Tuesday morning Oscar nominations drop. They’ll be available everywhere, via livestream. We’ll make sure to post that streaming link early in the AM. I haven’t finished watching all of the shorts. I’ve almost made it through the animated category, well enough to spitball five of the best. Oscar predictions are often made or broken with the shorts. The better you do on those, the higher your score overall.
People who do well with Oscar predictions in unpredictable years like this one tend to be people whose personal taste aligns with the Academy’s. In that case, you’re likely to do very well. The trick is figuring out which films hit and didn’t. We have no idea, for instance, whether Babylon is going to land. Does Black Panther: Wakanda Forever make it in? Just how much will they love Top Gun: Maverick — enough for Director and Screenplay, maybe Best Actor? Or not at all and just barely Best Picture?
Conversely, if you don’t like a movie and you don’t predict it, that can sometimes hurt your chances, obviously. I am particularly undone if I have a blind spot to a film that others seem to like much more than I do. Such is the case with Triangle of Sadness, which many pundits have throughout their predictions, for Best Picture and even Best Director. That one is hard for me to wrap my mind around, so the only reason I’d be predicting it is because I was copying them.
Figuring out what films are going to be on voters’ minds and why is usually how to be a good Oscar predictor. Sometimes this intel can be gathered by talking to voters. We can use stats, which are sometimes reliable. But they can be deceptive, too, like the recent 14 BAFTA nomination haul for All Quiet on the Western Front. Had the BAFTA noms come out before the Oscar ballot deadline, there is no question it would dominate. Consensus builds the more people put their support behind certain films. But it has to start with a big nomination score like that. We don’t know if Oscar voters will independently single out the film.
There is likely to be a lot of anger when the nominations come down, I figure, particularly where women are concerned. The thing about that, though, if there isn’t a strong consensus around one nominee it’s hard to push them into the race. For all of those trying to push for Sarah Polley, there is an equal number pushing for Charlotte Wells and Gina Prince-Bythewood. That, of course, just means they split up their own voting block. I do not know whether that will be the case this year (no one does), but just putting it out there.
Erik Anderson has posted his final Oscar predictions one by one, category by category, with the latest being Best Director. I imagine Best Picture is coming soon. Scott Feinberg’s are here. Clayton Davis’ are here.
And, of course, you know that Gold Derby‘s predictions are all up on their site.
When it comes to years with 10 nominees for Best Picture (as opposed to five, or the variable number between five and 10), we know we aren’t going to be in a situation where there might be eight or nine. We know they have to put 10 in there, so in a sense that makes it easier. We just don’t know which of the films on the cusp will get in. I have found that they tend to be pushed in with three factors: 1) they are tied to an acting performance (The Blind Side, Philomena), 2) they are critically acclaimed and pushed by critics (Drive My Car), and 3) they are there because it took a village to get them there (Selma).
All three of these types of stragglers usually don’t come in the race with a lot of nominations. Usually you can tell how popular a movie is if it hits many different categories. If it only lands in Best Picture and Acting, obviously it was mostly favored by actors. They have a big enough branch in the Academy to drive a movie toward a Best Pic nomination.
In the case of Drive My Car, there had to be some support from directors and writers to get that movie in the Best Picture race. The ones with multiple nominations across the board, it should go without saying, are in the race because most of the membership put them there.
2019 was last year where Best Picture contenders were strong up and down ballot. After that, after COVID and the “Great Awokening,” Best Picture contenders got much smaller and there wasn’t as much down ballot action. This year, though, it feels like things are almost back to 2019 levels. We might have several Best Picture contenders with lots of nominations. Depending on how All Quiet lands with the Academy, we could be looking at some films with 10+ nods each.
I think it’s likely The Banshees of Inisherin and Everything Everywhere All at Once will lead with multiple nominations across all categories.
With that said, let’s get to it.
Best Picture
Safe:
Everything Everywhere All At Once
The Banshees of Inisherin
The Fabelmans
Top Gun: Maverick
Avatar: The Way of Water
TÁR
Elvis
All Quiet on the Western Front
Risky bets:
Women Talking (rallying cry from Frances McDormand)
The Whale
The films on the bubble for me include:
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Angela Bassett as frontrunner)
RRR, Babylon
Best Director:
Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans
The Daniels, Everything Everywhere
Todd Field, TÁR
Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin
Joseph Kosinski, Top Gun Maverick
Alt: Edward Berger, All Quiet on the Western Front; Jim Cameron, Avatar
Best Actor
Austin Butler, Elvis
Brendan Fraser, The Whale
Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin
Bill Nighy, Living
Tom Cruise, Top Gun: Maverick
Alt: Paul Mescal, Aftersun
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, TÁR
Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Danielle Deadwyler, Till
Viola Davis, The Woman King
Ana De Armas, Blonde
Alt: Michelle Williams, The Fabelmans, Andrea Riseboough, To Leslie
Supporting Actress
Angela Bassett, Wakanda Forever
Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin
Stephanie Hsu, Everything Everywhere
Hong Chau, The Whale
Jamie Lee Curtis, EEAAO
Alt: Janelle Monae, Glass Onion; Michelle Williams, The Fabelmans
Supporting Actor
Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin
Paul Dano, The Fabelmans
Barry Keoghan, The Banshees of Inisherin
Brad Pitt, Babylon
Alt: Val Kilmer, Top Gun Maverick; Judd Hirsch, The Fabelmans; Micheal Ward, Empire of Light; Anthony Hopkins, Armageddon Time
Original Screenplay
The Banshees of Inisherin
TÁR
The Fabelmans
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Menu
Alt: Triangle of Sadness; Aftersun; Elvis
Adapted Screenplay
Women Talking
Top Gun: Maverick
All Quiet on the Western Front
Living
The Whale
Alt: She Said
Editing
Top Gun: Maverick
All Quiet on the Western Front
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
Cinematography
Top Gun: Maverick
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
Empire of Light
Elvis
Sound
Top Gun: Maverick
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
Elvis
The Batman
Production Design
Avatar: The Way of Water
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Elvis
Babylon
The Fabelmans
Costume Design
Elvis
Babylon
Wakanda Forever
The Woman King
Everything Everywhere All At Once
International Feature
Germany, All Quiet on the Western Front
Argentina, Argentina, 1985
South Korea, Decision to Leave
Belgium, Close
Mexico, Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Makeup and Hairstyling
Elvis
The Whale
All Quiet on the Western Front
Babylon
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Original Score
Women Talking
Babylon
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Fabelmans
The Banshees of Inisherin
Visual Effects
Avatar: The Way of Water
Top Gun: Maverick
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Batman
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Song
Top Gun: Maverick
RRR
Wakanda Forever
GDT’s Pinoccio
Till
Animated Feature
GDT’s Pinocchio
Marcell the Shell with Shoes On
Turning Red
Puss in Boots
Wendell and Wild
Doc Feature
All the Beauty and Bloodshed
Descendent
Fire of Love
All That Breathes
Navalny
Animated Short
The Boy, the Mole, The Fox and the Horse
An Ostrich Told Me
New Moon
Save Ralph
My Year of Dicks
Live Action Short
An Irish Goodbye
The Red Suitcase
Le Pupille
Warsha
Almost Home
Doc Short
Elephant Whisperers
The Flagmakers
38 at the Garden
How Do You Measure a Year
Nuisance Bear
Charts (courtesy of Marshall Flores)
Aftersun should be nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Lead Actor, Best Lead Actress, Best editing and Best Cinematography.
Top Gun Maverick should be nominated only on the technical categories.
No Spielberg and no Cameron.
EEOAAO should have 14 nominations.
RRR – deserves a nomination for BP
You guys usually abhor biopic performances but I have not heard one negative thing about Austin Butler in Elvis. Come reply why you love you his performance.
I think it is a good, just not that great performance. The now much maligned Rami Malek’s Freddie Mercury was more accomplished, in my opinion… or Taron Egerton’s Elton John, also – Rocketman was the best musical biopic, in my opinion, of recent years.
Alright so I saw Damien Chazelle’s Babylon last night. This is the film that bombed so badly? Man, that sucks and man, did I love, love, LOVE that crazy, terrific film. This is not a film without problems but it’s such a wild, hilarious, quietly heartbreaking, memorable cinematic journey I almost didn’t want it to end after a jaw-dropping 189 minutes duration in the theater.
I’ve been a huge fan of Chazelle from the moment I saw Whiplash and his masterful La La Land solidified my love for his work. First Man was also such a fantastic, criminally underrated gem of a film as far as I’m concerned.
Diego Calva, a fantastic revelation of a lead as Manny and the UNBELIEVABLE Margot Robbie KILLED it. In fact the entire cast did. Jovan Adepo was at his best here, Li Jun Li was such a scene stealing presence, Jean Smart chewed the scenery and left no crumbs at all with that last monologue of hers and every single cast member, regardless of their on screen time (from Tobey Maguire and Olivia Wilde to PJ Byrne, Samara Weaving and Chazelle’s own wife, Olivia Hamilton as Ruth) was flat out fantastic.
But let me take a minute here to talk about Margot Robbie here, especially after all the talk about her two box office flops this year between this and David O Russell’s Amsterdam and the almost vicious attacks I saw towards her prior to the release of the film and even after its release from many people who clearly didn’t even see it and claimed her work was just “Harley Quinn on coke.”
That was Harley Quinn on coke? What the hell… Margot Robbie has been a scene stealing, EXCEPTIONAL actress from the get go and an impressively ambitious presence behind the scenes as well (with the picking of her extremely varied and interesting producing works). What happened with the box office turnouts of both this FANTASTIC, instant classic of a film that will for sure inspire a whole lot of filmmakers, cinephiles and creative in the future and Russell’s enjoyable mess of a film is unfortunate but not really surprising with how the big budget arthouse films (and even the smaller ones) fared commercially and not even remotely her fault. It must be noted how she was the best, Oscar worthy member of two huge casts of phenomenal Oscar winners after so many projects with terrific similar ensembles where she was nothing sort of phenomenal (from her breakthrough with The Wolf Of Wall Street to both Suicide Squad fims and her wildly enjoyable Birds Of Prey spin off film to Once Upon A Time In Hollywood and Bombshell).
The difficulty of what she does though, especially in Babylon, is something I’m not sure how many people are aware of. It’s so easy for a character like Nellie LaRoy to go full, one note caricature and for her and the genius that Damien Chazelle is to imbue her with so much humanity, so much pain, so much loneliness, internal strength, vulnerability and ultimately self destructive tendencies is just (chef’s kiss)
She sets the screen ON FIRE and not just because she’s a super hot, gorgeous young woman with the looks and presence of a superstar but also an insanely charismatic, chameleonic character actress who knows how to communicate her characters’ inner life like only a few out there. Her scene at the party where she fails so miserably to convince anyone as that polished, intellectual, high society new version of herself before going into that full freak out / projectile vomiting outburst is nothing sort of a masterwork.
Some people can be as dismissive as they want of a seemingly “have it all”, rich and successful, gorgeous white lady but if only she (or so many people before her, from Robert Redford and Leonardo DiCaprio to Brad Pitt – astonishing in this as well btw – and Charlize Theron) were just that – they delivered years of phenomenal hard work to be associated so much more with their looks than their talent.
And that’s not to say obviously Margot is some sort of Meryl Streep / Cate Blanchett type of talent but an impressive talent in her own right, going out of her way to give it her all with auteur drivwn projects. I didn’t expect going to see Babylon to watch her top her unforgettable, Oscar nominated turn in I, Tonya but she did and then some. And since we’re only a few hours before the Oscar nominations (where I doubt she or anyone of that special tornado of a film will receive a major nomination apart from Justin Hurwitz’s MESMERIZING score and maybe the Production or Costume Design team) I wanna say I’d rather see Margot nominated for her ferocious turn (undoubtedly among my Top 5 Lead Actress picks this year) than say Ana de Armas’ fantastic turn in the wildly problematic Blonde or Andrea Riseborough’s heartbreaking turn in To Leslie. And I say this because I know one of de Armas or Riseborough (or probably both) will end up getting a nomination (and once again I’ll definitely be happy for them if they do) for exceptional work that is limited by the one note writing of their films. Margot benefits from a script that truly goes for the fences and creates such a complete, complex, fascinating individual. Nellie is one hell of a part giving Robbie the chance to deliver one hell of a performance.
I know what I express through that long ass post might be an unpopular opinion but I simply LOVED that film and Diego and Margot’s killer work in it. It’s again not a perfect film, understandably divisive and eager to ignore good taste to get its message across. But it’s a wildly creative, toweringly ambitious, equally hilarious and heartbreaking ode to cinema – like Chazelle said prior to its release a big love letter to the cinema as an art and a big fuck you to an industry which like any other will always treat its people like shit. And an ode to all the losers, dreamers and deeply hurt artists who while covered in some elephant level of shit trying to produce art (no pun intended) can offer pure magic on the movie screen through the dirtiest / craziest sort of circumstances and carrying like many of us so much baggage (humble beginnings, family issues) or inflated egos (like Pitt’s character).
I found myself like Calva’s Manny almost on the verge of tears in the last scene, so excited after seeing for three hours so many talented people in front of and behind the camera create something so different, unique and original. I expected ranking the film with a 5 or 6/10 at best and ended up giving it a 7 and having a full cinematic experience, one I definitely won’t easily forget. It’s among my favorites of this year and one that would score every major nomination if it was up to me (Picture, Director Screenplay, Lead Actor, Supporting Actor and for sure Lead Actress for Margot Robbie).
Whatever its problems / questionable choices, this is a film that’s clearly the product of a true auteur willing to go to daring, surprising places and among that small canon of films that can still keep cinema as an art firm unexpected, fascinating and alive. Yep, I might be in the minority but color me pleasantly impressed.
Not only is this an instant “featured comment,” Stergios, I wish we had your reaction to Babylon 3 weeks ago, to post as a VIP guest post on the main page.
Speaking of words on the page. In the screenplay, in their final scene together in the dance hall, Manny’s plea to Nellie in the script is simply: “Te amo, Nellie!”
During the magic of filming this masterpiece, those 3 words bloomed into this:
“Wake up! What the fuck I’m gonna do without you? I’m not going anywhere without you. ¡Entiendes! Te amo. ¡Te amo, Nellie! Te amo, te amo, te amo, te amo, te amo, te amaré siempre.”
