’t a dilemma because his claim about PGA winner not winning doesn’t matter because “12 Years A Slave” had “Gravity” covered. PGA had double the chance to be correct and it was correct. Having more than one PGA winner gives it better chance of being right. In 2014, PGA had am extra insurance and it didn’t if one of them was wrong because its other won. The stat TBS has is this: Every Oscar BP winner since the expansion and preferential ballot has won the PGA beforehand and the only PGA winner not to win lost to PGA winner. TBS isn’t facing another PGA winner, so its path is much clearer than “Gravity”‘s.
The PGA wasn’t half wrong, it had two shots at BP and landed with one of them. It doesn’t matter if it missed with hundreds of shots as long as it got correct BP that year. “12 Years A Slave” counted and that’s all that matters.
dude, let it go
We know what you think — you’ve said it 80 times. Some people disagree. No matter how many times you reiterate the same point, some will disagree.
“You know very well that your argument is a red herring ”
Exactly.
No film which hasn’t won PGA, including ties for first place, has ever won Best Picture since the expansion and preferential ballot. TBS is within in line of that because there’s no film which has tied it for first place.
Two winners are two winners. I don’t care if they tied. They’re two distinct and separate winners and stats should treat them as such.
I don’t know what you’re on about. You need to have won the PGA, including ties, to win Oscar Best Picture. t’s that simple, really. The fact that “Gravity” didn’t win BP is a stat but it isn’t statistically relevant. One of the two winners in 2014 did go on to win BP. One of tied PGA winners won Oscar BP even though the other one didn’t.”12 Years A Slave” is relevant because it won PGA and Oscar.
Look at it this way. There’s no tiebreaker method in the PGA accounting, whereas there is one for the Oscars (which makes it almost impossible to have two winners).
If the PGA is used as a predictive stat for Oscar BP, in 2014 the result was this: “Either 12YAS or Gravity will win Oscar BP”. And for that, the PGA was 100% correct.
I guess it makes sense to post this once at the end as well. I’ve collected about 60 votes so far.
“It’s that time of the year again! 🙂 And a better year than this one for such a simulation there probably could not be…
Here are the previous results, as usual:
2011 The Social Network * details not saved
2012 – not held –
2013 Zero Dark Thirty * 37-24 over Silver Linings Playbook
2014 Her * 33-33 tied with Gravity, won 19-18 in 1st round 1st places
2015 Birdman * 62-61 over Boyhood
As you may know from last year, I will be running this simulation using votes gathered from both here and the IMDb message boards. Anybody that would like to contribute a ballot (your personal 1st-8th ranking of the eight Best Picture nominees this year) to this year’s edition, just post it here, and I will add it to the tally, in 2-3 days’ time. Thank you in advance to all of the people who are going to help out with this simulation, by voting!
You can, of course, vote even if you haven’t seen all of the movies, though, obviously, it’s better if you have. 🙂 A good compromise would be if you’re pretty sure the movies you haven’t seen have little to no chance of cracking the top 5 on your ballot anyway. Either way, it’s recommended that you rank all 8 movies – but not obligatory. Really, the only purpose the recommendations in this paragraph have, at all, is to make the simulation as relevant as possible to how the Academy itself votes…”
1. The Big Short
2. The Martian
3. The Revenant
4. Mad Max: Fury Road
5. Spotlight
6. Bridge of Spies
7. Room
8. Brooklyn
1. Room
2. Spotlight
3. Bridge of Spies
4. Mad Max: Fury Road
5. Brooklyn
6. The Big Short
7. The Revenant
8. The Martian
Here’s mine
1 Mad Max *****
2 Spotlight ****
3 Room ****
4 Big Short****
5 The Martian ***
6 Bridge of Spies***
7 Broolklyn***
8 The Revenant **
1 Room
2 The Revenant
3 Mad Max
4 The Big Short
5 Spotlight
6 Brooklyn
7 The Martian
8 Bridge of spies
1. The Revenant
2. Brooklyn
3. The Martian
4. Spotlight
5. Mad Max
6. Bridge of Spies
7. The Big Short
8. Room
1. Brooklyn
2. Spotlight
3. Big Short
4. Mad Max
5. Bridge of Spies
6. The Martian
7. Room
8. The Revenant
1. The Revenant
2. MMFR
3. Brooklyn
4. Spotlight
5. The Big Short
6. The Martian
7. Room
8. Bridge of Spies
But Carol is better than all of them.
Friendly question: for those picking The Revenant, I wonder if, mid-broadcast, Bale or Ruffalo wins Best Supporting Actor, if anyone would change his/her pick to (respectively) Big Short or Spotlight?
Just curious. I don’t expect to be able to check on this in real time because I don’t expect anyone to chime in here or on Twitter or likewise, but I DO think that the next day, if, say, Bale wins and Big Short wins BP, some previous Revenant booster (as compiled by Claudiu here) will then say: “Yeah, I knew it when Bale won.”
I think they would, because every new relevant outcome makes most of them switch their predictions, it seems. 🙂
I thought Claudiu was asking us for how we outselves would vote if we were AMPAS members, to get a sense of how the preferential ballot might play out for Awards Daily participants. I didn’t think he was asking for our predictions of the outcome on Oscar night.
If this is correct, then what happens on Oscar night has nothing to do with how I ranked the films.
But if I misunderstood, then I would rank my ballot differently, as I certainly don’t think MMFR and Brooklyn are ahead of Spotlight and TBS in the race.
… Unless, Unlikelihood, you weren’t even talking about our ballots in Claudiu’s poll.
No, no, that’s what I was asking. Your vote if you were an Academy member. Unlikelihood’s question was, of course, slightly off-topic.
??? No idea what you are talking about.
See my reply to Toots!
I think Bale can win. And TR at the same time.
1. Room
2. Mad Max: Fury Road
3. The Revenant
4. Spotlight
5. The Big Short
6. The Martian
7. Bridge of Spies
8. Brooklyn
1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. The Big Short
3. Brooklyn
4. Room
5. Spotlight
6. Bridge of Spies
7. The Revenant
8. The Martian
1. Spotlight
2. Room
3. The Big Short
4. The Martian
5. Mad Max
6. The Revenant
7-8: Have not seen BoS and Brooklyn
The Revenant is slightly in the lead. I’m at this point predicting it because it’s the most logical choice. I don’t on the other hand think The Big Short and Spotlight should be ruled out; I won’t be surprised if either wins.
I also dont think Miller should be completely counted out either. Again I’m predicting Innaritu, but I could see the possibility of Miller taking it.
OK, I realize that PGA/Oscars Preferential balloting helps those films that are not “polarizing”.
But since the Preferential Ballot system for BP …….. do we really have any firm proof that the most “agreeable” movie wins?
12YAS felt divisive, it won. Birdman felt divisive, it won. I see the correlation between PGA and Oscars, yes …. but I don’t automatically subscribe to this notion that the most “agreeable” films win BP at the Oscars.
I think it’s still “mostly” about which films are loved the most, have the buzz, have the wind in their sails at the right moment.
Yes to all of this. The stats are basically meaningless in subjective contests like the Oscars, where every year starts with a new slate of films thus destroying any kind of consistent population from which to draw reliable statistical analysis.
This. I was thinking the exact same thing this morning. 🙂
The problem with relying so heavily on statistics for Oscar races is that stats tend to be irrelevant in subjective popularity contests, especially ones that are voted on by a body that loses old members and adds new members every year. The population is not consistent enough for historical statistics to ever be truly reliable. I’m all for years that make this kind of thinking irrelevant. By focusing on the stats you become nothing more than a handicapper, and you definitely miss the forest for the trees in terms of why a movie or individual win an Oscar.
“The population is not consistent enough for historical statistics to ever be truly reliable.”
Yet they get confirmed year after year after year, and the percentages, many already over 90%, just keep getting better…
“Yet they get confirmed year after year after year, and the percentages, many already over 90%, just keep getting better…”
That’s not confirmation. I can predict heads 10 times in a row and be 90% correct, but that doesn’t confirm that my coin has a 90% bias to heads. The Cinescape makes an excellent point.
Really? You can predict heads 10 times in a row and be right nine time out of ten? In what universe is that possible????
At first I thought you were being sarcastic, but now it scares me that you might actually be serious… If you’re being serious, any answer I give you won’t help.
Excuse me! They increase their percentages. Is that better? (Because that’s what I meant – I just didn’t find a better way to say it at the time.)
In a subjective contest like the Oscars, statistics can never be reliable because the changing population every year brings about too many potential confounds. A confound is a possible alternate explanation for why something happens. Confounds are an important part of what makes a statistic reliable.
I fixed this comment for you, instead of just deleting it.
You will now feel like throwing a fit, but don’t. I’m doing you a favor.
I could care less, I’m not exactly emotionally involved here. You know what they say about people who assume? The above is a choice example.
Not even sure what you’re babbling about. I’m not assuming anything at all.
“I could care less.”
The phrase is: “I couldn’t care less…”
“I could care less,” makes no sense. If you have to come at me like a 3rd grader, at least try to sound like a smart 3rd grader.
So you do know what they say about people who assume?
You’re sounding like 3rd grader now.
The explanations are irrelevant, in my interpretation. When you’re working with as many stats as those that exist for the BP Oscar, from as many different groups, the sample size is actually huge and, if something happens with one group that is, in fact, not representative of the situation (an anomalous result), it will not happen again with all of the other groups. Or, if it does, enough other things will happen elsewhere that contradict that, thus indicating, when looking at the overall, what the actual situation is.
This is my belief (you must love that word…) I don’t care if it’s theoretically correct or not (in fact, I expect it’s not.) I don’t need to conform to mathematical standards. I just need to be right. When I’m proven wrong, I will re-evaluate. It’s not life or death, so who cares?! Until then, I encourage everybody to go their own way, figure things out on their own, and not listen to what I have to say about stats. I have my own system and, if you think it’s based on a fallacy, you should definitely ignore what I have to say on the matter! It’s as simple as that.
The whole premise of my assumption, in case I didn’t make that clear, is that large groups of people are similar enough in their opinions that, when they (especially groups that have a strong connection with the same industry) vote on something, and a pattern emerges when looking at the results of their votes, it is very likely that another group of the same nature, again, when big enough (6000 is big enough for me, and I don’t care if that’s mathematically correct or not), will produce results that align with those patterns almost every time. Besides, to “confirm” (another word you must be really fond of) that, we have the results from previous years and the way they always align in the same manner. Nobody’s asking you to believe me that this means anything, or agree.
The Revenant is technically great, cinematically ambitious, artistically inspired, visually haunting, and… it has Leo ” guys it’s my fucking time to win an Oscar” Di Caprio in almost every scene. This film is going to win BIG time at the Oscars, period.
It is a Rollercoaster without meaning. Not even nihilistic
If you can’t find a meaning, it doesn’t mean there isn’t.
I like rollercoasters.
