Everywhere you look it’s actors actors actors. All of the Best Picture frontrunners are full of outstanding actors. It is the year of the ensemble and the ensembles are everywhere. What must then we do? How best to predict what the Screen Actors Guild will do? What will the actors think? What will the actors LIKE best? And why? What will rise to the top of the pile with SAG?
One thing to remember is how much SAG has done to take its place at the forefront of pushing contenders with predominantly black or non-white casts through to the Oscars. In the era of the expanded ballot, all of these casts were nominated:
2009 – Precious
2010 –
2011 – The Help*
2012 –
2013 – 12 Years a Slave+, The Butler
2014 –
2015 – Beasts of No Nation, Straight Outta Compton
2016 – Hidden Figures, Fences, Moonlight
2017 – The Big Sick, Get Out, Mudbound
2018 – Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Crazy Rich Asians
This trend seemed to intensify once the two groups merged to became SAG/AFTRA or perhaps that was just due to there being more inclusion overall in the awards race, more filmmakers of color, more films being made with casts of color. Either way, gone appear to be the days when it was All White All The Time.
If I had to name the top-tier choices for SAG Ensemble right now, my best guess would look something like this:
These feel strong:
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Al Pacino, Bruce Dern, Margot Robbie, Margaret Qually, Timothy Olyphant
Dolemite Is My Name – Eddie Murphy, Wesley Snipes, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Keegan-Michael Key, Craig Robinson, Snoop Dogg, Chris Rock
The Irishman – Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Anna Paquin, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano, Jesse Plemons, Bobby Cannavale.
Marriage Story – Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, Merritt Wever, Wallace Shawn, Julie Hagerty
Bombshell – Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, John Lithgow, Allison Janney, Kate McKinnon, Mark Duplass
Parasite – Kang-ho Song, Sun-kyun Lee, Yeo-jeong Jo, Hye-jin Jang, So-dam Park.
Jojo Rabbit – Roman Griffin Davis, Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johnasson, Tomasin McKenzie, Rebel Wilson
1917-Andrew Scott, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dean-Charles Chapman, Richard Madden, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, George MacKay
Ford v Ferrari – Christian Bale, Matt Damon, Tracy Letts, Josh Lucas, Caitriona Balfe, Noah Jupe
Richard Jewell – Paul Walter Hauser, Kathy Bates, Sam Rockwell, Jon Hamm
Motherless Brooklyn – Edward Norton, Alec Baldwin, Gugu Mbatha Raw, Willem Dafoe, Cherry Jones
Waves – Sterling K. Brown, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Taylor Russell, Kelvin Harrison, Jr., Lucas Hedges.
Little Women – Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson, Laura Dern, Timothee Chalamet
Knives Out – Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Daniel Craig, Don Johnson, Chris Evans, Toni Collette, Michael Shannon
Hustlers – Jennifer Lopez, Constance Wu, Julia Stiles, Cardi B, Kiki Palmer
(Yes I know that’s three for Netflix, yes I know it’s a long shot)
Here is what I know about SAG – it’s not going to be All White All The Time. My pundit pals believe only THREE Netflix movies will get in and they’re all three of the WHITE casts and not the one with the black cast will get in. I’m not so sure about that. SAG is not as white-centric as the bloggers and critics tend to be. Put it this way – if in 2019 all five of the ensemble choices are white casts? Well, best be putting on that shitstorm raincoat because it’s going to be messy out there, and rightfully so. We’re long past the era of white dominance at the SAGs for sure, and probably getting there with the Oscars.
Best Actor
For SAG and Oscar it’s going to be a bloodbath in the Best Actor category. There are way too many contenders to choose from and how do you even choose? I always just start with what I think I know for sure but again, anything can happen with a randomly selected group of voters.
Joaquin Phoenix, Joker
Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Robert De Niro, The Irishman
Eddie Murphy, Dolemite Is My Name
Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory
But also, impossibly: Adam Driver, Marriage Story; Paul Walter Hauser, Richard Jewell; Adam Sandler, Uncut Gems; Edward Norton, Motherless Brooklyn; Jonathan Pryce, The Two Popes, not to mention Matt Damon and Christian Bale from Ford v Ferrari.
It’s NUTS, the Best Actor race. NUTS.
Best Actress is a little bit easier, and that looks like:
Renee Zellweger, Judy
Charlize Theron, Bombshell
Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story
Saoirse Ronan, Little Women
Lupita Nyong’o, Us
Then we have Alfre Woodard, Clemency; Cynthia Erivo, Harriet; Jodie Turner-Smith, Queen & Slim; Awkwafina, The Farewell; Elisabeth Moss, Her Smell.
Supporting Actor
Brad Pitt – Once upon a Time in Hollywood
Joe Pesci – The Irishman
Tom Hanks, Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Wesley Snipes, Dolemite Is My Name
Tracy Letts, Ford v Ferrari
Then we have: Jamie Foxx, Just Mercy; Willem Dafoe, The Lighthouse; John Lithgow, Bombshell; Al Pacino, The Irishman; Sam Rockwell, Jojo Rabbit; Anthony Hopkins, The Two Popes; Shia LaBeouf, Honey Boy; Alan Alda, Marriage Story; Zack Gottsagen, The Peanut Butter Falcon; Sterling K. Brown, Waves; Tim Robbins, Dark Waters.
Supporting Actress
Laura Dern, Marriage Story
Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers
Da’vine Joy Randolph, Dolemite is My Name
Margot Robbie, Bombshell
Kathy Bates, Richard Jewell
But also: Scarlett Johansson, Jojo Rabbit; Florence Pugh, Little Women; Anne Hathaway, Dark Waters; Shuzhen Zhao,The Farewell; Thomasin McKenzie, Jojo Rabbit; Taylor Russell, Waves; Nicole Kidman, Bombshell; Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Motherless Brooklyn.
While this piece is only supposed to be focused on the acting categories, here are a few more bonus predictions:
Best Director
Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Martin Scorsese, The Irishman
Bong Joon-Ho, Parasite
Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit
Sam Mendes, 1917
But also: Todd Phillips, Joker; James Mangold, Ford v Ferrari; Clint Eastwood,Richard Jewell; Noah Baumbach, Marriage Story;, Craig Brewer, Dolemite Is My Name; Jay Roach, Bombshell; Greta Gerwig, Little Women: Melina Matsoukas, Queen & Slim; Trey Edward Shults, Waves; Fernando Meirelles, The Two Popes; Marielle Heller, Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood; Jordan Peele, Us.
Would SAG manage to resist this? https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/56e057f8b47103d7bdc3bca7fefa907dcca6ee0d9356c1ffab07bcfd586360a4.jpg
So I was considering taking Little Women out of picture because the reactions seemed kinda muted… Now the reviews are out and that feels like a mistake – people are gushing… Though to be fair i know critics aren’t the academy and there does seem to be a certain level of wokeness to the praise so maybe my initial reaction could end up being correct.
Robert Pattinson for BA in The Lighthouse ? and BSA for The King ? It could be possible.
Not sure about SAG, but, after re-watching it, I’m hopeful Kang-ho Song gets nominated at Oscar for Supporting Actor. I also hope Hanks is up for Supporting Actor. Not sure about the chances of either…but hopeful.
I’m going to predict what some people will think is a huge “upset” but for me, Renee Zelwegger is going to get the same treatment Audrey Hepburn got for “My Fair Lady.” That is, no nomination. After you nominate the makeup for “Judy,” there’s not much in Zelwegger’s performance that captures Garland the way Judy Davis did in the TV mini-series, decades ago. Zelwegger’s ticks — her trademarked squinty eyes and her tendency to constantly purse her lips — take the viewer out of the movie and her interpretation. THey remind you that you’re just watching Zelwegger, not Judy Garland. Garland fans will recognize this — and there’s plenty of them in the Academy — and Zelwegger’s overrated performance will be overlooked, giving room for the great Alfre Woodard who hasn’t been recognized with an award nomination for far too long.
Nowadays the critics overreact to many things and many of the films are overrated. And what the fuck is the concept of MOVIE movie?
The only thing I watched this year that I will throw the word masterpiece around is Irishman and Parasite. I will reserve my opinion on 1917 and Little women after I watch them.
Parasite is probably the only movie this year that people talk about in the year 2045. That’s all.
At film school they will probably be teaching both Pain and Glory and Us, too.
I am considering throwing my darling Parasite out from winning Best Picture. I hate to do this, but I think 1917 cannot be ignored and sounds like it is a masterpiece, so at least the best film of the decade loses to a great film.
There are so many Brits in Academy too. Many of them will vote for 1917 and it will take at least 3 technical Oscars. With Picture a total of 5-6, IMO. Not a real sweep, because it will be nominated for 10-12, but it is as sweep as they come nowadays.
I keep Bong for Director though. The category is very foreign.
I also have an urge to put George MacKay for Actor, but who the eff I will replace him with?
This year is just crazy good… and we should embrace it!
Even with 1917 I think bong is winning director.
1917 is a technical achievement, I doubt it’s winning without director!
Gave a second chance to jo jo rabbit… I know a lot of people like it, I don’t understand how that’s possible. It’s just awful.
I found the movie a legit 4/10
That’s how I’ve felt about many films people loved the past few years. Call Me By Your Name is unwatchable to me. Can You Ever Forgive Me? = same. Birdman is awful. La La Land is a snoozefest, Lady Bird is BORING as all get out.
Omg I love all those movies you just mentioned haha.
And that’s fine! I realize many love them. I just don’t. Like Aku Max didn’t like Jojo. Nothing wrong with that either.
Wow, do you throw puppies off cliffs for sport? (Although you are right about Call)
Yes i do! Hahah
Tom Hanks is just wonderful in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
This 1917 shit is getting serious…
https://twitter.com/AwardsDaily/status/1198706326265716736
I just really love it!!! I hope it sweeps everything!!! Finally, a MOVIE movie winning the Oscar!
And god, you’re becoming annoying with your MOVIE movies rant. Aren’t films by Scorsese and other great artist not MOVIE movies?
There is more. If he considers 1917 a MOVIE Movie, aren’t Dunkirk and hacksaw Ridge as well? Or had he been sleeping all this time?
I love both Dunkirk and Hacksaw Ridge. And no matter how you two dislike it, It is my opinion, and I can post it here.
And films like these you mentioned, are not made regularly. In the last few years, industry has been dominated by many indies and franchises.
I get your point. Also, we’re only talking about war movies here and one car racing movie, but there are other kinds of middle-brow films that don’t really get made any more or not as much or not as well or with less fanfare than in the 90’s.
What is your problem with me? Every time I post here in this site you reply my comments in a very offensive and ironic way and I am starting to think that it is personal. If you continue to do this, I will report you. I have printed all your past reactions to my comments and IF you continue to sistematically disturbe me, I will consider it very personal and send them to the owner of this site.
I cannot wait! But am seeing some that don’t love it on Twitter. Some calling it ‘the emo little brother of Dunkirk.’
No worries. People say lots of silly things on the internet. It’s just noise.
can you share the tweet ? of course i am not buying into the initial positive twitter reaction…these people are given free tickets, seats and probably free popcorn in the best possible theater settings in the world..they are not gonna say..it sucked.
Why is anyone who is a serious awards commentator still posting screening reactions as some sort of gauge of the race?
They are much more often wrong than right. How many times have we be told (insert award body) went gaga over (insert film) only to be proven wrong come nominations and awards time?
I guess you are referring to me. The person whose opinion I posted is no other than Sasha Stone. The person who, you know, runs this site.
I guess when she posts here her opiniom you will take it seriously
It wasn’t a go at you. I’m just interested in how wrong the screening “reaction” stories have proven to be in the past. I don’t believe them.
