It has been a difficult year in terms of establishing certainty. People want to know what movie you think is going to win and for me it’s been an “I don’t know” for quite some time now — and the American Cinema Editors did not clarify anything last night, despite what you may be reading on Twitter.
That Jojo Rabbit beat Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is keeping in with the stat that says the only films to win in those two editing categories have a corresponding Oscar nomination. Jojo did, Once didn’t. I suppose if they REALLY loved Once, to the exclusion of all others, it might have defied that stat. But it would be wrong to draw any sort of definitive conclusion from last night’s result.
The last Best Picture winner to win the ACE was Argo, which won Globe, PGA, DGA, and SAG. The reason being none of the ballots except for PGA and Oscar use the preferential system. They are simply five movies vying for votes and a plurality wins after one round of counting. If a movie can win on both a preferential ballot and a non-preferential ballot, that shows strength. But remember, La La Land also won PGA and ACE but could not win SAG because it wasn’t nominated and it ultimately lost Best Picture.
Other films that have also won ACE and Best Picture in the era of the preferential ballot were The Artist and The Hurt Locker.
But here’s a thing to consider about last night: it could signal that one of the two films that won, Parasite or Jojo Rabbit, is about to sweep the guilds. Both films are nominated by:
PGA
DGA
SAG Ensemble
WGA
Only Parasite has a Best Directing nomination, but Jojo has acting nominations and Parasite doesn’t.
That means we’re still in a cliffhanger of a race since there have been four different winners across the board:
Globe — 1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
ACE — Parasite, Jojo Rabbit
Jojo has the People’s Choice Award from Toronto. Parasite has the Golden Globe Foreign Language Film win.
This weekend we will see what happens in this wacky year, on a preferential ballot with PGA, and with a non-preferential ballot and 120,000 SAG-AFTRA voters.
2018 went like this:
Globe – Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody
ACE – Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite
PGA – Green Book
SAG – Black Panther
DGA – Roma
Oscar – Green Book
2017 had four different titles for Globe and ACE:
Globe – Three Billboards, Lady Bird
Ace – Dunkirk, I Tonya
PGA – The Shape of Water
SAG – Three Billboards
DGA – The Shape of Water
Oscar – The Shape of Water
2016
Globe – La La Land, Moonlight
Ace – Arrival, La La Land
PGA – La La Land
SAG – Hidden Figures
DGA – La La Land
Oscar – Moonlight
2015 had four different titles for Globe and ACE.
Globe – The Revenant, The Martian
Ace – Mad Max, The Big Short
PGA – The Big Short
SAG – Spotlight
DGA – The Revenant
Oscar – Spotlight
2014
Globe – Boyhood, Grand Budapest Hotel
Ace – Boyhood, Grand Budapest Hotel
PGA – Birdman
SAG – Birdman
DGA – Birdman
Oscar – Birdman
2013
Globe – 12 Years a Slave, American Hustle
Ace – Captain Phillips, American Hustle
PGA – 12 Years a Slave/Gravity
SAG – American Hustle
DGA – Gravity
Oscar – 12 Years a Slave
2012
Globe – Argo, Les Miserables
Ace – Argo, Silver Linings Playbook
PGA – Argo
SAG – Argo
DGA – Argo
Oscar – Argo
2011
Globe – Hugo, The Artist
Ace – The Descendants, The Artist
PGA – The Artist
SAG – The Help
DGA – The Artist
Oscar – The Artist
2010
Globe – The Social Network, The Kids are All Right
Ace – The Social Network, Alice in Wonderland
PGA – The King’s Speech
SAG – The King’s Speech
DGA – The King’s Speech
Oscar – The King’s Speech
So you can see that the ACE Eddie can often have negligible predictive clout even in years that turn out to be big sweepers, like 2010 and 2014.
Looking over these spreads and clusters from recent years, I am now fairly convinced that we are indeed about to go through a split year. But I guess we’ll see tonight if that trend continues. In a year where we have 4-way split in the Globes and ACE, the PGA can sometimes show us which movie will takes the lead (as happened when the producers anointed The Shape of Water) or but sometimes the PGA only adds to the confusion (as happened when the producers passed up Spotlight).
Hold onto your butts.