Firstly, I’ll say I enjoyed all of the nominees this year and I honestly don’t think one individual film stands out as a ‘winner’ among them as they all contain great merits but have reasons that voters may hold back from putting them at number 1. Hence the mess with all the awards. Secondly, I have been looking at Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes, and on the evidence, I don’t see how The Revenant can be described as the most divisive with weakest reviews in comparison to The Big Short. Even though 6% divides them on Rotten Tomatoes, with 88% against 82%, the average score for The Big Short is 7.8 (the lowest of all the nominees) compared to The Revenant’s 8. Can someone also explain why their Metacritic scores are so different – 81% for The Big Short and 76% for The Revenant? They have almost identical numbers to the point that
any slight differences are negligible. For example, The Big Short has 9 100’s with The Revenant having 11. The Big Short has 16 reviews of 90% or above to The Revenant’s 15. They both have 29 reviews of 80% or above, The Big Short has 35 reviews 70% or above to The Revenant’s 39 (for some reason The Revenant has 5 more overall reviews with 50 to The Big Short’s 45 so these last numbers are highlighting this) Although The Revenant has 2 more in the yellow zone with 8 as opposed to The Big Short’s 6, it only has one review in red (a 38) to The Big Short’s 2 (a 25 and a 10 – which theoretically should have dragged the score down). So evidently the top critics have them pretty neck and neck. So Why the big difference in their percentage scores? The only reason I am posting this is because I’m fed up reading on this site that “The Revenant would have the lowest Metacritic score of a Best Picture winner since….” when saying The Big Short should win because the reviews were so much better. People say that reviews on Metacritic are weighted differently but why are they? They are all top critics or they wouldn’t be posted on Metacritic in the first place.
TR had no business in the costumes, visual effects and production design categories. Those sections must have liked the film a lot to include it.
Hardy was not expected for supporting actor. They must have liked the film a lot to include it.
We are supposed to believe that these same voters, when voting for BP will somehow turn against the film??
Exactly. 12 nominations mean broad support in the industry and that’s all that matters to win Best Picture.
The presumed 20-25% of voters that have The Revenant at no.1 (a percentage which should be about the same for all branches, and actually probably even higher within the tech branches) are more than enough to get it nominated in all of those tech categories, but are simply not enough to ensure it even comes close (let alone wins) in a preferential vote, if we’re right about it being divisive (which a lot of things do indicate.) So, yeah, that proves that it’s among the most liked movies, possibly even the one with the most no.1 votes, but it definitely doesn’t prove that it’s the favorite. Just ask Gravity, Avatar and others!
One of the things Sasha never mentions, apart from the overperformance in Oscar nominations, indicating very broad support, is the fact that TR is so different to Birdman. So it’s not just AGI doing back to back great films, it also that he has done something so starkly different that impresses.
We have already discussed how critical acclaim doesn’t translate to industry support, but I also firmly believe there is a lot of critics are still upset about Birdman beating Boyhood. In my opinion, had TR come out first, it would have had a better critical reception.
Right. Like I’ve already said the Boyhood and mostly the Marvel fanatics will never forgive Inarritu for Birdman. Never. They will be trashing every film he’ll shoot until the end of time.
No way. I pretty much liked 21 Grams, I think Birdman is a very creative film, and Babel is not half bad.
But, as I said in another comment, The Revenant is just too painographic for my taste.
For me, it has nothing to do with Boyhood. My favorite movies from last Oscars were The Grand Budapest Hotel and Gone Girl.
I was meaning more critics than fans.
The whole painographic thing is interesting. To me that’s the greatness of the film, what AGI is trying to convey. He hasn’t tried to soften it. He wants you to feel it.
AGI is more interested in showing off, his skills
“Painographic” was it? get over it. It’s a survival epic set in the 1820s that deals with the brutality of the time, as well as unforgiving nature. Note — it wasn’t real, and all of it was staged for the camera.
Honestly where do people get these kinds of “analyses” anyway?
Well, Bobby, here we go.
Iñarritu, in this film, never leaves the horror and the pain to our imagination. He’s never subtle, he’s never implicit or suggestive.
In other words, he doesn’t trust our intelligence and out sensitivity.
To feel the horror and the pain, we absolutely have to see it. That’s why I’m calling it painographic.
Just think of the rape in Almodovar’s Talk to Her. That’s is how to be subtle, allusive, poetic.
Good for you that you like Iñarritu’s style. That’s not my case.
“Painographic” or in other words “The Passion of the Revenant”. 🙂
To each one his cross. 😉
I feel just the opposite.
After I saw The Revenant (and really didnt’ like its painography), I kinda liked Birdman better!
I’m not sure if you can say that “The Revenant” is ‘divisive’ in the Academy. It received nominations for directing, acting (with surprise nomination for Hardy) and ALL technical categories (becoming just the 3rd-4th movie to do so [the other 3rd or 4th is “Mad Max”] in the Academy’s history). I’d say that it’s far less ‘divisive’ than all other movies nominated for Oscar combined: “Big Short” received only nominations that we knew it would (but it still could have been nominated for best actor [Carell]), the same might be said about “Spotlight”, “Mad Max” might have had less than ten but none of its nominations was surprising. Those for Hardy, costume design or art direction in the case of “The Revenant” WERE (and even those for visual effects [not nominated for BAFTA] or both for sound weren’t that obvious). “The Revenant” is loved and if it loses it will be only because Inarritu’s movie won last year not because it’s divisive. (Still: I hope that sweep won’t happen – “Mad Max” would be robbed in technical categories if it was the case.)
The Revenant will win both BP and BD and the only folks who don’t recognise it are those who are blinded by dry statistics
R rated arthouse movies with little dialogue and graphic violence don’t make nearly 200 million domestically and get 12 oscar nominations if they are sooooo divisive.
This year it very clear the Revenant is fast becoming overrated and a missed opportunity for Oscar to make justified history. But we bout to witness should it happen the biggest blunder in Oscar history. To award a director that simply had near zero profile with the public up till only last year. As I suspected and thabx to Sasha’s comprehensive historic brush stroke perspective, it painfully clear..not only current living directors who household names who only failed to win back to back or two Oscars in succession in Spielberg, Scorsese, Scott, and Cameron, but Oscar are about to betray the directors memories past of Their own THEIR Own !!!! History of their peak golden publicly respected era. A era where as sashas stats show, oscar are set to outrageously betray the memories of the Wilers, the Fords and the Leans to name just a,few for bloody sake these are the filmmakers that shaped and inspired our modern great Filmmakers they we’re even in their day long before they passed into Oscars history.
It was alsio a era in year of the leans and fords de milles etc where there was a alignment between more often by a mile than today public and the film industry.
It seems even if revenant and inirratu don’t win their Oscars. Awarding anything less than to the flailing Martian and fury rd ( despite the fact both these films enjoy far greater public support than the other contenders combined, ) films only flailing due to Oscars self sabotage a clear cut destabilization campaign of blindsided discrimination fused with the um their own disillusioned minds. Cos of the connected divisive anti– white dominance campaign it all related.
I mean you even had a bafta guest speaker at the gradually diminishing counterpart of the Oscars that turning out to produce comparative disappointments in public global eye much like Oscar in last 12 yrs end masses) but the total sum of the parts is discrimination whether it perceived or real doesn’t matter if public and celebrities perceive it it is real. And that bad news for Oscar. Bafta have allowed a presenter to launsh a all out assault on the Oscar so white and I add Oscar so anti- genre andti- fiction- anti- common sense. Mentality. Now it open war and why?
Cost Oscar believe they thrive on embracing mediocrity. In course of them going this path they are obliterating their own credible golden era that public at the time respected embraced decisions Oscar made more so than today. To destroy your own history is to destroy your own institution demographically reform in press release knee jerk reactions are needed just do it stopp the spin. Oscars perverse cycle of self destruction will be complete and for the record. Inniratu winning will only split industry further for it will be a slap in the face to the hard working blacks in film industry to which they the demographic feeling more aggrieved. Innuratu does not represent the discriminated class the Oscar so white campaign says it itself. It presents the penultimate in deluded decisions based on mediocrity.
Only a win to fury rd or the Martian can save Oscar hide from their own self destruction. Appalling isn’t it?
Respect your opinion but I strongly disagree.
I believe the Revenant is a much better film than Fury Road or Martian.
But everyone for sure disagrees with what their top #1 pick is
Laughable. Why does it matter if the director has, as you say, “zero profile with the public?” It’s not a popularity contest. Try the People’s Choice Awards instead, because the Oscars are about excellence in film.
No way in hell does Scott, a director I love, deserve the Oscar for The Martian. Also, when did any of those directors deserve 2 Oscars in consecutive years? Has Scorsese even released 2 movies in 2 years outside of Goodfellas and Cape Fear?
This just in: ”Birdman” has won … at the Grammys. Antonio Sanchez, whose music was declared ineligible at last year’s Oscars, just received the Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack. He beat out ”The Imitation Game” (Desplat); ”Interstellar” (Zimmer); ”The Theory of Everything” (Johansson), and ”Whiplash” (Hurvitz).
Sanchez said backstage: “It’s awesome to get this, especially after being nixed by the Oscars. I have to thank this academy, because the other academy, I have nothing to thank them for. So it’s extra sweet.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2016/02/15/antonio-sanchez-birdman-oscar-snub-turns-grammy-glory/80432252/#
Great news !
That was probably one of the worst soundtracks of all time. The Grammy’s continue to reward the bland and inept.
It’s just too original and bold for you.
Yoko Ono’s music is original and bold, and I don’t listen to it. Ono’s music would have been better.
Of all time? Hyperbole much?
I cannot think of another that created such a negative response to me. Throughout the film I kept on wanting it to die a painful death. If its goal was to alienate the audience from engaging what is on the screen, it succeeded. I attribute that horrible music to igniting my negative opinion of BM. It was the worst cinematic experience of my life. That may appear to be hyperbolic, but it was truly a nihilistic experience for me.
I agree that the music was distracting as was the one take which got boring after awhile. It really wasn’t necessary to have made it like that, but I suppose AGI did it in one to try to mimic the theatre.
There’s a difference of listening to music from CD than listening to music while watching a movie. What’s distracting on screen can be great listening to it alone. The Grammy and Oscar are different. So it’s stupid that Sanchez can even complain. He sounds ignorant like a lot of commenters around here.
“You can see that The Revenant is not just divisive, it’s among the three most divisive in the last 20 years.”
Really? Just because it did not win the PGA, but won all the other awards?
It won DGA, BAFTA (who is making up for last year) and ASC. That’s not “all the other awards.”
No, because of the impressive amount of negative reviews, this is clearly explained in the post.
The Big Short, too, has a lot of negative reviews. So what?
RT The Revenant – 82%
RT The Big Short – 88%
Exactly. So what? As if an 82% screams divisive. Give me a break.
Shakespeare in Love has only ten negative reviews but still is widely considered to be a lesser winner that year than the other front runner, Saving Private Ryan. Rotten Tomatoes is a mute subject regarding Best Picture.
Moot note Mute
Moot, yeah!
opps sorry… moot!
Saying there is an “Impressive amount of negative reviews” makes absolutely no sense for any of these nominees. Zoolander 2 has an impressive amount of negative reviews, The Revenant does not qualify.
The Revenant is divisive on other grounds than Zoolander 2, which is just a terrible movie. Ugh!!! I do think The Revenant will be more appreciated over time as the baggage attached to it currently falls away.
It’s not divisive in the way our host keeps propagating.
A year ago I remember two distinct things. One was that The Revenant was mentioned most often as being “most anticipated of 2015” and the other, that I wasn’t prepared to buy into it because it was a rehashed story being retold by a director who had just disappointed me and was awarded for that effort. I think the anticipators were surprised by what they got and I know I certainly was – neither of us received the film that we expected. Not a lot of clever chit chat, no important issues portrayed or historical matter revisited, no romance to inspire, and few giggles to entertain. Just a two-hour plus immersion in the horrible beauty of survival. It has absolutely nothing in common with any recent BP winner or with anyone’s formula of a BP winner.