I love Mendes and can’t wait to see it. I hope it’s a juggernaut as none of the other major contenders excite me, I can’t wait to see Newman win his overdue Oscar (how he didn’t win for American Beauty is a mystery).
But we should take a deep breath for now, we really don’t know a lot yet
Neither Phoenix nor Driver. Sasha just saw 1917 and says there is a new actor frontrunner
http://www.twitter. com/AwardsdailyNews/status/1198693977471385600
And this is why there is no such thing as a “lock” and especially not in September when everyone and their mother was ready to bet the farm on the Phoenix-Driver-De Niro-DiCaprio-Banderas quintet that for the record could still happen but it won’t be nearly as easy for any one of them to make the cut with
– Academy fave Bale headlining a critically acclaimed hit film released in November
– the legendary Elton John campaigning for a game Egerton
– not one but three veterans hoping for their first BA nominations (Pryce, Murphy, Sandler)
– not one but three relative unknowns impressing in BP players (MacKay, Hauser, Davis)
So while the originally presumed quintet could still happen, at this point I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if 2 or 3 of them got snubbed in the end. We have 13 major players for 5 slots so there will be some painful cuts in this category for sure. And I’m sticking to my old take here : nobody is safe. NOBODY.
Could look like this. Assuming McKay is the frontrunner.
McKay
DiCaprio
Driver
Phoenix
Bale/DeNiro
Who knows though. Yes, many others are in the mix, but when it’s all said and done the following I just don’t see happening: Pryce, Sandler, Hauser, Murphy, Egerton, Davis.
Weirdly, I think Bale is stronger than DeNiro and maybe even Leo? Gonna be crazy.
I think Bale IS stronger than De Niro and Leo. He has an Oscar-friendly release date, a universally acclaimed film, strong Box Office and MVP status on his side. The De Niro / DiCaprio duo only have two of those four. Both are thought to be overshadowed by co-stars, OUATIH was released early and The Irishman won’t have Box Office.
Common wisdom
1. Phoenix
2. Driver
3. De Niro
4. DiCaprio
5. Banderas
6. Bale
7. Pryce
8. Egerton
9. Murphy
10. MacKay
11. Hauser
12. Davis
13. Sandler
My not so wise current prediction
1. Phoenix
2. Driver
3. Banderas
4. Bale
5. MacKay
There are some levels of a lock. Parasite is a near-lock to win International. 97% certainty, I will give it. I wouldn’t think this way with the old rules, but everybody votes for that category now. How can it lose?
Jeeeez… whoever wins this year’s Lead Actor will have some legit bragging rights! The race is insaaaaane!
I agree. Nobody is really locked at this point. But Driver and Phoenix seem pretty close.
The race seems to shape it up between “Ford Vs Ferrari” and “1917”. At this point, maybe only Once Up on a Time in Hollywood looks like a spoiler. It is reported by Deadline that, before the american premier/release of “1917”, there will be a special gala screening of Sam Mendes film to BAFTA voters with the Royal Family attending. So, the film is already an event in England. “Ford Vs Ferrari” is the huge epic of a MOVIE movied, leaded by superb performances, box office champion and beloved by audiences. At the moment, these are our clear frontrunners, and one of these two probably will win the Best Picture prize. I am very happy that epics MOVIE movies seems to be winning Oscars again.
“Ford v Ferrari” won’t win anything (well, maybe sound or editing, but that’s it). Such movies no longer win important Oscars. 🙂
It needs to be an event or wow everyone. It’s neither.
It is both an event and wowing people.
What a peculiar season because I do agree with you, I also think that right now it is probably down to FvF and 1917 in Best Picture yet neither is looking all that great for either screenplay mentions or proper SAG love. So I guess they can either surprise us all on those fronts OR they could just break precedent OR we could be simply still in for a surprise or two from other films. Either way at least it is shaping up to be an exciting season !
I bet you it’s going to come down to Netflix V LFL for BP and one of those damn stats is going break. History will be made. But 1917 could sweep. It’s more personal and emotional film than I was expecting, judging by the reactions. Edgar Wright called immersing and I am not surprised by that. I thought that would the effect of the one shot take for the whole film, especially a war film.
BP winners have to be important, about the moment or simply great films. I can see why 1917 is touted as BP winner, but what’s this nonsense about Ford V Ferrari?
Ford Vs Ferrari is a masterpice, a great film like you call.
When Japanese want to take video with their phones, they ask permission: ”movie movie?”
Been there 5 times.
Shoplifters should have won Foreign last time. Not Roma. Sorry, Mexicans.
Dolemite Is My Name is way OVER RATED here.
You mean Overrated Is My Name. 😉
Yeah, it is. It’s a solid movie with solid performances but nothing special (it’s the worse version of “Disaster Artist” and Murphy isn’t the ‘best performance of the year’ as Sasha claims – he even can’t be compared with the far better performances of Banderas, Phoenix or DiCaprio).
Bomb!!!!!
Kathy Bates is going Lead for SAG. We need to know if the same strategy will be used at the Globes, BAFTA and Oscar for example. Nathaniel Rogers, at The Film Experience, just posted a photo of a printed ballot of a friend of him, who is part of the SAG Comittee Voting this year.
Considering that the race for Best Actress is considered weak by many, maybe they will push Bates as leading in the other awards. We have to wait and see. It is deserving of note, that SAG voters can not change the placement of the category the actor is submitted.
Quite the surprise and a risky strategy, as well. There is wiggle room in both Actress categories and she would have way better chances in supporting for playing the sympathetic mother of the title character than trying to convince voters that she is a lead in a film called “Richard Jewell”.
Last year, first reactions for Roma were announcing the second coming of the Movie God, while first reactions for Bohemian Rhapsody were basically “shit hit the fan, please don’t watch”.
3 Oscars Roma
4 Oscars BR
This year every movie screening for the awards’ crowd seems to be welcomed as the ultimate masterpiece, so far I have to say none of them is a masterpiece in my opinion (yes, including The Irishman).
yep, this year is really going overboard with overreactions to movies. Everything is a masterpiece except Joker.
Joker which is going to pick up wins all season and moved already over 1 billion.
it’s a movie they tried to sink. resilience won.
Infrainess to Joker, it’s a thousand miles a better movie than Bohemian Rhapsody.
And some of this year’s sure-fire nominees who are just cute and/or agreeable.
I saw Knives Out. I have no idea why its getting rave reviews. Maybe Ive read too many great murder mysteries by people like P.D.James but I thought the murder mystery was really slight and unimpressive. Brick is 10 times the mystery.
I’ve noticed that, while the cast has impressive names, only 3 out of 20 or so are getting critical notices (Craig, de Armas, Evans). For such a supposed ensemble player, surely more actors would stand out and yet it’s just 3. Interesting.
They are all enjoyable as they are playing broad rich asshole characters but it’s being sold as a whodunnit and it’s not that impressive as a mystery.
I figured that mystery might not be all that since most reviews gushed over political references more. You always have to wonder when something like that gets more praise than story, characters, other more important aspect.
Most characters are paper thin caricatures (intentionally), so the actors can’t really deliver anything super strong.
exactly what I gauged from the trailer.
I mean, Jamie Lee Curtis could deliver if she had the material. Her best scene was smoking a cigarette. The kid (from IT, right?) says one line in the whole movie. Actors are SO underused in this that it bothered me. And some are saying that Knives Out should be up for Best Ensemble. The biggest joke of the year.
I have been saying the same. Everybody in my country (Finland) have given it 2/5 or 3/5, but Americans give it the highest scores. Must be a cultural thing.
I liked it okay, so 3/5 from me.
“Americans” being critics who go bananas for anything that critcizes white people since that’s a current fad among white critics. And this movie has a white hispanic maid/caretaker (but hispanic so pretend she isn’t as white as the family she works for) and white rich people (read: no good). So yeah, it’s a cultural thing on their part.
Off topic:
Recommend 4 or 5 top-notch murder mysteries? Fairly recent and fairly obscure? I’d appreciate your word as a whodunnit aficionado.
(I have a 7-hour road-trip and overnight medical thing this week, and some good audiobook murders will help pass the time.)
Are you okay?
Surprised and sad that nobody wants to give me any murder tips.
After the 1917 reactions, thinking:
Picture – OUATIH v Irishman v 1917 v Jojo v Marriage Story ??? Impossible to tell yet.
Director – Mendes v Bong (with Scorsese and Tarantino as spoilers if AMPAS lovvvves the films).
Actor – Driver v Phoenix (outside shot of Pryce if he’s nommed and if AMPAS loves the film).
Actress – I honestly see Zellweger out in front with a smattering knipping at the heels.
S.Actor – Pitt v The Irishmen. Maybe Hanks.
S.Actress – Dern v Robbie. I still think JLo maybe getting a nom will be her win.
Original Screenplay – Parasite v Marriage Story v OUATIH
Adapted – Jojo.
Editing – FvF v 1917.
Cinematography – 1917.
Production Design – 1917.
Costumes – No idea. Could be anything. Little Women?
Hair/Make-Up – ditto above. Depends on what that branch goes for.
Sound Editing – FvF v 1917 (maybe Star Wars).
Sound Mixing – FvF v 1917 (maybe Star Wars).
FX – The Irishman v Star Wars (Avengers if AMPAS gets over their bias).
Score – 1917.
Song – Could be anything.
International – Parasite
Doc – American Factory?
Animated – Toy Story 4, most likely. But I think Frozen II puts up a fight. HTTYD3 should contend, but most likely won’t (as a saga-ending franchise).
Frozen 2 is going to win only if Disney sacrifices Toy Story 4 and campaign the shit out of Frozen 2 at Toy Story 4’s expense. reviews aren’t there at all for Frozen 2 but winning various precursors would keep the boxoffice hot, which is the studio’s priority atm.It didn’t get the coveted A+ but only A- so they won’t take any chances.
1917 for Editing? Not happening, because Academy goes for the MOST edited film. This is Ford’s to lose.
Good point.
Moulin Rouge says hi
Good point.
I’ve just seen Ford V Ferrari and it was amazing! I was really looking forward to seeing this film, and it was even better than I had anticipated. I really didn’t know much about the story either.
Bale is just sublime. Everything he touches turns to gold. Damon too. His performance is quietly moving. I’d really like to see Bale get nominated here. I can even see why Sasha has Tracy Letts down for supporting actor. He is excellent. Or could Damon be in the supporting race too? It’s more Best Actor with screen time and role, though you could say it’s a supporting role too.
The editing is kick ass. Great screenplay, and the directing by James Mangold is all class. Just has to be in the Best Picture line up.
This is in my top 5 films so far that I’ve seen this year.
Excited to see what’s next… What a season!
1917 just beat up Ford V. Ferrari and stole its lunch money and Oscars!
Yeah, before yesterday’s reactions to 1917, I’d have said FvF had Editing and the Sounds locked up. Now. I think FvF would be lucky to get one of them; but which? Whatever the case … LOVED FvF.
If this were a boxing match, the referee would stop the fight now, It’s over. 1917 for the sweep. Picture, director, cinematography, sound, sound fx edit, editing, and score. I saw it and it’s not even close. Down goes Scorsese, down goes QT!
Down will NOT go Bong. Parasite still wins Director.
Tero, please see both films before you pronounce. It’s not CLOSE
I will not believe you until
I see 1917. People who saw it yesterday told me that Parasite is not dead yet. I trust them more than you (who I don’t even know).
You won’t believe me, but you’ll believe other people who fit your narrative? Do you call in to Fox & Friends from time to time?
I would call them to throw an F-bomb on live television.
Original score is for Joker
Don’t predict anything on merit. Especially not after Hurwitz was snubbed.
