Now that we’ve gotten all of our nominees in all the industry groups and guilds, we’re about to move through the winners phase. Like the last few months, this is going to be another SLOW RIDE, TAKE IT EASY. For the past fifteen years — yes, it’s been almost that long — since they changed the date we’ve been used to Oscars being a WAM BAM THANK YOU MA’AM. It’s over before it even starts and no one knows what hit them by the end. Time sorts out the rest. But this way we are taking our time, like the pre-2003 way (before they changed the date and shortened the season). Lots of foreplay. Lots of pretending to enjoy the foreplay. I kid, I kid.
We’ll next be heading on through the guild phase, and that is where the narratives begin to take shape. We already know what our frontrunners are, at least for the most part. But those presumptions can shift, especially given the time between now and the guild awards.
How are they laid out?
March 21 – First up, the WGA Awards in four days.
March 24 – Right on its heels, the PGA Awards (voting ends in two days)
April 4 – SAG awards, voting ends March 30.
April 10 – DGA Awards, voting ends April 9.
April 15 – final Oscar voting starts.
April 20 – Oscar voting ends, on Hitler’s birthday.
April 25 – The 93rd Oscars.
In other words, an eternity.
Usually, an awards narrative can shift on a dime. But what that means this year — without in person events, without market determining status and power, without live audiences reacting to people and winners — all we have is … wait for it … Twitter. And Twitter is an unreliable narrator. Twitter wants to keep all ideas very much inside the bubble. What that means is that ideas can’t bounce very far before hitting the closed surface then bouncing back down again. Nothing really can escape Twitter at the moment but there is little else that we can monitor.
For instance, last year I fully maintain that the standing ovation given to the Parasite cast at the SAG awards, and their genuine look of surprise upon receiving it, won that movie Best Picture, Screenplay, and Director. The year before, the disconnect between real life and Twitter made it possible for Green Book to win. People liked the movie enough that, at some point, the press caught on to the hysteria around the movie and the attacks against it backfired. People voted, it is presumed, defensively, to protect a well meaning film from a nest of vipers. BUT that wasn’t the whole story. The narrative prevailed and now people casually use the title Green Book to convey a bad racist choice by a bad racist voting body. As in, “Don’t Green Book us.”
We’ve written enough about that year so that we don’t need to go back over it but with the Oscars it isn’t about a small committee deciding which win will be the most accepting on Twitter. They vote for what they think is the best possible option. Sometimes that choice is easy and sometimes it isn’t. Roma was regarded by many as an opaque film, a specific, esoteric, moving film but it was by no means a movie you could sit anyone down in front of and they would at least get it, if not love it. Most Best Picture winners usually have to follow that reasoning.
But times are changing. The Academy’s changing. To much of America, the Oscars simply no longer matter. They see them as very much an insular elitist experience that addresses the needs of a community that very much cares about its image as activists rather than what it used to be: the film industry that made movies for the entire country finding the best film. But the public has long since been selected out of the process – it is kind of like this now:
The Oscars have become like the Tonys or the the fashion world where what goes on within it matters only to the community that works inside of it. That community is just getting smaller. And before you go blaming Netflix or any of the streaming platforms, remember that I’ve been here way before they were. I was here when Netflix was still about sending DVDs in red envelopes in the mail. Even before that. The Oscars became insular when they pushed their date back by one month and the race became about film festivals, film critics, and the dance they do with publicists to winnow down the pile to hand deliver hothouse flowers to Oscar voters.
Netflix and Amazon and now Apple and Hulu and every other platform are simply improvising, adapting and overcoming the changing market. The market has changed and there is no going back. The Academy has decided to skip over the majority of Americans who are used to big-canvas MOVIE movies, and head for a more global reach in countries where art films are in the main. Now it looks more like Cannes than it does like Hollywood. The money is being made by massive tent poles and franchises that are sent overseas like fast food to make the kind of money no movie studio could have dreamed of 20 years ago.
The Oscars, then, are a way of showing what the industry cares about on some abstract level. It serves a purpose that way, to some degree. Either which way, there are years where the Oscar race is wide open and years where it feels like the Oscar race is pretty much set. This year is the latter, not the former and, while the movies are, I think, all good, there hasn’t been much wiggle room in a year.
Sometimes a frontrunner can be overtaken. In the beginning of this year, before anyone saw Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom it was thought that Anthony Hopkins would be the winner in Best Actor. But now, Chadwick Boseman can’t lose.
So let’s go through the categories to see where they stand right now:
Best Picture
Frontrunner
Nomadland – Chloe Zhao’s elegiac mood piece has taken the early lead and hasn’t really been knocked off it. Much of that is due to the fact that the past few years have been about a “Time’s Up” push for more women and people of color in the race, so much so that there is a mandate that will be applied to voters the same way the BAFTA implemented one. Zhao’s gained prominence the year before with The Rider so she was coming into the race with high expectations already, and she has more than fulfilled those expectations.
