And supporting actress is giving us an old-fashioned free-for-all. I assume the supporting actress five will be selected from a limited field (Bakalova, Burstyn, Close, Colman, Foster, Seyfried, Youn -- any others?), Or with the notion it's a crazy-ass year in so many ways, no one really cares, and maybe a fluky, un-precursored outcome awaits.
Fingers crossed a "fluky, un-precursored outcome awaits." LOL. That Cinderella moment when an unsuspecting ingenue hears her name is no doubt (for me) a highlight. Geena Davis, Marcia Gay Harden....
...Amanda Seyfried??
(P.S. I don't consider Marisa Tomei a fluke. I had her picked even before the nominations were announced.)
OscarGuy wrote
Nope. I mean Amy Ryan. Tomei had ONE precursor going into the Oscars, Chicago. Tomei was also a young up-and-coming actor who'd also been recently seen in Chaplin. I don't think Bakalova has been anywhere else.
Well, I mean Marisa Tomei. This is going to be a largely dramatic field and Maria Bakalova is the sole comedic performance. Like Marisa Tomei, she will get 100% of the Maria Bakalova vote. The fact that Borat Subsequent Moviefilm was nominated for a PGA award means it's being taken more seriously than perhaps we had thought. She didn't win the Golden Globe (where she was foolish pushed for lead) but it won Best Film and Actor -- Comedy/Musical, it has a WGA nomination, and although it's not getting nominated for Best Picture, a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay doesn't seem like the craziest thing in the world anymore. The film has fans and she's integral to its success.
Unlike Marisa Tomei, they haven't seen her before. But also unlike Marisa Tomei, she has several precursors going into the Oscars. And even though she's speaking another language through most of the film, y'know, it's Borat.
I don't know if Maria Bakalova is going to win the Oscar but this particular race is all over the place and that could benefit her.
Nope. I mean Amy Ryan. Tomei had ONE precursor going into the Oscars, Chicago. Tomei was also a young up-and-coming actor who'd also been recently seen in Chaplin. I don't think Bakalova has been anywhere else.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
Maria Bakalova has a whiff of Amy Ryan. The critics' choice that became a steamroller. I never felt she was going to win the Oscar and it took until the BAFTA went to Tilda Swinton that I finally found the plausible Oscar winner. Who takes that position now? Ellen Burstyn has that respected actress vibe, but like Bakalova, I'm not even sure she's getting a nomination. Olivia Colman has the respect, but also the win. Close certainly has the respect, but unlike Swinton, her film isn't in the race at all where as Michael Clayton. I supposed Toni Collette has some potential if she can surprise with a nomination, but I'm Thinking of Ending Things isn't likely a surprise Oscar nomination-getter. That's the problem with this year, no one on the horizon that seems like a logical choice of replacement and I just don't see the Academy going with Youn Yuh-jung, either. So, what I guess I'm saying is, let's see how SAG and BAFTA do.
Also, Nomadland feels more like Moonlight than La La Land. I mean everyone thought La La Land was steamrolling through, but never considered that La La Land had 19 precursors to Moonlight's 16. The best comparison might be to Boyhood. It was sweeping critics' groups while Birdman was amassing a respectable six selections until it won SAG. Even BAFTA went with Boyhood. There are only a couple of films that have done respectably well with critics as an alternative to Nomadland. Minari and Promising Young Woman. Minari is a very plausible alternative and it's the only one I could see the risk-averse Academy going with. It's not as damning as bland as Green Book and not as venomous as The Favourite, though, so who knows.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
Avoiding the pain of the show, I watched my usual way: DVR-ing, fast-forwarding only to announcements/acceptance speeches (and skipping over TV categories about which I didn't care). Got through the whole mess in under half an hour.
Most of my instincts were right. Nomadland was too big a consensus critics' favorite for them to pass on it. Paradoxically, that makes this less a favorable omen for the best picture Oscar. As Sabin chronicles below, the Broadcasters have faltered when they've fallen in line with some critics' pets: The Social Network, Boyhood, Roma, and, going back further, Sideways and Brokeback Mountain. (To be fair, they've also been right when they got in line for No Country for Old Men and The Hurt Locker.). But, what they're really good at is finding the sweet-spot choice in a year when critics' groups are all over the place -- nailing The Departed, Slumdog Millionaire, The Artist, Argo, 12 Years a Slave and The Shape of Water before their wins were especially obvious. In a critically confused year, they become clairvoyant; this year, I wouldn't trust their judgment. I think Zhao is a lock for best director, but, like Roma, it might be stopped short of a best picture victory. (Any remarks I make on Nomadland are blind; I'm holding out watching it, hoping to see the movie in a theatre a couple of weeks from now.)
Somebody was spreading a rumor they were going for Delroy Lindo for lead actor, which was unbelievable on its face for anyone with the slightest knowledge of this group. The Boseman choice was the evening's most obvious.