Overreaction like that makes me think it’s NOT winning BP (’cause we’ve heard that SO often in recent years, and there never has been a sweep, plus I don’t even think a single one of the movies this was said about even ended up winning BP – I don’t think ANYBODY at any point said this kind of thing about Moonlight, Spotlight, Birdman or even TSOW… and definitely not about Green Book… maybe 12 Years a Slave), even though I’m unofficially predicting it right now. 🙂
So Roger Deakins is winning his 2nd Oscar and Thomas Newman is winning his very overdue 1st.
This has been a near certainty for months. Now it is reality. Newman wins on his 15th nom. COOL!
What do people think Ford Vs Ferrari will get? I think it will get BP and it might get acting for Bale since BP tends to have a major nomination, especially acting. But I don’t think it gets any other major nomination except editing. I think BD and screenplay are way off. 1917 might squeeze into screenplay if it’s a frontrunner. It might have more character than it first seemed, judging from the first reactions. But BOS is still a tough competition.
You also made a valid point that now the “easy” categories FvF could have won, are bound to be taken over by 1917. Not sure yet where it will land, I do think FvF will have a strong showing on Nominations Morning, how strong exactly, that I don’t know. What could help it is that it does seem like the kind of film people “love” like Green Book, only more polished with bigger scope.
Picture, Original Screenplay, Editing, both Sounds and Score are my predictions to this.
I am very happy with “1917” phenomenal reactions from critics and industry insiders. They are basically having an orgasm. Second Oscar for Deakins, first so overdue for Newman and the film being the frontrunner with “Ford Vs Ferrari”. The epics and big films are back! Finally! This is more than I dreamed. I was so tired of the dominance of the indies at the Oscar. I just hated “Birdman”, considered “Spotlight” an Ok film, and was shocked when “Moonlight” won over “La La Land” – which is a true deserved winner. As I stated here, the last winners that I really liked and loved were “12 Years a Slave” and “The Shape of Water”. This year is just a dream in terms of frontrunners.
Ford v Ferrari is not going anywhere outside Editing. This should be a fact by now? Even in November.
It is not what many Academy Members are saying.
That was close to being considered to be ‘fact’ roughly two weeks ago when it had been, for over two months at that point, sitting on an unspectacular 71 on Metacritic and was about to deliver an opening weekend that the studio officially expected to be in the high teens, a result that would have been very underwhelming for a 100M studio pic with two major movie stars.
But then the film ended up with a final critical consensus in the “universal acclaim” range (81 Metacritic); received the very rare A+ Cinemascore from the audiences and delivered an excellent 31M opening weekend.
And that’s when the “eh it isn’t getting a BP nod” narrative around it turned into the “damn everyone loves this movie could it even win ?” narrative.
For the record I’m not as bullish about its BP chances as Pete Hammond over at Deadline who actually thinks it could win, but at this point I would say it is definitely a near-lock for the nomination. It has rave reviews, stellar Box Office and an Oscar-friendly release date. A killer combo that NONE of the other top contenders possess. Not yet anyway.
I think he means in terms of wins. It might get filler nominations, but it’s not a contender for major categories. And now it will struggle to win tech awards after 1917’s arrival into the race.
Exactly. I talk about wins. It can not win anything other than Editing or maybe add Sound Editing. Surely FvF will be nominated for 7 or 8.
While I firmly believe Moonlight is a masterpiece that was a very deserving BP winner over La La Land that I considered to be overrated, I do agree that if this season could inspire big studios to bring back the MOVIE movies, then that would be one of the more welcome new trends of recent years. At last the new “it” thing wouldn’t be chasing a potential “universe” or some second-rate franchise or some unnecessary reboot / remake / sequel but to chase the next original event film with an auteur at the helm working with a “MOVIE movie” budget.
Phanton, I love the MOVIE movies. I miss the kinds of films that used to win Oscars in the 80’s and the 90’s. Even the small dramas of the 80’s and the 90’s were suberb, like “Ordinary People” and “Tears of Endearment in the 80’s and “Secrets and Lies” in the 90’s. The 90’s were heaven, with “Dances with Wolves”, “Silence of Lambs”, “Unforgiven”, Schindler’s List”, “Braveheart”, “Titanic” – Ohhh God! I miss the days when films only cared about being films – if you understand me. That is why I am so happy this year with this set of contenders.
What the heck stopped making these movies? I don’t think it’s Oscar which rejected them. They just weren’t made in the same quality. Sometimes the audience doesn’t want them.
I’ve always thought the MOVIE movie was the victim of the unfortunate then-new industry model that started roughly 20 years ago with the rise of the mini majors who suddenly proved that even relatively low-budget indies could win BP (Shakespeare in Love) over costly MOVIE movies (Saving Private Ryan) begging the question that the relatively high-risk MOVIE movie budgets may not be necessary then. And around the same time brand new franchises started shattering all sorts of previous Box Office records (X-Men, Spider-Man, Harry Potter, LOTR), bringing in unprecedented amount of dough worldwide.
The combination of these two developments prompted the industry to essentially cancel midrange budgets and focus almost exclusively on low-budget indies for awards consideration and mega-budget tentpoles with franchise potential for some good old-fashioned money grabbing.
There were of course solid attempts over the years for MOVIE movies (Cold Mountain, Master and Commander, The Aviator, Atonement, Australia, The Curious Benjamin Button, War Horse, Life of Pi, Bridge of Spies, Hacksaw Ridge etc.) and some of them even succeeded to a point but none of them broke through enough to be able to go all the way in Best Picture, not in recent years anyway.
This year with a bunch of MOVIE movies expected to dominate the Oscar season (and the Holiday / January Box Office), studio execs may just take notice and think again before pummelling another 300M+ into the production and marketing of some lame fourth sequel of a franchise that should have probably remained a standalone hit to begin with (I’m looking at you Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers) and find better projects to spend that money on.
Here is hoping.
P.S. And I’m not even shitting on tentpoles. The FIRST films of franchises like Pirates and Transformers WERE highly entertaining and rather decent quality, too, but lord were the costly sequels absolutely unnecessary even if they managed to make some money.
I strongly agree with you Phantom, but I dare to say that the model of low budget films produced by the indies of the past (and here I quote Miramax and Dreamworks, the later in its first days) were really MOVIE movies. Miramax bravely – and alone – produced “The English Patient” – which is an espectacle and was not low budget – and the studio also brought to life “Pulp Fiction”. Even “Shakespeare in Love” is not an indie in its inception. It is a small period piece, which for me it is very far from an indie. And Dreamworks at the beginning brought to us “American Beauty” – which is a treasure, “Gladiator” and “A Beautiful Mind” – winning a Trifeca of Oscars. But in the past we used to call them “Independent Studios” (Annapurna Pictures reminds me a lot of Miramax of the 90’s and I really like that. I like the risks that Annapurna takes) Very different for example of the model of production of A24, which makes really INDIE indies. And another point: while Harvey at Miramax and Spielberg at Dreamworks cared about making the Oscar bait films to win Academy Awards – mostly of them MOVIE movies, A24 films and others Indies studios seems to focus more on social questions or social films. I also think that with the death of names like Sidney Pollack, Saul Zaents and Anthony Minghella, this kind of MOVIE movie died a little too.
What do you mean MOVIE movie? I have a problem with that term. Are Martin Scorsese films not MOVIE movies? When it comes to epic movies (story telling through visual and performance), I think of Kubrick and Scorsese. And the modern director to go for such epic films is PTA. I have qualms about There Will be Blood, which many critics think is the best film this century, because I feel the screenplay isn’t as great as the rest of the film. I look at films from the screenplay point view these days, whereas when I was younger I looked at it from visual and character/performance point of view. If you look at TWBB from a visual and character/performance point of view, then it is probably the best film this century. The reason I say that is because that is what I see in Kubrick and Scorsese films and it’s what makes them great. It is the visual and performance that makes their film what they are. You can chuck out the dialogue in their films, and they will still remain great. In fact, one of the great things about their films is how little screenplay does in the films. All you really need is a combination of great visual directors like Kubrick and Scorsese and great character performers like Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, Peter Sellers, Joe Pesci, Malcom McDowell and R. Lee Ermey. Scorsese said after winning Oscar for The Departed that it was the first time in his career that had to work with a plot. And this makes perfect sense because his films seem to rely on the visual and character/performance to drive it to its final destination.
I think they were Weinstein-ised and that was their undoing. Also, Hollywood has fallen in cycle of endless superheroes and mega film franchises. It became formulaic and clichéd. It was as if the only reason they made those films was to win Oscar. They were just became generic and had no originality whatsoever.
It is an industry’s problem that I never understood, because when they are made, audiences bite them strong. See the example now of “Ford Vs Ferrari”, with a huge box office, “Darkest Hour” which can be considered a small epic historical film and also “Dunkirk” made tons of money, so I think that it is about an industry problems. Maybe with this year incredible box office of films like “Ford Vs Ferrari” and “Downtown Abbey” they back the machine to the production of these films again. “La La Land” for example made almost 500M globally. For me another problem worth of note, was the proliferation of indie films and indie studios (not they do not produce good films) that most of the times were overhyped by many woke critics, but most of the times they never connected with audiences.
“For me another problem worth of note, was the proliferation of indie films and indie studios (not they do not produce good films) that most of the times were overhyped by many woke critics, but most of the times they never connected with audiences.”
But that was always the case. I think what made those films standout was the lavish production. But people are no longer really blown away by lavish productions because it’s very prominent nowadays due to superhero films and mega film franchises. Those films were an event, but that’s not the case anymore. I mean, why do you think people went in droves to see Titanic and Avatar? It wasn’t because of a great story telling. It was because of the epic scale and former was a little bit because of DiCaprio.
Man, these movies are still being made. If you want a movie like Ordinary people, I compare it to August Osage County.
Silence of the lambs: David Fincher makes movies like that. Zodiac, Gone Girl, Girl with Dragon tatoo are examples
These films are not being made anymore. “Dances with Wolves”, “The English Patient”, “Braveheart”, “Out of Africa, “Titanic”, this kind of film is not being made anymore. I quoted “Silence of Lambs to exemplify the richness of the 90’s in films. I am talking about the epics and big films mostly. And by the way, “August Osage County was 6 years ago by now.
Loved AOC…
https://media3.giphy.com/media/lp0fueN25sxx49Nknj/giphy.gif
I have no idea what that is… 🙂
(If it’s a reference, that is.)
Me too
Me too. Isn’t she great? I mean, I don’t agree with some of her policies, but she is great.
My guess is you’re joking, and are fully aware I was referring to August: Osage County. 🙂 As was aroncido. (I have no idea who the lady in question is, as stated before. Politics isn’t my thing…)
Yes, of course. Her name is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. OAC is her initials and she goes by it.
🙂 Yeah, I looked it up after I wrote the reply. Had to be something like that…
We must be the only 2 regular posters here who LOVE the 90’s and their BP winners… 🙂
I think there are others Claudiu, but it is true that we are the strongest supporters.
🙂 Yeah, probably true – it just FEELS like there aren’t any, most of the time…
Fully agree!!!
Is La La Land really an epic film? That’s not epic to me in shape or form. But I have to say that I wouldn’t have been disappointed if won BP. It’s one of the few years where I wouldn’t have mind which ever of the top two won BP. I think LLL would have been one of the top three winners this decade if it had won. But it lost the best BP winner this decade. LLL had more visual style, Moonlight had more depth. More depth than you have wished for. It’s very rare to such film do so well at the Oscars. But in someway it’s typical Oscar winner since it’s all about character.
I didn’t said La La Land was an epic. Of course, it is a musical. It is a BIG film, a MOVIE movie. In my comment I talked about the epics and big films – that which LLL is.
