Buckle up Oscar prognosticators because we are in for a heckuva awards season over the next few months!
One week after Joker took the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and increased its Oscar chances for Best Picture, Taika Waititi’s JojoRabbit has emerged victorious in the People’s Choice Award in Toronto.
A very solid argument can be made that this particular designation is even more key in determining an eventual BP nod. Why? The odds are certainly in its favor. 10 out of the last 11 winners have received a nod in the big race come Oscar time. Four of them – 2008’s SlumdogMillionaire, 2010’s TheKing’sSpeech, 2013’s 12 Years a Slave and last year’s GreenBook – ended up winning BP.
What makes the Jojo victory surprising is the mixed critical reaction it’s garnered. The buzz for this award was centered on titles like Parasite (which was a runner-up), MarriageStory (another runner-up), and ABeautifulDayintheNeighborhood. Conventional wisdom in the last few days has been that Jojo is an on the bubble BP contender at best. The Toronto audience love shows that its admirers are passionate. And that might be enough to overcome the naysayers.
There is no doubt that this is exactly the kind of prize Jojo needed to keep its Oscar viability alive. And now Jojo and Joker have more in common than their alphabetical proximity. They’re contenders.
Welcome to my first edition of my weekly Oscar predictions where I’ll be ranking my top 25 Best Picture possibilities and 15 contenders in the directing, acting, and screenplay categories!
The dawn of my rankings coincides with the start of film festival season as Venice is in full swing with Telluride and Toronto on deck. Noah Baumbach’s MarriageStory has already screened in Italy and solidified its status as a serious contender in numerous races. There’s a whole bunch of movies premiering in the coming days so expect the picture to become a wee bit clearer. That said, I’ve learned a lot of things from years of past predicting when it comes to this time of the year:
Movies thought to be contenders will fail to live up to their buzz
Movies will be pushed back to 2020 and render them ineligible
Leading actor and actress candidates will be moved to supporting and vice versa
Screenplays considered Adapted will become Original and vice versa
Sleepers not currently on the radar will rise up… think last year’s Best Picture winner GreenBook
With all those caveats, let’s get to it! And expect updates every Thursday on the blog…
We’ve arrived at the biggest contest of all in my inaugural Oscar predictions for 2019 – Best Picture! If you missed my first takes on director and the acting categories, you can read them right here:
As a reminder, Picture is the only race where the number of nominees can fluctuate anywhere from 5 to 10. In recent years, the magic number is normally 9. However, there were 8 movies up in 2018. My initial late August projections last year yielded three of the eventual 8: BlacKkKlansman, AStarIsBorn, and Roma. Three other flicks nominated were mentioned in my other possibilities: BlackPanther, TheFavourite, and Vice. Interestingly, eventual winner GreenBook wasn’t quite on my radar screen at that time.
I’ll go with nine for the time being. The multitude of film festivals starting Thursday and over the coming weeks will shape all races tremendously. My first ranked predictions in the top 6 categories will start this Thursday and be updated weekly.
Let’s get to it!
EARLYOSCARPREDICTIONS: BESTPICTURE
1917
Bombshell
TheFarewell
TheIrishman
LittleWomen
MarriageStory
OnceUponaTimeinHollywood
Parasite
TheReport
OtherPossibilities:
ABeautifulDayintheNeighborhood
AdAstra
AHiddenLife
Avengers: Endgame
DarkWaters
FordvFerrari
TheGoldfinch
Harriet
JojoRabbit
Joker
JustMercy
TheLaundromat
TheLighthouse
PainandGlory
Rocketman
TheTwoPopes
And there you have it! Expect a whole bunch of Oscar Watch posts stemming from Toronto, Telluride, Venice, and New York in the near future…
Continuing with my initial Oscar predictions for the 2019 season, we arrive at Best Supporting Actor! If you happened to miss Supporting Actress, you can find it here:
As mentioned in the previous posts, these are the pre-festival projections where there’s a whole lot of guesswork involved. However, my five performers that I called out in my initial 2018 predictions yielded a strong three of the eventual five nominees: Adam Driver in BlacKkKlansman, Sam Elliot in AStarIsBorn, and Sam Rockwell in Vice. In the ten other possibilities, I did name nominee Richard E. Grant in CanYouEverForgiveMe? The only actor I didn’t list was eventual winner Mahershala Ali for GreenBook.