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b14b438134fadbd7d258b135a5dc6cf927f7fc086b9742ebf4fd68c19d764044.jpg
Wow. So cool Ryan. And thanks for your words buddy 🙂
I was pumped up to see the film even before entering the theater but it was so satisfying to like it as much as I did. I know it’s not the kind that can be everyone’s taste.
That chemistry between Diego and Margot man and their last scene aghhhh….
Btw since I’m always interested in your thoughts do you think it has a chance to somehow surprise in major categories or like me have the feeling that at best it’s gonna be nominated for Score and one or two technical categories? At this point personally I won’t be surprised if it’s shut out of the nominations completely (although I think they’ll at least nominate that fabulous score).
As much of a dreamer as I am, Stergios, I honestly have to surrender to the likelihood that Babylon’s best chance at nominations are with the visual crafts branches.
Although I see a lot of people have Babylon landing at 11 or 12 for Best Picture, so anything can happen on a cusp like that.
I would not be at all surprised if Justin Hurwitz wins for the score though.
I went to take another look at the screenplay which I read months ago. I’m wrong about the scripted dialogue. It was written this way:
NELLIE
You go to Mexico without me —
MANNY
I’m not going anywhere without you.
Nellie, please — we can be happy, I
promise, I will make you happy, you’ll
see, seremos felices, lo prometo…
He can’t hold it in any longer. Nellie looks at him. Seems to see him anew. The desperate, lovesick boy beneath the man’s exterior. The SONG ends… Silence. Finally, her thoughts crystallizing —
NELLIE
Ok… One more song.
====
Nellie puts her arms around him. Looks into his eyes. He starts moving with her. She bends her head back, closes her eyes once more — and the two of them DANCE TOGETHER…
Awash in sweat, holding each other close — feeling each other’s heat, tasting each other’s breath — letting everything else go…
WE LINGER here — the Tourism Officials grinning ‘cause they’ve hit the jackpot, Manny and Nellie sharing the blur of music and dance and waning sunlight. Soon Manny closes his eyes as well: he’s living inside a DREAM, his entire being overflowing with LOVE — and with it, for at least this instant, PEACE…
WE CUT BACK TO the Tourism Officials — their hand-cranked camera pointed at our heroes. WE CUT BACK TO NELLIE AND MANNY — leaning in, their lips about to lock. WE PUSH IN — and, all of a sudden —
SOUND DROPS OUT — AND WE SEE THE BLACK-AND WHITE IMAGE CAPTURED BY THE TOURISM OFFICIALS’ CAMERA:
NELLIE AND MANNY KISSING. It’s a kiss for the ages. The final rays of sunlight refracting behind their faces, the lustrous black-and-white frame capturing the two of them like a pair of incandescent movie stars. Like a shot from one of Jack Conrad or Nellie’s silent productions, it’s the PUREST KIND OF MOVIE MAGIC.
And Nellie and Manny both look as blissfully happy as can be…
227 EXT. THE COUNT’S APARTMENT BUILDING – NIGHT 227
An hour later. It’s night now. Manny’s car pulls back up at the Count’s building. Manny turns to Nellie —
MANNY
Do you need anything?
NELLIE
No. You grab him, I’ll wait here.
Manny looks at her for a moment. She looks at him. A smile.
MANNY
Te amo, Nellie.
NELLIE
I love you, Manny.
===
So we do get just the one “Te amo,” but I wanted to be sure to show that I was not trying to downplay the gorgeous passion in the screenplay.
Holy shit man, that just oozes with an almost poetic sense of passion. Everyone involved deserves an Oscar in my book. A shame Margot doesn’t seem to stand a chance even at a nomination. Ugh :/ Her match with Diego was a match made in cinematic heaven 🙂
The only Margot Robbie movie I think I’ve seen is I, Tonya which I didn’t care for very much. (Mostly because it played fast and loose with the timing of the Olympic Years and the announcement of the “early” 1994 Olympics. I just despise the alteration of history for useless dramatic tension.
I always like Tonya Harding, even ran into her once in Portland long after the controversy, and while I can’t condone what happened, the discrimination she experienced was real (but maybe don’t combine Send in the Clowns with Tone-Loc’s Wild Thing).
Ultimately I think the film uncomplicated a very complicated woman and turned it into the Allison Janney show.
Ok, fair enough. Not my experience with the film for sure. I liked Craig Gillespie’s work ever since Lars And The Real Girl and I especially liked I, Tonya and Margot’s outstanding imho work in it. I applauded hers and Gillespie’s approach to a definitely wildly complicated story and central character and how it kept things pretty ambiguous when it comes to the event that detailed Tonya Harding’s entire life and career and included one on ones with every character involved in the incident.
For me she was phenomenal both in the way she performed and shaped the entire project with her producing partners and has yet to disappoint me with either her work or choices. Doubt you’ll be impressed by her in the future though if something like I, Tonya didn’t make it for you.
Like I said, I am a huge figure skating fan and, quite simply, the film took too many liberties for my tastes.
I understand they need to fit everything into a thematically and narratively cohesive film, but sometimes life doesn’t work that way.
Although I did rewatch Lars and the Real Girl for a second time recently. It was much better than I recalled, although I am sure my first viewing was tempered by it not being Half Nelson, a film that still ranks in my top 10 and includes one of my top 5 favorite performances of all time.
Man, Half Nelson was sooo good. Brilliant film with an indeed phenomenal leading turn.
★Top Gun: Maverick (17): AFI, OSCAR, BAFTA, GG, CC, NBR, IPA, PGA, DGA, SDSA, ADG, MPSE, ASC, CSA, CAS, CDG, VES
★Elvis (16): AFI, OSCAR, BAFTA, GG, CC, IPA, PGA, SAG, SDSA, ADG, MPSE, ASC, CSA, CAS, MUAH, CDG
★Everything Everywhere All at Once (16): AFI, OSCAR, BAFTA, GG, CC, NBR, IPA, PGA, DGA, SAG, SDSA, ADG, MPSE, CSA, MUAH, CDG
★Avatar: The Way of Water (14): AFI, OSCAR, GG, CC, NBR, IPA, PGA, SDSA, ADG, MPSE, CAS, CSA, CDG, VES
★The Fabelmans (14): AFI, OSCAR, BAFTA, GG, CC, NBR, IPA, PGA, DGA, SAG, SDSA, ADG, CSA, VES
★TÁR (14): AFI, OSCAR, BAFTA, GG, CC, IPA, PGA, DGA, SAG, SDSA, ADG, MPSE, CSA, CDG
★The Banshees of Inisherin (12): AFI, OSCAR, BAFTA, GG, CC, NBR, IPA, PGA, DGA, SAG, MPSE, CSA
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (10): GG, CC, NBR, IPA, PGA, SDSA, ADG, CSA, MUAH, CDG
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (9): IPA, PGA, SAG, SDSA, ADG, CSA, MUAH, CDG, VES
Babylon (7): GG, CC, SAG, SDSA, ADG, MUAH, CDG
★Women Talking (7): AFI, OSCAR, CC, NBR, IPA, SAG, CDG
★All Quiet on The Western Front (5): OSCAR, BAFTA, ADG, MPSE, CAS
Nope (5): AFI, ADG, MPSE, MUAH, CDG
Till (5): NBR, IPA, CSA, SAG, MUAH
★Triangle of Sadness (5): OSCAR, BAFTA, GG, IPA, MPSE
The Woman King (5): AFI, NBR, SAG, MUAH, CDG
The Whale (4): PGA, SAG, CSA, MUAH
Living (3): BAFTA, SAG, IPA
RRR (3): CC, NBR, IPA
Aftersun (2): BAFTA, NBR
She Said (1): AFI
Kinda looking forward to this whole nomination/awards show process being over. I see some potentially great films on the horizon. Can’t wait to see them and talk about them and eventually get sick of them just as the 2024 films start to grab our attention.
Final Top 5 predictions for Best Actress :
Cate Blanchett, Tar
Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All At Once
Ana de Armas, Blonde
Danielle Deadwyler, Till
Andrea Riseborough, To Leslie
Personal Top 5:
Cate Blanchett, Tar
Mia Goth, Pearl
Margot Robbie, Babylon
Tang Wei, Decision To Leave
Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All At Once
Moment of ego – excuse me, for that.
I think I recall I was the first time calling Quan’s narrative kind of unbeatable, if the film catched Awards traction… but all the time – even today – I consider it, too good to be true. I wouldn’t be in shock if tomorrow EEAAO underperforms (4 noms: Picture, Actress, S. Actor and Original, even losing a Film Editing nom, given how much the technical branches have sneered to it, due to its low budget) and goes on to be emptyhanded at Oscar night (with Gleeson upsetting Quan).
I can imagine, then, Quan making history with a selfie with a t-shirt with the legend
I am more serious on this, than you can imagine… I just find it, too good to be true, because narrative or not, it’s – in my book – the performance of the year (no, I haven’t seen Cate, but she didn’t have the hurdles Quan had to jump over)
yup you were early, i thought you were crazy! I was wrong.
I’m a snipper… I am good at smelling what can catch fire, but pointing it out really early has the problem that, it needs several things to happen…
1) raves
2) b.o.
3) interest in awards
that trinity happened with EEAAO that I quickly noticed was the perfect antidote to CODA’s aftermath, while still repeating the same basis: extremely likeable ensemble in a movie about family dynamics. I also took into consideration that the elderly part of the AMPAS that traditionally would reject anything like this, were starting their careers when Bruce Lee and later Jackie Chan were all the rage, Midnight Cowboy – an X rated film – won Best Picture, and A Clockwork Orange would be multinominated… its weirdness wasn’t going to be that much of a problem, if it started a good precursor season (and survived the Awards season frontrunners releases)
reading your posts about EEAAO has to be the most baffling thing. one min your are praising it’s the best movie and the next min just 4 noms and will leave empty handed. you might as well say it will receive 0 noms tomorrow. make it make sense?
What will win and what should win are not the same thing. Makes perfect sense.
being a great film has NOTHING to do with Oscars…
Okay, screw it – here are my predictions. I swung for the fences this year – two surprises in Actress, a big surprise in Actor, Jaime Lee Curtis being snubbed for Supp Actress and a lame elderly nominee (a la Judi Dench last year) in Supp Actor. Also the Academy putting Michelle Williams where she belongs (like they did with Kate Winslet and THE READER). Maybe one of these “swings” will come true?
BEST PICTURE
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of The Water
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Elvis
The Fablemans
TÀR
Top Gun: Maverick
Women Talking
The Whale
BEST DIRECTOR
Edward Berger – All Quiet on the Western Front
Todd Field – TÁR
Steven Spielberg – The Fabelmans
Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert – Everything Everywhere All at Once
Martin McDonagh – The Banshees of Inisherin
BEST ACTOR
Austin Butler – Elvis
Brendan Frasier – The Whale
Colin Farrell – The Banshees of Inisherin
Ralph Fiennes – The Menu
Bill Nighy – Living
BEST ACTRESS
Ana de Armas – Blonde
Cate Blanchett – TÁR
Viola Davis – The Woman King
Andrea Riseborough – To Leslie
Michelle Yeoh – Everything Everywhere All At Once
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Ke Huy Yuan – Everything Everywhere All At Once
Paul Dano – The Fablemans
Brendan Gleeson – The Banshees of Inisherin
Anthony Hopkins – Armageddon Time
Barry Keoghan – The Banshees of Inisherin
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Angela Basset – Wakanda Forever
Kerry Condon – The Banshees of Inisherin
Hong Chau – The Whale
Stephanie Hsu – Everything Everywhere All At Once
Michelle Williams – The Fablemans
THIS IS WHY OSCARS AND AWARDS SEASON HAVE BECOME AN ENDANGERED SPECIES IN EYES OF MAINSTREAM AMERICA AND THE WORLD…COS THEY EFFECTIVELY TAKEN A TIME MACHINE AND ENVISIONED A WORLD WHERE ACTIVIST GEN Z DRIVEN IDEOLOGY IS THE WAY OF NOW NO IT WAY OF FUTURE- NAMELY BE PRECISE IN ANOTHER 20 YRS..NOT NOW! BIG BIG MISTAKE AWARDS SEASON EXPECT ANOTHER CLUSTERFUKED UNDERWHELMING OUTCOME..
THIS CHART SAYS IT ALL..I REST MY CASE I MADE FOR LAST DECADE PLUS AT LEAST
” ONLY 30% OF America’s population are of gen z,…most in the States and even in the world are made up of those born 1981-1996
see below https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4b59154cc986ae949d884ec26e039fc6ec7aed71deaa67f932104bbfbb382647.jpg
Therefore.,…is it ANY WONDER AWARDS SEASON AS A COLLECTIVE IS HEADED TO A HELL OF IT OWN MAKING ? WHEN YOU BLATANTLY UNDERMINE, DISMISS AND DISREGARD A COLOSSAL 60% OF YOUR EXISTING DEMOGRAPHIC- (NOT 60% THAT MAKE UP GEN z’s in 20 yrs time! ) OF COURSE YOU GONNA COP A SHCLACKING IN THE RATINGS AND IN YOUR REPUTATION
In fact as per my oscar predictions for nominations i gonna predict these outcomes with VERY HEAVY HEART AS LOT YOU WILL 0 Everything everywhere will be weakest big winner this years oscars since nomadland for vastly diff reasons- one thing not cos of pandemic or coming out of it…but because it tailored to appeal first foremost to limited demographic yes EEAAO may exceeded expectations (slightly) but it end up being as forgettable as nobodys land.
my predictions for oscar winners- depressingly so:
so predictable how academy operate the should be ashamed :
1. EEAAO = Best picture, makeup and hair, production design
2. Banshees on Inisherin = Best screenplay, Supp actor, score
3. Top Gun Maverick (will win most oscars but be disgracefully like several tuly memorable films of brilliance made that outlast oscar winner of that respectrive year) = sound, sound effects editing, cinematography, screenplay- adapted
4. Elvis- costume design, actor, makeup and hair
5. The Fablemans- Director,
6. TAR – Actress
7. Avatar Way of Water- Vis effects
8. Black PAntha- Wakanda forever- song and supp actress
what u all think of my prediction for besrt pic winners? depressing isnt it?
Bill Nighy is so terrific in Living. Glad to finally have watched it.
