Oscar Predictions 2021

Time once again for me to guess wildly at who will win the Oscars this year in ten selected categories, and hopefully improve on my woeful 6 or 10 performance from last year (thanks to my over-thinking the screenplay awards and missing on Parasite, like a large number of people).

The good news for this year is that with streaming in place I've watched more movies in the past year than usual. The bad news is that almost none of them were nominated. The two that were are both animated, which is par for the course for me. Also par for the course, using my picks as the basis for your own is highly contraindicated.

Before the picks, thoughts on other nominations:

* I thought Tenet might get more nominations than it did, but I may have been over-estimating how well it would do based on all the attention it got for being released in theaters in the middle of the pandemic.

* I also thought One Night in Miami would get more nominations, and was sad to see Regina King shut out. Once again, I wonder why there are ten Best Picture spots if the Academy isn't going to use them (I'm sure Spike Lee may be wondering the same thing about Da 5 Bloods, which was actually shut out completely). I was happy to see that two of One Night in Miami's nominations involved Leslie Odom, Jr. (Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Song).

* Speaking of Odom, I was saddened that the Hamilton film wasn't eligible. This apparently has something to do with it being a recording of a stage performance - I may have this wrong, the articles I read weren't particularly clear and the references to the Academy's rules didn't help - even though it's a mix of live performance and scenes filmed specifically for the movie. I don't feel as strongly about its exclusion as some do, but I would have been curious to see how it would have fared.

* Also happy to see Emerald Fennel pick up nods for directing and screenplay. She was great on Call the Midwife and have similar hopes for her on The Crown (just getting to the end of season 3 now).

* While I originally made these picks cold, the Producer Guild of America Awards and the SAG Awards have been handed out since then, so I've incorporated them into my prognostication, with notes where I changed my mind from my original selection.

On to the picks!

Best International Feature Film - it's sooooo much easier to pick this category when there's a film that's also up for Best Picture. I usually go with the film that involves the most obscure language (which would be Quo Vadis, Aida?, which is in Bosnian), but in this case I'll go with the film that allows the Academy to make a political statement, Hong Kong's Better Days. 

Best Animated Feature - the two nominated films I've seen are in this category - Soul and Wolfwalkers - though I could have seen as many as four (I did not watch Onward when other members of the family did, and we somehow missed A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, which I say in all seriousness as the younger boy is a big fan).  I'll admit to being biased for Wolfwalkers given its Irish roots, but I do think it was the more visually interesting of the two films I saw.

That being said, a Pixar movie is in the field, so I'm picking Soul. Though if Onward pulls away some votes...

Best Adapted Screenplay - My usualy theory of this award going to a film that got snubbed for Best Picture would lead me to pick One Night in Miami. And at this point I don't have a good reason to move on from this, so One Night in Miami it is.

Best Original Screenplay - Similar theory, but harder to pull off given that there are multiple films here that could qualify. I think I'll go with Mank as I feel like it's not going to convert on many of its 10 nominations.

Acting awards, in rapid-fire style as usual:

Best Supporting Actor - Daniel Kaluuya for Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Supporting Actress - Youn Yuh-jung for Minari

Best Actor - Chadwick Boseman in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Best Actress - Frances McDormand in Nomadland

My original choice for Supporting Actress was Glenn Close, more or less as a lifetime achievement award, but given how often the SAG Award winner in this category goes on to win the Oscar I made the change. The Best Actress SAG Award is only slightly less predictive, but enough so that I'm sticking with my original choice. Probably to my detriment.

Best Director - No attempts at analysis, just riding the early returns and going with Chloe Zhao for Nomadland.

Best Film - And for the same reason, Nomadland. The Best Ensemble win at the SAG Awards for The Trial of the Chicago 7 isn't changing my mind, as of late it's not been particularly predictive (six of the ten SAG Award winners in the 2010s went on to win the Best Picture Oscar). Nomadland also wasn't nominated in the ensemble category, which complicates things, but I'm going to stick with it.

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Oscar Predictions 2018

Time again for the annual Oscars post (or just annual post). I actually went 9 for 10 last year, which is pretty amazing! I do not expect that to happen again.

Before getting to the ten categories I usually predict, a few thoughts on other categories.

1. Kobe Bryant may end the ceremony with more lifetime Oscars than famed cinematographer Rogers Deakins.

2. Can we please get Roger Deakins an Oscar?

3. The only Oscar nominated film I've seen is The Boss Baby. I am at a loss to understand how The Boss Baby is considered one of the five best animated feature films of 2017. 

Unlike last year, I will not look at Five Thirty Eight's predictions prior to making mine, but will add them at the end to see where we agree (or not).

Best Foreign Language Film - while I'm not looking at Five Thirty Eight, I did read an article in The Boston Globe last week where a couple of their critics made picks, and The Insult from Lebanon was their pick here, which I'll go with as well. No Five Thirty Eight prediction here, so I'm hoping the locals aren't steering me wrong.

Best Animated Feature Film - Pixar film nominated, Pixar film wins: Coco. Five Thirty Eight agrees

Best Adapted Screenplay - Call Me By Your Name is the only nominee here who is also up for Best Picture, and as I tend to think of the screenplay categories as the Miss Congeniality awards for Best Picture nominees that won't win that category, I'm going with Call Me By Your Name mostly by default.

