Kicking Off the Fall Season

flipp525
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

Post by flipp525 »

Sight unseen, I'm rooting for a Lois Smith nomination for the sole reason that she was utterly ignored by the Emmys for a Oustanding Performance by a Gueat Actress in a Drama for her searing, unforgettable ten minutes in an episode of The Americans two seasons ago called "Do Mail Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?" That performance still haunts me.

I also think that current events are going to work more and more in Get Out's favor leading to some surprise "gets" on nomination morning, including Alison Williams' quite surprising supporting work. We shall see as burgeoning nominees come and fall by the wayside this fall. Birds in the hand...
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

Post by bizarre »

I agree with the idea that Original Screenplay is stacked this year - I'd say the following 17 contenders all stand a good shot at a nominaton at this point: Get Out, Downsizing, Roman Israel, The Big Sick, The Shape of Water, Detroit, The Florida Project, 3 Billboards, The Papers, Suburbicon, Phantom Thread, Breathe, Wonder Wheel, Dunkirk, Coco, the Square and Battle of the Sexes. And TIFF hasn't even started yet.

Adapted Screenplay is the weird one - we have Call Me by Your Name, Last Flag Flying and Darkest Hour as good bets, but most contenders are films unlikely to make much of a showing elsewhere in the nominations: The Death of Stalin, The Disaster Artist, Wonderstruck, Lean on Pete... it's pretty empty. I'm not buying Mudbound, which was doomed as soon as Netflix picked it up.
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

Post by Sabin »

[Mister Tee wrote
What looks sparse about original screenplay this year? Get Out and The Big Sick are already strong contenders, and some of the most-touted upcoming efforts also fall on that side of the ledger -- Wonder Wheel, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards...; all from filmmakers who've scored original screenplay nods in the past. The designation also applies to Downsizing, Suburbicon, Roman Israel Esq., even The Killing of a Sacred Deer. My guess is original screenplay will be highly competitive this year; it might be easier to break through under adapted.
I retract my statement.
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

Post by Mister Tee »

The Original BJ wrote:Mary Magdalene was just pushed -- probably as you were typing this -- to Easter 2018, so that's off this year's roster.
I literally saw the news release about ten minutes after posting.
The Original BJ wrote:I haven't seen Marjorie Prime yet -- it just opened, to decent reviews. At some point there was talk about a Lois Smith nomination. Do we think that's still possible? Or is the movie just too under the radar?
I'm embarrassed to say that, even though I halfway endorsed Magilla's early touting of this film (based on long-time affection for Lois Smith), I hadn't even noticed the film opened last Friday. The reason I didn't is, the film was BARELY released: it opened at the Quad Cinema down in the Village. For those who don't know NYC, the Quad is four small theatres that generally show tiny art-house films. It's not a place that a small film with any kind of Oscar pretensions opens (that would be the Lincoln Plaza theatres, on 63rd & Broadway). Its grosses were miniscule ($4500 per at 4 theatres).

This isn't to rule out the possibility of critics' groups throwing some support Smith's way -- LA, in particular, seems determined to choose best actresses from off-the-beaten-path films, and this would be in line with that. But, given the number of high-visibility actress contenders we appear to have this year, it's hard for me to believe the great Smith will get much mainstream attention.
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

Post by Mister Tee »

bizarre wrote:I agree that the Animated Film category seems uncharacteristically empty this year. We could either see a field full of middlingly-reviewed but successful sequels and franchise entries or a selection of little-seen independent and foreign contenders. I think I'd prefer the latter.
The recent history of the category has, happily, been to favor obscurer foreign items over franchise films. Though the blackballing of The LEGO Movie makes me cynically wonder if that's happened mainly to make it easier for higher-profile PIXAR/Dreamworks efforts to dominate.
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

Post by Mister Tee »

Sabin wrote:
The Original BJ wrote
The Meyerowitz Stories may be doomed because of its Netflix release (though I think it's more likely than not that at some point one of those films will get significant Oscar citations).
But it's still eligible, correct? Because last year, we saw the O.J. doc win Best Documentary over The 13th among other films.