I was mildly interested in the film till I discovered it is a new version of the book that inspired one of my faves, Kurosawa’s Ikiru…
Now I am puzzled if I should even try to see it. I know it is going to let me down, right away.
I watched Sing Street today. It’s leaving Netflix in like a week so I figured I better get to it.
Now I have no idea how fictional the move is, or if it’s semi-autobiographical or maybe just a memory piece idealized by nostalgia, but every moment of it rang true. For those who don’t know the general plot, it’s pretty simple, offbeat kid from dysfunctional family starts a band with his mates and gets the girl. It should be fairly disposable stuff. It’s not.
Midway, I started comparing it to The Fablemans. It’s impossible not to, both center around teens so drawn to their artistic vision that everything else melts away. Sure Sing Street is not as technically proficient nor is the cast as strong. But in everything that actually matters, Sing Street wins again and again, better characters, better writing, more tension, and, by the end, genuine emotional stakes.
Some may say I’m just slagging on The Fablemans here, and I am, after it’s really easy to. But for those that don’t understand where I am coming from, by all means watch Sing Street. It’s a very pleasing experience.
Sing Street is one of the most underrated films. I just loved it.
Sing Street is wonderful
Please don’t compare the two films. Spielberg’s movie is intolerable and inexcusable.
inexcusable is a good word to describe it.
But I will go one further – purposeless.
I swear it truly is!
The Fabelmans rings Oscar-bait from the project and cast get go, while Sing Street clearly never has any other intention than tell a story.
Guaranteed if people weren’t told Spielberg directed it, no one would probably even notice it.
But all of his fans think they are getting some sort of super duper look into his subconscious mind and an understanding of his brilliance. Listening to these people is kinda like listening to a Trump Supporter talk about how amazing Trump is.
Just caught up to NITRAM and TO LESLIE. Caleb Landry Jones, Judy Davis and Andrea Riseborough should all be in the awards conversation. Brilliant performances.
Seriously. Mr Landry Jones knocked my socks in Nitram but nobody mentioned it last year.
At least Ms Riseborough’s performance was in the plea to Academy from some fellow actors (Which led me to watch and marvel at her brilliant performance).
Any word on potential contenders from Sundance this year? It looks like Fair Play, Past Lives, Cassandro and Magazine Dreams all seem to be really good. Anyone else?
Hmm, Disturbing News.
Regal Cinemas is closing down a bunch of locations. One of them is the 24 screen behemoth about 10 miles from where I live.
It’s a shame. Not only for the local fans (it showed a lot of Indian films) but for the local restaurants right next to that theater. Not sure how much that entire shopping center will survive.
Every year I take a couple days in awards season to think about categories where there is a standout performance or acheivement that will absolutely not be noticed not just by AMPAS, but by almost every group.
Even though Athena kind of dies in the last part of the film, the cinematography in that film is second to none in 2022. It’s not going to win any awards for anything else anywhere, but speaking purely about cinematography? Nothing better on offer last year. I feel about the cinematography in Athena the way I feel about Riseborough’s performance in To Leslie; regardless of awards recognition, her performance is second to none in 2022. The only difference is that Riseborough has a slim chance at a nomination.
In terms of Sight and Sound best films ever type lists in future years, is there any other candidate than Aftersun from 2022? But it’s not getting anything significant – it’ll win “new” director recognition from a couple more critics groups. But the studio system ain’t letting Charlette Wells get real recognition with millions at stake.
People are saying the voter turnout for Academy members is the highest its ever been. Do you really think that’s good news for smaller films? The opposite, I’d wager. The increased interest is all about so-called rejuvenating Hollywood! Massive films! Big films! Bums on seats in theatres! We’re back, baby!
For me, the increasing frequency of non-English language films in the main categories was a great sign from the Oscars. I hope we don’t lose that now.
Aftersun quote: “Don’t you ever feel like you’ve just done a whole amazing day, and then you come home and feel tired and down, and it feels like your bones don’t work? They’re just tired and everything is tired. Like you’re sinking. I don’t know. It’s weird.”
Top Gun: Maverick quote: “Out of bullets! Switching to missiles!”
I feel like something like Hit the Road will find followers over time. There is something timely about the film, like it’s on the cusp of the future of Middle Eastern politics and that as we learn more about the time and setting of the movie in the proper context, it will be better understood. I feel like there is a lot I missed, simply because I am not familiar with the culture it takes place.
I hope Benediction gets seen by more mainstream audiences. Not only is it one of the great adjusting to post-war life films, it also captures what the homosexual politcs of that time (people seem to forget that at some parts of the world, homosexuality was starting to become accepted). But mostly it’s one of those great films that reminds us how important art is to understanding the world around us. It’s wonderul filmmaking from an underappreciated director whose reputation will only grow over time.
“The increased interest is all about so-called rejuvenating Hollywood! Massive films! Big films! Bums on seats in theatres! We’re back, baby!”
Dan, we tried the Indie Spirits/arthouse/festival route for 11 years, from the Hurt Locker to Coda. And viewers said no thanks. There is nothing wrong with, and I keep saying this phrase, intelligent blockbusters sharing the spotlight with them 1) if it’s great, and 2) critics and audiences love it. It’s just this year, as in 2009, one huge hit advanced the medium of filmmaking. And it ain’t Top Gun: Maverick. What 3:12 movie had you wanting more when it ended? And NO POST-CREDITS SCENE?!?! 😀
Although I’m still fuzzy about the significance of the eclipse at the near-end of it 😉
Speaking of Oscar nominations : What do these two dozen films have in common ? Papillion, Grease , Strangers On a Train , One From The Heart , The Ox Bow Incident , Full Metal Jacket , Seconds , One Eyed Jacks , Mulholland Drive , Heaven’s Gate , Straw Dogs , The Outlaw Josey Wales , The Good Shepherd , The Great Escape , Blue Velvet , Billy Budd , The Birds , Ace in The Hole , The Ruling Class Long Days Journey into Night , Libeled Lady , The Caddy , Grand Illusion and Edward Scissorhands .
they are all english spoken
Exactly one nomination.
That’s A Bingo !
They all opened in movie theaters.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9bd6e6147008920054ca62ddc7147813768172131a43b0452e5808013f8029e7.gif
I would say they were all quality films, but then Grease is there.
Finally saw Women Talking. It’s excellent. Shame about the release strategy.
I heard that the musical numbers were out of place.
and the ode to drag queens completely misfired
what the movie needed was a shot of Glenn Powell farming quinoa or more straight white men in general
https://images.fandango.com/ImageRenderer/400/0/redesign/static/img/default_poster.png/0/images/masterrepository/fandango/167815/redwing-mv-14.jpg
Terrible release schedule.
Excellent indeed (As is She Said, my personal favorite of 2023) but I just think films like these can’t really work as theatrical features in post COVID world.
Theater strategy is now mostly for blockbusters like Avatar 2 and Top Gun 2. That said, they really did drop the ball on these two because they both could have (And deserved) MUCH better release & marketing strategies despite the whole theatrical / online debate.
Folks, this whole theory about Banshees having good chances of winning screenplay even if EEAAO wins picture (and maybe also director – wouldn’t really change anything) just doesn’t add up to me. So, I checked, and the last 12 BP winners that also won the WGA all won the screenplay Oscar, as well. The latest exception is Braveheart, but that one didn’t have any other precursor screenplay wins, and EEAAO has got several, I believe, including the very important Critics Choice. And it’s going to be a big favorite at WGA, with Banshees ineligible… No, I think this category is pretty clear too. I don’t see it as being one of the open ones, not even if Banshees wins the BAFTA. (Of course, provided EEAAO becomes the lock I expect it to, in picture.) It will only maybe seem like it, but it won’t be.
7 of these 12 didn’t win the BAFTA screenplay award. 3 of them also didn’t win the Globe screenplay award and, in fact, didn’t win the Critics Choice, either. The Departed, Argo and Moonlight. The situation isn’t exactly the same for any of these 3 precedents to that of this year, but it’s definitely not different-enough to make them precedents one can dismiss. Especially because they didn’t even win the Critics Choice. To me, they’re pretty convincing precedents, in fact. Meanwhile, there is, as I said, no precedent at all for the BP-winning WGA winner losing screenplay, since Braveheart.
Off (this) topic, Claudiu: Whenever I post links in my comments, the comment ends up in comment jail, but I wanted to recommend an article to you at The Film Experience, titled “Who could surprise *without* SAG/Globe precursors on Tuesday?” I think you’ll appreciate it. 😉
This is fantastic stuff! (As is the companion piece mentioned in the introduction to the article: http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2023/1/12/what-are-each-actors-chances-at-oscars-post-sag-nominations.html ) Thank you very much! I could only dream somebody would make such a thorough analysis at some point… I had always wondered what the numbers and patterns said about these things. I love it. 🙂 It’s one of the best things I’ve ever read. I’m so predictable. :))
Definitely bookmarking this John fellow’s blog… I will point out that Paul Mescal, who he has in second (and who I, too, picked in the contest), doesn’t seem to fit the trajectories described by the numbers (and his summary) at all. 🙂 Not a coattail, not in a movie strong for BP, not a previous nominee. So it’s weird that he has him that high. (I’m sure the Critics Choice nomination plays a big part.) But the rest all fit (except, as he himself points out, Riseborough, but she’s 10th), and it makes for absolutely fascinating reading…
I had a feeling both those articles would be right up your alley!
wow this article is done so well!
Thanks for recommendation. Nicely written article.
But your argument structure eventually leads to you arguing that the WGA ineligibility is a relevant factor in predicting the Oscar winner, which I don’t think it is. It’s a contaminated piece of data.
Well, we’ve debated this many times, of course. 🙂 But what I would say remains an indisputable fact is that this matter is debatable and it’s wholly unproven (and maybe impossible to prove, unless one somehow got all of the voters to do some actual soul-searching and provide honest and objective answers about how much more or less likely they are to vote for a writer that is at WGA and wins than for one they think is equally deserving but isn’t eligible there at all) which side of the argument, if any, is closer to the truth. There is no fully convincing evidence that it isn’t a relevant factor and there is no fully convincing evidence that it is. Therefore, the probability that it isn’t is about the same as the probability that it is, for all we know. 50-50. Logically speaking.
Evidently, many of those WGA-winning BP winners also took advantage of important WGA ineligibility cases, like EEAAO is about to. Of the 12, Parasite and The Hurt Locker won the WGA in the absence of a strong, major-precursor winner in the category. (Due to ineligibility. Confirmed.) Double-winner, in Parasite’s case. (OUATIH.) Those two also happened to win BAFTA first, but that’s not really the point, when it comes to determining whether the WGA ineligibility should be taken into account when looking at this data or not. I’m not sure if the BAFTA winner (The Last King of Scotland) the year The Departed won the WGA and then, of course, the Oscar, was eligible there. It wasn’t nominated, in any case. Pretty sure animated films aren’t eligible at WGA at all, so BAFTA-winning Shrek must not have been (it’s not among the nominees) when A Beautiful Mind won the WGA and then the Oscar. So, to me, the data isn’t contaminated, because it includes these cases in exactly the right proportion. (Which is an argument I would make for a lot of rules that use larger or smaller, but definitely unbiased, sets of historical precedents.)
Sure, it would be better if it only included these cases, but sadly there aren’t enough years (in the BFCA era, at least – I could maybe look back further) to give enough such examples. Which will be enough for many to conclude the data is useless to start with. I, for one, don’t believe that to be the case. Based on what I’ve seen in a lot of similar situations with a lot of rules like this. But, of course, who knows?! One thing that this 12/12 (which, were there no correlation, should, according to all expectations, be significantly lower, that much is clear) does clearly say is that the WGA winner, when it’s also won Best Picture, whether it won all, most or none of the other major screenplay precursors along the way, whether it won the screenplay BAFTA or not and whether it went up against all of the strong competition or not, at WGA, has always, since 1995, ended up winning the Oscar.
And, since we’re on how relevant this data is or not, let’s not forget that Banshees has the home advantage at BAFTA! Its screenplay win there, should it happen, may well not mean nearly as much as it would if it wasn’t British and a McDonagh film. In terms of its Oscar chances. Just as it clearly didn’t for Three Billboards. If we have to take WGA out of it completely (which I don’t think there’s any good reason to do – there’s reason for doubt, but not more than that), then we should also take BAFTA out of it, this time around, because of Banshees‘ home advantage there, which is known and can be proven to be very important.
And then it again comes down to Globe winners that failed to win the Critics Choice and how they’ve done at the Oscars. And only 1 of the last 5 of those has actually won the Oscar. (Green Book – which, by the way, also won Best Picture, making the situation different to this year’s, fundamentally, whereas the 4 Critics Choice winners that beat Globe winners at the Oscars didn’t. It beat Critics Choice winner First Reformed.) There’s just one extra case that can be counted, before this, which does go in the Globes’ favor, but again the difference in BP strength is the key factor – Globe-winner Lost in Translation, up for BP, beat In America, the Critics Choice winner, also single-category and very much not up for BP at the Oscars. That would still make it 4-2 to the Critics Choice, all-time, and both of the “2” are different to this year (what one might call questionable, if not altogether dismissable, precedents), in terms of the BP strength of the movies involved (at least in my scenario, where EEAAO wins BP, which is the one we’re talking about), whereas the “4” are by no means all in that same boat. La La Land (which I’m counting, because it did fail to win the Critics Choice, it only tied, and the Oscar winner was not it, but the movie that only tied with it at Critics Choice, so this is even a case that should favor the GG winner, seemingly stronger there, but didn’t – plus I’m making up for the two cases I didn’t include where the Globe winner wasn’t even nominated at the Oscars, but I don’t even think I need that extra justification, I think the La La Land precedent should definitely be included, anyway) was definitely stronger in BP than Manchester by the Sea, but the more Critics Choice pick still prevailed.
And it remains unclear whether Three Billboards or Get Out was stronger and even whether Little Miss Sunshine was actually stronger in the final Oscar vote than The Queen, which was, after all, the BAFTA Best Film winner, a directing nominee, had 6 nominations to LMS’ 4 and only one win less. True, it’s screenplay, but that’s compensated for, I would say, by the other factors I’ve mentioned, which I think also bring into question whether the only real remaining clue that LMS was stronger, the PGA win, is enough, especially given that, back then, the PGA winner wasn’t always so strong and the PGA’s correlation to the BP win, while still pretty good, wasn’t as strong as it is nowadays – the DGA win was more predictive. (Likewise, the connection between screenplay and the BP win wasn’t quite as strong in the pre-preferential years.) Meanwhile, the 2 that went the Globes’ way are unquestionably different from this year, because the Critics Choice winner in those cases wasn’t even up for picture, whereas the Globe winner was (and, in one case, won it), thus proving beyond any doubt which of the two was stronger in picture.
