Sabin wrote:At the end of the day, giving Best Picture to Black Panther is more meaningful than giving one to The Artist.
I didn't realize it was possible to set the bar that low.
I isolate that quote only because it allows for a cheap joke. But I'm here to respond to the dozens of posts that have turned up while I was off doing my meager New Year celebration. Please pardon the scattershot quality.
1) To answer the earliest comment: I kind of forgot about Emily Blunt; I guess the SAG/Globe nominations should have made me at least reference her. But, even as a long-time fan of the lady, I can't fathom why she'd be much in the conversation. A Quiet Place got good notices and made money, but it's a monster movie -- not a revisionist, Douglas Sirk-influenced monster movie like The Shape of Water; a standard monster movie like Cloverfield. Since when have Academy voters been interested in anything like that? As for Mary Poppins Returns, it's a crushing 65 on Metacritic -- perilously close to a bomb -- and, while it's done well with nostalgic family audiences over the holiday, it's not the overwhelming blockbuster bloggers were anticipating (Aquaman has unexpectedly grabbed that slot). The argument for Blunt seems to be she's been around a while and never nominated, she's got two commercially solid entries, and, I suppose, she's playing a role that won a Oscar 50-odd years ago (though nothing today matches the context in which Andrews won that prize). Never say never, especially in a weird year, but I just don't see why she's in the discussion, except for the fact bloggers have put her there.
2) Offshoot: I don't see any justification for calling Lady Gaga a "clear favorite". Clear competitor, fine. But the category is too muddled to declare anyone a favorite. And, though she's attached to the clearly most popular vehicle, she also has what I'd view as the biggest handicap of any best actress contender: a lot of people will question how seriously they should take her as an actress. Part of this is simply because she comes from another entertainment arena, but beyond that, I think many will have a "she pulled that off, but who knows if she can do anything else?" attitude. Such candidates have found it difficult to win Oscars, especially on a first try (it took Cher a second nomination and three major movie roles in the year she won). I think at least Olivia Colman and Glenn Close have as good a shot as she, and I might throw Melissa McCarthy in there, as well.
By the way, Precious Doll, I don't think you can say Olivia Colman has failed to win critics' prizes -- she's won a narrow plurality of the various groups, with LA as a flagship victory...and that's with some of the groups undecided whether she belongs in lead or support.
3) OK, gloves off: I don't know what the fuck Gleiberman is talking about when he inflates Black Panther this way. Honestly, I think critics and bloggers have gone a bit en masse bonkers over this movie. When the same group hit the campaign trail for Mad Max: Fury Road, I thought they were delusional: looking at a modern-day version of Speed and claiming to see Wages of Fear. But I truly don't know what possesses them to oversell Black Panther like this. It's not any kind of narrative breakthrough -- it's barely different from a dozen other Marvel movies (honestly, not as much fun as some). The only distinction it has is the grafting on of a certain amount of 20th century black experience as background. But this no more makes it a racially significant film than having women commandeer the vehicles made Mad Max a feminist one. It's just using the culture as a MacGuffin, in an otherwise trivial plot. (The Dark Knight had far greater claim to genuine artistic achievement.) It's great that Black Panther is a major hit, for the cultural doors it opens -- just as the success of Crazy Rich Asians is, for hopefully better films to come. But it seems to me the push for this movie to be even nominated for best picture, let alone win, is an alliance between those who've grown up on comic book blockbusters (and other purely commercial efforts) and want to see their childhood enthusiasms be given esthetic validation, and those for whom taking the right side on important liberal subject matter is the most important element in evaluating art. (The latter, long ago, gave us major Oscar attention for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, and my hot take is that elevating Black Panther will look much the same generations hence.) I'm guessing this is an ascendant coalition -- it's managing to label lots of what used to be thought of as grown-up movies "Oscar bait", and has even major critics' groups giving awards to horror movies and dopey comedies. But I don't think it's where Academy members are today. (Ten years from now, it might be another matter.)
4) The reason such (to me lunatic) scenarios are being bandied about is, this is a year without much critical/audience consensus. dws, I'm happy for you that you're enjoying what you're seeing at theatres, but I don't see that as a widely-held view. Check the Metacritic scores for all this year's major efforts. Roma is the easy leader, with a 96, and, while Cuaron's Hollywood status makes Roma a sort of honorary English-language movie, the fact is, for most Americans, it's a subtitled effort and thus in a special class. Shoplifters, Cold War and Burning also rate 90 and above -- an exceptional showing for overseas efforts, and the reason for the unusual familiarity of this year's shortlist. English-language efforts can only wish they had such broad popularity. Most of the films of which critics have approved have failed to get even respectable audiences -- here are some titles with Metacritic score/million dollar gross: The Rider 92/$2.4; Eighth Grade 90/$13.5; Leave No Trace 88/$6.0; Can You Ever Forgive me? 87/$7.5; First Reformed 85/$3.5. Compare this to last year, when Dunkirk/Lady Bird/Phantom Thread/Call Me by Your Name/Three Billboards/Shape of Water all had high-80s/90s ratings, plus substantially higher grosses, making for a strong best picture race. This gap -- plus the fact that decently-reviewed films like First Man and Widows (both 84 on Metacritic) have been viewed as box-office failures -- has opened the door for efforts like Black Panther and A Star is Born (a comic book movie and a third remake) to punch above their weight in awards terms, for something like BlackkKlansman (83/$48) to become a sure thing, and for sub-par efforts like Green Book or Mary Poppins Returns to enter the discussion.
(The jury's still out on The Favourite and If Beale Street Could Talk, but both do well on Metacritic (90 and 87, respectively) and may eventually enter the same critical/commercial realm as last year's broader successes.)
5) dws, thanks for pointing out my Silvestri mistake for me. As you might guess, I just took for granted it was Williams, especially once it turned up on the short-list. Looking at IMDB, I see that Williams was responsible for the Jurassic World movie this year (whatever it was called), but not short-listed. I can't recall the last time he had a credit and didn't make the music branch's list.