As we head into the final weeks of Oscar season, thank you readers for being here each and every day of this long year. It started way back at Sundance when Jordan Peele’s Get Out was the sneak screening before it opened in February 24, almost a year ago this month. Sundance also gave us Mudbound, which came close but didn’t make the Best Picture cut, and Call Me By Your Name, which did. Somewhere in between Dunkirk opened and made a boatload of money, earned raves, and became an early Oscar frontrunner. Then it was Venice, where The Shape of Water won the Golden Lion for best film and where Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was seen for the first time and won Best Screenplay. Then it was onward to Telluride where Lady Bird made a massive impact, Battle of the Sexes not so much, and Darkest Hour gave audiences their first glimpse of Gary Oldman’s unequivocal portrait of Winston Churchill. Finally, the year closed out with two films under embargo until the Christmas premieres — late breakers Phantom Thread and The Post.
There were other significant films that made an impact even if they didn’t get into the race for Best Picture, like Wonder Woman, The Big Sick, The Florida Project, Hostiles, and I, Tonya. There were films that got buried in the scandals of the day, like Wonder Wheel, or just obliterated through no fault of their own, like Wind River, a Weinstein Co. release. Or somehow recovered, rallied and fixed what would have been a disaster, like All the Money in the World.
Now we’re down to it, and though I can’t make a case for all of the films nominated as worthy Best Picture winners, I can certainly make a case for those that seem most likely to take the prize on March 4. Herewith, my best case for each, ranked by how I see the race right now.
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- Get Out — You need to remember two things about Get Out. The first is that it was made for $4 million and grossed $175 million. The second is that it is a film about race without a white savior anywhere near it. That matters because the movie is such a success with both black and white audiences anyway. It might be the winner on Oscar night, and if it is it will be the third film by a black director and the first about race that was missing the one thing films about race in the Academy always have. Peele gracefully accomplishes this by making it funny enough for whites to laugh at themselves and their ridiculousness while watching it. He does it in a non-confrontational manner and by changing his ending from bleak to hopeful he also rewrites the narrative of the future. Maybe none of that matters. Maybe all that matters is that it’s a great fucking movie. Here we are, a full year after its release, after it has long since dropped out of theaters and is playing on demand (although there will be a free screening to the public on President’s Day next Monday), and yet not only has it not lost any of its impact or resonance, it has enhanced it. The only other films I’ve seen do that are — brace yourself — genre movies, like The Silence of the Lambs, like The Departed. The former was a March release and was never expected to start winning stuff until it started winning everything. It was the moment I got hooked on the Oscars because I couldn’t believe the movie I loved the most won. Get Out feels like that kind of a movie: one that is here to stay, endlessly quotable, and deeply embedded in film history and in our culture. Get Out, to me, exists outside the realm of genre. It has created its own genre, even if many believe that not to be the case and are proud to call it horror. Some of those who confuse it with The Stepford Wives might not have actually seen the Stepford Wives (the original) because that movie isn’t about taking the essence from the women and using it as your own (athletic ability, artistic talent) — it’s about transforming women who think for themselves into women who obey like robots. Eventually, the victims in Get Out turn into something like zombies and are conveniently unpaid servants, but the reason they’re taken isn’t to transform them (though that itself would have made a great movie). Rather, Peele takes it even deeper and shows how white culture has appropriated so much of black culture without giving back equality. The subtext is there if you look for it, but it also works as just an entertaining, wickedly funny movie. Get Out has won the Writers Guild for Original Screenplay, the DGA for first time feature, screenplay, director, and the Audience Award at the Gothams, and topped Sight and Sound’s poll for best film of the year.
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- The Shape of Water — Out of Guillermo del Toro’s wildly vivid imagination comes a story only he could tell in a way only he could tell it, with the full spectrum of the human experience on display in a quiet little war between the resistance and the oppressive state. There is a reason the heroes of this story are the cleaning crew, the jobless, the discarded, and the invisible. There is a reason why the villain is a man who tries to boost his own self-esteem with self-help books and a green Cadillac and is devoid of humanity. Someday people will look back on the Trump era, watch The Shape of Water, and understand how this movie is so much about our lives now, the same way the monster movies in the 1950s represented subversion from the oppressive status quo. The Shape of Water is about love. And yes, it is about the need to be touched. It is about satisfying deep desires. And it is about finding your way out of darkness. It is about all of these things, and yet because there is actual sex in the movie, many Americans cluck around like hens in a henhouse over it. You can set your watch by how many jokes there will be about sex and sea creatures at the Oscars. The Shape of Water has hit $51 million and climbing. The more people see it (and see it again) the more they love it. Del Toro takes us into the world of magical realism, closing out the Three Amigos trilogy of highly influential directors from Mexico who aren’t afraid to make American stories that redefine American cinema, like Gravity, Birdman, The Revenant and now The Shape of Water. Del Toro will most surely win Best Director but the film could also take Best Picture. The Shape of Water has won The Producers Guild, the Directors Guild, the Golden Lion in Venice, and the Golden Globe for Best Director.
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- Dunkirk has not won any major prizes outside the ACE for Editing. But it earned $188 million at the box office and garnered most of the nominations a Best Picture winner needs with the sole exception of the SAG ensemble, acting, and writing nominations. All the same, Dunkirk is more popular than the raw stats would have you believe. The stats are the only reason I have it at #3 instead of #2 here. What you’ll find is that people are having conversations about how epic and ambitious the film is and what a shame it would be to see it not win this year. That kind of thing might make it right for the preferential ballot where it could Braveheart its way to a big win. Dunkirk’s story takes place on the beaches of France with home a mere 46 miles across the English Channel, when Hitler’s army had cornered 300,000 or so Allied troops. A slight delay in military action left them stranded there, waiting to die. There was no way they could have defeated the Nazis. They were trapped and ill-equipped. Though they’d been badly defeated, they still managed to be escape due to the bravery of ordinary British citizens who took to boats to rescue the men. If you then switch over to Darkest Hour you will see how Churchill manipulated and cajoled the British government to motivate the rescue, to keep the fight alive, and eventually to topple Hitler (with help, of course). Christopher Nolan has made his most personal film with Dunkirk. And it’s his most ambitious. He chose to tell it from three different perspectives: by air, by land, by sea, all coming together at the end to complete one of the most miraculous rescues in modern history.
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- Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri — Three Billboards won the audience award in Toronto, shocking everyone. It turned out to be a movie a lot of people simply liked until they were shamed into not liking it. Some genuinely didn’t like it for reasons they strongly argue are valid, but overall it was doing so well thanks in large part to its brilliant performances. I’ve been doing this shit a long time, my friends, and I haven’t ever seen anything like Frances McDormand in this movie. It is, to me, the performance of the decade. Fierce, uncompromising, funny, chaotic — any director who could bring that performance to mainstream film is okay with me. It’s a strange movie, kind of collage-pieced together bit by bit, but always surprising from scene to scene. It is a European’s idea of America, for sure, and what it asks us to do is something we are not ready to do. We are not ready to listen to each other. We are as divided as we’ve ever been with no end to the tensions in sight. Martin McDonagh dares to have sympathy for someone who has been raised to be the worst kind of racist and is given a chance to see things differently. It reminds me of the neo-Nazi who now helps the FBI find and uncover racist groups. But of course, we live in a time where there is no middle ground. None of the characters are particularly heroic and all are far from perfect, and these riveting misfits spring from McDonagh’s imagination, flaws and all. The film finds itself appreciated but also exiled at the same time. There is no point in debating it anymore — does anyone really want to keep having that conversation? I don’t. I appreciate the film for what it is and I’ll always be grateful to McDonagh for writing the character of Mildred. To him I would say thank you. Three Billboards has won Best Screenplay at the Venice Film Festival, the Audience Award at Toronto, Best Actress, Supporting Actor, Screenplay, and Film (Drama) at the Golden Globes, and Best Actress, Supporting Actor, and Ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild awards. It has just passed $100 million worldwide.
- Lady Bird got a major boost from the critics. It was beloved in Telluride and went on to earn the label as “the best reviewed movie of all time” on Rotten Tomatoes. Liked by both men and women, telling the story of an awkward, complicated teenager who just wants to get out of Sacramento, Lady Bird recreates the universe of Greta Gerwig’s personal teen angst on screen, something rarely seen from female filmmakers. We just don’t get that opportunity. Ever. We have so many universes by male filmmakers that depict their male experience, with music and fashion and jokes: Noah Baumbach, Quentin Tarantino, even Spielberg. But for women? Maybe there was Nora Ephron. Maybe there’s Nancy Meyers. Certainly now there is Anna Biller. Lady Bird encapsulates the Gerwig oeuvre, with Justin Timberlake, socialist manifestos, Catholic school, and supposedly oppressive mothers. It’s all there in the film, and if you were of that generation it is like coming home. Like Get Out, there are only a few Oscars that Lady Bird can win. So far it has won the Golden Globe for Best Musical/Comedy and a lot of critics awards. It’s made $45 million so far. However it turns out, Gerwig has delivered a strong debut and now has a major following of supporters who will be there for her next films.
What films deserve to win on Oscar night? The film that the voters like best. There are many ways to decide that. Highest achievement, biggest cultural impact, most entertaining, most memorable, best written, directed, and acted. Everyone has their own idea of ‘deserves.’ No doubt there will be many who believe that the only woman in the race deserves it. And still others will believe the war epic should take it home and plenty will think that the one that won the DGA and PGA can’t and shouldn’t lose. And then, through it all, there will be that one movie people just like. That’s the one to watch out for come voting time.
I picked Get Out in December and am sticking with it, though I would not be shocked to be wrong. There are eight categories where I have listed a runner up just to hedge my bets.
Get Out is a very sensible bet, still. I guess I understand why you wouldn’t want to predict Three Billboards, no matter what, after what happened with your favorite, La La Land, last year, and so on… But – not asking for an official prediction, just an opinion: which one do you think is more likely to win, at the moment, between Three Billboards and The Shape of Water?
Shape
I knew you were gonna say that… 🙂
And has BAFTA changed this? (I’m guessing no.)
I am on mobile so I am typing less. I wish Three B would winScreenplay and Picbut feel it has two fatal flaws with divisiveness and the director snub. People are so catty and hateful about it that it makes me mad. It is low on Sasha’s FB poll, too. I think screenplay and zeitgeist mean that Get Out takes it. My picks feel so bad this year that I am not entering the pool for money that I placed eighth ina few years ago, just out of the money.
“but feel it has two fatal flaws with divisiveness and the director snub.”
Lack of divisiveness is Get Out’s advantage, indeed, but the stats for that one are just not good enough. It’s simply not shown enough strength in terms of guild/Oscar wins and nominations. It’s gotten the bare minimum for both, minus the editing nod, and less than the minimum when it comes to the nomination count aspect. But, yes, those are the only real arguments against it. Powerful, but they can be overcome. I can see it winning, and it could even be the correct play to predict it, but I don’t think it’s the favorite, based strictly on what we know in terms of stats, so I can’t really do that. All I can do is call it a valid, albeit mostly unlikely, alternative to the two favorites. Also, I don’t think the lack of divisiveness will help it enough if what results so far say about its likelihood of getting enough #1 votes to stay in the race is accurate.
“People are so catty and hateful about it that it makes me mad.”
Yes, 3B is hated, but that’s online. The industry has simply embraced it wholeheartedly, as much as it realistically could have in a year with so many equally strong contenders. The directing snub is the only thing that seems like it would corroborate the notion that there’s backlash to it within the industry as well, but its weakness in that category in the critics phase makes me think that’s more a natural reflection of the type of movie it is, meaning not an obvious directorial achievement. Get Out’s editing snub can be explained similarly – it’s GREAT editing, as far as I’m concerned, and some agree with me on that, but it’s certainly not obviously great editing, so a lot of people were never likely to vote for it there. I don’t think any of those two snubs should be key. It’s the big guild defeats (three for Get Out to only two for Three Billboards – which is part of why it’s so important to figure out what would have won the WGA, had both been eligible) and Get Out not being in the top 5 for nominations (same as The Big Short two years ago) even if you tack on a virtual editing nomination to its real-life tally of four. But that last one, of course, might matter less in a preferential setting. Still, most of the evidence is in favor of Three Billboards, and it’s rather strong evidence.
“It is low on Sasha’s FB poll, too.”