What is really a MOVIE movie? Nice visual with a weak or nothing storyline?
Agreed – it’s definitely not an epic.
“It’s one of the few years where I wouldn’t have mind which ever of the top two won BP.”
Same for me. 🙂 Neither was my #1 (Arrival), or #2 (Lion), but both were excellent. Probably 3rd and 4th (Moonlight slightly ahead), of the nominees.
That´s a typical reaction when they are invited to prestigious preview screenings like this. The public almost seems to expect orgasmic responses – it´s also good to get cited. 😉
I hope you’re right about this! (Although I don’t share your hate of Birdman – the one I hated was TSOW. I loved 12 Years, Birdman and Spotlight, and Moonlight was very strong, though not my #1 – or 2 or 3…)
Lord, George McKay is getting very strong notices, too. If 1917 turns into a top5 player as it is widely expected, thanks to the last minute timing (most recent for voters), he may even have a shot at making a dent in the supremely crowded Best Actor race. My take at the moment :
01. Joaquin Phoenix
02. Adam Driver
03. Antonio Banderas
04. Robert De Niro
05. Christian Bale
06. Leonardo DiCaprio
07. Jonathan Pryce
08. Taron Egerton
09. Eddie Murphy
10. Paul Walter Hauser
11. George McKay
12. Roman Griffin Davis
I wish I could narrow this down to a shorter list but the truth is I could still make legit cases for AND against every single one of these 12. It is just an incredibly competitive year in Best Actor this year.
I’m rooting for 1917 sight-unseen, now that it’s semi-officially a thing, so I hope he does get in and improve its BP-winning chances!…
Rooting for it because I love Sam Mendes, war movies, epics, etc.
I am not rooting for it until I see it. I hate blockbuster war films, but I hope it’s like Dunkirk. I like Mendes too.
I should’ve specified, of course: I love GOOD (or great) war movies and epics and so on… 🙂 (Such as Dunkirk, indeed.)
Yeah, I’d say he’ll be somewhere in those “12”, for sure.
He probably debuted way too late to make an impression on SAG / HFPA voters but he may make up for it with the Oscar / Bafta crowd as long as he is willing to screen and Q&A it all day every day for the next few weeks. But for now my official take is he is a long shot.
OK 1917 is officially a contender for a BP nomination now, early word is very strong just as expected. To me this means we now have our 7th near lock in BP :
1917
Ford v Ferrari
Jojo Rabbit
Marriage Story
Parasite
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
The Irishman
There will be 8 or 9 slots here so we have only one or two left. Many would argue that The Two Popes and Joker have those in the bag but I am not sold on either just yet. It could happen but they definitely have legit competition especially if
– Little Women receives multiple SAG nominations, rave reviews (81+ MC) and makes as much at the Box Office as many seem to expect it will (100M+ domestic)
– Bombshell, with its massive star power and super timely story, surprises us all by stronger than expected reviews (75+ MC), precursors (SAG Ensemble nod) and Box Office (50M+ domestic)
– Richard Jewell turns into a surprise hit at the Box Office, ends up with a solid critical consensus and unexpectedly strong precursor love (multiple SAG nominations)
– A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood delivers a leggy run on top of its stellar reviews and reaches the 100M range by late December / early January a.k.a. just around the time Oscar voting for nominations will take place
Bottom line : I think we have 7 down and for the last two slots we have 6 viable options.
It’s not a contender. It’s the frontrunner and by quite a bit if you look at Twitter.
I’ve seen the tweets and for sure they are all raves but I’ve been burned by rapturous early word from industry screenings before so I will need to see the numbers first : Metacritic and Box Office in particular.
Jojo Rabbit got unanimous raves after its TIFF debut yet started at 46 on MC the next morning and never got above 58 that turned out to be its final score. I’m not saying that will happen to 1917 or that the two films are on the same level, I’m saying until the embargo lifts on the 4th and I see proof of the widely expected unanimous critical praise, I remain cautiously optimistic about this one. Or any still embargoed contender for that matter.
P.S. I can definitely see it in the top5 (BP + BD nods) but I’m not sure it could actually go all the way. For that it would probably need nominations for writing and acting and while both could still happen (if it will be hailed by critics as a masterpiece, the script nod wouldn’t be that much of a reach and McKay is getting very strong notices, too), right now the film is a long shot in those categories.
To be fair this is much better than the Jojo Rabbit raves even were and with the Jojo Dave’s there were dissenters – I haven’t found a dissenter 1917 tweet yet! I don’t think this necessarily mean it is the frontrunner – with the Irishman and Parasite and OUATIH and others I don’t think we can say that yet but it is upper echelon of the pack based on these raves. Plus it sounds like it is, as Sasha would say, a MOVIE movie.
But yeah to win I think McKay would need to break in and it would need writing support. Who knows maybe it could happen.
I think it can. I’m not happy predicting any of the earlier favorites, so I’m considering just going with this as my final unofficial prediction before the critics’ groups start chiming in.
I think its most likely path is getting in for screenplay and becoming the clear front-runner for directing early (immediately post-critics, no later – could it possibly even be the critics’ darling there?!), even if it doesn’t get in at SAG or for any of its performances at the Oscars. It’s a stretch but, in the days of AFTRA and top contenders missing key noms left and right, I could see it winning BP without both of those, a la Braveheart. If it sweeps the rest of the guilds (give or take a WGA) and stuff, of course. Braveheart did need all of its rivals to miss something big, so 1917 will likely need the same thing. This has happened the last two years, though (and, in a way, a few other times before that, since the preferential ballot was reinstated), so why not a third?! Also, Braveheart won WITHOUT winning PGA OR DGA – but it did win the WGA, which seems pretty unlikely for 1917. So I think it needs the PGA+DGA combo. I definitely don’t think DGA should be enough. Maybe, but I doubt it. A lone PGA win could be – but then does it ever not also win the DGA?! Doesn’t seem like that kind of a contender.
Yeah I agree the pga/ dga combination win and a screenplay nomination is it’s best path to winning but yeah whether it can do that is yet to be seen. If it gets am actor in that’ll really help it too.
I enjoy this time of year because anything could win right now because nothing has really missed what it has to do most of the arguments are “this movie can win if it wins or is nominated for x and y” so it is very speculative and fun.
I used to not like the speculation portion of the season much, but I’ve come around to it. It’s pretty fun, indeed… 🙂
A few people were saying one of the actors in it (George McKay I think was the name) was getting raves as well (you may have seen those posts too), so, while that may mean nothing for ensemble, it could mean its chances of getting an acting nomination aren’t terrible either.
Yeah Sasha is posting about him but also saying the acting is strong all around so that could be helpful for SAG, though I actually think it’s screening too late for that since voting has already started. I’d say even if McKay is going somewhere he won’t show up at SAG. This year is just really crazy with how early everything is happening!
I mean, considering how late it’s been released, if this movie shows up at SAG AT ALL, I think it will be evidence of gargantuan strength for BP… (Not that it couldn’t still lose even then, a la The Revenant, which got Leo in – although it’s one thing to get such a huge name in and it’s another to get a fairly unknown actor in, or the ensemble for a war movie.) No, I too expect it to be shut out there, show up enough at the Globes (maybe miss 1-2 things like screenplay or acting, which are strong-enough stats but can be overcome – the directing nomination stat is stronger there), but still win BP after making it in for everything more or less everywhere else. (Not that I’m very confident about any of that, of course. It just seems that, if it is to win, that is its most likely path.)
I mean Revenant wasn’t as late as 1917 though – Revenant started screening before SAG started voting if I recall whereas 1917 didn’t even have its first screening until voting was already underway. But yeah I agree with all of that.
No matter how much people are hyping the movie up, a late-breaking film that isn’t being considered for screenplay or acting wins isn’t the frontrunner for picture
We have these over-hyped contenders nearly every year, and most of the times it turns out to be some kind of phantom gregnancy.
I really have doubts if a war film like this is considered relevant enough to be crowned with the top award – especially after the Academy thwarted “Dunkirk” in the top categories.
Fantastic news. I needed this (as well as Little Women and Cats) to be great, as I’m a bit unhappy with the contenders so far. There are some solid films among the contenders I’ve seen, but so far only one that I love.
Little Women definitely has a shot at a BP nomination but I wouldn’t hold my breath for Cats. The film is apparently still in post-production. Not a good sign.
I will not give up on Cats until it’s finally released.
Good for you, for all we know you could be right.
Maybe they are trying to make the cats less creepy looking.
My guess would be that they have been definitely trying to fix the film after the disastrous trailer reactions three months ago but at this point nothing they do, could possibly work, I mean the film with the greenlit concept is already in the can, if that concept doesn’t work, then no amount of nips and tuck and nitpicks will fix it in post.
I am still not convinced Once upon a Time in Hollywood is earning anything else that an Original Screenplay nom
I could see it suffer due to the early release date like so many have before it but I think it is probably safe for the nominations. However other than Pitt I don’t see it winning anything above the line.
Pitt is not winning. It is Pacino or Pesci.
They have to get nominated first.
To me only Pitt is a near-lock for the nomination at the moment, I could still see any of the other contenders miss.
At least Pesci is not going to win over Pitt, Pesci is way too subdued and calm to impress voters who can just go for a movie star performance
I’m kind of surprised I didn’t like The Irishman more. Once Hoffa gets out of jail, the movie becomes incredible but until then little feels like it has much of a meaning and once it does find a drive it doesn’t feel like that new focus defines the former parts as meaningful. I particularly feel that Pesci almost disappearing when Frank meets Hoffa doesn’t work, the friendship between Frank and Pesci’s character gives the little grounding the movie has in the beginning and exploring that alongside the relationship with Hoffa would perhaps have brought a little bit of a sense of detail to the film and the structures being looked at. Or alternatively the beginning should have been much slower (so maybe it’s just too short)
Also, I don’t see this film winning best picture. Why would anyone feel excited about voting for this film (even if people love it, it’s not really something that voters will feel good voting for)?
I haven´t seen it yet but I agree – it looks like a film that easily receives a lot of nominations based on the sheer excellent reputation of the people involved in it, but it probably ends up with 1-2 wins in tech categories. That said, I´m still looking forward to see it and be able to contribute some insight opinion.
I get that sense too. But, given the late October stat, I have to predict either that, OUATIH or Marriage Story, and I’m not really feeling those, either. If I had to pick one, I’d go with OUATIH, probably, but, honestly, right now I’m leaning “1917”, breaking that otherwise rock-solid stat…
(I’m talking without having seen The Irishman – based on what I’ve read about it, here and elsewhere.)
Agreed with every word, including your first sentence.
I agree with you 100%.
Bunch of Oscar bloggers and “Industry insiders” having a meltdown over 1917 and Deakins’ stunt in real time. My worst fears materializing? I gather it’s a bunch of “I SAW IT/CALLED IT FIRST” performative syndrome and will assume we’re safe for the time being (Le Miz 2.0 if you will, yes, mark the time)
So no I will not be checking out (just yet lol).
Edit: Ofc aware of a third unlikely scenario where I end up liking. Worry not.
they hate it? I saw only raves so far.
Me too
OT: The Crown S3 EPS. 8 & 9 – Géraldine Chaplin was terrific as
Wallisalways. That’s three Emmys and counting in the bag: Outstanding Guest Actress, Cutest Prince Charles, Most Inventive Fantasy Series Ever.Her last shot was incredibly strong.
Geraldine Chaplin is always so good I’m always tempted to see Cría Cuervos. Everything that wasn’t Charles was a let down. Charles and Camilla were so adorable together I wanted to show to get revisionist and let them end up together.
