Where We Stand, Post-Festival

[Okri]

Mister Tee called it earlier, but having seen Son of Saul, I think we need to take it seriously for at least a City of God nomination haul, but sound, actor, and picture are fully in play.

[Sabin]

Steve Jobs is pretty much guaranteed nominations for Picture, Actor (Fassbender), Supporting Actress (Winslet), and Adapted Screenplay. Director, Original Score, Cinematography, and Film Editing are likely bets as well. It's hard to think of a nomination for Seth Rogen without immediately comparing it to Jonah Hill's pathway to laurels. In both Moneyball and The Wolf of Wall Street, he just had more to do throughout. Had Steve Jobs contained one or two more scenes of young Jobs and Woz, I'd say for sure, he's in the running. As is, I'm just not sure he has enough to do. If anything is going to win, it's going to be Sorkin.

[anonymous1980]

Speaking of child actors, there are two child actors in contention this year: Jacob Tremblay in Room and Abraham Attah in Beasts of No Nation. Both are getting just as much raves as Brie Larson and Idris Elba respectively. Tremblay is more of a co-lead though so he's likely going to go Supporting. Attah on the other hand is said to be more of a lead than Elba so if he goes Supporting it's definitely category fraud.

[criddic3]

The Tatum O'Neal nod can be explained in terms of her age. Other than Jackie Cooper, every child actor nominated by the Academy has been cited in the supporting categories.

And Keisha Castle-Hughes for Whale Rider.

And Quevenzhane Wallis, although in all of those lead cases there is literally no other actor that anyone could argue was the lead in those movies, unlike the other child fraud situations.

Oh, yeah somehow I forgot those two.

[Big Magilla]

Campaigning for Oscars began with Mary Pickford in 1929. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

Prior to 1945, the actors determined who was nominated in what category.

When Jackie Cooper was nominated for Best Actor, there were no supporting awards, even if there were, there was no way they could shoehorn him into one and have it make sense. He was the clear star of the film. When the supporting awards were first given in 1936, Spencer Tracy's clearly supporting performance in San Francisco was nominated in lead because he was a "star" while Stuart Erwin, the lead in Pigskin Parade was reduced to support because he wasn't. The shenanigans continued through 1944 when Barry Fitzgerald was nominated in both categories for the same performance after which the studios dictated which category actors could be considered for. This ended after 1970 largely over the consternation of many AMPAS members that they couldn't vote for Trevor Howard in support for Ryan's Daughter because MGM had submitted his name as lead along with Robert Mitchum.

Voters were no longer bound by category placement in "for your consideration" ads, but have generally followed suit.

The jury is out on whether Kris Tapley and Guy Lodge's "In Contention" column, now part of Variety, will have any greater influence over Academy membership than it did when they were independent bloggers. An article written about category fraud in October may well be forgotten once the barrage of "for your consideration" ads starts hitting in November.

[The Original BJ]

The Tatum O'Neal nod can be explained in terms of her age. Other than Jackie Cooper, every child actor nominated by the Academy has been cited in the supporting categories.

And Keisha Castle-Hughes for Whale Rider.

And Quevenzhane Wallis, although in all of those lead cases there is literally no other actor that anyone could argue was the lead in those movies, unlike the other child fraud situations.

[Okri]

The Tatum O'Neal nod can be explained in terms of her age. Other than Jackie Cooper, every child actor nominated by the Academy has been cited in the supporting categories.

And Keisha Castle-Hughes for Whale Rider.

[criddic3]

The Tatum O'Neal nod can be explained in terms of her age. Other than Jackie Cooper, every child actor nominated by the Academy has been cited in the supporting categories.

[Kellens101]

It just gets more and more frustrating. BJ, I can't blame you for bringing it up again. Save supporting for the genuinely supporting parts and no more Casey Afflecks, Tatum O'Neals, Timothy Huttons and Philip Seymour Hoffmans. It's getting ridiculous.

[The Original BJ]

Variety calls bullshit on lead performances slumming it in supporting, particularly Vikander and Mara this year:

http://variety.com/2015/film/in-content ... 201611237/

Well, it's nice to see a trade publication pointing out that this practice hurts genuine supporting players -- especially early in the season, where maybe it has a chance of affecting the narrative -- but I have increasingly little faith voters won't just kowtow to studio placement like they always have. I fear we're getting to the point where a movie can only have one lead for awards purposes, and everyone else will just be considered supporting no matter how gigantic their part. At this point the Academy needs to address this in the rules -- or have a committee like the Tonys do -- because the studios are getting more and more obnoxious about this every year.

And there I go again when I promised I would be good this year...

[flipp525]

Variety calls bullshit on lead performances slumming it in supporting, particularly Vikander and Mara this year:

http://variety.com/2015/film/in-content ... 201611237/

[FilmFan720]

The Big Short was just announced as the closing film of AFI Fest, as well as a mid-December release...

[Mister Tee]

I also think, at the very least, it's not REALLY equivalent to judge the Metacritic scores of movies that haven't opened/received a wide number of reviews, with those for movies from previous years. Which is to say, any of the numbers for those festival movies could go up or down once more critics actually see them.

Not as much as you'd think. Last year people kept telling me reviews for The Imitation Game could go way upward in wide release, but the number in fact barely moved. And, even in the last few weeks, the folks at Awards Watch were saying Danish Girl's number coming out if Venice was unnaturally low, that North American critics would raise it. Instead, it went down two points. It's a bit like political polling: sonetimes the cross-section reveals the whole.

Okri, it seems this is something you and I are going to majorly disagree on until the film opens and either performs well or not at the box office, and awards nominations start appearing or not. I don't see The Help or Les Miz as being very good analogies, for reasons BJ notes -- The Help was a commercial phenomenon first, then an Oscar performer (and, might we remember, a weak one in the end? -- its three actresses accounted for three of its four nominations), and Les Miz was a global phenomenon no one could kill. The Daldry nominees come closest, but again I'll say, if the basis of your argument is the worst/least likely case, it doesn't strike me as a powerful one. And I'll add that these arguments only seem to get trotted out for movies that were on everyone's imaginary preseason list; Black Mass has about the same review profile and decent box office numbers, but no one's out there pleading for it the way they are for Danish Girl.

As for Nathaniel: he's generally one of the sharpest writers on the Oscars, but his tastes create blind spots. I recall him clinging to Nine well past probability. And his write-up on Danish Girl -- saying it was "less divisive than Les Miz" -- makes me wonder what bubble he's living in. The only way that statement can be true is if you mean it to say Les Miz had some swoony reactions in among the negative, whereas all of Danish Girl's have been in a narrow mediocre-to-poor range.

[The Original BJ]

I also think, at the very least, it's not REALLY equivalent to judge the Metacritic scores of movies that haven't opened/received a wide number of reviews, with those for movies from previous years. Which is to say, any of the numbers for those festival movies could go up or down once more critics actually see them.

[Okri]

I remember having this debate during the 08/09 year, so it could just be a fundamental disagreement on what metacritic is good for, but I don't see the low early score as a big deal. I expect the score to settle in the 70s once the BFCA critics see it. Which isn't a ringing endorsement, but it seems about right for this type of movie.

The thing with category fraud is that we've seen AMPAS either just straight up ignore the fraudsters (Johansson, Watts) or nominate them correctly (Winslet, Castle-Hughes). But yeah, it seems that obvious fraud candidates never come close to winning.