Yes, eligible, but assuming Netflix does its usual "available for steaming day-and-date with theatrical release", and the film thus doesn't get any first-rate theatres, so it tanks quickly at the box office...that's pretty much what killed Beasts of No Nation, even for the highly-praised Elba. BJ may be right, that eventually Netflix will win Oscar voters over simply through persistence. But I want to see it happen once before I start predicting it.
Sabin wrote:But The Meyerowitz Stories certainly looks like a movie that gets honored for its writing, so I'm inclined to say if one group checks it out, it'll be the writers. And because this year is looking a bit sparse at this point, why not?
What looks sparse about original screenplay this year? Get Out and The Big Sick are already strong contenders, and some of the most-touted upcoming efforts also fall on that side of the ledger -- Wonder Wheel, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards...; all from filmmakers who've scored original screenplay nods in the past. The designation also applies to Downsizing, Suburbicon, Roman Israel Esq., even The Killing of a Sacred Deer. My guess is original screenplay will be highly competitive this year; it might be easier to break through under adapted.
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

Post by Sabin »

The Original BJ wrote
The Meyerowitz Stories may be doomed because of its Netflix release (though I think it's more likely than not that at some point one of those films will get significant Oscar citations).
But it's still eligible, correct? Because last year, we saw the O.J. doc win Best Documentary over The 13th among other films. And although the doc branch is a specific group of voters, so is the writer's branch and they have a history (sometimes unwarranted) of good taste. At the very least, they have a history of rewarding writers like Noah Baumbach.

...and then I looked up Noah Baumbach on imdb and saw that he's only received one Academy award in his career (The Squid and the Whale). He might have received a second for Fantastic Mr. Fox, but I had assumed he was in their club. As I scroll down his filmography, he probably didn't come close to a nomination with his other films. But The Meyerowitz Stories certainly looks like a movie that gets honored for its writing, so I'm inclined to say if one group checks it out, it'll be the writers. And because this year is looking a bit sparse at this point, why not?
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

Post by bizarre »

I agree that the Animated Film category seems uncharacteristically empty this year. We could either see a field full of middlingly-reviewed but successful sequels and franchise entries or a selection of little-seen independent and foreign contenders. I think I'd prefer the latter.

LBJ premiered at the fall festivals last year and went out with little critical or popular fanfare. I'm sure no one will be throwing money at a campaign for it.

Marjorie Prime is a Gothams/Spirits thing (and the Spirits are hardly the Spirits anymore, so let's say Chlotrudis instead lol). I wouldn't expect it to make a dent in the mainstream awards circuit at all.
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Re: Kicking Off the Fall Season

Post by The Original BJ »

Mary Magdalene was just pushed -- probably as you were typing this -- to Easter 2018, so that's off this year's roster.

The Meyerowitz Stories may be doomed because of its Netflix release (though I think it's more likely than not that at some point one of those films will get significant Oscar citations). Noah Baumbach hasn't yet been able to parlay his initial Screenplay nomination into greater Oscar success down the line, but he continues to churn out compelling scripts (at least for those of us who like his work), and it certainly doesn't seem impossible that he could get more writing nominations in the future.

Marshall sounds like the kind of eat-your-vegetables history lesson that most of us don't look forward to seeing as part of the Oscar conversation. And the director isn't one I'm familiar with (though I see he was one of the Oscar-nominated producers of Django Unchained, as well as a former producer of the Oscars telecast). But if Best Actor is indeed a thin year, you wonder if Chadwick Boseman might at least get a campaign -- he's been on the outskirts of the conversation before (for Get On Up), and will be headlining the presumed blockbuster Black Panther during the height of next year's Oscar season. The film looks like something that could easily just flop, though.

It's been a long time since a Rob Reiner film was in the Oscar conversation, but I wouldn't rule out Woody Harrelson in LBJ either, for a kind of Cranston/Trumbo nomination.

