The Oscars
are coming up yet again. The guilds, Globes, BAFTAs, and critics have all made
their picks. Now it's my turn to figure out what it all means with my
multi-part Oscar predictions.
I'm going
to go through each of the Oscar categories, tell you what has been nominated
and won elsewhere, and order the nominees from who I think is most to least
likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean
I'll be informed. Wish me luck.
---
Previously:
Glossary:
BAFTA -
British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards
Golden
Globe - Award presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association
SAG -
Screen Actors Guild Award
Both the Golden
Globes and SAG have nominated the last 20 Oscar winners for their awards. The
BAFTA award is lagging a little behind, but much of that has to do with films
getting different release dates in the U.S. and Great Britain. One of the
Golden Globe winners has also won the Oscars 19 of the last 20 years. The only
exception was Halle Berry for Monster’s Ball. The SAG award is slightly
behind, only matching 16 of the last 20 Oscar winners. Again, the BAFTA award
is behind that with 13/20 partly due to schedule wonkiness. All 20 Oscar
winners have won at least one of the three precursor awards.
Glenn Close
(The
Wife)
Golden
Globes - Lead Actress Drama - Winner
SAG - Lead
Actress - Winner
BAFTA -
Lead Actress - Nominee
The 2-2 split
between the BAFTA, SAG, and two Golden Globes doesn’t happen often: just three
times in the last 20 years. And the distribution is split pretty evenly*. This
year, both Close and Colman have given great speeches that have endeared them
to voters. I like Close to win though. The Drama Globe/SAG Award configuration
is historically stronger than Colman’s and Close has an historically strong
“it’s her time” narrative**.
*2007 – Julie
Cristie (Away From Her) vs. Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose). Cristie won
the Drama Globe and SAG. Cotillard won the Musical/Comedy Globe and BAFTa. Cotillard
went home with the Oscar.
2002 – Nicole
Kidman (The Hours) vs. Renee Zellweger (Chicago). Kidman won the Drama
Globe and BAFTA. Zellweger won the Comedy/Musical Globe and SAG. Kidman
went home with the Oscar.
1998 – Cate
Blanchett (Elizabeth) vs. Gwenyth Paltrow (Shakespeare in Love). Blanchett
won the Drama Globe and BAFTA. Paltrow won the Comedy/Musical Globe and SAG. Paltrow
went home with the Oscar.
**If she
loses, she will be alone as the actress with the most Oscar nominations without
a win (7).
Olivia
Colman (The
Favourite)
Golden
Globes - Lead Actress Comedy - Winner
SAG - Lead
Actress - Nominee
BAFTA -
Lead Actress - Winner
Colman has been a
pure delight throughout the award season, so I wouldn’t begrudge a win for her.
There just isn’t as much working in her favor. She has the weaker pair of
precursor wins. She’s new to most Academy voters and has no meta narrative
working for her. And, she doesn’t dominate her movie the way that Close does in
The Wife. While the numbers suggest it’s a close race, I really don’t
see how Cloman edges ahead of Close down the stretch.
Lady Gaga (A
Star Is Born)
Golden Globes -
Lead Actress Drama - Nominee
SAG - Lead Actress
- Nominee
BAFTA - Lead
Actress - Nominee
At some point,
everyone just agreed that Lady Gaga would win Best Original Song and that would
be enough.
Melissa
McCarthy (Can
You Ever Forgive Me?)
Golden
Globes - Lead Actress Drama - Nominee
SAG - Lead
Actress - Nominee
BAFTA -
Lead Actress - Nominee
More of a critical
favorite when all was said and done.
Yalitza
Aparicio (Roma)
If you read between
the lines of all this talk of how Aparicio gives a great performance despite
being an untrained actress, what people are really saying is “Alfonso Cuarón
sure is a great director for getting something so good out of someone who
doesn’t know what they’re doing”*. In other words, too much de facto credit is
going to Cuarón. There won’t be enough left over for Aparicio to win.
*I don’t
know how much I agree with this sentiment, but this is my cynical read of the
situation.
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