LOL. We don’t even know how the Oscar nominations will turn out..!
I’ll discuss this part especially:
You’re arguing that this 12/12 stat implies some level of correlation between the WGA win and the Oscar win when we’re discussing best picture winners. However, I don’t think I quite agree because to me limiting the observation only to best picture winners is not a reasonable method of study. That is because you are limiting the list of possible precdents/exceptions by a metric that is in fact very correlated with winning screenplay at the Oscars. Thus the list of films you’ve chosen are likely to win screenplay no matter whether they win the WGA. In other words, I question whether your sampling process is independent of the sampled phenomenon.
To be clear, I’m also predicting Everything Everywhere All at Once to win best original screenplay. I think The Banshees of Inisherin winning BAFTA is not intense proof of it winning the Oscar as BAFTA clearly has a stronger preference for McDonagh than the Academy does. But I think the reason for Everything Everywhere All at Once winning doesn’t have much or even anything to do with it winning WGA when its main competition is ineligible. Instead, I think it will win precisely because I’m predicting it to win best picture. That type of movie winning best picture and losing screenplay has never made sense to me, and the notion of dividing the top awards between different films is not usually a concept that the Academy plays around with all that much, if a film is individually strong in each of those categories. And I agree with you in thinking that the Critics’ Choice win is more descriptive of general Academy tastes than the Globe win.
And in relation to Little Miss Sunshine, if you’re going to bring up “British bias” in relation to Banshees, you should also bring it up in relation to The Queen. I would also not argue that a costume design or score nomination over a film that was never going to get either is all that relevant when the other film won not only PGA but also SAG ensemble, and the combination of those two should at least give an implication of strength in best picture compared to a film that beyond its BAFTA Best Film win couldn’t seemingly win much anywhere else except for Mirren. And precedents of a film winning best picture with only an acting award (because it was not winning director had Scorsese not been in the race), you’d have to go to All the King’s Men (which had two acting wins which might or might not be a further showcase of strength) or The Great Ziegfeld.
“Thus the list of films you’ve chosen are likely to win screenplay no matter whether they win the WGA.”
But this is all I’m trying to say, in various ways, that I think EEAAO, especially since it’s so strong in picture (but even without that, given that the CC win is more predictive than the GG win), is extremely likely to win screenplay at this point. 🙂 I guess you’re saying the likelihood of a WGA win makes it no more likely. Which probably again depends on what we think about that ineligibility thing. (Which is what makes it more likely than it would have been had Banshees been there.) I think it’s an advantage – unsurprisingly, even more so after looking at the numbers and seeing that they, too, support this theory.
“In other words, I question whether your sampling process is independent of the sampled phenomenon.”
Possibly – you might be right. Although even this I don’t think is clear, because it may well be that a part of the reason BP winners are so likely to win screenplay at the Oscars (sometimes even with just a WGA win to back it up, of the major screenplay precursors) is precisely that their BP strength makes them more likely to win the WGA (because the guild voters – or at least a lot of them – end up treating that as their BP award for the year, which would be pretty understandable, kind of in the way SAG does, or at least did, more often, in the past), which, in turn, gives them major legitimacy as screenplay win contenders in the eyes of Oscar voters, thus making their screenplay win at the Oscars likelier as well. That might be another way the whole correlation-causation process might work there. Of course, the whole notion is based on the strength of the overall contenders in question. I don’t know if that compromises the sampling process, because this is not intended to be a general rule, but only a rule that applies to the eventual BP winner, like EEAAO. Because comparing its screenplay chances to all CC+WGA winners, however weak or strong, vs. GG+BAFTA winners, would also be a very questionable choice of sampling, I would say, as its overall strength is (at least in my scenario, where I start with that assumption) much greater than the average strength of those and, thus, my rule describes its situation better. Of course, as a general rule, it’s not very helpful, because one rarely has anywhere near this sort of level of certainty about the final outcome of the BP race. (If I’m not wrong about that.) But for this situation, specifically, I think it’s the better, more logical thing to look at than general rules and numbers. And samples. (Of course, this, too, is debatable. But that’s the side I’m on.)
“That type of movie winning best picture and losing screenplay has never made sense to me, and the notion of dividing the top awards between different films is not usually a concept that the Academy plays around with all that much, if a film is individually strong in each of those categories.”
Yup, same thought process for me as well, on both counts! It’s just very hard to beat a locked BP winner (should it indeed come to that) in screenplay, unless it’s a Nomadland or The Artist, not really a screenplay movie, despite surprising precursor wins in the category.
“And in relation to Little Miss Sunshine, if you’re going to bring up “British bias” in relation to Banshees, you should also bring it up in relation to The Queen. I would also not argue that a costume design or score nomination over a film that was never going to get either is all that relevant when the other film won not only PGA but also SAG ensemble”
Of course, the argument is highly debatable 🙂 – but what I’m saying is I don’t think it’s without merit. I don’t think it’s clear, PGA and SAG wins notwithstanding. The PGA win was not the be-all, end-all back then, it wasn’t as important as the DGA win. It probably trumps BAFTA Best Film, but not by a ton. The British bias is what makes it more of a no-contest. But the BAFTA Best Film win, even taking that into account (because the strongest British contender doesn’t always win at BAFTA), is certainly more than comparable with the SAG Ensemble win, in terms of relevance and predictive power, for that era. So, I would say one can’t really separate those two enough to confidently call one more predictive than the other. After all, the BAFTA Best Film winner will always have the support of a majority of the British bloc for the BP win at the Oscars, whereas the SAG Ensemble winner is often just a very strong ensemble movie and, even when it’s not (as in this case, presumably), it’s always much easier to see somebody who voted for it in ensemble at SAG nevertheless picking some other movie for BP at the Oscars (for overlapping voters), for very obvious reasons (two different things being voted on – plenty of people probably vote against their favorite movie in ensemble, just because the ensemble in another movie is clearly better, even if plenty also don’t, of course), than it is for somebody who voted for The Queen at BAFTA, in the top category, doing that.
And, if these two are roughly equivalent, or at least can’t be separated logically, the main thing, then, is of course the two tech nominations The Queen got – it’s that it got the extra directing nomination. Which was a big deal back then, pre-preferential, pre-expansion, etc. – there was, between the very early and very different 1930s Oscars and the return to the preferential in 2009/2010, just one BP winner with no directing nomination, if I’m not forgetting anything major. (Driving Miss Daisy, of course.) I think that’s probably good enough to counterbalance the PGA win. (Particularly since it wasn’t a PGA and DGA win.) In fact, I’d give the edge to the directing-nominated movie, when comparing these two. Apollo 13 had also won the PGA (and SAG and DGA), but failed to make it into directing at the Oscars – and, industry-wise, apart from that and the WGA defeat, which was expected but is never a good thing, it didn’t really show any further weakness. Maybe the ACE loss, but, then again, that’s never a problem for a movie that’s already won more than enough big guilds. The directing rule prevailed. Moulin Rouge! was another PGA winner that didn’t make it into directing – even if clearly weaker, but this still proves the PGA win wasn’t as big of a clue back then as it is now, with the similarity in voting systems, in number of nominees (as opposed to all other industry awards), and probably other things that don’t immediately come to mind. All Little Miss Sunshine had to show for that missing directing mention (and the lack of below the line attention, which, as we know, is also a major strike against – so those two tech noms matter a bit too), in addition to its PGA win, was an extra acting nomination, which we all know doesn’t really mean much, or at least has no real correlation to the BP win. (They each won an acting award.) And the screenplay (and WGA) win, of course, which maaaybe tips the scales in its favor, but not by a ton, if at all. The directing nomination was just too big. Stronger contenders than LMS had failed because of it, like I said. In addition to the two I already gave, one could also mention The Color Purple – also missing editing, too, but 11 nominations and a DGA win. It was beaten by a movie with no DGA or WGA or ACE win (the 3 major guilds present back then).
“beyond its BAFTA Best Film win couldn’t seemingly win much anywhere else except for Mirren”
It did win the screenplay Globe, as mentioned. Same number of wins at SAG as LMS. And, outside of the big guilds, The King’s Speech had a very similar trajectory, not much better at all, in the TV phase of the race. Won the same 2+1 awards (2 acting, same person, 1 screenplay) at GG & CC – it won more at BAFTA, of course, being a bigger tech player.
So, yeah, I’d say overall there’s very much a case to be made for The Queen potentially having been stronger than LMS. I, too, still tend to think it wasn’t, but, in all honesty, I’m very, very far from sure…
“And precedents of a film winning best picture with only an acting award (because it was not winning director had Scorsese not been in the race), you’d have to go to All the King’s Men (which had two acting wins which might or might not be a further showcase of strength) or The Great Ziegfeld.”
Or, with even less (no acting win, even, nor director or screenplay on, in the last two cases, anything), Rebecca, Mutiny on the Bounty, Grand Hotel… Only one of which was in the preferential era. And Mutiny had 8 nominations, plenty of chances to win. Rebecca had 11. But, yes, those years were still different. This is probably one of the best arguments. Nevertheless, there are pros and cons here. I wouldn’t say the arguments are overwhelmingly skewed towards one side or the other, towards LMS or The Queen. Maybe LMS pips it… maybe not.
In other words, and to sum it all up, a Globes screenplay winner has yet to prove it can beat a Critics Choice screenplay winner it’s not clearly (much) stronger than in the BP race, whereas a CC screenplay winner has already proven it can beat a Globes screenplay winner that’s clearly stronger than it in BP at the Oscars, at least once (MBTS vs. LLL) and possibly as many as two other times, depending on what one thinks of the two races I brought into question in my previous, much longer reply.
Now, how much value that actually has for predicting the Oscars… Who knows?! You know me 🙂 – I like to think it has a lot of value, and using this method of analysis has given fantastic results for me in the past, which seems to confirm it. But others might see it differently, no doubt, and may be right. I guess only time can tell.
You put too much emphasis on Critics Choice results. I always take their picks with a grain of salt.
Especially this season as we all knew they’re on EEAAO bandwagon from the beginning.
I think Claudiu has a point. I remember Chloe Zhao was close to lock in winning screenplay for Nomadland prior to WGA, but her script was ineligible, clearing the way for The Father to win. Sure enough, The Father won Oscar.
The Father was also ineligible, though, in that particular case – but it’s not out of the question that there being a third winner at WGA might have hurt Nomadland, if it was indeed the presumed front-runner (I don’t remember clearly what the rankings were at the time), more than it did The Father. There being more winners rather than fewer usually hurts the front-runner more (whatever that is), as far as I can tell, in any sort of awards race.
One could maybe look at WGA-eligible vs. WGA-ineligible Oscar-nominated screenplays in recent years (it gets harder and harder to find the info on what was and wasn’t eligible the farther back one goes) and see which win more often than they should, given their respective numbers and the proportion of the total nominees they each represent…
whoops my bad lol
🙂 Like I said, it’s still not an empty point.
OK, so, you guys made me curious, so I decided to look into the numbers on this:
18 of the last 52 major screenplay precursor winners (WGA excluded, so we’re talking BAFTA, Globe or Critics Choice screenplay winners) were ineligible at WGA. I was more or less forced to stop going when looking back at these, through the years, by The Last King of Scotland (a BAFTA screenplay winner), for which I simply could not ascertain whether it was or was not eligible for the WGA. I could find no article on what was and was not eligible for the WGA nominations that year, and one of the two writers of that movie, Peter Morgan, is clearly a WGA member (he wrote The Queen, the same year, alone, which became a WGA nominee – and he has other WGA nominations, too), but the other, Jeremy Brock, might not be. He’s British, has nominations from the Writers Guild of Great Britain on his IMDb page, but not from the WGA. I didn’t know whether this meant the screenplay was eligible or not, so I stopped. Had I continued, I could no longer be sure my numbers would be accurate, because I would have had to guess, in that case. But I have been able to determine with certainty (using, for confirmation, online articles about specifically WGA eligibility, in each case) exactly which of the screenplay Oscar nominees from the last 15 years, starting with the No Country for Old Men year (2007/2008 Oscar season), were eligible, and which not.
Since there were also two instances in which movies that didn’t win any of these 3 major precursors (Argo and Moonlight) ended up winning the Oscar, it seemed fair to me to just exclude those two races (not the entire year, just the category in question in each of the two years) and the nominees with major precursor wins (from those 3 groups) in those specific categories (Arrival, Lion, Silver Linings Playbook and Lincoln, of which only Lion was WGA-ineligible) from the analysis, so this is what I did, thus arriving at a final ratio of 17 WGA-ineligible Oscar-nominated screenplays with a GG/CC/BAFTA screenplay win, out of the last 48 such precursor winners, so 35.42%, for the 28 Oscar screenplay categories looked at over these 15 years.
