Totally a by-product of the expanded slate; Lincoln, by virtue of its directing nomination, is the only one I think would have made the best picture list under the old regime. A lot of Oscar bloggers like to pat themselves on the back when films they predicted for best picture nominations at the year's start end up on the list. But I'd say a majority of them are filling the 6-through-10 slots, as it's generally hard for voters to come up with that many truly deserving candidates, so they fall back on the names they've been hearing all year. I mean War Horse was a best picture nominee; why?Sabin wrote: But why wouldn't we expected this film to get in an expanded Best Picture race in what's turning out to be a somewhat weak year? I just looked down Spielberg's filmography. Especially considering that the 2010s surprisingly saw more Best Picture nominations for Spielberg than any other decade (four).
As for this trailer...it does nothing to offset my "why do we need this film?" anxiety; any differences from the '61 version are exceedingly minor (perhaps the most significant: Bernardo reads more like a young Puerto Rican than whatever George Chakiris was). I actually agree that a musical would seem to be well within Spielberg's range -- the early 1941 scene set to In the Mood had more life than the entire rest of the movie -- but why in the world not find one that hasn't already been done fairly well?
