For some people, this Oscar season has been “fun and exciting.” For others, it’s been like having the stomach flu. Just when you think the runs and the projectile vomiting are over for good, a whole new round starts again. It doesn’t feel like an Oscar race to me. It feels like an election. Either which way, just as there will be a winner and a loser in 2020, there will be winners and losers on Sunday night. That much we know for sure. The rest of it — well, it’s a crapshoot. We always say that and we sort of mean it much of the time, but this time it really is a crapshoot because of the various narratives that have been playing out and how the wins have been going down so far.
Essentially, there is no con; Rasensus on Best Picture. If Roma was a consensus winner, wouldn’t it have won the PGA, easily, on a preferential ballot? If Green Book was a consensus winner, wouldn’t it have a Best Director nom? If Black Panther was a consensus winner, wouldn’t it have won the PGA at least, and have nominations in writing, directing, or acting? If BlacKkKlansman was the consensus winner, wouldn’t it have won a single award somewhere? The SAG? The WGA? If The Favourite was a consensus winner, why didn’t it win PGA or get nominated for DGA or the SAG?
Kris Tapley has put out his predictions of what he thinks is most likely to win in all categories. In the coming days, we’ll be getting more predictions and maybe some people will get lucky. This is, really and truly, like betting on a horse race and honestly, even horse races have actual odds. We have Oscar “odds”, but those odds are based on what people like me think and, thus, are useless to people like me. At the same time, there are so many different ways this thing could go down.
In truth, we’re all flying blind.
Frontrunners and Their Challengers:
Best Picture
Frontrunners: Roma (DGA), Green Book (PGA)
Challengers: Black Panther (SAG), BlacKkKlansman (stats champ for nominations, but no wins)
We’ve done Best Picture to death and there isn’t a frontrunner. There just isn’t. Every measure we use has been busted out. We can only go with the major guilds and maybe a little BAFTA influence. The WGA gave us two winners that weren’t Best Picture nominees, so they’re out. On paper, Roma looks like the right choice until you factor in the obvious: it is also nominated in foreign language film, and the way the Oscars go down is that no film has ever won both Best Picture and a separate feature category. No doc, no animated, and no foreign. They have separate categories for a reason. Will some voters love the movie so much they put it in both? Of course they will. And it could win. I’d probably have to go with that if I was betting hard cold cash, but something prevents me from doing it. Maybe it’s the Netflix thing too. Old timers will refuse to award that film Best Picture. And then there’s the question of people NOT WATCHING IT. It’s on Netflix and people still aren’t watching it. Why? Because a lot of people don’t like watching subtitled movies. Yell all you want but it’s just the fact of the matter.
When I first started my website back in 2000, for the first time I ever predicted Best Picture I went for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to beat Gladiator. Gladiator won the PGA. Crouching Tiger won the DGA. Traffic won the SAG. In the end, Soderbergh won Best Director, Crouching Tiger got foreign language, and Gladiator won BP. I’m not going to make that same mistake again 20 years later! So I will be very likely sticking with the PGA winner. And if I wasn’t, I’d go with the SAG winner.
Best Actor
Frontrunner: Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
Challenger: Christian Bale, Vice
Best Actress
Frontrunner: Glenn Close, The Wife
Challenger: Olivia Colman, The Favourite
Best Supporting Actor
Frontrunner: Mahershala Ali, Green Book
Challenger: Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me
There have been rumblings that Grant’s publicity train is going to be too much to resist. That his endearing post-nom display of emotion will win over voters in the end. The only way Ali loses this is if voters want to be assholes and continue to punish Green Book. And look, if there’s one thing I know for sure after 53 years on this planet: people are mostly assholes. By nature. We have to work hard every day not to be. So yeah, who knows. Both performances are great, however, and I hope we can celebrate each of them if they win. I loved both performances. Ali’s is more of a leading role, more accomplished role, which makes it hard to pass up.
Conversely, Colman in The Favourite is more of a supporting role, which makes it harder to bet on against an actual leading role, like Glenn Close’s.
Best Supporting Actress
Frontrunner: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Challengers: Marina de Tavira, Roma; Rachel Weisz, The Favourite
Best Director
Frontrunner: Alfonso Cuaron, Roma
Challenger: He has none, but if he did it would be Spike Lee to make history as the first black director to at last win the Oscar.
Best Original Screenplay
Frontrunner: Unknown — it was Green Book, but since it didn’t win the Writers Guild and a movie that isn’t nominated for the Oscar DID? We have no frontrunner here.
Challengers: Any
The Favourite has so many nominations, and won the BAFTA, that it could be the frontrunner. Paul Schrader is up for the award and anyone who knows who he is might be inclined to at last give him an Oscar for First Reformed. Roma could sweep and win here. And Vice could win because it, too, has key nominations and might win SOMETHING. It’s a crap shoot.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Frontrunner: Unknown — most believed it was BlacKkKlansman and it still might be, though the WGA’s win for Can You Ever Forgive Me shows there is a possible uptick for that, especially given that Nicole Holofcener is one of the nominees.
Challengers: Most likely Can You Ever Forgive Me, If Beale Street Could Talk
Editing
Frontrunners: Either Bohemian Rhapsody or The Favourite, since both won the Eddie.
Challengers: Green Book, which, if it wins Best Picture, supporting actor, and screenplay might also pick up editing. Vice is a real challenge here. And of course BlacKkKlansman could win, signaling that movie is finally going to start picking up wins. Essentially, this too is a crap shoot.
Cinematography
Frontrunner: Roma — this film is mostly cinematography, just as Gravity and Children of Men are mostly cinematography. Cuaron is, at heart, a cinematographer and, thus, this film is a celebration of that unique talent he has with the frame.
Challenger: Only one — Cold War, which more people might actually watch. The Favourite could also win here.
Sound Mixing/Sound Editing
Frontrunner: Bohemian Rhapsody — after it won both the BAFTA and the CAS it seems poised to take both sound categories.
Challengers: Black Panther — this film seems poised to win a bunch of Oscars and picking up two sound wins would certainly take care of that.
First Man — the only female sound nominees are on First Man in both sound and sound editing. That might help push it to a win.
Production Design
Frontrunner: The Favourite
Challenger: Black Panther
Costume Design
Frontrunner: The Favourite
Challenger: Black Panther
Original Score
Frontrunner: Black Panther
Challenger: Any
Original Song
Frontrunner: “Shallow,” A Star Is Born
Challenger: Has none, but if so, “I’ll Fight,” RBG
Animated Feature
Frontrunner: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Challenger: Incredibles 2
Doc Feature
Frontrunner: Appears to be Free Solo
Challengers: Any of the five, especially Minding the Gap, RGB, Hale County
Foreign Language
Frontrunner: Roma
Challenger: Cold War
I personally have never felt less sure of how the Oscar race will turn out than I am this year. However it turns out, anyone who gets it right will have to credit a lucky break. There is no skill involved in figuring any of this out.
Best Picture WINNER:
Roma
Green Book
or might be Black Panther
Best Director WINNER:
Alfonso Cauron – Roma
Or might be Spike Lee – BlacKkKlansman
Best Actor WINNER:
Rami Malek
Best Actress WINNER:
Glenn Close – The Wife
Best Original Screenplay WINNER:
Green Book
Best Adapted Screenplay WINNER:
BlacKkKlansman
Best Editing WINNER:
Bohemian Rhapsody
Best Sound Mixing/Editing WINNER:
Bohemian Rhapsody or Black Panther
Best Production Design WINNER:
Black Panther
Best Costume Design WINNER:
Black Panther
Best Original Score WINNER:
Black Panther
Best Original Song WINNER:
“Shallow” – A Star Is Born
Best Visual Effects WINNER:
Avengers: Infinity War
Best Makeup & Hair WINNER:
Mary Queen of Scots
Best Animated Feature WINNER:
Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse
Best Documentary WINNER:
RBG
Best Foreign Language Film WINNER:
Roma or Cold War
Supporting actor/actress winners unknown? 🙂
Green book is still in the top ten at the box office it may win best picture.
Over the years, the group of voting members had change a lot, especially the past few years… if Black Panther do take home BP (BP win BP), that would be a pleasant surprise (or not a surprise) to me XD
“When I first started my website back in 2000, for the first time I ever predicted Best Picture I went for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to beat Gladiator. Gladiator won the PGA. Crouching Tiger won the DGA. Traffic won the SAG. In the end, Soderbergh won Best Director, Crouching Tiger got foreign language, and Gladiator won BP. I’m not going to make that same mistake again 20 years later! So I will be very likely sticking with the PGA winner. And if I wasn’t, I’d go with the SAG winner.”
I’ll be happy if The Favourite gets screenplay, editing and costume design (at least), Roma: picture, director, production design, cinematography and foreign film. I would really like Grant upsetting and Weisz or de Tavira winning as well and I still have high hopes for a tie in Best Actress between Close and Colman. Also, an even more impossible outcome: Isle of Dogs getting Animated Feature.
Pt final prefix
Picture: the favourite
Director: yorgos Lanthimos
Actor: malek
Actress: close
S.,actor: mahershala ali
S. Actress: Rachel Weiss
o. Screenplay : Vice
Adapted: blackkklansman
Foreign language: Roma
Documentaries:
Free solo
Shorts
Skin
Animal behavior
Visuals
Roma
Black panther
The favourite
Bohemian Rhapsody
Vice
First man
Aurals
Black panther
A Star is born
Bohemian rhapsody
I need your help. I am really torn on the screenplay awards. I’ve got every category pretty locked up. Please explain why you feel this will win. Here’s my thought process:
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
We had Beale Street winning at Critics Choice. CYEFM winning at WGA. BKKK winning at BAFTA. BKKK is the only one nominated for Best Picture, BUT it received no Scripter nomination, despite being eligible. No eligible film has ever won the Adapted Screenplay award without a scripter nod. That hurts BKKK. But on the other hand, we haven’t seen a non-Best Picture nominee win since Sling Blade in 1996, and that was when he had only five nominees. On CYEFM’s side, we have seen a film adaptation win the WGA 71% of the time, if we count Moonlight’s win.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
First Reformed won the Critics Choice, and the Critics Choice Original Screenplay winner is on an 8 year winning streak. But the last time a film won Best Original Screenplay with only one nomination was The Red Balloon in 1956 I believe. TRB had zero Best Picture contenders. The Favourite won the BAFTA. Green Book won the Globe. Here’s why I am thinking Green Book: Green Book won the PGA. PGA winners have won either the Picture, Director, Screenplay, or Editing. We know that GB isn’t winning director or editing. Also, the Globe Best Screenplay winner has accurately predicted one of the two screenplay winners about 65% of the time. On the other hand, you have The Favourite. It won the BAFTA, and that has a 61% favorable winning percentage since 2000.
Who do you guys think?
1) Look at the ballot
2) Eliminate the non BP nominees
3) Pick the biggest front running BP nominee, unless it’s a purely director driven film.
Hope that helps. 🙂
Adapted: I think it’s BlacKkKlansman solely as a vehicle to give Spike Lee a competitive Oscar. WGA is usually right, but as Can You Ever Forgive Me suffers from not being a Best Picture nominee, I just don’t think it’ll get there.
Original: It’s The Favourite. PGA winners tend to win stuff because in normal years, PGA winners are strong contenders with all the necessary nominations and momentum. This is not that kind of year. If it couldn’t win at the WGA, I doubt it has a chance at the Oscars. And First Reformed will not win as it would only be a career win for Schrader and I doubt they will go for career wins in both Adapted and Original.
Designing Woman won Best Original Screenplay in 1957. That was its sole nomination.
I think CYEFM winning at WGA was mostly because the film was written by writers about writers writing… Yeah… BKKKM all the way for me. Plus It’s my favorite of the BP’s
“PGA winners have won either the Picture, Director, Screenplay, or Editing.”
That’s a good stat… I still think it falters this year, but who knows, maybe not…
This year is so unpredictable, it is constantly nagging the back of my mind. I cant keep second guessing myself anymore :). Here are my final predictions, and I will start to relax a bit before oscars. Prediction with a * next to it is my personal choice as well.
