State of the Race – Page 2

91st Academy Awards Predictions

It’s nearly here! Which means our Oscar prognosticators need to go head to head (to head) to see who can come the closest – also helpful if you want another set of picks if you’re doing a nominations pool. Come Tuesday January 22st, we shall see who is the Oracle amongst us. We’ll shown the category, and each prognosticator’s picks (with consensus ones in bold).

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Making it Beautiful

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Supporting Acting

Lead Acting

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Best Picture

State of the Race: Guild the Lily

So many guilds, so little time before Oscar nominations. Using statistics to make sense of predicting a wild movie year.

There are multiple ways to predict the Academy Awards – come January 22nd, we’ll find out which way was most correct. Until then, you could go with your gut, you could check out sites that aggregate bettings odds on the favorites (thank you GoldDerby for existing!), and you could also go with what the guilds say.

Making a movie requires interfacing with many unions in the multi-faceted levels of production – these unions (for acting, directing, writing, costume design, etc.), who also describe themselves as guilds, all annually reward their peers across the industry for the best in show. The convenient aspect of these guilds is they announce their nominees and/or winners before the Oscar nominations come out. The other obvious convenient aspect of these guilds is they actually overlap with the members of the Academy that vote for the Oscar awards.

You can trust your gut, or give GoldDerby more page views, or you can read on and see what these guilds are trying to tell us about nominations. So far, the following guilds have announced nominees:

State of the Race: Nominations from the Golden Globes, SAG Awards, and Annie Awards

The Awards season for December has pretty much wrapped up. We don’t have much going on until the Producer’s Guild Awards in early January. We have seen nominations from several groups, here’s what you need to remember…

Golden Globes – the nominations don’t mean anything in relation to the Oscars. The Golden Globes are held by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the HFPA like being wined and dined. The actual awards ceremony itself is a better thing to keep an eye on. You can start to get a feel of how people accept awards which might earn them votes moving into March.

SAG Awards – This is *pretty much* the same group that will be nominating the four acting categories for the Academy Awards. Hands down the best predictor for those specific categories. The SAG version of Best Picture is Best Cast in Motion Picture. This actually carries some weight when it comes to predicting Best Picture. The Actors Guild is the largest percentage of the Academy, and since Best Picture is nominated by all members, one could reason that the five nominees from the SAG awards should be considered strongly for the Best Picture Oscar race.

Annie Awards – The animated film awards.

“Is it those four movies and one of five other ones?”

Yes….yes it is.

So what about this year?

Well, if you want to look for yourself…

SAG Awards
Golden Globes
Annie Awards

But here’s five thoughts, why 5 you ask? Because 5 is the magic movie number don’t you know?

1. Black Panther – it’s getting a Best Picture nomination…I think. Black Panther is performing very well early on in Awards season. It’s got the Golden Globe nomination (the popular vote) and the SAG and National Board of Review nomination (the snobby vote). Watch out for Crazy Rich Asians as well.

2. John David Washington – There’s a moment in BlacKkKlansman when Washington yells “Patrice!” and it sounds JUST LIKE HIS DAD. He’s performance so far this awards season is also reminiscent of Denzel. And honestly, it kind of came out of no where. Again, doubling up on the Golden Globes and Sag seems weird for an actor that was considered an underdog going into the season. JDDubs has vaulted himself into the Best Actor race.

3. The Year of the Blunt – Mary Poppins Returns is the movie that has been appearing on more and more lists. Emily Blunt now has a Golden Globe nom and Sag nom to her credit. But maybe the most shocking thing is Emily Blunt’s nomination in the Supporting Actress category. Talkie Talkers praised her performance in A Quiet Place but the SAG Awards noticed as well.

4. Best Supporting Actor, Who’s Out? – There seems to be 6 solid picks here, and that’s just one too many (what’s the magic movie number?). Adam Driver (BlacKkKlansman), Mahershala Ali (Green Book), Timothee Chalamet (Beautiful Boy), Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?), Sam Rockwell (Vice), and Sam Elliott (A Star is Born) all have legitimate shots to get nominated. My gut says to leave out Driver at the moment, but I wouldn’t bet money on it.

5. Animated Picture, Who Gets In? – Incredibles 2, Isle of Dogs, Ralph Breaks the Internet, and Spider-Man all seem to be close to locks at this point. That leaves one space left. Mirai is the favorite of the foreign animated films. Smallfoot seems to be gaining momentum as well. Early Man got the fifth spot at the Annie Awards and with Aardman Animations (Wallace and Gromit) behing behind the film they know what it takes to take home a little gold man.

Remember to check in to themediabyus.com regularly for updates on this year’s awards and subscribe to Talkie Talk for weekly State of the Race updates!

State of the Race: Available Contenders for Documentary Feature

In case you want to keep your ear to the ground about the feature length documentaries that may make up the five nominees at the academy awards, I have compiled a list of movies that are on the academy “short list” and where you can find them right now to stream. Although all of them aren’t on here, I think there’s enough to sink your teeth into. Note: I listed only the cheapest option from JustWatch so your particular streaming service may be available also. I also erred on the side of popularity. In the cases where a movie was free on multiple platforms, both are listed.

There’s a movie on here that’s on Shudder. Weird.

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State of the Race: Gotham Awards, Independent Spirit Award Nominations, National Board of Review, and New York Film Critics

It’s not much, but it’s something! We are very close to Golden Globe nominations being announced, and while that particular ceremony isn’t a favorite of tMbU it does signal that we are deep in award season and Guilds and Academies are about to tell us what to watch to prep for Hollywood’s biggest night! Let’s take a quick look at what we’ve seen so far.

