Here is a comment that I have had pending for days but had not found the time to write here: since 2005, I feel that the Academy does not like to be told what to do. Many times we end up seeing results that are reactionary to the narrative imposed by precursors. Wasn't it unlikely that Crash, SAG and all, would beat Brokeback Mountain after winning the DGA, Globe and PGA? Wasn't it uphill for Moonlight, his shy Globe, to beat a movie like La La Land?
In fact, when we look at the DGA + PGA winners who ended up losing the Oscar, they tend to lose to SAG winners: the aforementioned La La Land and Brokeback Mountain, but also Saving Private Ryan, 1917... and I know that Gravity didn't lose to the SAG winner, but to the PGA co-winner. So having won all 3 major guilds puts EEAAO in a seemingly unbeatable position. When was the last time a movie that won the PGA, DGA and SAG lost the Oscar? If I am not missing anything, that'd be Apollo 13 way back in 1996. But Apollo 13 had something that gave a glimpse of its rocky road to winning Best Picture: its surprise omission for Best Director. EEAAO does not seem to suffer from a significant underperformance (maybe production design and visual effects, but nothing serious).
However, having seen EEAAO, and even with how much I liked it, I can't stop thinking about how difficult it must be for many voters to consider it the best film of the year. Are we facing another instance of a film that looks unbeatable and that the Academy has found an alternative to avoid opting for the preformed opinion of its predecessors? Last year, CODA peaked at just the right time. It seems that nothing this year has started to sound that way, but could Banshees, like Moonlight a few years ago, with only a Globe as a major precursor (excluding critics' awards) truncate the option that seems "unstoppable" ?
We will see later today...
Categories One-by-One: Film
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HarryGoldfarb
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Film
"If you place an object in a museum, does that make this object a piece of art?" - The Square (2017)
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anonymous1980
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Re: Categories One-by-One: Film
The question isn't whether or not Everything, Everywhere All At Once can win, it's how MUCH can it win. I think on its worst night, it will take home three Oscars: Picture, Director and Supporting Actor. On its best night, it could win as much as seven, also taking home Actress, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay and Editing. Personally, I think it will win six. (I'm not predicting it for Supporting Actress.) If it even picks up something unexpected like Costumes or one of the music awards early in the evening, all the minimal suspense from the envelope will be gone.
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Mister Tee
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Categories One-by-One: Film
As the characters in Banshees might say, Sure, and we can't let the year pass without this category.
The nominees, if you've forgotten:
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: the Way of Water
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans
TAR
Top Gun: Maverick
Triangle of Sadness
Women Talking
Many years, at the Tonys, where they need to muster up enough nominees to fill out the slate, you'll see a batch of nominations for a show that obviously has no hope of wining anything. Even a respectable show like The Full Monty was in that position, up against the juggernaut that was The Producers...but I think more of something like Romance Romance, which got into all the top musical categories in 1988, but took (and expected) nothing from it except the free drinks at the post-show party.
This year, I think we can say Triangle of Sadness is the Romance Romance of the group. Women Talking has its shot at screenplay, and Avatar: the Way of Water will get the visual effects trophy if nothing else. But Ostlund's film is your participation trophy winner for 2022.
Shockingly, The Fabelmans seems close to the same territory -- shockingly, because, pre-Christmas, a third Spielberg Oscar seemed a given, and a best picture run more likely than not. As recently as Globes Night, that dream was alive. Now, though, it's more likely the film goes home empty-handed than it revives for anything significant.
Because I have an Irish sense of dread, I refuse to 100% sleep on Top Gun: Maverick: a victory for it would be so appalling, I can't let go of the nightmare image so many of you have conjured up for me (though your seeming necessary prelude, the PGA prize, failed to materialize). But, 99%, the film is toast as best picture prospect.
TAR, let's be honest, was never in serious contention anywhere beyond best actress; its nominations in the top categories work more as buttress for that Blanchett candidacy than anything more ambitious.
Elvis, lacking directing or writing, also seems along for the ride -- though it's a sign of the change two decades have wrought that, while I thought that profile totally disqualifying when Moulin Rouge suffered the same fate, and dismissed its chances even after it won PGA, now...having lived through multiple no-directing wins...I can't be as definitive about practically anything.
I see some of you are predicting Banshees, and god love you for it, but I just don't think it's had a show of strength anywhere to suggest it has such a surprise in it.
The wild card is All Quiet on the Western Front, based pretty much solely on its BAFTA haul. Many will point out that BAFTA hasn't been much at predicting Oscar best picture in this past decade -- they've mostly matched the directing picks, but, since they've stuck to five best picture nominees and not resorted to the preferential ballot, they've been less prone to upsets at the final moment. So, there really isn't a ton of reason to expect the film to repeat its British performance Sunday night -- though, if it wins that screenplay prize, along with the expected cinematography and maybe another tech or two, it'll at least make the final envelope worth sticking around for.
