What an Oscar season this has been. Never before have the Oscars felt like there wasn’t quite enough movies that did well in theaters, or even on streaming, to make for a competitive race. I do hope the Academy considers dropped the Best Picture count back down to five, at least until things get back to some kind of normal. I am not sure they will do that, but I hope they do. It’s never felt quite right to me since they expanded. It still feels like “everybody gets a certificate” more than it does a competition for Best Picture of the Year. BAFTA can do it with five and so can the Oscars. They can have an additional category for “alternative media” which could include many different platforms, including streaming.
But we still have to get through this year. Thanks to how tight the punditry game is now, we’re not in for many big surprises probably. We have gamed the system. We know 95% of what will be nominated. Now it feels less like predicting what will get in and more like a publicity game. It always did but movies could sometimes escape the tight confines of the bloggers, especially if they took flight at the box office. That hardly happens anymore.
What we’re about to find out is whether the Golden Globes were influential this year or not with the winners they chose. Humans tend to move in herds (“They do move in herds”) and often just go along with what everyone else is doing (sadly, horrifyingly). So maybe it will be true that it turns out to be:
The Brutalist vs. Emilia Perez
Demi Moore, Adrien Brody
Kieran Culkin, Zoe Saldana.
Conclave for Adapted Screenplay
Maybe it will be these winners. Who knows. Maybe The Brutalist edges out Emilia Perez and becomes the first film to win without a SAG or ACE nomination, at least in the preferential ballot era. Or maybe Emilia Perez becomes the first film since Parasite to win in Best Picture and International Feature — and if they did that, this year of all years, right after Trump won the popular vote, it might just time to stick a fork in it. Put the whole thing out of its misery.
Or will the Academy look to an American son like Sean Baker whose love for movies won over his ability to rise in the studio system. He made movies any way he could, even with an iPhone once. And now, he’s made his best film to date and the only movie that made me feel pure joy, well, other than the animated film, Flow and maybe Wicked. Anora is flying under the radar because people think the Academy won’t vote for a movie about a sex worker who learns a hard lesson in life. But Anora is not that movie. Anora is the Hero’s Journey, which is why it works well and why it resonates so deeply. In a year without a frontrunner, voters might just vote with their hearts. Stranger things have happened.
Netflix has announced they will release Greta Gerwig’s Narnia movies in theaters and that it’s “unprecedented” for them to grant her that rare privilege. The timing is perfect, just before Oscar voting is done, and might help remove some of the stigma of the Netflix brand for Academy voters who see them as at the forefront of helping to destroy theaters. Was a time in the past where I would have vigorously defended them but now that the situation is so dire I am not sure I can. Netflix has only one thing about it that I really like and it’s not a thing, it’s a director. But luring in great directors come at a cost to the film industry and the Oscar industry. It might be our inevitable future, but I’m not sure Academy voters are all too thrilled with that idea.
Will the BAFTA enthusiasm for Conclave help give it some heft heading into the final vote? The people at Focus Features are good people so nothing would make me happier than to see them win. But it’s also a worthy film that is about all of the ways old systems can sometimes get twisted up in corruption and lose their connection to the whole point of it all, which could explain the mess the Democrats made for themselves over the past eight years in the political world — which is married to Hollywood. Can Conclave win because voters can’t rally around any other movie in a consensus vote? Maybe. Does the anger by Catholics hurt the movie? Well, not with this crowd.
And then there is The Brutalist, which is Film Twitter’s favorite movie. It’s hard not to admire Brady Corbet for taking such a big leap to make a big, expansive epic about a Jewish architect’s survival in the new world of America after World War II. It is probably a bit too cerebral for Academy voters. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them vote for a movie that was not an easy emotional ride. That’s because there are 10,000 of them. Maybe they will. Who knows. No one would argue if it did win. It’s like Out of Africa or The Last Emperor.
As for Best Director, are we looking at a split year or a year where Picture and Director go to won person? It could be a Revenant/Spotlight kind of year where Brady Corbet wins Best Director at DGA, BAFTA and the Oscars and something else wins Best Picture. That could happen. We won’t know until we hear from the industry voters. I still see it as an Anora/Baker year and can’t quite shake it. I’ll have to watch someone else win before I believe anything else is possible.
It looks like Demi Moore might take Best Actress, though if Pamela Anderson is nominated too that might cut into some of Demi’s consensus, being that both are 80s bombshells who have slipped into age gracefully and respectfully and are doing their best work in their later years. Does Moore have any competition? Well, Mikey Madison could be her competition if Anora wins. But then again, voters might feel, given the subject matter of The Substance, that picking a younger actress might add insult to injury.
Best Actor is still wide open, despite the Globes. Timothee Chalamet still has a strong shot to win. He’s got the momentum and the buzz with him. He has two strikes against him. The first is that he’s a pretty boy and in general, the Academy doesn’t like giving out Oscars to pretty boys unless they ugly themselves up. They prefer to give their awards to those who did the most difficult work. Maybe that’s Adrien Brody. Or maybe they’ll finally award Ralph Fiennes the Oscar after such a rich and prolific career as an actor. Tough call. Chalamet might be the Adrien Brody of this year if he’s caught between Fiennes and Brody.
Original Screenplay will be once again the same writers who also directed. The one thing that doesn’t usually happen is that a single writer wins Picture, Director and Screenplay in the original category. Usually they win Picture/Director and not Screenplay. So if Anora wins Screenply, it might not win Picture. I think here is where Coralie Fargeat might get some love with The Substance, like Anatomy of a Fall. But The Brutalist could also win, as could A Real Pain. September 5th, if nominated, could also take this prize.