Best Original Screenplay - Same theory but with more choices, I think I'm going with Get Out here rather than Lady Bird or whichever of The Shape of Water or Three Billboards is less likely to win Best Picture. 

Five Thirty Eight doesn't model either screenplay award, but both of my choices won the Writers Guild Award, so I feel like I'm on pretty solid ground.

As with most years, I tend to think that the acting awards are all pretty much decided.

Best Supporting Actress - Allison Janney for I, Tonya.

Best Supporting Actor - Sam Rockwell for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Actress - Frances McDormand for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Actor - Gary Oldman for Darkest Hour

If forced to change any one of these, it would likely be subbing out either Willem Dafoe or Woody Harrelson for Rockwell. Five Thirty Eight agrees with me on all of these, and even sees the supporting actor award as the most competitive, tabbing Dafoe as a potential spoiler.

Best Director - You win the DGA, you win Best Director. Come get your award, Guillermo del Toro. Five Thirty Eight also picks del Toro, but gives Christopher Nolan a mention based on a similarity to the year that Ang Lee won for Life of Pi, beating Ben Affleck (who would win for producing Best Picture winner Argo). 

Best Picture - The Academy has been on a bit of a run with splitting the director and picture awards, doing so three times in the last four years. I don't know if this is due to the larger number of Best Picture nominees giving voters more options that leads to a split, or if there's less of a mindset that the best director made the best film. There's certainly room for another split this year, especially if voters aren't sure what to make of a film whose romantic plot involves a merman. But I'm going to go with unity, buck the trend, and go with The Shape of Water anyway.

Five Thirty Eight concurs, but notes that Three Billboards has an outside shot, based on the ranked preference voting system used for the award and the influx of new voters over the past five years. They see this as making their model, which uses guild and critic awards pretty heavily, less useful for now. 

That's it. See you Sunday!

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Oscar Predictions 2017

Back again to take a completely uneducated stab at 10 Oscar categories, hoping to snap the two year 7 out of 10 streak. As usual, I've seen very few of the nominated films (I think the only ones I've seen are animated), so using this as any sort of basis for your own picks is very much contraindicated.

Some notes before the picks:

1. I'm pretty convinced that the song from Moana will win Best Original Song so Lin-Manuel Miranda can wrap up his EGOT. Or PEGOT if you throw in the Pulitzer. Or MacPEGOT if you throw in the MacArthur Grant.

2. My picks may have a slight bias to them as I actually grew up in Manchester, Massachusetts (prior to its official renaming of Manchester-by-the-Sea, which I prefer not to recognize). You would think that would have gotten me out to see the film - but you'd be wrong!  I do still intend to see it... along with all the other movies I've been intending to see.

3. The folks at Five Thirty Eight have put math behind what I did in trying to sort out the most predictive awards (and have yet to acknowledge me, the bastards). Where they're looking at a category I'm picking I'll comment on who they see as the most likely winner as well. They pick one winner in a category I do not, Best Documentary - Feature, which they have as heavily favoring O.J.: Made in America (though 13th got a big boost from winning the BAFTA, the only one of the Oscar nominated feature documentaries nominated).

Anyway, picks!

Best Foreign Language Film - this is where I usually make a pick based on some sort of linguistic or nationalistic quality, which never really works out (were I to do this for this year, the Australian film Tanna would have been my choice for being filmed in the Vanuatuan language of Nauvhal).

But this year, I'm thinking the Academy will make a political point in awarding the Oscar to The Salesman, an Iranian film whose director, Asghar Farhadi, has already said he will boycott the show over the travel restrictions placed on Iranians trying to enter the US. This will be just one of the many times Donald Trump gets a poke in the eye during the telecast.

Best Animated Film - I've only seen one of the nominated films, but it's the one that I've seen the most chatter about being the winner, and I did like the film, so I'm going with Zootopia here. The Five Thirty Eight model concurs, though they have Kubo and the Two Strings as a reasonably close second thanks to its BAFTA win.

Best Original Screenplay - I'm going to go with Manchester by the Sea over La La Land here based on the idea that the writing awards are used to recognize films that won't win Best Picture (though you could use the same theory to say that Hell or High Water will win). 

Best Adapted Screenplay - A pretty stacked category, with four nominees for Best Picture (Moonlight, Hidden Figures, Fences, Lion) and one for a film that many feel got jobbed out of a Best Picture nod (Arrival). All of the films here fit the bill as potential winners in lieu of a Best Picture win, but I'm going to go with Arrival as it would be the biggest make-up of the group.

Best Supporting Actress - Both of the actress awards seem like locks at this point, and the Five Thirty Eight tracker would support that line of thought, which makes me feel extra sure of going with Viola Davis here. Though I do feel badly for Michelle Williams, who is apparently going to be stuck on the verge of winning in perpetuity (maybe she and Amy Adams can carpool).

Best Supporting Actor -I'm also doubling down with Five Thirty Eight to go with Mahershala Ali for his work in Moonlight.


Best Actress - This was looking like a pretty even race between Emma Stone for La La Land and Natalie Portman for Jackie, but things kind of took a turn when Isabelle Huppert won the Golden Globe and Stone won the other major awards. Portman got lost in the shuffle, not helped by the relative low profile of her film. So I'm going with Emma Stone, as is Five Thirty Eight.

