Welcome to our annual roundtable, third year running. We pose some questions to some of the writers and bloggers we know for insight. The participants this time are Inside Oscar‘s Damien Bona; The Oscar Warrior at Coming Soon; Edward Douglas; Deadline‘s Pete Hammond; Grantland‘s Hollywood Perspectus columnist, Mark Harris; The Toronto Star‘s Oscar columnist, Pete Howell; EW‘s Oscar-watch columnist, Dave Karger; Living in Cinema‘s Craig Kennedy; In Contention‘s Guy Lodge; Cinemablend‘s Oscar columnist, Katey Rich; Gold Derby’s Tom O’Neil; The Wrap‘s The Odds columnist Steve Pond; The Film Experience‘s Nathaniel Rogers.
1. It’s either a sign of our collective sanity or insanity that it is now normal procedure to predict films that haven’t yet been seen for Best Picture and performances that haven’t yet been seen. It’s one thing to think maybe they will be nominated, but to win? Do you think that this helps or hurts both our enjoyment of these films and their chances in the Oscar race?
Bona: This actually is not something new. I remember in late summer/early Autumn 1995 feeling dispirited about the Best Picture race and thinking it was not going to be any fun because everybody KNEW that “The American President” was a lock to win the top Academy Award. One thought sadly of the other movies opening that fall and holiday season and how those forlorn films needn’t even bother with Oscar campaigns; better the studios give ballyhoo money to charity. As it turned out, The American President received a total of one nomination, for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score. On the other hand, Paul Newman’s victory for “The Color of Money” was a foregone conclusion long before the picture opened. That one did pan out, even as the movie itself did turn out to be somewhat of a disappointment, so what seem possibly to be foolhardy pronouncements are not necessarily a sign of insanity. (Then again, four years earlier “The Verdict” had been seen as Newman’s pre-ordained Oscar winner, but that was before we were all blind-sided by “Gandhi.”)
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