Adapted Screenplay seems like a cake walk for Conclave, and it’s a well-deserved win, almost unequivocal. The novel was beloved when it was published in 2016 and the film version lives up to the novel. But also, there is not a lot of competition in the category with the exception of A Complete Unknown. There’s Nickel Boys too and yes, Emilia Perez. We’ll see how it goes. We’ll know soon enough which direction the wind is blowing when we start to see the big consensus votes take shape.
Let’s just do a quick rundown of how they’ve divided the wins in the major categories in the preferential ballot era.
2009 – The Hurt Locker — won PGA/DGA, Picture + Director + Screenplay (different writer than director)
2010 – The King’s Speech — won PGA/DGA/SAG, Picture + Director + Screenplay (different writer than director)
2011 – The Artists — won PGA/DGA, Picture + Director
2012 – Argo — won PGA/DGA/SAG, Picture + Screenplay (director not nominated, plus different writer from director)
2013 – 12 Years a Slave — won PGA (with Gravity), Picture + Screenplay (different writer)
2014 — Birdman — won PGA/DGA/SAG – Picture + Director + Screenplay (co-writers)
2015 — Spotlight — won SAG – Picture + Screenplay (co-writers)
2016 — Moonlight — won Picture + Screenplay (co-writers)
2017 — The Shape of Water — PGA/DGA, Picture + Director
2018 — Green Book — PGA, Picture + Screenplay (co-writers)
2019 — Parasite — SAG, Picture + Director + Screenplay
2020 — Nomadland — PGA/DGA, Picture + Director
2021 — CODA — Picture + Screenplay (singular writer/director)
2022 — Everything Everywhere All At Once — PGA/DGA/SAG, Picture+Director+Screenplay
2023 — Oppenheimer — PGA/DGA/SAG, Picture + Director
As you can see, it’s not easy to sweep the guilds and then win all the top awards. In general, voters like to split the wealth so that a film usually only wins Director or Screenplay.
The Oscar nominations announce next Thursday, so I’ll have time to lock in one more set. But for now, here are my predictions for this week:
Best Picture
Anora (SAG/DGA/PGA)
Conclave (SAG/DGA/PGA)
The Brutalist (DGA-Globe winner/PGA)
Emilia Perez (SAG/DGA-Globe winner/PGA)
A Complete Unknown (SAG/DGA/PGA)
Wicked (SAG/PGA)
Dune Part Two (PGA)
The Substance (PGA
A Real Pain (PGA)
September 5 (PGA)
Alt: Nickel Boys, Sing Sing, Nosferatu, The Apprentice
This is tough. PGA probably won’t go 10/10 but we don’t know which one will drop so I usually go with the PGA-10, but I do suspect Nickel Boys will get in. Maybe it’s Nickel Boys, September 5 in and A Real Pain out. Not sure.
Best Director
Sean Baker, Anora (DGA)
Brady Corbet, The Brutalist (DGA)
Edward Berger, Conclave (DGA)
Jaques Audiard, Emilia Perez (DGA)
Coralie Fargeat, The Substance
Alt: James Mangold, a Complete Unknown (DGA), Jon Chu, Wicked, Denis Villeneuve, Dune Part Two, RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys
Best Actress
Demi Moore, The Substance (Globe winner)
Mikey Madison, Anora
Cynthia Erivo, Wicked
Karla Sofia Gascon, Emilia Perez
Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths
Alts: Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here (Globe winner), Nicole Kidman, Babygirl, Angelina Jolie, Maria
Best Actor
Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
Timothee Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
Adrien Brody, The Brutalist (Globe winner)
Sebastian Stan for The Apprentice
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
Alt: Daniel Craig, Queer or a Different Man (Globe winner)
Best Supporting Actor
Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain (Globe winner)
Denzel Washington, Gladiator II
Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown
Yura Borisov, Anora
Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice
Alt. Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing, Jonathan Bailey, Wicked, Adam Pearson, A Different Man, Samuel L. Jackson, The Piano Lesson
Best Supporting Actress
Zoe Saldana, Emilia Perez (Globe winner)
Ariana Grande, Wicked
Felicity Jones, The Brutalist
Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown
Isabella Rossellini, Conclave
Alt: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Nickel Boys; Danielle Deadwyler, The Piano Lesson, Elle Fanning, A Complete Unknown
Original Screenplay
The Substance
September 5
The Brutalist
Anora
A Real Pain
Alt. Hard Truths, The Apprentice
Adapted Screenplay
Conclave
A Complete Unknown
Nickel Boys
Emilia Perez
Dune Part Two
Alt. The Piano Lesson
Cinematography
Nosferatu
Dune Part Two
The Brutalist
Conclave
A Complete Unknown
Alt. Emilia Perez
Editing
Challengers
Conclave
Anora
Emilia Perez
The Substance
Alt. September 5, The Substance, Saturday Night
Production Design
Wicked
Emilia Perez
Nosferatu
Dune Part Two
The Substance
Alt. Furiosa
Costumes
Wicked
Emilia Perez
Nosferatu
Dune Part Two
The Substance
Sound
Wicked
Dune Part Two
A Complete Unknown
Gladiator II
Deadpool & Wolverine
Animated
Flow
Inside Out 2
The Wild Robot
Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Moana 2
Score
Emilia Perez
The Brutalist
The Wild Robot
Challengers
Conclave
Makeup and Hair
Wicked
The Substance
Beatlejuice Beatlejuice
Nosferatu
A Different Man
Until next time, fare thee well.