It threw people off their game in the filmchat world: remember Sasha published her fabulous review at almost the same time that some early critics were spouting that “women wouldn’t like it/understand it” and it’s “too divisive” to take any awards. It was the one film this past year that you always checked out what others thought of it before you (conditionally) offered your own opinion. Pundits steered clear of it until it started winning; critics seldom opted for it. It could probably be the least talkative Best Picture since…maybe ever? Even the faux-silent The Artist had more dialog. So what do we do with this thing?
But “win” it started doing, both at the box office and with the guilds, gangs and groups, not out of the gate, but on a steady incline that culminated in both the GG and the Baftas. The Revenant is probably the most successful film from which you receive neither comfort nor compassion – not even a decent tickle – but it has become an almost fetishistic experience that is OK to like, if not love. Really…it’s OK.
Perhaps The Big Short or Spotlight can ultimately prevail, but they would do so with minimal impact in most other categories, which isn’t particularly exciting for most awards-watchers or an industry that needs the big splash of a headline the next morning. The Revenant has the momentum at just the right time. The more it wins, the more it will win and the more voters will want it to win.
Still, it is hollow snooze fest?
Beautifully written and captured the moment so well
“Not a lot of clever chit chat, no important issues portrayed or
historical matter revisited, no romance to inspire, and few giggles to
entertain.”
I have lost any interest in this movie. Thank you!
Beautifully written and captured the moment so well
I believe REVENANT will very well stand the test of time and be long remembered.
Oscars or not.
Nope. The film has serious, evident problems, specially in tone, pacing, length and themes. People is swooning to its visuals and choreographed long takes, but once one scratches the surface, the praise appears to be not that much deserved
“but it has become an almost fetishistic experience that is OK to like, if not love. Really…it’s OK.”
I so agree with this. It’s rare that a movie that doesn’t easily inspire love, where the most notable thing is the ambition of the film maker, not the story being told, is so successful. In a way, The Revenant follows the concept of Birdman in being an anti-superhero movie. Those movies are all about pleasing the masses with easy thrills and emotional moments, while the film makers vision is practically dictated by the already existing fanbase and “universe rules”. The Revenant is the exact opposite, with Innarritu being positively self-indulgent and a movie that I feel largely ignores the emotions of its audience. I wonder if subconsciously, that’s part of what draws people to it.
very well said.
Oh—-so you liked it. I knew there were smart thoughful readers who did not buy into it solely based on their historic DiCaprio boners, but I just wasn’t hearing from them—-so thanks.
I admired it technically.
This is so arrogant and disrespectful not to mention tasteless. I know you’ve been here for a long time and are one of Ryan’s favourites but it shouldn’t give you such entitlement.
Wait what I’d do?!?
Hmmm. Well, first of all,thanks for your reply which is decent and appears to be genuine.
If you wanted to make the point of the existence of smart thoughtful readers there was no need to say that others only like TR because of their historic DiCaprio boners. I mean, I don’t think AD readers are teenagers or would be that stupid.
The arrogant bit is because you haven’t been able to see that there are already smart readers who like TR. Peace.
My impression is most people who comment have only adopted “The Revenant” as their Leo’s latest vessel and most recent formality to get familiarized with in order to keep fighting for their lives’ cause, which is to witness this man to win the Academy Award. But I’m sure you’re right and there are indeed readers who genuinely love “The Revenant” because they think it’s a great film and have made the case for it. Ever since the -mostly welcome- switch to Disqus I admittedly read fewer comments per post. Cheers.
Side note: I’m wondering whether Kate Winslet’s going to nab the Supporting Actress Oscar after all. The BAFTAs do tend to lean British, which might unduly favor Winslet — but on the other hand, many feel that Alicia Vikander should’ve gone up for lead with her “Danish Girl” role or been nominated in the supporting category for “Ex Machina” instead. Plus, Winslet has been campaigning tirelessly, but solely for Leonardo Dicaprio. Although I think she’s wholly sincere in doing so, it has occurred to me that this generosity on her part reflects well on her, or will be seen to do so by other Oscar voters. Also, Vikander is so new to the scene that the Academy may feel they will have many more chances to reward her. (As I have no doubt they will. I finally watched “Pure” last week and was blown away by the intensity, rawness and yet precision of her performance. Never would I have dreamed that could be her debut as a leading lady.) Does anyone else think that’s a possibility?
Even-further-to-the-side note: “Babe” is 100% a better movie than Braveheart.” “Babe” is a better movie than a significant portion of Best Picture winners.
I am thinking the same thing about Kate as well.
She would deserve it wholeheartedly.
Depends whether AMPAS wants a Titanic photo. They do look really great together.
I am a huge Winslet fan, but I think it isn’t even close to her best performance.
Of all the female supporting performances of 2015, Winslet gave the best one.
If Winslet takes away from Vikander’s share, that might actually favor Rooney Mara. Still rooting for her!
Maybe, though I have the sense “Carol” has completely dropped off the Academy’s radar, which is a shame on many levels. Also, it’s hard to deny that Mara should’ve been in the Best Actress category, so the “category fraud” problem would apply to her, too.
I feel Winslet might win just for the sake of having Jack and Rose with their statuettes on the press releases. I loved Steve Jobs, the movie, and her performance in it, by the way
Yes — Winslet’s always terrific, and I think there is also some sense that it’s a pity she won her Oscar for a movie and performance that aren’t considered among her truly best. Voters might want to reward her for work that represents just how good she is.
The Revenant being divisive IS important in speculation of the preferential ballots. It’s quite simple-
The BAFTAs, DGA, Globes- all were voters circling their favorite film. Simple.
The PGA has voters list their favorites from 1 to 8. While Spotlight and Big Short will most likely nab 1 and 2 slot placements, Revenant is most certainly to get a lot of 8th slots. Because there are STILL voters who hate it. Like Mad Max, it’s a love it/hate it movie. The passion is certainly there, don’t get me wrong. And if there is a year where the PGA stat is broken, 2015 might be it. But I am holding strong to The Big Short still prevailing. There are a few of us. We were the same few who said it would prevail at PGA. It’s a tight race.
“There are a few of us.”
🙂 I definitely don’t think it’s wrong for anyone to be predicting The Big Short (or Spotlight) – it IS a tight race. Glad to see we have you on our side! (The stats crowd side.)
Regardless of who wins, THANK YOU SASHA for the effort you put in these articles. Thoughtful and detailed. Stats-heavy, yes, but not shallow or brief.
Agreed!
The 28th (29th for me downunder) can’t be here quick enough!! I want to stop reading all these arguments about divisiveness, GG and BAFTA ‘owing’ who knows what to AGI, PGA wins and losses, etc etc.
But we know of course that if the PGA stat fails (as it will), it is only an exception that confirms the rule! haha
Also consider this: in the history of Best Director Repeats—Mankiewicz and Ford—it was their SECOND year’s film that won Best Picture.
But always after losing the first year…
My personal choices (not predictions)
1. Spotlight
2. The Revenant
3. Brooklyn
1. Mad Max
2. Room
3. The Big Short
4. Spotlight
5. The Martian
6. The Revenant
Haven’t seen neither Bridge of Spies, nor Brooklyn, yet
1. Mad Max
2. Spotlight
3. The Martian
4. The Revenant
5. Bridge of Spies
6. The Big Short
7. Room
8. Brooklyn
Experts’ Oscar predictions: ‘The Revenant’ zooms past ‘Spotlight’ for Best Picture after BAFTA sweep
from goldderby
Here’s a link to the GoldDerby story: Before the BAFTAs, 13 out of 23 experts predicted ”Spotlight”; 6 went for ”The Big Short”; 4 for ”The Revenant.” … Now, it’s 13 for ”The Revenant”; 8 for ”Spotlight”; 4 for ”The Big Short.” See who’s supporting what, and who’s siding with Sasha …
http://www.goldderby.com/news/11754/oscar-predictions-best-picture-the-revenant-spotlight-13579086.html
Yes, big shift
Experts:
TR 13
Spotlight 8
TBS 4
Editors
TR 7
Spotlight 2
TBS 0
I think that’s called momentum
That’s Gold Derby’s perception of momentum, not actual momentum (which could well exist, and probably does, but Gold Derby’s predictions aren’t very good proof of it.)
The Revenant is far from beibg a typical best picture winner
What IS a typical Best Picture winner anymore? Was ”Birdman”? 😉
TBS
Bridge of Spies is the kind of film one associates with a BP wi
I’m not sure if we should consider rotten tomatoes as an indicator of the industry’s tastes and buzz. It seems the movie is liked enough to win DGA and Bafta.
who said revenant is too divisive? industry or critics and the last time I checked critics have no power to vote so yall should stfu already
I will say this again spotlight is winning Oscar BP. sasha and co. always write big short has this and that yet revenant took over.
Spotlight is my personal pick to win, but on SAG alone it has no chance to win. If it got a PGA or Golden Globe or pretty much anything else, then yes, it’d be in with a chance, but really, it’s between The Big Short and The Revenant now.
Yes, hard to see why Spotlight is now #2 to TR and not TBS, and why it was #1 prior to that.
SAG+WGA is a combination that has won twice before.
Also, remember it won the Critics Choice, which is quite predictive!
Sure, they’re good stats, but not as useful as BAFTA or PGA in my opinion. It’s going to have to win more than just script and BP. Maybe Ruffalo might upset but I think that’s stretching it.
Which is why Spotlight isn’t the top favorite – The Big Short is. But the BAFTA winner also happens to have other stats that say it won’t win (and, yes, these are – at least percentage-wise, more powerful stats than either the BAFTA win, the DGA win, or even the two combined), which is why, in my opinion (read: according to my interpretation of the stats), Spotlight is actually second, not The Revenant.
Alright, I’m out for the night. I’ll re-post my earlier reminder before I go:
“If you have time, and want to, you can contribute a ballot to my yearly Best Picture Preferential Ballot Simulation below. It will be appreciated! (Look for ‘that time of the year again’, let’s say, in order to find that particular post!)”
Is there any new tv show I must be watching? What’s that gem hidden out there?
BBC’s War and Peace?
Thanks!
I love Broadchurch, even though I have issues with the 2nd season’s existence.
I really liked first season (B+) so thanks for the heads up re S2
Season 2 of American Crime is excellent.
Thanks whoa intense.
Best Picture- The Revenant
Best Director- Miller
Best Actor- Dicaprio
Best Actress- Larson
Best Supporting Actor- Stallone
Best Supporting Actress- Vikander
Best Original Screenplay- Spotlight
Best Adapted Screenplay- The Big Short
Best Original Score- The Hateful Eight
Best Original Song- The Hunting Ground
Best Editing- Mad Max Fury Road
Best Cinematography- The Revenant
Best Production Design- The Revenant
Best Costume Design- Cinderella
Best Sound- Mad Max Fury Road
Best Sound Editing- Mad Max Fury Road
Best Make Up- The Revenant
Best Visual Effects- Mad Max Fury Road
Best Foreign- Son of Saul
Best Doc- Amy
For what it’s worth, that’s how I think it’s going down.
So you think that The Revenant will emerge victorious in the very unpredictable Best Picture race, but that its director will somehow lose in what has become one of the biggest locks of the year? Strange.
Yes. It’s a tough call, but that’s what I think will happen. I think enough voters will remember that he won last year to make the difference and I think the race for best picture is very close.
It seems very unlikely. Any BP/BD split would have TBS as BP and AGI as BD
I do kind of agree with you there. I just don’t know if the ‘narrative’ for George Miller is strong enough right now. If there were more talk of a 70 year old guy directing a massive action film occurring right now, then I’d be more willing to believe/accept that he might win. But, as it is, the discussion and ‘narrative’ going at the moment is all about Inarritu’s difficult shoot with The Revenant. I feel that that trumps all.