Nomadland is about an America in decline for the middle class, as those left behind eke out a marginal living in CamperForce where they migrate from place to place, picking up seasonal labor, making friends on the road, and struggling with the day to day survival. It is a love story between a woman and the road. Her family are those she meets on the road. Her van is her salvation. It has already won countless critics awards, the Golden Globe and Critics Choice awards for Picture and Director. In a different kind of year, with a different kind of contender, Nomadland would be Boyhood and there would be a Birdman perhaps ready to leap forward at the PGA, then take the DGA, then SAG ensemble before taking the Oscars. But it doesn’t look to be that kind of year, at least not when you factor in the first woman of color about to make history at a time in the industry where they are demanding and deserving immediate and significant change in terms of diversity and inclusion.
I often talk about the “kicking puppy” theory of an Oscar contender. You can’t attack nor compete with a puppy. Zhao isn’t a puppy but Nomadland is Teflon, as Ben Affleck became Teflon, as The Artist was Teflon. When you can’t attack them without people feeling badly about it you know you have a formidable Oscar contender on your hands.
The bottom line here and the most important thing to remember: if anything other than Nomadland wins the PGA then you know we have a race on our hands. If so, these might be the threats:
Challenger 1– Stats wise, the one film that would be in Birdman’s spot would be Minari, which is one of only two films in the race that has PGA/DGA/SAG ensemble, the other is the Trial of the Chicago 7. What Minari has that Chicago 7 doesn’t have is an Oscar nomination for Best Director. Right now, Minari – stats wise – is poised to upset in the Best Picture category. A richly satisfying family drama about a Korean-American family planting roots in the Arkansas farmland, Minari is a true charmer that is liked and loved across the board. It is also a “kicking puppy” movie. Mank, Chicago 7 – these seem to be easily attacked movies. In a different year they might not be but this year the lineup is full of mostly “kicking puppy” movies such that they are uniquely untouchable. So it falls to the white guy (but specifically white American guy) movies that people feel comfortable criticizing.
Mank has been the target by almost everyone, if you notice. No one is going to go after any other movie on cost, for instance, or campaign spending. Even Kyle Smith at the National Review got into the attacking Mank action. It’s just easy pickings – Netflix and a white guy movie by a white guy about a white guy and not just any white guy but the most celebrated white guy in American film history who himself made a movie about a powerful white guy?
Challenger 2 – Obviously the Trial of the Chicago 7 is the only other film besides Minari that has a SAG ensemble nomination. If there is a split between Picture and Director, it will be driven, mostly likely, by the actors. Chicago 7 appears to be a formidable threat at SAG because of the sheer star power assembled. But remember, both The Irishman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood were star packed last year and neither won. Parasite, a film with no known stars in Hollywood, won both the SAG ensemble and Best Picture.
Challenger 3 – Promising Young Woman, which is the only other film in the Oscar race besides Nomadland that has Picture, Director, Screenplay and Editing nominations. All the same, it would have to be like The Shape of Water and win the PGA and DGA and then the Oscar to enthrone its position. It is not impossible because the film is passionately loved. It would also be another film by a woman to win, though not a woman of color, if that matters, which it seems to this year.
Challenger 4 – if any movie can come from behind and shock in the Best Pic spot it might be Judas and the Black Messiah, which came into the race late but caught some headwind by the end of it, by dint of its sheer brilliance. More time and it might have landed a Best Director nom. So if it wins the PGA then look out. The whole race suddenly changes.
Challenger 5 – I’m adding in Mank here not because I think it’s a threat to win but just because it is the best film of the year and when we look back ten or twenty years from now it will be obvious. It is a masterpiece that isn’t exactly the kind of movie that wins the Oscar race – which is often a passionate love affair rather than a lasting relationship. I personally think Mank is good enough to have been nominated in any year had it been made in any year. And remember, Citizen Kane only won a single Oscar for Best Screenplay even if when you ask someone what is one of the greatest examples of cinematography you have ever seen – many will answer Citizen Kane. But it did not win Cinematography. How Green Was My Valley did. Kane was a formidable contender but its Cinematography would influence every movie that came after it (sidenote: they had ten nominees for Cinematography that year).
Best Director
Frontrunner – Chloe Zhao, Nomadland
Challengers – David Fincher, of course, but in a different time and in a different place. Emerald Fennell is probably the only person who even stands a remote chance of upsetting in this category. There is a slight chance Lee Isaac Chung could pull a Birdman and take PGA/DGA/SAG ensemble but right now that feels extremely unlikely. Zhao’s win here is about the surest bet of the entire thing.