Again, that’s the internet. Some years (I know from my own experience), these simulations are helpful, when the industry favorites are also the internet’s favorites, as has mostly been the case for the last two years, but that’s not the norm. More often than not, it’s the exact opposite. Movies with absolutely no shot at the Oscars finish in the top 2, and the actual Oscar frontrunners are eliminated either early on, or something like 4th-5th, at best.
Apropos of that, those polls are also saying Dunkirk and Call Me By Your Name (and maybe Lady Bird) are closest to winning apart from Get Out, which is just obviously got nothing to do with the reality of the Academy vote. There’s literally no way neither The Shape of Water, nor Three Billboards, will be in the top two at the end of Oscar voting, given how popular they clearly are within the industry, and not only, having, between them, all of the major picture wins to their names. (Most likely, both of them will be in the top two.) Get Out will have to beat one of those in order to win. This tells me those polls are almost definitely not relevant this year.
As for Billboards having backlash, I no longer really believe in this. Maybe there’s some, but nowhere near enough to derail it. It just won BAFTA, it’s locked for the acting wins, it’s looking strong for screenplay, people are talking about it, copying the billboards… Pundits (which should have at least some idea of whether there’s strong backlash or not) that were predicting it before are sticking with it. I’m not really buying this backlash theory anymore, as far as Academy voters go. And I’m still not 100% convinced La La Land lost due to backlash – after all, it fits the profile of a strong movie that loses BP quite a bit, with the SAG snub and WGA defeat, and not all of those movies, if any, lost due to backlash, surely! Seems to me the backlash angle is being overplayed here.
“I think screenplay and zeitgeist mean that Get Out takes it.”
Of course, you may very well be right about this, nonetheless. But I’m really solidifying on Three Billboards being the favorite. I was even before BAFTA. The arguments for it are just getting stronger in my head, new clues are coming in saying the same thing, and Shape’s case is getting weaker by the day, in similar ways. Get Out’s, meanwhile, is simply holding steady. It seems to be in the exact same situation it was in after the Oscar nods. We knew it would lose the DGA, we knew it would probably win the WGA (I was pretty sure, you’ll remember), and we knew it probably wouldn’t win anything significant at BAFTA. It’s done exactly as expected and is, for me, not the #1 favorite for screenplay. It all comes down to that, whether you think it wins screenplay or not and, therefore, whether it would have won the WGA or not. I’m more and more convinced it wouldn’t have, having taken a much closer look at the precedents for screenplay. (I’m still working on that.) But it’s not like I’m sure of it – far from it. Which is why I still think Get Out is a very valid pick, and I’m definitely a bit worried about it. Much, much more worried than I ever was about Lady Bird winning BP… (Although I’m probably still slightly more worried about Shape – but a lot less so than a week ago, let’s say!)
“My picks feel so bad this year that I am not entering the pool for money that I placed eighth in a few years ago, just out of the money.”
🙂 I have no idea what contests I can enter this year, if any. I always study the contests situation only very close to the Oscars. I’ve placed some bets, and made a decent profit, on Del Toro winning various awards, and on 2-3 more races at BAFTA that also offered good odds. (Plus I have a small older bet on Get Out pending, at great odds, to win BP, as well as a recent, comparatively larger one, on Three Billboards; and a bet on Del Toro to win BD at the Oscars, also placed back when he had good odds.) I’ve been doing well, as I usually do with Oscar bets, but I don’t bet serious amounts (I’m not a risk-loving person, in general, to say the least), so the winnings are also small, evidently.
Oh, I also wanted to say: I find it interesting that Three Billboards is the highest-rated of the three at IMDb, still. (8.3 to 7.7 and 7.8.) A movie facing serious backlash would surely suffer there as a result. It doesn’t seem to have suffered much at all! And I checked: it has twice as few ratings of 1 as The Shape of Water. About the same with Get Out. Same goes for ratings of 2-4. This gives me extra reason to believe the backlash isn’t much of a thing…
I still think Deakins may lose but changed my pick from Shspe. I would not be shocked if I lost editing,doc, foreign. I may not see and research shorts in time to succeed with those.
Yeah, it’s not looking good for the shorts this year… I might have to rely on trailers, in addition to the few stats there are. 🙂 Could be enough, who knows?!
If Deakins loses, I think it’s to Van Hoytema. But he probably just doesn’t lose.
I was thrilled with BAFTA results. These are my Oscar picks: Picture: Get Out, but if Three Billboards wins, I will let out a big wahoo like Sasha did on her podcast when she discovered GO won Original Screenplay.
Director: Del Toro
Actress: Frances
Actor: Oldman
Supporting Actress: Janet, but Metcalf could upset
Supporting Actor: Rockwell
Screenplays:GO and CMBYN
Animated and Song: Coco
PD and Score: Shape
Costumes: Phantom
VX and Cinematography: Bkade Runner
Shorts: Edith, Basketball, DeKaln
Those look excellent to me! I obviously think it’ll more likely be 3B/3B for BP/OS, but GO/GO is very possible. (Though, winning from behind in both of those categories… I don’t know. Spotlight and Moonlight were both locks for screenplay, as were Crash and Shakespeare in Love – it’s true that Braveheart didn’t even win screenplay, but that was the big favorite for directing, with no Ron Howard there, and was always going to win some other things as well.) Which way are you leaning for editing? I’m leaning Dunkirk, as you may have seen in the BAFTA thread.
“but if Three Billboards wins, I will let out a big wahoo like Sasha did on her podcast when she discovered GO won Original ”
:)) I can imagine… Let’s hope that happens!
Dunkirk for Editing, though I would not be shocked by Baby Driver. I have done poorly in that category in recent years.
Wow, me too, actually, it seems! Looks like a problem category for me. I seem to tend to pick the wrong option(s) out of the two or three that might win… I checked, and I only got two winners right (Fury Road and Argo) out of the last six, there. I had La La Land AND Arrival in various contests last year, and of course Hacksaw, the third one that obviously could win, but that I reluctantly decided to not predict anywhere, ended up taking it… I also had Boyhood everywhere, somehow, even though it was obvious Whiplash could also win… I had Captain Phillips as my main prediction the year before that (though I at least managed to pick Gravity in one of the contests that time), and The Artist in the only contest I entered in its year. The year before this negative run of 2/6, I got The Social Network right, and that’s where my records end.
Hopefully, the new stats I discovered these last two years will help me improve on that in years to come! (I’m also predicting Dunkirk, having looked at those.)
Apart from picture and screenplay, and the shorts which I haven’t yet looked at at all, I agree with you 100% about everything else.
I picked Get Out in December and am sticking with it, though I would not be shocked to be wrong. There are eight categories where I have listed a runner up just to hedge my bets.
Get Out is a very sensible bet, still. I guess I understand why you wouldn’t want to predict Three Billboards, no matter what, after what happened with your favorite, La La Land, last year, and so on… But – not asking for an official prediction, just an opinion: which one do you think is more likely to win, at the moment, between Three Billboards and The Shape of Water?
I’m mulling over what will be my personal winner. It’s been Dunkirk since the day I saw it in the theater—it’s such a tremendous piece of cinema that I can’t really say it’s not worth it. But I’ve only seen it once, and I’m wondering if another film might not be equally deserving.
There’s The Shape of Water—beautiful, daring, heartfelt. There’s Blade Runner 2049—gorgeous, expansive, haunting. There’s Phantom Thread—funny, subversive, romantic. And there’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer—unnerving, ambiguous, astonishing. Those are my top 5.
Of late, I keep coming back to Phantom Thread. I need to see it again (I’ve been getting to the movies a lot less recently owing to time and money pressures), but the twisted beauty of the material, the magnificence of the acting, the lushness of the images and the score, all the emotions and audacity contained in one my favorite line of the year, “Kiss me, my girl, before I’m sick”…it might well be the one. I don’t know. It’s a good year.
“But I’ve only seen it once”
Well, you need to see it again, it’s that simple! It definitely got even better for me on second viewing. I liked it a lot the first time, but it only became a true contender for “most deserving of the year” after that second one…
I’m seeing it this afternoon. You sold me.
Well, having seen it again, I think it’ll stay where it was—comfortably in the top 5, but not #1. It’s a gorgeous film in so many ways, but I do see some of its faults more clearly (and, at the same time, some of its virtues as well). No matter. I think my #1 is clear.
Oh, overall, it’s not #1 for me, either. 🙂 It’s more like #3. (It was slightly lower before that second viewing, though.) But I do think it might be the most deserving of them all, nonetheless. Either that or Get Out. But my #1 is very clear as well, and it’s still The Big Sick.
Get Out is officially overrated. As for it being one of the scariest movies ever made, it’s not that scary. It’s definitely more funny, more comedic. Horror is my favorite genre and I enjoyed it at the theatre. I also bought it on iTunes. It’s in my digital library. And as for all of its Oscar nominations — wow! very surprised. Why did Get Out get these noms over Oscaresque movies like Mudbound and Detroit. Why didn’t IT get a best pic nom? It was the more successful horror film. I hope this doesn’t have anything to do with Trump–and the democrats and their celebrity puppets. So political, not that prestigious.
“Why didn’t IT get a best pic nom?”
I wish it had! 🙂
“As for it being one of the scariest movies ever made”
I don’t think I’ve seen a single human being — critic, audience, or cast/crew member — ever claim that it was. What a bizarre thing to say.
I’m mulling over what will be my personal winner. It’s been Dunkirk since the day I saw it in the theater—it’s such a tremendous piece of cinema that I can’t really say it’s not worth it. But I’ve only seen it once, and I’m wondering if another film might not be equally deserving.
There’s The Shape of Water—beautiful, daring, heartfelt. There’s Blade Runner 2049—gorgeous, expansive, haunting. There’s Phantom Thread—funny, subversive, romantic. And there’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer—unnerving, ambiguous, astonishing. Those are my top 5.
Of late, I keep coming back to Phantom Thread. I need to see it again (I’ve been getting to the movies a lot less recently owing to time and money pressures), but the twisted beauty of the material, the magnificence of the acting, the lushness of the images and the score, all the emotions and audacity contained in one my favorite line of the year, “Kiss me, my girl, before I’m sick”…it might well be the one. I don’t know. It’s a good year.
“But I’ve only seen it once”
Well, you need to see it again, it’s that simple! It definitely got even better for me on second viewing. I liked it a lot the first time, but it only became a true contender for “most deserving of the year” after that second one…
Well, having seen it again, I think it’ll stay where it was—comfortably in the top 5, but not #1. It’s a gorgeous film in so many ways, but I do see some of its faults more clearly (and, at the same time, some of its virtues as well). No matter. I think my #1 is clear.
Get Out is officially overrated. As for it being one of the scariest movies ever made, it’s not that scary. It’s definitely more funny, more comedic. Horror is my favorite genre and I enjoyed it at the theatre. I also bought it on iTunes. It’s in my digital library. And as for all of its Oscar nominations — wow! very surprised. Why did Get Out get these noms over Oscaresque movies like Mudbound and Detroit. Why didn’t IT get a best pic nom? It was the more successful horror film. I hope this doesn’t have anything to do with Trump–and the democrats and their celebrity puppets. So political, not that prestigious.
“Why didn’t IT get a best pic nom?”
I wish it had! 🙂
“As for it being one of the scariest movies ever made”
I don’t think I’ve seen a single human being — critic, audience, or cast/crew member — ever claim that it was. What a bizarre thing to say.
If animals gave a shit about movies and award shows and had the opportunity to vote for the Oscars, not only Okja would be nominated for best film this year, but also Babe had won in 96 over that Braveheart nonsense.
But The Artist would have still won… 🙁
War Horse was nominated that year. But animals know better, anyway. Yes, The Artist have still won and got nominated for supporting actor, if you know what i mean *wink* *wink*
:)) Indeed!…
But we can´t really assume that cats and dogs for example are really behind the same movie, if they could vote – can we? And I question the assumption that animals would by nature vote for the film that has some animals in it. In this year´s race I´d say that “Phantom Thread” with it´s elaborate directing and exquisite art direction is very obvious a cat´s movie, the pigs (famous for their intelligence and sensitive nature) are probably inspired by “Shape of Waters” political and tender message (“Get out” might be to scary for them), while “Three Billboards” would surely be the (both robust and restricted) Bulldog´s champion.
Yeah, sure. Maybe pigeons would vote for The Post, cause, you know, its all about delivering messages. Other types of birds could probably jump ahead too soon, misguided by Gerwig film title.