You could be right.
Hindsight’s always 20/20, but I wonder: Did George Miller miss his big moment by skipping the Critics Choice Awards on Jan. 17? ”Mad Max: Fury Road” won 9 awards that night, mostly in the tech & action categories, which were given off-camera. But it did win one major prize, Director, for Miller, but he wasn’t there. What if he HAD been there to give a rousing speech? Nor were Charlize Theron nor Tom Hardy, who won as the film’s action stars, there to sing Miller’s praises, let alone accept Best Director on his behalf. This was really a blown P.R. opportunity for ”Mad Max: Fury Road.” What were they thinking?
Still, based on the critics’ awards (and the Critics Choice prize), Miller was the overwhelming choice among pundits to win the DGA. So why didn’t he win? Genre bias? Why didn’t DGA piggyback off the PGA winner and award Adam McKay? Or did DGA simply prefer Inarritu’s work, even though they had rewarded him just the previous year? In any event, Inarritu’s win (which defied the odds) looks like a big game-changer and helped boost his BAFTA bid.
With this Revenantmania , I don’t see Max defeating it, anywhere
Okay I really don’t get the pundits this year. TBS has as many indicators for a win as The Revenant does, but it seems none of them want to acknowledge that. PGA + ACE wins alone show me that it’s the winner. Then it won the writing award as well. I’d love for The Revenant to win, I just don’t see how BAFTA or DGA secure the win? You have to think, preferential, preferential, preferential ballot. There’s only one stat that worries me tho, my “has to have 10 or more scores of 100 on metacritic to win” stat. That means Revenant or Spotlight wins…do I bet against my own stat or the PGA?!!!
My advice: Don’t bet against the PGA.
PGA was actually wrong in 2013 (tie) But people keeps ignoring that. DGA better
prognostic
I know I’m probably not going too. It’s just, my stat that a movie has to have 10 scores of 100 or more on metacritic seriously holds up well, I think Crash is the only winner that doesn’t, there might be another one that doesn’t from awhile ago but since I started watching in 2008 I’ve always used this stat. And then a movies overall score is usually in the high 80s or low 90s as of recent. That means Spotlight should be the winner by usual stats, but this is a pretty unusual year so who knows. There have been a few films tho with overall scores in the 70s that won, so The Revenant winning wouldn’t be that shocking.
I just looked again, A Beautiful Mind, Gladiator, & Braveheart are the other ones that don’t have double digit number of scores of 100. But they also had about 30 less reviews for those films compared to our films in the last decade. Now the movies of today on metacritic have about 50 reviews, so higher chance for more scores of 100 now.
The Aviator won PGA + ACE and lost to the DGA winner
I think its ACE win is a pretty weak fallback stat for it though. It had zero competition in Comedy. Mad Max defeated real competition for its ACE, and it defeated TBS head-to-head at BAFTA. Bale and McKay simply aren’t going to win Oscars for TBS. Are we really predicting a BP winner to take home only two statues on Oscar night? It would be a fitting end to a pretty crazy Oscar season, but I’m not sold on that outcome.
McKay is almost definitely going to win an Oscar for TBS, in the Adapted Screenplay category.
But screenplay and Best Picture alone? Is that enough? Unfortunately, as much as I love The Big Short, I don’t think so. It has to get at least one more – and that’s editing.
I bet my hand on fire TBS will win Editing. It is the kind of “most edited” quircky film, like Whiplash.
And yet ”Mad Max: Fury Road” beat ”The Big Short” for Editing at the BAFTAs.
Whiplash winning editing was one of the best wins in recent memory. The Big Short could win but it’s up against Mad Max and The Revenant, 2 gigantic movies and big tech behemoths. Margaret Sixel has won, according to IMDB, 18 out of the 20 nominations for editing Mad Max (LAFCA went to Corwin and Big Short but she was 2nd place and the other nom is for the Oscars, which haven’t happened yet). Corwin, meanwhile, has only won the LAFCA and the ACE for comedy, while Sixel won the ACE for drama. Even Whiplash had 8 wins for editing. I highly doubt Revenant can take this award but if there’s a sweep, which I’m not predicting, watch out.
You make excellent points. It’s the ‘momentum’ argument that’s making them switch. Which is something to consider… but, ultimately, insufficient, in my opinion, when you have the snubs (and PGA defeat) The Revenant has.
Thanks, on my metacritic a stat I should say it basically only begins from 2001 to now because, before that they weren’t as many reviews as there are now. Nowadays with about 50 reviews for each movie, the scores of 100 are easier to get but more telling.
Completely agree.
“I just don’t see how BAFTA or DGA secure the win?”
You forgot about the Golden Globe.
Sasha keeps making the same mistake. This whole argument about reviews is proof of it. She wants critics (herself included) to be players, not only spectators of the race. She keeps referring to her own bubble (the critics) when she says The Revenant is divisive. Just like last year when she said Birdman was too divisive to win. She can’t accept that what it’s divisive among the critics it’s NOT divisive in the industry. And in the end it’s the industry that matters, not the critics.
“it’s divisive among the critics it’s NOT divisive in the industry. And in the end it’s the industry that matters, not the critics.”
Exactly.
Yes the divisive argument was made for months against Birdman.
As I’ve said before, Oscar experts see themselves as players in the race, and as such barrack for their favourites. Which is their prerogative.
With The Social Network and Boyhood, we found a big difference between being a critical darling and industry darling. Same deal with Spotlight this year.
There’s probably still quite a bit of resentment against AGI amongst critics for Birdman beating their darling last year. I wonder whether this factors into reviews.
I think the difference is that while many did like Birdman, few thought it was BAD. Many think The Revenant is BAD, and that includes within the industry (2 out of 4 Academy member friends stopped watching after 20-30 minutes). Yeah, its hard to prove, but the PGA preferential ballot does provide some evidence, as Sasha correctly says.
Its worth noting that while William Wyler had 4 Best Director nods in a row, he had 7 Best Picture nods in a row:
1936-Dodsworth (best among the nominees, though Chaplin’s Modern Times was snubbed)
1937 – Dead End
1938 – Jezebel
1939 – Wuthering Heights (NY Crix Best Picture over Gone with the Wind – its a fantastic film)
1940 – The Letter
1941 – The Little Foxes
1942 – Mrs. Miniver
Sasha, I’d contend the season was dominated by Spotlight, with Mad Max a strong 2nd. The Globes and PGA were the highly unfortunate turning point. Big Short – one of my top 5 so I’m not trying to trash it – was mentioned everywhere, but won nothing until PGA. That’s not uncommon.
But thank you for another terrific piece.
Well, the critics matter because they are the first to say whether a film is good or not. It’s very difficult to be award worthy without good reviews. Just ask THE and Joy who have stinking reviews. By the way, TR has the worst MC score of all eight nominees and if it BP it will be the worst film to win since “Crash”. It’s huge box and late arrival is affecting their judgement but once it’s over they will know just they now regret awarding “Crash”. The Oscars must care about their reputation if they want to be taken seriously because they cannot just hand awards to garbage films.
Garbage? 77 metacritic is very good score.
I meant for a BP winner. For a nominee its okay and for just a normal film, it’s good.
The critics matter in the first part of the Oscar race, back in December, when they’re basically short-listing or narrowing the field. But now it’s up to the Guilds, and they can, and do go their own way. The critics loved ”Boyhood”; the Guilds loved ”Birdman.” The critics loved ”L.A. Confidential”; the Academy went for ”Titanic.” And the critics, PGA and DGA loved ”Brokeback Mountain,” but the Academy went for ”Crash.” The Academy likes what it likes, and has no regrets. Earlier, some folks were predicting that ”Carol” would do well at the Oscars because the Academy needed to ”make up” for ”Brokeback.” Nope. Nothing of the sort. ”Carol” couldn’t get a Best Picture or Director nod from PGA, DGA or the Academy.
The point I’m making is that TR is at the bottom of the critics’ shortlist and has the lowest MC score. When was last time a film rated film won BP? It was “Crash” in 2006, when there were only five BP nominees. TR is lowest rated film out of all EIGHT BP nominees. How can that be? History will be the judge and just because a film win Oscar BP doesn’t mean that’s the end of the debate. Now tell me if there are many Academy members who still think “Crash” is better than “Brokeback Mountain” or “Shakespeare In Love” better than “Saving Private Ryan”. I can name the classics they over looked and they make the Oscars look bad. The more terrible picks they do the more they damage their brand. So they do care about their brand to pick one of the best if the best film of the year. TR is lowest rated of all Eight nominees so it isn’t even among the best four or three let alone the best.
Who really watches Crash these days though? I mean, seriously. Brokeback Mountain is a classic film by comparison.
I agree. At this point, we’re all recycling the same stats or arguments, pro or con. No one’s really changing his mind. (OK, maybe Gustavo H. Razera is; ha-ha-ha!) Omigod, 2 MORE weeks to go!
GG + BAFTA aren’t industry. Didn’t we learn this last year with Borehood? DGA is solid win but that only helps in Director race, which with preferential ballot, is completely disconnected from BP.
BAFTA IS industry.
Yes, but not US film industry. The overlap between BAFTA and the Academy is very small.
You can’t possibly imagine what a long, disgusting argument I had on IMDb a few weeks ago, defending this very point… So, yeah, it’s nice to see someone who shares my exact opinion on the matter. 🙂
The film industry is like the critic groups and they don’t always agree. They are trying to predict the Oscars in order to bee seen to bee cool. BAFTA is just GG, only classier.
That is a separate subject. But while we are at it, I can see that if it was to favour TBS, then the argument would be that being industry it still represents the same kind of voters that they will find at the Oscars, therefore it is a good indicative of the outcome. TBS fans will discount anything that can favour TR. Just 2 weeks to go.
I think the overlap is 600? Not so small.
You know I read this then decided to go over and see what the IMDb score was to see if it’s divisive among the people. It’s 8.2 which seems high. But then I realized that even though I don’t like it, I gave it an 8/10. lol I think there’s respecting the quality of the filming process and then there’s actually liking a movie. So maybe a lot of people are talking trash about it but when I comes down to it, you can’t say that it’s garbage because it isn’t. But if a lot of us still don’t “like” it, it’s divisive isn’t it?
IMDB score:
The King’s Speech – 8.0
The Artist – 8.0
Argo – 7.8
12 Years A Slave – 8.1
Birdman – 7.8
The Revenant – 8.2
You say The Revenant is divisive?
And again, pointing at what people like is as misleading as pointing at what critics like. It’s the industry that matters.
You forgot Deadpool – 8.7! 😉
You completely missed the point of what I was saying. I’m saying those of us like myself who dislike it and say so in public still gave it a high score. That’s how you can get a movie that somehow wins even if it had a lot of detractors. The detractors make it seem divisive. Maybe it’s not. But we agree none of this crap matters. It’s the Academy. They’re gonna do what they want.
IMDB doesn’t mean much. Lots of fan boys tend to go there and give low scores and when you read their posts, it’s pretty obvious they aren’t of the highest intelligence. I’m talking about most movies.
Agreed. To me, critics only matter early on in the race when they can get certain low profile films/performances INTO the race or knock them OUT.
One doesn’t have to be an Academy member to know if a film is divisive. Every pundit and non Republican voters can all see that Donald is divisive. “Birdman” won the PGA, SAG and DGA.
