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.
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Before I get to that though, I want to explain my
methodology a bit. There are many, many awards given out before the Oscars. I
don't use them all for my predictions. Some precursors are better than others.
I don't bother with the ones that aren't very indicative of where the Oscars
will go.
Some the other awards I don't use:
Critics Awards - Critics are essentially useless. There are too
many different critics groups giving out awards. They vary wildly in winners
and nominees, if they even bother to announce nominees. The Critics’ Choice
Awards tries to combine all the citrics groups into a single event. That
ceremony has been far too inconsistent over the years. Categories change,
split, or disappear far often. Bigger picture though, critical consensus
doesn't match the industry consensus very often. A movie (say, Boyhood)
gobbling up critical awards gives the false impression that it's an Oscar
favorite, when it often can be something else (Birdman, in this
example), that takes home the Oscar.
The National Board of Review - This group only hands out
wins, not nominations, which also isn't very helpful for how I do my
examinations.
Satellite Awards - I spent a lot of time in the past trying to
determine if I could pull any useful information from the Satellite Awards.
Ultimately, they weren't consistent enough as predictors nor popular enough to
be considered influencers.
Gotham and Independent Spirit Awards - While the profile of
these awards has gone up, they only look at a subset of the eligible films
(independent or low-budget films). The only value to them is in the negative
(i.e. if a movie is nominated for but doesn't win the Gotham award, it has no
hope at the Oscar). That information can be inferred from other sources though,
making the indie awards redundant.
What awards do I trust then? I'm glad you asked. For
each category, I'll be including a glossary of all the precursor awards that
matter to it, but it's basically the Golden Globes, the BAFTA Awards,
and the assorted guild awards. The Golden Globes are too visible to
ignore. They aren't greatly predictive, but their influence is hard to ignore
(Many would argue that Meryl Streep's speech at the Globes for the 2016 awards
powered her to an Oscar nomination a few weeks later for Florence Foster
Jenkins). The BAFTA Awards are about as thorough as the Oscars in terms of
matching categories and have, especially in recent years, taken steps that
match the Oscar results more often. The guilds are a great reflection of how
the branches will vote. For example, who knows Sound Mixing better than the
Sound Mixers guild? Many voters belong to both the guilds and the Academy of
Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences, so that's helpful. Also, all these awards
list their nominees, not just the winners. That's useful, because you know what
a movie won against. If a film wins the BAFTA for Costume Design but none of
the other BAFTA nominees are nominated for the Oscar, it doesn't tell me very
much about what will win the Oscar. None of these awards are perfect.
Nothing could’ve predicted the Ex Machina win for Visual Effects for
2015. However, you'll get more right than wrong by reading the award tea leaves
beforehand.
I only look back 20 years for most awards. So
much change happens in the Oscar voting and membership over time that the
returns diminish the further back you go. 20 seems like a good place to stop.
Finally, you should be able to figure this out on
your own, but when I refer to a year, I am speaking of the year being awarded,
not necessarily when the ceremony took place. The films being awarded this year
are films released in 2018. In my book, that makes this the 2018 Oscars despite
it currently being 2019 right now. I find it easier to talk like this because
it's the films that matter the most.
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Glossary:
Eddie - American Cinema Editors Award
PGA - Producers Guild of America Award
BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television
Arts Awards
DGA - Director's Guild of America
The numbers for the precursor awards aren’t that
great. The BAFTA award is often a year behind the Oscar nominees. The presumed
Oscar frontrunner going into nomination morning is often snubbed for the Oscar
entirely. This is the group, after all, that somehow didn’t nominate Hoops
Dreams over two decades ago. What I can say is this. If there’s anything close
to a consensus among the precursor awards, then that movie tends to win.
Eddie - Edited Documentary Feature - Winner
DGA - Directed Documentary – Nominee
PGA -Documentary Feature - Nominee
BAFTA - Documentary Feature – Winner
The last 6 times an Oscar nominee won at least
two of the precursor awards, it went on to win the Oscar. Also, this year's DGA and PGA
winners (Three Identical Strangers and Won’t You Be My Neighbor respectively)
weren’t even nominated for the Oscar. More anecdotally, it’s hard to see how
anyone watches this breathtaking documentary and doesn’t vote for it. It makes
an impression like few movies I’ve ever seen. I’ll make the easy comparison and
point to Man on Wire’s win for 2008 to back me up.
Eddie - Edited Documentary Feature - Nominee
DGA - Directed Documentary – Nominee
PGA -Documentary Feature - Nominee
BAFTA - Documentary Feature – Nominee
With several presumed favorites inexplicably not
even nominated, it’s a two film race for the award this year. Free Solo has the
wins. RBG has the zeitgeist. It’s an inexact science, but I think On the Basis of Sex not even landing an acting nomination for Felicity Jones proves that the
RBG bandwagon is losing steam. Had this award been handed out in July, RBG would’ve
been a lock to win. Now, it feels like attention has moved to Free Solo.
The precursor support
isn’t there, but this does hit anyone who sees it pretty profoundly with its
unexpected depth. It touches on some of-the-moment topics, namely abuse. There’s
also the fact that this film was built off a decade of footage. I could see how
voters would want to award the long term commitment.
Hale County This Morning, This Evening
DGA - Directed Documentary – Nominee
I’ll admit that I haven’t
seen this one. My understanding though is that this is more of an art film (think,
Cameraperson) than Oscar voters tend to go for.
Of Fathers and Sons
I know nothing about this movie. It didn’t pop up
on any year-end list I read. I never stumbled onto a podcast that talked about
it. Documentary Feature isn’t an award that voters prioritize catching up on
everything. I assume this will be ignored by a healthy chunk of voters and
preferred by few of the ones who do see it.
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