Best Actor - In one respect this should be a lock for Casey Affleck, as he's won the bulk of the awards for his performance in Manchester by the Sea. But Denzel Washington won the SAG Award for Fences, and that is a highly predictive award (18 of the last 22 winner went on to win the Oscar), and is heavily weighted in the Five Thirty Eight model (which gives a slight edge to Affleck).

The other thing that may help Washington is the lingering disdain for Affleck given his past legal troubles. I am going to look past them (to the extent one can) and go with Casey Affleck here, mostly to satisfy my blatant homerism.

Best Director - Speaking of troubled pasts, Mel Gibson is apparently back in Hollywood's good graces as evidenced by his nomination for Hacksaw Ridge. Mel will have to settle for the nod, as this is almost certainly going to Damien Chazelle. He's swept all the major awards, so it would be incredibly surprising for him not to win the Oscar.

Best Picture - Everyone seems to love La La Land, and any movie that celebrates classic Hollywood, and the Los Angeles area in general, seems like easy pickings for Oscar voters. The win by Hidden Figures for best ensemble at the SAG Awards is a little surprising (La La Land wasn't nominated), and suggests that it may not be a waltz to the finish line for La La Land (see what I did there?), even if voters may not get behind Hidden Figures for the Oscar.

But they could get behind another movie that's more critically acclaimed and also features an African-American cast. Which is how I got to picking Moonlight as my choice for the top prize. It's also a film that, in a year where people may be looking to make a statement, would make one for both African-Americans and the LGBTQ community. Five Thirty Eight has La La Land as a strong favorite to win this, so it seems like a bad choice to be the only category where we disagree. But I'll do it anyway.

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Oscar Predictions 2016

So we're back for another go at this, having gone seven for ten last year (two of the misses, however, were Best Actor and Best Picture, so if we were going to miss we missed big). And my obligatory comment about a category we don't pick: with The Weeknd, Sam Smith and Lady Gaga all nominated for Best Original Song, this may be a better show musically than the Grammys.

Standard disclaimer applies, I've seen none of the films in the categories we're predicting. No wagering.

Best Foreign Language Film - I'm going with Mustang because it's representing France but is in Turkish. Double the countries, double the voting appeal.

Best Animated Film - My boys love Shaun the Sheep Movie, and I've seen ads or previews for Anomalisa and Boy & The World. I know nothing about When Marnie Was There. And none of this matters, as Inside Out has had this think locked up for months.

Best Original Screenplay - the WGA Awards aren't until this weekend, so I don't get to cheat on the screenplay awards. This would be an excellent place to break up the #OscarsSoWhite monotony with a win for Straight Outta Compton. But I don't think it's going to happen, as this is where Spotlight will get it's major recognition for the night.

(Also - Joel and Ethan Coen have writing credits on Bridge of Spies? I had no idea, which shows you how much of an expert I am.)

Best Adapted Screenplay - I have no read on this award, so I'm going with this as a makeup award as well for The Big Short. Though I suppose the makeup could be for Carol not getting a Best Picture nod...

(UPDATE: Spotlight and The Big Short both won WGA Awards, and while they're not as predictive as the DGA Award it doesn't hurt.)

Best Supporting Actress - I'm going to take a flier on Rooney Mara here. Alicia Vikander is probably a smarter choice based on her SAG Award.

Best Supporting Actor - The SAG Awards usually help sort this category out, but not this year with Idris Elba's win for Beast of No Nation. Sylvester Stallone will be the sentimental choice, and after his Golden Globe win he could take it. I was leaning towards Mark Ruffalo, but where most of the recognition for acting in Spotlight was for the ensemble, I'm going to go with Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies.


Best Actress - Brie Larson, which is an absolute mortal lock.

Best Actor - What I said about Brie Larson? Times a thousand for Leonardo DiCaprio finally getting the Oscar.

Best Director -here I do get to cheat, as the DGA Awards were handed out last week. Alejandro González Iñárritu won for The Revenant, and he'll win here as well.

Best Picture - So here's where things get interesting. The DGA Award is highly predictive of what film wins this award, so you'd think this is a lock for The Revenant. But then there's the Producers Guild Association Awards, which have been spot on since 2007. And then there's Spotlight, which has won most, if not all, of the ensemble acting awards. As these are listed pretty much in order of the likelihood in which the film might win, I'm playing the odds and going with The Revenant.  A bold choice!

Enjoy the show everyone!

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Oscar Predictios 2015

Back again for another year, the least essential Oscar predictions made by a guy who hasn't seen any of the nominated films. I won't even bother with the Oscar pool disclaimer, it's so close to the actual ceremony.

My only comment before getting to our usual predictions is that "Everything is Awesome" from The Lego Movie had better win the best original song award after its snubbing for best animated feature.

Best Foreign Language Film - I usually pick the film that uses the most exotic (to me) language. I usually don't pick correctly, so my apologies to Tangerines, which I am picking because it is partly in Estonian.

Best Animated Feature - So I actually did see a nominated film this year, Big Hero 6. I saw it on a Disney cruise (which is where I'm writing this from, incidentally). I liked it well enough. So it's my pick! (Turns out I've actually seen two nominated films, as the best animated short nominee Feast was shown before Big Hero 6. It'd be nice to see it win, too.)

Best Original Screenplay - Wes Anderson won the WGA award for The Grand Budapest Hotel, so you think this might be the year he finally breaks through, and it would make some sense as it would be a way to recognize him and the film, which have virtually no chance at the major awards. But I'm going to say the award goes to Birdman for some reason.