Best Picture Race: In a year where we don’t have Spotlight or Dunkirk (an early favorite) the awards so far have been all over the place. A Star is Born is still a favorite even though it’s only Best Picture hardware so far is a top 10 spot on the National Board of Review’s list. Green Book took down Best Feature Film for the NBoR and Roma got the award for the NY Film Critics Circle. The Rider wins at the Gothams, and that might be all they get for the season. I’m going to go ahead and say we can ink in A Star is Born, Green Book, and Roma for Best Picture nominations at the Academy Awards.

Underdog: What is going on with First Reformed? The movie had an icon behind the camera and over the script. Paul Schrader (writer for Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) made a beautifully shot film with a fantastic script. Ethan Hawke got wins from the Gothams and the NBoR along with a nomination from the Independent Spirit Awards. This along with being named a top 10 film by the NBoR, and more importantly, winning Best Screenplay awards from NBoR, the Gothams, and the NYFCC (and a nomination from the ISAs) makes First Reformed a real threat to steal nominations in multiple categories when the Academy announces.

Regina King: If Beale Street Could Talk is the sophomore effort from Barry Jenkins who started his feature film career about as well as you can, directing Mahershala Ali to a Best Supporting Actor win with Moonlight at the Oscars and defeating La La Land for Best Picture. Regina King has a nom from the ISAs and was named Best Supporting Actress by the NBoR and the NYFCC. She could be running away with the award by Christmas.

Animation: Incredibles 2 seems to be the heavy favorite here, but with Ralph Breaks the Internet cleaning up commercially and critically, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse getting a NYFCC win for animated feature, this race could be more fun that orignially thought.

Documentary: We’ve got a tiny sample size for an already impossible to predict category, but early on we have two things to look at: NBoR and NYFCC. Crime + Punishment took the award from the NBoR, but maybe more interestingly, Minding the Gap (available on Hulu and heavily recommended by tMbU author Brent) wins the NYFCC and earned a top 5 doc spot from the NBoR. It might be an early front runner if it can fend off RBG, Free Solo, and Won’t You Be My Neighbor.

Foreign Language: Another toughie for predictors, The NBoR agrees with tMbU’s Chris and gave The Guilty a top 5 foreign film spot, even though Cold War won the prize. Cold War also wins at the NYFCC making it an early favorite in a category where the favorite often misses out on the Academy Awards all together. This year, it would seem, these films are fighting for second. Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma is set to take down this category with authority.

Check in to themediabyus.com and subscribe to Talkie Talk for more award season updates and predictions as we finish out 2018!

State of the Race: The Gotham Independent Film Nominations 2018

It starts earlier and earlier every year. Today, October 19th, the first film award nominations just came out – for the Gotham Independent Film Awards. These are given annually from the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) “the largest membership organization in the United States dedicated to independent film” and the awards were founded in 1991.

A group of people decide on the nominations and awards, limiting the scope to films that could be considered independent – big budget studio movies are ineligible. But independent film has landed in the race just about every single year now – previous to 2017 when The Shape of Water won, the last four years have been indie winners for Best Picture, for 12 Years a Slave (2013), Birdman (2014), Spotlight (2015) and Moonlight (2016).

Last year Call Me By Your Name and Get Out were nominated for both the Gotham and the Oscar. Also had correlation between for acting (Willem Dafoe, Daniel Kaluuya, Margot Robbie, Saoirse Ronan, Mary J. Blige, and Timothee Chalamet), screenwriting (The Big Sick, Call Me By Your Name, Get Out, Lady Bird) and directing (Greta Gerwig and Jordan Peele).

Without further ado, here are the 2019 nominations:

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State of the Race: The Golden Globes

Let’s paint a picture. It’s 2010, and you’re the Hollywood Foreign Press – you represent less than one hundred total critics throughout the globe and you’re throwing a party for movies and television in January. You’ve hosted a series of schmooze-fests where actors, directors and producers are laughing at all your jokes and taking the 2010-version of selfies with you. You feel pretty cool. Who should come to your party? You’re looking at the Comedy or Musical category you have at your party, and you’re thinking… how cool would it be if both Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie came?

To do so, you nominate The Tourist (a horrible 20% on Rotten Tomatoes), a globe-trotting non-comedy for Best Comedy or Musical, Depp for Best Comedic Actor, and Jolie for Best Comedic Actress. This is something you do, because your party is the Golden Globes and nothing matters.

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State of the Race: Best Documentary Short

It must be sweeps week for Oscar news from the Academy. Unlike rumors or predictions (like Patrick Stewart for supporting actor for Logan or Emoji Movie, I can’t remember), AMPAS makes things a little easy by slowly whittling down the field of potential nominees for any given category. The Documentary Branch, the most interestingly named arm of the Academy, has done just that by announcing the 10 films that remain as contenders for Best Documentary Short Subject. Here’s the list (with most available to stream NOW):

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State of the Race: Best Animated Short Film

AMPAS has published the list of animated shorts on its shorts shortlist. Thankfully, none of these are Olaf’s Frozen Adventure. Take a peek at the list of 10 below (asterisks indicate a link to the short film itself).

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State of the Race: Best Visual Effects

Another treat has come in from the Academy. The number of films in the running to be nominated for Best Visual Effects has been narrowed down to a stable of only 20 movies.

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