Okay… it seems like every season now starts with the phrase, “It’s gonna be a weird season.” Yeah… well… at some point we all will realize that Oscar has been marginalized, first by The Academy, and then, like a snowball gathering size as it rolls down the hill (does that actually happen in real life?), the problems expand and expand. Instead of slowing or even stopping or dare one suggest it, pushing the ball back to the top of the hill, we just continue with the momentum.
So… it’s gonna be a weird season.
Let’s be honest about the films that are now in the starting gate and the limited number of films that will land in the next 3 months. It feels a lot more like “Well, something has to be nominated,” more than “How can they all get in?”
It’s not that there are not great films that can and may well be nominated that do not fit the traditional expectations of an Oscar season.
Example… Emilia Pérez. I love the movie and I have loved Jacques Audiard’s work for 35 years, since I saw Baxter, which he co-wrote. But the man, through highly regarded films like The Beat That My Heart Skipped, A Prophet, Rust & Bone, and Palme d’Or winner Dheepan, has never seen an Oscar nomination. Zoe Saldana has been best known for her action movies. Selena Gomez became famous as a Disney girl who then turned co-star of the beloved streaming TV show, Only Murders In the Building. And Karla Sofía Gascón is a brand new name.
I believe that the movie will get nominated with another bunch of nominations to follow. I know that Netflix will bring its considerable passion and skill to the effort. But this is not your traditional slam dunk Oscar movie.
SLAM DUNKS
The only 2 “slam dunk” Oscar movies I see this season are 2 movies I haven’t seen: A Complete Unknown and Wicked. And Wicked has a lot of people very nervous. If it doesn’t do $400 million - $500 million worldwide by the time Oscar voting starts on January 8, it will take a lot of questioning in the media, no matter how good the film is, as every story will include the budget and the 2nd film due Thanksgiving 2025.
A Complete Unknown will have to be a lot less than the sum of its parts to not get in and right now, I would say it is the frontrunner to win Best Picture. Young Bob Dylan played by Timothée Chalamet, directed by the exceptionally capable James Mangold, written by Mangold and regular Scorsese contributor, Jay Cocks. Add a great supporting cast, both the actors and the musicians they portray. If there is an 800-pound gorilla in this race, this is it… even though it is a biopic.
But what the hell am I writing??? A biopic as the power movie of the season? I mean… Oppenheimer… but… again, a year later? It doesn’t really make me think differently, but even the lock of the season is making me nervous.
FILMS WITH OSCAR PEDIGREE
Gladiator II, Joker: Folie á Deux, and Dune: Part Two are sequels to Best Picture nominated films, the one BP winner being Gladiator… in 2000.
Blitz, Conclave, Here, Juror #2, and The Room Next Door (in alphabetical order) are from Steve McQueen, Edward Berger, Bob Zemeckis, Clint Eastwood, and Almodóvar.
Dune: Part Two came out in March and was very well received. Joker 2 comes out in 9 days. The rest will roll out - at least for award consideration - over the next 2 months.
I would assume that 4, maybe 5, of these 9 titles will make the Best Picture cut.
So we are looking at will likely be 5 or 6 of the 10 Best Picture nominees being titles that come to the field without traditional expectations…
… which doesn’t mean that 1 of those films will not end up winning Best Picture.
INTERESTING…
The 2 pedigree titles that I don’t have a strong handle on are:
Blitz - I love Steve McQueen’s work. I adore Saoirse Ronan (also great in The Outrun… look for it!) whose Brit accent in the trailer sounds very Leslie Manville. (Soirse is Irish.) The movie looks amazing in the trailer. but Apple decided to launch the film at the London Film Festival on October 9, then the New York Film Festival, then a theatrical on November 1, limited to 3 weeks max before putting it on the Streamer. It stinks of being a major Oscar player, but that doesn’t seem to be the way it is being platformed. So I don’t know.
Juror #2 - Clint Eastwood is still directing. His latest is from a first time screenwriter, Jonathan A. Abrams, and is about juror facing a moral dilemma on a high-profile murder trial. Sensational cast with Nicholas Hoult int he middle of it. Sounds more commercial than Oscar…. but one never knows, do one?
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