Best Adapted Screenplay - I might as well go with one WGA winner and pick The Imitation Game, even though I think the film has gotten a little lost behind the other films with multiple nominations. I would not be surprise if American Sniper won this as a way to recognize the film without getting too political with Clint Eastwood thanking an empty chair.

Best Supporting Actor - J.K. Simmons for Whiplash.
Best Supporting Actress - Patricia Arquette for Boyhood
Best Actor - Michael Keaton for Birdman
Best Actress - Julianne Moore (finally) for Still Alice

No real discussion here as these all seems like locks. If you made me pick one upset I'd go with Emma Stone for Birdman, though I have no reason beyond her being young Hollywood and generally well liked.

Best Director - Once again, the DGA being the near-mortal lock on this award means I'll choose Alejandro González Iñárritu for Birdman. However.

Best Picture - I am not going to go with Birdman. It seems like the expansion to 10 nominees has opened up voting a bit and makes the split more likely (or in the case of Argo, a best picture win without your director being nominated at all). I think Birdman may be too divisive to take the ultimate prize, while Boyhood can cash in on its unique production history to claim the top spot.

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Oscar Predictions 2014

Hey, the Oscars are on Sunday! So here's your annual predictions post, which is rapidly becoming the site's annual post.

Usual disclaimers: I've seen none of these movies, don't blame us if you make your Oscar pool picks based on this and tank. On to the predictions!

Best Foreign Language Film - Not as easy as last year when one of the nominees was also a Best Picture nominee, so it's back to making up some bullshit reason why a film will win. I'm going with Belgium's The Broken Circle Breakdown, on the idea that an Oscar win may help get those crazy Flemish and Walloons to live together in harmony.

Best Animated Feature - there may be some sentiment for The Wind Rises if it is indeed Hayao Miyazaki's last film, but this is probably going to Frozen.

Best Original Screenplay - winning the WGA Award is enough of a reason for me to go with Her, even if it was based on an episode of The Big Bang Theory.

Best Adapted Screenplay - the WGA Award here went to Captain Phillips, but I'm going to go with 12 Years a Slave here for no particularly good reason.

Best Supporting Actor - is going to Jared Leto, which is apparently the biggest lock of all the acting awards.

Best Supporting Actress - will probably go to Jennifer Lawrence, though I'm totally rooting for June Squibb.

Best Actor - you should probably get used to hearing "Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey" from here on out. He won the Golden Globe, SAG Award and Satellite Award for his role in Dallas Buyers Club, all of which portends well for him. On the other hand, the idea of hearing "Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey" may drive voters to Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Best Actress - things get a little interesting here as Cate Blanchett has won pretty much everything in sight for her work in Blue Jasmine, the latest film by (re)accused child molester Woody Allen. And while you'd like to think that voters can separate Blanchett's work from everything else, it's certainly not going to help. I still think Cate Blanchett will win, but am leaving the door open a little for someone else (either Amy Adams, to avoid becoming her generation's Julianne Moore, or Judi Dench because she's Judi Dench).

Best Director - The DGA Award, which is a very strong predictor for this award and for Best Picture, went this year to Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity, and I don't see why he wouldn't win here as well. Cuarón's also won the lion's share of other awards, and people seem to like him more than the last director of a technically visionary film.

Best Picture - this is where things get interesting.  Most of the talk here has been about 12 Years a Slave and American Hustle, and while Gravity will likely dominate the technical awards it hasn't done so well in winning other Best Picture awards. The Oscars abhor a split, but I'm thinking that 12 Years a Slave forces one this year.

So there you have it. Let's see how wrong I am on Sunday!

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Oscar Predictions 2013

You know the drill by now: the guy who hasn't seen any of the nominated films will make prediction on who will win in a subset of the total categories. Just for shits and giggles, how has that worked out in the past?

2012: 7 correct out of 10 predictions
2011: 7 out of 11
2010: 8 out of 10

That's not so bad. You still shouldn't base your Oscar pool picks on these, but it's good to see I'm not totally useless.

Anyway, before the requisite 10 "major" categories, a couple of specials:

1. I'd like to see Searching for Sugar Man win in the feature documentary category, if only because I find the story so interesting. I have a sneaking suspicion that The Invisible War, which looks at sexual assault in the US military, will actually win. But I'll stick with first instincts and go with Searching for Sugar Man for the win.

2. I do think "Skyfall" will win for best original song, though it's up against a song by the host of the telecast and an original song for Les Miserables. As interesting as it would be for the host to win, I think the Year of Adele stretches just that one month longer (making it like a 20 month year or something).

On to the predicitions.

Best Foreign Language Film: The last three years I've struggled to come up with a rationale for picking the winner, and have gone 0 for 3 in the process. This year is much easier: go with the film that's also nominated for Best Picture. The winner here is Amour.

Best Animated Film: the usual bet here is to take the Pixar film, but I'm not feeling it with Brave. It's likely going to be a miss, but I'm going with Wreck-It Ralph here, for no particularly good reason.

Best Original Screenplay: all sorts of make-up potential in this category. Michael Haneke, didn't win Best Director or Best Picture? Here's an Oscar. Quentin Tarantino, you didn't win Best Director either? Here's an Oscar. Wes Anderson, you only got this one nomination for Moonrise Kingdom? Here's an Oscar. Mark Boal, you won for The Hurt Locker but we didn't nominate Katheryn Bigelow, so we'll give you an Oscar for good karma.