Of these 28 screenplay races, all won by movies with at least one of the 3 aforementioned key precursor wins, only 6 of the 28 wins in question went to WGA-ineligible screenplays. That’s 21.43%. Since the WGA-ineligible screenplays make up 35.42% of the contenders, their expected number of wins was 9.92/28, basically 10 wins – so, that’s almost 4 fewer wins that were registered by WGA-ineligible screenplays than should have randomly been expected, which of course is not mathematically conclusive, by any means (the sample size is much too small, to begin with, although… more on that later – but I would love to see a larger study of this matter being made, somehow, to reach an acceptable sample size for more reliable results and a more confident conclusion, and will certainly keep tracking this myself over the next N years, to see how it evolves and keep increasing that sample), but it’s not exactly a small number, either, out of 28, it’s, almost to the decimal, 14%, and it does at least suggest there might be some sort of negative influence a WGA ineligibility has on a movie’s Oscar-winning chances, and most certainly does NOT suggest the opposite, that there’s no reason to believe that such a negative influence could exist. If nothing else, these numbers now give a reason. I think there already was some reason, because arguments for why that might be do exist, as well. But it’s nice to see the numbers don’t dispel the theory whatsoever, but rather, if anything, do more to support it…
Both sides of the argument remain valid and compelling, for sure, a difference of 4 wins won’t change that. But I think what this does do is invalidate the notion that this (the idea that being ineligible for the WGA might be inherently a detriment to one’s Oscar-winning chances in screenplay – for strong contenders, of course, as researched here, but this probably applies to anything, plus it’s only really relevant for strong contenders, anyway, the others not having realistic winning chances no matter their eligibility status) is purely a “myth”. It’s not a myth, because it’s got a basis in both logic (the kind that some will argue for, and some against – as, again, you and I have more than once, from opposite sides -, with no clear guidelines for coming to a conclusion) and, as can now be seen, numbers. Which simply cannot be disputed, even if they don’t constitute any sort of conclusive mathematical proof. They do, however, lean one way, fairly significantly (in my mind, significantly-enough that it’s well away from “fluke” territory – maybe it’s still in “variance” territory, though, but maybe not, maybe if one checks, say, the last 128 races, instead of the last 28, this 14% difference is confirmed or even increased… or maybe this has only been a tendency of the last 2-3 decades, who knows, in which case it would be the smaller numbers that would be more relevant than the overall number), and not the other way, this much is clear. It’s not 0 wins off or 1 win off (which would be what one would mostly expect to find, a difference of 0 or maybe 1, if one went into this fully expecting it to be a myth) or 2 wins off random expectancy, it’s not even 3 wins off it, it’s actually very close to a full 4.
I should perhaps also point out that, of the 6 WGA-ineligible Oscar screenplay winners in question (Belfast, The Father, Birdman, 12 Years a Slave, Django Unchained and The King’s Speech), an unexpectedly high number (5/6, for 83%) is made up of movies that won at least one other Oscar (2.67 Oscars, on average, in fact), when only 15/28 (53.57%) of the winners investigated won any other awards besides screenplay at their respective Oscar ceremonies. So, the expected number would have been 3/6. (50%. 4/6 is much too far, at 67%.) Again, mathematically irrelevant, perhaps, but logically… It’s not 3/6 and not 1 off (4/6), it’s 2 off. Out of a total of just 6. (And it was even 5/5, before Belfast. Which was a top 2 or, at worst, top 3 movie in the race, anyway. Which most definitely not all screenplay winners are. A majority, sure, but plenty aren’t. Belfast just happened to not win a second Oscar, which would have made perfect sense, if it had – so, there’s reason to believe it could have been a bit of a fluke.) Potentially indicating that a WGA-ineligible movie needs to be stronger than average to still win screenplay at the Oscars. (Just as the fact that no WGA-ineligible movies that have failed to win the PGA have won Best Picture seems to indicate those need to be stronger to prevail. Another thing we’ve debated in the past. I’d say there’s some sort of proof of consistency here, but more research would be needed to strengthen that argument, of course.)
Maybe this 5/6 means nothing and will soon level out, or maybe it’s the same as the trajectory for the rule about the PGA nomination being needed for a Best Picture win. (In the years with 5, after that it obviously became pretty much impossible for that rule to ever fail.) That was 6/6 when Braveheart “broke” it in 1995/1996, basically the exact same situation, and any sensible mathematician would of course have said: “6/6 means nothing, 6/7 means even less than nothing, this will probably break again soon-enough” and/or “get closer to 50% the larger the sample gets”, and so on… And then it didn’t. Not even close. No further exceptions for the next 13 years (until the switch to 10 in picture at both the Oscars and PGA), and, presumably, now, forever. Even more conclusively, Hamlet “broke” the DGA nomination rule for BP the first year of the DGA. We all know what our friend, the mathematician, would have said 5 years after that, when it, too, got to the 5/6 ratio seen here. 🙂 Especially since those are two different groups of voters (some overlap, but mostly different) voting on two different awards, picture/director. And then it took another 25 years or so before the next exception, Driving Miss Daisy, and another 30+ before the next, CODA… Both in exceptional circumstances of great weakness displayed by all of their DGA-nominated adversaries, which made them the favorites in spite of that snub. Not out of the blue. Not randomly.
High percentages from small samples don’t prove anything, but, from what I’ve noticed, in this very much not random universe of the Oscar race, precursors, large groups voting, etc., they also usually do mean something and usually (or maybe always, when the logic to back them up is also there – which is what we disagree on, of course, in this specific case -, even if sometimes it isn’t immediately obvious what that is or might be) end up being confirmed either partially or totally (or even strengthened, as in the two cases I mentioned) once the sample does increase and the decades pass. And then everybody all of a sudden starts paying attention and understanding just how telling those rules were to begin with. Just saying… I always pay attention to these things and I never take them lightly, just because not enough time has passed yet for them to gather enough years to satisfy the stubborn theoreticians. 🙂 If the logic is sound the numbers will almost for sure keep growing. Even if there is no apparent logic, like, say, for the editing nomination, which actually started out with much poorer numbers, for the first few decades – but maybe something changed, something we can’t quite put our fingers on (or at least I’ve not been able to come up with any half-satisfying theory, nor have I heard anybody else do so), given that there have only been 2 exceptions since 1981, one of which, Birdman, was pretty clearly a total fluke and maybe shouldn’t even be counted at all, as it’s different from all others. I’m sorry, but this is just NOT random, anybody can tell me anything they want! 🙂 (It’s so far away from random expectation it’s not even funny, particularly since one or more strong BP contenders miss in editing pretty much every year.) Not even if it comes apart at some point and starts failing regularly. I would simply take that to mean that something has changed again, or has changed back to how it was before this streak, even if we again can’t pinpoint it. In can be stubborn too, I guess… But I do think I’m right in thinking the shockingly low number of BP winners without an editing nomination in the last 40+ years are not random – that’s the only reason I’m going to be stubborn about it.
But it likely won’t come apart at all, anyway (because it probably would have, by now, if it was going to, as many, many political, social and societal changes have happened in the meantime), and, then, just because none of us will live long enough to see the inevitable moment when it does reach a number of years that would satisfy the mathematicians (if it even can, ever), it doesn’t mean we should dismiss it as a major, major clue, does it?! I know you don’t think it does, either… Even though there’s no much-better argument for why an editing nomination should be necessary for a BP win than there is for why the WGA ineligibility should be an inherent detriment to one’s Oscar-winning chances (in screenplay or picture or wherever), as I said. And one can certainly also argue very strongly for why that shouldn’t be the case – I mean, war movies, musicals, action movies, etc., dominate the editing nominations (and wins) each year, so why should the BP winner, which is almost never a single one of those things, and usually doesn’t have showy editing, pretty much always be on the editing roster too?! Can this argument really be refuted by anything other than the numbers themselves? Or, more importantly: do we need more than the numbers to refute it?!
In my opinion, math should not be used dogmatically any more than religion or anything else… It’s just not a perfect descriptor of everything. It’s good. Very good. And improving. But it’s not perfect. Flaws can be found. Unsuitability. I think the Oscar race, with its peculiarities, highlights some of its flaws as a descriptor.
It’s all based on assumptions.
You just can’t rule out a LAFCA + NSFC Screenplay winner for a win at WGA.
Based on what exactly? If we look at films that won NSFC and LAFCA (not including NYFCC because you make that distinction, even if to me it just seems like you’re picking the ones that went to your favorite), the list is as follows:
Drive My Car: didn’t win screenplay at the Oscars, wasn’t eligible at WGA, most likely wouldn’t have won WGA anyway
Spotlight: won everything except the Globe (which went to an adapted screenplay and I’d at least assume it would have won had the Globes divided screenplay) and is thus not an argument for TÁR as a WGA winner over Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Grand Budapest Hotel: shared the notable screenplay precursors with the Oscar winner.
Before Midnight: wasn’t anywhere near winning WGA
A Separation: not eligible at WGA but wouldn’t have won had it been
Happy-Go-Lucky: not eligible at WGA but wouldn’t have won had it been
The Savages: wasn’t close to winning WGA
The Queen: didn’t win WGA
The Squid and the Whale: wasn’t close to winning WGA
Sideways, won everything, thus not a precedent for TÁR
American Splendor: a precedent for you, but even then the WGA win didn’t lead to an Oscar win
You Can Count on Me: again a precedent for WGA that didn’t lead to an Oscar win
Being John Malkovich: wasn’t close to winning WGA
L.A. Confidential: a considerably bigger best picture contender than anything else in the lineup and mostly beaten by original screenplays in one-screenplay categories at the notable precursors where it was the only adapted screenplay that was nominated
Pulp Fiction: won everything, not eligible at WGA
The Piano: the biggest best picture contender in the category and lost mostly to adapted screenplays in one-category screenplay awards with the major precursors
Unforgiven: didn’t win WGA
Drugstore Cowboy: no knowledge about WGA eligibility but wasn’t nominated for anything at the major precursors
Bull Durham: a precedent that didn’t win the Oscar
Hope and Glory: didn’t win WGA
Tootsie: questionable WGA win (won comedy with E.T. winning drama)
Atlantic City: didn’t win WGA
An Unmarried Woman: didn’t win WGA
Annie Hall: perhaps a precedent for you but Annie Hall won best picture
Of course, TAR is also the trifecta (NSFC + LAFCA + NYFCC) winner in Best Film.
They do well in the Screenplay category historically.
Out of the films that have won that trifecta and won screenplay at the Oscars (Schindler’s List, L.A. Confidential, Brokeback Mountain, Sideways, The Hurt Locker, The Social Network), all except Sideways were clearly the strongest best picture contenders in their screenplay category (which TÁR is not unless it wins at the very least PGA) and all of them except L.A. Confidential (and I explained why it didn’t in my previous comment) had won major precursors for screenplay at places other than WGA.
And math (or statistics in this case since I would argue the winners and nominees are random variables) is in my opinion always useful when it’s used correctly. Yes, you have to make assumptions but as long as those assumptions are reasonable, you get a framework through which you can approach the questions you have in a rigorous way. And if you’re talking about this in relation to the whole notion that we keep getting more precedents and mathematicians questioning whether they are relevant, that is exactly part of statistical theory expressing that the observations we have are not perfect descriptors of everything or even anything, that there is always uncertainty. But there are ways in which we can make inferences in a way that acknowledge this uncertainty.
“or statistics in this case since I would argue the winners and nominees are random variables”
Well, that, of course… But I can’t use the word myself. 🙂
Like I said, I completely agree that math is always useful. And that the proper theoreticians realize it’s also limited. (Although you’re talking more about the limits of observation – I’m talking more about the limits of math itself as a descriptor, as a science, which I do also very much think exist. The very fact that it’s ever evolving – I assume it still is, because it certainly was back when I was younger -, that it can always be improved upon to some extent, even if in just small ways, proves this.) But there is a certain type of mathematician (or scientist, in a larger context), mostly old-school, I guess, that can sometimes have the tendency to turn it into dogma, to forget about its limitations (at least in certain moments) and use it as an absolute, perfect descriptor, and something that cannot be questioned. 🙂 Usually, but not always, for subconscious reasons. Which, in any case, I have always found incredibly irritating, precisely because it’s narrow-minded and, on top of being condescending. There are and have been some folks who think that way here at AD, too – maybe fewer these days, but still.
And I 100% do not mean you – I was actually sorry I didn’t stop to mention that during one of my previous messages, in case you might misunderstand. No, you are, as I, too, always at least aspire to be, very, very objective and always consider all sides of any situation and try to look at all of the arguments. And you don’t treat theory as dogma. (Sorry about that rant! Wasn’t directed at you whatsoever. Just left over frustration from other discussions on similar topics over the years.) That’s what makes it so rewarding debating these things (or anything else) with you. 🙂 You are (apart from also being one of the smartest, most reasonable people around, and easily one of those whose posts are the most fascinating to read) one of my main “grounders” around here. If you and a few others weren’t around to always question my logic and methods, whenever it’s appropriate, I’d be very worried about (at least eventually) falling into some sort of blindness to the potential holes in my thinking and arguments. And there clearly are at least some, at times. Perhaps there are many. 🙂 But I’m always interesting in learning about them, so that I can eliminate them from future arguments.
And math (or statistics in this case since I would argue the winners and nominees are random variables) is in my opinion always useful when it’s used correctly. Yes, you have to make assumptions but as long as those assumptions are reasonable, you get a framework through which you can approach the questions you have in a rigorous way. And if you’re talking about this in relation to the whole notion that we keep getting more precedents and mathematicians questioning whether they are relevant, that is exactly part of statistical theory expressing that the observations we have are not perfect descriptors of everything or even anything, that there is always uncertainty. But there are ways in which we can make inferences in a way that acknowledge this uncertainty.
I won’t comment that much on the numbers beyond a general note that obviously, no numbers will ever prove much of interest with zero uncertainty and that yes, if we assume the structure you’re talking about in relation to WGA ineligible scripts winning versus their relative amount in the pool of precursor winners (which I think still is a slightly odd way to limit the precedents especially since you’re talking not talking about independent cases within the same races but ignoring that), we’d be talking about an approximately 8.5% probability of 6 or fewer winners coming from those 28 races, which can imply that we might question the data-generating process for Oscar winners is that it’s a WGA-ineligible script with the probability that you mention.
However, I’d especially argue in relation to this
I think the editing nomination stat in this comparison leaves considerably more wiggle-room in terms of causal effects between the two awards. Does the best picture winner effect the editing lineup? Do the editing nominees effect the best picture winner? Or is there for example some kind of other thing or things that in fact are the relevant qualities that both the best editing nominees and the best picture winner are reflective of? We have no idea. Instead, with the WGA ineligibility, if we assume that the two are correlated, we also know that the WGA ineligibility does not occur because of anything else, and thus we know that it is the starting point. As a result, saying that the WGA ineligibility is a relevant factor is saying that the WGA ineligibility effects the screenplay winners, which implies a very specific kind of behavior from the Academy in relation to the precursors. And I personally find that kind of thinking in relation to the Oscars to be very rigid and not helpful in terms of engaging with what is going on in the season. Basically to me it implies that the voters and preferences they describe are not important. If a movie missing a certain nomination for reasons that have nothing to do with people choosing not to vote for it is relevant, then the awards themselves must be the thing. And at that point the rules about what matters and what doesn’t become very strict and claims like “certain stats don’t matter” after one or two exceptions become more relevant because suddenly something like the SAG ensemble nomination is not performing like it used to (the AFTRA argument is to my knowledge not relevant, as from what I’ve understood the nomination committees still come from exclusively from SAG), and thus people claim that it has “stopped mattering” because there is no depth to these races beyond the rigid lists of what is nominated or what wins.