I have no idea what to make of The Disaster Artist, but it got plenty of attention at SXSW, and A24 has pushed some tricky sells to Oscar success in the past couple years, so who knows where this will end up?

I saw the trailer for Breathe and for the love of god, that looks like just about every movie I've ever seen. (I genuinely can't even believe we are allowing the line "I don't want to just survive -- I want to truly live!" anymore.) Wonder, too, looks like a movie I've seen a million times (though I know writer-director Steve Chbosky, and he's a good guy, so I'm rooting for him in theory.)

The Florida Project sounds interesting, but I can't say I quite understand the big predictions for it. Sean Baker's other work has been WAY outside Academy sensibilities, so you do have to wonder if it'll strictly be a festival/critics fave.

I haven't seen Marjorie Prime yet -- it just opened, to decent reviews. At some point there was talk about a Lois Smith nomination. Do we think that's still possible? Or is the movie just too under the radar?

I'd totally forgotten The LEGO Batman Movie in my first-half round-up...but maybe because it's hard to imagine Oscar suddenly biting on the sequel after so clearly vetoing more acclaimed original. Also, with The LEGO Ninjago Movie set to hit theaters soon, this series might just be too much of a churn-'em-out franchise for Oscar, especially given that the Animated Feature category has been pretty indifferent to sequels over the years.
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Kicking Off the Fall Season

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So… the once-indispensable, now shrug-worthy Entertainment Weekly Fall Preview issue has appeared, with others to soon follow. We’re but a week or so from the start of the Venice festival, which will bleed into Telluride and then be followed by Toronto, at which point the 2017 Oscar race will stop being imaginary and begin to take corporal form. As usual, a look at what we definitively know so far (the little there is), what we sort-of know (the screened-but-not-yet-market-tested films from Sundance and Cannes), what we’ll learn over the next few weeks (including what comes from NY, which follows a bit later), and what will remain after the festival run.

In terms of what we know for sure: not much has changed since BJ’s overview on July 1, but the one change was pretty significant. We clearly have a major best picture candidate in Dunkirk – maybe the strongest pre-September debut, in combined critical/commercial terms, this decade (Boyhood had better reviews, but wasn’t close in money-earning). As many noted in the Dunkirk thread, since we have no idea what the remainder of the year will bring, there’s no telling how likely it is the film will win top prizes, but it’s hard from this vantage point not to see it as a certain film/director nominee, with multiple tech nominations (cinematography, sound mixing, editing, score, sound editing) attached. (Though screenplay is iffy, which could make it ultimately vulnerable in the best picture race – but that’s getting way ahead of ourselves.)

Nothing else right now would be surefire or even likely under the old roster-of-five system (presuming Detroit’s commercial thud removes any chance it might have had), but two entries – Get Out and The Big Sick – would seem to have at least a solid chance in the extended field. Get Out benefits from massive grosses, timeliness, and the sheer fact of having been in the nomination conversation for so long (BJ’s bird-in-hand theory at work) – though I have to note I’m hard-pressed to come up with many other nominations it can get, beside screenplay and maybe editing. The Big Sick of course isn’t as big a commercial success, but it’s hung on quite well, is easy to like, and could generate supporting nominations for ether/both of Romano and Hunter, along with a screenplay nod, making a best picture bid quite possible.

Hunter/Romano are about the only truly strong acting possibilities in current sight – unless Will Poulter is able to get past both Detroit’s box-office flame-out and the awkwardness of a white guy being the only nominee from a dominant-black cast.

There are, of course, tech possibilities in not only Dunkirk, but Wonder Woman (design/visual effects), Beauty and the Beast (design/costumes), Baby Driver (sound/editing), and the assorted franchises for random visual effects.

Curiously empty: the animated feature category. In a year of mediocre sequels, I guess The LEGO Batman Movie is the leader by default -- though who knows if the branch will box it out like it did its predecessor?