Sasha’s argument about the critics seems similar to me to the argument about The Revenant’s box office. Initially I was reading that WOM was mixed so even though it opened very strong for this type of film that was only due to Leo and that the film would not have legs. TR is currently at $160 mil which indicates that WOM is good rather then mixed on the film. The floor now for TR is probably $180 mil which is crazy for this type of film. It could actually make $200 mil with a BP win. It appears that a lot of people really like TR.
The word “Preferential” kept hovering in the snow-filled air of New York all day. And now here’s Sasha verbalizing exactly what I was thinking. Best Picture is voted on in a different way than allllll the other categories. Making it a wild card award. No. Really.
In every award show except the Oscars and PGA the BP winner is unlikely to have won the majority votes and could’ve won with less than 30% of the votes. That’s why it is important to trust the PGA until it gets it wrong.
That EW “Secret Oscar Ballot” article broke down like this (6 voters differing in age, gender, and branch):
Picture:
Spotlight- 2
Mad Max: Fury Road- 1
The Revenant- 1
The Big Short- 1
Brooklyn- 1
Director:
Miller- 2
AGI- 2
McCarthy- 1
Abrahamson- 1
Actor:
Leo- 5
Redmayne- 1
Actress:
Larson- 3
Ronan- 2
Rampling- 1
Supporting Actor:
Stallone- 5
Rylance- 1
Supporting Actress:
Winslet- 2
Vikander- 2
Mara- 1
JJL- 1
Not sure what any of that really means, aside from feeling fairly confident that Sly and Leo will both win; but it’s interesting. I’m looking forward to Scott Feinberg’s “Brutally Honest Oscar Ballots” in the coming days.
What were their second and third choices? That would shed more light on who is favourite.
Yeah, EW didn’t publish that info with the article. Feinberg always includes the entire preferential BP vote for each interviewee’s “Brutally Honest” ballot.
I love those way more than EW feature although it’s always fun to read everyone’s rationale, EW’s sampled voters included. Any word on when the Brutally Honest stuff will come out?
Not sure. Last year, the first one was published on 2/18, five days before the show. I’d imagine they’ll be published next week.
EW has been using this teaser feature for years, and, obvious winners aside, I have never found it helpful.
It’s always interesting but often wrong
I’m telling you Revenant is getting 11
It’s only gonna lose one category? You’re just so wrong.
At this point, given all this kerfuffle, I’d almost prefer if it turned out that some TOTALLY unexpected movie just swooped in and nabbed Best Picture. Like Brooklyn. I could totally get behind a Brooklyn win. Transcendent performance from Ronan, topical storyline about immigrants, well-written adaptation, beautiful production and costumes… not to mention that star-making turn by Emory Cohen. A pipe dream, I know. But it would really be hilarious if The Big Short, The Revenant, and Spotlight all lost at this point.
Are we predicting another Greatest Show on Earth scenario? The Big Short is only going to win Picture and Screenplay?
Why not?! But, in my case, no – editing to The Big Short.
“What will make the difference for The Revenant is whether this last minute enthusiasm for Inarritu can make people switch their previous “against it” to a vote “for it.””
Clearly, that’s the danger…
I’m kind of glad Sasha is now betting on The Revenant, as expected. That way, at least, one of us will for sure end up being right on the 28th. 🙂 Better than running the risk of both of us being wrong…
Also, I’ve finally managed to perform a quick analysis of precedents going back to 1989, and which contender this year most closely resembles the winners/losers in each of those previous years, based on the most important nomination and win stats, and to, ultimately, come up with some (very, very rough) percentages for what I think the favorites are, at this point, to win the Best Picture Oscar. These are, obviously, my final percentages, since there are no major precursors left based on which I could change my mind. My official prediction is and will remain, as advertised so often before, The Big Short. My (probably slightly biased) prediction for a very possible upset is still Spotlight. Call it an ‘alternate’, because its chances are too big for it to be an NGNG. I suppose The Revenant also qualifies as an alternate, even though it’s one I, personally, don’t believe in very much. (Though, of course, I do FEAR it – I’m not insane…)
Here are the aforementioned percentages:
The Big Short: 44%
Spotlight: 30%
The Revenant: 20%
Mad Max: 4%
The Martian: 1%
Room, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn: 1% between them
Slightly off-topic: if you have time, and want to, you can contribute a ballot to my yearly Best Picture Preferential Ballot Simulation below. It will be appreciated! (Look for ‘that time of the year again’, let’s say, in order to find that particular post!)
I’m curious. What were the numbers prior to BAFTA’s result?
I didn’t do the analysis before that. But I imagine The Revenant would have been a lot lower, around 10-15%, at best, like I said many times. Hard to say without actually doing the analysis.
Number of gold derby experts and editors that have 1. TBS 2. Spotlight 3. TR …
ZERO.
0 out of 34.
I think that works out to 0 %
I couldn’t possibly care less…
You’re such a hand wringing Hamlet …if you were on the Titanic , by the time you arrived at a decisive decision all the lifeboats will already of been taken ….T R will win both BP and BD
“T R will win both BP and BD”
Added.
It’s possible to be blind sided by statistics …youtube/ jeff wayne /war of the worlds …the chances of anything coming from mars are a million to one …and yet,…they still come !
I’ve explained many times why that type of example is not the same thing. The reasons are many…
But, anyway, of course it’s possible to be blind sided by statistics. 🙂 I know that might be happening to me this year. But I have no good enough reason to assume it IS this year that this is happening. It seemed like it might happen two years ago as well, and even last year. Therefore, changing my prediction in spite of the stats would just be the wrong move, given everything I know. So I just have to let it happen and figure out what to do later. Which isn’t an easy thing to do… there’s a lot of pressure to switch, from all directions. But that’s me – I laugh in pressure’s face and I keep doing what I think is right… Can’t not be true to myself!
Also – I don’t remember changing my mind about what’s ahead at any point after the ACE nominations came out… So I think you might have me confused with someone else. 🙂
I’m hoping against hope that some sort of AGI backlash develops among voters in this final week of voting. I’m also clinging to this nonsensical thread of hope that Mad Max: Fury Road can still win BP by getting the most #2 votes on the ballot. I get a fleeting vision of George Miller, John Seale, and Margaret Sixel on the stage accepting their awards, and all is well in the world.
But then reality sets in, and I pour myself a bourbon and listen to Johann Johannsson’s “Melancholia” from the Sicario OST.
I hope you’re right, but I think it is unlikely….
the most #2 votes is for spotlight
Hate being like this, but Mad Max also won SAG (Stunt). At first glance it may seem that the SAG didn’t support the film, but it did, it only put front and center the amazing stunt ensemble, which they considered was the MUST reward of the film, then moved on in the rest of cathegories.
I think MMFR is going 10-0 at the Oscars, thought. The only possible win I see right now, and iffy, is Costume, after the growth of TR in strenght, and that’s basically because the story of Oscar to vote for the most imaginative and challenging costume design, that stands out of the rest (Dracula, The Adventures of Priscilla, Velvet Goldmine)…
Editing and Production design at the very least will go to Mad Max.
I think Mad Max fans should not lose hope because of BAFTA.
That’s why I’m sticking with Big Short. It may not be the Best, but it is the Consensus Best. And that’s more important in the preferential ballot.
I have the feeling, the consensus best, is actually Mad Max Fury Road, but they don’t want a 4th installment in a franchise, to win, so they can avoid sending out a wrong message to the studios… if MMFR won, we would be watching a huge boost for sequels and reboots.
you think ? how often are sequels /reboots even nominated?
more than you think…
“Silence of the Lambs” was the sequel/reboot of the Hannibal Lecter franchise, the first film being Michael Mann’s “Manhunter”
“Ben Hur” was a remake
“Return of the King” was a 3rd installment of a franchise that had the 3 films nominated.
“The Godfather” trilogy was nominated, the first two films, won.
“Titanic” is half-remake of “A Night to Remember”
“The Departed” is a remake of “Infernal Affairs”…
And I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of examples of sequels, reboots and remakes being nom’d or winning.
Let’s not forget that some BP winners are sequels to books.
The main thing going against Mad Max is that it is an action movie, not just a reboot sequel.
The main thing going against Mad Max is that the Academy doesn’t love it as much as the Internet. So while it will score #1 here, on IMDB, and on Goldderby, that should not be an indicator of its chances at the Oscars.
lol as Sasha showed mad max only has ACE. It’s not even close to top 3.
Read my post. MM is probably the only film that has shown up everywhere including all guilds and is unanimously supported by critics and audiences alike. But they simply can’t vote for it, at the Oscars. We have lived this situation many times before… Oscar count for Harry Potter 8?
While I agree that The Revenant is definitely divisive (I ADMIRE it greatly. I also know people who LOVE it, people who like it, people who HATE it) … I think it’s hard to judge by the Rotten Tomatoes negative review Stat.
The Revenant has 234 positives and 50 negatives.
Most of the films Sasha listed going back 20 years did not have nearly the same amount of positives (much less reviews counted), nor the negatives (ditto).
Metacritic may be a bit of a different story. But I do not put much stock in that Rotten Tomatoes Stat simply because the more recent films (last couple of years) will have many more reviews to pool results from (positive AND negative).
I don’t think Metacritic is as bad as it seems either. There weren’t that many outright negative reviews, primarily they were mixed and even admiring at least in part. Some big critics even gave it close to a rave. I sometimes wonder how Metacritic comes by it’s scores to be honest.
*off topic* Can we start locking up Ryan Reynolds as a LOCKED Golden Globe Comedy nominee (and likely winner) for “Deadpool” and a possible Oscar nom, in a “Jack Sparrow” kind of way?
It seems as obvious as Ledger’s Oscar nom for “The Dark Knight”, raves are out there, everywhere, and the movie is breaking all records.
Literally zero chance of Ryan Reynolds getting an Oscar nom for Deadpool. Just won’t happen (GG more likely).
people said the same about: Sigourney Weaver (Aliens), Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight), Al Pacino (Dick Tracy), Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean)… and some others, I’m sure, I’m forgetting. The most raved thing in Deadpool is Ryan Reynolds performance, and commitment to the project (remember, he’s playing the character, for a second time around, AFTER he put as condition, to erase what was done with him, before, and do things properly, as a “R” rated film, true to the comic book itself). It’s paying off in a way, that won’t be easily forgotten… as it has changed the superhero game, to greenlight more adult superhero films.
GG nom: locked.
GG win: likely
Oscar nom: dark horse
Oscar win: nope.
a year out nobody knows the future . que sera ,sera?
I’m actually quite good at these kind of bets. Didn’t get mistaken about Almodovar winning Original Screenplay with Talk to Her, or The Sea Inside getting the Foreign Film award (and a GG nom for Bardem)… both, one year in advance. My record, though, was reading “Misery” and betting that whoever played Annie Wilkes would have the Oscar (Kathy Bates did, and I still wonder how she’s considered a surprise win, when she won both the Globe and the Oscar). Some things are pretty obvious, and Deadpool is a hugely comedic character that is being raved and breaking b.o. records, in any normal year, Reynolds would be a locked nominee at the Globes, in the less competitive Comedy cathegory. I’m just using logic. Think about it, if “Deadpool”, with these reviews, and this b.o., and this buzz about Reynolds, was a 2015 film… Reynolds would have been nom’d to the GG Comedy… he would have given Damon a run for his money, for that win, and would have been in the conversation as a longshot for the Oscar nom, till the last minute.
Okay, Chus, we get it. Chill, man.
Rebate?
Ledger was iconic. I haven’t seen Deadpool yet (and I’m dying to) but I doubt Reynolds will get that far.
read the reviews… the big difference, is that Reynolds’ performance is largely under a mask or make up. Still, the reviews and b.o. seem to lock Reynolds to show up as a nominee in Comedy-Musical at the Globes.
