Sabin wrote:
Remember we live in a world where Suicide Squad won an Oscar. Why did that happen? Well, I think it came down to which movie did the most voters see.
Another view might be that Suicide Squad, while a godawful movie, did have more impressive and more original make-up than the other nominees. The perceived favorite, Star Trek: Who Can Remember What Number, was seen as a staggeringly dull choice. And, like in the 2016 election, apathy led to horrible upsetting the merely dull.
Sabin wrote: Ex Machina won the Oscar over Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, and The Revenant and the only explanation I can give is enough voters saw it due to its screenplay nomination. The other reason is the effects of those three films were very background whereas Ex Machina's effects were front and center.
I thought the fact there were three best picture nominees -- plus The Force Awakens, which was viewed as a pretty big deal in the moment -- all competing, with no one of them a clear favorite, made it possible for a random choice to slip through. Ex Machina was the most distinct from the rest -- the hipster choice -- and may have eked out a plurality win. (Reinforcing my view that the Oscars are most prone to surprise choices when the competition is widespread rather than binary. 2011 editing is another example.)
Sabin wrote: Publicly, I think there's some kind of push to get a Marvel film an Oscar especially for the year they had. And Thanos is a very "present" effect. So, I would say Avengers: Infinity War.
Isn't this hard to square with Black Panther being let out?
Sabin wrote:It's also likely that most of the nominees in this category will be single nominees. Right now, my predictions are Avengers: Infinity War, Christopher Robin, First Man, Ready Player One, and Solo: A Star Wars Story. If those are the nominees, it's between Avengers and First Man.
It's possible First Man becomes the choice, simply by most appealing to grown-up tastes. But it would be mostly based on the last -- what? -- half hour of the movie?
It's always possible Black Panther gets nominated after all, and becomes the rote choice. But it's amazing how, after so many years where we couldn't drum up a race anywhere on the ballot, so many categories seem in flux at this late point.