THB #609: 19 Weeks To The Os-Scares!

Os-Scare!

We are now 19 weeks until Oscar night. And this season is still as wet and messy as a newborn baby. People talk about paths to 270 in the Presidential election… this award season has a lot of potential paths in front of it right now.

Look at Gold Derby about now and as much as half of their Top 10 group predictions for Best Picture will not be nominated for Best Picture. I mean… a laugher. Normally, a group of modestly insightful writers would do better in August. This year, it’s a challenge.

To start with, if you look at that Gold Derby list (really, you don’t have to), they are posturing that only 3 of the 10 nominees with do $30 million or more at the box office. This has happened once in the expansion era… in 2020, in the middle of COVID. None of the movies made even $10 million domestically that year (and change).

Also, there are a lot of truly great directors this season, some who have been nominated in the past… but only Ridley Scott really counts as a superstar director, which is to say that his name draws broad national attention before you even get to the film or its stars, with a real chance at a nomination. No Nolan, Spielberg, Scorsese, Cameron, no 3 Amigos (Cuarón/Del Toro/Iñárritu), no Coens, no Ron Howard… not even a Greta Gerwig.

I did something a little like this a month ago…. but a month has passed and I have seen almost all the festival films now… and I am not ready to make lists until a couple of more screenings… so…

Anora is a wonderful movie… and carries huge challenges to be nominated, much less to be the #1 pick to win Best Picture at this point. Neon could succeed in mainstreaming it, which would change its current status. But it’s a challenge. If you were one of those who actually wanted to see Judy Holliday getting the ol’ Arnold Palmer in every direction from Bill Holden in Born Yesterday, you will love the movie. If that notion offends, you may not be as comfortable. And I am always surprised by the number of people who the word, “fuck,” still offends when used a lot.

Speaking of sex, Babygirl is a really interesting movie. Nicole Kidman has never been better in anything. And the fact that she gets botox on camera is shocking and amazing and strips the audience of any “why does she look like she’s had botox” questions, even though it fits her character so perfectly. Halina Reijn’s movie is, ultimately, not about sex at all, but about power… not unlike Anora or Nightbitch. Perhaps the biggest challenge as an awards player is that the film strips bare any illusions about how we see ourselves and what we hide… but the answers remain ambiguous. That is, depending on the audience, the power and the weakness of the film.

Netflix’s Emilia Perez is another wonderful, but challenging movie. Jacques Audiard is a master, but his work upsets people and challenges people and even with a mainstream TV star and a major action star in the film, the level of accessibility for some audiences will be work for the Netflix crew every step of the way. This may actually be a movie that benefits greatly from streaming, if people are compelled to watch it more than once.

The challenges for The Brutalist and The Nickel Boys become obvious when people who are not at festivals actually see the films. Both are more art projects than mainstream commercial cinema. That doesn’t disqualify them. It doesn’t make them bad in any way. But it raises the hurdles significantly.

Conclave is, for me, the most overrated film of the season. It’s not like it stinks… but the ending kind of does… not because of its politics but because of its ham-fistedness. But even before you get to the Shyamalan-by-SVU’s-3rd-Act ending, the whole effort feels like a double-length episode of Columbo in Cassocks. I mean, what a cast! From Fiennes to Castellitto, yay! But it is so… well… basic. Watching it is like watching Edward Berger desperately looking for moments where he can do something interesting, if just to distract us from the the next candidate getting disqualified, over and over again.

With all respect to Sing Sing, it came out. In July. Did you hear about it?

Blitz is a movie that feels like the best of Steve McQueen at times.

But even the positive reviews show a restraint because the film is so episodic and not story focused. There is a through-line, of the little boy and his mother - Saoirse Ronan - desperately wanting him back with her. But McQueen, one of our greatest film artists, has and on-again/off-again relationship with brutality and as many as dead bodies as we experience in this film, there is a certain degree to which it feels like McQueen didn’t want to go too far. And the odds will be hurt by the lack of a full theatrical release plan.

You’ve read me, I assume, on September 5. I am a huge fan. Paramount faces the big challenge of a late start, right in the heat of the wave of invitations to see everything there is in the game. The play is, first, Academy members over 60. They need to grab every older Academy and SAG member they can and get them into theaters together. The more older members see the film, the more likely the nominations. And then, from there, you chase wins. But first, this is a late entry without big names involved… it’s a fight.