Remember, Antonio Banderas got it for Zorro. Reynolds has been around enough, and been vindicated several times as an actor (specially, his amazing turn in “Buried”, but also his extremely good performance in the disturbing and flawed “The Voices”)… Reynolds is a likely Oscar winner in the not-so-distant future, and Deadpool seems to be his breakthrough role to become an A-List star.
I don’t know, man. Ryan Reynolds has been known as a box office poison so far. Deadpool is probably is a fresh start and I’m glad for him because I think he’s a cool and hot guy but what you say is a bit premature.
let’s look at this… remember how, 15-20 years ago, Penelope Cruz, Matthew McConnaghey, Sandra Bullock, Ben Affleck and some others, were perceived? The reviews they had? The films they were starring in?
Now rewind 5-10 years in Ryan Reynolds’ career and you’ll see the same pattern, repeated. And he is OBVIOUSLY talented. Again, recheck Buried and The Voices.
I remember Buried and Reynolds’ performance very well, because I was impressed by both. That isn’t saying much though. He has a very poor box office record so far (not counting Deadpool of course), unlike Sandra Bullock and Ben Affleck, and we’re yet to see what use he’ll make of this renewed popularity. Let’s wait.
Reynolds hasn’t got “Gigli” in his career 😉
The thing that Reynolds has in his favor, is he never has been as trashed as Cruz, Bullock, McConnaghey or Affleck in the past. He just has been flying under the radar and the perception is, that after “Buried”, he’s being finnally being offered better roles to show off his skills.
LOL. 65 MC. Going nowhere.
James Franco and Pineapple Express, MC score of 64.
Ryan Gosling and Crazy Stupid Love, MC score of 68.
Kevin Spacey and Casino Jack, MC score of 51.
Love and Other Drugs, Sherlock Holmes, Nine, Walk Hard, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Don’t count out a performance because the movie isn’t so highly rated, especially if it’s the Golden Globes. Remember The Tourist?
I don’t know why but I can’t stand him. I have no intention of seeing it. I know he’s not ugly and he seems like a nice person but for some reason I just don’t want to have anything to do with him. lol
What Heath Ledger did was out of this world amazing. And Depp created a great character out of thin air. He beat that horse to death but still, it was great in the beginning.
It’s weird, I can’t stand him either but I don’t know why. I don’t think I have even seen more than a couple of his films. I don’t why but he makes me want to punch his face. There’s something about him, it’s just doesn’t sit right with me. I much prefer the Ryan, even though I didn’t recognise him in TBS or liked. Gosling is boss Reynolds can get lost.
Same.
I third that. I fucking can’t stand Ryan Reynolds.
Ryan Reynolds is great. I’ve been rooting for him since “Just Friends,” because he’s such a natural comedian.
After Birdman winning Picture, Director and Screenplay last year (all three it could easily have lost), I pray that The Revenant doesn’t sweep this year. The recent issue of EW surveying 6 voters gave me hope. Only one voter, an actor, chose The Revenant. The only film that got two people’s votes was Spotlight. The others liked Mad Max, The Big Short, and Brooklyn.
Actually, why should I care too much? I don’t dislike The Revenant, I just don’t want Inarritu go have five Oscars if he were to win Picture and Director. Spread the wealth this year.
The actors’ branch is the largest one, however.
Those anecdote interviews are usually worthless. I think when The Hollywood Reporter did something like that last year the interviewees said they were voting for The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game respectively and pretty much every other category they chose didn’t come to pass.
I’m for Revenant or the all But dead Max Max to win. But as long as one of the two takes BD I’d be fine with either Big Short or Spotlight taking BP. I’m all about sharing the wealth. I just don’t the idea of a BP winner getting only 2 awards ( assuming they each get screenplay). Big Short could get editing but i really don’t think it deserves it.
My 2 cents:
1) The Revenant sweeps, including Best Picture. It will likely win every Oscar that becomes a showdown between The Revenant and Mad Max, aiming to an 8-12 Oscars sweep. I don’t discard the record, being broken, I think it has locked Picture, Director, Actor, Cinematography, and almost locked both Sound cathegories, Film Editing, Production Design, Make Up… those are 9. High chance to surprise in Visual Effects and Costume. And Hardy is the dark horse in Supporting, given the possible split voting between sentimental fave Sly and “duty call” Rylance (giving some bone to Bridge of Spies). Actually, Supporting Actor might be the most unpredictable outcome, in my view, it can go either way, and Hardy had the best year, out of the nominees and is being saluted as one key actor for the next decade… I think he’s right now, with more chances than Ruffalo and Bale, and on par with Rylance and Stallone…
2) We have a “Godfather” vs. “Cabaret” scenario, a “12 Years a Slave” vs. “Gravity”… “The Revenant” wins 5-8 Oscars NOT including Best Picture, but earns director, actor and some techs. Then, preferential voting awards “The Big Short” or “Spotlight” or even “The Martian”, “Room” or “Mad Max”… but the film that wins BP will have only 1 or 2 other wins… “TBS” would be Picture, Adapted and Editing, “Spotlight” would be Picture, Original. “Room” would be Picture and Actress, “Mad Max” would be Picture, Costume, Make Up, maybe? “The Martian” would be Picture and… surprise Adapted?
A sweep of 6 feels likely to me at this point. Revenant to take BP. BD, Actor, Cinematography and Make up or a sound award. That is still a sweep in a year with so many strong films. This is no ‘Last Emperor’ year where a film sweeps the techs and the big 2. Mad Max is no slouch and there is Hateful Eight’s Morricone and Carol’s Sandy Powell and Cinderella to perhaps mix up the artistic awards. Star Wars? I am still predicting Mad Max for editing. If it does prevail; Best Picture could be a toss up between Revenant and Big Short. Supp Actor and Actress are so all over the place thanks to category confusion and thankfully not all the award bodies nominating the same folk. This is the hardest year to predict – for years and years!
I think they’re snubbing MMFR in every single cathegory. VFX going to SW or The Revenant. Costume to Danish Girl or Revenant. Make Up for Revenant. Sound (both) to Revenant. And so on.
I would cry so hard, but I can see that happen.
it’s Gangs of NY all over again.
MM:FF wins 3 – 5 techs. Count on it.
We’ll see , but i respectfully disagree with those predictions.
I hope I am wrong…
Why???
i don’t understand something , ok i’m rooting for the revenant all good and well but all season i’ve been reading from you NO NO NO ….stats ….PGA…stats…make-up awards?? for not giving it to him the year before bafta /GG
so basically i feel like THE REVENANT is the underdog and so if it wins best pic that would be the surprise not the other way around , you’ve been saying THE BIG SHORT have the right stats going for them and the right guild win plus critics bla bla and revenant has that pesky load of negative reviews so really even though i’m over excited right now you’ve managed to keep my expectations low key / in check
to use a french expression “il ne faut pas vendre la peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué” (don’t sell the bear skin before killing it ) which is so a propos about this movie the english equivalent is “don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched”
so no need to be all doom and gloom for those of you who dislike it or feel its underserving , or divisive i really don’t get that word but i’ll defer to you guys who are more industry connoisseurs than i am !
i think i went on rotten tomatoes once in my life , found it messy to navigate never went back so never paid much attention to positive negative review ratio
anyhoo no more awards until the big day , the oscars will make sense of what they’ve got like report sheets from everyone during this latest award circus and decide on a conclusion and that will be that .
With two loud splashy film like The Revenant and The Big Short getting most of the love just now (and there’s much I admire about both), I’d love it if Spotlight – an understated, thoughtful, engaging and effective piece of film-making – could get some more bouquets. It’s a still a big possible for BP with the Oscars, screenplay too and, much as I love Mark Rylance and some other BS Actor nominees, Mark Ruffalo as a winner here would be kinda sweet.
I think if Stallone hadn’t been nominated, Ruffalo would have had a good chance.
Wouldn’t this be an interesting scenario: The Rev wins actor, director, some techs; Spotlight wins o. screenplay and one of the supp. acting awards; and TBS win a. screenplay and editing … and then Best Picture is announced …
That would be the most suspenseful Oscar moment in recent history, for sure… topping 12 Years vs. Gravity. Would probably be the most suspenseful since Crash.
Lol I don’t even remember Crash being that suspenseful. I thought it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that Brokeback Mountain would win. Really more of a sudden shock than drawn-out suspense.
No, no, no… plenty of us at IMDb were saying Crash would win, and so was Ebert. Probably others too, that I can’t remember right now. And, stats-wise, it was definitely up in the air (because Crash had the SAG+WGA combo that Shakespeare in Love had already proven was quite powerful, and Brokeback Mountain had no editing nomination.) It was far from a foregone conclusion.
are U part of IMDB??
I meant the IMDb message boards. Of course I don’t work for IMDb… 🙂
No matter who’s camp you are in, you have to admit that this year has proven to be quite an exciting race.
Even now, will TRs GG/Bafta + back to back DGA be enough to topple the last 8 years or so of PGA dominance? Or will Spotlight pull one out? We just can’t be sure.
Agreed. Remember, Spotlight overperformed on nomination morning. I think the Academy respects this film an awful lot. I also think it helps that the “spotlight” has been off of it for a while. While everyone’s been focused on TBS vs. The Revenant … the Spotlight wave could come back full circle to when it was the expected winner about 1-1.5 months ago.
More to that, after listening to Awardswatch’s podcast earlier, I wonder if – in a floundering Supporting Actress category – if Rachel McAdams could sneakkkkkkkkk a win. She’s been EVERYWHERE since her nom; more so than the other contenders. And I feel like both Vikander and Winslet are BOTH weak leaders.
Perhaps Spotlight could sneak in a BP, Screenplay, and Supporting. Highly doubtful, yes, but I don’t think impossible.
I’m feeling pretty optimistic for Spotlight. I agree about Rachel McAdams too.
As much as I would personally respect a McAdams win because I think she was absolutely brilliant and perfect in her role (I think Mara is the best of the bunch, but she’s leadddddd), unfortunately it would be perceived as one of the greatest upsets in history, like Tomei or even Hathaway proportions, and I don’t want that to happen to poor Rachel
How was Hathaway an upset??
Hathaway was one of the biggest locks of recent memory.
sorry meant unliked
APOLOGIES, I didn’t mean upset – I meant un-liked winner! Of course Hathaway was a lock, and Rachel would still be an upset.
Um. Anne Hathaway freaking knocked that role out of the park and more deserved the Oscar that year, imho.
That’s a totally valid opinion, I liked her too, just as I really liked McAdams. But there was a huge backlash against her after she one, and even before she won when it was clear that she’d be the winner. Anne Hathaway has a particularly vitriolic hate-base (like a fan-base).
I think McAdams has a very strong shot since it’s a pretty weak category
* Nobody cared about ‘Steve Jobs’ and Winslet already has an Oscar
* Nobody cared about ‘Hateful Eight’ and JJL is well-respected but the nomination seems like her win more than anything
* ‘Carol’ wasn’t an Academy darling and some voters may simply refuse to vote Mara since it would be outright category fraud
* Vikander is also a category fraud, plus ‘Danish Girl’ was a poor movie
You still have to consider Vikander the favourite given her huge edge in the precursors and really, it isn’t a bad choice — though Danish Girl was a dud, you can just pretend the Oscar is really for Ex Machina. But there’s certainly room for McAdams to sneak in with a victory, and if she does win, it could also be a big bellwether category for Spotlight taking more awards later on.
I have McAdams second behind Vikander.
