2023 Oscars: Best Actor (Part 3)

[likeitsgolden Joined: Apr 26th, 2021 Topics: 0 Posts: 101 View Predictions]

#1205145240

The award is Brendan’s. Point blank.

[H_H_ Joined: Dec 11th, 2017 Topics: 0 Posts: 284 View Predictions]

#1205145251

I was rooting for Colin’s eyebrows but he’ll sure need a miracle to win this one over Fraser.

[mf617 Joined: Oct 17th, 2011 Topics: 0 Posts: 483 View Predictions]

#1205145287

This race confounds me. I am nowhere close to thinking Fraser has this locked up, but there’s not a strong enough argument for me to say that any other potential nominee can take this race over from him yet. A24’s marketing of “The Whale” is a combination of their classic stretching themselves too thin and also apparently being scared to really market the film for fear of blowback and controversy. So now you’ve got a situation where A24 was correct to hold back because Fraser’s appearance courts controversy that could hurt his awards chances OR the studio held back on the film and hurt its momentum. However, when you read prognostications of this race, there really doesn’t seem to be a lack of momentum at all. Fraser has the narrative. Do I think some are overestimating how strong this narrative is at this time? Absolutely. But do I think that narrative has the potential to have an absolute stranglehold on this race within the next month or so? For sure. The film is in some ways a late breaker because most people just today got their first real taste of exposure and even then, it was a brief minute-long trailer that sold mood over plot. On the other hand, the people who matter are seeing this film. But the reception is absolutely not as rapturous as the film’s proponents would lead us to believe. There are definitely those who are not fans of the film, and plenty who downright hate it. But the other contenders don’t necessarily have a case strong enough just yet to overtake Fraser. But I laugh when I read headlines saying this race is all wrapped up. Things are still extremely fluid in this race. The trailer release of “The Whale” today, at least in my opinion, did nothing to change my mind about that.

[laslo Joined: Oct 19th, 2021 Topics: 2 Posts: 1456 View Predictions]

#1205145339

mf617 wrote:

This race confounds me. I am nowhere close to thinking Fraser has this locked up, but there’s not a strong enough argument for me to say that any other potential nominee can take this race over from him yet. A24’s marketing of “The Whale” is a combination of their classic stretching themselves too thin and also apparently being scared to really market the film for fear of blowback and controversy. So now you’ve got a situation where A24 was correct to hold back because Fraser’s appearance courts controversy that could hurt his awards chances OR the studio held back on the film and hurt its momentum. However, when you read prognostications of this race, there really doesn’t seem to be a lack of momentum at all. Fraser has the narrative. Do I think some are overestimating how strong this narrative is at this time? Absolutely. But do I think that narrative has the potential to have an absolute stranglehold on this race within the next month or so? For sure. The film is in some ways a late breaker because most people just today got their first real taste of exposure and even then, it was a brief minute-long trailer that sold mood over plot. On the other hand, the people who matter are seeing this film. But the reception is absolutely not as rapturous as the film’s proponents would lead us to believe. There are definitely those who are not fans of the film, and plenty who downright hate it. But the other contenders don’t necessarily have a case strong enough just yet to overtake Fraser. But I laugh when I read headlines saying this race is all wrapped up. Things are still extremely fluid in this race. The trailer release of “The Whale” today, at least in my opinion, did nothing to change my mind about that.

I agree that Fraser hasn’t lost his momentum and has perhaps a stronger narrative than his competitors. But we’ve seen recent cases where actors with very thin narratives were able to outperform actors with huge narratives, based on the passion for the material they were in. Hopkins over Boseman or Colman over Close, examples not very similar to this race but that serve to illustrate my point.
Banshees is a very accomplished movie and I can see a path for Farrell to win even without a strong narrative to go head-to-head with Fraser. Since I think the movie will please the voters a lot and have a significant ATL win. This would be a more likely category than Screenplay or Picture, as the film relies heavily on the actors’ performances. We’ll have to wait and see, but I think the regionals will be very indicative of the strength of each one.