I still consider A Complete Unknown the frontrunner for Best Picture. That said, Searchlight also has Nightbitch coming and it is a superstar-in-waiting for female audiences. Thing is, a lot of men feel the things that Amy Adams’ “Mother” feels in the film these days. Sometimes, we are the ones stuck with the kid(s). And seniors also must have some of that feeling about everyone around them seeming to forget the pasisons and power that we once took for granted. Marielle Heller brings her signature style of the blurring of emotion to the work. The film kinda got punched in the nose at Toronto… but with so many smaller films in play, audiences can raise it to the contender ranks… if there is enough time and focus.

What is A Real Pain? Real funny. Real uncomfortable. Real Jesse Eisenberg. I adore Jesse. This is a writer/director/actor gig and it shines. But even with Kieran Culkin bouncing like an emotional and comedic pinball, is it a Best Picture movie? Magic Kieran-Ball says, “Probably not… maybe Actor and/or Screenplay.”

Almodóvar and Salles are in the room with 2 wonderful movies. The Room Next Door is the first English-language film from Almodóvar, getting the advanatge of Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore. It is hard to imagine Tilda not getting nominated for this very dry, but very passionate turn, though some people don’t see how hard the work is here. Overall, it may be too wordy for its Best Picture prospects. And Walter Salles is back for the first time in a dozen years with I’m Still Here, a family drama about being a family of truth-tellers in a nation whose government is showing no respect for that choice. My truth is, if it was in English, it would be a Best Picture candidate, easily. In Portuguese, traction outside of the International race will be hard to find. It’s the kind of movie that will play well on a TV, but the demand for focus makes it better in a theater… and will enough voters see it that way?

I like The Piano Lesson more than the critics I read coming out of the festivals in September. It is a true ensemble. The cast is tremendous, but in what is challenging for award season, no one stands out singularly….not even Sam Jackson. Everyone is really good. The themes about legacy and when to move on from the injustices of the past (even as many linger) is very much of the moment, given the Middle East. So even though it is August Wilson period… it felt about questions we still all have to ask and challenges we have to face in this modern life. Does it have the kind of awards rocket fuel it needs to get where it is hoping to go? Probably not. But it is a fine entry in the ongoing project of putting all of August Wilson on film.

Saturday Night is not live. $728 per screen on over 2000 screens marked its awards death this weekend.

That’s 15 titles…

Here are 5 that have not been widely seen and could all end up in the Best Picture 10… or just a couple of them. I have seen at least one of them, but I am holding fire until I see it again.

A Complete Unknown
Gladiator II
Here
Mufasa: The Lion King
Wicked

And here are 5 more that could squeeze in at the bottom of the list of 10 if others threatening to lock down spots fail to do so…

Civil War - Alex Garland is a genius… but a small core of obsessives would have to get just enough votes.

Deadpool and Wolverine - My guess is that Gladiator II will take “the mainstream spot,” but this one is obviuously a problematic Best Picture movie - not dissimilar to the animated films and Will & Harper - but could, in a super serious season, provide unexpected relief.

Maria - Angelina has never been better. The film is more of an acting piece and less of a director’s style piece of Pablo Larrain. It’s a long shot for sure, but maybe it will hit a nerve.

The Outrun - Probably the movie with the best chance to leap up from this list. Tiny. Intimate. Painful. But Saoirse kills it and it’s just the kind of film that could find its way into the #3 and #4 slots on ballots and shock everyone, passing bigger “small” movies.

We Live In Time - I was really moved by this movie. It’s another variant on Nightbitch in a way, though not as fun. It’s the weepie of the year. Will that draw a crowd?

Still hanging out somewhere are The Substance, Challengers and Queer, but having seen two and not the third, which seems a likely Best Actor launchpad for Daniel Craig, I don’t see them as anything but marginal players. I really thought that The Substance could get momentum besides a possible nom for Demi Moore as Best Actress - and she is great - but somehow, it’s all gone sideways. It got tagged as “horror” and I see it as so much more than that. But it had a nice box office run for MUBI (#1 by more than 3x), so I am happy for them to have done that.

And with that, I am off to another screening. In a month, all the guessing about what the movies are will be done. And then, we can get completely insane trying to figure out what the movies will be.

Until tomorrow…