Insinuating that BAFTA awarded TR because it didn’t award Birdman is completely disrespectful to the British Academy. I wish that of all people you Sasha saw this.
How about appreciating that AGI’s work really deserves the recognition for the ambition and brilliant execution.This what the Globes and BAFTAS (and DGA for that matter) saw. It really could be that simple.
The DGA win blows the “owed” argument out of the water. They broke their history to award it for gods sake. That’s pretty big
The Revenant will win and it will win in a sweep. It’s the grand, ambitious epic the Academy have been trying to reward for years now. No matter how divisive or controversial, it will steamroll the night letting Inarritu make Oscar history (*sigh*).
PGA are probably looking back saying “What were we thinking?”.
I must be crazy because I don’t see THE REVENANT as an epic. It’s not large. There isn’t a cast of thousands. It’s amongst some mountains and rivers and whatnot but they didn’t really cover massive distances. I mean did they? If they’d passed the same rock five times I wouldn’t have noticed. It got nowhere near 3 hours. Everything seemed close. That bear fight was on top of us. Most of it seemed close up. Am I wrong in that? I saw it once, I won’t see it again. But I generally love epics and I never got a grandiose feeling from the film. Of the 2015 movies I’ve seen those I’d consider “epics” would be STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON, JUPITER ASCENDING, perhaps MAD MAX:FURY ROAD, BEASTS OF NO NATION or maybe even INSIDE OUT. Even THE FORCE AWAKENS shouldn’t be an epic because JJ Abrams is close-up obsessed. I mean what are we using as a definition of epic? Containing mountains?
Epic is not just big ensembles and thousands of extras. Epic is more about scope, and The Revenant hits that through story and scenery.
Now I saw it a second time just because I wanted to see if I had missed something, given the raves from people I trust, and ended up liking it even less. But the epicness is there, for the way it is shot and told.
Okay if you see it. But I was thinking in terms of scope. I mean I literally think Cinemascope and that’s why I’m complaining about it being too close. For instance, I love Brokeback Mountain, right. That covered decades, clearly had mountains, and I’m not sure I’d consider that epic either. Is Brokeback an epic to you? I’m not trying to argue. I’m just trying to pin down what the difference is between my idea of what an epic is and what everyone else thinks.
A movie is usually considered epic when it involves a battle or fight of some kind. Gladiator is epic, Lord of the rings is epic fantasy, Ben Hur is epic. They have grandeur in ambition and filmmaking style. I don’t see Brokeback Mountain as epic because it’s way too intimate to be, despite being a universal tale of love. I might make a point about Gone With The Wind being epic because it covers a key time in American history in a way that no one has ever topped ever since.
See I totally agree with that. But then where was the epic battle in THE REVENANT? The bear fight wasn’t epic because she(?) smacked him around for a few minutes then took off. If there was another epic battle that I forgot, then it left no impression on me.
The battle at the beginning and the scene on the horse. Then again epic can have broad definitions. Dances With Wolves is usually considered epic.
Yeah okay I remember those and I was waiting for you to mention the horse. I think I’m having a closeness issue. Close to me means intimate and small and therefore not epic. I guess it doesn’t disqualify it for everyone else.
I thought that the epic nature of The Revenant emanated from the protagonist’s battle with nature and the elements – a battle for pure survival. The sense of the big outdoors and raw America also lent an epic ambience.
I think this is it right here. IMO, it should have been an odyssey for him but I didn’t get that from the film. I’m not even sure how much time passed. It seemed very short. Once again, I go back to THE GREY. That also was a short amount of time but the struggle of it, the danger, the pulse of it was right there. You really wanted those characters to survive. I dunno. Forget it. I just didn’t like it. lol
Ah The Grey – that was some film. I’d never heard of it before seeing it on a film channel. Yep, my heart was in my mouth for parts of that…
I think if u go in expecting epic ( which like u, I dont define it as such based on my defination/expectations of an epic) u won’t like the movie. I think it is a rather intimate movie that plays out in a grand environment. It’s rather clever that way. I’ve seen it twice in the theatre, once on a smallish screen bc Star Wars sucked up the good auditoriums in Dec and this past week in Imax. Unlike Spotlight and the Big Short which click right away, The Revenant like MMFR,is better on a second viewing.
No, it sets itself up as an epic film but ends being nothing great scenery. AGI was eating more than he can chew. The epicness of TR is also to do with its budget. There are films which cost less than half which are more epic both in terms of story and scenery. This is why people say AGI the princes new clothes. Compare TR to “The Tree of Life” which is an exceptional achievement.
Yes , the American West is an epic and extravagant
Star Wars sure is more epic than The Revenant. And shorter.
Yes, while watching it, I wondered what they spend $130 million on. The film is bare, minimalistic dialogue, acting and long periods of nothing happening.
U shoot a film in remote locations, in sequence, w/ natural light so u only have 1.5hrs a day to film, hand build all the sets, work with a world class crew & the foremost A List movie star, all led by a director who lets inspiration dictate his decisions=$165M+ before tax credits for a minimalistic art house movie.
in retrospect , the PGA was an outlier , a bit like Gravity winning was
The Big Short is the most overratted film this year and on this board it is been treated like the best movie ever made…TR is winning because it is a MASTERPIECE! !!!!TBS is about the big boys club and so out of reach and out of touch with the rest of Humanity.I get the message behind it…But the movie is just too pretentious for my taste and I know TBS fans are going to come for me..I don’t care…
You say The Big Short is overrated and then you go on to say The Revenant is a masterpiece…
That was my point. .
the big short is ok i just don’t find anything redeemable about it , so a few bankers saw the crisis coming and decided to make a buck on it by banking against those who were screwing millions of americans out of their savings , its like saying one bad makes another bad right !
i have to rewatch it i didn’t dislike it it was just hard to follow at times all the financial techno speak but i think i was disappointed they didnt give the money they won to help those in need or did they ?
you gotta love the fanboys that can’t see what TBS does, why, and how, and how TR is basically AGI showing off directing skills while selling smoke, and being so obsessed with showing off, that he forgets he’s telling a 45 minutes story in more than 120.
Brilliantly planned and executed satire vs. screensaver.
TBS is not winning best picture it’s not even in the top ten of best movies this year..
Very succinct!
Huge shift to TR for BP on Gold Derby
Experts:
TR 13
Spotlight 8
TBS 4
Editors:
TR 7
Spotlight 2
TBS 0
Totals:
TR 20
Spotlight 10
TBS 4
Clearly, many aren’t buying the too divisive argument.
There you go. good guys
turncoats , where’s their honor in sticking to their guns lol
It’s interesting to me that the two Best Picture awards that The Revenant has won so far this year are *exactly* from the same two groups that failed to award Birdman last year: BAFTA, which gave it to Boyhood, and the Golden Globes, which gave it to Grand Budapest Hotel in the even weaker Comedy category.
The PGA, however, which *did* correctly presage Birdman’s BP win last year, went with The Big Short this year. Like PGA, AMPAS obviously awarded Birdman last year — so the question is, will they follow the “make up” prizes from BAFTA and GGs, or will they award a new film as PGA did? AMPAS has more membership overlap with PGA than with either BAFTA or GGs (literally zero in the latter case). And they’re the only other group that votes on a preferential ballot system like PGA.
Simply put: If The Revenant was going to win Best Picture, then why *didn’t* it win at PGA, as every eventual BP winner has for the past eight years in a row? That loss shows a weakness that’s simply too big to overlook, imho.
For the same reason that Little Miss Sunshine won PGA and SAG over The Departed…Is a close race.
Yes, but that was back when both PGA and the Oscars used a simple plurality vote. No film has won one preferential ballot and lost the other since PGA and AMPAS both switched to that system in 2009.
Well, that’s only seven years, not a long history. AGI was the first to win back-to-back at DGA.
Yes, and the industry has shown a marked shift lately in its willingness to separate BP and BD, giving the latter to the director who made the biggest technical achievement (Cuarón, Lee). No reason to think the same thing couldn’t happen this year.
But why should they rally behind TBS for BP? I don’t think it’s that kind of movie.
Here we go again with these makeups…Really? Then why Globes and BAFTA gave Revenant BP? Its not Revenant who lost last year. its Inarritu.
TR lost PGA because came late and many people didnt saw
Um… Because he made both movies? Your question doesn’t make any sense. They didn’t award Iñárritu OR his movie last year. So they’re awarding Iñárritu AND his movie this year. Not sure what’s confusing about that.
Does Spotlight really have a shot at BP? Nobody thinks it can win Editing, maybe TBS can take it. And it kind of has to to win BP. It all points to TR.
No. Only journalists who loved a movie about journalists think so. This is now a two-horse race between the PGA winner and the DGA winner.
Spotlight won two guilds. So not only journalists think so.
Yes, it won SAG, the same group that awarded American Hustle and The Help and Inglourious Basterds over 12 Years A Slave, The Artist, and The Hurt Locker. And it won WGA, the single most unreliable industry award given its stringent eligibility rules. And we all know Spotlight is winning Original Screenplay anyway; its WGA win has no bearing over the BP race.
And still almost 200,000 people vote for SAG and WGA so Spotlight is still loved in the industry, no matter what you say.
I didn’t say the industry doesn’t love it, I said that only journalists think it has a shot at BP. People are capable of loving a movie while accepting that it won’t win Best Picture. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there that love Room and Brooklyn. (I’m one of them!)
Stranger things have happened.
I think at this point it’d be wise to pick the Revenant for 6-8 Oscars. Its floor is probably six: I could easily see it getting picture, director, actor, cinematography, and the sounds. It may also be in the mix for editing and makeup. I honestly do not see it getting supporting actor, costumes, and production design.
I don’t seeing it getting anything beyond picture, director, actor and cinematography.
It’s that time of the year again! 🙂 And a better year than this one for such a simulation there probably could not be…
Here are the previous results, as usual:
2011 The Social Network * details not saved
2012 – not held –
2013 Zero Dark Thirty * 37-24 over Silver Linings Playbook
2014 Her * 33-33 tied with Gravity, won 19-18 in 1st round 1st places
2015 Birdman * 62-61 over Boyhood
Anybody that would like to contribute a ballot (your personal 1st-8th ranking of the eight Best Picture nominees this year) to this year’s edition, just post it here, and I will add it to the tally, in 2-3 days’ time. Thank you in advance to all of the people who are going to help out with this simulation, by voting!
You can, of course, vote even if you haven’t seen all of the movies, though, obviously, it’s better if you have. 🙂 A good compromise would be if you’re pretty sure the movies you haven’t seen have little to no chance of cracking the top 5 on your ballot anyway. Either way, it’s recommended that you rank all 8 movies – but not obligatory. Really, the only purpose the recommendations in this paragraph have, at all, is to make the simulation as relevant as possible to how the Academy itself votes…
Without further ado, here are the first two ballots:
My ballot:
1. Spotlight
2. Mad Max: Fury Road
3. Brooklyn
4. The Big Short
5. The Martian
6. The Revenant
7. Room
8. Bridge of Spies
My mother’s ballot:
1. The Revenant
2. Spotlight
3. Bridge of Spies
4. Room
5. The Big Short
6. Brooklyn
7. The Martian
8. Mad Max: Fury Road
As you may know from last year, I will be running this simulation using votes gathered from both here and the IMDb message boards.