I'm delighted, though still a bit surprised, that Kaluuya has emerged as potential bandwagon choice, especially with the film getting only minor attention in other categories. He might be the candidate most advantaged by the seasonal delay.
Many of their voters must have been itching to switch to Andra Day after the Globes, but instead they put Mulligan back in prime position. Mulligan seems the likeliest winner to me, but this split decision from the first pair of awards leaves it a bit open to question. I still remember a bio-pic beating Julie Christie after she'd won a Globe, SAG and the Broadcasters.
And supporting actress is giving us an old-fashioned free-for-all. I suggested the other day that the race seemed so wide-open, voters might just go with their conscience instead of trying to predict, and this is the kind of wild thing that can happen in that circumstance. (It can happen at the Oscars, too: if you weren't around at the time, you have no idea how ludicrous a Marisa Tomei win sounded until it happened.) As one who's been loudly skeptical of a Bakalova nomination (honestly, I only recently bothered to get her name's spelling correct), I'll grant to Sabin she has a better chance at nomination than I've expected. On the other hand, I don't think she's a dead-certain nominee, even yet. The problem with a year where no one stands out is, that lack of focus can hit in the preliminary round just as easily as in the final balloting. I assume the supporting actress five will be selected from a limited field (Bakalova, Burstyn, Close, Colman, Foster, Seyfried, Youn -- any others?), but there's not a one on that list whose omission would shock me -- both to-date winners included.
And, I have to say: are people still pretending Glenn Close is waltzing her way to a win? she's already passed through two of the arenas where she won in 2018, and not a nibble. She's not going to win BAFTA, is she? She might not even be nominated, there. It seems to me her hopes rest solely with SAG at this point. Or with the notion it's a crazy-ass year in so many ways, no one really cares, and maybe a fluky, un-precursored outcome awaits.
I've never thought Sorkin was a runaway favorite for original screenplay, partly because I think Chicago 7 is SO inferior to his earlier nominated (or, as in Steve Jobs, omitted) work -- I've always thought Fennell has a very good shot. My issue here is with Nomadland on the adapted side. So many people, including those who like Nomadland a lot, say it's not a writer's movie. Academy voters have become very good about separating out directors' movies from the screenplay prize that, in the old days, would come along as part of the package -- today, I doubt The French Connection would win screenplay over The Last Picture Show, even while holding onto its film/director trophies. It seems to me Nomadland's only chance at winning this is if none of the other contenders grab enough focus to have voters coalesce around it. But something is going to win at the Writers' Guild -- where Nomadland wasn't eligible -- so that will likely become chief alternate.
Below the line: with cinematography, production design, and score virtually locked, song, costumes and editing seem the categories most open to surprise. Naturally, editing was the one category where the group resorted to its old subterfuge, the tie.
I thought they had better control over acceptance speeches than either the Emmys or the Golden Globes did. The chit-chat between awards was limited, but what little there was, was awkward. Taye Diggs wasn't great, but having him there for the third straight year has been better than the old days when one insufferable critic after another hosted the thing.
Well, that's it for the tastemakers who aren't in the industry. Now we're onto the bellwethers.
The Critic's Choice honored Chadwick Boseman, Carey Mulligan, Daniel Kaluuya, and Maria Bakalova. These are largely the consensus choices for Best Actor and Supporting Actor frontrunner. There hasn't been a Best Actress consensus choice yet but I've suspected that Carey Mulligan would emerge before too long. Her candidacy just made too much sense to me. And Best Supporting Actress remains a total mess. Every time somebody besides Glenn Close wins, it proves they don't want to honor her enough to give an award to something as toxic as Hillbilly Elegy. But I'll also say this: there is no candidate who has won as many awards in years that people are stubbornly dismissing for a nomination (let alone a win) as Maria Bakalova. It's getting silly. She's very, very likely in this race.
And then there's Best Picture, which went to Nomadland, a movie I am stubbornly refusing to entertain as a Best Picture frontrunner because it has a few things going against it: 1) it's slow, and slow is kryptonite for a Best Picture winner (I'm not sure it's getting a Best Film Editing nomination), and 2) it's not a film "for" actors.
And what do we make of their forecasting capacity? Well, they're about as good as anyone. They went with The Artist, Argo, and 12 Years a Slave. They stuck with Spotlight and were early to The Shape of Water. That's about the biggest compliment I can give them. They honored recently Globe-winners The Social Network, Boyhood, Roma, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood before the bellwethers turned against those four films films. And naturally they went with La La Land because we're all human. Basically, their record for the decade is 50-50. We'll see what the other groups say about Nomadland. I suspect that the DGA is the film's best bet.
The biggest divergence that I see is honoring Promising Young Woman for Best Original Screenplay instead of The Trial of the Chicago 7. I have been very vocal on this board in wondering about The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Mank ("Do they like this?") and Promising Young Woman might not seem like a more palatable piece of resistance than Sorkin, but I suspect it's more satisfying to voters. I think Emerald Fennell could win this.