John Gatins, though, no Oscar for you. You wrote Summer Catch, for God's sake!

Out of all these, the one that seems like the biggest make-up is for Moonrise Kingdom, so I'll go with that.

Best Adapted Screenplay: so on the one hand you have Argo, on the other you have Lincoln, and then in some other hand there's Silver Linings Playbook, which hasn't gotten as much talk as the other two films but has a number of nominations and wins at awards where drama and comedy split.

I have no real read on this, other than I think the winner here wins Best Picture. I would love to see Silver Linings Playbook pull a real dark horse win, but I think it'll be Argo.

Best Supporting Actor - the most wide-open of the acting categories, even if Tommy Lee Jones has long been pipped for this for his work in Lincoln. Christoph Waltz won the Golden Globe for Django Unchained, and then you round things out with Robert De Niro, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Alan Arkin. It's a pretty stacked group, and could produce an upset pretty easily.  That being said, I still think Tommy Lee Jones gets the win, and hopefully gives up those Ameriprise ads.

Best Supporting Actress - is going to be Anne Hathaway, which I have to think in part is payback for having to host this thing with James Franco.

Best Actor - the only way you don't know that Daniel Day-Lewis is going to win this for playing Abe Lincoln is if you've been living under a rock for the last 9 months.

Best Actress - Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence have both won a number of critics awards and both won Golden Globes. But then the SAG Awards came and created what I think will be just a little more space for its winner to take the Oscar. Jennifer Lawrence, prepare your speech and get a dress that won't accidentally flash the billion people who are watching.

(And while she won't take home an award, the big winner here is Quvenzhané Wallis, who at 9 is too cute by half and a highly entertaining interview.)

Best Director - be it backlash or not, the way Ben Affleck has been winning awards for Argo puts this award in a whole new light. Does Steven Spielberg take home the prize as expected the day the nominations were announced? Does David O. Russell take advantage of the confusion to get the award for helping to put someone in each of the acting categories? Do Benh Zeitin or Michael Haneke capitalize on their first nominations? And does Ang Lee get another win for a film that won't win Best Picture?

The answer to all but the first question is no. I believe this is true because my understanding is that the group that votes on this award is a smaller and more established group of directors than the folks who vote for the DGA Awards. They don't strike me as revolutionaries, and while some may return a blank ballot or write in Affleck, I think the win still goes to Steven Spielberg.

Best Picture - but I don't think the conventional wisdom from the nominations carries this far. You don't rack up awards throughout the winter and then not win here. I'm guessing Grant Heslov doesn't make the speech when Argo is named Best Picture. 

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Golden Fleeced

With its win for outstanding ensemble cast last night, there's some sentiment out there that Argo is now the favorite for the Best Picture Oscar. But is that really the case?

We've looked at the predictive tendencies of pre-Oscar awards before, and here's what I think we can say based on that:

1. Golden Globes mean almost nothing. The last time the winner of the best drama Globe also won the Oscar? 2008, with Slumdog Millionaire. Before that it was 2003 (the last Lord of the Rings movie), and before that 2001 (prior to that it was much more closely aligned).

2. SAG Awards are a little better, maybe. The cast award winner has gone on to win the Oscar 9 times in the 17 years where both have been awarded. Skewing things a bit is that this is an award given to actors by actors, so while it's the de facto best picture award, it does not include input from anyone behind the camera, unless they're also actors. Like Ben Affleck.

3. The PGA Awards are definitely better, at least recently. You have to go back to 2006 to find the last film to win this but not the Best Picture Oscar. Prior to that the relationship is spottier, to be sure, but of the three awards this one seems to track the best with Oscar winning.

But none of them track as well as the DGA Awards, which last split with the Oscars in 2002. There are only two cases where the DGA went to a director who wasn't Oscar nominated - Ron Howard for Apollo 13 and Stephen Spielberg for The Color Purple. There's some thought Affleck could win the DGA based on momentum and the wider voting pool.

But even he does pull that off, there's the one last hurdle to clear - the very small number of movies that have won the Best Picture Oscar without having its director nominated. It has happened three times, most recently with Driving Miss Daisy. That was almost 25 years ago. The other two instances happened in the very early days of the award (Wings and Grand Hotel), when voting rules were very different. So for all of the buzz, I'd say the odds are still stacked against Affleck, even if those odds are shifting in his favor.

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Hey, Oscar Nominations!

Three observations on the nominations. I'd have more if I'd seen any of the films.

1. For all the talk when it came out, The Master wasn't nominated for Best Picture. And as there are only nine pictures nominated, its omission wasn't due to lack of space. The only nods it got were for acting, none of which it will likely win (I'll make my usual picks as we get closer to the date, but this seems evident based on who else is nominated).

2. As I don't actually see movies anymore it's hard for me to say who got snubbed. Much has been made of Leonardo DiCaprio not getting a nod for Django Unchained, and the general lack of nominations for Moonrise Kingdom (only a screenwriting nod) was noted elsewhere as well. I was hoping to see Dwight Henry pick up a nod for Beasts of the Southern Wild, but that's based solely on seeing a profile about the movie on CBS This Morning.

3. The Adelefication of our awards is on track. She just needs to get by the host of the telecast to win.

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Just Sayin'

Heard Adele's song "Skyfall" for the upcoming James Bond movie of the same name this morning. No Bond song has ever won the Oscar for Best Original Song. I think that might change in 2013.