I don’t know what “zero uncertainty” is – I’ve tried looking it up a bit (probably other times, too, equally unsuccessfully, I don’t remember, but I have heard of the concept before) but the explanations are too technical, I can’t really follow them. 🙂 Is there some easy way to explain it, in layman’s terms?
I think also including the many scripts which, put together, have something like a 1% chance of winning, as evidenced by everything, ever (meaning, those that aren’t winners of any of one of the major precursors or likely to win picture, like Argo, or special cases like Moonlight, which was both very strong for picture and always in a much tougher category to win in screenplay at precusors – yet still somehow managed to win the WGA in that same category – than it eventually did at the Oscars, both of which I excluded, as stated), would also be a weird and very much sub-optimal way to construct your sample, in this case. 🙂 Of course we should only look at the screenplays that matter in the race, as for the rest ineligibility has no effect anyway, their chances stay exactly the same, because they would have stayed the same (between 0% and 1%) no matter what, and that’s never the kind of contender we’re talking about, whenever we bring up WGA ineligibility and whether it hurts one’s chances of winning the Oscar or not. Research that included those would simply not be relevant to the question at hand, to the premise of the argument.
If I understand this bit correctly (I might not be), you mean that I’m not addressing the fact that many of those contenders were competing in the same category? But that’s irrelevant, their win expectancy should still be the same, 1 in 5. Whether they’re all in the same category in the same year or in 3 different years (let’s say there’s 3 of them), their total (random) expectancy (if I’ve been using the right term – I’m not sure, but I think you get what I mean, in any case) in the sum total of those races (or, in the first case, in that one race) will still be 0.6 wins.
Good point about the difference between my editing example and the WGA thing! I hadn’t thought of it that way. That does change my perspective a bit. Not about the WGA thing itself, of course (that one is whatever it is and we still can’t know or even make a confident educated guess), but about how good (or rather not so good) of an analogy the editing thing was.
“If a movie missing a certain nomination for reasons that have nothing to do with people choosing not to vote for it is relevant, then the awards themselves must be the thing.”
It’s probably not quite like that, of course, but it’s maybe not entirely not like that, either…
“And at that point the rules about what matters and what doesn’t become very strict and claims like “certain stats don’t matter” after one or two exceptions become more relevant”
Setting aside the choice of words (“don’t matter” I don’t think is ever the case, as even a rule about some potential slight tendency, something like 60-70%, can be a fairly valuable clue, when taken as nothing more than that and used in conjunction with all of the other clues – and that’s, in any case, not the extent to which the SAG nomination’s matching percentage has dropped, nor that of any other strong old rule), I don’t actually even have a particular problem with that approach. Like I said, I think the emphasis on sample size is misguided when discussing film awards predictions (for many reasons that would require an equally lengthy reply of its own to detail, and this is probably not the time), so I do actually think any such dramatic, easily noticeable shift in percentages (when it’s a shift from something very close to 100%, at least) might signify some sort of change in the way that precursor is voted on that suggests one should give that rule less weight in the future, as a result. So, yeah, I’m actually not against the strict approach you mention, because I think the numbers, whenever they’re far enough from expectation (be it constructed on random values, so in a vacuum, purely mathematically, or on very high past correlation percentages), always say something. I don’t really think anything is accidental in the Oscar race. Too many people vote, their tastes stay consistent for too long, their backgrounds stay the same, etc. – the samples are too reliably similar from year to year. If something different starts happening, it probably indicates a real change. I don’t think variance is anywhere near as high in the awards race and its rules as it is in other things that the theory of probability deals with/studies. It’s one of the main reason I don’t think rigid, abstract math concepts are perfect at describing it, at least not from this angle.
But, going back to the specific, I certainly don’t think 1.5 exceptions (if that) since 2014 constitute any sort of reason to think the editing nomination rule should be evaluated. Maybe if more of them come, in the next few years…
“the AFTRA argument is to my knowledge not relevant, as from what I’ve understood the nomination committees still come from exclusively from SAG”
I’m very unhappy with how unclear this is, actually, because I’ve never heard anything concrete, just suppositions. (Kind of like when Sasha was saying she thought the Critics Choice used the preferential ballot, which they don’t, it’s since been confirmed.) I’ve heard this assumption from several people, but I’ve never (unlike in other cases) heard anything that made it seem like something more than that, anything that could constitute confirmation.
In any case, an alternative explanation for why, irrespective of AFTRA (yet around the same time), that rule started to falter with some consistency, would be the decline of the movie star as an object of adulation over the last few years or couple of decades or whatever – it’s a pretty recent thing, though, I would say, and 2012 or 2013 or whenever AFTRA got in on the act can’t be very far from the “center of gravity”, let’s call it, of that phenomenon. Which may well have also had an impact on how well-liked (and likely to be voted on in picture) movies with larger and more impressive ensembles are these days (a.k.a. those that are, by definition, more likely to feature more stars or at least one big star). Which has perhaps also had a role in the shift towards indie/small movies as the predominant BP winner, instead. So, yeah, actually, I think even if we can at some point clearly determine that, indeed, AFTRA does not get to take part in the selection of nominees, I think this (and possibly other, even better theories) would explain it pretty well, too. In short, I suspect something, whether it be this or the AFTRA thing or something else entirely, did change rather dramatically in relation to, specifically, ensemble movies’ BP chances, around that time, and that the precipitous fall of the ensemble rule’s percentages has not been random either.
Concerning “zero uncertainty”, I actually haven’t run into that notion before. It seems like a term used in physics contexts but I’m not fully sure what the measurement “uncertainty” refers to there. The way I meant it was that the things you can say based on individual datasets with absolute certainty about the underlying phenomena is rather limited and often not particularly interesting (such as if you flip a coin, and you get some non-zero amount of heads and 1 tail, it means that the data-generating process, the weight the coin might have, can’t be heads with a 100% probability because a tail has occurred, but even then, the probability of a tail can be incredibly small or the tail can be in some ways a faulty measurement).
Concerning the correlations of the different contenders in the same category during the same year, yes, the expectation of each to win would be 0.2, however, if you have three contenders that are WGA ineligible and one of them wins, it must also apply that two of them lose (assuming there aren’t ties). Thus, you might start getting issues with the convergence of results to the mean values. And even instinctively, imagine the extreme case where half of the screenplay precursor winners are WGA eligible, and half are WGA ineligible. When a WGA eligible script wins, it wins everything. When a WGA ineligible script wins, two other WGA ineligible movies win other precursors. Now, you are in a situation where your expectation would naturally be that half of the WGA ineligible scripts win, because they are half of your dataset, when in fact only a third of them win. This however has nothing to do with the probability of a WGA ineligible script winning versus a WGA eligible script, it is still a 50/50 proposition.
And I don’t have an issue with putting less weight on something like SAG ensemble (the way in which people approach these questions and who is voting changes and thus the statistical analysis should as well), I just think that if you assume there is a causal effect from specifically the nomination list to the Oscar winners, the point of discussing why such changes happen and whether these nominations are descriptive of the Oscar voters suddenly stops mattering because you’re putting the weight on the nomination list itself, and not on the possible background phenomena. Suddenly one is not attempting to assess voter behavior anymore but rather drawing lines from one list to another list. And that to me is without any flexibility or genuine understanding of what is going on in the actual voting. To me this compares to the people who said that “stats don’t matter” after CODA won over The Power of the Dog because it didn’t have certain nominations when in fact the guilds very clearly expressed a preference for CODA. It’s the way in which people (and just in case this isn’t incredibly clear, I’m absolutely not talking about you in any way, I have so much respect for what you do) think Oscar stats are an act of collecting one or two numbers and waving them in the air as the absolute truth that cannot be broken. Instead in my opinion the whole point of this is to attempt to get at what, how and why people vote for what they vote for.
Absolutely! Although the “why” we can never really know, of course… 🙂 We can only speculate, and no numbers will ever tell us anything conclusive about the “why”. The “what” and “how” are the accessible parts, I think.
There have only been two cases in the period mentioned in which two WGA-ineligible screenplays won major precursors in the same category, Nomadland vs. The Father and Philomena vs. 12 Years a Slave. Never a case of 3, evidently. So, I don’t think the problem you described affects the probabilities in this case too much. (If I understand the concept correctly, that is.) Maybe the number of expected wins drops to, like, 3 off the number registered, or something like that, instead of 4. Would still be quite large, compared to what it should be.
Fascinating stuff, the theoretical aside in the first 2/3 of this message! I’ll have to revisit and think about your points more later… (And I was sure I had heard about “zero uncertainty” before, but maybe not. Does seem to be a physics thing – I guess that’s why it was all too technical for me and I didn’t get it.) Since the Oscar nominations are out, I mean. 🙂
“And it’s going to be a big favorite at WGA, with Banshees ineligible…”
I guess you never heard of a movie named TAR..!?
I worry that Oscars are going woke again. Last year they only allowed one out of 4 white able-bodied people to win an Oscar bc they have so much pressure to show they care about POC and all. I feel like it all comes with an asterisk at this point. And I love Ke Huy Quan but he wasn’t that good, and under these circumstances, it looks like he’s getting the win because of desire to appear woke. The backlash against Andrea Riseborough by a select few who felt that White people are no longer allowed their underdog stories, again, makes me worried that the best are no longer being awarded anymore. Granted, Riseborough was a long shot anyway, but the idea of judging her just as a White person is disgusting in the same way that simply judging someone simply as a Black person is.
Angela Bassett is among my favorite actresses but she’ll be the 6th black person who wins her award since 2011. If she gives some sort of speech suggesting that she is special as a Black person winning this award, I’m gonna throw up. And most people have acknowledged this isn’t as good of a sequel. I haven’t seen it, but I can’t imagine her performance is that many steps up from the original. In other words, she’s likely nowhere near the best supporting actress of the year (my picks were actually Ben Whishaw and Jessie Buckley in the supporting categories)
My problem with Riseborough is all she has is one big city critics nod (Chicago) and two obscure festival awards. That’s it. She has no other support except for this last minute insurgency campaign.
Why is this a “problem” for you? In what sense?
I think FeelingBlue has offered up enough unstable emotional outbursts over the years for us to understand he means “too indie, not a blockbuster, not enough CGI, or too foreign (unless it’s RRR because it’s action means you don’t have to read as many subtitles)”
Wrong again.
Yeoh
Colman
Blanchett
Deadwyler
Davis
That’s the ideal final five in lead actress.
You astonish me: I didn’t think you were capable of rational thought
I thought I explained myself the first time. NYCFC, LAFC, Globes, Critics Choice, NBR, BAFTA and everyone except Chicago doesn’t think she’s all that. There are too many women ahead of her.
So, in your opinion what should be the correct percentage of white people vs. POC winning?
A) I think if a picture is abiding by whatever diversity standards the Hollywood community and Academy has agreed on, it’s just as valid as any other movie. In other words, Belfast and Power of the Dog and King Richard and Licorice Pizza should be considered equally on the basis of merit.
B) I think if the percentage of the Blacks in the US is lower than the percentage of Black people getting nominated, then that community and the mostly White virtue signalers who get high off of advocating for that community should stop whining about under-representation or direct their efforts elsewhere for racial justice. I also think the media needs to stop this “Blacks are suffering in Hollywood from under-representation” narrative and pressuring Awards bodies or whatever to artificially alter the voting from merit.
So by that logic, no more than 13.6% of the acting nominees should be black or it’s virtue signaling?
No, the make-up of the nominees is the make-up of the nominees. If it happens to be more than 13.6%, that’s fine.
It’s the campaigning and press surrounding the event that’s based on a distorted set of facts. If you’re saying Blacks are under-represented at the Oscars, you are factually incorrect.
My theory is that it’s virtue signalling, but I can’t read the minds of the people making those factually incorrect statements. Whether they’er virtue signalling or misinformed or might have a few good points, I maintain that pushing for people to be nominated because they’re Black on the basis of race, and that they’re under-represented is just plain wrong on many levels.
I have an even crazier theory. Hear me out. Ready? People are voting for performances they actually like regardless of race. Wild, huh?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c7f7b44d2412c02604cfbb98d3cd7371dd5a39e547b75dc29b2c1ede148ae118.gif
Comparing the demographics of the nominees to US demographics makes no sense because not all movies are made in the US and not all movies take place in the US. Also, with such a small group, statistical variance will lead to wildly different outcomes year to year anyway.
Sorry that you are going to throw up, but your post absolutely made me throw up.
this post lost me at “Quan but he wasn’t that good” bless.
Since the Oscars are so woke, how many black women have won Best Actress?
Also, if you love Ke Huy Quan and Angela Bassett so much, why is it ‘woke’ to award them? Maybe other people like them too!
Also if you haven’t seen Angela Bassett’s performance, then why should we care about your opinion on this matter?
The idea that there’s inherent racism in the Oscars voting patterns against minorities is a lie, though. You think an Awards giving body that has awarded 6 out of 12 woman in the supporting category to Black women, in addition to just giving an award for lead actor to a black person in the past year (in addition to 4 others), somehow hates Black people because that one category hasn’t won for a Black woman?
Not to mention wins for Moonlight, Lee Daniels, Steve McQueenBarry Jenkins, Soul, a nomination ? You don’t realize how the quest to artificially make that happen is ruining the Oscars.
Even undeserving nominations like Ruth Negga in Loving or Viola Davis in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Boseman deserved his) are indications that they’re trying like hell to satisfy that one segment of the voting body, and it’s a major turn-off because the Oscars don’t mean it’s going to the best. It’s fine if you root for it but to actively campaign for it as so much of the media is doing is disgusting.
Wins for Cuba Gooding Jr, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker, and Jennifer Hudson meant something because they were from an awards body that wasn’t taken over by the pressure by media to entrust Hollywood with the role of rectifying all racial ills.
And it’s highly dipropionate: White guilt over Black underprivilege is far greater than Hispanic, Native American or South Asian populations.
To answer your second question: It’s woke (overemphasizing race) if the campaigns go along the lines of “vote for them or you’re racist”/”vote for them and you’ll get the privilege of looking racially enlightened.” Look at the media in support of those performances.
