[Cordelia Joined: Jul 15th, 2018 Topics: 37 Posts: 941 View Predictions]

#1203746997

Fuck it, personal bias but…

I hope Hopkins or Kaluuya or Lindo wins, I am not in the mood for another Gary Old Man sweep.

 

For Your Consideration:

Best Picture: Wolfwalkers

Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers

Reply

[Cordelia Joined: Jul 15th, 2018 Topics: 37 Posts: 941 View Predictions]

#1203746982

I’m just going to say, can we try to prune this obnoxious petty fighting immediately? I get that 2020’s Best Actress was a sweep that didn’t have a lot of unpredictable excitement (remember when people made up a fictional film staring Yalitza Aparicio so we could have something new to talk about?), but just because this is a race that might have actual competition doesn’t mean we need to start immediately slapfighting and slandering other users. Argue over which precursors matter or which release strategy is better rather than over which user is a lying rat or whatever.

 

For Your Consideration:

Best Picture: Wolfwalkers

Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers

Reply

[Cordelia Joined: Jul 15th, 2018 Topics: 37 Posts: 941 View Predictions]

#1203746931

Fuck it, I’m stating my opinion outright – I think Davis is my prediction. Those stills have helped my gut feeling.

If Three Billboards hadn’t gotten Frances McDormand a win, this would be an entirely different conversation.

Vanessa Kirby I think gets a nomination if Netflix doesn’t drop the ball, but I’m not sure she wins. There is a non-zero chance she’ll be the only thing nominated about Pieces of a Woman. But this is Best Actress, where Still Alice can win and the only further ornaments The Iron Lady and Judy had were makeup. If any acting category comes closest to focusing exclusively on performances for who wins, it’s Actress. If anything, I think she will probably do very well on the critic’s circuit. If that can get converted to Globes/SAG/BAFTA momentum, which remains the part I am skeptical about, I will put Kirby as my #1.

I don’t have another 2 locks yet. I remain skeptical of Hillbilly Elegy outside of Glenn Close. I’m not quite sure about French Exit. Respect seems like it would have annihilated the 00’s academy, but I’m not quite sure how it will fare in 2021.

For Your Consideration:

Best Picture: Wolfwalkers

Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers

Reply

[Cordelia Joined: Jul 15th, 2018 Topics: 37 Posts: 941 View Predictions]

#1203746892

I have no idea who’s getting nominated for Director, and that’s kind of exciting.

By this time last year, Shawn Sam Mendes, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorcese, and Boon Joon-ho were all locks. The only question was who would get that 5th slot that Todd Phillips got.

Meanwhile, I currently only really have Zhao and Fincher as locks.

My three current predictions for others are Regina King, Florian Zeller, and Ron Howard. I am not so naive to think they will stick. In the case of the first two, while they’re debut directors with considerably acclaimed movies, they’re both stage adaptations in a very “stagey” format. In the case of Ron Howard, he is an inconsistent director with a movie I am not confident in the quality of.

However, there are other options. If The French Dispatch is this year cycle, Wes is a comfortable contender. If Dune delivers (which I am less and less confident about each day), Denis is potentially a lock as the one big-budget director of this bunch. Spike Lee and Paul Greengrass could happen from legacy momentum. Shaka King and George C. Wolfe could happen if Judas and the Black Messiah/Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom strike big.

In fact, writing this, I’m changing my Florian Zeller predition for a George C Wolfe. I’m blowing my sexy odds I got for Florian Zeller because I’m not sure that’s a directing film.

For Your Consideration:

Best Picture: Wolfwalkers

Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers

Reply

[Cordelia Joined: Jul 15th, 2018 Topics: 37 Posts: 941 View Predictions]

#1203743295

With COVID happening, screeners are going to be more important than ever this year. Yeah, some distanced cinema events will happen, but I think there’s a good size of people who would rather stay at home. Unlike last year, where the extremely narrow number of films that got nominated demonstrated a focusing on only a dozen or so films, this year a lot of screeners will be watched.

So I ask this question – which films play well with screeners? Which won’t?

For Your Consideration:

Best Picture: Wolfwalkers

Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers

[Cordelia Joined: Jul 15th, 2018 Topics: 37 Posts: 941 View Predictions]

#1203740853

I take back my Green Book comparison to Hillbilly Elegy for one huge reason.

