This year, I think I can say, with a fair amount of certainty, that no one will know what direction this ship is headed until the Producers Guild Awards names their winner, which they will do with ten nominees on a preferential ballot with around 7000 voters, 57% male and 43% female. This weekend, the Broadcast Film Critics Association will hand out the Critics Choice Awards. In contrast to the Producers Guild, the Critics Choice Awards are chosen by around 300 voters. That’s a really big difference and you simply can’t compare them.
It’s always funny to me when people say “If so and so wins at the Critics Choice, look out.” You know, it just isn’t factually correct. It really has no bearing at all compared to a consensus vote of thousands of industry voters. All the BFCA can do is show you what those 300 voters think Oscar might choose. They’re right sometimes, they’re wrong sometimes. Just like we in the punditry world are sometimes right and sometimes wrong.
To win on a preferential ballot (and we’ll be looking more closely at PGA as we get a bit nearer to the biggest and arguably most important decider of Best Picture to date), you need a combination of number 1 votes, plus a healthy portion of number 2 and number 3 votes. I’m going to take a wild guess (and we can confirm this with Rob or Marshall) that coming in at number 4 on the first round severely inhibits your chances of being the eventual winner. You’d have to be 1, 2 or at least 3. So we have to ask ourselves: what are going to be the two favorite films heading into the race?
Based on yesterday’s Oscar nominations, it appears to be down to The Revenant — which missed on screenplay (not good) but earned an unexpected costume nomination (good) vs. Mad Max: Fury Road, which has everything The Revenant does except acting nominations (not good, because actors) and also doesn’t have any SAG Awards noms. Quick, someone tell me a year when the Producers Guild went for a movie that had no SAG nominations. Answer: never. The Revenant has that key Leonardo DiCaprio nomination to tug it along but Mad Max doesn’t.
Even though Gravity tied with 12 Years a Slave at the PGA in 2013, in previous years every PGA winner had a SAG Awards Ensemble nomination. I’m not going to say that holds true this year because I genuinely do not know. Gravity broke the stat (halfway) already so anything is possible. The SAG Awards Ensemble stat held true through 2013, though, because 12 Years a Slave won Best Picture. Gravity’s lack of a SAG Awards Ensemble nomination did reveal a tiny crack in the armor.
Why does it make a difference what the big guilds decide? The only thing I can think of is that you’re talking about thousands of people voting. Passion will win out. We know that it’s harder for a film like, say, Room to build any momentum without a PGA nomination or SAG Awards Ensemble nomination. Common sense would have us conclude that the PGA winner will be either Spotlight or The Big Short.
That doesn’t account for what the DGA might do — although both those films, along with The Revenant and Mad Max, will be represented. The DGA has Inarritu and Miller, plus Ridley Scott — three effects-driven films with no SAG Awards Ensemble nods — facing off with two character-/script-/director-driven films. Of those two, Spotlight and The Big Short, each has its own strengths and weaknesses.
Spotlight’s strength is that everyone likes it, no one hates it and it is about something important. It has a well-acted ensemble full of heroic, somber, humble characters who are just out to do the right thing. It stands up for good people doing good deeds by hunting down and exposing pedophile priests. It depicts a time in our past when we were at an information crossroads. The birth of the Internet as the primary delivery of news has only grown since then, for better or worse. Clickbait and hysteria have replaced focused research and the need to be as right as possible before you drop the bomb. Every responsible journalist and news junkie hungers for those days when no one chased clickbait headlines about what a particular celebrity said or did that day and why that should matter for the next 24 hours. McCarthy keeps Spotlight focused and never slips up. The story builds quietly but powerfully. Spotlight’s weakness is the passion factor — and always has been. That hasn’t stopped the critics groups from rewarding it so far — and I predict it wins the Critics Choice over the weekend — but it didn’t win the Audience Award at Toronto, it didn’t get an ACE Eddie nod. Those are the closest things you have to a 1000+ vote. If it wins at the PGA we could be looking at a split vote scenario where Spotlight — like In the Heat of the Night — takes Picture and someone else, like George Miller or Inarritu, takes Director. That is probably how pundits will be predicting if they aren’t going fully for The Revenant.
The Big Short’s strength is that Adam McKay brings to cinema something no one has ever really seen before — a thoroughly modern, wildly original take on a specific arcane aspect of the Wall Street meltdown. A Charles Randolph adaptation of Michael Lewis’ bestselling book of the same name was then handed over to McKay, who did a minor rewrite but in so doing altered the DNA just enough to create an entirely new species. He credits his editor and cinematographer for helping to make The Big Short what it is, but it can be nothing other than the director’s vision here, the way the whole thing comes together. Funny, abstract, absurd — has any film ever captured modern American life better? The funny/sad way our empire is collapsing around us — the hopelessness we all feel, the anger. It’s all there in a film that isn’t immediately accessible as many others, and certainly not as accessible as Best Picture contenders tend to be. The film’s weakness is just that. From a cinematic perspective it isn’t a weakness (same goes for Spotlight above), but from an “awards race” perspective, Oscar winners tend to be accessible — that is, you can sit anyone down in front of them and the viewer will get it if not love it on the first go-round. While this rule didn’t exactly apply to No Country for Old Men and The Departed, two of the Academy’s best recent choices for Best Picture, it has applied ever since the preferential ballot was put in play. The more complex the film, the harder it is for thousands to join in and vote for it. But what The Big Short has in spades is passion. It will get the number one votes AND the number two votes and the number three votes. It might even be third on a ballot that has Mad Max and The Revenant at 1 and 2. That is what makes it a threat. Spotlight will have the same top-ranked glut of number 1s and number 2s and even number 3s, but I suspect that The Big Short could come in with more number 1s at the outset.