I quite well remember when I first heard of Everything Everywhere All at Once: seeing a trailer for it at the movies sometime last Spring. I remember my first reaction was, well, that doesn't look like just a rehash, anyway; maybe it'll turn out interesting (I thought that of one or two other trailers that day, as well; those all turned out busts). For this film to have advanced from that to where it appears -- poised to have one of the most enthusiastic runs of any film since the field expanded -- boggles my mind. I don't love the film. As Uri notes in his thread, it really does dissolve into There's no place like home homilies in the final reel. And I will still caution about the number of people I know my age -- film people -- who stopped watching it halfway through.
But the film has triumphed where we thought it couldn't (at a preferential ballot), it's got deep-dyed fans, it made a goodly amount of money despite having no box office stars, and it's something halfway original. If you want to talk about "the movie that saved movies" -- that profile is a better descriptor for me than retread of a crappy 80s movie with a star that refuses to age. So, while I can't share the excitement of the film's most rabid fans, I also can't get mad about its winning.
To be re-evaluated if it wins too damn many awards a few nights from now.
The nominees, if you've forgotten:
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: the Way of Water
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans
TAR
Top Gun: Maverick
Triangle of Sadness
Women Talking
Many years, at the Tonys, where they need to muster up enough nominees to fill out the slate, you'll see a batch of nominations for a show that obviously has no hope of wining anything. Even a respectable show like The Full Monty was in that position, up against the juggernaut that was The Producers...but I think more of something like Romance Romance, which got into all the top musical categories in 1988, but took (and expected) nothing from it except the free drinks at the post-show party.
This year, I think we can say Triangle of Sadness is the Romance Romance of the group. Women Talking has its shot at screenplay, and Avatar: the Way of Water will get the visual effects trophy if nothing else. But Ostlund's film is your participation trophy winner for 2022.
Shockingly, The Fabelmans seems close to the same territory -- shockingly, because, pre-Christmas, a third Spielberg Oscar seemed a given, and a best picture run more likely than not. As recently as Globes Night, that dream was alive. Now, though, it's more likely the film goes home empty-handed than it revives for anything significant.
Because I have an Irish sense of dread, I refuse to 100% sleep on Top Gun: Maverick: a victory for it would be so appalling, I can't let go of the nightmare image so many of you have conjured up for me (though your seeming necessary prelude, the PGA prize, failed to materialize). But, 99%, the film is toast as best picture prospect.
TAR, let's be honest, was never in serious contention anywhere beyond best actress; its nominations in the top categories work more as buttress for that Blanchett candidacy than anything more ambitious.
Elvis, lacking directing or writing, also seems along for the ride -- though it's a sign of the change two decades have wrought that, while I thought that profile totally disqualifying when Moulin Rouge suffered the same fate, and dismissed its chances even after it won PGA, now...having lived through multiple no-directing wins...I can't be as definitive about practically anything.
I see some of you are predicting Banshees, and god love you for it, but I just don't think it's had a show of strength anywhere to suggest it has such a surprise in it.
The wild card is All Quiet on the Western Front, based pretty much solely on its BAFTA haul. Many will point out that BAFTA hasn't been much at predicting Oscar best picture in this past decade -- they've mostly matched the directing picks, but, since they've stuck to five best picture nominees and not resorted to the preferential ballot, they've been less prone to upsets at the final moment. So, there really isn't a ton of reason to expect the film to repeat its British performance Sunday night -- though, if it wins that screenplay prize, along with the expected cinematography and maybe another tech or two, it'll at least make the final envelope worth sticking around for.
I quite well remember when I first heard of Everything Everywhere All at Once: seeing a trailer for it at the movies sometime last Spring. I remember my first reaction was, well, that doesn't look like just a rehash, anyway; maybe it'll turn out interesting (I thought that of one or two other trailers that day, as well; those all turned out busts). For this film to have advanced from that to where it appears -- poised to have one of the most enthusiastic runs of any film since the field expanded -- boggles my mind. I don't love the film. As Uri notes in his thread, it really does dissolve into There's no place like home homilies in the final reel. And I will still caution about the number of people I know my age -- film people -- who stopped watching it halfway through.
But the film has triumphed where we thought it couldn't (at a preferential ballot), it's got deep-dyed fans, it made a goodly amount of money despite having no box office stars, and it's something halfway original. If you want to talk about "the movie that saved movies" -- that profile is a better descriptor for me than retread of a crappy 80s movie with a star that refuses to age. So, while I can't share the excitement of the film's most rabid fans, I also can't get mad about its winning.
To be re-evaluated if it wins too damn many awards a few nights from now.