I think moreso than a lot of other aspects, Green Book was in the position of being the counter to Netflix. Hillbilly Elegy IS Netflix. When people complained about Netflix getting involved in the Oscars, the implicit message was vote Green Book. I focused too much on the politics when the studio politics are what I should’ve paid attention to.

Green Book was a pawn promoted to a bishop that preceded to get a checkmate in a vulnerable place for Netflix’s strategies. If not Green Book, that vulnerability could’ve been used to help Bohemian Rhapsody or The Favourite or maybe even Black Panther get to Best Picture. Roma was never going to get it.

Last year was wishy-washy, where Netflix dropped a lot of potential balls – The Irishman and Marriage Story both underperformed and were nowhere close to the top of the Oscars, The Two Popes missed an attainable Best Picture nomination, and easy cross-category potential for Dolemite Is My Name was ignored. They had all the sauce, and at least weren’t dumb enough to try and make The Laundromat happen, but nonetheless Netflix was the defining underperformance of 2019’s Oscars season.

This year is very different in studio politics though. A lot of studios seem to be only putting out ONE Oscars player – see below for an incomplete list of examples

• Amazon: One Night In Miami
• Disney: Soul
• Fox Searchlight: Nomadland
• Sony Pictures Classics: The Father

But Netflix has it all. However, greed could undermine them. They need to pick a Best Picture frontrunner, a support, and films to laser focus on one category.

Whichever of Mank/Hillbilly Elegy/Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is the perfect combination of critical praise AND accessibility AND Academy friendliness should be put into frontrunner status. This should be announced as the focus of Netflix’s campaigning especially.

From there comes the laser focus. This is where the campaigns for Delroy Lindo and Vanessa Kirby come in. Don’t campaign for the entirety of Da 5 Bloods and ESPECIALLY Pieces of A Woman*, they are nowhere near Best Picture capable. Maybe if you want to be more than one nomination go for a screenplay nod for Da 5 Bloods and cinematography for Pieces of a woman. But focus and brevity is what these non-primary campaigns needs.

So my question is – where in this tier list does The Trial of the Chicago 7 fit? Well, we know it isn’t Netflix’s frontrunner. Even with M/HE/MRBB unseen, it is more than likely that one of those will be significantly better. Of the aforementioned triangle of factors, it has accessibility and probably Academy appeal, true, but I don’t know if it has the sauce to be a main contender.

My hot take is that Netflix should keep Trial as a less central option, maybe get Baron Cohen and the screenplay in. Promote it by all means and if Academy voters love it, centralise it more, but I’d hate to see the equivalent of The Irishman getting no Oscars because Netflix wasted time dicking around with The Two Popes.

You have the pieces, set up a fucking checkmate while you can.

For Your Consideration:

Best Picture: Wolfwalkers

Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers

[Cordelia Joined: Jul 15th, 2018 Topics: 37 Posts: 941 View Predictions]

#1203740425

I think comparing the Trial of the Chicago 74 to Green Book doesn’t scan. If anything, this years Green Book is going to be Hillbilly Elegy.

• Politically controversial based on source material
• Also populist mainstream friendly material
• A likely winner of a Supporting acting category
• Will get some brutal thinkpieces From critics
• Will benefit from the backlash to the backlash a lot

 

For Your Consideration:

Best Picture: Wolfwalkers

Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers

[Cordelia Joined: Jul 15th, 2018 Topics: 37 Posts: 941 View Predictions]

#1203739819

If Lindo misses, it’s going to be because Netflix will not put Da 5 Bloods as a priority, not because of anything else.

So many great performances are going to be thrown to the wayside because Netflix has so many films and only so much (admittedly a lot of) promotional capability.

For Your Consideration:

Best Picture: Wolfwalkers

Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers

[Cordelia Joined: Jul 15th, 2018 Topics: 37 Posts: 941 View Predictions]

#1203738280

wolfali wrote:

Variety’s updated their top 15 predictions for Best Actress : 1. Michelle Pfeiffer 2. Vanessa Kirby 3. Frances McDormand 4. Viola Davis 5. Jennifer Hudson 6. Kate Winslet 7. Andra Day 8. Carey Mulligan 9. Sophia Loren 10. Amy Adams 11. Jessie Buckley 12. Rachel Brosnahan 13. Rashida Jones 14. Julia Garner 15. Julianne Moore https://variety.com/feature/2021-oscars-best-actress-predictions-1234769627/

Michelle Pfeiffer at the top? That’s confidence! I’m not sure about that though, however we’ll see soon enough.