Best Pic : Roma *
Best Dir: Roma, Alfonso Cauron *
Foreign Film: Roma * (Cold war can upset)
Animated Film: Spiderman *
Doc Film: Free Solo * (Minding the Gap is equally deserving)
Best Actor: Rami Malek *
Best Actress: Glen Close *
Best Sup Actress: Regina King (Amy Adams can upset, Rachel Weisz* is my personal choice)
Best Sup Actor: Ali seems to be consensus (but I like Richard E Grant *)
Best Original Screenplay: The Favorite* (Roma can upset)
Best Adapted Screenplay: BlackKKlansman*
Cinematography: Cold War* in an upset over Roma (Roma is close)
Editing: BlackKKlansman (Vice)
Original Score: Black Panther (If Beale street could talk is my second choice)
Original Song: Shallow *
Sound Mixing: Bohemian Rhapsody*
Sound Editing: Bohemian Rhapsody (slight edge over A Quiet Place*)
Production Design : Black Panther*
Visual Effects : Avengers (Ready Player One* can upset)
Costume : Black Panther*
Makeup and Hair: Vice
Short Film Animated: Weekends* (slim lead over Bao)
Short film live: Marguerite* (Skin can upset)
Short film docs: Period. End of Sentence (End Game* is my choice)
I am fairly confident of my choices in most categories. I still have zero idea about original score.
I think those could be the winners.
Production Design and Costumes are driving me nutty because you can say:
The Favourite for both.
Black Panther for both.
The Favourite for Production Design and Black Panther for Costumes.
Black Panther for Production Design and The Favourite for Costumes.
And all scenarios make perfect sense.
Predicting a split is the safest way to go; that way, if either win both you’ll at least be half right. The only way it’ll backfire is if they split the other way. That’s why I’m predicting Panther for Costumes and Favourite for Production. If they do split, that seems like a better bet than the reverse.
Right. I’m predicting TF for PD and BP for Costumes.
And my fear is that it will be the opposite. Lol.
For me, the opposite makes so much more sense.
The Favourite’s production design is mostly standard period PD, while Black Panther has the futuristic yet traditional Wakanda.
But The Favourite’s costumes are standout, blending modern touches with period gowns.
Also, Production Design quite often goes for fantasy or contemporary films. Costume Design almost always goes to period gowns.
And Sandy Powell is still Sandy Powell.
All true.
I guess I’m going with the line of thought that Black Panther’s costumes, in particular, have been praised for a year straight and those designs were so unique (not unlike Mad Max: Fury Road and its win, there).
As for Production Design, while you’re correct about the category going more fantasy, we’ve also seen movies like The Favourite win PD time and time again. And I think The Favourite wins at least one of these two and I’m banking on Black Panther eke-ing out Costumes.
But I agree that it could very well be the reverse of what I say. 🙁
I’m having the same problem. I still have The Favourite in both but I’m pretty sure BP is getting one. Score and Film Editing is also driving me crazy and don’t get me started on those shorts.
Yep. Agreed.
As for those other categories, going with Black Panther in Score because it’s a BP nominee and an easy spot to reward the film somewhere. It’s also a spot to reward music, since many will vote for Shallow.
In Editing, I’m jumping off of BAFTAs win for Vice. It has the flashy editing that AMPAS has rewarded before. But the winner could by any of those nominees and it wouldn’t shock me.
But they are rewarding BP everywhere: Costume Design, Production Design and now Score. What about Blackkklansman? I could see it winning in Score.
BlacKkKlansman would be a very inspired choice for Score, if Beale Street is not winning (although it absolutely should). But I somehow don’t see it. There doesn’t seem to be much love for the film, and for it to win in Score and lose other awards just seems a bit random.
What about Film Editing? Do you agree with Vice? Many experts including Sasha are going with Bohemian Rhapsody.
That one is an absolute shitshow. Bohemian Rhapsody could do it on a “saved the film” sentiment, but so could Vice, the BAFTA winner with the flashiest editing, or The Favourite, ACE winner with strong crafts overall. Or even BlacKkKlansman if they like the film for some reason (the editing is also quite remarkable there) but that one seems a long shot. My personal prediction will be either Vice or The Favourite, but I still have to come up with an idea of how strong The Favourite will be overall. I’m inclined to predict it for Picture, Actress, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, Editing, Production Design and Costume Design, but probably it will be weaker than that and Editing would be one of the first categories to go.
BR is an ACE winner too and Drama usually wins over Comedy at the Oscars. I don’t think The Favourite stands a chance in this category.
The Favourite beat Vice though. And Vice is the BAFTA winner and predicted by some people as the frontrunner. As I said, a shitshow. Any of those three look plausible to me.
I’m struggling between Vice and BR. The Favourite isn’t standing out in this category.
Agree on everything you said.
Finally seen them all… and still thinking the academy choices were very poor this year. My number 1 choice would be The Favourite (the only film i really loved, I think it would deserve Picture, Director, Actress, supporting actress, original screenplay, costumes and production design). Second choice would be Roma, which i liked but didnt impressed me much. And dont really know how to rank the rest….i guess 3rd option would be either Vice or Greenbook, which i found watchable and entertaining, with some fine acting and that`s all…nothing really remarkable. The rest, just…..UGHHHH. Could easily replace any (with the exception of The Favourite and Roma) with First man, Widows, If beale street could talk and Vox Lux among others much worthy of multiple noms than the actual list. Boring year, i have no faith in The Favourite (too dark and weird) and i`m afraid they`ll reward Greenbook, which is a real crowd pleaser,
Agreed. TF and Roma are head and shoulder above the rest. In my AD Oscar ballot, I only picked those two films. I couldn’t bother ranking the rest.
But then again, that’s always the case with me with the Oscar nominees. There’s only one or two movies that I truly admire from the list. Tbh, I’m not that crazy about Roma either, but the images are haunting still.
Agreed head and shoulders above the rest, but ASIB and BlackK are both worthy.
Plenty of better contenders- you were never really there, hereditary, mary queen of scots, beautiful boy, boy erased just off the top of my head
Sort of off topic but I’ve finally saw ASIB yesterday and I think I can say that I’m officially rooting for Bradley Cooper to upset in BEST ACTOR… He was easily my favorite thing about the film and he deserves something for it… I’d still love to see Bale win as well, but if I compare only Malek and Cooper? Cooper deserves it WAY more… Which I’m surprised to say myself.
Cooper was considerably better than Bale or Malek. I’m still surprised that ASIB has ended up being such a complete also-ran in the Oscar race
yes!!! Cooper for me was the best thing in ASIB. but I would still vote for Malek
Have not seen Willem Dafoe, but out of the remaining 4, Cooper was the most convincing and affecting.
But acting awards don’t just go to the performance only, but also to the role. And this role,the way it was written, is a bit of a pits. Too inert and repetitive. So my vote would still probably go to Malek. I know it’s not fair…
That’s quite true. I wouldn’t be able to say that he definitely doesn’t deserve it out of these 4 (haven’t seen Dafoe, and none of the others blew me away) but I wouldn’t be able to vote for it because of the role.
I just don’t get it. I could barely understand what he was mumbling through his beard for half the movie.
Yes I’m with you on this. The trailer nearly put me off altogether. The affected voice and growl. The film itself wasn’t as bad as I feared but it was pretty ordinary. But for me I’ve seen this and so many other rags to riches and falling from grace sagas that it just didn’t move me. One scene with Sam Elliot did. But he was miscast. Jeff Bridges (who Cooper was impersonating) would have been a better fit.
I felt Cooper was impersonating Elliott, and Elliott was impersonating Cooper’s impersonation of him
Dave. Do Not Make Us Choose! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7bee3972defd6171b77ed9a0750d597ef6a9d2c1471dbd7632284bb9b16ca438.png
He was playing a drunk.
He has many moments when he’s sober and I still couldn’t get what he was saying lol. I understood Sam Elliott though.
Funny. I had a much harder time understanding Sam Elliott.
I have not seen the film I tend to caption everything I watch.
I’m even worse. I couldn’t understand either.
Uhhh. It’s important to have the audience understand what you’re saying. Unless you deliberately don’t want us to decipher what you’re saying.
You can create an illusion of being drunk through other means.
I’ve seen many actors playing drunk and I still could understand what they were saying. Cooper’s voice was very deep and gravelly in ASIB and I think this why some people had problems understanding him.
Now that the voting is closed, we can all exhale and enjoy a little humor about the BP nominees…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI3T87CXM04
Tidying Up with Yalitza Aparicio!!!! Brilliant!
I lol’ed
I’m feeling the big ‘upset’ this Sunday is going to be Richard E Grant over Mahershala Ali. Just a hunch and just based on circumstantial evidence. I’ve read a few of those ‘secret Oscar voter’ articles and all but one went to Grant for Best Supporting Actor. With Can You Ever Forgive Me?’s WGA win, maybe people are feeling it needs to win somewhere.
But would BAFTA really not have gone for him? Also, has it ever been the case that somebody has lost whilst having won everything Ali has won?
GB a BP nominee will lose everything including BP. BSA is the only place where they can reward it something. Ali and his character are the only package in the problematic movie that they would feel safe in rewarding.
Honest ballots don’t mean a thing, such a small sample and often not a guide to who’s winning, I’m sure they publish the more interesting ones
Oh yeah, I’ve read those for years, you can’t base a 6000 plus voting body on a handful of people’s choices. Last year has a few going for Laurie Metcalf and others who didn’t win.
It could happen. The Globe and BAFTA wins for Ali may be seen as makeup wins since he didn’t get those for Moonlight. Oscar voters may not feel like giving him a 2nd.
I really, really hope this happens.
I really hope so. He’s fantastic and I don’t know if he’s gonna have other opportunities ti win in the future
Hey AD friends! I’ve got an exciting announcement: after years of reading and commenting on sites like this one, I finally decide to fulfill a lifelong dream and start my own! It’s called THIN GOLD LINE and it just went live this past weekend with fun polls and predictions and other fun content to check out.
I wanted to share it with you all because I just posted the results of my yearly Best Picture simulation. I tabulated twice as many ballots as I did last year (when CMBYN won my simulation), and the results are pretty interesting. Thought you guys might have fun perusing it:
https://thin-gold-line.com/tgl/2018-best-picture-simulation
Anyway, you can follow the site on Twitter @AwardsTGL; any support you can give with a follow or a like or a link click would mean the world. I’ll still be seeing you guys around here — hope to see some of you over on TGL as well! 🙂
Great article!
And if we take The Favourite out of the picture, then, apart from Roma winning overwhelmingly, BlacKkKlansman would probably emerge as the closest challenger. Interesting stuff.
I wonder if The Favourite is the Call Me By Your name of this year, dominating these online polls and simulations, or if there’s something cooking.
You’re great at stat analysis! I do recommend ppl to visit your site and read up your fascinating findings.
Wonderful work and I look forward to reading more stuff on your site
Love your site on a first viewing! It looks really great too!
Love your site on a first viewing! It looks really great too!
Congrats!!!
congratulations
Thanks, Jazz! 🙂
Looks like a great start! I liked your 5 changes the Oscars should make article and I agree with all of them.
The site looks great.
My hesitation about Ali is not the GB backlash TBH, it’s just the doubt that they will actually give him a second Oscar in just 2 years. A black actor still virtually unknown to the old white dudes in the Academy? Because there are still plenty of them in there, no matter how much we like to believe in the wind of change. Don’t get me wrong, I love Ali, but is he actually winning?
Why not? They gave a German actor two in three years and we beat them twice in World Wars!
Austrian, even!
He’s German-Austrian
Hilary Swank has two Best Actress Oscars to date and is still virtually unknown
Goldderby just announced their winners. It’s always interesting to hear not just the results, but the breakdown of votes. For instance, in the best supporting actress:
Regina King won. But they say it was a pretty tight race between the top 2. But the second placer was Emily Blunt in AQP. Third and fourth were Weisz and Stone (with Weisz having twice the votes as Stone). Amy Adams is in fifth place. They did say that it seems like Weisz and Stone were splitting up votes for TF. Combining both of their votes, they would have more votes than Regina King.
The Favourite won the most with 5, but Roma with 4 won BP.
How do their winners match up with the Oscars?
Kinda like BAFTA rate. I wouldn’t look to them as some sort of precursors, especially for BP, but they do discuss the vote counts in their video reveal that I find fascinating.
Especially when Grant lost to Ali by 6 VOTES!