Best Actor
Frontrunner – Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Challengers: none
Best Actress
Frontrunner – Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman
Challengers: Andra Day has won the Globe but she isn’t up for the SAG. That will give someone else a chance to take the stage and make an impression. That still doesn’t mean Day won’t win the Oscar but it does make it slightly unpredictable. In Day’s favor, no black actress has won since 2001 (or before). Against her is Carey Mulligan leading a film that has all of the major nominations, including Picture, Director and Screenplay. Viola Davis is also a threat, because she would also break the Halle Berry stat but she is also now the most nominated black woman in the history of the Oscars — AND has only won in Supporting. Also she is in a film that will be winning Best Actor and potentially could win either Best Actress or Ensemble at the SAG awards. All three of these performances are worthy of a win.
Supporting Actor
Frontrunner – Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messia
Challenger: The only challenger at the moment appears to be Lakeith Stanfield from the same movie. It would have been better for both if Stanfield had appeared in lead as expected but in this category, he might — MIGHT — split votes with Kaluuya. But that feels like a long shot. They’re not going to compete against each other.
If they did split the vote, is there anyone who could take the win? Probably the strongest is Leslie Odom Jr. in One Night in Miami. Not only is he great as Sam Cooke but he’s also Pardon Me, Are You Aaron Burr, Sir in the beloved Hamilton. Not to mention One Night in Miami is bound to win something. I could see Sacha Baron Cohen sneaking in out of general love for Chicago 7. I could see Paul Raci sneaking in out of love for Sound of Metal. But overall, Kaluuya’s performance, to my mind, is so powerful it looms over all others.
Supporting Actress
Frontrunner – the only category without one
Jodie Foster won the Globe but is not nominated at SAG or Oscar. Maria Bakalova won the Critics Choice. Glenn Close has still never won an Oscar and lost against Olivia Colman. But the real threat might turn out to be Juh-Jung Youn in Minari. If Mank picks up steam, Amanda Seyfried could win. But Seyfried doesn’t have a SAG nomination, which means she can’t use that moment to build momentum. I’d tip the race slightly in Youn’s favor. I can see Youn, considering her veteran status, getting a virtual standing ovation at SAG which would seal the deal for her Oscar win.
Original Screenplay
Frontrunner -The Trial of the Chicago 7 – Aaron Sorkin has won the Globe for Screenwriting, which has a pretty good track record for Oscar. Sunday’s WGA might spin that slightly but here is the brief history for Globes screenplay:
2000-Traffic (won Screenplay)
2001-A Beautiful Mind (won Screenplay)
2002-About Schmidt (lost to The Pianist)
2003-Lost in Translation (won Screenplay)
2004-Sideways (won Screenplay)
2005-Brokeback Mountain (won Screenplay)
2006-The Queen (lost to Little Miss Sunshine)
2007- No Country for Old Men (won Screenplay)
2008-Slumdog Millionaire (won Screenplay)
2009-Up in the Air (lost to Precious)
2010-The Social Network (won Screenplay)
2011-Midnight in Paris (won Screenplay)
2012-Django Unchained (won Screenplay)
2013-Her (won Screenplay)
2014-Birdman (won Screenplay)
2015-Steve Jobs (lost to The Big Short)
2016-La La Land (lost to Manchester by the Sea)
2017-Three Billboards (lost to Get Out)
2018-Green Book (won Screenplay)
2019-Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (lost to Parasite)
It’s trending away from the Globes for whatever reason of late. Can Chicago 7 win WGA then Oscar? Sure. But if it doesn’t:
Challenger #1 – Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman, which is well-liked across the board. She should win on WGA night if PYW is to gain momentum heading into the Oscar race.
Challenger #2 – Minari, which could pick up massive steam after the SAG ensemble. But it is not nominated for the WGA because it was not eligible. Could it still win Screenplay? Yes. Since Nomadland is not an original screenplay anything can win here that isn’t tied to a Best Picture win. Any film that upsets Nomadland probably has to win Screenplay, so Minari, or any of these, could do both.
Challenger #3 – Judas and the Black Messiah – This could easily pick up a win at WGA and then head to Oscar to win.
Adapted Screenplay
Frontrunner – Nomadland
Challenger #1 – One Night in Miami but only really because it has a WGA nomination and could win, thus picking up some momentum heading into the race. Otherwise, because it’s forever tied to Best Picture, Nomadland has it. And it already won the Scripter, which is very predictive of the Oscars.
Cinematography
Frontrunner – Nomadland
Challenger #1 – Mank, because come on, are you kidding me?
Challenger #2 – Judas and the Black Messiah if it starts to pick up steam.
Animated Feature
Frontrunner — Soul
Challenger – Wolfwalkers, but it’s a long shot
The rest of the categories, to my mind, are wide open but this piece is already too long and most aren’t going to read it. Thanks to those of you who did! We’ll pick up the rest tomorrow for Predictions Friday.