Josh O’Connor is definitely one of the best young actors around with a very bright future ahead of him. And if I had to guess, an Emmy, as well, especially if they put him in the guest actor category.
P.S. I thought HBC was stellar as Margaret, low key stole the show from the excellent Colman but then again, that’s kinda how their roles are supposed to be to begin with.
I’ve read about Cría Cuervos a couple weeks ago but I can’t quite remember where. It’s funny how we can be oblivious to something our whole life and all of a sudden we encounter it everywhere. I guess it’s a sign we should watch it.
I wanted to hug Charles so badly and comfort him when he was crying. I didn’t feel the same way about Camellia and I might not even feel the same way about Charles next season…
Cría cuervos is incredible. I highly recommend it to both of you
I have seen it. It’s my #2 film of 1976. It is exceptional. Stanley Kubrick was a big fan.
Geraldine deserved Oscar noms recently for Talk to Her and The Orphanage, in my opinion
As long as it gets Thomas Newman his damn Oscar already, I’m fine with it.
That in itself wouldn’t be a tragedy. I guess Mica Levi isn’t eligible for her work in Glazer’s short.
Her score for “Jackie” was amazing.
I’ve kept quiet about knowing some people who have seen this for a bit but now that it’s screening I’ll say I am not surprised by the reactions. One of these people rarely rave about anything and they used the word stunning to describe the film.
Who do you guys have winning NYFCC Best Actor? I’m pretty confident De Niro is winning and if he does he clearly becomes safe for a nomination. Possible upset? Sandler.
De Niro is a safe bet, definitely.
I also wouldn’t be super surprised by some out of nowhere pick like Brad Pitt for Ad Astra for example.
More like out of justice in this world.
Adam Driver for both “Marriage Story” and “The Report”
Wouldn’t shock me, but struggling seeing that *this* year.
I agree. With NYFCC actor and actress the Gotham nominees are usually a pretty good sign (basically no eligible performance has ever missed the Gotham before winning NYFCC) and considering how NYFCC doesn’t seem to like awarding male performances that aren’t in English, I’d imagine Driver is the safest prediction
I think so. He will dominate. He is the one acting award I most confident will dominate critics awards, especially the major ones.
To me, this looks like the kind of performance that the Critics groups, like John Smith also mentioned, tend to award. Aside from Driver, I could also see some surprise mentions (probably as a runner-up) for Song Kang-ho, especially if they like “Parasite” as much as I expect. Banderas name should also pop up here and there (maybe at the National Society, which are very arthouse and foreign language-friendly).
By the way, does anyone of you guys know when the NYFCC and LAFCC do announce?
NYFCC: December 4th
LAFCA: December 8th (although I’m not completely sure about this, the one site that does mention this date also has LAFCA’s date as “To be announced” later on in their awards season calendar)
DeNiro or some A24 boy (Sandler, Patinson, Dafoe)
That would shock me. I think De Niro is a victim of his own greatness. I mean, in the sense that he would have to be close to his bet to work for him to be deemed a winner. He has won tons of awards for some of the greatest and most iconic performances, including from this group.
NY de Niro
LA Banderas
That was pretty ridiculous, by the way… (The conclusion to yesterday’s Libertadores final.) I imagine you were able to enjoy it a whole lot more than I did… 🙂 O.K., Flamengo HAD been a bit more threatening in the second half, so an equalizer wasn’t entirely unwarranted, but the second one was too much. Seems a bit unlucky, or let’s say ‘random’, at the very least. Anyway, I don’t think this takes anything away from Gallardo’s tactical display – he killed it, as usual. His defenders failed him at the end, I guess – and maybe the team ran out of energy a bit, as well, after pressing so hard for so long. But he’s still the greatest. He should’ve been coaching Messi already by now – for years… (Preferably for the national team.) If they bring him in and Lautaro maintains his conversion rate for a while (although if Aguero wasn’t enough…), who knows?! Maybe it’s not completely ridiculous to hope they might get another crack at that big one, in two years’ time. At least it’s not held in Europe, this time; although it would appear it needs to be in actual America – either of them -, for a non-European team to win it, these days – South Africa wasn’t good enough, too close to Europe. 🙂 Even Brazil wasn’t enough, but at least most of the big South American teams had good runs there, and there was clearly a much better chance than at the last one…
I’ll of course be rooting for Flamengo against Liverpool (provided they don’t mess up in the semis too), even though I’m a huge Liverpool fan (Milan, Ajax, Liverpool and a team from Romania you’ve likely never heard of are the four teams I root for unconditionally, invariably and wholeheartedly), because we simply don’t NEED that trophy anywhere near as much as South America does, by this point. But it does seem like a long shot – the last 3 times South American teams got to the Club World Cup final (since 2013) they didn’t score a single goal against their European rivals, if I’m not mistaken, and I don’t necessarily find Flamengo to be a more likely team to score than its predecessors, although I hope I’m wrong.
I need Gallardo to take over the national team at some point before Qatar. Other than that, I was a bit annoyed, I would always take the side of the Argentinean team especially against any Brazilian opposition. Even River Plate. The difference is soo big now between European and South American Clubs, I’m not sure it’s even worth to continue with this competition.
It’s worth it precisely to motivate whoever can change that balance of power (sponsors, federations, youth academies – not sure) to do so, over time. 🙂 If the Club World Cup goes, the gap will probably widen further very quickly, which would be even more horrifying…
“I was a bit annoyed, I would always take the side of the Argentinean team especially against any Brazilian opposition. Even River Plate.”
I respect that immensely! I’m the same way, of course – with Romanian teams, for example. Never got why I should ever, under any circumstances, be rooting against one of our clubs in European Cups (O.K., maybe when Milan/Liverpool/Ajax are involved, and the Romanian club in question has no realistic shot at doing anything special in that competition – which, sadly, these days, is pretty much always the case -, whereas their opponents, being one of the aforementioned three clubs, do), even though plenty of fans do so, when their club’s biggest rivals are involved…
And yeah, that’s now the last three Brazil vs. Argentina Libertadores finals won by the former – which is highly annoying for me too, believe me, because I pretty much always root for the Argentinian clubs over the Brazilian ones. I just like the Argentinian style a lot more (which I’m sure I’ve mentioned before), plus the history of your clubs attracts me more too, for whatever reason.
“I need Gallardo to take over the national team at some point before Qatar.”
Yes, please! The sooner, the better…
In his columm today, Pete Hammond stated that “Ford Vs Ferrari” is doing very, very well with Academy Members and it could emerge as a silent frontrunner. In his piece of writing, he even said that he received emails of some Academy Members stating that: “This has to win Best Picture”. Many members, according to Hammond are comparing the situation of FvF emerging as a consensus like the cases of “Spotlight” and “The Shape of Water”. A female Academy Member declared that it will be at the top of her ballot. Others are saying that it would be a way to honor 20th Century Fox. With we add this to a strong box office, the critically acclaimed factor, the huge cast and the crafty categories (with together, the techicall branches at the Academy have a enormous number of votes), we have our winner. And honestly, I will be very, very happy if this happens. An epic made by a Studio winning the Oscar again. I really miss the old days of the prize when films like “The English Patient”, “Titanic”, “Braveheart”, “Dances with Wolves”, “The Last Emperor”, “Out of Africa”, among others, used to win Oscar. I miss THIS kind of film, and “Ford Vs Ferrari” has many similiarites with them. Among the last Oscar winners, the only ones I really liked were “12 Years a Slave” and “The Shape of Water”.
wait, so tea on everything so far has been that members love it. Is this more serious or like reception of other movies?
Academy Members are loving it and really putting it at the top of their ballots. If not “1917”, “Ford Vs Ferrari” is our frontrunner.
Thanks!
Ford v Ferrari will win Editing and nothing else. 1917 just stole both Sound categories from it. 1917 will also win Cinematography and Score, as has been expected.
In a just world Parasite would take a nod, that’s a powerful ensemble cast if I’ve ever seen one
YESSS!!! In a just world that is indeed. Everyone in this masterpiece of a film absolutely killed it.
It still could. We don’t know how SAG will vote and Parasite is accessible. It isn’t Romatose.
In a just world international movies would get 70% of all nods.
How is Adam Driver not even predicted – to be nominated, when most pundits, oddsmakers have him as the front runner – to win.
Sasha stans Eddie’s nom and the easiest to cut is another Netflix actor to make room.
I miss the old days when quality was more important than race.
If there are 5 outstanding white actors’ performances, why not nominate them all? These mandatory black slots for each category is a way to hell, it undermines all the prestige the awards have built over the decades.
People stopped taking awards seriously because they think that the nominees are determined by the race or political message instead of quality (and they are often right). And even when the movie is actually very good and its nominations deserved (like Green Book), they do not watch it and make stupid comments like “make a movie about black lesbians and you’ll win every award”. And choose some bad movie without any nominations to watch instead.
As a film fan who wants good movies to be well promoted to the public I am very sad of this trend.
You are missing the point in epic fashion. The idea is not that every acting category should have a slot reserved for a token minority performer. Recognising them just because of their race would be just as insulting and racist as it is when they are ignored for the same reason.
The idea is that if a minority performer DOES deliver a performance as accomplished or even more so than the Caucasian contenders, then he or she should get a fair shot at getting recognition for it. But he or she won’t because most of the awards voters are white and many of them simply won’t (be able to) relate to characters portrayed by minority performers as much as they relate to their standard white heroes and heroines. This is why voting bodies need to be more diverse, no wonder #oscarssowhite and these all-male BP lineups occur so often when the ones deciding who gets in, more often than not, are white and male.
And all this of course after the minority performer even managed to score a baity role in a film that got the greenlight, both quite the rare occurrences or at least considerably rarer than white actors scoring baity roles in greenlit films.
Long story short, the entire industry needs to step the fuck up. More films about minorities FROM minorities should be greenlit and more minority professionals should have the privilege to vote for awards. Until this happens, our best case scenario will remain the Green Book / Crash / Million Dollar Baby / Chicago kind of setup : films about race and /or female heroines can win BP once in a blue moon … as long as they are directed by old white men.
I am sure that if a minority performer delivers great performance, he/she will get a recognition he/she deserves. Almost all awards voters are intelligent liberal people and not KKK members. You have quite a bad opinion on them.
Minority actors receive less nominations simply because there is not enough recognisable minority actors in Hollywood, majority of the popular actors is white, that is the fact and deal with it. And this majority shoots plenty of great movies every year and logically they are recognised at awards.
Nominating generic horror movies like Get Out and Us for BP at the cost of snubbing some great “white” movie is not a good way to promote minority actors.
Oh, lord, this has to be THE most tone-deaf comment I’ve ever read in my life and make no mistake, I’ve read MANY. So let’s unpack this lil’ nugget.
1. “I am sure that if a minority performer delivers great performance, he/she will get a recognition he/she deserves.”
Is that why in 91 years only ONE black actress had ever won Best Actress and not a single Asian actress had even received a nomination ?
2. “Almost all awards voters are intelligent liberal people and not KKK members. You have quite a bad opinion on them.”
It’s another “ugh I can’t even with you” moment here. For future reference you don’t have to be a KKK member in order to ignore minority performers for film awards consideration. You also don’t have to be a racist to ignore worthy minority performers, the ignoring bit usually happens subconsciously. Courtesy of the intelligent liberal people who vote for awards. They are not necessarily racist if they overlook a worthy minority contender. They are “just” ignorant.
3. “Minority actors receive less nominations simply because there is not enough recognisable minority actors in Hollywood, majority of the popular actors is white, that is the fact and deal with it.”