The Academy, I know, does sometimes go for the sweeping epic, but it is complicated this year because which epic do we choose? There are two and both of them huddle close to one another in almost every category. Mad Max only lacks the acting nominations that The Revenant landed. Can one or the other topple the whole race and sweep? It’s entirely possible. But remember, when people point to The Revenant as being like Titanic (another Best Picture epic with no screenplay nomination), that film had a SAG Ensemble nomination. The Revenant does not. Funnily enough, both The Revenant and Mad Max have a B+ CinemaScore. For Best Picture you’re ordinarily looking for an A- or an A or an A Plus because Best Picture winners mostly all have those unless they were in limited release and not scored. CinemaScore isn’t rocket science and having a good CinemaScore does not guarantee a win, but a low or middling CinemaScore can sometimes mean the film can’t win over a large consensus vote. Spotlight doesn’t have a CinemaScore but I would suspect it would get a solid A. The Martian and Bridge of Spies also have solid As. That just means: crowdpleaser. But a B+ is something tough for a film to overcome, as least so far as I can tell. Cut to: The Revenant sweeps with the Oscars with 10 wins!
It’s worth noting, of course, that I have not correctly predicted the PGA since 2009 when The Hurt Locker won. Since then, I have been wrong — 2011 I thought Hugo would win. 2012 I thought anything but Argo would win. 2013 I was pretty sure Gravity was going to take it and the race would be over. Last year I was sure Boyhood would win. I can honestly say I have absolutely NO IDEA what will win PGA this year. NONE. My prediction would be one of these four films:
The Big Short
Spotlight
The Revenant
Mad Max: Fury Road
Did you miss that part where I said I had no idea what was going to win? No clue whatsoever. I can only try to rely on stats as best I can — though they’re sure to fail this year. I will follow the stats until the PGA for Best Picture. So let’s get to it, shall we?
Best motion picture of the year
- “The Big Short” Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, Producers
- “Spotlight” Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin and Blye Pagon Faust, Producers
- “The Revenant” Arnon Milchan, Steve Golin, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Mary Parent and Keith Redmon, Producers
- “Mad Max: Fury Road” Doug Mitchell and George Miller, Producers
- “Room” Ed Guiney, Producer
- “The Martian” Simon Kinberg, Ridley Scott, Michael Schaefer and Mark Huffam, Producers
- “Bridge of Spies” Steven Spielberg, Marc Platt and Kristie Macosko Krieger, Producers
- “Brooklyn” Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, Producers
Achievement in directing
- “The Big Short” Adam McKay
- “Mad Max: Fury Road” George Miller
- “The Revenant” Alejandro G. Iñárritu
- “Spotlight” Tom McCarthy
- “Room” Lenny Abrahamson
Performance by an actor in a leading role
- Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Revenant”
- Matt Damon in “The Martian”
- Michael Fassbender in “Steve Jobs”
- Bryan Cranston in “Trumbo”
- Eddie Redmayne in “The Danish Girl”
Performance by an actor in a supporting role
- Sylvester Stallone in “Creed”
- Christian Bale in “The Big Short”
- Tom Hardy in “The Revenant”
- Mark Rylance in “Bridge of Spies”
- Mark Ruffalo in “Spotlight”
Performance by an actress in a leading role
- Brie Larson in “Room”
- Saoirse Ronan in “Brooklyn”
- Charlotte Rampling in “45 Years”
- Cate Blanchett in “Carol”
- Jennifer Lawrence in “Joy”
Performance by an actress in a supporting role
- Alicia Vikander in “The Danish Girl”
- Rooney Mara in “Carol”
- Rachel McAdams in “Spotlight”
- Jennifer Jason Leigh in “The Hateful Eight”
- Kate Winslet in “Steve Jobs”
Adapted screenplay
- “The Big Short” Screenplay by Charles Randolph and Adam McKay
- “Carol” Screenplay by Phyllis Nagy
- “Room” Screenplay by Emma Donoghue
- “Brooklyn” Screenplay by Nick Hornby
- “The Martian” Screenplay by Drew Goddard
Original screenplay
- “Spotlight” Written by Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy
- “Inside Out” Screenplay by Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley; Original story by Pete Docter, Ronnie del Carmen
- “Straight Outta Compton” Screenplay by Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff; Story by S. Leigh Savidge & Alan Wenkus and Andrea Berloff
- “Bridge of Spies” Written by Matt Charman and Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
- “Ex Machina” Written by Alex Garland
Best animated feature film of the year
- “Inside Out” Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera
- “Anomalisa” Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson and Rosa Tran