If Ali can win there then the oscar is certainly his
Not very good. They mostly pick the Oscar frontrunners á la BFCA, except when they have a good reason not to (e.g. when they like a film way more than the Academy, like Call Me By Your Name and Chalamet winning last year.)
Like a lot of critics, they let their own views of certain actors shade their picks a bit too much.
Really, Blunt in AQP in supporting is the most ridiculous category fraud, worse than Ali.
She is CLEARLY the lead. No question.
Normally, I’d go with that but Goldderby’s “expert picks” have been pretty off this year.
These are not predictions of the Oscars, but awards of GD members’ favorites choices. There were about 2000+ ballots.
Sticking with Roma for Picture/Director, safest bets for now. Not my favorite by any stretch, though. Malek and Close seem locked, but.. are they? Who knows? Crazy!
Malek is locked, Colman could upset but Glenn’s narrative is just too strong.
I really hope Malek doesn’t win, but he most likely will… I liked Close in the wife enough and I still haven’t seen THE FAVOURITE sadly.. I almost want Close to win just so everyone can shut up about her being overdue.
I am sticking with Roma, but think they may go with Green Book. Small chance for Black Panther.
As I said before. Malek is a lock because of the narrative around him. He is an Egyptian actor and he was offered the role of a lifetime of all middle eastern actors put together. No middle eastern actor will play a character as popular as this one. So a vote for him is a vote for freddie mercury , HIV patients, Closeted artists, artists who wants to be recognized for their work and not who they are, middle eastern actors and people of color oppressed by evil white men of hollywood, struggling unknown artists who doesn’t get offered lead roles.
I mean its the whole anti-guilt pill. They take this pill once they vote and they will be happy that they voted for him as opposed to dick cheney.
Or — and hear me out, I know this is CRAZY — but maybe people just liked his performance over the other four choices in the category. Not every Oscar is awarded out of nine-dimensional political correctness.
Exactly. Feels reminiscent of Jamie Foxx winning for Ray Charles. An Icon brilliantly brought to life by it’s lead actor. Colin Firth and the King. Helen Mirren…..
you dont want to think about the alternative….
not like this…..traditionally best actor is awarded to chameleon performances. You have to spend 5 minutes with Rami Malek to realize that he is playing himself in the movie with fake teeth and wigs. He is just lucky that he was born that way and he was at the right place and right time to be offered that role.
I’d love to spend 5 minutes with Rami Malek
Dudebro Braylon (who has wanked off for the past 150 days over Christian Bale encased in prosthetics) is mad that Rami Malek put on a wig.
the problem is not with wig or teeth. problem is him playing himself.
Rami Malek = Freddie Mercury confirmed!
minus creepy eyes
I know this may come as a shock but considering that most people around the world loved his performance maybe Oscar voters loved it too. They are humans too.
So they voted for him because he’s a person of color and because he played a gay character? God forbid a person of color wins for giving a good performance.
if he is that good….then lets see him play a racist middle eastern character and win an oscar or wait till he makes us empathize with a character as unlikable as that…even a dog can play freddie mercury with fake teeth and mustache and make him sympathetic.
I just cringed into another dimension because of your post.
stay there and never come back
Your comment is the dumbest thing I’ve read here. BY FAR.
On the acting races, I think it’s:
Malek, slight chance of Bale upset.
Close, decent chance of Colman upset.
Ali, Grant in 2nd and then a big drop-off.
Who the hell knows for Supporting Actress? Honestly.
I may just put 4 names into a hat (don’t think it’ll be Stone) and pick one.
Malek should be rock solid.
And I just can’t see Ali losing after winning everything, even if there is a good argument for Grant.
For the female races, I might just go “fuck it” and predict both Colman and Weisz. Although that particular scenario is quite unlikely, I’ve said after watching The Favourite that Colman will win this, so I should probably just go with it.
Malek is a lock, but I do predict he’ll turn out to be the F. Murray Abraham of this generation in terms of just being a trivia answer years from now.
I honestly think Malek is the only lock. It could end up like we expect…
Malek
Close
Ali
King
…or it could very well turn out…
Malek
Colman
Grant
Weisz
…or anywhere in between. I think if you’re not predicting at least ONE upset, you’ll probably be wrong. The only question is, which one??
Thank god it’s not like last year where all four categories had a frontrunner who swept all four televised precursors. That was such a snooze.
Weisz for me.
This is a tad off topic, but Goldderby is reporting a rumor that Whoppi is hosting the Oscars. If it’s true, that would be amazing.
https://www.goldderby.com/article/2019/whoopi-goldberg-oscars-host-91st-academy-awards/
She HAS been absent from The View for a couple of weeks. I hope it’s true.
This morning, The View claimed that it is false and that she is sick and that it is a funny theory. But who knows?
Something very suspicious… the Academy just published a new press release with the name of the people that will introduce the BP nominees. In the end of the release, the names of the presenters that have already been announced are listed. Whoopi Goldberg is not there and she was previously announced. One of the two: either she is sick and resting or…
Well, the View could be fibbing. Or, Whoopi IS expected to present or co-host and she IS sick and hoping to get better in time.
OMG! I have been watching her Oscar monologues this morning, thinking to myself she was so great and everything was better during the 90’s! That would be awesome!
Would be a fairly clever way to fix this entire mess.
What is the point? The reason you have a famous host is to have it be known so that people will tune in and watch. And also for that host to promote the show.
It’s kinda late now.
I did something similar to this last year, I think, but I’m going to try to make it an annual thing. Below are my personal awards for the year. “Art’s Art Awards 2018”, if you will…
PICTURE
1. **Burning**
2. Minding The Gap
3. First Reformed
4. If Beale Street Could Talk
5. Annihilation
6. Eighth Grade
7. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse
8. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
9. Blindspotting
10. The Rider
DIRECTOR
1. **Lee Chang-dong, Burning**
2. Paul Schrader, First Reformed
3. Alfonso Cuaron, Roma
4. Lynne Ramsay, You Were Never Really Here
5. Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk
ENSEMBLE
1. **Hereditary**
2. Shoplifters
3. If Beale Street Could Talk
4. Burning
5. The Death of Stalin
ACTRESS
1. **Toni Collette, Hereditary**
2. Olivia Colman, The Favourite
3. Thomasin McKenzie, Leave No Trace
4. Elsie Fisher, Eighth Grade
5. Eva Melander, Border
ACTOR
1. **Ethan Hawke, First Reformed**
2. Tom Cruise, Mission: Impossible – Fallout
3. Joaquin Phoenix, You Were Never Really Here
4. Willem Dafoe, At Eternity’s Gate
5. Ben Foster, Leave No Trace
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
1. **Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk**
2. Emily Blunt, A Quiet Place
3. Sakura Ando, Shoplifters
4. Ann Dowd, Hereditary
5. Claire Foy, First Man
SUPPORTING ACTOR
1. **Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me?**
2. Brian Tyree Henry, If Beale Street Could Talk
3. Alex Wolff, Hereditary
4. Rafael Casal, Blindspotting
5. Josh Hamilton, Eighth Grade
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1. **First Reformed**
2. Eighth Grade
3. Blindspotting
4. Sorry To Bother You
5. The Favourite
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1. **If Beale Street Could Talk**
2. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse
3. Burning
4. Annihilation
5. Leave No Trace
FOREIGN LANGUAGE
1. **Burning**
2. Shoplifters
3. Cold War
4. Roma
5. Zama
DOCUMENTARY
1. **Minding The Gap**
2. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
3. Of Fathers And Sons
4. Hale County This Morning, This Evening
5. End Game
ANIMATED
1. **Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse**
2. Isle of Dogs
3. One Small Step
4. Late Afternoon
5. Bao
CINEMATOGRAPHY
1. **If Beale Street Could Talk**
2. The Rider
3. Mandy
4. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
5. Roma
EDITING
1. **Minding The Gap**
2. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
3. You Were Never Really Here
4. Blindspotting
5. Hale County This Morning, This Evening
PRODUCTION DESIGN
1. **Hereditary**
2. Black Panther
3. Roma
4. Isle of Dogs
5. Mandy
COSTUME DESIGN
1. **If Beale Street Could Talk**
2. Black Panther
3. The Favourite
4. Mary Poppins Returns
5. BlackKklansman
MAKEUP & HAIR
1. **Border**
2. Vice
3. Black Panther
4. Mandy
5. The Favourite
ORIGINAL SCORE
1. **If Beale Street Could Talk**
2. Mandy
3. Annihilation
4. First Man
5. Black Panther
ORIGINAL SONG
1. **Revelation, Boy Erased**
2. Black Eyes, A Star Is Born
3. When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
4. The Place Where Lost Things Go, Mary Poppins Returns
5. Maybe It’s Time, A Star Is Born
SOUND (Mixing & Editing)
1. **Roma**
2. A Quiet Place
3. Annihilation
4. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
5. First Man
VISUAL EFFECTS
1. **Annihilation**
2. Solo: A Star Wars Story
3. First Man
4. Mandy
5. Mission: Impossible – Fallout
Art,
So sorry this message got trapped in the spam filter. I didn’t notice for two days.
You should please repost in another more current article, if you want.
“1. **Burning**
…
3. Cold War
4. Roma”
The correct ranking. 🙂 (Haven’t seen Shoplifters yet.)
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wall-street-journal/2019-oscars-can-anything-go-right-for-the-academy-awards/news-story/9c1e30a011c6b1bb32d09afe241e96d9
And no @ curb.au it not a stupid pop- up you would in fact know source I got it from.
To everyone if you really wanna know the honest reason why academy become such divisive mess causing splits BTW themselves and the major guilds, competing agendas, the presidents own delusional self- validation for claiming their random erratic sloppy version of tattslotto where every Oscar year is completely hopelessly so randomised as to who wins and extent the outcome goes against audiences wishes, the arrogance and ego of ever increasingly controlling ABC broadcaster who only served to piss off Oscar members, and growing rift within academy itself over shenanigans that aren’t necessary and easily avoidable such as length of overall show , to host or not to host, to edit out of broadcast to conform to abc’s ludicrous demands to both omit important Oscar categories then back flip their decision days ltr , I think we all agree the academy and broadcaster are increasingly alienating film goers and serving their own self interest .
So if u concerned about current dreadful trend academy and broadcaster are doing to sabotage a once globally revered respected tradition annually, then spread this this article captures all gone wrong with Oscars .
Hence I strongly believe and almost predict that whoever wins best PIC – unless it black panther will not win as way setting an academy precedent but rather a win for certain films that in past normally not be able to compete ,,( Roma) will only reflect the credibility vacuum as reflected by the major guilds on balance rebelling against the academy tradition , and in this fight for control via the major guilds out of this clash if Roma, or a star is born wins it will go down.in year from now as nothing more than an abherration unless Oscars and the ABC broadcaster hell bent to set new superficial trend one of chaos and unpredict ability until new leadership takes over, and is strong and decisive
Not weak and flaky and ego- driven and divisive …even then we not even gone into the politics that throw public off course. That right full credit to article it. Didn’t even address academy political agenda …..
Of all the anonymous ballots I’ve seen no Oscar voter going with First Man so this nonsense that it’s winning Sound Editing or Visual Effects has to stop. They simply don’t care about this movie.
It would be really nice of you to post your sources. I am posting the links I found so far:
Indiewire: https://www.indiewire.com/2019/02/anonymous-oscar-ballot-director-richard-e-grant-rachel-weisz-1202044997/ https://www.indiewire.com/2019/02/costume-designer-anonymous-oscar-ballot-roma-black-panther-1202043729/
NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/movies/best-picture-oscars-voters.html
LA Times: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-en-mn-oscars-ballots-how-they-voted-20190213-story.html
What I gather from these:
1) Richard E. Grant and Rami Malek are winning their respective categories in a landslide. Regina King is looking strong. Olivia Colman is giving Glenn Close a run for her money.
2) Voters are sheep and take the Globes and Baftas seriously enough to discard films like ‘The Favourite’, for losing Best Film to Roma despite winning 7 Baftas, because they don’t want to “throw their votes away at losers”, even though we know very well that Bafta and Oscar have been at odds over Best Picture recently and the preferential ballot makes it possible to vote for the films we like knowing full well if they don’t make it something else will pick up our vote further down ballot.