That IS a fact but that doesn’t make it fair. Whose fault do you think it is that the majority of the A-list is white ? It sure af isn’t the fault of the minority performers. The A-list should look like the world does : it should have representatives of all races, genders, sexual orientations, religions, social economic backgrounds. It can’t continue to be the exclusive club of mostly white straight dudes from English-language countries who come from middle to upper middle class families and if they went to university, they went to a fancy one.
4. “And this majority shoots plenty of great movies every year and logically they are recognised at awards.”
You just don’t get it, do you ? The exact problem is that of course they win the awards when they have considerably more opportunities to make the kind of films that win awards. If in any given year they greenlit 20 films that turn into worthy Best Picture contenders and out of the 20, 18 are about and from white men, 1 is about and from women and 1 is about and from people of colour, are you really that surprised that in the end the majority of the 9 BP nominated films will be about the white male perspective ?
5. “Nominating generic horror movies like Get Out and Us for BP at the cost of snubbing some great “white” movie is not a good way to promote minority actors.”
You clearly haven’t seen Get Out because that film was a lot of things but “generic” is not one of them. And again, the idea isn’t to sacrifice some poor white genius’s masterpiece in favour of a mediocre / bad film that just happened to be directed / headlined by minority artists. The idea is that IF a film is great, it should get recognition regardless of the race or gender of the director and / or lead character. And based on precedent the Academy – and the industry at large – is still not doing splendidly on this front. Not even close.
1. I am not talking about history. 50 years ago it was different but now the times have changed. Black actors do not need campaigns for recognition anymore.
2. You are underestimating them. Wide majority of the voters do not ignore minority performers otherwise no minority could ever get nominated for any award. But they are nominated quite regularly. Again, I’m talking about last decade.
3. It is not fault of white performes either. It is status quo. Period.
4. Minority filmmakers also have the opportunity to make award-worthy films. Nobody’s stopping them. They just do not make enough such films to receive more awards than white filmmakers. If only X% of good filmmakers are minority, it is logical that they get roughly X% of awards. Trying to raise the percentage by positive campaign is just trying to change reality and it is unfair to the white majority.
5. I’ve seen both Get Out and Us and I quite liked it, but they are just not Oscar material. The are just good horror movies and even the best horror movies rarely get award nominations. If they nominate Us for Oscar BP, they might as well nominate Midsommar which is way better in my opinion, but there is only one black guy in it so that is not gonna happen.
https://media0.giphy.com/media/1AIeYgwnqeBUxh6juu/giphy.gif
Stupid gifs instead of arguments, I’m done here.
You shouldn’t have even started.
And as for a counter argument, I gave you a pretty lengthy one above when I really should have just said “don’t be an ignorant racist dick, pls, thanks, BYE NOW”.
“4. Minority filmmakers also have the opportunity to make award-worthy films. Nobody’s stopping them.”
They’re already making them and they’ve always been, with way lower budgets than white directors on big studios. Since Micheaux a hundred years ago, maybe even before him. The problem is that, even today, they’re not receiving enough awards.
Besides, now that diversity is, at last, slowly changing the game, we always have to face this choir of voices implying that non white-cis-male nominations are undeserved.
Oh, c’mon.
Or maybe not all performances of quality come from white actors in any year and every year there are non-white performers who deserve to get nominated but never do because the voters are white and think that the white experiece is the only interesting one. Thus going out of your way to consider things that are better and that you would simply not have considered otherwise is something that actually helps the quality of the nominees. You’re not choosing unworthy nominees, you’re making sure you actually do search for the best nominees and don’t ignore them just because they don’t happen to be performances by white people in typical Oscar bait.
And why do you presume that quality wasn’t the reason behind these people getting nominated? You have no proof and thus stating that is to push your own opinion to a mass that probably doesn’t agree with you. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean that others can’t be sincere in their liking of it.
“I miss the old days when quality was more important than race.”
Were there ever such days? Or did it just seem like it as non-white folks were not even considered?
If you want quality over race than barely seen Ronan and Theron should be out while seen and raved Lupita, Woodard and Awkwafina should be in in every prediction anywhere. However, as it is, barely seen ladies are considered locks while the ladies from my list are fighting for the 5th spot. Yet, for some reason, no one brings that up.
All of this just shows how silly it is to be making predictions months ahead of time.
Very much though some roles are such obvi winners (Lincoln, Blue Jasmine) it’s more down to obviousness than smart predicting.
How didi you get the idea that there is a mandatory slot for non-white actors? The trend is that because the diversified memberS of the academy now is able to appreciate performance by non-white actors, there is no mandatory thing, there is only the diversified thing that highly possibly generate a not all-white candidates
Of course the mandatory slot(s) is not official, it is implicit, and it exists at least since 2016 when all nominated actors were white and it caused a sh*tstorm. But was any of the nominations undeserved? I don’t think so..
That’s your problem right there. You can’t possibly think of a white performer who wasn’t deserving of an Oscar nomination and at the same time can’t imagine that a minority performer could possibly deserve one on merit alone.
Well, I have absolutely nothing against white actors and actresses receiving Oscar nominations as long as their work is stellar and yet could still think of at least five or six from this decade alone who should have been nowhere near the Oscar top5 yet they still were : Jonah Hill (Moneyball), Alan Arkin (Argo), Jackie Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook), Jennifer Lawrence (Joy), Ryan Gosling (La La Land), Lady Gaga (A Star is Born).
And for the record I have nothing against these performers in general as each has Oscar nominations I thoroughly agree with but on these specific occasions they delivered nothing remarkable in my opinion and yet sailed through to the nomination stage without breaking a sweat. Would they have succeeded if they were people of colour playing the exact same roles ? Based on precedent the answer is : highly unlikely.
BTW peeps, watch out for first reactions on 1917 on Twitter today because if my memory serves me well its first industry screening is today in New York, I think for DGA members. This is the last piece of the puzzle.
That’s correct. Eagerly anticipating those reactions!
But let’s overact if it gets a good reaction/reviews. I still think it is just a tech juggernaut. I very much it has a strong screenplay and the competition is very tough. And it will struggle to get in for acting as both lead and supporting actor are very stacked this year.
I feel like if it’s very well-reviewed, it will get AT LEAST as close to the BP win as The Revenant did. (Which is reasonably close.) It doesn’t have the early release issue Dunkirk had, probably won’t be thought of as cold, like that one was, either… The cast seems to be a bit less anonymous (not by much, true). The director is one who they’ve embraced fully before, unlike Nolan – plus he has this comeback narrative… I don’t know. IF it’s well-reviewed, I think it could actually be huge.
Fury Road huge? That’s the feeling I am getting about it. Can it get in BOS? Looks daunting. Acting nomination? It needs both to win BP but at least of them to win BD. And we always for get that TR didn’t have much competition in BD. That’s not the case this year. There big names with big films.
It doesn’t need acting AND screenplay nods to win… One of the two would be enough, but it’d need to WIN that one. Like SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE for example.
We were talking about BD, not BP. Slumdog Millionaire won everything. As it stands today, Slumdog Millionaire is the biggest sweeper in overall awards and the last big sweeper at the Oscars.
Yeah, but if it gets one, it most likely needs to be screenplay – acting nominations can be done without more easily by BP winners, but missing screenplay and winning BP is as rare as missing editing and winning BP. The last time was Titanic, which is quite a while ago, and I think the last time before that was 1966… Several movies have won without acting nominations in the meantime: The Last Emperor, Braveheart, The Return of the King and, of course, Slumdog Millionaire – true, none in the preferential era, and maybe it’s harder under these circumstances, who knows?! But it’s only been 10 years.
Well, Fury Road was farther from the BP win than The Revenant, still, most probably, so I’m saying definitely stronger than that. Acting is the big hurdle, no doubt (as well as SAG). I think if it’s as strong as it seems it could be, it gets into screenplay, somehow. If it can’t do that, of course, it’s 99% not winning BP.
Yes, I agree with that. I think the thing that’s making me sceptical is we saw what happened with Dunkirk a couple years ago, and the one take doesn’t allow for a great screenplay. I mean, Birdman had that but it was all in one place and this one is going to be focusing on the war battle. Or at least that’s what it seems. If it focuses on the characters, then that would be great and boost its chances of a nomination.
Of course, it would be an atypical winner even if it did get all of the necessary nominations, one that would belong to the Braveheart – Titanic – The Artist – The Shape of Water (naming only the SAG-era examples) line of BP winners that didn’t win either a screenplay or acting award as well, the overall percentage of which is pretty consistently very close to 15% (which of course is far from high, but also far from prohibitive) throughout Oscar history, possibly all of it (I only checked back as far as the mid-1960’s), assuming it doesn’t somehow pull off a shocking (according to how things look right now) win in one of those two categories. I agree the one take doesn’t allow for a WORDY screenplay (which they do love), but it could still be pretty strong. A win in that category seems almost impossible, no doubt (more or less the same for acting, though one never knows), but a nomination could easily happen, provided the movie’s overall strength is as serious as it seems like it could be.
Unrelated take: there’s no way a movie called “Ford v Ferrari” is winning Best Picture, no matter how entertaining and/or Academy voter-friendly it is… Just no way. I simply cannot visualize that outcome, try as I might.
I feel like it just needs to get an acting nomination or a screenplay nomination and it could even get into the top 3 for picture and win director
But not only that. It needs to dominate BD to convince me Mendes will without winning BP. TR had no competition. That’s not the case this year.
I feel like The Revenant not having competition is at least partly a narrative that was defined after the film swept director. At least Mad Max: Fury Road was that year and probably would have been a strong contender had The Revenant not been sweeping
Yes, Fury Road, but it was missing screenplay and acting and I can’t even think of a film that won without either of them. It needs one and the competition is much tougher this year.
For the record, the last film to win best director without an acting or screenplay nomination was apparently Two Arabian Knights (and even that is a comedy directing win)
I’m right there with you. I won’t all of a sudden consider it a major threat to win BP even if the unofficial early word out of these screenings will be unanimous praise. For one, unofficial early praise doesn’t always translate into critical adoration, for two it is arriving super late and that will be a big disadvantage screening-wise because for example most of the other top contenders have been screening for the thousands of SAG voters for weeks now and 1917 will be definitely seen by considerably fewer of them by the time their voting period ends thus making this film an unlikely candidate for proper SAG love.
And without proper SAG love it won’t become a frontrunner in Best Picture. It could still turn into a top5 (BP+BD nods) contender, sure, but not top2. Especially if on top of the expected lack of acting nominations, it also won’t factor into the screenplay race.
Right this minute, sight unseen, my guess would be Dunkirk : the exact same 8 Oscar nominations including picture and director but none in acting and writing thus ending up in the top5 but with no real shot at the big win. 2-3 technical wins however are definitely a strong possibility, in cinematography and the sound categories in particular.
I don’t think SAG is the issue, not for BP these days and certainly not for BD. It’s a late arrival so missing SAG doesn’t tell us anything. It could just be the perfect late arrival. With the date pushed forward, I think a late arrival will be in a better position than before. There are great films in the race so it has to be a masterpiece to beat, I think. But then again, it’s a late arrival and we could the first winner since MDB.
I don’t think it’s that meaningless (SAG), but I agree it’s not a deal-breaker, most probably, especially in this case. It needs to not miss anything else, though, and probably also win PGA+DGA.
It’s not meaningless because you would rather that support than miss out. But it’s not a deal breaker like it was a few years ago and the late arrival has to be taken into account.
“and the late arrival has to be taken into account”
Yes, exactly, that too! We don’t yet, in my opinion, have any actual proof that this isn’t a valid excuse.
Wicked! Very curious about those…
Me too, friend. 🙂 I think my husband and I may see this for our typical early New Years Eve movie. It looks really good with a high level of difficulty for Mendes that may put him into the already crowded Best Director race.