No nonsense: You know what my first idea was when I read that Greta Gerwig was directing a film called “Lady Bird”? I thought it´s a biopic about Lyndon B. Johnstons wife – because that was her nickname!
I did as well.
Dunkirk should win best pic. The film is beautiful to look at and Nolan creates a compelling and historically important narrative with essentially no back story to any of the characters. It will easily hold up over time as a masterpiece of film making and Oscar should be paying attention.
I think Dunkirk deserves win for best picture and director. Its a great movie, a masterpiece, not onyl in technichal achievements. It is visual amazing and it is emotional in a special way. Dunkirk touch you. I love the unusually storytelling. One of the best warfilms ever.
Problem is, that it is a very strong year, one of the best ever in the last 20 years. But i agree with the opinion that it is stronger than many think in the pref. Ballot. Dunkirk or Get Out could be a surprising winner for best picture. I personally hope not Get Out, because it is overhyped. Get Out is very good, but bo masterpiece.
Say everything you want about The Shape of Water, but it’s not and will never be dead in the water…. until the last envelope gets opened.
Back in the News. Keep slaying, KING.
https://www.screendaily.com/news/robert-pattinson-to-star-in-robert-eggers-fantasy-horror-the-lighthouse/5126671.article
Eggers, Pattinson, Dafoe, and A24? Sign me up! Can’t wait for this.
If animals gave a shit about movies and award shows and had the opportunity to vote for the Oscars, not only Okja would be nominated for best film this year, but also Babe had won in 96 over that Braveheart nonsense.
But The Artist would have still won… 🙁
War Horse was nominated that year. But animals know better, anyway. Yes, The Artist have still won and got nominated for supporting actor, if you know what i mean *wink* *wink*
:)) Indeed!…
But we can´t really assume that cats and dogs for example are really behind the same movie, if they could vote – can we? And I question the assumption that animals would by nature vote for the film that has some animals in it. In this year´s race I´d say that “Phantom Thread” with it´s elaborate directing and exquisite art direction is very obvious a cat´s movie, the pigs (famous for their intelligence and sensitive nature) are probably inspired by “Shape of Waters” political and tender message (“Get out” might be to scary for them), while “Three Billboards” would surely be the (both robust and restricted) Bulldog´s champion.
Yeah, sure. Maybe pigeons would vote for The Post, cause, you know, its all about delivering messages. Other types of birds could probably jump ahead too soon, misguided by Gerwig film title.
GET OUT at Nr. 01? Good Luck with that! It´s at Nr. 03 at Best and has no Chance with no Editing Nom. and only 4 Noms, when there are several Films with much more noms. It has only one Short and that is screenplay but I hope that Three Billbaords get it. Shape of Water will win, Three Billboards have a chance, but the snub in director says a lot, so Shape of Water is high up for the win!
Exactly. It’s a distant third. How many of the people who said Birdman couldn’t win because of no editing nom have totally ignored get outs lack of editing nom?
If it has no chance, it’s not at #3 at best, it’s tied for 3rd-9th at best. 🙂
“but the snub in director says a lot”
The SAG snub says even more…
Dunkirk should win best pic. The film is beautiful to look at and Nolan creates a compelling and historically important narrative with essentially no back story to any of the characters. It will easily hold up over time as a masterpiece of film making and Oscar should be paying attention.
Fun fact: if any of GET OUT, THREE BILLBOARDS, or LADY BIRD win Best Picture, it will mark only the third time ever that Best Picture has gone to a film where the lone credited writer/director was also nominated for Original Screenplay.
The first 2 films to accomplish this were PLATOON and THE ARTIST. However, neither one of them won Original Screenplay (coincidentally both ended up losing that category to Woody Allen (HANNAH AND HER SISTERS and MIDNIGHT IN PARIS respectively)).
LA LA LAND would’ve been the third film to achieve this feat had it won BP last year.
Hannah and her Sisters I get but why did he win for Moonlight in Paris.
Very interesting… but I don’t see the logical connection there. Seems random, and is probably due to the very low number of strong BP nominees with lone writer/directors in history. Of course, you never claimed there was a logical connection. 🙂 “Fun fact” was the best way to describe it, indeed.
True. In fact, you could add a third film into the mix (of BP winners with an original script by a lone credited writer/director), but that didn’t get a writing nom. That would be TITANIC (written and directed by James Cameron).
I like what you wrote about each film. But there is NO WAY 3BB is under DUNKIRK as far as chances of winning. That’s ridiculous.
Having said that, all 5 of these do stand at least some chance of winning. Which is great because usually it’s always a 2 horse race by this point.
Dunkirk is probably 5th, behind ladybird. Sasha has lost her mind ignoring the stats in favour of her Facebook poll.
I mean why would you bother with a large guild preferential ballot like the PGA when you have a small, unrepresentative Facebook poll of non-voters?
Relying on a Facebook poll with a two year sample size is the equivalent of saying the Best Pic winner will have two syllables in its title – ie. Spotlight, Moonlight.
That said, I hope she’s right. Get Out deserves it. It also has two syllables…
If you’re betting on BAFTA then GD has a link on the Bafta thread where some Bafta insiders have predicted Dunkirk to sweep …their prediction record over the last 3 yrs is spotty but they’re usually right on the main categories ..it’s food for thought
Oh my god you’ve cracked it, single word with 2 syllables it is Dunkirk v Ladybird!
“Relying on a Facebook poll with a two year sample size is the equivalent of saying the Best Pic winner will have two syllables in its title – ie. Spotlight, Moonlight.
That said, I hope she’s right. Get Out deserves it. It also has two syllables…”
This.
In fairness, though, there were other two-syllable movies nominated in 2016 and 2017 (Lion and Brooklyn immediately come to mind), but only Spotlight and Moonlight won those simulations, so one isn’t quite as random as the other… 🙂
You forget that the winner of the preferential ballot is the best liked or least hated depending on which half of the glass you prefer. Dunkirk is more likely to have more 2s and 3s than Billboards will. Unless 3B wins in the first round it is likely at at least 4 if not 5.
Ho boy, 5 films??
I wonder why Oscar pundits want this year to feel unpredictable when it just isn’t. Especially stats wise, this year is by-the-numbers a two-picture race. It’s Three Billboards vs. The Shape of Water. No other film actually has a shot to win other than these two films.
Shape is the lumbering frontrunner with 13 nominations and the PGA/DGA wins. The scrappy underdog position has been taken by Three Billboards due to the BD miss. This is the perfect position to win Best Picture as the industry folks have a tendency to rebel with a film they like because they just do. It’s a film like Birdman, Spotlight, Moonlight, Argo and 12 Years A Slave which all had SAG ensemble nods/wins and/or Golden Globe Picture win. The underdog doesn’t need to be flying under the radar, it’s a competitor with just one dent. The dent can be backlash against another frontrunner (Boyhood, La La Land) or not getting a Best Director nomination (Argo) or being a technical achievement with no SAG ensemble and/ or writing heft (Gravity and Life of Pi).
All these point towards a victory for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. The film has strong industry support. It has two acting winners already sealed and a screenplay win looming.
I think the Oscar pundits are completely out of touch this season. First off nobody predicted Three Billboards as an Oscar frontrunner after seeing it at festivals. Only after it won the TIFF audience award was it even acknowledged in the predictions. I mean, anybody can do that.
I don’t want to name names but knee-jerk reactions from a few pundits proclaimed these films as legit contenders – Downsizing, Battle of the Sexes, First They Killed My Father and Last Flag Flying (which were either misfires or strictly okay movies). I also remember a full article dedicated to Hostiles and which nominations it will land. Geez.
A few pundits said Wonder Woman is the surprise to watch out for because they claim it has huge support from Academy members. Apart from Sasha, many said Phantom Thread is not translating to Oscar voters as it did with the critics. It didn’t get guild mentions and hence nobody predicted it. I mean literally anybody can do that.
Two pundits were sure Sean Baker would be the Lenny Abrahamson/ Benh Zeitlin kind of surprise nominee. PTA? Not one.
Even now, when Three Billboards is in prime position to win BP. Most Oscar pundits are calling it an unpredictable year. It’s really not. The acting winners are the most predictable and boring we’ve had in years. Sure there is some contest between Shape of Water and Three Billboards, but it’s only so for the sake of it. Although, a few have decided that the backlash will hurt Three Billboards and The Shape of Water will win. This is still a possibility. Although, it’s laughable how anyone can predict Lady Bird or Get Out to actually win Best Picture when they are struggling to win anything at all. Maybe because there has to be some sort of conversation to keep things interesting? Except for Tom O’Neil, no Oscar pundit has had the clarity to call the race what it is.
Yes it’s a 2 horse race. I think the it’s a crazy year 5 films could win is bullshit click bait
“Three Billboards” has no nomination for its director (and two movies that won Oscar without this nomination in the last 85 years – “Argo” and “Driving Miss Daisy” – had won PGA – “Billboards” have not). And so far no movie has won with only SAG ensemble win (“Shakespeare in Love” had also WGA, “Crash” had WGA and ACE and “Spotlight” had WGA – I know that “Three Billboards” weren’t eligible for WGA but even if they were they still could have lost to “Get Out”).
So… no: “Three Billboards” are surely not the obvious winner. They were before Oscar nominations were announced but now they are not.
The Shape of water doesn’t have a SAGE nomination, so no director and no SAGE cancel each other out.
No, they do not. “Get Out” will win and that will prove that I’m right. 🙂
Get Out will lose and that’ll be the last we hear from you
Again. I don’t really why Get Out is such a contender here. I get that people love the film, but I take out my own personal preference out of my prediction thinking. If your argument is, “It won the WGA”, then you’re ignoring the fact that 3BOEM wasn’t eligible.
Or people believe it still would’ve won the WGA even if 3B *had been* eligible.
we’;ll see after BAFTA ..if 3 Bills come on strong at BAFTa then it becomes the favourite , but if Dunkirk sweeps then Shape remains favourite
3 Bills is not an obvious winner , but only SHAPE can realistically beat it
“(and two movies that won Oscar without this nomination in the last 85 years – “Argo” and “Driving Miss Daisy” – had won PGA – “Billboards” have not).”
And the only movie in history that won BP without the SAG Ensemble nomination won the WGA, the most important precursor of all, especially in close races. Shape has not. Even with Three Billboards not present… (By the way, Argo and Driving Miss Daisy also won the WGA. One of them didn’t win the DGA, and won the PGA two days after the Oscars.)
“I know that “Three Billboards” weren’t eligible for WGA but even if they were they still could have lost to “Get Out””
BAFTA will tell us more about that, but, for now, based on shows that aren’t regional critics awards, or whatever (which can easily be misleading – The King’s Speech, also WGA-ineligible, won even fewer screenplay awards than Three Billboards in that phase of the race, before sweeping the televised awards), there’s slightly more evidence of Three Billboards being the favorite to win the WGA, had it been eligible, because it was nominated for the Golden Globes (which is a necessary nod for most screenplay winners) and Get Out wasn’t. The two screenplay wins (GG, CC) they’ve split, as everyone knows. If it lost BAFTA screenplay, though, it would clearly show that Get Out was very likely the favorite for the WGA as well. But, as of now, I don’t see why that would be the case.
IMO it’s a 3 horse race: “Shape of Water”, “Three Billboards” and “Get Out” all have a chance (“Get Out” is the only movie from those three that has its director nominated and was nominated for SAG award).
No, it’s a two-horse race. Everybody else is a long shot.
Get Out doesn’t have an editing nomination, no BAFTA Best Picture nomination, scored its only major Guild win at the WGA (a category without 3BOEM being eligible), and only up for 4 Oscars.
“Ordinary People” also weren’t nominated for BAFTA, did not have editing nomination and have won Oscar in more difficult era to win (when there were no preferential ballot and the movie had to have more ‘first’ places than all other movies with the broader support).
“Get Out” has one major guild but the same might be said about “Three Billboards” (and about “Moonlight” year ago!). “The Shape of Water” has DGA, ADG and PGA but “La La Land” had those and also ACE and Golden Globe and it still did not win.
So…
I’m not claiming that “The Shape of Water” or “Three Billboards” won’t win. They surely can. But claiming that there is only 2 horse race is simply stupid. 🙂
realistically , GO has little chance
Sorry, but this is a really bad comparison
Moonlight beat out Manchester and LLL at the WGAs. Get Out didn’t face up against Three Billboards.
Moonlight was nominated for Best Picture at the BAFTAs, Get Out was not.
Moonlight was up for editing, director, and screenplay. Get Out was not.
