Degree of Certainty

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Sabin
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Re: Degree of Certainty

Post by Sabin »

MaxWilder wrote
I know the anonymous ballots are pretty much meaningless, but I was pleased to see a couple of people rule out McDormand because she already has two Oscars.

Daniel Day-Lewis won a third just five years after his second, but his performance was so overwhelmingly acclaimed that no one seemed to mind that Meryl Streep (having pre-opened the envelope) didn't bother with the usual 2-3 seconds of suspense.

If McDormand were about to win her third, we’d be seeing think-pieces asking whether she’s the greatest ever.

I think it’ll be Viola Davis. I think Carey Mulligan deserves it but I can’t be upset if Davis wins. I can’t see her retiring with just one best supporting actress prize.
I think this is probably Viola Davis' best nominated performance and possibly the best of the nominees in a good crop. But I don't think Viola Davis is going to win. Yes, Viola Davis won the SAG which is a major predictor of who is going to win but she didn't have to compete with Andra Day and I think that would've changed the vote. Not simply because there are two black actresses competing against each other, but because they're both playing very similar parts: real life singers who struggle valiantly against systems of control. Billie Holiday a bit more tragic as she descends into drugs, doomed love, and death, whereas Ma Rainey is more proud, in control, and confident. But these are not dissimilar roles.

I can't prove that Andra Day hurts Viola Davis' chances but I can't imagine her presence helps her any. The question then becomes who does this benefit, McDormand or Mulligan? We can imagine hypotheticals of how the BAFTA race would've gone if Mulligan were nominated all day but it doesn't change the fact that Frances McDormand won the BAFTA. And over the last ten years, BAFTA has had a pretty good track record of forecasting the eventual winner (save for Riva over Lawrence in 2012). My hunch is that Davis, Day, McDormand, and Mulligan could each take close to a quarter of the vote. More than any vote in recent memory, I want to see the vote breakdown.
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Re: Degree of Certainty

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Sabin wrote:
rolotomasi99 wrote
This is as stupid as those who attacked ZERO DARK THIRTY for supporting torture and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET for celebrating hedonism.

Yet absolute dreck like GREEN BOOK wins Best Picture despite the movie lying to promote another white savior narrative written by a bigot and predator.

I can only imagine how vicious the whisper campaign would be against a movie like JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH or ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI if they were the frontrunner for Best Picture.
I mean, these kinds of campaigns have been going on forever. There was certainly a whisper campaign against Green Book. The difference is that people involved with Green Book was too busy sabotaging themselves. It just didn't matter because Academy voters loved it too much.

I think the whisper campaign against Nomadland is fair game. I think it's perfectly fine to ask what the filmmaker's attitude towards seasonal workers is. It certainly doesn't present a critical image of Amazon at all. If anything, Amazon is one of the few things that people in Nomadland have to be grateful for.
I am aware of Harvey Weinstein doing this regularly (i.e. accusing the subject of A BEAUTIFUL MIND of being an anti-semite), but what I specifically object to is the bullshit Bigelow, Scorsese, and now Zhao face where people conflate the view of the protagonists with that of the writer/director. If a character supports torture or hedonism, that does not mean Bigelow and Scorsese agree with them. They are simply depicting what the movie's subjects (all of whom are based on real people) do and say without blatantly projecting their own viewpoints on the audience. I find the behavior in ZERO DARK THIRTY and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET deplorable, but I can still enjoy the movie because I never felt like I was being asked to agree morally with what I was seeing on the screen.

Similarly, Zhao was showing us (quite briefly I must point out) how these characters support their itinerant lifestyle through this type of seasonal work. I certainly did not watch the movie and think how wonderful it would be to work at Amazon. In fact, I sat there thinking how grateful I was to be an overpaid paper pusher rather than breaking my back in a warehouse or on a farm. I know some people love that work, but nothing in this film glamorized those jobs for me.

If this movie had been funded and distributed by Amazon, perhaps that would make its depiction a little more suspect; but it was independently produced and is exclusively streaming on one of their competitors. Given the anti-Asian racism sweeping the country, I suppose it is refreshing that the attacks on Zhao are related to something else entirely.
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Re: Degree of Certainty

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MaxWilder wrote:I think it’ll be Viola Davis. I think Carey Mulligan deserves it but I can’t be upset if Davis wins. I can’t see her retiring with just one best supporting actress prize.
I agree. And anyway it's about time there was a second black actress win in the lead category. However, it might be a bit awkward and weird if Davis wins and Boseman loses to Anthony Hopkins.

I think it's going to be a night of surprises in a number of categories. I get the feeling that the original frontrunner in the supporting actress category - Amanda Seyfried - will win
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Re: Degree of Certainty

Post by MaxWilder »

I know the anonymous ballots are pretty much meaningless, but I was pleased to see a couple of people rule out McDormand because she already has two Oscars.

Daniel Day-Lewis won a third just five years after his second, but his performance was so overwhelmingly acclaimed that no one seemed to mind that Meryl Streep (having pre-opened the envelope) didn't bother with the usual 2-3 seconds of suspense.