Ah – that’s such a great one to see at that time of the year!… I’ll probably only get to see it in January or February.
… other than Cats. Lol
Haha, yeah Cats and The Rise of Skywalker will be the only unseens after today. Cats apparently isn’t even finished yet.
Did Joss Whedon comein to “fix” it?
It’s so funny. I forgot Star Wars. It could be MASSIVE with the Academy. But I always kind of forget about it because it is it’s own … thing, kind of. Know what I mean? Like separate from awards coverage.
I feel about it the same way. On one hand it IS the last chapter of a massive franchise arc, one that is expected to receive strong reviews and deliver spectacular Box Office. On the other, even with all that I just can’t seem to even consider it for the Oscars. Guilds, maybe.
Right. Well, it’ll prob contend for noms in categories like Prod. Design, Sounds, FX, Score. But yeah, prob nothing for Above-the-Line.
Early word is VERY strong. Double digit Oscar nominations coming without any acting nods. One guy called it the frontrunner to WIN Best Picture.
Is Waititi not part of the nominatable (totally a real word) ensemble? Or did you just forget to include his name?
Us is really likely to make the cut at SAG Ensemble. Think about the whole cast playing TWO opposite roles
If I would bet…
The Irishman
Marriage Story
Once upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite
Us
Alternative: Knives Out (for Us)
Us would be a worthy nominee because of dual roles that everyone nailed especially Lupita.
And you still haven’t bumped Al Pacino to the best supporting nom…..
SAG NGNG
Ensemble: Avengers Endgame
Supporting Actress: Penélope Cruz, Pain and Glory
Supporting Actor: Kang-ho Song, Parasite
Good picks.
Well, if Driver does miss, Sasha will be legendary for calling it on 22 November.
Eddie Murphy over Adam Driver is a funny prediction! 🙂
not so funny. Hollywood loves a good comeback and Driver is one of promising actors that they don’t need to rush to award or repeat nomination right now for they feel he’ll be back. Sometimes urgency to award is a big factor.
I expect “Marriage Story” to be a major contender in the main categories, at least for getting a couple of above-the-line-nominations. “Dolemite”, on the other hand, is probably going empty-handed except for best Costume Design – at least that´s my impression. It´s just too mediocre…
I do expect that it’ll cool off past Globes (especially if Taron or another win)
I have Phoenix, Banderas and Driver locked. Then, de Niro. 5th is messy. Hauser, Pryce, maybe Ruffalo or di Caprio. Murphy I think could make it, but as a long shot.
Maybe that’s what she’s going for.
No doubt!…
Name of the game: Downplaying Pacino and pushing an only ok movie like Dolemite is My Name for some reason.
I think The Farewell and Dark Waters could surprise at the SAGs in Ensemble. I am rather skeptical about Richard Jewell making it in with a relatively small cast. I also think 1917 will be shut out of the acting categories—I don’t think these big budget war films are seen as big acting showcases as much as they used to be, especially when so much attention is paid to the technical aspects of the film. Plus Dunkirk was out on the awards circuit only a few years ago, so there’s probably a been-there, done-that view with respect to British war films (even if it’s a different war).
I also wonder if Parasite will be overlooked for an ensemble nomination. Have foreign language films had much success at the SAGs? Aren’t there eligibility rules, too, regarding SAG membership? I know that’s affected other guild awards, such as the WGA.
Anyway, here’s my amateur predictions for SAG:
FILM
Ensemble:
Hustlers
Little Women
Dolemite Is My Name
The Farewell
Marriage Story
Alternates: The Irishman, Jo-Jo Rabbit, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Bombshell
Actor:
Adam Driver
Eddie Murphy
Adam Sandler
Joaquin Phoenix
Paul Walter Hauser
Alternates: Robert de Niro, Jonathan Pryce, Mark Ruffalo, Leonardo DiCaprio
Actress
Renee Zellweger
Awkwafina
Alfre Woodard
Charlize Theron
Saoirse Ronan
Alternates: Jodie Turner Smith, Cynthia Erivo, Scarlett Johanssen, Lupita N’yongo
Supporting Actor
Noah Jupe
Joe Pesci
Tom Hanks
Brad Pitt
Wesley Snipes
Alternates: Taika Watiti, John Lithgow, Sam Rockwell, Sterling K. Brown
Supporting Actress
Laura Dern
Margot Robbie (for Bombshell)
Florence Pugh
Jennifer Lopez
Da’vine Joy Randolph
Alternates: Thomassin McKenzie, Scarlett Johanssen, Taylor Russell, Kathy Bates
Stunt Ensemble:
John Wick
Spiderman
Captain Marvel
1917
Avengers
TV
Comedy Ensemble
Fleabag
The Good Place
Veep
Barry
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Comedy Actor
Ted Danson, The Good Place
Bill Hader, Barry
Michael Douglas, The Kominsky Method
Alan Arkin, The Kominsky Method
Tony Shaloub, MMM
Comedy Actress
Kristen Bell, The Good Place
Julia Louis Dreyfus, Veep
Phoebe Waller Bridge, Fleabag
Alex Borstein, MMM
Rachel Brosnahan, MMM
Drama Ensemble
Pose
This Is Us
Killing Eve
Ozark
Succession
Drama Actor
Jason Bateman, Ozark
Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us
Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones
Kieran Culkin, Succession
Billy Porter, Pose
Drama Actress
Julia Garner, Ozark
Laura Linney, Ozark
Jodie Comer, Killing Eve
Sandra Oh, Killing Eve
Olivia Colman, The Crown
Mini-Series or TV Movie Actor
Jharrel Jerome, When They See Us
Jared Harris, Chernobyl
Sam Rockwell, Fosse/Verdon
Hugh Grant, A Very English Scandal
Ben Whishaw, A Very English Scandal
Mini-Series or TV Movie, Actress
Kaitlyn Dever, Unbelievable
Toni Colette, Unbelievable
Michelle Williams, Fosse/Verdon
Niecy Nash, When They See Us
Joey King, The Act
TV Stunt
Jack Ryan
Game of Thrones
Chernobyl
Watchmen
Batwoman
Does that mean you’re predicting Marriage Story to win BP at the Oscars, or that you expect SAG-AFTRA to not include the BP winner in its ensemble five for a third year in a row?
In my opinion, with a few films still to see I think the Best Ensemble category will shape up like this:
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Little Women
Marriage Story
Bombshell
Knives Out or Joker
Seems logical, but it would be really wicked if they ignore “The Irishman”…
Regina King won without SAG and BAFTA nods. Her pic was not nominated for Best Picture – the only film in her category to miss. She had the less screen time of her fellow nominees.
Sasha keeps trying to make Dolemite happen. It’s not going to happen.
I dunno—it was warmly received at TIFF, and a number of cast members have been out there hustling, especially Murphy, who’s hosting SNL for the first time ever, so the man obviously wants the nod. The only thing that might work against him is the perception of his arrogance among some voters, but I think there might be enough love for him and the film from AMPAS to propel him and the film as well as a couple of other cast members into the final short list
Murphy’s a step above the rest of the film. Hopefully the academy can discern difference b/w good and great
Seriously, comparing Dolemite to Ed Wood and The Disaster Artist, or Murphy’s performance to Depp’s or Franco’s is a bit… distressing, to say the least
Yeah, entertaining as Dolemite is (that varied for me), it’s nowhere near Ed Wood level.
Peanut Butter Falcon has an ensemble cast worthy of SAG awards consideration. Cast members give superb performances & create characters many viewers come to love. Of note is the authenticity of the relationship between Shia LaBoeuf, Zack Gottsagen & Dakota Johnson’s characters; Interactions with Thomas Hayden Church as an ideal Saltwater Redneck are entertaining & touching; Mick Foley & Jake Roberts effectively round out the wrestling scenario; Bruce Dern, John Hawks & Jon Bernthal add to an ideal team, as do the cast of colorful local characters that are given life as the movie’s journey unfolds.
Dakota Johnson should get a nomination for creating a smart, lovable person out of the dumbest character ever written.
MICK FOLEY & JAKE THE SNAKE ROBERTS ARE IN IT?! NOW I WANNA WATCH IT MORE THAN EVER!
Happy birthday https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9e7be646b0b8ffad06e683a4b8d9900f03ec6b7d93b6c1ee7a29a36192a105c1.jpg
I think she may have been born in the wrong month for her Oscar hopes. The omens look good for Zellweger.
I hope so.
Super early SAG NGNG
– Scarlett Johansson AND Laura Dern will receive 5 nominations each (3 Ensemble + 2 solo).
– Children will shock in supporting (Julia Batters & Archie Yates).
– Jessie Buckley’s banner year (Wild Rose, Judy, Chernobyl) will garner her a SAG nod somewhere.
+1 : Brad Pitt will get two individual nominations (supporting for OUATIH, lead for Ad Astra).
I would love Yates! But Griffin has a better shot in lead I think.
Dern is in LITTLE WOMEN right? What’s the 3rd ensemble she’s part of? I can’t think of it.
Big Little Lies, I’d imagine
Yep. Three Ensemble nods for Little Women, Marriage Story, Big Little Lies and individual nominations for the latter two.
Oh yeah I focus on the movies so the TV categories didn’t even occur to me haha.
Julia Butters is in my book, the most deserving performer of OUATIH for a nom. With Margaret Qualley, right after. I honestly would not nominate Leo, Margo or Brad for this one.
Butters was great and Qualley is definitely a find I can’t wait to see more of. She has the kind of fascinating, enigmatic screen presence that melts the lens and has been since The Nice Guys / Novitiate period.
Few observations.
1. I wouldn’t rule out TARON EGERTON just yet. He is widely expected to receive Golden Globe and Bafta nominations and from there a SAG nod isn’t that much of a stretch especially after all the campaigning the Rocketman team had done in the last few weeks. His film is a critically well-received studio hit in which he plays a living legend who has been campaigning for him all season. That may not be easy to resist for many voters in the end.
2. I am genuinely expecting films with not much of a chance at a BP nod, to make a splash here. As in I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if ENDGAME and DOWNTON ABBEY received nominations in Ensemble and Supporting. None of this would necessarily translate into any kind of Oscar love but SAG is quirky like that.
3. At this very moment I consider CHRISTIAN BALE stronger than DiCaprio and De Niro. Not saying latter two won’t make the cut, more like I think if they will, then Bale most definitely will. He has Box Office, rave reviews and an Oscar-friendly release date on his side, making him seemingly stronger than the above duo who each have only two of those three crucial factors (DiCaprio’s film was an early release, De Niro’s won’t have Box Office).
4. I think the fifth slot in Best Actress is down to AWKWAFINA, CYNTHIA ERIVO and ALFRE WOODARD and if any of the three scores a SAG nod, that actress will probably make the cut at the Oscars, too. I still think that actress will be Awkwafina however recent developments like the improved critical consensus + unexpectedly strong BO of Harriet and the impressive Clemency showing at the Indies, should not be ignored. I don’t see Lupita happening this time, not for a genre film with a Spring release date.
5. SAG Nominations Morning will be make or break moment for the three female-led BP contenders that at the moment are widely considered to be on the outside looking in : LITTLE WOMEN, BOMBSHELL, THE FAREWELL. Technically speaking all three could land three nominations each (Ensemble, Lead Actress, Supporting Actress) but if any of these films could land at least two nods, that would be a great showing already. Needless to say that since none are locks in BP, what would really help them perception-wise would be a nomination in Ensemble. If that happens for any of the three, then hopefully that will result a corresponding BP nod.
Taron wouldn’t be hurt if SAG passed on him because of GG+BAFTA. We know that SAG has one or two SAG Only nominees that don’t show up anywhere else, just like BAFTA and GG have them too. And some 4 precursors nominee always misses out the Oscar morning in favor of precursor-ignored passion pick. So it’s never 100% overlap.