3) People love ‘Roma’ but their votes are all over the place: some want to give it BP but not Best Foreign Film because they feel it would be too much and the other foreign films should be given a chance, others do not want it to win BP because Netflix but want to make it up to Cuaron in Director. So it could go all sorts of ways overall: either ‘Roma’ could manage to snag enough votes to edge out wins in most categories, or its supporters may split and it loses most categories, or it does win some and lose some.
I wanna hug you right now for Grant, Colman and Cold War possible upsets.
i dont have much respect for oscar ballets released before the deadline. Those are clearly being pushed by studios and campaigners to change the perception of undecided voters. Only ballots that count are the one’s released after the deadline…hollywood reporter is very good and honest at that. Other websites are playing it dirty and most probably are dishonest. Indiewire is one of the dirtiest websites out there….they have major disgusting agendas.
For all those thinking that The Favourite will win Picture (and I wish it would), please keep in mind that 73% of the Academy are men. Do you really think they’ll vote for a strong feminist film over a buddy movie? Don’t see it happening. Remember what they did to Greta last year, so how exactly is a film that ends with fingerblasting going to fare? Oh, and you’d have to look far and wide to find when the Academy has picked two female-dominated lead films in back to back years.
I don’t get where this is coming from. TF hasn’t won any Best Film award not even at BAFTA. I have it in fourth.
It’s my 3rd place riiiiiiight behind Roma and Green Book. Blackkklansman slipped to 4th for me because it has won nothing significant except BAFTA Screenplay. The Favourite has won quite a bit (BAFTA, Guilds) and has 10 Oscar noms.
The perception that it is probably going to win Original Screenplay, and the other screenplay winner, whichever it is (BKKK?) isn’t likely to win BP, and we’ve seen how tightly linked screenplay is to BP. The other is that The Favourite has actually been wining preferential ballot simulations around these circles.
I think you could legitimately argue that The Favourite is Roma’s actual challenger, not Green book.
The fact it tied for most Oscar nominations, and isn’t actually missing anything in terms of nominations is also important.
Does that mean they’ll pick Green Book over The Favourite for Original?
Logically and statistically, yes. A male-dominated script over a female led one. Just look at last year when they had a chance to give it to Lady Bird and went with Get Out. A crime of Herculean proportions.
Not statistically…
The final guild awards of this season, the Costume Designers Guild winners:
Contemporary Film: Crazy Rich Asians
Period Film: The Favourite
Sci-Fi/Fantasy: Black Panther
Contemporary TV: ACS Versace
Period TV: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Sci-Fi/Fantasy TV: Westworld
Variety/Reality-Competition/Live TV: RuPaul’s Drag Race
Short Form Design: Childish Gambino – This is America music video
Drag Race should not count since It’s not one single person or team. The Queens make or bring in their own costumes.
I think Netflix won’t be a factor. Academy clearly saw Roma and Buster Scruggs enough to nominate them. If they think Roma deserves to win BP it’s clear #1. It’s not a divisive film either. So even if voters prefer other films, it’s it would a good amount of #2 votes.
Thrn again this has been an unpredictable year and I wouldn’t be surprised if it eould be another film ala 2017. Difference is that we actually saw Moonlight gaining momentum. This year I’m not sure what film it is.
“And then there’s the question of people NOT WATCHING IT. It’s on Netflix and people still aren’t watching it. Why? Because a lot of people don’t like watching subtitled movies. ”
A film expert has spoken well said Sasha couldn’t say it any better myself frankly I actually gob smacked the academy would back in a film the as you say Sasha majority people subscribed to Netflix just are not watching so this film winning therefore will only reinforce to long lost film buffs who used to follow the Oscars avidly that Oscar is out of touch with everyday film goers ….and the more rational objective non political minded critics too I may add.
But should the Oscars really care about average filmgoers when all average filmgoers care about are safe sequels and reboots? Shouldn’t they aspire to award the best in film, not the most popular film? The box office is reward enough for those.
I strongly agree my friend it is about balance what I getting at is academy including public into their verdicts who wins who get nominated but not to to scales against other traditions of Oscar voting over years. You are right I regard what I said consistent in different method but same outcome as yourself it should be best film…but how can it be when a film like ” roma” or certain films on Netflix and very limited release hardly anyone has seen as proprtion of population. Of every state and territory in every country around world, let’s assume half world population. Care for movies . other half have..other hobbies as priority. Of these half in every town or city they want a voice to engage with broader film debate. Then. You can say that 2/3 RDS of the half a population in every state or territory in every country around world who love movies are educated well informed.
To these proportion of filmgoer demographic they know difference between sequel/ reboot vs. Standalone movie that gets critical acclaim of highest order and pushed boundary somewhat and to these pple regarded as privlwdge to see such brilliant made best film. .
It is THIS demographic that academy must re- engage with the 2/3 RDS filmgoers who really understand difference as u state between a “true best film”. And a” sequel/ reboot”
So course u and I many other agree with your point. My only regret as I enjoy debating with you possibly agreeing on finer points within broader debate beyond this years Oscar race as a focus is I disagree with u why Roma best film of year ..a minor shame costoyr awesome to talk to clearly well informed too
But what films would re-engage with the demographic you mentioned? Because films that are actually top box office are almost exclusively sequels and reboots. So if not those, we are once again at films that “noone has seen”, or at least very few people have (compared to all moviegoers). What could they pick this year that is neither a safe sequel or reboot, but at the same time popular with moviegoers? They could pick Bohemian Rhapsody or A Star is Born, and to be honest, almost nobody that is trying to find the best film of the year calls these as one of them. So if we’re not picking either of these, we’re basically back to square one and we’ll end up with a film similar in “general popularity” to The Shape of Water, Moonlight, The Hurt Locker, The Artist, etc. No matter what we choose, we can’t really get both cinematic achievement and general popularity.
Exactly. There are lots of awards for popularity in movies. And that is fine. The Academy should be honouring artistry in film. It doesn’t always do that, but it should.
In every single field of the arts, popularity does not equal quality or artistry. Look at the bestseller list for fiction books, or the top selling music in Billboard or itunes, or the most popular Broadway shows. Most people like familiar stories, simple characters and themes, pat and comforting resolutions, unchallenging techniques and styles. And sometimes i want those things too — life is hard, stressful, tiring, and sometimes a cliched romcom or action movie is just what i want. People can like what they like and that is fine, but it has nothing to do with artistic merit.
Being “out of touch with everyday film goers” (sic) is a compliment.
I’m not sure that’s true. I hear Roma cropping up in conversations all over the place in daily life. People hear it’s winning awards, they and see it’s on Netflix and they watch it (the same place they watch To Kill a Mockingbird & Lawrence of Arabia).
Since Netflix doesn’t release viewership numbers, it’s purely speculation and anecdotal.
Netflix should release viewership numbers but that fatal flaw with the online streaming structure it very difficult to sample…hence I feel it only fair on other more traditional film formats existed long before Netflix still AS a newbie by comparison to big screen movies that existed for generations before this, online trend, netflix should be pitching for emmys NOT Oscar.
If Netflix win at Oscar it Oscars fault for enabling this to happen and I tell you now backed up by experts here , that this will most certainly almost certain to lead to potential future split in the academy. The traditional long established membership will spark a backlash…itmaynot be immediate it may not be in a year…but these ripples do become waves then lead to a tsunami ..just takes some time…
And why do I have problem with Netflix film winning why do number of us question “whether it time “?
Cos anything and everything is unregulated there is no obligation for private companies like Netflix to demonstrate equivalent obliged transparency that more traditional organisational institutions , businesses and industry disclose: proof of. Evidence to demonstrate viewership and popularity.
It is possible Netflix are taking for granted that their ” speculative unsubstantiated ” hence totally unproven levels of popularity of individual films ….hiding under the arrogant excuse ” they gave nothing to prove and have nothing they owe”.
But private organisations that operate as part of broader industry SHOULD be bound by same regulations and laws as others in same industry .
Frankly we should all welcome government regulation to reign in the exploitation by online companies of individuals, business dealings and now these type of transactions.
And anyone who naive enough to presume ( you can but I respectfully disagree), course u have right to, that “. Netflix” is totally accountable transparent , cooperative with other organisations it seeks to connect and expand it appeal to in the related industry, ( ie: online streaming services to Oscars), then they need to respect same rules that industry the film industry they want to be part of ….
The lesson from horrid ” Cambridge analytica” scandal is that social media and by extension online services of a sociable context like ” Netflix” like ” Facebook” like ” what’s app” etc must not take for granted nor abuse ability of loading thing on a screen, ” hiding” behind it using screen display at users end as cover to conduct hidden agendas stop playing the public for fools, accept the rule of law they are no different to traditional industry they see themselves a part of.
For me even before ” Cambridge analytica” record unprecedented leak of hundreds of thousands of users personal details being sold to third parties without users prior knowledge I foresaw unapologetically this could happen and it has.
As we speak Facebook or as I call it ” faecebook” and their founder mark zuckerberg , who disgracefully resisted the push of authorities to reign in social media online organisation both public and private uncontrollable lust for intrusiveness and exploitation against will of undudoectibg users .
So the point Is this mentality of any online service such as Netflix…sure they not exploited users…YET but the” Cambridge analytica” Facebook driven scandal demonstrates any online company must respect broader pple, communities and industry they want to be a part of they rules and fairness to competition.
How is it fair to more traditional cinematic competitors for best picture where they have automatic disclosure of numbers at box office etc online services that also want yo compete feel they are superior are not bound to honor way the industry works? Rules for industry broadly must be respects asawhole doesn’t matter whether it online or no…
This is why netflix in lot pples view has yet to prove it worth to compete at the Oscars. They have not done so that leads me to fear what I believe half academy membership fear or at least wonder: what are the consequences of embracing unregulated social- based line companies .
I mean how ignorant are academy progressives arm of membership ? Do they remember not so long ago CEO of biggest organisation online namely farcebook, was dragged kicking and screaming before a senate committee?
This is why I sceptical traditional arm of Oscar membership still very influential in academy and clearly with SAG will push hard to lower chances of ROMA winning I hope so too…again. Give or take min. 5 yrs before Netflix given faiere go for Oscars rather that how most in membership should see Netflix status it need to prove itself . public transparency and accountability first.
The only way Ali loses this is if voters want to be assholes and continue to punish Green Book.
I can think of another way: If they believe that Grant delivered the better performance, which in my opinion he did. Ali was absolutely average in a shitty film, so it’s not outside the real of possibilities that people prefer Grant.
How many others would dare bag green book like uslf? Not only u been rude time when.I sought make peace seeing u point of view somewhat which u stubbornly ignored my gesture but u deliberately seeking to provoke the masses against u by suggesting green book is “shitty” let try again how and why is it bad?
Will you say that they liked Ali better if he wins or you’ll go on a rant about how oscars are sheep
Very nitpicky question nobody might know the answer to: on the preferential ballot system, does the target number of ballots that must be reached to win change if/when some ballots are eliminated?
(Example: you start with 10 ballots, required number to win is 6. But one person only ranked three options; if all three of its options are eliminated, the ballot is effectively tossed. Now you only have 9 ballots; if you’d started with 9, the target number to reach would have been 5. Does the target number now *change* to 5, or does it stay at 6 since that’s where you started?)
Anybody have any idea? @claudiucristiandobre:disqus, maybe? Since you run your own BP simulation?
Ballots need to be filled 1 to 8. Lowest eliminated and restricted until absolute majority (50% + 1) of total
That’s not my understanding. Voters can rank however many of the nominees they want, all 8 or just 1 or anywhere in between. There’s no law requiring them to fill out every slot. They can put all their chips in one basket if they want; it’s just not encouraged since it means a much higher risk of the ballot getting thrown out.
It’s logical that it would be like Christophe says: if you were to for example build a ballot with 9 nominees so that 7 nominees would each get about 8% of the #1 votes, with these voters ranking just their #1 pick on their ballot and these films not being ranked by anyone else at all, and the other two would be ranked on every other ballot as the only choices, you would get to a place where only 44% of the ballots could be counted by the time we’d reach the final round between the two films that got more than 8% of the vote
Yeah, that makes sense. If someone’s ballot is thrown out because they didn’t rank all the nominees and all their choices were eliminated, that voter has effectively wasted their ballot and is no longer participating in the process, and ergo shouldn’t be counted towards the total amount a film needs to win — since no film left could even possibly *get* that ballot in their pile. So I think the answer must be that the target number does change.