My:
1. The Revenant
2. Room
3. The Martian
4. Mad Max: Fury Road
5. Spotlight
6. Brooklyn
7. The Big Short
8. Bridge of Spies
Here’s mine:
1-The Revenant
2-Room
3-Mad Max: Fury Road
4-The Big Short
5-The Martian
6-Bridge of Spies
7-Brooklyn
8-Spotlight
1. The Big Short
2. Mad Max: Fury Road
3. Brooklyn
4. The Revenant
5. The Martian
6. Room
7. Bridge Of Spies
8. Spotlight
1. The Big Short
2. Room
3. The Revenant
4. Bridge of Spies
5. Brooklyn
6. Mad Max: Fury Road
7. Spotlight
8. The Martian
1. Mad Max
2. Room
3. The Big Short
4. Spotlight
5. The Martian
6. Bridge of Spies
7. Brooklyn
8. The Revenant
1. Brooklyn
2. The Revenant
3. Spotlight
4. Room
5. The Big Short
6. Bridge of Spies
7. The Martian
8. Mad Max: Fury Road
1. Spotlight
2. Revenant
3. Mad Max
4. Brooklyn
5. Big Short
6. Room
7. The Martian
8. Bridge of Spies
OK Janet Manchin can partake in the fun.
1. Mad Max
2. Brooklyn
3. Room
4. The Martian
5. The Big Short
6. Spotlight
7. Bridge of Spies
8. The Revenant
1. Mad Max
2. The Big Short
3. Spotlight
4. Room
5. Bridge of Spies
6. Brooklyn
7. The Revenant
8. The Martian
1. Room
2. Spotlight
3. Mad Max: Fury Road
4. The Martian
5. The Big Short
6. Brooklyn
7. Bridge of Spies
8. The Revenant
1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. Brooklyn
3. The Revenant
4. The Martian
5. Room
6. The Big Short
7. Spotlight
8. Bridge of Spies
1. The Big Short
2. Mad Max: Fury Road
3. Brooklyn
4. The Revenant
5. Spotlight
6. Bridge of Spies
7. The Martian
8. Room
1.MM: FR
2.”Room”
3.”Spotlight”
4.”The Big Short ”
5.”Bridge Of Spies”
6.”Brooklyn”
7.”The Martian”
I will only mark down seven films because refuse to put down “The Revenant” at no. 8.
1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. The Martian
3. Spotlight
4. The Big Short
5. Room
6. The Revenant
7. Brooklyn
8. Bridge Of Spies
1. Room
2. The Revenant
3. Mad Max
4. The Martian
5. Bridge of Spies
6. Brooklyn
7. The Big Short
8. Spotlight
To say that The Revenant has no depth of story, as Sasha has over and over again this year, is absurd. If it had no depth it would not have won everything it has, even without many writing nominations. Writers branches like words, and this movie doesn’t have a lot of dialogue, but that does not mean it doesn’t have a powerful, deep story that has spoken to voters in the industry. In my opinion, it has a deeper story than The Big Short or Sptlight, which when you get down to it are really more reportage on recent events than skillfully constructed narratives that speak to the most elemental aspects of human nature — which for the record is not “white man’s burden” but the universal truth that life (in any form: human, animal, natural) is not merely there for our taking. It’s about the struggle of living life with grace and forgiveness in an unforgiving world.
“this movie doesn’t have a lot of dialogue, but that does not mean it doesn’t have a powerful, deep story”
That’s a weak argument. The Artist had literally ZERO words and it *still* got a Best Screenplay nomination. Ditto with The Pianist, which featured a similarly nonverbal leading male character for much of its runtime. A film that “doesn’t have a lot of dialogue” can still get a screenplay nod if it’s well-written enough. Clearly the Academy didn’t think The Revenant was.
yeah, but also just because the academy didn’t think it was well-written enough doesn’t mean that it isn’t. I agree with RJ totally that the story is deep, and well-crafted. This is also a hella crowded year for adapted, with Big Short, Brooklyn, Carol, and Room – admittedly, The Martian is kind of the odd one out there, but the first four would be very worthy for the win. Compare to last year’s Imitation Game, American Sniper, Inherent Vice, Theory of Everything, and Whiplash … only the last of which I think was deserving of a nomination.
It failed to get a WGA nod as well. It could have gotten in because Room and Brooklyn were ineligible.
Exactly.
I still think that the lack of any real dialogue for long stretches of the film and the overlying simple storyline is what left it out of the screenplay nods. The Artist didn’t have spoken dialogue but the dialogue was still right there just as in a silent film and thus had a storyline that was absolutely on the page, literally in the film as well. The Pianist had enough of a storyline and dialogue to certainly keep you involved with the main character and his family as they navigated through the treacherous terrain of the holocaust. The Revenant has more mixed reviews than outright pans in my opinion, but maybe that’s just me. Even some of the bigger critics still found something to be impressed with in the film even if they didn’t like other things and you can’t really say that about Crash necessarily. The Revenant had several near raves from well known critics like Todd McCarthy and David Thomson, who seemed to get it better than some others who I respectfully will add didn’t find it their sort of thing (and that can absolutely affect a review). In Great Britain it had a much stronger critical reception. I, too, felt that The Revenant, without being outright emotionally deep, nonetheless hit on themes that have resonance and that kept me thinking for days after I saw it and wasn’t just another “revenge” flick by any means. It is bleak and that is always a downer for critics and audiences, though. The same was true of The Aviator, a very fine film in my opinion. You could never feel very good about it even when Hughes seemed to hit a high with the Spruce Goose, because he wasn’t a particularly sympathetic character and was even worse in real life. In neither The Aviator or The Revenant is there a moment of real catharsis for the main character and thus no overweening depth of emotion. You could argue that for Glass there was only confusion and loss at the end. Only the nihilism of nature remained. I wasn’t deeply moved by Spotlight or The Big Short either, though. Not really. To me they were stories that needed to be told and they were well told but only in Spotlight did I feel anything that might approach a sort of catharsis at the end. The main thing about them was the way they moved their respective stories around and knitted things together so well that a really progressive narrative was created that was completely relatable and they had big casts who worked together like cogs in a well greased wheel. I can’t say any of the characters in The Big Short were all that sympathetic, though. Baum is the only one with a whiff of sympathy, but only a whiff. Nor was Mad Max that emotion packed. To be honest, only when Nux made the sacrifice at the end, did I feel anything strong for a character. I have to say my husband loved The Revenant, really liked/loved The Big Short and only just liked Spotlight and Mad Max. He’s always a fair barometer of films for me, although we do go different ways sometimes.
I always stick with Sasha’s initial review of TR, when it wasn’t seen as a threat to her favourites (Martian then TBS). She really loved it.
I think she has talked it down a bit since because she wants her favourite to win, and that’s fine, I think we all appreciate Sasha’s passion and cheerleading for her favourites over the years.
lol that’s how I felt about her initial review of Argo, before she had seen Lincoln or Zero Dark Thirty – it was glowing. I mean it’s totally valid for one’s opinions to change, too.
It seems that the Spotlight and TBS campaigns only have the divisiveness angle left to go on about.
I have heard you say that maybe TR surge was a bit late for PGA. That could explain it, rather than divisiveness. And rumours aside, we will never know how close it was.
I also agree with Tom O’Neill that voters, having voted TR for director, actor, cinematography and a few other techs, may give TR a higher preference.
The other factor is momentum: TR goes into the voting period with DGA and BAFTA behind it- that’s pretty powerful.
I find your touch and go comment re BO really strange. TR smashed expectations from opening weekend.
“Not having that screenplay nomination still makes it a weak winner because it exposes the fact that the film is perceived to have no depth of story.”
So of the thousands of films, if a film is not voted as one of the top five screenplays, then it must not have any depth of story. Good to know.
If a film is voted as one of the best film but doesn’t have screenplay nomination, (and TR has 12 nominations, let’s not forget that) then it must have no depth of story.
Daniel Montgomery at GoldDerby.com weighs in with ” ‘The Revenant’ Oscar advantage: BAFTA & DGA combo almost always predicts Best Picture.” Montgomery had written that he was still predicting ”The Big Short” for Best Picture (even after Inarritu’s win at DGA), and before BAFTA, he’d hold firm even if ”Revenant” won there. Now, he’s switched to ”The Revenant,” and quotes Emerson: ”A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
http://www.goldderby.com/news/11743/the-revenant-bafta-awards-oscar-best-picture-dga-975314680.html
Except that BAFTA prior to 2001 took place AFTER the Oscars. So they can’t serve as stats/clues. Since 2001, there are 7 occurrences of DGA and BAFTA BP match. And 1 out of 7 did not produce the same winner. Strong stat, but not that ironclad.
I saw him on a podcast. He was adamant he wouldn’t shift, and has now shifted. Weird
ha! i know the saying as “only a fool never changes his mind” ok , still more respect to those who are holding steadfast even if we disagree.
Will the techs all go to Revenant now too? Ugh
Braveheart should not have been nominated and The Revenant should not have been nominated neither were one of the 20 best film of the year.
thats your opinion
Indeed.
Just say you fuckin disagree. We’re all aware we’re stating our opinions here! Ugh!
Speaking of Braveheart. Im just watching this film for the first time. Weirdly this film is very praised on biggest polish film site. and is 18th in all time ranking!
“This happened with Gravity in 2013 and it happened again with Life of Pi in 2012. Those years were two-film races, however. And therein might lie the biggest thing about this year that has allowed The Revenant to dominate in the 11th hour; no one can really make up their minds between Spotlight and The Big Short, so many may opt for the epic, the film that fits the profile of the typical tried and true Oscar Best Picture winner.”
thats true. Revenant just feels like the winner. huge epic they tended to win in past days. And yeah, Spotlight and TBS might split some votes
I’m going to keep repeating this like a divide by zero infinite loop: vote splitting is not really a factor in preferential balloting. If there is high crossover support w/ Spotlight and TBS, as long as those voters aren’t idiots and rank both #1/#2 (in whatever order), at some point during ballot counting those #1 votes will transfer fully over to the second choice (because eliminated films get their votes transferred over to their next highest ranked film still in contention).
The only way their split support becomes a factor is if a) Revenant hits 50% + 1 before either TBS/Spotlight is eliminated from competition (i.e. before there are only two films left to compete for BP) or b) TBS and Spotlight are the final two contenders. Both scenarios are unlikely.
Agreed. It’s unlikely TR will get an absolute majority. But I don’t think you can assume it won’t get enough #2’s even if TBS gets more of them
My assessment is that Revenant is either a #1/#2 film or a #7/#8 film. It’s going to lead in the first few rounds but after that it’s going to hemorrhage that lead through to the end. Will enough hemorrhaging occur to deny it Best Picture? We’ll have to wait and see.
It’s entirely possible.
Testosterone trumps.
Critics dont matter anymore to oscars imho. They may hate Revenant (with Mark Harris from NYT leading the pack, what a anty-campaign he is doing man. i would love to see his face on feb 28th) but Industry loves this film and this is the most important thing.
Just 10 experts have Revenant winning BP on GD. 10 of 24. just amazing. they just cant concede, are blinded because they love Spotlight.
we can see finish line. Its so close. #TeamRevenant
Most haven’t updated their picks. editors have 6/7 for TR
At least Harris was honest. He said outright that The Revenant just wasn’t his thing with all the blood, mud, violence, etc. Clearly he prefers films with well written scripts and stories that mean something to “him”. And, you know what, that’s okay. I think blood and violence can definitely be a turnoff (although I think they should be) but then I read reviews from some of the same critics praising a generally worthless thing like H8ful 8, which had absolutely zero resonance and is primarily a Tarantino jerk off from other better films, and I’m a bit appalled by their thinking. I guess they only like blood, mud and violence in live action cartoons, like H8ful 8.