Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

Sonic Youth wrote:

Greg wrote:

Big Magilla wrote:A win for Everything Everywhere All at Once is also being seen as the last great hope of a Best Picture winner for "the people" rather than "the snobs". I think it's ridiculous, but I really don't care what wins anymore.

EEAaO hasn't been THAT popular. Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way Of Water, even Elvis, would be more of the wins for "the people."

Exactly. EEAAO is a "cult" film that has captured a bigger audience share than usual. But it's by no means populist. It's the sort of film (like Birdman) I've been praying for years would win the Best Picture Oscar. Unfortunately (like Birdman), it's no good.

I wouldn't say that EEAAO isn't good. It's definitely above average and very inventive. But it's also the most overrated Hollywood film I've seen since Black Panther.
It's patently ridiculous that this is the movie that has the highest score ever in Letterboxd and is steamrolling its opposition on the way to the Oscars.
FTR, it got rather tepid reviews here in Europe and bombed hard at the box office.

Sonic Youth wrote
Exactly. EEAAO is a "cult" film that has captured a bigger audience share than usual. But it's by no means populist. It's the sort of film (like Birdman) I've been praying for years would win the Best Picture Oscar. Unfortunately (like Birdman), it's no good.

Yup. That's how I feel.

At this point in my life, there's only two things I ask of a Best Picture winner: I want to like it and I want it to matter. To the latter point, I want to feel like the film carried some meaningful weight in the cultural snapshot of its year, which isn't always the case. Everything Everywhere All At Once didn't work for me but it fills the latter qualifier enough that its impending win doesn't bother me too much.

If sheep are the deciding factor, the Irish and Australian nominees are in good shape.

danfrank wrote:

Sonic Youth wrote:Would Cate Blanchett winning Best Actress be an example of sheep behavior?

Yes, specifically that of the Hampshire Down breed.

So Colin Farrell voters are the Galway breed?

I'll keep an eye out for their sweaters.

Greg wrote:

Big Magilla wrote:A win for Everything Everywhere All at Once is also being seen as the last great hope of a Best Picture winner for "the people" rather than "the snobs". I think it's ridiculous, but I really don't care what wins anymore.

EEAaO hasn't been THAT popular. Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way Of Water, even Elvis, would be more of the wins for "the people."

Exactly. EEAAO is a "cult" film that has captured a bigger audience share than usual. But it's by no means populist. It's the sort of film (like Birdman) I've been praying for years would win the Best Picture Oscar. Unfortunately (like Birdman), it's no good.

Sonic Youth wrote:Would Cate Blanchett winning Best Actress be an example of sheep behavior?

Yes, specifically that of the Hampshire Down breed.

Big Magilla wrote:A win for Everything Everywhere All at Once is also being seen as the last great hope of a Best Picture winner for "the people" rather than "the snobs". I think it's ridiculous, but I really don't care what wins anymore.

EEAaO hasn't been THAT popular. Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way Of Water, even Elvis, would be more of the wins for "the people."

Sonic Youth wrote:Would Cate Blanchett winning Best Actress be an example of sheep behavior?

Some might see it that way if she wins SAG, but I wouldn't characterize it as such given that hers was the most critically acclaimed performance of the year in any category.

I was reacting to all the noise on other websites that suggests if this or that wins their guild's award then it's all over for Oscar.

The Oscars have been more inclined to go with critics' choices than guild choices for most of their existence. Last year's Best Picture win for CODA after its PGA win is being set up as a likely indicator that this year's PGA winner will follow suit for those with short memories. A win for Everything Everywhere All at Once is also being seen as the last great hope of a Best Picture winner for "the people" rather than "the snobs". I think it's ridiculous, but I really don't care what wins anymore.

Since the turn of the century, I've only agreed with four out of the last twenty-two Best Picture Oscar winners - Million Dollar Baby, The Hurt Locker, 12 Years a Slave, and Spotlight. I have no illusions that will give it to Tár, my number one choice this year. The best I'm hoping for is either my second choice, The Banshees of Inisherin, or my fifth, All Quiet on the Western Front, but I'll probably just shrug if it they climb on the EEAAO bandwagon.

I'll be over the moon if either SAG and/or Oscar dares to follow BAFTA's example in the supporting categories, but I'll be happy if just one of them wins.

If Brendan Fraser wins SAG or Oscar over Colin Farrell, I will be fine but if either SAG and/or Oscar follows BAFTA's lead on giving Best Actor to Austin Butler, I'll be scratching my head again.

A loss by Blanchett to Michelle Yeoh at the Oscars would be fine with me given that Blanchett already has two. Like Best Picture, I've only agreed with four of the winners for Best Actress from 2000-2021 - Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby, Helen Mirren in The Queen, Frances McDormand inThree Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and Renée Zellweger in Judy.

Would Cate Blanchett winning Best Actress be an example of sheep behavior?

On the televisions side, The White Lotus wins for drama and The Bear wins for comedy. Is it me, or doesn’t the White Lotus go for laughs much more than The Bear? I dislike the limitations of all 60-minute shows being
considered dramas and 30-minute shows comedies. Of course lots of shows don’t fit neatly into either category. Time to consider category changes (not just at PGA, of course), or just keep trying to fit oddly shaped pegs into square and round holes?

OscarGuy wrote:It's not a "sheep" thing.

The field of social psychology has done plenty of studies to confirm that people do indeed tend to follow the crowd. You can read about concepts such as social proof, social influence, and conformity. Humans are certainly more likely than sheep to take individual paths, but the principle still stands.

It's not a "sheep" thing. All of the members of the Academy are members of the guilds in question. What the guild awards signify is broad support for specific winners. There's now "endorsement" sentimentality. The guilds are, of course, much larger than their respective branches of the Academy and only vote in their own categories, but everyone in the Academy votes for the Oscars, so discrepancies between the guilds and the Academy are typically a result of this dynamic, not some generic sentiment of endorsing the guild winners. If Everything does well at all of the guilds, that signifies broad support from everyone, which would thereby indicate that there will likely be broad support in the Academy as well.

Reza wrote:So the win for Everything Everywhere All at Once signals a repeat at the Oscars now.....with hopefully Michelle Yeoh part of the sweep.

No, but it does point in that direction.

If all the Oscars are going to do is endorse the guild wins why have them? Voting doesn't begin until March 4. We'll see whether they're just a bunch of sheep or have minds of their own, perhaps for the last time.

So the win for Everything Everywhere All at Once signals a repeat at the Oscars now.....with hopefully Michelle Yeoh part of the sweep.

And as much as I want Kerry Condon to win I would be quite ok with a career win for Jamie Lee Curtis as part of this sweep.

If they want to Oscar predict, I guess Everything Everywhere takes it, but Top Gun: Maverick seems like the type of movie that members of this guild might want to reward. (I did say before that I would bet the farm on Maverick taking it, and I've backed off of that a bit, but I still think it's definitely in play.) I'm not sure if PGA counts their ranked-choice ballot the same way the Academy does for Best Picture, but I do think that ranked-choice with the Academy's tabulation method is a potential downfall for Everything Everywhere, and that it would probably be beneficial to Top Gun: Maverick in a group where producers are the only voters. But again, I'm not sure if they tabulate the same way the Academy does.