Okay: having quickly gone through the seen-and-tested group, a look at the middle-ground: those films already critic-rated at Sundance and Cannes. In Oscar terms, this group is clearly led by Call Me by Your Name – spectacularly-reviewed at Sundance, it appears certain to propel Guadagnino into the heart of the film/director race. As far as acting, the main question appears to be whether Timothée Chalamet is too young to secure a lead nomination. He’s helped by the fact that the best actor field, for the third year in a row, appears weaker than that for lead females. Surer for citation appears to be Michael Stuhlbarg in support, with Armie Hammer apparently falling in the grey area between the two categories. We’ll have to watch to see how he’s positioned by the studio.

Given this apparent weakness among lead actors, I have to say I’m puzzled by whatever it is Amazon is doing with You Were Never Really Here. This is a film that opened at Cannes to mostly enthusiastic notices (88 on Metacritic), won top prizes, and seems to offer a major performance from Joaquin Phoenix. I’m not suggesting Phoenix would be an easy Oscar front-runner – by most accounts, the film is harsh, which could alienate core voters. But, given the year’s weakness, he could heavily contend for critics’ prizes, which could propel him to at least a nomination. Yet, as far as I know, the film is skipping the coming triumvirate of festivals, and has no U.S. release date set. What was the point of bringing it to Cannes, if even a strong reception there wasn’t enough to push it to award-season release?

Some have high expectations for The Florida Project – in particular, Willem Dafoe – but I seem to recall many of these people also having outsized hopes for Tangerine: it may be a case of the wish being father to the prediction. We’ll wait and see if the film can break out with general audiences.

The other early-festival contenders – Mudbound, Wonderstruck and Killing of a Sacred Deer – seem to have slipped into second gear in prize terms, but could be revitalized by more enthusiastic subsequent response at upcoming festivals.

Which brings us to those festivals, starting with Venice, which has become an important stop on the trail: last year, three of our film/director nominees – Moonlight, La La Land, Arrival – turned up there, along with acting notables Natalie Portman and Michael Shannon. And this year’s roster is filled with A-list directing names – Darren Aronofsky (mother!), George Clooney (Suburbicon), Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water), Alexander Payne (Downsizing) – along with a buzzed-about Martin McDonagh Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and Stephen Frears’ Victoria and Abdul, which should excite the usual Masterpiece Theatre throng. I’m leaving out two other notables – Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete (because it’s not opening till next year) and Our Souls at Night, despite its glittery Redford/Fonda pairing, because it’s being handled by Netflix, so I expect it to be greeted about as warmly by Oscar as Beasts of No Nation.

We’ll know far more about the potential of these films in a fortnight’s time, but I can say buzz is excited on Shape of Water and (as mentioned) Three Billboards, negative on Downsizing – though it’s hard to tell if the latter is truly indicative, or just standard Internet attitude toward Alexander Payne, who’s been under-rated by the bloggers from Sideways on. The other films are truly coming in blind; any “opinions” being expressed are based on things like trailers, or, for all I know, tea leaves.

The reason I suggest actresses appear to be faring better than actors this year can be seen from these films: Sally Hawkins and Frances McDormand appear to be getting hot word for their films, and Jennifer Lawrence, Julianne Moore and the inevitable Judi Dench are certainly in the conversation (with more names to come in Toronto and NY), while Matt Damon, with both Downsizing and Suburbicon, appears to be carrying the flag for his gender all by himself.

So…Toronto.

Because of this actor-shortage, I have to reluctantly concede that, whatever my skepticism about Joe Wright’s talents, Gary Oldman could become a major factor in the best actor race, simply for lack of alternative. Toronto brings several more nomination-friendly men into view, but they’re a rather uninspiring batch – basically, it’s a return of recent, not-truly-contending nominees, playing super-baity roles in period bio-pics: Andrew Garfield doing the handicapped thing in Breathe, Steve Carell dressing up as Bobby Riggs in Battle of the Sexes, Benedict Cumberbatch channeling Edison in The Current War. In that context, Oldman doing Churchill in Darkest Hour can almost pass for exciting – his career is certainly the most award-deserving of this group. The only other entrant who might surprise us is Christian Bale in Hostiles, though Scott Cooper remains a director of unpredictable quality.