You’re correct that Ordinary People wasn’t up for the BAFTA Best Picture, but as I said before, OP won the Globe, DGA, and WGA.
Ordinary People was up for 6 Oscars, Get Out is up for 4.
This is not the same as Get Out. I didn’t even mention that Ordinary People was a serious drama, while Get Out was a horror comedy.
Lets stop being delusional here. It’s a two-horse race.
It was up for five Oscars, actually, as two of its nods were for supporting actor. But, yes, it’s not the same thing, of course.
Good point about Ordinary People! Didn’t realize it had also missed BAFTA.
“”Get Out” has one major guild but the same might be said about “Three Billboards” (and about “Moonlight” year ago!).”
The real question here is, would Get Out still have that one guild, had Three Billboards been eligible for the WGA, or would Three Billboards have two instead? 🙂
I very much agree it’s – at least – a three-horse race, by the way.
“The acting winners are the most predictable and boring we’ve had in years.”
For all their talk of unpredictability, the pundits have been absolute sheep when it comes to the acting races. I’m sure the ad revenue and celebrity access are nice (read: bought and paid for), but they’ve only themselves to blame for such dull results and the continuing decline of interest in the Oscars.
There’s definitely some logic behind predicting Get Out… (I’m predicting Three Billboards, but I’m far from thinking Get Out is a non-threat!)
I think Dunkirk deserves win for best picture and director. Its a great movie, a masterpiece, not onyl in technichal achievements. It is visual amazing and it is emotional in a special way. Dunkirk touch you. I love the unusually storytelling. One of the best warfilms ever.
Problem is, that it is a very strong year, one of the best ever in the last 20 years. But i agree with the opinion that it is stronger than many think in the pref. Ballot. Dunkirk or Get Out could be a surprising winner for best picture. I personally hope not Get Out, because it is overhyped. Get Out is very good, but bo masterpiece.
Say everything you want about The Shape of Water, but it’s not and will never be dead in the water…. until the last envelope gets opened.
Say everything you want about The Shape of Water, but it’s not and will never be dead in the water…. until the last envelope gets opened.
Hahaha I can’t wait for either Get Out, CMBYN, Dunkirk or Lady Bird to win Best Picture and everyone goes crazy OH MY GOSH HOW DID WE NOT SEE THIS COMING OMG WAH WAH WAH. Bcuz you’re all ignoring how freakin divisive 3Bills & Shape are!!!! It’s a preferential ballot, that’s all you need to know to predict the winner
none of your predictions will be correct ..NONE !
What is ur predicting record? I bet u predicted LaLa & The Revenant
anything you predict will have the kiss of death
You’ve forgotten you can get BP wrong. 🙂 Because no system is perfect. (Especially a reductive one, but that’s another matter.) You feel invincible – it’s cool. I know the feeling, I remember it well. I thought something similar before I got The Big Short/La La Land wrong. I had also gotten the last eight in a row right…
But your turn will soon come to join all of us back down here on Planet Earth, and my guess is it’s this year. 🙂
:)) Get Out, maybe. The other three, nope.
“Bcuz you’re all ignoring how freakin divisive 3Bills & Shape are!!!!”
That’s a whole lot less than the countless clues you’re ignoring… (Not that we ARE ignoring that. We’re just giving it its proper weight, instead of infinity.)
Back in the News. Keep slaying, KING.
https://www.screendaily.com/news/robert-pattinson-to-star-in-robert-eggers-fantasy-horror-the-lighthouse/5126671.article
Eggers, Pattinson, Dafoe, and A24? Sign me up! Can’t wait for this.
Back in the News. Keep slaying, KING.
https://www.screendaily.com/news/robert-pattinson-to-star-in-robert-eggers-fantasy-horror-the-lighthouse/5126671.article
“The Three Amigos trilogy of highly influential directors from Mexico who aren’t afraid to make American stories that redefine American cinema” REALLY??? They redefined American cinema just because they managed to win some awards given by an organization with questionable tastes??? Doesn’t seem to me that Gravity or Birdman aged incredibly well or had an impact in the long run.
How would Gravity have aged badly?
Gravity has still the best visual effects ever made in a movie.
It’s up there that’s for sure.
GET OUT at Nr. 01? Good Luck with that! It´s at Nr. 03 at Best and has no Chance with no Editing Nom. and only 4 Noms, when there are several Films with much more noms. It has only one Short and that is screenplay but I hope that Three Billbaords get it. Shape of Water will win, Three Billboards have a chance, but the snub in director says a lot, so Shape of Water is high up for the win!
Exactly. It’s a distant third. How many of the people who said Birdman couldn’t win because of no editing nom have totally ignored get outs lack of editing nom?
If it has no chance, it’s not at #3 at best, it’s tied for 3rd-9th at best. 🙂
“but the snub in director says a lot”
The SAG snub says even more…
GET OUT at Nr. 01? Good Luck with that! It´s at Nr. 03 at Best and has no Chance with no Editing Nom. and only 4 Noms, when there are several Films with much more noms. It has only one Short and that is screenplay but I hope that Three Billbaords get it. Shape of Water will win, Three Billboards have a chance, but the snub in director says a lot, so Shape of Water is high up for the win!
You, dumb, tired, in 2017: “Whoa, turns out Robert Pattinson can act!”
Me, intellectual, wired, in 2012: “Robert Pattinson is beautiful and one of the key performers of his generation.”
Good Time was perfect.
I can’t believe how good it is!
I have to re-evaluate my top 5.
It’s on AMAZON Prime now so I can finally watch it.
There’s an interesting link over at GD on the BAFTA thread from some Bafta voters who predict a virtual SHAPE shut out and a DUNKIRK sweep …they have a spotty record over the last 2-3 yrs but they do seem to get the main categories right ..some of the choices seem bizarre but a Dunkirk win at BP and BD are not beyond the boundaries of possibility …the war does loom large in the British psyche ..it’s food for thought at least !
Fun fact: if any of GET OUT, THREE BILLBOARDS, or LADY BIRD win Best Picture, it will mark only the third time ever that Best Picture has gone to a film where the lone credited writer/director was also nominated for Original Screenplay.
The first 2 films to accomplish this were PLATOON and THE ARTIST. However, neither one of them won Original Screenplay (coincidentally both ended up losing that category to Woody Allen (HANNAH AND HER SISTERS and MIDNIGHT IN PARIS respectively)).
LA LA LAND would’ve been the third film to achieve this feat had it won BP last year.
Hannah and her Sisters I get but why did he win for Moonlight in Paris.
Very interesting… but I don’t see the logical connection there. Seems random, and is probably due to the very low number of strong BP nominees with lone writer/directors in history. Of course, you never claimed there was a logical connection. 🙂 “Fun fact” was the best way to describe it, indeed.
True. In fact, you could add a third film into the mix (of BP winners with an original script by a lone credited writer/director), but that didn’t get a writing nom. That would be TITANIC (written and directed by James Cameron).
Fun fact: if any of GET OUT, THREE BILLBOARDS, or LADY BIRD win Best Picture, it will mark only the third time ever that Best Picture has gone to a film where the lone credited writer/director was also nominated for Original Screenplay.
The first 2 films to accomplish this were PLATOON and THE ARTIST. However, neither one of them won Original Screenplay (coincidentally both ended up losing that category to Woody Allen (HANNAH AND HER SISTERS and MIDNIGHT IN PARIS respectively)).
I like what you wrote about each film. But there is NO WAY 3BB is under DUNKIRK as far as chances of winning. That’s ridiculous.
Having said that, all 5 of these do stand at least some chance of winning. Which is great because usually it’s always a 2 horse race by this point.
Dunkirk is probably 5th, behind ladybird. Sasha has lost her mind ignoring the stats in favour of her Facebook poll.
I mean why would you bother with a large guild preferential ballot like the PGA when you have a small, unrepresentative Facebook poll of non-voters?
You forget that the winner of the preferential ballot is the best liked or least hated depending on which half of the glass you prefer. Dunkirk is more likely to have more 2s and 3s than Billboards will. Unless 3B wins in the first round it is likely at at least 4 if not 5.
I like what you wrote about each film. But there is NO WAY 3BB is under DUNKIRK as far as chances of winning. That’s ridiculous.
Having said that, all 5 of these do stand at least some chance of winning. Which is great because usually it’s always a 2 horse race by this point.
GREAT JOB, SASHA. WAY TO GO.
Ho boy, 5 films??
I wonder why Oscar pundits want this year to feel unpredictable when it just isn’t. Especially stats wise, this year is by-the-numbers a two-picture race. It’s Three Billboards vs. The Shape of Water. No other film actually has a shot to win other than these two films.
Shape is the lumbering frontrunner with 13 nominations and the PGA/DGA wins. The scrappy underdog position has been taken by Three Billboards due to the BD miss. This is the perfect position to win Best Picture as the industry folks have a tendency to rebel with a film they like because they just do. It’s a film like Birdman, Spotlight, Moonlight, Argo and 12 Years A Slave which all had SAG ensemble nods/wins and/or Golden Globe Picture win. The underdog doesn’t need to be flying under the radar, it’s a competitor with just one dent. The dent can be backlash against another frontrunner (Boyhood, La La Land) or not getting a Best Director nomination (Argo) or being a technical achievement with no SAG ensemble and/ or writing heft (Gravity and Life of Pi).
All these point towards a victory for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. The film has strong industry support. It has two acting winners already sealed and a screenplay win looming.
I think the Oscar pundits are completely out of touch this season. First off nobody predicted Three Billboards as an Oscar frontrunner after seeing it at festivals. Only after it won the TIFF audience award was it even acknowledged in the predictions. I mean, anybody can do that.
I don’t want to name names but knee-jerk reactions from a few pundits proclaimed these films as legit contenders – Downsizing, Battle of the Sexes, First They Killed My Father and Last Flag Flying (which were either misfires or strictly okay movies). I also remember a full article dedicated to Hostiles and which nominations it will land. Geez.
A few pundits said Wonder Woman is the surprise to watch out for because they claim it has huge support from Academy members. Apart from Sasha, many said Phantom Thread is not translating to Oscar voters as it did with the critics. It didn’t get guild mentions and hence nobody predicted it. I mean literally anybody can do that.
Two pundits were sure Sean Baker would be the Lenny Abrahamson/ Benh Zeitlin kind of surprise nominee. PTA? Not one.
Even now, when Three Billboards is in prime position to win BP. Most Oscar pundits are calling it an unpredictable year. It’s really not. The acting winners are the most predictable and boring we’ve had in years. Sure there is some contest between Shape of Water and Three Billboards, but it’s only so for the sake of it. Although, a few have decided that the backlash will hurt Three Billboards and The Shape of Water will win. This is still a possibility. Although, it’s laughable how anyone can predict Lady Bird or Get Out to actually win Best Picture when they are struggling to win anything at all. Maybe because there has to be some sort of conversation to keep things interesting? Except for Tom O’Neil, no Oscar pundit has had the clarity to call the race what it is.
Yes it’s a 2 horse race. I think the it’s a crazy year 5 films could win is bullshit click bait
IMO it’s a 3 horse race: “Shape of Water”, “Three Billboards” and “Get Out” all have a chance (“Get Out” is the only movie from those three that has its director nominated and was nominated for SAG award).
“The acting winners are the most predictable and boring we’ve had in years.”
For all their talk of unpredictability, the pundits have been absolute sheep when it comes to the acting races. I’m sure the ad revenue and celebrity access are nice (read: bought and paid for), but they’ve only themselves to blame for such dull results and the continuing decline of interest in the Oscars.
There’s definitely some logic behind predicting Get Out… (I’m predicting Three Billboards, but I’m far from thinking Get Out is a non-threat!)
Ho boy, 5 films??
I wonder why Oscar pundits want this year to feel unpredictable when it just isn’t. Especially stats wise, this year is by-the-numbers a two-picture race. It’s Three Billboards vs. The Shape of Water. No other film actually has a shot to win other than these two films.
Shape is the lumbering frontrunner with 13 nominations and the PGA/DGA wins. The scrappy underdog position has been taken by Three Billboards due to the BD miss. This is the perfect position to win Best Picture as the industry folks have a tendency to rebel with a film they like because they just do. It’s a film like Birdman, Spotlight, Moonlight, Argo and 12 Years A Slave which all had SAG ensemble nods/wins and/or Golden Globe Picture win. The underdog doesn’t need to be flying under the radar, it’s a competitor with just one dent. The dent can be backlash against another frontrunner (Boyhood, La La Land) or not getting a Best Director nomination (Argo) or being a technical achievement with no SAG ensemble and/ or writing heft (Gravity and Life of Pi).