For Your Consideration:

Best Picture: Wolfwalkers

Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers

[Cordelia Joined: Jul 15th, 2018 Topics: 37 Posts: 941 View Predictions]

#1203738227

Do we know if Netflix is going to do any premiere events (digital or otherwise) for Mank/Hillbilly Elegy/Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom? They’re skipping the festival circuit, so I wonder if they’re just going to coast on reviews or if they’re going to a more complex reveal strategy.

For Your Consideration:

Best Picture: Wolfwalkers

Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers

[Cordelia Joined: Jul 15th, 2018 Topics: 37 Posts: 941 View Predictions]

#1203737023

Honey wrote:

Chalamet stans are nowhere near as annoying as the Gerwig stans.

They’re often the same people.

 

For Your Consideration:

Best Picture: Wolfwalkers

Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers

[Cordelia Joined: Jul 15th, 2018 Topics: 37 Posts: 941 View Predictions]

#1203737021

I think I will justify this thread’s existence by asking what the rest of the nominees will be, because that’s a lot more unstable and fascinating.

Yeah, Soul is probably going to win, but we still had threads for Actress open last year even though everyone knew who was winning that.

For Your Consideration:

Best Picture: Wolfwalkers

Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers

Reply

[Cordelia Joined: Jul 15th, 2018 Topics: 37 Posts: 941 View Predictions]

#1203735880

Regarding Never Rarely Sometimes Always, I think that has a decent pathway to a screenplay nomination. Some big Original Screenplay contenders just got shuffled, and the film is acclaimed enough that I could see critics awards momentum converting to the main awards.

Hoster1 wrote:

I mean Apple is inevitably getting it’s first Oscar nom this year. Wolfwalkers is practically a lock.

Let’s fucking goooooo. Wolfwalkers is the film I’m stanning this season.

For Your Consideration:

Best Picture: Wolfwalkers

Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers

[Cordelia Joined: Jul 15th, 2018 Topics: 37 Posts: 941 View Predictions]

#1203733175

The Trial of Chicago 7 will get a push from Netflix no matter what, it’s just a question how much. However, how much it gets pushed is dependant on how Mank, Hillbilly Elegy, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom go. Depending on how the others go, it could either be a The Two Popes situation wherein it gets strong pushes but misses Best Picture, or make it in BP as one of the pillars.

Admittedly, I don’t think Netflix is quite in the situation they were last year. They will likely top last year’s Best Picture by getting 3 nominations in that category. There is also a lot less competition, with the strategy from the other studios and distributors being to push one (1) film – Fox Searchlight is likely putting it all on Nomadland, Disney’s leaving Soul undelayed, Amazon’s got One Night In Miami*, and WB is probably just managing Tenet and Dune.

Netflix, meanwhile, has a veritable garden of films to pick and choose from. They just need to play their cards right.

*Is this the first big shot Amazon’s had at a non-documentary/international category Oscar in a long time? When was the last?

For Your Consideration:

Best Picture: Wolfwalkers

Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers

[Cordelia Joined: Jul 15th, 2018 Topics: 37 Posts: 941 View Predictions]

#1203731006

Hayden wrote:

I think Wes will make the deadline… I think… maybe…….. hopefully…… If the director race wasn’t so weird this year I would probably write her off, but Regina King legit has a chance of being nominated. Also, I don’t think Howard or Villeneuve are anywhere near locks. Howard might be seen as a little stale, and Dune might… not be great.

Howard I had there because he’s an established long term director, and I have a gut feeling Hillbilly could pull a Green Book.

Villeneuve I am less confident about – I am not confident in Dune. I put him there though because the Director category tends to have at least one flashy big budget blockbuster. Granted, what a film like that even means in 2020 is different. I am willing to remove him if another director surges or Dune flops.

I only have Howard and Villeneuve in my top 5 because of a lack of competition. The only locks I have are Zhao and Fincher.

For Your Consideration:

Best Picture: Wolfwalkers

Best Animated Feature: Wolfwalkers