Actresses could include Claire Foy in Breathe – given how frequently the care-giving-female has been Academy-noted – and Emma Stone as the Billie Jean King side of Battle of the Sexes. Then there are two potentially interesting candidates, Annette Bening in Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool (though the film sounds like a wee thing, that didn’t hinder Julianne Moore/Still Alice or Jeff Bridges/Crazy Heart) and the perennial Jessica Chastain in Molly’s Game (though bad buzz seems to surround that production). (I omit The Mountain Between Us (Winslet/Elba), because it looks like it fills the sure-flop slot of last year’s The Light Between Oceans, and On Chesil Beach, despite Saoirse Ronan’s presence, because I don’t think it’s being released till next year.)

I can’t say any of these films strike me as exciting best picture possibilities, but, given how The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything scored, you can’t ignore the chances of several of these films making it onto the slate.

Caveat, of course: there might be a film or two on the festival schedule I haven’t mentioned that turns into a title we all know by February. Last year, Moonlight wasn’t on my horizon pre-Venice. Hope for surprise springs eternal.

NY is a bit further off (not starting till September 28th), and it, as usual, is dominantly replays from Cannes/Sundance, but it does offer two intriguing candidates.

Last Flag Flying is hard to categorize: essentially a sequel to The Last Detail (though with different character names), but directed by Richard Linklater and starring the formidable trio of Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne and Steve Carell. Will it be unfavorably compared to a long-loved 70s film? – will Cranston, especially, be found wanting, next to a legendary Nicholson performance? – or will it be admired as a serious effort by an always-ambitious director?

Wonder Wheel comes bearing perhaps the strongest overall buzz of any Woody Allen film since Hannah and Her Sisters. Much of the enthusiasm of course centers around Kate Winslet, said to give a major performance in Blanchett/Jasmine territory, but the high praise from festival coordinators, as well as the rare-for-Allen late-year release, leads one to hope the film as a whole is a significant late-career achievement for Allen (a directing nod would put him into a tie with Scorsese/Wilder as second all-time in the category). Or it could all be mirage, yet another over-inflation of post-90s Allen work. We’ll find out soon enough.

Post-NY, there will remain only a few major films to consider. Some of these are pure commercial plays -- Justice League (which I’d bet on eradicating most of the Wonder Woman-generated DC goodwill), yet another Star Wars (likely to come closer to Rogue One than Force Awakens in Oscar performance), Murder on the Orient Express (a thoroughly unnecessary remake that might achieve mediocrity), and two for which I have somewhat higher hopes because of their directors, Blade Runner 2049 and The Snowman.

Other, potentially more major efforts, scheduled for opening between now and New Years (a few might turn up at the British or AFI festivals; some -- like Spielberg’s -- will likely open cold):

Novitiate, which actually has been screened but not widely reviewed, and has some word about a Melissa Leo performance.

Goodbye Christopher Robin, yet another Brit period biopic, about (surprise) A.A. Milne. Kind of a surprise this didn’t join its compatriots at Toronto, but maybe it’s saving itself for the British fest.

The Greatest Showman on Earth, the Hugh Jackman P.T. Barnum musical. I have no idea what to expect of this.

Wonder: according to Lionsgate, its best test-scoring film ever – but it looks pretty cloying from the outside.

Coco, PIXAR’s chance to grab hold of the animated feature Oscar once again, this time seemingly without competition.

Roman Israel, Esq., Dan Gilroy’s follow-up to his breakthrough Nightcrawler. If this is a personal triumph for Denzel Washington, coupled with his second-place finish last year, it could reset the best actor race.

Mary Magdalene, Weinstein’s November-slotted film, with Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix. Why isn’t this being screened anywhere ahead of time?

And the two big boppers, the still Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson film, and The Papers, about which I don’t need to tell you, and which we’ll wait to see if they land in their creators’ winning or losing piles.

Much more about this, of course, when the first round of festivals has passed.
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