- “When Marnie Was There” Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Yoshiaki Nishimura
- “Shaun the Sheep Movie” Mark Burton and Richard Starzak
- “Boy and the World” Alê Abreu
Achievement in cinematography
- “The Revenant” Emmanuel Lubezki
- “Mad Max: Fury Road” John Seale
- “Carol” Ed Lachman
- “Sicario” Roger Deakins
- “The Hateful Eight” Robert Richardson
Achievement in costume design
- “Carol” Sandy Powell
- “Cinderella” Sandy Powell
- “Mad Max: Fury Road” Jenny Beavan
- “The Danish Girl” Paco Delgado
- “The Revenant” Jacqueline West
Best documentary feature
- “Amy” Asif Kapadia and James Gay-Rees
- “Cartel Land” Matthew Heineman and Tom Yellin
- “The Look of Silence” Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge Sørensen
- “What Happened, Miss Simone?” Liz Garbus, Amy Hobby and Justin Wilkes
- “Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom” Evgeny Afineevsky and Den Tolmor
Best documentary short subject
- “Chau, beyond the Lines” Courtney Marsh and Jerry Franck
- “Last Day of Freedom” Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman
- “Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah” Adam Benzine
- “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness” Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
- “Body Team 12” David Darg and Bryn Mooser
Achievement in film editing
- “Mad Max: Fury Road” Margaret Sixel
- “The Big Short” Hank Corwin
- “Spotlight” Tom McArdle
- “The Revenant” Stephen Mirrione
- “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey
Best foreign language film of the year
- “Son of Saul” Hungary
- “Mustang” France
- “Theeb” Jordan
- “Embrace of the Serpent” Colombia
- “A War” Denmark
Achievement in makeup and hairstyling
- “The Revenant” Siân Grigg, Duncan Jarman and Robert Pandini
- “Mad Max: Fury Road” Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin
- “The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared” Love Larson and Eva von Bahr
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
- “The Hateful Eight” Ennio Morricone
- “Carol” Carter Burwell
- “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” John Williams
- “Bridge of Spies” Thomas Newman
- “Sicario” Jóhann Jóhannsson
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
- “Til It Happens To You” from “The Hunting Ground”
Music and Lyric by Diane Warren and Lady Gaga - “Writing’s On The Wall” from “Spectre”
Music and Lyric by Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith - “Manta Ray” from “Racing Extinction”
Music by J. Ralph and Lyric by Antony Hegarty - “Simple Song #3” from “Youth”
Music and Lyric by David Lang - “Earned It” from “Fifty Shades of Grey”
Music and Lyric by Abel Tesfaye, Ahmad Balshe, Jason Daheala Quenneville and Stephan Moccio
Achievement in production design
- “Mad Max: Fury Road” Production Design: Colin Gibson; Set Decoration: Lisa Thompson
- “The Revenant” Production Design: Jack Fisk; Set Decoration: Hamish Purdy
- “The Martian” Production Design: Arthur Max; Set Decoration: Celia Bobak
- “Bridge of Spies” Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Rena DeAngelo and Bernhard Henrich
- “The Danish Girl” Production Design: Eve Stewart; Set Decoration: Michael Standish
Best animated short film
- “Prologue” Richard Williams and Imogen Sutton
- “World of Tomorrow” Don Hertzfeldt
- “Sanjay’s Super Team” Sanjay Patel and Nicole Grindle
- “We Can’t Live without Cosmos” Konstantin Bronzit
- “Bear Story” Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala
Best live action short film
- “Shok” Jamie Donoughue
- “Day One” Henry Hughes
- “Stutterer” Benjamin Cleary and Serena Armitage
- “Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut)” Patrick Vollrath
- “Ave Maria” Basil Khalil and Eric Dupont
Achievement in sound editing
- “The Revenant” Martin Hernandez and Lon Bender
- “Mad Max: Fury Road” Mark Mangini and David White
- “The Martian” Oliver Tarney
- “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Matthew Wood and David Acord
- “Sicario” Alan Robert Murray
Achievement in sound mixing
- “The Revenant” Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Randy Thom and Chris Duesterdiek
- “Mad Max: Fury Road” Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo
- “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson
- “The Martian” Paul Massey, Mark Taylor and Mac Ruth
- “Bridge of Spies” Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Drew Kunin
Achievement in visual effects
- “Mad Max: Fury Road” Andrew Jackson, Tom Wood, Dan Oliver and Andy Williams
- “The Revenant” Rich McBride, Matthew Shumway, Jason Smith and Cameron Waldbauer
- “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corbould
- “The Martian” Richard Stammers, Anders Langlands, Chris Lawrence and Steven Warner
- “Ex Machina” Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett