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Oscar Predictions 2012

So here we are again, the least knowledgable person here making Oscar predictions (on the other hand, I'm the only person who posts here even semi-regularly, so I suppose it's my prerogative to make these predictions). As in past years, the only nominated movie I've seen is the Harry Potter movie, which picked up three nods (visual effects, makeup and art direction) and will probably not win any of them barring a win that winds up being a de facto award for the entire series.


Anyway, as with past years I'm sticking with "major" awards. The only comment I have about the other races this year is with original song. There are only two nominations, which makes me wonder why they're even bothering. I also have a hard time believing they couldn't scrape up three more songs to fill out the category.


Finally, my usual disclaimer. These aren't the predictions you should base your Oscar pool picks on. If you do so, well, I hope you weren't counting on winning.


Best Foreign Language Film - every year I try to come up with some sort of rationale for picking a winner, and every year I'm wrong. So I'm just going to go with Israel's entry, Footnote, as they've been nominated the most times without winning. It's as good of a rationale as any.


Best Animated Film -  I have no idea, though it seems like the lesser-known entries never win, so it's down to three films. And as there's no Pixar film in the bunch, I lose the easy guess. So I'm going with Rango, which is the only one of the three that's not a sequel or based on an earlier movie.


Best Adapted Screenplay - there's some decent competition here, between making a convincing movie out of baseball's quantitative revolution as seen in Moneyball and bringing the period spy tale Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy to a post-Cold War audience. But I think this will wind up being a make-up for what happens later in the night, with the award going to Alexander Payne for The Descendants.


Interesting that The Help isn't nominated here. I don't think that'll help its overall chances, for reasons I'll expound upon anon.


Best Original Screenplay - 2004 was the last time the winner of Best Picture was not also the winner in the appropriate screenplay category. I don't see 2012 being the next year for this to happen. Thus the wins for the two most likely Best Picture winners, with the award here going to The Artist.


Best Supporting Actress - The least unpredictable of the acting awards this year, as Octavia Spencer has been racking up awards for her role in The Help, including the Golden Globe, SAG Award, and a number of critics awards.


Best Supporting Actor - Oh, wait, the least unpredictable acting award may be this one, as Christopher Plummer has won even more awards for his role in Beginners than Octavia Spencer won for The Help.


I'm a little surprised to see this is only his second Oscar nomination, and the first one, for The Last Station, was just two years ago. Still not sure how he didn't get a nomination for The Insider.


Best Actress - This is probably the most wide-open of the acting category. Meryl Streep and Michelle Williams won Golden Globes for their roles in The Iron Lady and My Week With Marilyn, while Viola Davis took home the SAG Award for The Help.


I don't think Streep will win, given how she seems to get nominated for anything half-decent that she's in but never wins. I suppose this role could turn things around as she's supposed to be the only thing that's really good about The Iron Lady.


I would tend to favor Davis due to her win in the SAG Awards, but there's not a great deal of predictive value for this award (they've matched up the last couple of years, but before that it's pretty sketchy). But I think between Spencer's win and a compelling narrative we'll see Michelle Williams take the prize.


Best Actor - The SAG Award is more predictive here, as the winner of that award has taken the Oscar every year since 2004. I'm going to go along with that and give the nod to The Artist's Jean Dujardin over George Clooney.


Best Director - You have to go all the way back to 2002 to find the last time the DGA Award winner didn't take home this prize, and I don't see this year being the one that brings us the next upset. Michel Hazanavicius, please collect your Oscar.


Best Picture - Nine nominees, but this is going to boil down to The Descendants versus The Artist (though I may be short-changing Hugo, which has the most nominations at 11). Some will want to throw The Help in there based on its cast win at the SAG Awards, but I'm not. There are plenty of examples of films who won this and didn't take Best Picture (Inglorious Basterds, Little Miss Sunshine, Sideways, Gosford Park), and it only picked up four Oscar nods - Best Picture and three for acting. If you don't get nominated for directing, screenplay, or cinematography you aren't taking the top prize.


It seems unlikely that a film that's shot in black and white and is silent could win an Oscar, but given the amount of homage paid to the history of film in the average award ceremony, I have to think that voters may go for a film that pays homage as well. Thus, The Artist.


Which reminds me - does Vegas have a line as to how long it will take Billy Crystal to make a freedom fries joke?

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Oscar Predictions 2011

With the awards coming up on Sunday, here's are my predictions, offered with the same caveat as last year (they're predictions made by someone who has only seen one nominated movie - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 - which is up for Best Visual Effects and Best Art Direction, neither of which it will win). And, as last year, we'll stick with what Wikipedia considers "major" awards, because I'm too lazy to pick all of them.

That being said, I do have two comments about those down-ballot awards:

1. Best Documentary - Feature looks like it's going to be a bloodbath, with a solid slate of nominees. As there's something to offer for pretty much every political stripe, I'm thinking those voters split and allow Bansky's Exit Through the Gift Shop to win. Not that he'll be there to pick up his award.

2. Salt got nominated for an Oscar. It's for Best Sound Mixing, but still. Salt?

Anyway, on to the "major" awards.

Best Foreign Language Film - I tried to come up with a rationale for this award last year and failed miserably. Thus, this year I'm saying it goes to the only movie that has a nomination in another category - Biutiful, for which Javier Bardem landed a Best Actor nod. Given recent events I suppose there may be some support for the Algerian film Outside the Law.

Best Animated Feature - I have nothing against this category, but it seems like every year the winner is a foregone conclusion (though as I look over past winners, the Wallace and Grommit win over Howls' Moving Castle stands out). Anyway, Toy Story 3 is winning this.

Best Adapted Screenplay - I think Aaron Sorkin will win for The Social Network, but I am intrigued by the nomination for 127 Hours.

Best Original Screenplay - In most years I'd expect this to be a battle between Best Picture contenders The King's Speech and The Fighter. But as often happens here, I think the award will be kind of a Miss Congeniality award, honoring a writer whose work led to a great movie, just not the Best Picture. And, in the case of Chris Nolan winning for Inception, it's also a bit of a make-up for him not getting a Best Director nod.

Best Supporting Actress - This is the only competitive acting award, and even then it's probably not in doubt. Melissa Leo has garnered accolades for her work in The Fighter, most notably the Golden Globe and the SAG Award. But in the dark horse role is Jacki Weaver, an Australian actress nominated for Animal Kingdom, where she plays the matriarch of a Melbourne crime family. She won whatever awards Leo didn't get, mostly from critics. I suppose you could also call Helena Bonham-Carter a dark horse for her role in The King's Speech, but all of the individual awards she's won are British.

Apparently there's some added drama here as Leo recently took out a series of "Consider" ads and paid for them herself, which (according to whatever talking head NBC found to interview for Today) has turned off some voters (which, really, Hollywood types getting their panties in a bunch over self-promotion?).

Anyway,I still think it's Melissa Leo for the win.

Best Supporting Actor - will be Christian Bale.

Best Actress - will be Natalie Portman.

Best Actor - will be Colin Firth. Which will make the wife very happy.

Best Director - finally, some drama. David Fincher has won pretty much every award for which he was nominated as best director for The Social Network. Most of those he did not win were critics awards, which isn't something to lose sleep over.

However, losing the Director's Guild of America's award to Tom Hooper for The King's Speech is. Assuming you lose sleep over these sorts of things.

So I'm kind of torn here, but I'm going to go with David Fincher. I've some things talking about how The Social Network is a director's movie and The King's Speech is an actor's movie, and that seems like just a stupid enough distinction to carry the day.

Best Picture - I think it's a split year, which means I'm going with The Kids are All Right. Joking! I'm actually going with The King's Speech. Th-th-th-that's all, folks!

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Ruh-roh, Fincher

In case you missed it, Tom Hooper won the DGA Award for his work on The King's Speech. As noted in an earlier post (and in the DGA release I've linked to), this is a very strong indicator of who will win the Oscar for Best Director. And as that's also a very strong indicator for what film eventually wins Best Picture honors, you have to wonder if The Social Network is going to have an epic fail Oscars or pull of a split.

For what it's worth Aaron Sorkin did win a WGA Award for his screenplay, so we can still look forward to whatever nonsense in the guise of a speech that he'll come up with. I'm hoping for an apology over Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

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The Bellwether Awards, Part II

I'd missed/forgotten that the Globes give awards for directors and screenplay (didn't think these folks were big enough stars for the HFPA to bother), but seeing as they did I figured I'd go back and make comparisons.

I stopped with the screenplay award pretty quickly, as the mix of awards that offer one award versus two awards (one each for original and adapted) was going to make things pretty messy.

For directors, I used the usual awards (Globes, LA and NYC critics, National Review Board, Satellite) plus the DGA Awards. Not surprisingly, the latter are the most predictive; they've only differed from the Oscar six times in their history, with three of them happening since 1990 (the oddest was Ron Howard winning the DGA in 1995 for Apollo 13 while not even getting nominated for the Oscar). The Globes are a little less accurate, with they missing a bit more since 2000 than in the 1990s.

In any event, David Fincher should still feel pretty good about his chances, as he's won all of the directing awards given to date (sharing the LA critics award). If the DGA splits off and goes with someone else, he may want to worry.

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The Bellwether Awards

So I was participating in a live blogging of the Golden Globes (while not actually watching the awards, which was less of a problem than you might think), and someone posted that The Social Network was now the movie to beat for the Best Picture Oscar now that it had won the Golden Globe for best drama. Which got me to thinking: is that actually true? Time to compare the winners!

I went back and got the Oscar and Globe winners since 1990. I stuck with drama winners only for the Globes, though they do give an award for the best comedy/drama as well. And, just for comparison's sake, I got the award info for the LA and NYC critics awards, the National Review Board's awards, and the Satellite Awards (offered by the International Press Agency).

And looking at all of the results, the Golden Globes are a great predictor for the Best Picture Oscar... as long as your film was nominated before 2004. From 1990 to 2003 the Globes only missed three times (if you include the two Oscar winners that picked up the comedy/musical Globe, Shakespeare in Love and Chicago). From 2004 on, though, the Globes have only gotten it right with Slumdog Millionaire.

Picking up where they left off, though, are the Satellite Awards, which have a four year streak going. Less impressive is that the only time they matched the Oscars prior to 2006 was when Titanic won, which was pretty much a given (undeserved as it was). The other awards were less predictive, with none of the three offering much insight as to a potential Oscar winner.

The good news for The Social Network out of all of this? It's swept all of the awards I checked. Since 1990 this has only happened to one other movie: Schindler's List. That worked out pretty well for Spielberg and company. Usually a move that wins three of the five awards gets the Oscar, but there have been notable exceptions (Brokeback Mountain, L.A. Confidential, Saving Private Ryan).