I believe it works in a very simple way. You keep eliminating and the one film that remains in the end, wins. So there is no fixed target number.
Nope, there is a target number: 50% of ballots +1. You can have two or maybe even three nominees left standing when one film hits that threshold, and the counting immediately ends. You don’t have to go all the way to “one film left standing” if it’s already received a majority of the votes.
Theoretically, it’s the same thing. You could count until the last round, but it makes no sense, because if a film has 50%+ before that, it will win in the last round anyway. The important bit is what wins in the last round (because there, one film will obviously have at least 50%). Stopping the count early just spares us unnecessary work, doesn’t change the system itself.
That’s true! If there are 100 ballots and there are three films left and one film has 51 votes, then the second place film couldn’t possibly overtake the first place film even if 100% of the third place votes went into its pile. Good point.
Put into different words, the definition of the process says you keep eliminating until only one film remains. It’s just a result of this definition (or a lemma, if you please) that you can stop counting once one film has a majority. But the result must be consistent with the original definition, so there cannot be a fixed number of ballots that needs to be reached, as there isn’t one in the definition.
I would assume it is the number of remaining votes that counts, otherwise you could have a situation in which no film gets a majority.
Good point!
Voters rank the films from 1 to 8. The film which gets at least 50% of the #1 votes wins the Oscar. Every “round” they eliminate the film with the least #1 votes, and then the next eligible film becomes the designated #1 vote. You eliminate the “least” until one film hits that 50% marker.
Yes, I am aware of the basics of how the preferential ballot system works, thanks. None of that answers my question.
Good question. I don’t know the answer for a fact. But logic would say it remains at “6”.
But I don’t think it would ever get to that point given the amount of votes/ballots there are. There’s an article out there somewhere that stated, after research, that films ranked lower than 3 almost never get considered as a winners always determined before. In other words, Academy voters are wasting their time ranking films from 4-8.
Why do you think that’s what logic would say? Just curious.
I should have said logic and fairness. If a ballot gets tossed out like that, and then the required number changes, it means that that tossed out ballot counted for nothing. I, as a voter of that ballot, would have no effect whatsoever of the outcome. My ballot becomes obsolete.
By keeping the number constant, the potential winner would at least have to overcome a hurdle that my existence as a voter would present.
Hope the above is clear?
The only votes that count are actual votes, not theoretical votes. If it cannot be counted, it doesn’t count. In your example, the required winning number will change from 6 to 5 because only 9 ballots count for the remaining contenders.
(in Oscar preferential, 5/10 is enough because it doesn’t allow for ties so the film with most numbers will win.)
Ha – good question. 🙂 I’m with john smith on the answer. (I’ve never had this problem in my simulations. Probably because I only count ballots that at least list all of the movies that can win either the simulation, or Best Picture at the Oscars.)
Can we focus on some astonishing facts:
— On Sunday night, two men (an African-American and the son of Egyptian-Americans) may win Oscars playing two GAY men of color. If Ali loses to Grant, we get two Oscars awarded to playing two gay men who died of AIDS.
— Glenn Close will win her Oscar for a film that may be the least distinguished of those she has been nominated for (World According to Garp, The Natural, The Big Chill, Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons, Albert Nobbs).
— If Ruth Carter wins for Best Costumes or Hannah Beachler wins for Best Production Design, they will be the first black women to win below-the-line Oscars since Irene Cara for the 1980 song from “Fame”! I can see both of them winning on Sunday.
— Rami Malek will be one of the rare ‘male ingenue’ wins (a winner under the age of 40). But he’s 37! So he’s not even in the top ten youngest winners of Best Actor. Those genes!
Bohemian Rhapsody was queer-washed so it is not something to be proud of it Malek wins.
Completely disagree that it was “queer-washed”. But, you’re entitled to that opinion.
The problem is they wanted to end the film at Live Aid (not showing us Mercury’s relationship with Jim Hutton in any meaningful way). The screenplay is deeply flawed. But that doesn’t mean the film is ‘queer-washed’. It’s just PG rated and sloppy.
Yes I also disagree. His sexuality was explored. Not greatly but it was one ingredient. I took more umbrage with the erroneous time line.
What do you mean queer-washed? The entire movie revolved around his queer sexuality.
For me Bohemian Rhapsody doesn’t really get Mercury’s sexuality. To reduce it in a way they did for mass entertainment? It’s offensive for it is everything Mercury is not, wimp and unambitious. Even the producers are aware of that and that’s where it get disappointing. Oversimplifying and downplaying it just wouldn’t cut it especially if it’s a tribute to the life and greatness of Mercury.
And if all Malek, Colman, Ali and Weisz win, all acting winners will be LGBT. (Although Weisz is arguable.)
Oh so true! I forgot that. I think Weisz’ final scene gives away her legitimate feelings but it is up to debate.
That would be so cool, but Colman ain’t winning. So at best we’re gonna have three.
Never say never! I might choose to believe in the very unreliable rumours that Fox Searchlight has a great phase 2 campaign.
Nothing against Glenn Close’s quite good performance in The Wife, but I hope you’re right!!!
With regard to “Green Book” and “BhoRap”, both Ali and Malek incorporate gayness into the overall complexity of these two men’s lives. I’m not saying that other actors in other gay-themed movies haven’t done the same. They definitely have (from “Brokeback” to “CMBYN” to “God’s Own Country”, to take just three examples). GB and BR continue that deepening of the portrayal of gay men. These two men struggled with partly concealing their gayness, and understood that in the times they lived through they couldn’t afford to get tripped up. But in essence these two movies allow the two men to say, I’m an artist AND I’m gay. You have to take the whole package if you really want to know me. Deal with that. That unflinching subtext in both screenplays is important for the ongoing expansion of portraying openness in movies.
Malek is this generation’s F. Murray Abraham, a future answer to where are they now questions
By the way, why has no one mentioned that in the HISTORY OF THE OSCARS, has a sole writer-director won Best Picture with an ORIGINAL screenplay. As Taylor Swift once so succinctly put it, LIKE EVER.
Yes – I can think of two times: Oliver Stone with Platoon and James Cameron with Titanic.
You are correct with Stone, but Cameron wasn’t even nominated. What I meant to say was no sole writer-director has ever won original screenplay and best picture, which is why when Peele won last year he was done. Thank you for correcting me.
Stone did not win a writing Oscar.
Well, actually he did. For Midnight Express
Yes, if the question is, has a writer-director ever won Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay (as the sole writer) for the same film, I think the answer is no.
Interesting stat. There have been a few writer directors who won as a co writer though
So, if we’re thinking about the preferential ballot, we need to establish which films could beat Roma 1-on-1. (As I’m virtually certain Roma will be in the top 2.)
I think The Favourite could, BlacKkKlansman could, maybe Green Book (at least it probably did at the PGA) and mayyybe Black Panther. I don’t think either Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star is Born or Vice could do it.
So, which one of these has a chance not to get eliminated?
I believe Black Panther will get eliminated early, as it will not be strong enough in the first round. (This is the Academy that awarded Birdman, after all.)
The other three, it’s a big puzzle.
Which will be the second, or close third, in the first round?
I, personally can’t see Green Book getting so many #1s, but it did happen somehow at the PGA, so I might be wrong about that.
The Favourite could be strong and thus win, or it could be not so strong. It’s hard to say.
And BlacKkKlansman, with its grand total of 0 major wins, feels like it lacks the passion to come close as well.
So the question now is this:
1. Does The Favourite get a place in the top two, and thus win Best Picture?
2. Or if Green Book gets in the top 2, does it beat Roma there?
My answer to both of these is probably no, so I will predict Roma. But if you have different answers to these questions, it might help everyone see a bit clearer on what will win.
I have the same answers. 🙂
For what it’s worth, Clayton Davis from Awards Circuit has The Favourite winning in his final predictions. I am sure that he’s in the minority but clearly a few people believe that it could be more than an internet thing
I saw. 🙂
I don’t think enough emphasis has been placed on the nominations: Roma overperformed (except editing) and Green Book underperformed.
I think this means something.
I also note that many didn’t predict Roma for critics choice or BAFTA for BP because it was winning FF. It’s proven that it can win both.
I wonder whether this is a 12 years a slave type scenario where many voters might vote Roma sight unseen because it’s the film they should vote for. If we believe the 12 years rumours of course.
13 years?
Oops 12 years a slave. Fixed
haha figured… what were the rumours?
That many voters didn’t actually watch it but voted for its importance
Green Book got the most nods from the guilds, a total of 23, i wouldn’t say that’s underperforming…4 more than Roma
Aren’t there only 10 or so guilds?
Also, didn’t A Star is Born get the most? I remember that one getting nominated everywhere.
ASIB got 18
Black Panther is winning production design and costumes. I do not think The Favorite is the favorite here, Black Panther is incredible in these two departments. It cant be denied and it cant go empty handed.
Cuaron is, at heart and an up in your face auteur; he directs, produces, edits, writes and, now, shoots his own films and is a virtuoso at everything
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e2ba31df347bae70b9a3c808ea4c26094d5482a08bfeaeb572022cf277fc08fc.jpg
Delicious!
This would likely land at or near the top of many preferential ballots
This new DICK TRACY looks interesting!
DICK IS BACK
u cant spell dick tracy without dick trace
OT: The local movie theater is ditching Oscar films this year and having Italian fever instead:
‘City of Women’ (Fellini, 1980)
‘And the Ship Sails On’ (Fellini, 1983)
‘8½’ (Fellini, 1963)
‘Traffic Jam’ (Comencini, 1979)
‘Rocco and His Brothers’ (Visconti, 1960)
‘Happy as Lazzaro’ (Rohrwacher, 2018)
All in a single week! What do you recommend?
Happy as Lazzaro is quite intriguing!
8½, Rocco and City of Women are your must-sees, probable in that order.
It’s funny that The Favourite is still seen by many as the presumptive favourite in Costume Design and Production Design, yet more are predicting Black Panther in both now. That goes to Sasha’s words above about what defines the “odds.”
Most aren’t predicting the Panther score, but it’s possible. I really struggle to see Beale Street winning two or really any Oscars.
Finally, while I’m torn on Editing, I struggle to see Bohemian winning Sound Editing. It’s just not the right kind of film.
Does anybody else love Nicholas Brittell’s score for “If Beale Street Could Talk” as much as I do? I’m crazy about it.
Yes! I hope it wins on Sunday.
I wish it would win 3, I hope it wins 1, I fear it will win 0
I listen to it constantly. A gorgeous piece of movie music.
It’s astonishing. How effective it is, and how perfectly conceived for the story and themes of the film it supports.
“Ali’s is more of a leading role, more accomplished role, which makes it hard to pass up.”
This is why he shouldn’t win, and why nobody should be an “asshole” for voting for Grant, Elliott, or Driver. (Okay, you’re an asshole for voting for Rockwell’s glorified cameo/poor man’s Will Ferrell impression.)
Ali gives a wonderful performance in Green Book, but it’s a LEAD ROLE. Hands down. This is one of the most blatant cases of category fraud in Oscar history. My ballot would be for Grant since his is a genuine supporting performance.
It will be the worst category fraud winner IMO
It’s actually insulting to Shirley and the story to suggest he’s not co-lead.
Just a thought: In heterosexual romance films like A Star Is Born, the two stars are never forced to compete against each other in the same category. By contrast, if you say that in a same-sex romance/ friendship film the two stars must be seen as co-leads, then you force them into the same category and place them at a severe disadvantage. I remember people questioning whether Armie Hammer was a lead last year. It’s not a fair question. One partner must always be seen as a lead, and one supporting.
Which is exactly what happened with “Brokeback”, and Gyllenhaal was completely fine with being campaigned in Supporting. Completely. That’s how he and Ledger both got nominated. If they’d both been campaigned in Lead, who knows what would have happened?
What happened at the Globes where Gyllenhaal was lead. He was snubbed.
If he wins, it will be the quality of his performance that wins it, not the quantity.
Here Here! Absolutely. Ali is a revelation.
I know it doesn’t make it right but it happens virtually every year. In this case it kinda made sense to me as Tony’s character was introduced first and his family and situation. Viggo had more screen time and for me was the lead. It won’t work for the women of The Favourite as all 3 will probably lose but here at least Ali will win. Sam Rockwell was a co lead last year. Award politics and manipulation to guarantee noms and wins.