A couple of quick notes: Brad Pitt is likely a shoo-in for a nod. There seems to be a question as to whether Tom Hanks will be classified as lead or supporting for his role as Mr. Rogers in ABeautifulDayintheNeighborhood. I’m listing him as a possibility for both categories until it’s official.
GreenBook does represent DrivingMissDaisy in reverse with its story. Like that 1989 film, it also has a Best Picture Oscar and an unexpected one at that. This isn’t in the top-tier of movies to receive that honor, but it is an often effective and very well-acted tale of an unlikely friendship.
Viggo Mortensen is Tony “Lip” Vallelonga, a bouncer at the famed Copacabana in New York City circa 1962. The club is closing for renovations over the holidays. Hungry for work (and literally hungry all the time), he accepts a job as chauffeur for notable concert pianist Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali). Doctor Shirley lives above another Big Apple landmark – Carnegie Hall.
This union of an unrefined Italian-American and erudite African-American brings them to the Deep South. The era often puts the boss in Colored Only hotels and the employee in nicer ones. The title refers to an actual book which instructed black travelers where they could stay.
Tony and Shirley are real life figures as well. As portrayed by Mortensen and Ali, the actors form a genuine chemistry. The eight week tour is scheduled to end just before Christmas and Tony is determined to make it home for the holiday with his wife (Linda Cardellini) and large brood. Shirley is a loner with loose connections to family. In this sense, the plot actually resembles Planes, Trains, andAutomobiles – albeit with less comedic overtones.
GreenBook is directed by Peter Farrelly, who’s only known for material meant to make you laugh (DumbandDumber and There’sSomethingAboutMary are the best of them). There are light moments, especially in the first half. The screenplay grows gradually more serious as the duo’s trek takes them to Alabama for the finale and the racist traditions become more pronounced.
This picture doesn’t break any new ground with its subject matter. It’s more of an amiable concentration on this alliance with two fine performers playing them. Those looking for something more weighty might be disappointed, but I felt the leads cause this to be a ride worth taking.
Taraji P. Henson and Sam Rockwell headline true life drama TheBestofEnemies, out this Friday. Set in 1971, the film casts Henson as a civil rights activist tasked with co-chairing a community meeting with Rockwell’s KKK leader. Robin Bissell directs with a supporting cast including Babou Ceesay, Anne Heche, Wes Bentley, and Bruce McGill.
Enemies hopes to bring in a similar audience that caused GreenBook to nearly make $90 million domestically. However, this doesn’t have Oscar buzz and while its two leads are certainly highly respected, neither can open a movie.
Considering that, I see $10 million as too high a bar for this. Mid single digits is more likely.
TheBestofEnemies opening weekend prediction: $5.9 million
It was an evening in which the Academy was generous with their selections – so much so that all eight Best Picture nominees took at least one gold statue. It was also a night where many of the viewers (including me) may have pondered, “Maybe we don’t need a host after all…”
As far as the Oscars go, the ceremony moved rather briskly with a focus on the categories and minimal filler. The telecast saved the surprises for the end portion and they were fairly significant.
I went 14 for 21 in my picks. The big winner would have to be GreenBook, which took Best Picture, Supporting Actor (Mahershala Ali), and Original Screenplay. Its win in the top race was a bit unexpected as Roma had front-runner status. Alfonso Cuaron did win for his direction and the Mexican drama emerged victorious as Foreign Language Film and for its Cinematography.
The acting races went as planned until the last one. Rami Malek (BohemianRhapsody), Regina King (IfBealeStreetCouldTalk), and Ali won. Actress was another story as Glenn Close (TheWife), after taking multiple precursors, lost to Olivia Colman’s work in TheFavourite. Her speech was probably the funniest and most genuine of the evening.
It was a good night all around for Rhapsody, which also took Editing and both Sound races. Same for BlackPanther, which was honored for Production Design, Costume Design, and Score.
Other winners:
Adapted Screenplay – BlacKkKlansman, marking Spike Lee’s first competitive Oscar victory
As mentioned, I didn’t miss having a host one bit, but Melissa McCarthy would be fine by me if she accepted next year.
In an awards show where musical performances can often be forgettable, the duet between Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga was fantastic. The Queen opening was a pleasure to witness as well.
2018 definitely proved itself to be a year where voters had no clear favorite to sweep anything. The wealth was spread.
And that’s my take! Keep an eye on this here blog for many posts to come guesstimating on the next Oscars!