And I saw Bassett’s performance in the first one. I can’t say for sure, but you tell me, is it really better than Hong Chau or Jessie Buckley or Stephanie Hsu or Dolores Del Rio or Jamie Lee Curtis? Based on the disgusting campaigning and the Oscars So White movement, I have doubts.
“The idea that there’s inherent racism in the Oscars voting patterns against minorities is a lie…
…the quest to artificially make that happen is ruining the Oscars…
…Even undeserving nominations like Ruth Negga in Loving or Viola Davis in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom…”
What about the idea that there’s inherent racism in the patterns of this comment?
I don’t think I care, to be hoenst. I don’t think racism is anywhere near the biggest problem in this country and the word is watered down. Once you stop worrying about being called racist and try to do good in this world for Democratic causes (I spent 7 weeks canvassing in swing states these past two years for the party), then it’s pretty freeing. I say screw the woke people and there are large percentages of the US population who agree with me.
I personally think Negga or Davis were undeserving, but art is subjective and I thought a lot of White people were undeserving too. I also would agree that before 2000, it was inherently harder for a Black person to get a nomination. Nowadays, you just campaign about how you’re breaking a glass ceiling like Ariana DeBose did (I’m bisexual! I’m Latina! I’m Afro-Latina! Check off three boxes at once) and you get the advantage. I’m not saying there’s no racism in the industry, I’m saying you have to accurately measure it.
Ryan, is it allowed to write “You know what? Fuck you” in reply to a comment? Asking for a friend.
As someone who fundamentally disagrees with their incoherent ramblings responses like this are low effort and serve only to reward them for attempting to rile them up. Please do yourself a favor and stick to intellectual answers, you’re better than this lol
Dolores Del Rio died in 1978.
You and I both know that this “backlash” barely exists.
Good thing there’s no reason to think anyone besides a handful of Twitter accounts that might be bots are doing that.
Is it possible for any nonwhite person to ever win an award without you saying it’s because of wokeness? If so, what would that look like?
The movie and performance are mediocre, but “Career Oscars” have been a thing for years. Art Carney, Don Ameche, Al Pacino, etc. How is Bassett any different from those?
Since Ben Whishaw is a gay man, should I assume that you’re only endorsing him because of wokeness?
Actually, this is the best response I’ve read and partially changes my opinions.
I’m happy to hear that the backlash against Andrea Riseborough is almost zero if true. There are a few people who are disgusting in my opinion. If not a lot of people thought like that, I’d be happy, and perhaps I am overblowing those.:
From Vulture:
“The first grumbles from internet commenters begin to gain traction around the prospect of a mostly white bunch of celebrities bumping Riseborough into the Oscar lineup at the possible expense of Black contenders like The Woman King’s Davis or Till’s Danielle Deadwyler. “What really has ticked me off about this is you never see this push for WOC/POC actors,” says one observer.”
As I said, to me it’s about the campaigning and media coverage.
Ben Whishaw is my favorite actor of that generation. I don’t go around suggesting that he needs to win for any reason other than that he’s the best. I think other media outlets would suggest that LGBT progress will be stopped did in its tracks if Whishaw gets denied a win or nomination. What you have successfully changed my opinion on is that I think if I were to say that this is a pick pressured by wokeness, I’m denying the fact that these people could have the same view of their favorites as I do of Whishaw.
You are totally right that there are Oscar wins that are more like recognitions of lifetime awards like Don Ameche (which did seem ridiculous because I saw that movie and thought he was indistinguishable from the other two old men he was hanging around with), although sue me, I thought Al Pacino was excellent in Scent of a Woman.
I agree that Angela Bassett has a career that I think is certainly deserving of a pseudo-liftetime achievement award Oscar. I would be happy with her getting nominated and wouldn’t want to see her win, but that’s just me. At the same time, I think it’s about the campaigning and the media coverage that’s irking me.
The “Backlash” section from that Vulture column you are referencing is literally one tweet from one random person, plus two random people agreeing with them. There’s no indication that any of those three people are Oscar voters. That’s neither a campaign nor a meaningful amount of media coverage. I wouldn’t worry about it.
It’s entirely possible that some people are voting for Bassett or Quan or Deadwyler just because of race, and it’s also possible that some voters are racist and are voting against them because of race. There are also probably voters who are voting for Cruise because they are Scientologists like him, or voting for Fabelman’s without seeing it just because they like Spielberg, etc. When you have an election with thousands of voters, you’re going to wind up with a few people voting for bad reasons. It can’t be helped, and I don’t think it’s fair to say that anyone’s win is less meaningful because of it.
To me, Hopkins beating Boseman was pretty strong evidence that most voters eschew all the “narratives” and just vote for what they like. Every online narrative said that they had to award Boseman.
Media coverage irks you because that is what it is trying to do. Negative reactions are better for them than no reaction.
https://media0.giphy.com/media/26BREdTQgXYadJWH6/giphy.gif
So how does it work again if it’s 8, 9, or 10 pics being nominated?
They will announce 10 films for BP this season.
10
According to Sasha (and I guess most pundits out there), TÁR is going to get nominated in:
Best Picture
Best Director
Best Original Screenplay
Best Actress
I’m curious if it could also salvage one or two “extra” below-the-line nods (BAFTA nominated it in Best Sound..!) in categories like:
– Cinematography:
It missed the cut at ASC and BAFTA, but got a nod at Critics Choice and got nominated by BSC. It also won Camerimage.
– Film Editing:
It missed the cut at BAFTA but got nominated almost everywhere else like Critics Choice, Satellites, Indie Spirits, etc. And got a runner-up spot at LAFCA.
– Production Design:
Got nominated by the Set Decorators Society (SDSA) and Art Directors Guild (ADG).
– Costume Design:
Got nominated by the Costume Designers Guild (CDG).
Nina Hoss could pop up in the SA category. Despite what people say, that category could be very fluid.
Agreed. I think both of the supporting categories are wide open to surprises.
TÁR and Elvis are both going to show up in a few of these categories together. Non-animated movies with music as a fundamental plot component always over perform in tech categories. Even West Side Story was in Sound and Production Design last year. Ma Rainey’s and Sound of Metal did well below the line the previous year. And let’s remember how well Bohemian Rhapsody unfortunately did.
I’m actually predicting both Elvis and TÁR are getting in Editing as well.
TAR might surprise in Editing & Supporting Actress, I think. There’s always that movie that does better than you think it will, I think this year it’s TAR.
Let’s hope so. It’s like every single aspect of Field’s brilliant film deserves an Oscar nom, let alone in the Best Supporting Actress nomination for the extraordinary Nina Hoss. Noemie Merlant was terrific as well but she’s not happening.
Nina Hoss’s performance is not worthy of a nom and stop pretending that she did something remarkable. If Tar surpises somewhere its on Cinematography or Editing, categories that were the best part of the film!
Hoss was the best lesbian first chair violinist of the Berlin Philharmonic in the history of cinema. Surely she deserves at least a nomination.
I think the better lesbian daughter of a martial-artist, singer, maseur mother was Stephanie Hsu. Surely she deserves at least a nomination
but only one lesbian a year! Otherwise it will be too woke and Sasha will have to write yet another article on how lesbianism is causing straight white men to stop watching movies.
I don’t think she deserves a nom either. This was just a hunch.
It’s official. We are at war.
Check out the last victim of the red cap hostility around anything that embraces diversity…
Metacritic of Velma, Season 1
(Liking the show, so far, it’s actually funnier than ANYTHING Scooby Doo related that I’ve ever seen)
I know it’s near impossible, but I am hoping to see Decision To Leave in Editing lol. I’m a simp for Chan-wook’s editing work.
It’s very good but I’d rather see it in Cinematography first. It would certainly be a more inspired choice than several of the ASC nominees
Do y’all think that TOP GUN would even be in the BP conversation if it would’ve grossed say $120 million at the US BO instead of what it did?
probably wouldn’t. But reviews had nothing to do with its B.O. and Mad Max Fury Road actually didn’t was a huge blockbuster…
I would prefer to see M3GAN getting nominated for BP instead of TOP GUN..!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eb46a911ff43fb34a8ee9e9ffe256ce6463534d433949e1ae81d47a2ffeda34c.jpg
lol n3xt y3ar
i think the most genius single shot of the year will be the one of her sitting at the tree with the rest of the toys and dolls.
Fantastic stuff.
That deserves a M3gan dance!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c40afffbbd24dc163d4eda2b5ed3b9a0941f6ff0669b3795a18a4c896f95a3c1.gif
M3gan 2 might be out by the end of the year. First time in Oscar History a movie and its sequel will get BP nominations in the same year!
I don’t, I think Top Gun’s best picture narrative is entirely about it being a good movie that everyone went to the movies to see.
Yeah it’s not a right wing conspiracy it’s just an entertaining movie that’s worth seeing on the big screen
Hey Andrés,
I see a couple of your comments today have gone missing. (Monday Feb 6th)
I thought they were great comments and I was circling back around this evening to reply to you.
Now they’re deleted.
Is there a problem with Disqus?
Anyone who encounters a strange issue on the site should feel free to email me anytime. (ryanadams.AD@gmail.com)
If you see odd unexplained behavior with the Disqus filter let me know. Disqus is wonky lately!
Yes, you are absolutely correct, but the film clearly struck a chord with America. That’s something it hsould be rewarded for.
Oscar darlings like Kramer vs Kramer, The Exorcist, The Sound of Music, and Rain Man also were humongous hits and they were recorded accordingly.
I’m not going to bother to predict anything. While I am egotistical I am not so much to think that others care what I think will be nominated.
With that said, I have a few hopes.
1) I don’t have to hope for Banshees to get the nominations it’s expected. I doubt it will get more the Everything Everywhere, but I do hope it’s #2 or at least ahead of The Fablemans.
2) Any nomination for Aftersun would be awesome. I prefer the nom for picture or director more than Best Actor for Mescal. Mescal has clearly shown he’s got bigger things in his career coming and I know he’ll get that statue someday. (But then I assumed back in 2006 that Ryan Gosling would have one by now)
3) I hope Top Gun gets the Best Picture nomination. I am not so sure it deserves it, I have too many obscure pictures ranked ahead of it. But for those in the mix, it’s probably in my Top 5. I want to see it nominated though because I am tired of Blockbusters taking the easy way out. They can strive for more, they should strive for more. Audiences deserve more. Audiences expect more. They see things like Stranger Things and Game of Thrones at home. When they go to the theater, they expect more.
4) I don’t want to see Todd Field left off the director’s list. It’s a marvelous achievement that film. It looks great, it’s well-performed. It’s astutely written. And it’s way more ambitious than any other film in the mix. I write myself (although I am terrible) and I truly admire how well-structured this film is. The plot grows organically from what initially appears to be a lyrical type character study. It’s superior entertainment for smart people.
5) And I don’t like to root against any film as a rule. But I have to root against The Fablemans. I really went into it hoping for something good. But it lost me completely in the first scene, the mother and the father trying to persuade the kid to enjoy the moviegoing process. And they go through these elaborate explanations explaining what a movie is. Even though I am quite sure he’s had friends and others go to the movies and report back how awesome it was. Heck, his father has a movie camera! It was entirely stupid that the kid was nervous about it and the parents had to urge him to go. The whole thing is fake, fake, fake. Spielberg is a joke. I can’t stand him, personally and as a filmmaker. Any nomination given that film is a nomination wasted. Dozens upon dozens of movies deserve that nomination more. The last thing the Academy needs to do is feed Spielberg’s ego. I’m sure it’s swallowed quite a bit already.
6) Hoping against a nomination for Brendan Fraser seems pointless at this point, but for sake of human dignity, let it not get anything more. The film is a cesspool of exploitation and my heart breaks for every extremely obese person out there who has to endure people commenting to them on how much they loved “The Whale.”
I don’t like Spielberg as much, but WSS, Tintin or Lincoln are proof of how much of a master of cinema he is. Artisan rather than author, though.
I just hated West Side Story. I couldn’t get through half. The opening number was completely lifeless. I’ve seen figure skating routines that bring more life to the opening number than his direction did.
And it just got worse and worse.
Lincoln was good, although even with that I did have issues.
I am not saying he is terrible even though he is. But there are moments in every one of his movies that work. And that’s what’s so frustrating to me. He’s got talent, he’s just not a complete director. He really doesn’t know how what to do with it.
When you look at his contemporaries like Scorsese or Altman his shortcomings are completely obvious (at least to me). Personally, I think he lacks any intellectual vision. Lincoln works because of its source material (that Dorothy Kearns Goodwin book is exceptional) and it’s an easy template to follow.
I spend most of my time watching his films finding more ways to hate them. They are just empty vessels of garbage. Your standard episode of Days Of Our Lives is vastly superior in my opinion.
“I just hated West Side Story. I couldn’t get through half. The opening number was completely lifeless. I’ve seen figure skating routines that bring more life to the opening number than his direction did.”
Agreed 100%.
Stop slagging West Side Story! https://media1.giphy.com/media/cCnoE4cUCAsuotbG7m/giphy-downsized-medium.gif
1961 all the way!
Both versions all the way!
I love that version, but there are more things in it I take issue with than in the Spielberg version, which I watched again recently. https://media3.giphy.com/media/egDHVpiXAESXJ14ZE1/giphy.gif
West Side Story (2021) didn’t have any reason to exist.
oh I totally agree that Spielberg lacks intellectual vision. Completely. He is unable even to make Schindler’s List as powerful as, say, The Grey Zone or Life is Beautiful, just to mention two better films about the Holocaust. Amistad pales in comparison to 12 years a Slave. Saving Private Ryan can’t kiss the back of the shoe to 1917 or this year’s All Quiet on the Western Front… if we talk about Aliens, ET, thematically, isn’t 10% of the interesting that John Carpenter’s Starman or Under the Skin. And I could go on and on… Jaws isn’t as smart story wise, as Tremors or complex as Nope… 1941 isn’t 25% as funny as Airplane!, just louder. Yes, in most cases good old Steve made it first, and yes there are elements of value in all those films. But we really need to admit that he is just an artisan
Glad you mentioned Starman and ET! Starman is vastly superior. It’s a shame that collectively we’ve mostly forgotten that film. Sadly Amadeus and Passage to India dominated the Oscar attention in 1984 (I think I have my years right)
All great comments! Totally agree.