So the answer to my question is that the Golden Globes, at least of late, hasn't made it's best drama winner the film to beat at the Oscars. But The Social Network may still be the film to beat given its overall performance in awards.

For fun I then checked the acting awards, including the SAG Awards into the mix. I would say that the SAG Awards are slightly more predictive than the Golden Globes, and that they're slightly more predictive for actors than for best film. And they're somewhat better at choosing the best actor and actress awards than the supporting awards.

If I had to extrapolate based on the awards given to date, I think Colin Firth is in the best position to win an Oscar, having won awards from all groups except the National Review Board. Christian Bale and Melissa Leo would be next best off, having won three of five awards. None of the best actress awards have repeated.

So if I had to come up with a rule, I'd say winning the Golden Globe or the SAG Award is a good sign that you might win the Oscar. Better to win them both.

(Note: I make no claims that these finding are based on anything like actual statistical research. I pretty much eyeballed the results and went on that. This isn't the Freakonomics blog.)

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Oscar Predictions

This being a movie blog, a post of Oscar predictions seems appropriate. That the post comes from the guy who has seen just one nominated film (Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, up for Best Cinematography)?  Less appropriate. But when has knowledge ever been a requirement for blogging?

I'm not going to pick every category. For the ones I don't mention, assume that Avatar wins all the technical awards it's nominated for, the documentary awards go to the most left-leaning entries, and everything else is won by a movie you probably didn't see.

For the rest (these are what Wikipedia terms the "major awards"):

Best Foreign Language Film: I have no idea why this is major while cinematography is not. In any case, I would tend to go with Ajami, which is Israel's submission, except that it's primarily in Arabic. I think that will confuse some people and irritate those who aren't crazy about Israel's Arab population in the first place. So I'm going with The Milk of Sorrow, a Peruvian film that's partially in Quechua. Score one for repressed indigenous peoples!

Best Animated Feature: Up is the only animated movie nominated for Best Picture. It is also nominated in this category. While it would be hilarious if one of the other nominated movies (Coraline, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Princess and the Frog, The Secret of Kells) won, I don't see it happening.

Best Adapted Screenplay: I'm thinking Precious. I'm a little surprised that Avatar didn't get nominated here for adapting whatever episode of Captain Planet it's based on.

Best Original Screenplay: I think this is where the run of awards for The Hurt Locker will start. The writer, Mark Boal, also strikes me as the sort of person that tends to win this, based on past awards for young writers who make a splash (thinking of the likes of Diablo Cody, Alan Ball, and, way back when, current nominee Quentin Tarantino).

Best Supporting Actress: We're all agreed that Mo'nique is going to win this, right? 

Best Supporting Actor: I know nothing about him, but what little I've read suggests that Christoph Waltz is the odds-on favorite here. Which is why I'm going with Christopher Plummer for his portrayal of Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station. There needs to be at least one surprise acting winner, and why not do it in a category that often recognizes older actors with a long body of work (Alan Arkin, Morgan Freeman, Jim Broadbent, Michael Caine, James Coburn, etc.).

Best Actress: Sandra Bullock. I almost can't believe I just typed that, but then I remember that Julia Roberts has won an Oscar, so all bets are off.

Best Actor: We're all agreed that Jeff Bridges is going to win this, right?

Best Director: Everyone has this coming down to the formerly married couple, though it would be something if Lee Daniels, the first African-American director nominated for the award, could benefit from a split decision. I don't think that'll happen, especially as Kathryn Bigelow has already won the DGA Award, which is a very strong indicator of who wins the Oscar.

Best Picture: Twice in the last ten years the Best Picture and Best Director awards have split, both both could be considered unusual cases. In 2005, Crash won best picture while Ang Lee won the directing award for Brokeback Mountain, whose story of gay ranchers wasn't likely Best Picture material. In 2002 Chicago won Best Picture but Rob Marshall was passed over as Best Director, I assume because he's a theater person who directed a musical. 

This year poses a similar dilemma, given the technical breakthrough represented by Avatar. Do voters choose to reward the advances made by a movie that's a little light on story and character, or do they reward a more traditional film that's more completely made? It's a hard choice to make, but then I realize the kicker: James Cameron is an ass, and that might just tip the scales enough to let The Hurt Locker squeak by.

So there you have. Place your wagers accordingly (with the full knowledge and understanding that by reading this post you've waived any claims of liability against Adventures in Snack Canyon for any losses incurred, especially as you'd have to be a gold-plated moron to wager actual money based on picks made by a guy who clearly indicated at the start that he's seen none of the films up for major awards.).

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An Oscar First For Me

So in the history of my going to movies, this year marks the first one in which I have not seen a single second of any Oscar nominated film (as in the actual film, not in TV ads or trailers).

There's nothing intentional about this, I've just gotten to a point where I see very few movies. In fact, if you look at the 2008 entries here, you'll see that I got to two movies in 2008: Mamma Mia! and Persepolis. The latter got a Best Animated Feature nod for the 2008 awards, while the former got nothing (at least from Oscar; Pierce Brosnan picked up a Razzie nod as worst supporting actor, based wholly on his lack of singing ability I have to think).

I do plan on rectifying this before the awards actually take place. Suggestions on which film to see are welcome.

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