It reminds me of Christopher Plummer in The Last station; he was in almost every scene of the movie and went supporting (indeed, also Waltz was co-lead in Django)
Can we also accept that if GB loses, it’s not necessarily the controversy, it could just be it wasn’t liked enough
but how the hell did it win PGA then? that baffles me in an incredible way 😀
Big Short won PGA and only a screenplay Oscar. It can happen this way.
But I think no other PGA winner won fewer than two. Which is maybe bad news for The Favourite’s screenplay chances… (Though probably not. It’s not that strong a stat.)
Sasha et al. would argue…
If GB wins, it would be a reaction to the Twitter Woketopia’s negativity.
If GB loses, it would be because of Woketopia’s negativity.
Silly.
Oh yes…… You all keep doubting ali and king please. That way I can get them right on the contest and win. I need a new pair of shoes lmao.
Until Oscar night, I’m still predicting E. GRANT to win BSActor.
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez.
OK completely off-topic. But I just finished watching Serenity. You know, the movie with Academy Award-winners McConaughey and Hathaway that was in theaters last month.
What the hell did I just watch?!!??!?!
Was it good or bad?
Go in blind, like I did. Don’t watch the trailer. Don’t read reviews. Then let’s talk.
Didn’t know about (what you know now) did ya?
I really expected a pulpy sex-fueled murder thriller. Like Dead Calm meets Wild Things meets Hitchcock. Talk about a bait-and-switch. I felt bamboozled.
Seriously. WTF.
You’re cracking me up here
It was like those car ads of his were the inspiration along with his personal peyote diary.
3 of the best picture nominees are films.
I should be grateful.
I have been going back and forth between Green Book and Roma and personally I can see one of two scenarios:
1. Roma winning Best Picture and Cold War winning Best Foreign Film
2. Green Book winning Best Picture and Roma winning Best Foreign Film
I certainly do not foresee Roma winning both Best Picture and Best Foreign Film.
So, I am leaning a bit towards scenario 1. Green Book doesn’t have a Best Director nomination and it didn’t win WGA. Cold War, on the other hand has both a Best Director nomination and it also won the ASC, signifying strong industry support.
I think that Academy will want to make a statement, so it will keep its cake and eat it too by giving Best Foreign Film to Cold War and then award Roma win Best Picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography.
I like that scenario and I am also going for The Favourite in Best Original Screenplay.
Let’s see if I’ll be right this time…
I’ll take The Favourite for Best Picture if you take Green Book – friendly bet! (No stakes. Just for fun.) I’m not at all confident The Favourite can beat Roma, but I AM pretty confident it has much better chances of doing so than Green Book. (And you seem equally sure of the opposite.) If neither wins, it’s a tie. Are you in? 🙂
I really wanna go with Roma though. It’s a weird feeling because for the first time I am actually praying that it loses Best Foreign Film. For me, that’s going to be the key. If it loses to Cold War, it will win Best Picture in my opinion. If it wins Best Foreign Film, then the Academy has an avenue to award something else. The Favourute – it could win but you assume it’s taking Original Screenplay – I do as well. But, is that enough? Perhaps if Weisz wins, then maybe. That’s another tough race. I so wanna go with Weisz but you never know.
I’ve liked Roma since October. If I abandon it now, I’ll be upset if it wins. But The Favourite could sneak in there, that’s for sure. It’s a period piece, British – it does fit in the Academy’s wheel house. It can definitely happen.
You make it sound like the Academy will know what wins Foreign Language Film before voting on Best Picture.
Well, we won’t have any fun if we both pick Roma. 🙂 My proposed “bet” was more interesting than that.
I have 3 wild bets that I am just too afraid to actually call:
1. Richard E Grant upsets Mahershala Ali
2. First Reformed wins Original Screenplay
3. Cold War wins Best Foreign Film
We can do that if you’d like.
We can do the one where I take The Favourite and you take Green Book, you mean? 🙂 Cool! (If you mean the others, it would be unfair – you might get one of those right, probably one of the first two, but you’re far more likely to get none or zero. The BP bet I suggested is more of a fair fight. Logic independent of stats does suggest Green Book is the more likely of the two, I acknowledge that. So my side would be defending the pure stats.)
Fine. I’ll take it.
So the bet is: if Roma doesn’t win, I am going for Green Book and you are going for The Favourite. That’s just between us. I am still predicting Roma ultimately though.
Awesome! Yes, that’s the bet.
The problem is that with CC and BAFTA a lot of people said Roma couldn’t win both FF and BP.
If BAFTA gave it FF & BP after the favourite won 7, AMPAS can too
It would be very strange if Roma wins for Picture and not for Foreign Picture.
What would it implicitly mean? If Cold War is better than Roma, why it was not nominated for Best Picture?
Aroncido, bo Rhapsody has costumes changes every second julien day is great. Sandy Powell always wins for period piece. Enough with powell
The Favourite I think is a standout even from Powell. Not only is it 300 years old women’s dresses (which always tend to win this category), but she does a fantastic job in blending the modern with the period style. They are not exactly old dresses, they just resemble them somewhat, and at the same time they resemble more modern clothing as well. She uses denim. She uses leather. Weisz has that magnificent white shooting set. The use of black&white exclusively, to resemble chess figures, is a genius idea. The Favourite may lose other awards (I’m not a huge fan of the Production Design, for one) but Costume Design should easily be awarded to it.
Oh my lord, another we have no idea who’s winning article.
Whilst SAG, DGA, PGA & WGA have split, we have enough other stats to help us predict.
It comes down to DGA, no editing & 10 noms (Roma) v PGA, no directing & 5 noms (Green Book) as both missed SAGE.
We have controversy around Green Book in a preferential ballot against a film few really dislikes, Roma.
Black Panther missed Director, editing, writing & acting, it’s not in the conversation.
We shouldn’t throw other stats out the window just because the guilds split.
The WGA loss just tells me loudly that Green Book isn’t as beloved as the relentlessly angry “poor little Green Book” think pieces insist is the case.
Pete I get it . You don’t think Green Book has been unfairly treated . I’m curious what did you think of Harvey Weinstein destroying The Immigrant because James Gray would not bow down to him ?
What exactly does the Immigrant have to do with Green Book?
Weinstein’s belief that because he distributed a movie he in fact made it is what eventually did him in. Honestly I wondered why anyone ever agreed to go into business with him pretty much after 1997.
Edit: I never saw the film to be honest, but I don’t think any decent film should be spiked or suppressed.
It was good alot better then the dull crap he used to push for Oscars.
From what I hear, but what does that have to do with Green Book?
I still have not figured it all out. But I must say I love the discussions this year. Very mature, looking at all sides of things, and focused. I apologize if I have come off hot headed a few times- I admit I get sensitive if I have a point I want to back and feel it’s not being understood. I am working on it lol (I was WAY worse 10 years ago. Oh, the Streep years. I was viscous).
I have entered numerous Oscar contests, one being Oscar World (if you google it, it should come up; if not- contact me and I can try to dig up the link). This contest has prizes and uses a point system for each category. Every category is worth say, 100 points. You can place all your points on ONE film. Or, you can divide them if you’re stuck between two movies. The pro to this is you can technically say you earned some points for getting one right if you split. The con of Course, is- your tally will be smaller and the highest score wins. I have made it in the top 15 which is saying a lot when they rank them up to 200 sometimes.
Anyways, go there if you want to put your indecisive choices and that way on Oscar night, you won’t feel like jumping off your balcony when The Favourite loses costumes to Black Panther, or Christopher Robin manages Visual Effects.
What’s insane about this year is that even the ALTERNATE choices are not set in stone. On facebook, yearly, the night of the awards- I list all my predictions with an alt. choice. In 2015 I specifically remember placing Best Picture: Big Short (alt. Spotlight).
This year- damn. I just cant do it. I have Green Book. Roma would seem like the obvious “alternate”, but I still think it’s swaying on divisive territory, and we could see Black Panther or even Bohemian Rhapsody prevail. The Favourite is my cream of the crop, but it too- borderlines love it/hate it. If it wins, wow- what a deserving honor that will be.
I won’t list my current final predictions just yet, but will give some final thoughts on the acting races.
BEST ACTOR
Rami Malek
alt. Christian Bale
I think it’s Malek’s to lose, but you never know with Christian Bale, the big rubbery mask, and the whole political angle. Bale truly delivers, demonstrating why he might be my favorite character actor of the contemporary times. I still love him in The Machinist and American Psycho. What incredible, diverse work.
However, I think Malek exudes an electric soul I haven’t seen in a while with someone channeling a famous person- other then Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest (1981)- which yes, was a COMPLETELY different channeling- campy, over the top, but so damn perfect. Malek is being touted as “TV actor, not Hollywood”. And yes, that could throw the cards away from him. But it’s sealed in my eyes.
BEST ACTRESS
Glenn Close
alt. Olivia Colman
So having seen The Favourite three times now, I must say I wish Colman had more screen time. She is so deliciously deviant and unpredictable in her mannerisms that I would have paid a subscription to see a series devoted to her character. Issue? She mumbles a lot of her lines, and yes (SPOILER—–) she does have a stroke midway. So I get the physical transformation thing. But when I cant comprehend you, it does get tough to focus. But after a third watch, she’s simply breathtaking. Remember- she has won the Golden Globe and BAFTA, AND major critic awards. If anything, SHE is the favorite, and Close is the last-minute career shark. I loved Close too in The Wife. It’s not her best performance, but its certainly not her worst (Albert Nobbs takes that one). I wish Close had been a nominee for her most beautiful screen appearance ever in Reversal of Fortune. My God, what a woman!
But back to this- Close losing BAFTA might just be because Colman (and Weisz) were on British territory. However, it could also be telling that the tides are changing towards her and Close might not win. Close’s issue? Her movie is small, and did anyone see it? I did- on a screener. I loved it. Simple, very entertaining and while not the best written script, certainly a very satisfying turn of events. But is The Wife being talked about, or is Close being talked about? And does it matter? The Favourite IS being talked about, and is closing in on possibly racking in a ton of prizes including writing, supporting actress, and even best picture. Colman could and can take this. I say it’s 70/30 in Close’s favor. But watch out. This year is NOT the year of herd mentalities. Voters are going to check off who they want to win. Not what they feel pressured to do.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Mahershala Ali
alt. Richard E. Grant
I liked Ali in Green Book, but it wasn’t my top pick. That would be Grant, and with the recent WGA win of Can You Ever Forgive Me?, there is a (very small) chance he could prevail. But Ali won BAFTA and to me that’s a wrap. Of all the acting races, this one is probably the easiest to call. But again, watch out.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Regina King
alt. Rachel Weisz
Hmmm. I just have less and less hope for King, but the thread that remains includes that bizarre dream I had after she won her third Emmy. For those that haven’t heard it, the eve of her win, I dreamt I was backstage at the Oscars and King was holding her award. I tried taking a selfie with her and my iPhone lost battery. She was still nice to me and we hugged. That was it. Pretty deep- ha! But as logical as usually am about “dreams” being silly visions, I did NOT know King had Beale Street as a movie in contention. So therefore, why was she holding an Oscar? She had just won the Emmy. Why wasn’t it the TV prize? Sounds loopy, but that might be why I stick to her.
The other reason is King dominated the critic awards, won the Globe and gave a powerhouse speech, and has remained in the conversation despite no SAG or BAFTA nods. Those misses are big blows. But if there were an alternate, I think Amy Adams would have won the SAG for the “overdue” narrative, and she lost (as I predicted) to Emily Blunt. And my crazy theory about Blunt winning something for A Quiet Place wasn’t that far off it turns out. I knew the industry wasn’t going to go with Mary Poppins. Too bad she couldn’t be a nominee for AQP, because if she was- I think she would be competitive. King is in her movie briefly, but it’s Supporting Actress- not Best Actress- Part 2, as many of us are calling the categories now that so much fraud has happened.