Predicted Best Picture lineup (in alphabetical order):
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans
TÁR
Top Gun: Maverick
The Whale
Women Talking
I have Babylon over WT, but solely because of it’s pretty solid below the line support a la NIGHTMARE ALLEY… But I’d be happy with yours too.
I am hoping for Babylon but did not predict it.
I have this less Avatar, but I can’t remember what I replaced it with. Sadly, I did end up dropping The Woman King, so it’s not that one.
Good line up.
The Whale is a divisive movie. That could work for it. I don’t follow all that precursor BS so I’m not an expert. But I have seen the movie
Latest NGNGs:
1) Gina Prince Bythewood will get nominated in Best Director.
2) Martin McDonagh will get bumped out in Best Director by Park chan-wook.
3) The Fabelmans will miss the cut in Best Picture.
4) Daniels will be snubbed in Best Director to make room for S.S. Rajamouli of RRR.
5) All Quiet on The Western Front is going to get 10+ Oscar nominations leading the field.
6) TAR will get nominated in both Production Design and Costume Design.
I’d be shocked if the Daniels were snubbed in Best Director because I think they’re going to win. (That’s like when First Man and Gone Girl were snubbed in categories I thought they were going to win—score and screenplay.)
Yeah that score snub was egregious
Wouldn’t be surprised if McDonagh got snubbed again in favor of Park Chan-Wook.. BD usually surprise us.
I really hope 1) doesn’t happen but if they want to fill in the woman quota she makes more sense cause she also fills in the diversity quota and her directing was more tech-heavy than Polley’s talky in a barn. Though BAFTA had 6 spots and she was obviously 6 plus Spielberg missed which he won’t with AMPAS. So that isn’t very conclusive.
itchy question for 2024…
“can M3gan survive up to awards season?”
Haven’t seen it. Said to be bonkers. 95% RT and 74 MC and beautiful b.o. Those are beautiful numbers to introduce itself for Awards consideration (Original Screenplay, probably, maybe make up?). I still think Scream 6 – trailer looks actually like Jason goes Manhattan done right – may eclipse it completely and cancel it…
Is it that good?
Ever since Get Out, we’ve been hearing the same conversation every year: Will the Oscars start taking horror seriously now? But so far this hasn’t gone anywhere, as films like Hereditary and Midsommar and Pearl have gotten little to no awards traction. Get Out was a fluke.
Maybe all the articles and comments will finally make an impact next year, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
well, Nope still can make some surprise entrance at Oscar nomination morning for Picture, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, Score, Cinematography, Film Editing, Sound and VFX…
I don’t think so, but it campaigned, it’s deserving and showed up at some precursors
I said in above post that it seems to me there’s no consensus which “black” (cast,director) movie to back up for representation spot (since none has support for more than 9th-10th filler nomination in Picture). It originally seemed that Woman King was it but then it started flopping with techs, SAG and PGA while Wakanda emerged with strong tech support, PGA and Bassett’s locked win in supporting. and then there’s Nope that made some industry mentions (AFI) and is appearing in techs. So it’s really vote split between these 3 movies and whether one or more make it is big question mark.
having not seen The Woman King… Nope should totally be showered with Oscar nominations (Picture, Director, S. Actress, Original Screenplay, Film Editing, Cinematography, Score, Sound and VFX)
It’s distributed by Universal and if I’m not mistaken their main push is Fabelmans. so internal competition issue.
Get Out was muh race flick so AMPAS fell for that. Peele’s other 2 horror movies that weren’t muh race didn’t get traction. I mean, Nope could make a surprise appearance since there’s no consensus which “black” movie (black cast, black director) to back up – Nope, Wakanda, Woman King? – but it wouldn’t be a serious contender, only the 10th spot filler.
From what I could see, horror nominee needs to be a massive cultural phenom (Get Out, SIlence of the Lambs, 6th Sense) to make it. Unfair but yeah.
Get Out is a “masterfully” directed/edited movie. That’s why it performed so well in the awards circuit.
I didn’t care for it. I’m Us fanboy.
It’s a camp classic that’s actually well-made.
I have yet to see anyone mention the most scary moment of the film. Maybe people are too jaded to notice it.
At the very least it deserves Best Costumes just for M3EGANs clothes. I am not joking on this. Something about them are brilliant and completely capture the doll’s personality long before we see that personality.
No, it cannot.
No lol it’s good fun but hardly an Oscar contender
No, not an Oscar movie at all. And should have been more bonkers. There is a director’s cut coming (r rated) with more gore that should help.
It came out too late for this year’s Oscars–it would have had to have been released and shown in a theater by 12/31/22, and it wasn’t.
I am talking 2023’s season
Putting aside the usual “Great Awokening” nonsense, Sasha does make great point in that it’s hard to argue who you can take out of Best Actress to put someone like Polley in, such a good field there.
Look, Cruise should get his Oscar one day but…not for this.
Why should he get an Oscar?
The Academy owes him nothing…
I think The Whale is in. Fraser’s strength will drag it in.
by that logic Wakanda should be more in cause Bassett is stronger than Fraser. She is locked to won. Fraser is still maybe. Plus Wakandas has massive tech support with Guilds (BAFTA completely snubbed it there, though).
It should… PGA + lock in Adapted (especially after getting in over WOMEN TALKING at BAFTA) plus 2 all but guaranteed acting nods & makeup.
Its 5 nomination haul is pretty damned solid IMO.
Edward Berger is in due to BAFTA factor? But missing PGA, DGA is quite significant though .
True, but sometimes you get that crazy last minute inclusion (The Reader, Phantom Thread)
True, but I think that kind of prediction very often goes south, lol.
The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward!
That happens, but probability is usually very low I think.
So you’ve said lol. But every year there are ALWAYS surprises. They may not be the last minute BAFTA boost sort of surprise, but they DO happen. It’s only a matter of which category they occur in. You can save yourself the trouble of talking about probability again because it happens every year lol
May or may not happen. It all depends. We can plug in all kinds of scenarios from the past, but it really won’t matter.
It fits with Hamaguchi/ Vinterberg/ Pawlikowski – all 3 are international directors whose films missed DGA/PGA but got in at BAFTA so Berger has a pretty good precedent over the past 5 years to follow
But All Quiet is not as good as any of those films!
1) It’s an extremely well made movie. A technical marvel. It’s overall a better movie than say 1917.
2) It has the Netflix backing.
3) It has the BAFTA support.
4) Felix Kammerer should show up in Best Actor…!
Fully agree with points 1-3. If you mean should as in deserves to I agree with 4 but if you mean should as in is likely to I am skeptical given that even on a best case scenario day with BAFTA he missed.
Kammerer deserves a nod.
Yeah fully agree!
I felt so bad for him being the ONLY nom it didn’t get at BAFTA… He’s fantastic in it.
That’s subjective – I happen to think it’s better than 2 of those 3 films
It fits with Hamaguchi/ Vinterberg/ Pawlikowski – all 3 are international directors whose films missed DGA/PGA but got in at BAFTA so Berger has a pretty good precedent over the past 5 years to follow
I really don’t see Paul Dano getting in for supporting. I think he’ll miss. He was fine but nothing special. I could see Judd Hirsch getting in before Paul, but even he seems iffy.
Eddie Redmayne over Brad Pitt all day, including Sunday.
Yeah, what’s up with her not even having Eddie on the alternate? He made GG and SAG yes?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9b45916cccfe75e4dad83fb55712e378d6e41d5f257f0fe994d142f7d2ed4617.gif
The only actors deserving of praise from Babylon are Diego Calva and Tobey Maguire but Pitt is playing a kind of ironic role (washed up older actor) and he looks good in suits so I think it’s a safe bet to make.
I havent’ seen Babylon. But I suspect he was better in Bullet Train.
I thought Diego was a total bore of a lead. But nothing about Babylon worked for me. Except the score.
Pitt was the only character in BABYLON that I actually liked. lol
Yeah, Eddie Redmayne is trending up. Hit BAFTA, Golden Globe, and SAG.
I hope Redmayne doesn’t. I still can’t believe Redmayne is getting in anywhere, while, for example, Hong has been snubbed everywhere… I hope Hong gets an honorary Oscar next year. Those saying that he just sits in a chair in the film, clearly didn’t see the movie…
I am not a fan of EEAatO but I have to admire every single performance. Even the minor ones (like Jenny Slate) had something extra to them.
Did you see The Good Nurse?
I did.
Good film – Fincher style..! 🙂
yes. Really mild film, and Redmayne and Chastain sleepwalk.
What it is worse, the target of the film is morally and ethically wrong and it is a lost chance to do something really great and poignant.
The guy was a mass murderer! How do you do poignant???
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9b6ef430d3bf007119cc6bf2d1711207647d13df58ee55b34d3c37246209e848.gif
he didn’t kill even 1% of the people that the private health system kills in the USA… which is literally addressed for a second and then forgotten, in the very same film.
You are deflecting and didn’t answer the question. Where does poignant fit in with a story about a mass murderer?
no, I am directly addressing what the film addresses… Chastain’s real life character is confronted with choosing between her job (and saving her life) or collaborating with the police… it directly addresses what a matter of life-or-death is to be wealthy enough to pay for your survival in the system, and the film miserably fails into stablishing parallels and a game of mirrors between both options, going the easy, non-controversial way, offering Oscar clips for Redmayne and Chastain (and it ain’t even good at that, it’s a boring film)
Once again, you used the word poignancy in connection with how the film could’ve been better. You are totally dancing around that statement. Are you implying that Redmayne’s character invoked sympathy?
I just can’t shake the feeling that he is Jared Leto in the little things/ Ben Affleck in the tender Bar/ Chalamet in Beautiful Boy/Steve Carrell in Battle of the Sexes/ Aniston in Cake/ Shannon in 99 Homes/ Bruhl in Rush/ Gandolfini in enough said/ Blunt in the girl on the train/ Negga in Passing/ Lopez in Hustlers.
It happens almost every year that a performance will hit most major precursors and miss Oscar. One of the main features of these performances is that they are usually set to be the only nomination for a film (or at least only above the line) that isn’t anywhere near the picture race. Now it is true that a lot of these missed BAFTA so Redmayne is stronger than some on this list but not all. Also I agree with no to Pitt and I don’t know who to put instead so I might default to Redmayne anyway
I’m also predicting Redmayne at this point, but if Pitt has been campaigning at all for the three films he (co-)produced–Women Talking, Blonde, She Said–that may have put him in the front of voters’ minds during this phase.
yes, but Pitt has won 2 Oscars in the last 15 years… there’s no urgency with him.
Only one as an actor, just like Redmayne.
Yeah I won’t be shocked if it’s Pitt but I dunno that film just seems to be on the come down rather than up
Well, I’m not predicting Robbie at this point, where she’d normally be a slam dunk for a nomination.
I call it the Mila Kunis Syndrome.
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That’s a bit different because that was a film loved and widely seen by the academy. The problem was BAFTA nominated Barbara Hershey and I feel like Oscar just didn’t know who to go for. Unless I’m missing what you are trying to say here
I am considering Hirsh instead because these sort of performances often miss to performances from best picture nominees that missed a lot along the way. Think Silver linings playbook Jacki Weaver/ Jesse Plemons in power of the dog/ Lakeith Stanfield in Judas and the Black Messiah/ 2* nominations for Roma. AMPAS tends to look less broadly for contenders and tend to nominate their favorites in more places than the precursors
Then again, Ana de Armas is also a very viable option for being this kind of miss as well
Yes I was going to make this comment too that she could totally be the one to miss. I’ll be kinda surprised if both get nominated tbh
“Anthony Hopkins, Armageddon Time”
So I’m not quite crazy for picking him in the contest, as a shocker… 🙂 (Over Pitt.)
Overall, these are very close to mine, particularly above the line. I picked The Whale instead of Wakanda for my unofficial (and contest) predictions, in picture, whereas the numbers and precedents (and, thus, my official predictions) say Glass Onion instead of both. (And ahead of Women Talking, even.) We even have the same potential spoilers. (Babylon and RRR – and I should have added Living to that list, as I said in the other thread.) Same 5 in director, actress, supporting actor and original screenplay. I have Paul Mescal and She Said instead of the two Top Gun nominations in actor and adapted screenplay. Those two plus Hopkins and The Whale/Glass Onion in picture are the only differences to my top 8 category predictions.
HOpkins didn’t do that much in Armageddon Time. That’s the type of role he can do in his sleep.
I loved the movie, don’t get me wrong. But the strength of that movie is the extraordinary complex issues of race and class presented in a context that made the director’s opinions very clear.
Got it – that’s why it pays to watch the movies. 🙂 Hard to see them all, though, all of those you might predict something from. (Especially for me, at this early stage, given the schedule I watch stuff on. I may well see it much later, post-Oscars, but for now there are other, more pressing things to catch up with.) Oh, well, I probably would have guessed that 5th slot wrong anyway. No big deal.
Rooting for RRR, The Whale, Michelle Williams in supporting, and my favorite four films of the year: EEAAO, Top Gun, Banshees, and Fablemans.
I’d love it if Michelle Williams can get in for supporting, along with Buckley and/or Foy.
Seems like everybody is predicting this now… (Williams in supporting.) It’s pretty crazy. If it was fewer people doing it, I’d maybe buy it more. (Like, it might mean they independently heard rumblings about this maybe happening, from voters.) This way, I think it’s nonsense (it probably means one pundit heard it from a very limited number of voters, word got out and spread, the way these things do, and then everybody else copied the resulting prediction, after hearing it from multiple sources, but which all got it from the same original source) – but, hopefully, I’m wrong and it’s an actual thing. (I mean, I get that she’s campaigning for supporting now, or something, but unless there’s actual, strong evidence that voters are taking to it, that means nothing and is probably very unlikely to work.) Jessie Buckley would be lovely too. (Not seen the movie yet, but I love her in general. Claire Foy, too.)
I think she’s going to be one of those shocking snubs…in both categories.
I wouldn’t say “shocking”. Fabelmans is underperforming.
Even a Spielberg snub looks plausible at this moment..!
Shocking because she’s hit everywhere except BAFTA and she’s a reliable awards magnet when she does accessible projects (I.e., not Kelly Reichardt).
Well, unfortunately, it wouldn’t even be shocking anymore, after missing SAG and BAFTA. 🙁
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