THB #318: 15 Days To Oscar Voting/ 4 Wks To Oscar

“Who’s gonna win?”

That’s what I hear every day, many times a day. And I’m not even out there swimming the waters lately.

Well… easier to start with what films are not winning… Avatar: The Way of Water (which could still take home more Oscars than any other film), Tár, Triangle of Sadness, and Women Talking. Just not happening for them (even though they represent top choices for the year’s best films for me, personally).

Everything, Everywhere All At One is the film with the momentum of the season… but there are segments of Academy voters that just aren’t taking that ride. It is hard to maintain frontrunner status for long and the stupid-long Oscar season makes it all the more difficult. But this group is a refreshing one and maybe voters who aren’t 100% on the film will decide to come along for the ride (which happens every year, in the end).

The Banshees of Inisherin has got a lot of supporters, not a lot of detractors… but plenty of voters who still talk about not quite getting it. Searchlight did a great job rolling out The Boys through November, December, and January. Do they all have another gear that will push them through to victory in a couple of weeks?

Top Gun Maverick is the movie with which the most Academy voters have a relationship. People are nuts for this movie. If you hold onto the belief that the movie that most voters liked ends up winning, above all other considerations, you can’t bet against this film winning. But there remains this stat… there has not been a single case of one of the top 2 grossers amongst the Best Picture nominees winning since the expansion to 10 Best Picture nominees. This is the 14th year of this. Rules and records are made to be broken. But there has definitely been an anti-blockbuster bias in the final Oscar voting across these years.

Elvis is Elvis. I believe the television experience of the film is wildly different than the theatrical experience of the film, which doesn’t help. Baz Luhrmann is a singular stylist, as beloved in some quarters as he is hated in others.

All Quiet on the Western Front was a late riser, as simple as voters actually seeing the film, which I continue to argue is very much a reboot of 1917, which got beat out in the Oscar game by the hard charging story of Parasite and Director Bong. If we work from the belief - that most seem to - that the unofficial international branch of The Academy, about 25% of the vote now, pushed it in for a nomination, can Netflix bring along more of the domestic voters for the film. I think they could. But can it really win the big prize without nods for Director or any Acting (or Editing)?

The Fabelmans has its Spielbergian lovers. The question is, does it have many voters who will vote for it as their #2 or #3? Either you are all the way in or you are probably out.

So the answer is… I don’t know the answer.

Ya know what is even harder? Best Director.

Again, The Daniels have the momentum. And the rest of the field doesn’t leave a ton to get behind. Spielberg lifetime achievement award? Todd Field for being a genius… could have gotten the most branch votes, but we aren’t just talking amongst directors anymore, Toto. Östlund is a miracle just to be nominated. And Martin McDonagh will unfairly be written off by too many people are the guy who just photographed the beloved performances.

But The Daniels?

Two directing teams have won before. Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins won for West Side Story, which combined an already-stage-legend sharing the directing title with an already twice nominated Hollywood insider (Wise lost for editing Citizen Kane). The Coen Bros won for No Country for Old Men after they had both won 1 of the 4 Oscars for which they had been nominated before that film.

The Daniels prior feature film experience was making Swiss Army Man, a beloved cult film. “As the tide begins to wash the corpse away, Hank watches as its flatulence propels the corpse around on the surface of the water. Hank immediately mounts the corpse and rides it across the ocean like a jet ski, landing on a mainland shore but far from civilization.”