Which brings me to the sublime Rachel Weisz. I would love to see her win Sunday. It would be deserved. But I still think Emma Stone steals votes. Being the lead, Stone’s prickly and viperous nature makes for a funhouse ride of delicious deviousness. And she’s damn good. Dare I say better then La La Land? I find Stone’s role not to be as layered though, as Weisz- who gives us a lot of acting without going over the top in tone (like Streep in Prada- she doesn’t have to yell to get her point of power across). Therefore, I say she is 40% certain to win a Mark Rylance, and King stands a 60% chance because she was not a BAFTA/SAG nominee. Had King been a SAG nominee, I think she would have won. And this wouldn’t be a conversation. However, it is what it is.
More to come!
This is by far Stone’s best performance to date (and I loved her in La La Land). But I don’t think she portrays “delicious deviousness”, that would be Weisz. Stone’s character, especially in the last chapter (the thing people remember the most, as it’s the last) is VERY unlikable. And Weisz ends on a sympathetic note. That’s also a plus for her.
Oh agreed! I do think Stone does play delicious deviousness, however the deviousness is more obvious then Weisz’s much more tactful and clever approach (which also is a homage to the screenplay).
SPOILER
I compare Stone’s character to Eve Harrington in All About Eve (1950)- just in a much more sadistic nature. Trying to reach the top in an “innocent” fashion, but in reality- unlike Eve, Stone’s character finds herself right back at the bottom of the floor- literally.
All three women are so amazing I wish all could win. I will stand up if Weisz wins and clap from my living room. Ditto for Colman. And yes, ditto for Stone (who has little to no chance).
She was good on the show Maniac. She had to play a lot of different characters.
I don’t know about best to date, but it’s definitely one of her best ever, and that’s saying a lot, when it comes to the new Bette Davis! (That’s right, I’m putting it out there – I think she’s THAT talented…)
“I have entered numerous Oscar contests, one being Oscar World (if you google it, it should come up; if not- contact me and I can try to dig up the link).”
Thank you for the tip! I’ve found it.
Colman was so great in The Favourite!… I’m rooting for her, even though I’m pretty sure Close is winning.
She would have won every supporting prize. The Favourite was greedy and wanted their 3 nominations.
SPOILER—
Agreed. Colman was supporting all the way. The movie to me focuses on Stone and Weisz competing for this woman’s attention, and in some realms balance of acceptance and power (and sex). I found Colman the least realized character and that’s a good thing – she was more mysterious. I understood the motives of Stone quite soon (but it didn’t matter because it was all so well put together), and I found Weisz a little more hard to read but finally understood at the end.
But Colman is off screen quite a bit as the other two ladies go back and forth with scenes of confrontation with themselves, the servants or the many men they manipulate.
If Colman were a supporting actress nominee, I would bet the farm on her.
Strange, I found Queen Anne the most layered character out of all of them!
Really? Well, maybe I should rewatch again.
I didn’t get a lot of her emotional mood swings, unless it was because she was jealous seeing Weisz dancing with other men. But when she screams for the musicians to stop playing, it felt random. But again- I think this was a serious case of a Queen with mental illness and power tripping (much like someone ELSE we’re dealing with in the United States – thank you!!!)
But you’ve convinced me to give it a fourth watch!
Minor spoilers follow.
She is sad to see Weisz dancing not only with other men, but dancing at all. She can’t, because of her illness. The closeup on her face slowly changing from a smile to a deep sadness is one of my favourite shots of the film.
She screams at the musicians because they are children. And she cannot bear seeing children around her, as she lost so many. At the same time, she wants one so badly, as evidenced by her taking the baby out of the maid’s arms.
One of the most beautiful, tragic, and still hellishly funny characters on the screen this year, I think.
SPOILERS–
Ah yes, the children. That was sad. As also showcased with all her pet rabbits. (Emma Stone’s chilling high heel on one of those poor bunnies was a gruesome watch).
Colman really nailed it. All of them did. I really hope one wins Sunday.
This is exactly what I thought after I saw it. Colman gives an iconic supporting performance.
Oh awesome!!!! It’s a GREAT site. It’s so old school in it’s layout, but it’s my favorite contest to enter because you can really divide your points (or not) and win some cool prizes. AND it can serve as your alternate ballot. So this way on Oscar night, you can look at both and think “Well, at least I picked Weisz on Oscar World”, or vice versa. I already have Can You Ever Forgive Me- all 80 points for Adapted Screenplay. And that STILL could change to BlackKklansman again. Argh!!!
Yeah, it sounds brilliant! Very much looking forward to that contest… (I have BlacKkKlansman for adapted – due to the BP nomination stat and this stat by Ferdinand he mentioned earlier in the season: “2002 is the only year in SAG history when at least one of the screenplay winners wasn’t nominated for ensemble”. Obviously, the Scripter nod and WGA win could prove more important, and it’s one of the closest calls, but I’ve concluded the former are more likely to hold, plus Klansman winning makes more sense to me.)
Thoughtful post. And I’m happy to see appreciation restated for Dunaway’s astonishing performance in “Mommie Dearest”. It’s one of a kind.
I truly wish she had won that year. She was runner-up at the New York and National Society of Film Critics, but once the film turned camp- it was over. It’s one of my top 5 Best Actress performances never to get a nomination, along with Nicole Kidman (To Die For, 1995), Katharine Hepburn (Bringing up Baby, 1938), Mia Farrow (Rosemary’s Baby, 1968) and Bette Davis (Of Human Bondage, 1934).
Christina Crawford’s autobiographical book “Mommie Dearest” came out in 1978 and was a huge bestseller. But when the movie came out in 1981, most people who saw it surely hadn’t read the book. Which is fine. They didn’t need to. But Dunaway captured the toxicity of Crawford depicted so starkly in Christina’s book, and clearly was working from that. That’s one reason the performance was so deep and scary. Dunaway’s commitment was a thing of wonder. I think the performance threw a lot of people — they didn’t quite know how to take it in. Kael understood its force at the time. At the moment, I can’t recall how many other critics did. I need to look the movie up on RT to find out.
Your list of Best Actress performances not nominated is fascinating. You make me want to compile my own list. I’m sure others on this site could compose intriguing ones, too.
I have the same spooky feeling about King winning. When I first her name as Oscar contender, her name screamed out at me that she would win. I cannot believe it might actually happen. It’s weird!
Black panther wins PD and the favourite wins CD. If Bo rhapsody wins contemporary piece than bohemian rhapsody wins best picture
Bohemian Rhapsody wins what? It’s in Period at the Costume Designers Guild. And I would bet my house that it doesn’t win that.
The Favourite will win Costume Design and Production Design. But if I were voting I’d be ticking the box for Mary Queen of Scots and Black Panther, respectively.
I would go with Black Panther the costumes are the standout of the film. I always like when they don’t go with the usual pretty period costumes. Like when Mad Max: Fury Road and Pracilla Queen of The Desert won.
I also don’t think there is much love out there for “If Beale Street Could Talk”. I’m sniffing that there may be surprise acting trophy going to Amy Adams in “Vice”. She was good in that film. Perhaps, upon second viewing, even “award worthy”.
I don’t think there’s a lot of love for Vice. This was another “filler role” for Adams. In the SAG era, no one has ever won an acting award without winning a major precursor.
I hate to say ‘Marcia Gay Harden’, but… Marcia Gay Harden! 🙂
(Anyway, I also don’t think Adams can really win. She might have, like, around 5% chances, because the front runners are so weak.)
Both Chicago Film Critics and Utah Film Critics gave their Best Supporting Actress award to Olivia Coleman, basically placing in what I believe to be the correct category for her performance in “The Favourite”. So who did these two groups choose as Best Actress? Glenn Close? Nah, it was, respectively, Toni Collette in “Hereditary” and Elsie Fisher for “Eighth Grade”. Doesn’t help, does it? Since neither Toni nor Elsie made the cut.
I simply can’t see them denying this award to Glenn Close. I would be aghast if they did it to her again.
I’m sticking with my predictions from a few days ago. Green Book for Bp. The Pga win was significant. The film seems to have had endurance at the box office and has a feel good quality that is hard to resist. Yes it has no Director nominated but I think Roma has too many hurdles on the Preferential ballot. A Star Is Born has flatlined. Blackkklansman hasn’t shown enough indication to be either a consensus winner or plurality, although if it can get screenplay it could do a Spotlight and be a 2 time Oscar winner incl best picture but pretty unlikely.
Bohemian Rhapsody I really liked even with its untruthful timeline but Rami’s win and a sound award will be it’s ceiling. Vice. Nup. Can’t see it. The Favourite a movie I also enjoyed if it couldn’t prevail on a plurality vote at Bafta, and no Dga nod, I think it’s a long shot. Costume design is all I have it down for although I’d be thrilled to see Weisz win but think it’s King.
Black Panther is the dark horse here. It would cause a boil over but it could happen. That preferential vote could throw up any possibility.
I think Close, Malek, King, Ali.
Cuaron for Director and cinematography as well as foreign film. Screenplays I’m sticking with Green Book (My theory on its BP win is based on screen play and Ali and at a stretch editing) and Spike Lee for adapted . Black Panther I have for production design and score. Vice for make up. A Star Is Born for song.
Each nominated film for best picture gets at least one Oscar under my predix. For me the biggest conundrum in best picture is whether the Academy is yet ready to go Netflix and Foreign for the first time. The freshening up of membership is evid3nt in the diverse nominations but the final award in the next round of voting is the question mark. My belief is change is slow and Green Book represents a narrative that enough members are happy to endorse (and it is well made and entertaining). Smear campaigns are as old as the Hollywood hills. Last year’s claims that del Toro stole the idea for shape of water didn’t change anything. The year with the hurt locker producer being kicked out for allegedly influencing voters made no impact on the films end game.
Roma will be celebrated and honoured but so too will the more traditional messages and form of Green Book. As a foreign film aficionado nothing would please me more than a Roma double victory but my gut says they’re a not quite there yet.
“That preferential vote could throw up any possibility.”
This argument is exaggerated these days. A movie not already in the top 3 after the first round has basically not shot at winning. Top 2 is usually mandatory, in fact. And I see no reason to think BP is anywhere near the top 2, given its lack of major nominations, effects snub, etc.
In reality, probably only two movies can win, and my guess is those are Roma and The Favourite. If a third, maybe BlacKkKlansman, maybe Green Book…
And Green Book is SO not winning editing! 🙂 (Nor screenplay, I’m at least 90% sure.)
We shall see won’t we….
That’s 4 movies you’ve said there in one sentence and we really don’t know which ones they are. There are arguments for a couple more as well. Like I stand by my comment any possibility
“That’s 4 movies you’ve said there in one sentence and we really don’t know which ones they are.”
True. We can’t know for sure.
But, anyway, statistically, only 5 movies can still win. If that.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cdf65b46c532fdf232056a88b4fc0393ddb4036090d415ead0c264fcbee3a60e.jpg
Mrs Miniver?
Are these our soldiers?
Are these our fighters?
Why should they be sacrificed?
I shall tell you why.
Because this is not only
a war of soldiers in uniform…
…it is a war of the people.
Of all the people.
And it must be fought
not only on the battlefield…
…but in the cities and in the villages.
In the factories and on the farms.
In the home and in the heart…
…of every man, woman and child
who loves freedom.
Well, we have buried our dead…
…but we shall not forget them.
lnstead, they will inspire us
with an unbreakable determination…
…to free ourselves
and those who come after us…
…from the tyranny and terror
that threaten to strike us down.
This is the people’s war.
It is our war.
We are the fighters.
Fight it, then.
Fight it with all that is in us.
And may God defend the right.
Reading that made my eyes moist. I am surprised. I thought I would be too modern and immune to wartime propaganda films, but clearly not. I see now that if I had been alive in 1942, I would have been stirred by this film just the same as the rest of the population.
Cold War? I don’t see a line of pills though.
No, it is Mrs Miniver. Read the passage posted by Ryan below. It is the speech given at the pulpit in this scene.
Mrs. Miniver… such a strong ending to a really good film.
The cinematography in fantastic. One of the awards it jusifiably won in 1942.
Editing is a real puzzle for me. I just can’t see BR actually winning it.
It’s between Vice and BR. Just go with Vice if you can’t see BR win. Easy.
The past six Film Editing winners in a row also won Sound Mixing. The six before that were at least nominated for it. You have to go back to The Departed in 2006 for an Editing winner with no Sound nominations. Bohemian is the only Editing nominee this year with Sound nominations, its the very likely Mixing winner, and it won the ACE. Seems like a no-brainer to me, Vice’s BAFTA win notwithstanding.