If McDormand were about to win her third, we’d be seeing think-pieces asking whether she’s the greatest ever.

I think it’ll be Viola Davis. I think Carey Mulligan deserves it but I can’t be upset if Davis wins. I can’t see her retiring with just one best supporting actress prize.
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Re: Degree of Certainty

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rolotomasi99 wrote
This is as stupid as those who attacked ZERO DARK THIRTY for supporting torture and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET for celebrating hedonism.

Yet absolute dreck like GREEN BOOK wins Best Picture despite the movie lying to promote another white savior narrative written by a bigot and predator.

I can only imagine how vicious the whisper campaign would be against a movie like JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH or ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI if they were the frontrunner for Best Picture.
I mean, these kinds of campaigns have been going on forever. There was certainly a whisper campaign against Green Book. The difference is that people involved with Green Book was too busy sabotaging themselves. It just didn't matter because Academy voters loved it too much.

I think the whisper campaign against Nomadland is fair game. I think it's perfectly fine to ask what the filmmaker's attitude towards seasonal workers is. It certainly doesn't present a critical image of Amazon at all. If anything, Amazon is one of the few things that people in Nomadland have to be grateful for.
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Re: Degree of Certainty

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Would someone care to enlighten those of us who do have subscription to the L.A. Times as to what this article behind their paywall is about?
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Re: Degree of Certainty

Post by rolotomasi99 »

Sabin wrote:Fun little whisper campaign.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-a ... ontroversy
This is as stupid as those who attacked ZERO DARK THIRTY for supporting torture and THE WOLF OF WALL STREET for celebrating hedonism.

Yet absolute dreck like GREEN BOOK wins Best Picture despite the movie lying to promote another white savior narrative written by a bigot and predator.

I can only imagine how vicious the whisper campaign would be against a movie like JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH or ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI if they were the frontrunner for Best Picture.
"When it comes to the subject of torture, I trust a woman who was married to James Cameron for three years."
-- Amy Poehler in praise of Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow
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Re: Degree of Certainty

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Sabin wrote:Fun little whisper campaign.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-a ... ontroversy
"The union push highlighted what many Amazon critics say are punishing working conditions in the company’s warehouses,"

They may want to approach this point from another angle.
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Re: Degree of Certainty

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Re: Degree of Certainty

Post by Big Magilla »

Greg wrote:
Big Magilla wrote:Pretty Much Locked
Song
Which one of the songs? I thought this was the most up-in-the-air category outside of the shorts.
I may have to backtrack on this one, but I was convinced early on that "Speak Now' would seep the precursors - it hasn't but it feels like an Oscar song to me. Leslie Odom, Jr. may not be a household name to the general public but everyone in New York, London, and L.A. knows who he is.

Odom was the early favorite for supporting actor until Daniel Kaluuya came along in Judas and the Black Messiah so I still think they will give him the consolation prize of Best Song.
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Re: Degree of Certainty

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Big Magilla wrote:Pretty Much Locked
Song
Which one of the songs? I thought this was the most up-in-the-air category outside of the shorts.
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Re: Degree of Certainty

Post by Big Magilla »

We know that the membership of BAFTA and AMPAS is in many ways parallel.

Two things emerged from yesterday's BAFTA awards. One, was the strength of support for Anthony Hopkins which may or may not help his Oscar chances. The other was the strong support for Promising Young Woman. BAFTA's nominating committee be damned, had Carey Mulligan been a nominee she would have walked away with her second BAFTA award for Best Actress.

If there was strong support for a black actress winner, they had the perfect opportunity to prove it by voting for the great Alfre Woodard whose performance in the Oscar ineligible Clemency is a lot stronger than those of Viola Davis and Andra Day in their Oscar nominated roles. I think the fact that they voted for Frances McDormand, who has little to no chance of winning a third acting Oscar in a year when she could well win a third Oscar overall as one of the producers of Nomadland, was proof that they were not going to be persuaded by a committee telling them to vote for someone in a low profile film. After the monkey wrenches thrown at Mulligan's chances by the Globes, SAG and the BAFTA committee, the early front-runner is now the beloved underdog who will triumph on Oscar night.
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Re: Degree of Certainty

Post by Reza »

anonymous1980 wrote:
Big Magilla wrote: Pretty Much Locked
Actress
Eh? What's your basis on that? Actress is the most up in the air category this year.
It's a 3-way race between McDormand, Mulligan and Davis. Day could be the upset winner.
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Re: Degree of Certainty

Post by anonymous1980 »

Big Magilla wrote: Pretty Much Locked
Actress
Eh? What's your basis on that? Actress is the most up in the air category this year.
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Re: Degree of Certainty

Post by Big Magilla »

Considering they don't start voting until this Wednesday, nothing is set in granite, but I'd say:

Pretty Much Locked
Actress
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Director
Original Screenplay
Cinematography
Production Design
Achievement in Sound
Music Score
Song
Animated Feature
International Film

Close but Vulnerable
Actor (after today)
Costume Design
Visual Effects

Up in the Air
Picture
Adapted Screenplay
Film Editing
Makeup and Hairstyling
Documentary Feature
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