All these point towards a victory for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. The film has strong industry support. It has two acting winners already sealed and a screenplay win looming.
I think the Oscar pundits are completely out of touch this season. First off nobody predicted Three Billboards as an Oscar frontrunner after seeing it at festivals. Only after it won the TIFF audience award was it even acknowledged in the predictions. I mean, anybody can do that.
I don’t want to name names but knee-jerk reactions from a few pundits proclaimed these films as legit contenders – Downsizing, Battle of the Sexes, First They Killed My Father and Last Flag Flying (which were either misfires or strictly okay movies). I also remember a full article dedicated to Hostiles and which nominations it will land. Geez.
A few pundits said Wonder Woman is the surprise to watch out for because they claim it has huge support from Academy members. Apart from Sasha, many said Phantom Thread is not translating to Oscar voters as it did with the critics. It didn’t get guild mentions and hence nobody predicted it. I mean literally anybody can do that.
Two pundits were sure Sean Baker would be the Lenny Abrahamson/ Benh Zeitlin kind of surprise nominee. PTA? Not one.
Even now, when Three Billboards is in prime position to win BP. Most Oscar pundits are calling it an unpredictable year. It’s really not. The acting winners are the most predictable and boring we’ve had in years. Sure there is some contest between Shape of Water and Three Billboards, but it’s only so for the sake of it. Although, a few have decided that the backlash will hurt Three Billboards and The Shape of Water will win. This is still a possibility. Although, it’s laughable how anyone can predict Lady Bird or Get Out to actually win Best Picture when they are struggling to win anything at all. Maybe because there has to be some sort of conversation to keep things interesting? Except for Tom O’Neil, no Oscar pundit has had the clarity to call the race what it is.
“The acting winners are the most predictable and boring we’ve had in years.”
For all their talk of unpredictability, the pundits have been absolute sheep when it comes to the acting races. I’m sure the ad revenue and celebrity access are nice (read: bought and paid for), but they’ve only themselves to blame for such dull results and the continuing decline of interest in the Oscars.
Of the movies that can win (which means no Dunkirk), Get Out definitely deserves it the most, in my opinion.
Which aspects of Get Out do you think make it more deserving than the others?
Screenplay, acting, directorial performance of Peele?
I honestly think it way underperformed on the nominations side not only at AMPAS but almost everywhere !
Especially those three, plus the editing, score, etc. 🙂 And of course it underperformed. Genre bias, probably…
Allison Williams, Betty Gabriel and Richard Herd liked this !!
Off topic but saw Black Panther and it was AMAZING. Yeah yeah the guys are awesome but the women flat out steal the entire movie. They are incredible!
The only thing I didn’t like was the extremely inconsistent quality in the VFX… Way too much green screen and when there is practical elements in the scene they didn’t try hard enough to blend the CGI with the practical stuff. It’s an issue in most blockbusters these days.
Currently, I think Lady Bird is dead in the water for wins.
I actually think Get Out can win Original Screenplay over Three Billboards … but can still see Three Billboards winning Best Picture, anyway.
This all, of course, is under the weak assumption that Shape of Water isn’t winning Best Picture.
3 Bills cannot win BP without BSP , but SHAPE surely can ..if you think that GET OUT wins BSP then SHAPE has won BP by default
Stats say it probably can’t happen, yes. But the Academy may want to give Peele something (barely over 3B). Meanwhile, 3B might win BP just because it is so beloved (Audience Awards, GG, SAG, BAFTA noms, etc).
No, they don’t. What strong stat (over 90% percentage, over a period of at least 20 years) says that? I bet none…
I think you may be spot on John.
“I actually think Get Out can win Original Screenplay over Three Billboards … but can still see Three Billboards winning Best Picture, anyway.”
Same.
Hmmm. I can see 3B winning Screenplay & BP, but not either or.
Currently, I’m leaning towards Get Out for Screenplay & Shape of Water for BP/BD,
That’s what I’m hoping. 3BB’s pair of acting wins is very respectable.
If 3B doesn’t get screenplay, it is not winning BP.
Hahaha I can’t wait for either Get Out, CMBYN, Dunkirk or Lady Bird to win Best Picture and everyone goes crazy OH MY GOSH HOW DID WE NOT SEE THIS COMING OMG WAH WAH WAH. Bcuz you’re all ignoring how freakin divisive 3Bills & Shape are!!!! It’s a preferential ballot, that’s all you need to know to predict the winner
:)) Get Out, maybe. The other three, nope.
“Bcuz you’re all ignoring how freakin divisive 3Bills & Shape are!!!!”
That’s a whole lot less than the countless clues you’re ignoring… (Not that we ARE ignoring that. We’re just giving it its proper weight, instead of infinity.)
Hahaha I can’t wait for either Get Out, CMBYN, Dunkirk or Lady Bird to win Best Picture and everyone goes crazy OH MY GOSH HOW DID WE NOT SEE THIS COMING OMG WAH WAH WAH. Bcuz you’re all ignoring how freakin divisive 3Bills & Shape are!!!! It’s a preferential ballot, that’s all you need to know to predict the winner
“It is a European’s idea of America, for sure, and what it asks us to do is something we are not ready to do. We are not ready to listen to each other. We are as divided as we’ve ever been with no end to the tensions in sight.”
Isn’t this just sad?! So, basically, we are stubborn fucks that can never see the other’s view point. We preach and bitch and moan about whatever but never actually care to listen.
Is that what really America is all about?! I sure hope not. I actually want to believe in the good in people.
Anyway, I’ll just leave it at that.
It’s a smug European ”ode to Americana” , or worse, an ode to vigilantism that reinforces the worst, unfair stereotypes of Americans as country bumkins and racist rednecks , a la Dukes of Hazard ..it will always be more popular in places like Britain because it allows them to feel a smug superiority …..ironically , that’s one of the reasons it’s unlikely to win at Oscar …Americans find it much more divisive than Brits
I read Kris Tapley’s tweet about Universal going big with the campaign. The fact that Get Out has lingered for so long in people’s minds is impressive by itself, but if that can work with Academy voters, who are always looking for the new shiny thing to award, it would be nothing short of a miracle.
I still see The Shape of Water and Three Billboards ahead but Get Out is clearly the underdog and underdogs have always done well with the preferential ballot.
PS: Were there white saviors in Moonlight?
I hope it wins screenplay. It deserves something. It’s a distant third for BP, I think it has little chance
I think Moonlight is a film about humanity. I do not want to classify it by any other notion.
I remain puzzled by how out of sync Sasha’s rankings are this year compared to other pundits. I know she pushes favourites but this year is an anomaly.
She has a #1 Get Out which is a distant third on 9% on gold derby
She had Dunkirk (2% and fifth on Gold derby) 3rd ahead of 3Bs (30% and second).
Way out of sync.
Current GD
1. Shape (47%)
2. 3 Bs (30%)
3. Get Out (9%)
4. Ladybird (6%)
5. Dunkirk (2%)
Many of us here think it’s between Shape and 3Bs, as do 77% on gold derby.
Struggling to make sense of it all.
People whine when pundits engage in groupthink. People whine when pundits think for themselves. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
No whining, Do you agree she is very out of sync this year?
I think Sasha understands the mechanics of the race better than most pundits. She was one of I think literally two people who called the Moonlight victory last year. I’m inclined to at least hear out her thought process, even if I ultimately end up disagreeing with some of her predictions.
That’s rubbish …she made a last minute change without any real confidence and got lucky
She’s like a lot of folks involved in the movie industry who really know their stuff , but when it comes to actually picking a winner become strangely confused and indecisive like a hand wringing Hamlet
It was ironic that she tipped me off with her glowing Telluride review of SHAPE and I instantly recognised it as a very likely winner for a number of reasons ; and yet , she fumbled
So are you going with Shape of Water for Best Picture?
YES , on the suspicion that Get Out acts as a spoiler and wins BSP at Oscar , allowing SHAPE to win by default
I am going with 3B for both BP and BSP. Especially, if it wins both at BAFTA. A GG and BAFTA wins in Original Screenplay is a powerful combo. 😉
Maybe she’s just trying to generate interest in her website by spicing up the race …that’s OK , just so long as you know how to read between the lines …apparently many people don’t !
She is trusting her FB polls, the same polls that accurately predicted the winner 2 years in a row when neither of those movies was even considered a clear front- runner. I understand why people trust the stats but dismissing those polls doesn’t seem very smart either.
On the other hand, overrating the polls just because they got two close races right, a sample of two, is also quite wrong, in my opinion.
Exactly. I’ll go with stats over small sample unscientific polls any day
Increasingly, she is beginning to ignore all the stats and is putting more and more weight on her Facebook poll. That’s what’s going on.
She’s relying on a facebook poll because she lacks an intuitive hunch
My intuition says Three Billboards and I’ll stick by that but I got burned when The Revenant lost to Spotlight.
I’d like to think that a potential GG+Screenplay/SAG/BAFTA+Screenplay can be a more powerful combination than a GG+Director/DGA/BAFTA+Director Combination (The Revenant)
Plus, The Revenant was not nominated at SAG and missed Screenplay at the Oscars. 3B has everything except Best Director at the Oscars.
But that preferential ballot worries me. But not enough to bail on it. I’ll stick with it until the end.
It’s because she thinks each movie has too many big stats to overcome. That’s why she’s ignoring (most) stats this year. As long as she doesn’t end up predicting Dunkirk or something even less likely to win, it’s probably not a horrible approach.
But it’s not true. The main 2 contenders each have 1 big stat to overcome. Which is why your predictions are far better than hers
I agree with you that the race is mostly between The Shape of Water and Three Billboards but I feel like I have to mention: those numbers don’t mean that 77% of pundits think that the race is between those two. In theory 0% could have those as their top 2
You, dumb, tired, in 2017: “Whoa, turns out Robert Pattinson can act!”
Me, intellectual, wired, in 2012: “Robert Pattinson is beautiful and one of the key performers of his generation.”
Good Time was perfect.
It’s on AMAZON Prime now so I can finally watch it.
There’s an interesting link over at GD on the BAFTA thread from some Bafta voters who predict a virtual SHAPE shut out and a DUNKIRK sweep …they have a spotty record over the last 2-3 yrs but they do seem to get the main categories right ..some of the choices seem bizarre but a Dunkirk win at BP and BD are not beyond the boundaries of possibility …the war does loom large in the British psyche ..it’s food for thought at least !
Dunkirk more likely than Three Billboards? I am really skeptical about Three Billboards and even I wouldn’t go that far!
But yeah, all of these films listed have damn compelling arguments on why they can win – both in the metagame of the Academy voters, in the production backstories, and as a larger societal symbol. This has been the most interesting and nuanced Oscars race in a while, and ultimately I’m grateful for that.
The more I think about the race and try to separate my own preferences (TSOW, CMBYN, PT) from what deserves to win the more I come back to Get Out and Dunkirk. They are the 2 that I think society will be looking back on in 20 years and defining as the films of this time. Get Out could fully spawn a whole genre of it’s own, it was hugely popular when it came out and it doesn’t feel like it will go away from the consciousness for many years. I can imagine people seeing that movie and being inspired to make films in a similar style.
Dunkirk is a grand technical achievement, I can’t help but think of it as a bit cold but there is no denying the sheer skill it took to make and how unique a work of art it is. like Get Out it captured the public and was hugely popular when it came out and people are still talking about it more than 6 months later… And like Get Out I can imagine people holding it as a film that that inspires them to go out and make art themselves.
If I think to 20 years in the future the only of the 3 I state as my favourites that I think will still be talked about is TSOW. CMBYN as beautiful as it is will lose it’s charm as more and more LGBT films are made and will slowly become a great film tucked into a genre of great films. Phantom Thread will stick with some but it will be looked at as a spot on the filmography of several great artists. That doesn’t stop them being my favourites… Though who am I to know where we will be in the future, this is just me using guesswork. Others may see it a different way.
“the more I come back to Get Out and Dunkirk.”
Yup, me too, exactly. Those seem like the two that are clearly the most deserving.
“CMBYN as beautiful as it is will lose it’s charm as more and more LGBT films are made and will slowly become a great film tucked into a genre of great films”
Why is your assessment on CMBYN limited to the LGBT genre and not including it say in the coming-of-age genre or the romance one? I find that a very narrow categorizing of the film’s appeal.