You just convinced me to change my prediction from Vice to BR.
Glad I could help! Check out my full predictions here, I talk about other interesting correlations like Visual Effects/Production Design. Maybe I can help with some other tricky categories, too. 🙂
https://thin-gold-line.com/tgl/final-2018-oscar-predictions
Love the page and your thorough rationale!
Thanks! I just launched the site on Sunday. Haven’t had time yet to make an official announcement here for my AD friends, so… consider this my unofficial unveiling!
congratulations on the launch! Had no idea that was you.
Thank you! I’ve been wanting to make my own site for years and finally realized the only way to do it was… to just do it!
I also just set up Disqus on the site so it should feel nice and familiar to all my AD friends. 🙂
Awesome – thank you very much for those!
Yeah, I’m starting to think it’s BR as well. Bad news for Vice…
Thanks lol. I couldn’t have explained it any better.
Why did you do that? I was feeling comfortable with Vice but you just had to do that – 6 years in a row? Darn. LOL.
I am having my doubts about BlacKkKlansman winning the Best Adapted Screenplay award. It didn’t score a Scripter nomination. No film has ever won Best Adapted Screenplay without a scripter nomination. You could say what about The Departed and Traffic? Here’s the thing: Neither one where eligible because they were remakes from previous films/television. A Star is Born has an excuse, but it was adapted for three different sources. BKKK does not.
I wouldn’t be shocked if it lost too. But then again all of the nominees in that category have some of stats like what you just mentioned against them too.
Only two times has the both WGA winners failed to win an Oscar. That was 2002 and 1984. I think my prediction will be Can You Ever Forgive Me?
This is also the first time both WGA winners came from non-BP nominees, so it’s already an outlier in that regard. It can easily be an outlier in regards to both losing as well — especially since one of them will *automatically* lose, given that it’s not even nominated.
In the history of the Oscars, only like 3 films won this category without a corresponding BP nod. The last time it happened was 1998. I think this stat is stronger.
I think Black Klansman may continue its losing streak and not win a thing on Sunday.
I am VERY nervous BlackKklansman loses Screenplay. Can You Ever Forgive me was excellent, and would be a deserving winner. So would Lee’s film. I just have no idea now.
To be honest, after just rewatching BlacKkKlansman (I still enjoyed it very much) I don’t think the screenplay is particularly strong. I can understand the snubs.
I know….damn these predictions!!!!!!!
I think the Adapted Screenplay for BlackKklansman would be an attribute for Spike Lee to finally win a competitive Oscar. Early in the season, I thought he was a slam-dunk for this. Now, not so sure. I wish he was winning Director, actually. But Curaon is not losing. Not a chance.
Funny, how DGA winner usually always means Best Director. I never seem to worry about that one anymore.
As ever I enjoy your pieces on where it is all at, and for this old warhorse your final sentence takes a little pressure off (something a lot of folks could do with) and just watch it unfurl next weekend. The adage ‘we don’t know anything’ could not be more apt this season, right now. Your humility on it as well as your perspectives on where it is at is welcome. That’s why I come here. Some commenters I enjoy, others are just contrarians for the sake of it and quite disrespectful to you and Ryan and Marshall. I certainly wasn’t raised with this mantra but ‘if you haven’t got something nice to say, don’t say anything at all’ has been on my mind . I appreciate the rigours of this site and process each season. How you survive all year long is amazing. I’m exhausted after a couple of months and I rarely weigh in! You’ve been electronic companions for me this past week as I’ve been travelling around the south island of new zealand and it’s like you’ve been along for the ride. Steel yourselves my friends for the final 5 days.
You share my sentiments, Dave. Well said.
Thanks John. Much appreciated
Ah – a perfect place to post this! 🙂
Results of the 2019 Best Picture race full precedents analysis
So… that took a while… 🙂 A lot of it was spent on preliminary work and trying to figure out how to approach the problem. Thankfully, after some trial and error, a good solution was found. Not that I’m claiming this was in any way scientific – the idea, instead, was to make sure it was as logical and unbiased as possible. Who knows whether it was?! What I know is I did my best, as always.
Four aspects were considered for each of the top five movies in the race (nominations count/ranking, snub count in the absolute and relative to the opposition, major Oscar category winning potential and major industry and non-industry Best Picture/Best Film precursor wins – plus a DGA win, of course), and only precedents no more than one away in either direction (stronger or weaker) were selected. As well as any precedents that were similar enough, but stronger, and lost, or similar enough, but weaker, and won. The same way I’ve always done this. The tricky part was evaluating the precedents, like I said – both determining what exact principles to apply (I settled on more or less only considering precedents from years with no runaway winner, meaning those in which either the big favorite lost, pre-PGA era, or it had at least one snub more than the strongest opposition, or in which the most important precursors – DGA/WGA/PGA, or Golden Globe instead of PGA, pre-1990 – were split at least two or three ways, past the WGA, because years in which a movie is so much stronger than the opposition as a, say, The Artist, was, are simply not relevant to the situation for 2019, which is substantially messier), as well as the actual evaluation, since the trajectories of most Best Picture contenders this year are, to put it mildly, rather atypical… (It turns out Green Book might be the least unusual one, with 25 close enough precedents, most of them loss precedents, and BlacKkKlansman and Vice the most atypical, with 13 and 10 total precedents, respectively.)
This is how I arrived at the percentages below:
– 34 different Oscar years from the period 1949 to 2018 were investigated, in the end, that had at least one close enough precedent for one of the top five movies in the race drawn from them;
– first, the bottom three had their percentages calculated (and rounded to an integer) based on the number of precedents their worst, non-SAG-dependent stats, allowed over the 90 Oscar years;
– then, the top five each had their win/loss precedents converted to an absolute percentage (e.g., for Roma, 9-12 => 9/21=42.86%), then added up – the 94% left divided by the total of 140.04;
– then, each individual absolute percentage was multiplied by the result of the aforementioned division, and the result rounded up or down, purely mathematically, giving the final percentage.
I had expected Roma to come out a clearer favorite, actually, but its lack of major guild wins apart from the DGA, as well as its lack of serious winning potential for anything above the line, other than directing (I’m not completely ruling out de Tavira, as I do agree with the logic behind that prediction at least to an extent, but it would still be a massive upset if she won, so I can’t really count her as a possibility), took away a lot of its DGA-winning BP win precedents (since most of those movies were stronger in several ways). And I’d not expected The Favourite to rack up so many win precedents, either, or so few loss precedents. (For the record, the precedents I counted for The Favourite were Hamlet, An American in Paris, Around the World in 80 Days, In the Heat of the Night, Driving Miss Daisy, Braveheart, Crash and Spotlight – again, the idea was for these to be similar ENOUGH and also close enough in both relative and absolute STRENGTH to The Favourite’s stats situation, according to the four criteria; the same measure was used for all contenders, including Roma. For The Favourite, I could have also counted The Greatest Show on Earth, for instance, since it was clearly weaker and won, and was somewhat similar, given that it won screenplay and lost the DGA, but I assigned that to another contender to which I considered it was even more similar – Green Book -, and I, for the most part, did not want to assign the same precedent to more than one contender, for obvious reasons. The only time I did that was when it was just not clear at all which of two contenders the movie in question was a closer precedent for, and even then I only counted it as a half-precedent.)
It’s funny that I ended up (despite no planning to that end whatsoever) with the exact same percentage for The Favourite that I assigned Moonlight two years ago. Even though the methods and number of years investigated were VASTLY different. I doubt it will lead to the same outcome, but it’s sort of interesting. Also interesting is that the precedents count ranked the #3-#5 favorites the exact same way I would have ranked them, intuitively. It should also be noted that I’ve, obviously, never before had to assign anywhere near this low a percentage for the Best Picture front runner. (29% – I think the previous “record” was somewhere around 45%.) Long story short, here are my final (and, as always, despite the thoroughness, nevertheless highly approximate) percentages:
Roma 29%
The Favourite 26%
BlacKkKlansman 15%
Vice 13%
Green Book 11%
A Star is Born 3%
Bohemian Rhapsody 2%
Black Panther 1%
So, to sum up this and my earlier post:
Final official Best Picture prediction: The Favourite
Final unofficial Best Picture prediction: Roma
As always, my official prediction is the one I’m holding myself accountable for, as the prediction of my stats system, in its current form. My unofficial prediction is just a way for me to express my slight disagreement with said system’s conclusion, on this occasion – as I did the year of The Big Short and Spotlight, when the latter was my unofficial prediction, while the former was my official, stats prediction. Although I should state that I DO believe The Favourite has real winning chances (especially after seeing the results of my preferential simulation, earlier), and is being underestimated. I’m not sure they’re as big as either this precedents analysis or the fact that it’s my system’s pick would suggest – I would conclude that they were, even if it lost, as long as it would win at least four Oscars, including screenplay. I also believe the other three in my top five could realistically hope to win, because the front runners are so incredibly vulnerable-looking. The only ones I’ve officially called as “locked to lose” are the bottom three. Again, not that I think their winning is completely impossible. I’m just confident enough they won’t win that I’m willing to take the slight risk of calling it. As for stats-valid, the top two plus Vice are definitely that, BlacKkKlansman is maybe borderline, while the bottom four are, perhaps, all not valid, though this is a much tougher call to make than it has been in other years, evidently. The lines are much more blurred in this bizarre stats situation we’ve been thrown into in 2019.
Sasha, you forgot Supporting Actress, the one category many readers are most excited to hear your thoughts about! Can you please add it in?
We did it! Sasha officially considers Rachel Weisz as one of the challengers for the win. Gone are the days of the puzzling #5. Thanks for updating the post!
Thank you for clarifying Sound Editing. I was getting tired of all the “AQP is winning”. It’s not.
I kinda want to pick Black Panther for costumes and The Favourite for prod design just to get at least one right.
It’s so funny this year a lot of your predictions will be based on what you do for best picture.
To guarantee one right, you should pick one movie for both. Otherwise, you could be wrong in both. 🙂
That’s what I did but can just see them splitting the opposite way.
I’m gonna go on a limb and say Regina King is still the Best Supporting Actress frontrunner with Rachel Weisz and Marina de Tavira as very possible spoilers.
Given how the guilds are practically unhelpful this year, I would not be surprised at this point if De Tavira pulled a Marcia Gay Harden and won Best Supporting Actress. I would *normally* predict Rachel Weisz had this been in any other situation since she won BAFTA Supporting Actress (but BAFTA only has about 500-600 voters overlap with AMPAS or roughly 6%), but with the new voting body that’s more diverse, I really don’t know (even if I’m pulling for Regina to win);.
Marcia Gay Harden won NYFC. DeTavira’s performance was the weakest of the nominees.
I think it’s a very strong category with all 5 having almost equal merits. Perhaps Weisz is a bit more outstanding than the others, but really not by much. De Tavira definitely isn’t a particularly weak nominee imo.
If that’s your only reason for not predicting Rachel Weisz, I would say predict her! 🙂
I’m not doing any predictions this year. I’m simply just rooting for King.
I’ve not seen If Beale Street Could Talk, and I liked Emma Stone a bit more than Rachel Weisz in The Favourite, so I’m not really rooting for the latter more than I would or wouldn’t if I hadn’t seen The Favourite either. I’m rooting for her a little bit because I prefer the industry snubs stat and would like to see that hold over the ones working against her.
How large is the producer’s guild and what is the crossover with the academy? Same goes for the Director’s Guild. My apologies if that is a dumb question but I’m just not that familiar with the voting bodies
Last year there were about 7,200 voting members in the Academy, with just over 500 producers. Also, there is the “executive branch”, with about 500 members.
The directors are also about 500.
I have no idea about the crossovers.
“If Roma was a consensus winner, wouldn’t it have won the PGA, easily, on a preferential ballot?”
Since the vote totals aren’t publicized, we don’t know if ANY film is an easy winner of PGA. For all we know Roma fell a few votes short there.
Right, it might have been a near tie.
Yeah, GB won PGA, so did Big Short, La La Land, Little Miss Sunshine, Apollo 13, Brokeback Mountain, Aviator, Moulin Rouge, and the Crying Game
DGA, WGA, and BAFTA tell me that GB isn’t the juggernaut it’s being presented as being.
And Supporting Actress?