THB #624: More 15 Weeks to Oscar - Updating!

It seems that we now have all the horses for the Oscar season in the gate with the screening of A Complete Unknown yesterday. Reviews of the film are embargoed until December 10. But the conversation was floating around social media today.

My Oscar take is that I still think the movie is the frontrunner this season…. but not as definitively as I expected. Its not a flaw of the film, but simply the nature of what the film is. It’s not looking to be a widely ranging piece of the culture of the time, as we came through the election and the murder of Kennedy… as Vietnam was in its early stages… as the Civil Rights movement took hold in Washington. It’s a film about a great, familiar artist who was steeped in traditions, but also couldn’t help but to break away into something new. It’s a film in which small steps forward can be seen as revolutionary.

Anyway… just going to run down the charts here...

BEST PICTURE

I’m breaking this down into 3 groups…

Fighting For The Win
A Complete Unknown
The Brutalist
Wicked

3 incredibly different movies. How will they play with Oscar voters? What kind of support will they get from the NY and LA Film Critics?

Wicked could well be left out of the critics groups, but it will probably be the #1 or #2 grosser of the entire group of nominees… which had been a problem for wannabe winners for 14 years until Oppenheimer broke that “rule” last year.

The Brutalist is likely to get a lot of critic love… but the scale of the movie makes it a longshot. Still, I see it as the frontrunner in the “film critics love” category this year, so I am showing it that deference. Emilia Pérez steps up into this slot next and may well push The Brutalist aside as the season’s critical darling. Only time - and a lot more people and voters seeing the films - will tell.

I still see A Complete Unknown as the most balanced movie with the widest range of appeal to the 10,000 Academy voters. Dylan is a worldwide thing. The music is a worldwide thing. And the story of an artist facing his own ambivalence about… well, everything… a worldwide thing.

Pushing The Frontrunners
Emilia Pérez
Anora

These two are the movies that could still catch the whirlwind. I expect both to be nominated, for Best Picture and in multiple other crafts categories, and to likely bring their directors along with nominations.

Likely To Be Nominated

To be nominated for Best Picture is an honor… for real.

The 3 spectacle movies now seem sure to get in. Conclave seems to have some kind of legitimate momentum, though I don’t see it as more than an entertainment for the life of me. And September 5, which was just rescheduled so it doesn’t have to compete in theaters for business before nomination voting closes, is a tremendous movie that has a long way to go… would be helped by the critics groups, but unlikely to get wins there.

Gladiator II
Dune: Part II
Nosferatu
Conclave
September 5

Still Threatening, From Some Distance
A Real Pain
Deadpool & Wolverine
I’m Still Here
Sing Sing
Nightbitch
Civil War

BEST DIRECTOR

Jacques Audiard
Sean Baker
Robert Eggers
James Mangold
Denis Villeneuve

It makes me very nervous to settle in these 5. Mangold and Villeneuve are the mainstream directors, however artistic. But for Audiard, Baker, and Eggers to all get in would feel revolutionary (even if it doesn’t include women or people of color).

Audiard is a veteran of 50 years… a master… a popular success internationally… a has never gotten an Oscar nomination, even after taking home awards from Cannes for 4 different films and wining Césars for 7.

Baker and Eggers are, without am unkind twist of nature, going to be central pieces in American film culture for decades to come. Both have very specific styles and interests… both are undeniably brilliant at expressing what they are trying to express, in text and subtext. I am thrilled to look forward to many more films from both of them.

Could Jon M. Chu get in? Yes. If Wicked becomes one of the two movies to beat for the win, he will push someone out. Or you could be reading a month of stories about how the movie got in and he did not. (And yes, he is a person of color.)

Could Brady Corbet get in? Yes. If The Brutalist becomes this year’s All Quiet on the Western Front and takes a place as the leader of the “arty” films this season, absolutely. His ascendance would likely push Baker or Eggers out… maybe Audiard. Welcome to the jungle.

The three female directors worth considering this year, but very unlikely to get there are Coralie Fargeat of The Substance, Halina Reijn of Babygirl, and Marielle Heller who adapted and directed Nightbitch. All passionate, unexpected, powerful examinations of being a woman in the current era. The 3 directors of color who are unlikely to make the list are the great Steve McQueen (Blitz) and newcomers RaMell Ross (Nickel Boys) and Malcolm Washington (The Piano Lesson). The first two offer up art more than easily-accessible commercial cinema and the last is working with a veteran ensemble of the highest level and never shows his inexperience.

There was a lot of great directorial work this season in movies that didn’t quite click with enough people to get them deep into this game. I am a great believer in Tim Fehlbaum and what he did in September 5 (along with his editor Hansjörg Weißbrich… who has a better chance at getting nominated)… but it’s a long hill in front of him and Paramount. I think Marielle Heller continues to deliver some of the best work of this generation of directors with an intimacy and subtle humor that doesn’t feel like high art. Pablo Larrain is a frickin’ genius. Period. I am not a huge fan of Better Man overall, buy Michael Gracey pulls off something that seems impossible. Jesse Eisenberg is a man on a mission. Luca Guadagnino’s work on Queer is some of his best. Walter Salles is back and still so good at bringing us into the souls of his characters in I’m Still Here. Anywhere Alex Garland wants to take me, I am going. Even Shawn Levy did work that I found as smart and clean and ambitious as you will find in commercial cinema. (Not quite George Miller… but George has a 23-year head start on him.)

BEST ACTOR

I believe that the 2 on top here will compete for the win… to the bitter end. And the other 7 will compete in diminishing likelihood to take the other 3 nominations. It is possible that The Brutalist will falter. It is also possible that it will get stronger and stronger as we go forward.