I don’t know why I omitted it; no good reason I can tell you that, but I finally caught up with Roman J. Israel, Esq. and it’s pretty good. Astonishing: Oldman is the worse by far of the nominees, actually, the only one who is actually…not good…by a lot..
…and the lock to win.
I also just finally watched Roman J Israel today and was surprised that it wasn’t a total garbage fire. It’s not great by any stretch of the imagination, it’s actually something of a non-film (sort of how I felt about Sully, btw), but it’s not an unmitigated disaster. Denzel is… fine? Darkest Hour is my least favorite of the BP nominees but I still think Oldman was better than him, though not by much.
1. Chalamet
2. Day-Lewis
3. Kaluuya
4. Oldman
5. Washington
How are either of you two surprised it’s not a garbage fire when I told you from the beginning? I’m so insulted. *stomps off*
My ideal 5 in order of ranking would be Chalamet, Day-Lewis, Gyllenhaal, Kaluuya, Hanks. I wouldn’t even nominate Oldman. It’s mindblowing to me that he’s the front runner.
Why do you think he isn’t any good?
Not his fault. Just the way the movies was conceived and executed did not favor anything in it, him included. Joe Wright is hit and miss for me…mostly miss.
Yeah, I agree, Oldman is maybe the weakest actor nominated this year full stop – not just in Best Actor.
My rank (since this might be a thing)
1. Chalamet
2. Kaluuya (I rewatched the movie and it hit me how much it relies on this performance. There’s no way the film’s most out there stuff would work with a lesser actor
3. Day-Lewis (I’m not a fan of Phantom Thread, and I consider Day-Lewis to be a bit hammy in this, but he’s still amazing)
4. Washington (I think this is a good performance in a mediocre to bad movie. This year’s Iron Lady)
5. Oldman (Makeup does 80% of the work, and the script lines up the big speeches in just the right way to get him sentimental votes)
“Kaluuya (I rewatched the movie and it hit me how much it relies on this performance. There’s no way the film’s most out there stuff would work with a lesser actor”
Upvote.
I still haven’t seen Darkest Hour… At this point i’m just gonna wait for the blu-ray which comes out on the 27th I believe. Along with 3BB. But Oldman’s performance does look very over the top. It’s merely my overall love for him as an actor/ the overdue factor that has me rooting for him to win.
I have no interest left in Oscars this year ever since it was made obvious that CMBYN will not win. It should win, but it won’t win. The only thing I now want to see is LOVELESS winning. It’s the best in the race. Left me sleepless for nights!!
Gary Oldman and Darkest Hour – UGH!!
GREAT JOB, SASHA. WAY TO GO.
Aye carumba. You guys, I finally rewatched DUNKIRK on bluray. Uh, it got worse. I was hoping I was in a bad mood that day or something but no. They looked even wimpier and I had more complaints. This time my old Ma watched it with me and she said all the same things I thought. She said “sorry, I’m too used to my good old American war pictures.” I really think that’s where I was coming from too. I still can’t tell what point he was trying to get across. Everytime I see George hit his head I hear the War song in my mind and then the whole thing’s over. I can’t get behind the movie at that point because it’s not telling me what to think so I think my own thoughts which just boils down to ‘British people shouldn’t try fighting.’ But yeah it looked nice. So clearly I can’t make a case for that one.
GET OUT needs no case made for it. It’s a great story. It’s entertaining, well written, well acted, well directed. THE SHAPE OF WATER is what it is. THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI is an actor’s showcase if an overrated one. The direction didn’t deserve a nod. LADY BIRD doesn’t belong here at all. I don’t want PHANTOM THREAD to win but it’s one of the few here that actually are BP material. DARKEST HOUR I really like. I think it’s worthy. I love the cinematography, the score, the acting by the entire cast, I like the choices Wright made. I have a difficult time understanding where other people find fault. THE POST is accurate filmmaking. And I haven’t seen CMBYN.
So as far as I’m concerned there are three movies that are of Best Picture quality. GET OUT, PHANTOM THREAD and DARKEST HOUR with CALL ME BY YOUR NAME being a possible fourth. Movies should entertain, inspire, be about something and most importantly the below the line stuff has to be top notch. That in my opinion should be the base requirement. Crappy lighting or dialogue or bad acting should disqualify a movie. Things that take you out of a movie like bad wigs or people using current slang in a period movie or anything that just doesn’t make sense should disqualify a film. So a great script can be taken down by a bad cameo or an acting tour de force can go down the tubes if it’s set in the 1920s but people are wearing Air Jordans. When awarding best of the year you can’t make concessions for movies that are 90% great. There are plenty of movies that weren’t nominated that were better than that.
Dunkirk is bad because it doesn’t tell you what to think? You must hate every Martin Scorsese movie ever.
I’m saying it didn’t tell me if the message actually was that ‘war is stupid and people should just stay home and make tea’ or if it was meant to be ‘rah rah we’re so strong, carrying on in our fishing boats.’ Leaving it up to me was not a good idea.
Why does it have to have a message? What’s wrong with just being a good story, well told?
It’s not a good story. I’m not the only person who thinks that.
“DARKEST HOUR I really like. I think it’s worthy. I love the cinematography, the score, the acting by the entire cast, I like the choices Wright made.”
We agree! Cool! (I, for one, don’t think it’s worthy of BP, because some of the writing is QUITE suspect, but I did really like it, for all the reasons you mentioned.)
I also liked Darkest Hour much more than I expected. The subway (Tube?) scene took me out of it, a lot, but up til that point I honestly loved every second & would watch it again in a heartbeat. If people are against it politically / ideologically, that’s one thing, but I thought it was immersive and beautiful piece of filmmaking, with a few cheesy beats (subway), and way too little Kristen Scott Thomas. I would totally vote for Oldman (& I was genuinely expecting to hate it. I hate make up-y performances & cringed through the first trailers). Thought he was great.
I agree very much about Darkest Hour’s cinematography. That smoky gray/brown look was maintained throughout — which was perfect for a nation in crisis — yet all the while the crystal glassware and chandeliers gleamed: endurance shining through under the fog. That’s a canny illustration of what Britain was going through.
But I can’t agree about Oldman. The performance seemed to center more on Winston’s hair-trigger temper than on the uncertain fate of the nation. Oldman got fustiness and crankiness and stubbornness into his voice, body language (though he was a bit too spry for a man of Winston’s age and body type) and gestures (cigar-waving, of course), but he didn’t convey the gnawing fear of a man who saw his country’s survival hanging in the balance. “The Hinge of Fate” Churchill named one of the volumes he later wrote about WWII. That’s what was missing from Oldman’s performance. Dunkirk was the first hinge, and Oldman didn’t make you feel that swinging creak of terror.
Of the movies that can win (which means no Dunkirk), Get Out definitely deserves it the most, in my opinion.
Off topic but saw Black Panther and it was AMAZING. Yeah yeah the guys are awesome but the women flat out steal the entire movie. They are incredible!
The only thing I didn’t like was the extremely inconsistent quality in the VFX… Way too much green screen and when there is practical elements in the scene they didn’t try hard enough to blend the CGI with the practical stuff. It’s an issue in most blockbusters these days.
Currently, I think Lady Bird is dead in the water for wins.
I actually think Get Out can win Original Screenplay over Three Billboards … but can still see Three Billboards winning Best Picture, anyway.
This all, of course, is under the weak assumption that Shape of Water isn’t winning Best Picture.
3 Bills cannot win BP without BSP , but SHAPE surely can ..if you think that GET OUT wins BSP then SHAPE has won BP by default
I think you may be spot on John.
“I actually think Get Out can win Original Screenplay over Three Billboards … but can still see Three Billboards winning Best Picture, anyway.”
Same.
Hmmm. I can see 3B winning Screenplay & BP, but not either or.
Currently, I’m leaning towards Get Out for Screenplay & Shape of Water for BP/BD,
That’s what I’m hoping. 3BB’s pair of acting wins is very respectable.
If 3B doesn’t get screenplay, it is not winning BP.
What film deserves to win best picture is not an overblown episode of Twilight Zone with a cop out ending or a slight coming of age movie or a boring uninvolving war movie . After Get Out , Lady Bird and Dunkirk have been forgotten people who love film will still be talking about Phantom Thread .
I agree! I thought Phantom Thread was completely brilliant!
It should definitely win Best Soundtrack anyway. Mesmerizing. And that actress, Manville should win Best Supporting Actress but of course Allison Janney has a lock on that one.
So if Get Out wins Best Picture, won’t it be rather, um, ODD that three Best Picture winners were made by black directors, none of whom won Best Director? (This is assuming that Del Toro grabs Best Director.)
I would say that might reinforce the idea that Best Director is often an award for accomplished directors. (Steve McQueen, Barry Jenkins and Jordan Peele are young directors.) Might, EXCEPT for the fact that Michel Hazanavicius, Tom Hooper and Damien Chazelle were hardly seasoned film directors when they won.
Ugh – Tom Hooper won.
As much as I like THE KING’S SPEECH this still bothers me to no end.
The single worst moment of that Oscar ceremony
On the flipside, isn’t it odd that the Amigos keep getting split directing prizes?
I can totally see Get Out winning similar to how Moonlight won. But the actors who love 3B might push it over the edge. Even if 3B wins big at BAFTA, it will be nail-biter – that’s for sure.
“I can totally see Get Out winning similar to how Moonlight won.”
This is a gigantic stretch here.
Get Out is only up for 4 Oscars, missing an editing nomination, and failed to score a BAFTA Best Picture nomination. This is nothing like Moonlight.
It’s a stretch, for sure, but “gigantic” seems to be at least a slight overstatement. 🙂
Fair point. Get Out could have contended in editing & score if they absolutely loved it (which 3B did, btw). But then (perceived) momentum keeps shifting from film to film as the months progress, so maybe Get Out is more popular now than when they were nominating?
Get Out came out in February of 2017. There’s no “I liked it more than I did before”. Lets not get crazy here.
Comparing this to Moonlight is odd.
Moonlight won the Globe for Best Drama (it’s a 69% accuracy), beat out LLL and Manchester at the WGA awards, nominated for the triple crown Guild awards (PGA, DGA, and SAGE), nominated for best picture at the BAFTAs, had an acting winner, and scored Oscar nominations for director, screenplay, and editing.
I can understand why SOME are clamoring toward Get Out. It’s the other option.
GET OUT is never going to win best picture …a week ago it was virtually dead in the water and yet just because it won the WGA when 3 Bills wasn’t qualified then suddenly here comes GO like a Frankenstein brought back to life
It reminds me of the movie ”Young Frankenstein” with Gene Wilder and the abnormal brain…just get out with your Get Out ! FFS
It’s dead. If it had beaten 3B at WGA, had gotten an editing nomination, had gotten a BAFTA film and director nomination, won something else like SAG, then maybe.
But no.
Even Egor had a hunch , but apparently these folks don’t
Exactly.
Get Out beat it at the Critics Choice Awards, so I have no idea why anyone believes that it is such a threat to it in Best Original Screenplay.
“It is a European’s idea of America, for sure, and what it asks us to do is something we are not ready to do. We are not ready to listen to each other. We are as divided as we’ve ever been with no end to the tensions in sight.”
Isn’t this just sad?! So, basically, we are stubborn fucks that can never see the other’s view point. We preach and bitch and moan about whatever but never actually care to listen.
Is that what really America is all about?! I sure hope not. I actually want to believe in the good in people.
Anyway, I’ll just leave it at that.
It’s a smug European ”ode to Americana” , or worse, an ode to vigilantism that reinforces the worst, unfair stereotypes of Americans as country bumkins and racist rednecks , a la Dukes of Hazard ..it will always be more popular in places like Britain because it allows them to feel a smug superiority …..ironically , that’s one of the reasons it’s unlikely to win at Oscar …Americans find it much more divisive than Brits
Get out missing editing is the biggest miss IMO. It had really good editing.
Puzzled by Sasha in the podcast staying Shape of Water couldn’t win a preferential ballot.
PGA, anyone?
“The Academy’s taste may be improving, but it still finds room for Oscar bait like Darkest Hour… the Winston Churchill biographical drama from director Joe Wright, featuring some eye-catching visuals, Gary Oldman in heavy prosthetics, and not much else of note.”
https://www.avclub.com/the-academy-s-taste-may-be-improving-but-it-still-find-1822928846
Honestly I don’t even think there’s that much eye-catching visuals in that movie.
