Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

It was a late bloomer.

As noted elsewhere, American Fiction is the winner. Once again, Oppenheimer, despite a quite commendable script -- and being seemingly poised to trounce at AMPAS -- can't win over the writers. The comparison I come up with is The English Patient, which had a finely textured screenplay but couldn't get any industry credit for it, despite a whopping Oscar total otherwise.

Fiction may well win a week from tonight, but its current inevitability-track is skewed by there being no WGA to confirm universal love. Worth noting the film wasn't even nominated for the Globe screenplay.

I wonder if Origin gets extra credit for somehow adapting an “unadaptable” academic text into a cohesive narrative, creatively turning the book’s author into a character in the film. I’m very curious to see it. It’s mostly been positively received though with some clear detractors.

As for All of Us Strangers, I feel like it’s been underperforming the whole awards season, including making it into critics’ best lists. Like May December, people really admire it but not enough to call it their favorite. What these two films have in common: queer perspectives, which perhaps most people can’t fully relate to. I know the content of May December isn’t overtly queer, but as in all Haynes’s films there is a queer perspective that just permeates it.

I guess the grass roots campaign for Origin is paying off.

Now just watch it getting nominated for best picture, actress and adapted screenplay next week.

Origin is def surprising. I've wondered for quite a while if All of Us Strangers was weaker than everyone seems to be giving it credit for; however, this only confirms that. If it does poorly at BAFTA tomorrow, then it's done. A strong showing at BAFTA alone, though, won't be enough to bolster its Oscar chances.

All of Us Strangers and The Zone of Interest omitted in favor of Ava Duvernay. (And, I suppose, Barbie, but this was never that film's turf.)

ON EDIT: I'm told "English-language" is part of the criteria, so Zone of Interest was ineligible.

Early on, I thought American Fiction and All of Us Strangers would battle over the final spot, but American Fiction appears to have won that encounter in a rout. (And now, with Barbie re-classified, the whole category is a big mess.)

FILM NOMINEES
“American Fiction” (Amazon MGM Studios) — Cord Jefferson (based on the novel “Erasure” by Percival Everett)

“Killers of the Flower Moon” (Apple Original Films/Paramount Pictures) — Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese (based on the nonfiction book “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI” by David Grann)

“Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures) — Christopher Nolan (based on the nonfiction book “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer” by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin)

“Origin” (Neon) — Ava DuVernay (based on the nonfiction book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson)

“Poor Things” (Searchlight Pictures) — Tony McNamara (based on the novel “Poor Things” by Alasdair Gray)