Yeah tbf a SAG / Oscar omission wouldn’t be all that surprising (for now I’m only predicting him for Bafta / GG love) but at the same time I think it has to be an oversight that he isn’t included in the top12 contenders. I mean Indies (Sandler) or epic behind the scenes narrative (Norton) aside, I don’t think these two stand a chance if Egerton does not.
Sandler is critics/indie pick. But you know how it is. As soon as any nominations are read, people overreact. So right now, because awards with no impact on AMPAS nominated Sandler, he’s treated like a real possibility. I mean, he could be the passion pick and I guess he’ll score Globe in Comedy but his movie isn’t AMPAS thing. neither is Lighthouse but I expect a lot of critics to go for it and its cast thus creating overreactions.Just look at how Midommar stans reacted to Gothams and then Spirit shutout. As if it had any shot at big awards, lol.
1) I’ve been talking about Rocketman for weeks – especially with the campaign it’s getting I think it would be nuts not to at least consider that it could land in a big way. It could show up at NBR and SAG, will very likely show up at globes, then it could really take off from there! Though it could just as easily burn out before it even gets off the ground.
2. I don’t think SAG is likely to be where endgame makes a play – if Michael b Jordan couldn’t get in last year none of the actors from endgame are likely to and I don’t think it has top 5 clout so probably won’t make it into sag ensemble (despite how big it’s cast is). I think it’s path would be globes and PGA if it has a path. Downton Abbey absolutely – I would not be surprised to see Maggie Smith especially nominated at SAG.
3. I totally agree with Sasha that people are underestimating FvF – it’s just such a crowdpleaser that will play perfectly to the academy demographic and I have it safely getting a picture nomination rn (though I never mean safely at this time of year to mean I’m sure it’ll happen because I’m not sure of anything) but I just don’t know if the race is too packed for Bale? He definitely deserved it but even taking DiCaprio out I’m not sure if he gets that spot. I have my fingers crossed though.
4. Personally I think we are underestimating Erivo – I haven’t seen Harriet but it’s A+ Cinemascore is meaningful! I really want it to be Awkwafina though, she is just so brilliant in The Farewell (which I have a bad feeling is fading quickly). I also took Nyong’o out after finding lots of people who love Get Out but couldn’t stomach Us.
Thing is as a 2-time Oscar nominee and headliner of the biggest movie franchise in recent memory, Robert Downey Jr. is a bigger deal in acting circles than Michael B. Jordan and since he agreed to a supporting campaign that the big studio that is Disney has been pushing a lot lately, he is clearly giving this his best shot so I wouldn’t be all that surprised if he succeeded and secured at least a SAG nod if nothing else this season.
P.S. Yes, somehow Erivo got the early reputation that her film is shit and while it indeed isn’t great, it isn’t bad, either. Its critical consensus turned out to be good enough that it shouldn’t really hurt her chances at all (66 MC, 73 RT) and once we add the unexpectedly strong Box Office and the epic role status, she may just have enough to nab that fifth slot after all.
I’m still skeptical. Sure he’s a bigger star but that doesn’t seem to matter as much as it used to and I don’t know how seriously he’s taken as an actor these days – I feel like he’s reasonably dismissed as a popcorn actor (I know that’s not always been the case but I’m just meaning now) and I just don’t see there being enough in the role to push people’s opinions beyond that. Though this is the early part of the race where anything could happen so we’ll see.
Jordan had a stand out performance in a film that was touted as BP nominee. It won SAG. I mean, Jordan was many people’s favourite performances last year. And he still couldn’t get in.
I think you also have to consider who’s out there campaigning hard. For Actor (both Lead and Supporting), I’ve seen quite a lot of Driver, Pitt, DiCaprio, Murphy, Brown, Egerton, Lithgow, Phoenix, Banderas, Hanks, Sandler, and even the notoriously press-shy Robert Pattison and Shia LeBeouf doing the rounds. For actresses, Woodard, Awkwafina, Pugh, Erivo, Zellweger, Theron, Ronan, Lopez, Dern, Randolph, and even Constance Wu have been quite present on the talk show and press circuit. That aggressive visibility could be help them to a nomination in the end.
You keep underestimating Woodard despite the fact that she and her film hit both Gotham and ISA. Face it, the pundits are wrong. She is in and going for the win.
The Gothams and the ISA are the two groups who you can count on having actually seen Clemency. I doubt that others have
Who are the others?
Other voting groups. SAG, BAFTA, Globes, BFCA…
Well, their nominations are not out so we don’t what they did or did no see yet. SAG has a committee so I would expect them to see it. The Globes, I am not sure. I think she will hit BFCA as they are a critics group. BAFTA? all bets are off.
I don’t think she will qualify for Bafta this season, the film is not expected to get a release here this year.
Well then, that will not hurt her chances any bit. Quite the reverse, I think.
Gotham and ISA help perception-wise but not nearly enough to secure her lock status at the Oscars especially not this early on. I have her at #7 at the moment, I think her best case scenario is the infamous fifth slot and her main competition for that is Awkwafina and Erivo, and both could have the edge over her simply because their films are higher-profile and have been seen by more people, by arthouse standards both are proper Box Office hits.
We’ll know what’s up in two weeks or so when SAG and HFPA announces their nominations. If any of these three ladies hits both, she will be the one who gets the fifth slot at the Oscars. The one who hits neither definitely won’t.
You’ve been wrong so far. She has hit more than any actress and looks set to continue in the fashion. You think her hitting Gotham and ISA is just random luck? No, her film hit both as well. Which lead actress will get biggest critics awards this year? The only certain nominee is Zellweger but I don’t think that’ll be her. Theron? Possible but again I don’t think critics are that excited about impressions and they probably don’t care for an impression of Megyn Kelly. Some of the biggest critics groups like LAFCA might go for foreign actress, but they will want to affect the race. Their second place will count for something. Out of the main contenders, it is clear to me that Woodard will be the critics pick. I thought at the beginning and the first two awards have shown that.
I never said she wouldn’t make the Gotham and ISA lineups. I said that I’m not sure she will have a slot at the Oscars, SAG and Golden Globes because I think there are 7 top contenders in Best Actress and the other 6 may be more up the alleys of those large voting bodies. We’ll know what’s up in roughly two weeks IF she gets the SAG and Golden Globe nominations THEN I will happily admit I underestimated her.
There’s no way Driver is missing SAG. He got a ensemble and individual nom for blackklansman. He’s in 3 films around the same time most noticeably his connection with Star Wars will help with the recognition from AFTRA. And Marriage Story is being pushed the most by Netflix, if you check the guild screenings most of them are always full. If anything I think Banderas is vulnerable due to to the AFTRA part of SAG there just aren’t enough people who have seen Pain & Glory
Good point about AFTRA.
AFTRA are like the general public and aren’t privy to a lot of the lesser known titles. It definitely plays a role.
agreed and is also why I’m not discarding Edngame possibility in Ensemble or even Downey bone-throwing in supporting. SAG has SAG Only nominees as we know.
AFTRA likely helped Emily Blunt to her nomination and win last year for A Quiet Place
Not only that, he has also been at the top of the ranking for best lead male performance since the beginning. Has a frontrunner missed SAG nomination?
I mean one with a strong film like Driver and a strong ensemble too?
Sasha thinks Eddie Murphy is gonna get nominated and Driver not hahahaha.
Also, Wesley Snipes: NOT HAPENNING
Also, Motherless Brooklyn: not happening anywhere.
yes, time to cut obvious no happenings instead of keeping them in reserve for no reason at all. at this point, MB isn’t even hedging bets. It’s a flop, move on.
Well, she liked Dolemite and didn’t like MS. Look at it from her perspective. Plus she gets industry chatter and we don’t. Plus, this is only SAG-AFTRA predix, not AMPAS one. AFTRA might go for Eddie since standup comedians are members.
She is in this period of stanning. She used to have Murphy 1st for Best Actor. Then 2nd. Now is 3rd on the latest Oscar Squad posting. Dolemite is my name is now 8th on her predictions. It used to be higher
By december she Will have dropped it completely. Because she does not want to fail her predictions obviously. But she can’t be taken 100% seriously as of now
she stans a good fight. I do think that Eddie may be AFTRA thing. he’s likely going to miss BAFTA.
Even if he does not miss, it will not be Driver he will take the place of
very true though I get her line of thinking. DeNiro is not missing SAG after their tribute. AMPAS is another matter but SAG is sealed and delivered. Sasha doesn’t think 3 Netflix boys will get in and she wants Eddie in. So Driver is the one that she cuts off to make room for Eddie since DeNiro is in. Simple.
Then she should have cut Banderas
Agreed. he’s not AFTRA thing.
Anne Thompson industry chatter is the opposite of Sasha’s
but we are here cause we love Sasha. ♥
Sasha probably knows that… let her stan a little… She knows she is wrong
I think she may be right about Eddie but wrong about which actor misses.
I think she is wrong about Eddie as well… Pryce and Banderas are ahead of him
I think we should take into consideration that SAG has their nominees that don’t make it at the Oscars just like BAFTA has a few of their own. So it may not be Eddie but some NGNG that pops up to everyone’s shock.
Totally Agree, she did the same thing with Robert Redford for “All is Lost” she had WINNING the Best Actor Oscar almost the entire year, until he wasn’t even Nominated by ANYONE!! lol
She is so full of herself Just because she got 22 out of 24 right this year… and forgot she had an average performance in all previous years.
She may be wrong, but I don’t she is that wrong. Murphy could get in, but I am not sure where I would place him in.
The nominating committee members can only be actors/performers, dancers, singers or stuntspeople, so that probably filters it out a bit.
singers bodes well for Hustles nom
Endgame and Knives Out could score Ensemble noms.
Double nom for Chris Evans!
Indeed!
Chuck Ronan for playing the same role again and make room for Woodard or Awkwafina. Renee, Scarlett and Charlize are safe. And this is from Ronan fan but expectation that she’ll be nominated every time she has a movie out is reaching Blanchett level of stanning.
Lupita better be in Top 5 when nom are read.
Best one person campaign: Dolomite is My Name
Very true. I wonder if predicted Driver snub at SAG is because Sasha wants to make room for Eddie or because there’s some new tea.
Well, she has seen both Pain and Glory and Richard Jewell. Banderas and Hauser have roles unlike any others in the race.
Hauser is also from WB so internal competition with Phoenix.
I guess I’m extremely biased since I love the movie so much but I think, even with the crowded field, I think Roman Griffin Davis should be firmly in the conversation for best actor. He really carries the movie and is so damn appealing and heartfelt throughout.
He should be nominated, he’s so brilliant but I don’t think they will take the performance seriously, especially in such a crazy year!
Agreed. I’d drop DeNiro in a heartbeat. Roman is amazing and the MVP of his movie.
Why is there always a focus on solely black films for diversity and not the amazing Asian films that are so deserving the recognition this year? Parasite has one of the best ensembles this year. And The Farewell should have two acting noms.
Yessssss
I totally agree. PARASITE is a perfect ensemble film.
Maybe it’s something to do with Parasite being an international film? I think it has the international slot covered and it’s much more safe as it is a big BP contender. I wish The Farewell was pushed more. It ticks so many boxes.
1. I still have a feeling that Marriage Story might be the perceived contender that underperforms in the above the line categories.
2. There’s no way on god’s green earth that Dolemite is getting three acting nods. Netflix all but buried the thing and it will take some legendary campaigning by Murphy to drag ONE of the cast over the finish line.
3. Still wonder if Parasite pulls a shock supporting nomination a la Roma