The series continues: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c1d959c763e6ddb4100b7a551711f8c7e1c2c2ab95f0c9ccef1cf9a08d86283b.jpg
Oh now they’re literally making them up.
God damn do they just find the worst possible people for these? Its as if they are picking through just looking for the ones who will say the most outrageous things!
Link?
Link?
That is not real. lol
Totally believable tho.
Wow this is harsher than anything I’ve said about Three Billboards.
Is this from Trump’s personal Oscar picks?
“and Darkest Hour gave audiences their first glimpse of Gary Oldman’s unequivocal portrait of Winston Churchill“
Lulz. ‘Unequivocal’ is an interesting phrase for a character played to acclaim by three different actors in the last year, but you do you.
I read Kris Tapley’s tweet about Universal going big with the campaign. The fact that Get Out has lingered for so long in people’s minds is impressive by itself, but if that can work with Academy voters, who are always looking for the new shiny thing to award, it would be nothing short of a miracle.
I still see The Shape of Water and Three Billboards ahead but Get Out is clearly the underdog and underdogs have always done well with the preferential ballot.
PS: Were there white saviors in Moonlight?
I hope it wins screenplay. It deserves something. It’s a distant third for BP, I think it has little chance
Get Out is missing the BAFTA nod. In the last 20+ years only Braveheart and Million Dollar Baby won without SAG AND BAFTA nods. But MDB won DGA and 2 SAGs. Dunkirt has no SAG ensemble, acting, writing nods. Very difficult to win without those.
Get Out is also missing nominations in the art and technical categories which all the past Oscar winners for Best Picture have had at least going back 20-25 years.
37 years IIRC. Ordinary People in 1981.
Ordinary People won the Globe, DGA, and WGA.
We’re talking about BP winners that had no below-the-line nominations.
Yeah and brotherfease is saying the only exception, 37 years ago, had won the globe and DGA. Get out didnt
Yeah I know. Ordinary People had no technical nods, just acting, directing, and writing nods. But you cannot really point to Ordinary People as a plus for Get Out. Get Out’s only Guild win was in a category where 3BOEM wasn’t eligible.
Who was counting it as a plus? Try reading it again. The first poster guessed it had been about 25 yrs since that it had happened, I pointed it out it had been even longer. If anything it’s a detriment to GO.
M$B was nominated for SAG ensemble. M$B didn’t get any BAFTA nominations because the screeners came in too late.
I remain puzzled by how out of sync Sasha’s rankings are this year compared to other pundits. I know she pushes favourites but this year is an anomaly.
She has a #1 Get Out which is a distant third on 9% on gold derby
She had Dunkirk (2% and fifth on Gold derby) 3rd ahead of 3Bs (30% and second).
Way out of sync.
Current GD
1. Shape (47%)
2. 3 Bs (30%)
3. Get Out (9%)
4. Ladybird (6%)
5. Dunkirk (2%)
Many of us here think it’s between Shape and 3Bs, as do 77% on gold derby.
Struggling to make sense of it all.
People whine when pundits engage in groupthink. People whine when pundits think for themselves. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Increasingly, she is beginning to ignore all the stats and is putting more and more weight on her Facebook poll. That’s what’s going on.
She’s relying on a facebook poll because she lacks an intuitive hunch
It’s because she thinks each movie has too many big stats to overcome. That’s why she’s ignoring (most) stats this year. As long as she doesn’t end up predicting Dunkirk or something even less likely to win, it’s probably not a horrible approach.
But it’s not true. The main 2 contenders each have 1 big stat to overcome. Which is why your predictions are far better than hers
I agree with you that the race is mostly between The Shape of Water and Three Billboards but I feel like I have to mention: those numbers don’t mean that 77% of pundits think that the race is between those two. In theory 0% could have those as their top 2
Dunkirk more likely than Three Billboards? I am really skeptical about Three Billboards and even I wouldn’t go that far!
But yeah, all of these films listed have damn compelling arguments on why they can win – both in the metagame of the Academy voters, in the production backstories, and as a larger societal symbol. This has been the most interesting and nuanced Oscars race in a while, and ultimately I’m grateful for that.
Three Billboards seems to me the most “of the moment” film out of all the nominees as it’s the most potent (or risible) blend of current issues and sensibilities. Whether that means it “deserves” to win is totally subjective (and controversial).
Best Picture Nominees that feel “current”: Three Billboards, Get Out, Lady Bird, Call Me By Your Name
Best Picture Nominees that feel “timeless”: Shape of Water, Phantom Thread, The Post, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk
Best Picture Nominees that feel politically “important”: Three Billboards, Get Out, The Post, Shape of Water
Best Picture Nominees that feel artistically or commercially “important”: Get Out, Phantom Thread, Shape of Water, Dunkirk
Best Picture Nominees that feel “important” and “current”: Get Out, Three Billboards
I agree with that. I think that it will come down to those two (Get Out and 3B). Not sure where the number 2 vote of the Shape of Water crowd will go to. I suppose after BAFTA (if 3B wins convincingly) the publicists that are behind both Shape of Water and 3B will make a deal and push the Oscar voters that love Shape of Water to place their number 2 vote behind 3B. Not sure how successful they can be at that but it’s worth a try.
Interesting…
“Not sure where the number 2 vote of the Shape of Water crowd will go to.”
On Sasha’s poll they heavily went to Get Out.
Get Out has proven that it’s gonna stick around for awhile and be talked about for sometime. Those films never win BP though as good as that sounds now Get Out will miss out because they’ll (the Academy) will go for a safer bet more closer to thier liking. SOW v 3B
Given the stat regarding lone writer/directors and Original Screenplay, Jordan Peele stands a decent chance of winning at least that.
So on an unrelated note since things keep popping up and the articles never seem to cover the right things for me to mention them. Isle of Dogs has officially been seen and reviews are fantastic. What is the chance that in 2019 Wes Anderson will finally win his Oscar he has deserved about a million times over already?
Didn’t he win for Budapest for screenplay or am I misemembering
I believe Birdman won OS!
BIRDMAN won the Critics Choice, Golden Globes, and Oscar for Original Screenplay. GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL won WGA and BAFTA Original Screenplay (BIRDMAN was ineligible at the former).
So the million dollar question. What will prevail? 3B with a potential GG and BAFTA wins in Original Screenplay or Get out with a BFCA/ WGA combo? Whoever wins – is the favorite for Best Picture….
BTW Sasha putting 3B in 4th place in the Original Screenplay category is disgraceful. It’s second at the very least with a chance to overtake Get Out. BAFTA must confirm this though.
Not necessarily. As I’ve pointed out earlier, no film with a lone credited writer/director won both Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay (it usually won one or the other, but never both at once). Say for example, you’re producing GET OUT for Original Screenplay, predict something else for Best Picture (the same is true vice versa).
predicting*
He won WGA and SP at globes and BAFTA but Birdman won the oscar
I see. Weird could have sworn he did. It deserved it over Birdman.
Yeah I didn’t really love birdman so that wasn’t my year (after going and wga I got in my head that it would be an amazing year where Linklater and Wes Anderson would both become Oscar winners – but alas no)
BIRDMAN won the Screenplay Globes. GRAND BUDAPEST only won at WGA and BAFTA.
Actually he lost Globes SP but won there for comedy/ musical film
I think it depends if the academy truly thinks it’s amazing. It has an uphill battle overcoming an animation bias to break into direction or screenplay, a la Fantastic Mr. Fox, but stranger things have happened
I was meaning in animated feature. A win there would still be a win for him
I’m sure he has a good shot there, but never forget The Incredibles 2 will be eligible and I can already see the “14 years in the making” campaign
Yeah and the sad thing is it’ll probably deserves it… Though Brad Bird has plenty of Oscars already!
Actually I just looked it up and he only has 2… Still…
What does Disney/Pixar have coming out this year? Incredibles 2 vs. Gigantic vs. Isle of Dogs?
[Edit: Gigantic has been shelved.]
Is Wreck it Ralph 2 this year as well? And a new Aardman film.
Yep, but can’t imagine that will be a contender. I imagine it’s going to get compared to the Emoji Movie (though that might work in its favor).
Also, I just remembered that Gigantic was recently cancelled so that’s obviously not in contention. (My mistake!) The new Aardman opens this weekend, good but not great reviews, not sure it will be remembered a year from now.
So probably will be a race between Wes Anderson and Brad Bird.
Sadly, I don’t think he can compete against the Disney/Pixar machine.
Especially when competing against an Oscar juggernaut like Brad Bird.
Then again, that trailer for Incredibles 2 was decidedly not great and they didn’t nominate Pixar’s last half assed sequel so…. fingers crossed!!
Yeah, I mean Bird’s last film (tomorrow-land, is that what it was called) was less than great so there is a chance, though I do hope incredibles 2 is good because I loved the original.
It turns out my post was a tad early, there is now a post about Isle of Dogs.
The more I think about the race and try to separate my own preferences (TSOW, CMBYN, PT) from what deserves to win the more I come back to Get Out and Dunkirk. They are the 2 that I think society will be looking back on in 20 years and defining as the films of this time. Get Out could fully spawn a whole genre of it’s own, it was hugely popular when it came out and it doesn’t feel like it will go away from the consciousness for many years. I can imagine people seeing that movie and being inspired to make films in a similar style.
Dunkirk is a grand technical achievement, I can’t help but think of it as a bit cold but there is no denying the sheer skill it took to make and how unique a work of art it is. like Get Out it captured the public and was hugely popular when it came out and people are still talking about it more than 6 months later… And like Get Out I can imagine people holding it as a film that that inspires them to go out and make art themselves.
If I think to 20 years in the future the only of the 3 I state as my favourites that I think will still be talked about is TSOW. CMBYN as beautiful as it is will lose it’s charm as more and more LGBT films are made and will slowly become a great film tucked into a genre of great films. Phantom Thread will stick with some but it will be looked at as a spot on the filmography of several great artists. That doesn’t stop them being my favourites… Though who am I to know where we will be in the future, this is just me using guesswork. Others may see it a different way.
“the more I come back to Get Out and Dunkirk.”
Yup, me too, exactly. Those seem like the two that are clearly the most deserving.
“CMBYN as beautiful as it is will lose it’s charm as more and more LGBT films are made and will slowly become a great film tucked into a genre of great films”
Why is your assessment on CMBYN limited to the LGBT genre and not including it say in the coming-of-age genre or the romance one? I find that a very narrow categorizing of the film’s appeal.
I don’t know why I omitted it; no good reason I can tell you that, but I finally caught up with Roman J. Israel, Esq. and it’s pretty good. Astonishing: Oldman is the worse by far of the nominees, actually, the only one who is actually…not good…by a lot..
…and the lock to win.
I also just finally watched Roman J Israel today and was surprised that it wasn’t a total garbage fire. It’s not great by any stretch of the imagination, it’s actually something of a non-film (sort of how I felt about Sully, btw), but it’s not an unmitigated disaster. Denzel is… fine? Darkest Hour is my least favorite of the BP nominees but I still think Oldman was better than him, though not by much.
1. Chalamet
2. Day-Lewis
3. Kaluuya
4. Oldman
5. Washington
Why do you think he isn’t any good?
Yeah, I agree, Oldman is maybe the weakest actor nominated this year full stop – not just in Best Actor.
My rank (since this might be a thing)
1. Chalamet
2. Kaluuya (I rewatched the movie and it hit me how much it relies on this performance. There’s no way the film’s most out there stuff would work with a lesser actor
3. Day-Lewis (I’m not a fan of Phantom Thread, and I consider Day-Lewis to be a bit hammy in this, but he’s still amazing)
4. Washington (I think this is a good performance in a mediocre to bad movie. This year’s Iron Lady)
5. Oldman (Makeup does 80% of the work, and the script lines up the big speeches in just the right way to get him sentimental votes)
I think the 5 I could make a case for deserving BP for all around writing, craft, performances, and film would be: CMBYN, Phantom Thread, TSOW, Dunkirk and Three Billboards (less so on the writing for this one). But sure we can continue to pretend Lady Bird and Get Out are as deftly made as these movies.
