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
CAS -
Cinema Audio Society Awards
Golden Reel
- Motion Picture Sound Editors Award
(In
Order of Likelihood)
1. 1917
BAFTA -
Sound - Winner
BAFTA -
Sound - Nominee
CAS - Sound
Mixing - Winner
3. Joker
BAFTA -
Sound - Nominee
CAS - Sound
Mixing - Nominee
4. Ad Astra
CAS - Sound
Mixing - Nominee
The Sound awards have burned me the last
few years, because voters are a little wild here. Half the time (10 of the last
20 years) they just award both Sound Editing and Mixing to the same movie, even
when it doesn’t make much sense. Other years, they follow the “Bullets and
Broadway” principal. Basically, that means they give Sound Mixing to the musical
movie and Sound Editing to the war movie. Even looking back after the fact, it’s hard to
know what motivated voters to split the awards or not in a given year, which makes the
prognosticating that much harder.
For what it’s worth, the Cinema Audio
Society has at least nominated 19 of the last 20 Oscar winners for Sound
Mixing. The BAFTA have also nominated 19 of 20. The lone CAS blemish was
leaving off Whiplash. The BAFTA miss was Dreamgirls. Combined, the winner of
either the CAS or BAFTA awards have won the Oscar 15 of the last 20 years. All
5 of the other years, the Oscar winner was at least nominated by both of them.
Finally, the last 4 times that the Sound
Mixing Oscar winner wasn’t also nominated for Sound Editing, it was for a
musical movie (Ray, Dreamgirls, Les Miserables, Whiplash). There are no movies
like that this year.
This all helps a lot. Once Upon a Time
in Hollywood is right out. I’m giving Ad Astra the slightest chance for an
upset because space sounds are a wildcard. I just don’t see voters giving this
award to Joaquin Phoenix dancing on the steps to Gary Glitter. It does
technically have the profile of unexpected winners from the past though with
CAS, BAFTA, and Sound Editing nominations.
I think it’s a coin toss between 1917
and Ford v Ferrari. I’m going with 1917 because it’s the more legitimate Best
Picture threat, it’s the more recent release, and the BAFTA win has more
historical value than the CAS win. The fact that 1917 didn’t get a CAS
nomination though, is really concerning. I’ll be swaying on this decision until
the last second. One thing I’ll call now is that this feels like a year when
Sound Mixing and Sound Editing will go to the same movie. The nominees in both
categories are too similar and I don’t trust the voters to have nuanced assessments
of the differences.
(In
Order of Likelihood)
1. 1917
BAFTA -
Sound - Winner
Golden Reel
- Dialogue/ADR - Winner
Golden Reel
- Effects/Foley - Nominee
2. Ford
v Ferrari
BAFTA -
Sound - Nominee
Golden Reel
- Dialogue/ADR - Nominee
Golden Reel
- Effects/Foley - Winner
3. Joker
BAFTA -
Sound - Nominee
Golden Reel
- Dialogue/ADR - Nominee
Golden Reel
- Effects/Foley - Nominee
Golden Reel
- Music - Nominee
BAFTA -
Sound - Nominee
Golden Reel
- Effects/Foley - Nominee
5. Once
Upon a Time in Hollywood
Golden Reel
- Dialogue/ADR - Nominee
Golden Reel
- Effects/Foley - Nominee
Golden Reel
- Music - Nominee
The Golden Reels are decent predictors of Oscar
love for Sound Editing (especially if you factor out their indifference to Lord
of the Rings 15+ years ago). 14 of the last 20 Sound Editing Oscar winners also
won at least one Golden Reel. All 20 winners were at least nominated for a
Golden Reel. The BAFTA Sound award is unsurprisingly less reliable. BAFTA only
has one award, and it combines both Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. Logically, half the time they'd be more swayed by the Sound Mixing when they hand out the award, making it less reliable as a Sound Editing predictor. Anyway,
it’s matched 10 of the last 20 Oscar winners and nominated 16 of the last 20
Oscar winners, proving that it’s a bit more reliable as a Sound Mixing
predictor.
What's cools is that 7 of the last 8 times a
movie won both a Golden Reel and the BAFTA sound award, it also won the Sound
Editing Oscar. The only exception is when Slumdog Millionaire won the Foreign
Sound Editing Golden Reel and the BAFTA award then lost to The Dark Knight. In
hindsight though, that one seems pretty obvious.
Nothing about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
screams “Sound Editing winner”. Unless it’s part of some crazy Oscar sweep,
this isn’t happening. A Star Wars movie has somehow never won a Sound Editing Oscar.
The Rise of Skywalker doesn’t seem like the movie to change that. Again, Joker
has all the right precursor nominations to think it has a chance at this. It
just doesn’t look like any past Sound Editing winner since maybe The Dark
Knight, and even that’s a stretch, despite both featuring the Joker.
Again, I have it down to 1917 and Ford v
Ferrari. For many of the same reasons as I said earlier, I’ll go with 1917 to
win. War movies have a much better history here than car movies. Dunkirk beat
Baby Driver in 2017. Drive lost in 2011. Those are the only driving-based
nominees* since Speed actually won all the way back in 1994. Meanwhile, Saving
Private Ryan, U-571, Pearl Harbor, Letters to Iwo Jima, The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty, and the aforementioned Dunkirk have all won it in that same time
span.
*I suppose you could count 2015 winner Mad Max: Fury Road too.
*I suppose you could count 2015 winner Mad Max: Fury Road too.
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