I loved Get Out and would love to see it win screenplay, and I enjoyed the performances in Lady Bird, but personally I just don’t see the films matching the others I’ve mentioned in artistic merit. They would certainly act as a time capsule for the future to look back on for why, socially, they won, but I don’t think they’ll be held as in such high regard as the other 5. (we don’t need to mention The Post or Darkest Hour)
Aye carumba. You guys, I finally rewatched DUNKIRK on bluray. Uh, it got worse. I was hoping I was in a bad mood that day or something but no. They looked even wimpier and I had more complaints. This time my old Ma watched it with me and she said all the same things I thought. She said “sorry, I’m too used to my good old American war pictures.” I really think that’s where I was coming from too. I still can’t tell what point he was trying to get across. Everytime I see George hit his head I hear the War song in my mind and then the whole thing’s over. I can’t get behind the movie at that point because it’s not telling me what to think so I think my own thoughts which just boils down to ‘British people shouldn’t try fighting.’ But yeah it looked nice. So clearly I can’t make a case for that one.
GET OUT needs no case made for it. It’s a great story. It’s entertaining, well written, well acted, well directed. THE SHAPE OF WATER is what it is. THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI is an actor’s showcase if an overrated one. The direction didn’t deserve a nod. LADY BIRD doesn’t belong here at all. I don’t want PHANTOM THREAD to win but it’s one of the few here that actually are BP material. DARKEST HOUR I really like. I think it’s worthy. I love the cinematography, the score, the acting by the entire cast, I like the choices Wright made. I have a difficult time understanding where other people find fault. THE POST is accurate filmmaking. And I haven’t seen CMBYN.
So as far as I’m concerned there are three movies that are of Best Picture quality. GET OUT, PHANTOM THREAD and DARKEST HOUR with CALL ME BY YOUR NAME being a possible fourth. Movies should entertain, inspire, be about something and most importantly the below the line stuff has to be top notch. That in my opinion should be the base requirement. Crappy lighting or dialogue or bad acting should disqualify a movie. Things that take you out of a movie like bad wigs or people using current slang in a period movie or anything that just doesn’t make sense should disqualify a film. So a great script can be taken down by a bad cameo or an acting tour de force can go down the tubes if it’s set in the 1920s but people are wearing Air Jordans. When awarding best of the year you can’t make concessions for movies that are 90% great. There are plenty of movies that weren’t nominated that were better than that.
Dunkirk is bad because it doesn’t tell you what to think? You must hate every Martin Scorsese movie ever.
I’m saying it didn’t tell me if the message actually was that ‘war is stupid and people should just stay home and make tea’ or if it was meant to be ‘rah rah we’re so strong, carrying on in our fishing boats.’ Leaving it up to me was not a good idea.
“DARKEST HOUR I really like. I think it’s worthy. I love the cinematography, the score, the acting by the entire cast, I like the choices Wright made.”
We agree! Cool! (I, for one, don’t think it’s worthy of BP, because some of the writing is QUITE suspect, but I did really like it, for all the reasons you mentioned.)
I also liked Darkest Hour much more than I expected. The subway (Tube?) scene took me out of it, a lot, but up til that point I honestly loved every second & would watch it again in a heartbeat. If people are against it politically / ideologically, that’s one thing, but I thought it was immersive and beautiful piece of filmmaking, with a few cheesy beats (subway), and way too little Kristen Scott Thomas. I would totally vote for Oldman (& I was genuinely expecting to hate it. I hate make up-y performances & cringed through the first trailers). Thought he was great.
I agree very much about Darkest Hour’s cinematography. That smoky gray/brown look was maintained throughout — which was perfect for a nation in crisis — yet all the while the crystal glassware and chandeliers gleamed: endurance shining through under the fog. That’s a canny illustration of what Britain was going through.
But I can’t agree about Oldman. The performance seemed to center more on Winston’s hair-trigger temper than on the uncertain fate of the nation. Oldman got fustiness and crankiness and stubbornness into his voice, body language (though he was a bit too spry for a man of Winston’s age and body type) and gestures (cigar-waving, of course), but he didn’t convey the gnawing fear of a man who saw his country’s survival hanging in the balance. “The Hinge of Fate” Churchill named one of the volumes he later wrote about WWII. That’s what was missing from Oldman’s performance. Dunkirk was the first hinge, and Oldman didn’t make you feel that swinging creak of terror.
The two most “deserving” films of the lot, based on quality, have been omitted from the five above.
And rightly so – because they have no shot at winning.
Sasha – DELETE MY COMMENT AFTER READING – don’t want it public.
Under Three Billboards, you mentioned Best Supporting Actress in the last sentence.
We both know it’s Best Supporting Actor (I’m sure you can correct in your thread (as we can). I’ve done these things myself. I’m not trying to be picky, just want it posted correctly.
Incidentally, I have really enjoyed reading your articles this year on Awards Daily.
Keith
LOL.. Too late now.
Dick knob.
You’re a gentleman and a scholar, keifer. Thank you.
What film deserves to win best picture is not an overblown episode of Twilight Zone with a cop out ending or a slight coming of age movie or a boring uninvolving war movie . After Get Out , Lady Bird and Dunkirk have been forgotten people who love film will still be talking about Phantom Thread .
I agree! I thought Phantom Thread was completely brilliant!
It should definitely win Best Soundtrack anyway. Mesmerizing. And that actress, Manville should win Best Supporting Actress but of course Allison Janney has a lock on that one.
So if Get Out wins Best Picture, won’t it be rather, um, ODD that three Best Picture winners were made by black directors, none of whom won Best Director? (This is assuming that Del Toro grabs Best Director.)
I would say that might reinforce the idea that Best Director is often an award for accomplished directors. (Steve McQueen, Barry Jenkins and Jordan Peele are young directors.) Might, EXCEPT for the fact that Michel Hazanavicius, Tom Hooper and Damien Chazelle were hardly seasoned film directors when they won.
Ugh – Tom Hooper won.
As much as I like THE KING’S SPEECH this still bothers me to no end.
The single worst moment of that Oscar ceremony
On the flipside, isn’t it odd that the Amigos keep getting split directing prizes?
I can totally see Get Out winning similar to how Moonlight won. But the actors who love 3B might push it over the edge. Even if 3B wins big at BAFTA, it will be nail-biter – that’s for sure.
“I can totally see Get Out winning similar to how Moonlight won.”
This is a gigantic stretch here.
Get Out is only up for 4 Oscars, missing an editing nomination, and failed to score a BAFTA Best Picture nomination. This is nothing like Moonlight.
It’s a stretch, for sure, but “gigantic” seems to be at least a slight overstatement. 🙂
Fair point. Get Out could have contended in editing & score if they absolutely loved it (which 3B did, btw). But then (perceived) momentum keeps shifting from film to film as the months progress, so maybe Get Out is more popular now than when they were nominating?
Get Out came out in February of 2017. There’s no “I liked it more than I did before”. Lets not get crazy here.
Comparing this to Moonlight is odd.
Moonlight won the Globe for Best Drama (it’s a 69% accuracy), beat out LLL and Manchester at the WGA awards, nominated for the triple crown Guild awards (PGA, DGA, and SAGE), nominated for best picture at the BAFTAs, had an acting winner, and scored Oscar nominations for director, screenplay, and editing.
I can understand why SOME are clamoring toward Get Out. It’s the other option.
GET OUT is never going to win best picture …a week ago it was virtually dead in the water and yet just because it won the WGA when 3 Bills wasn’t qualified then suddenly here comes GO like a Frankenstein brought back to life
It reminds me of the movie ”Young Frankenstein” with Gene Wilder and the abnormal brain…just get out with your Get Out ! FFS
Get out missing editing is the biggest miss IMO. It had really good editing.
Puzzled by Sasha in the podcast staying Shape of Water couldn’t win a preferential ballot.
PGA, anyone?
“The Academy’s taste may be improving, but it still finds room for Oscar bait like Darkest Hour… the Winston Churchill biographical drama from director Joe Wright, featuring some eye-catching visuals, Gary Oldman in heavy prosthetics, and not much else of note.”
https://www.avclub.com/the-academy-s-taste-may-be-improving-but-it-still-find-1822928846
Honestly I don’t even think there’s that much eye-catching visuals in that movie.
The series continues: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c1d959c763e6ddb4100b7a551711f8c7e1c2c2ab95f0c9ccef1cf9a08d86283b.jpg
Oh now they’re literally making them up.
God damn do they just find the worst possible people for these? Its as if they are picking through just looking for the ones who will say the most outrageous things!
Link?
Link?
That is not real. lol
Totally believable tho.
Wow this is harsher than anything I’ve said about Three Billboards.
Is this from Trump’s personal Oscar picks?
“and Darkest Hour gave audiences their first glimpse of Gary Oldman’s unequivocal portrait of Winston Churchill”
Lulz. ‘Unequivocal’ is an interesting phrase for a character played to acclaim by three different actors in the last year, but you do you.
Get Out is missing the BAFTA nod. In the last 20+ years only Braveheart and Million Dollar Baby won without SAG AND BAFTA nods. But MDB won DGA and 2 SAGs. Dunkirt has no SAG ensemble, acting, writing nods. Very difficult to win without those.
M$B was nominated for SAG ensemble. M$B didn’t get any BAFTA nominations because the screeners came in too late.
Three Billboards seems to me the most “of the moment” film out of all the nominees as it’s the most potent (or risible) blend of current issues and sensibilities. Whether that means it “deserves” to win is totally subjective (and controversial).
Best Picture Nominees that feel “current”: Three Billboards, Get Out, Lady Bird, Call Me By Your Name
Best Picture Nominees that feel “timeless”: Shape of Water, Phantom Thread, The Post, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk
Best Picture Nominees that feel politically “important”: Three Billboards, Get Out, The Post, Shape of Water
Best Picture Nominees that feel artistically or commercially “important”: Get Out, Phantom Thread, Shape of Water, Dunkirk
Best Picture Nominees that feel “important” and “current”: Get Out, Three Billboards
I agree with that. I think that it will come down to those two (Get Out and 3B). Not sure where the number 2 vote of the Shape of Water crowd will go to. I suppose after BAFTA (if 3B wins convincingly) the publicists that are behind both Shape of Water and 3B will make a deal and push the Oscar voters that love Shape of Water to place their number 2 vote behind 3B. Not sure how successful they can be at that but it’s worth a try.
Interesting…
Get Out has proven that it’s gonna stick around for awhile and be talked about for sometime. Those films never win BP though as good as that sounds now Get Out will miss out because they’ll (the Academy) will go for a safer bet more closer to thier liking. SOW v 3B
Given the stat regarding lone writer/directors and Original Screenplay, Jordan Peele stands a decent chance of winning at least that.
So on an unrelated note since things keep popping up and the articles never seem to cover the right things for me to mention them. Isle of Dogs has officially been seen and reviews are fantastic. What is the chance that in 2019 Wes Anderson will finally win his Oscar he has deserved about a million times over already?
Didn’t he win for Budapest for screenplay or am I misemembering
I think it depends if the academy truly thinks it’s amazing. It has an uphill battle overcoming an animation bias to break into direction or screenplay, a la Fantastic Mr. Fox, but stranger things have happened
Sadly, I don’t think he can compete against the Disney/Pixar machine.
Especially when competing against an Oscar juggernaut like Brad Bird.
Then again, that trailer for Incredibles 2 was decidedly not great and they didn’t nominate Pixar’s last half assed sequel so…. fingers crossed!!
It turns out my post was a tad early, there is now a post about Isle of Dogs.
I think the 5 I could make a case for deserving BP for all around writing, craft, performances, and film would be: CMBYN, Phantom Thread, TSOW, Dunkirk and Three Billboards (less so on the writing for this one). But sure we can continue to pretend Lady Bird and Get Out are as deftly made as these movies.
I loved Get Out and would love to see it win screenplay, and I enjoyed the performances in Lady Bird, but personally I just don’t see the films matching the others I’ve mentioned in artistic merit. They would certainly act as a time capsule for the future to look back on for why, socially, they won, but I don’t think they’ll be held as in such high regard as the other 5. (we don’t need to mention The Post or Darkest Hour)
The two most “deserving” films of the lot, based on quality, have been omitted from the five above.
And rightly so – because they have no shot at winning.
Sasha – DELETE MY COMMENT AFTER READING – don’t want it public.
Under Three Billboards, you mentioned Best Supporting Actress in the last sentence.
We both know it’s Best Supporting Actor (I’m sure you can correct in your thread (as we can). I’ve done these things myself. I’m not trying to be picky, just want it posted correctly.
Incidentally, I have really enjoyed reading your articles this year on Awards Daily.
Keith
LOL.. Too late now.
Dick knob.
You’re a gentleman and a scholar, keifer. Thank you.