The State of the Race: On the Hunt for Important Men Doing Important Things

The Oscar race could be flipped this year to feature films about important women doing important things, which would be highly significant in that it could mirror what’s happening, or might soon happen, in the Oval Office. Pixar’s Inside Out is here to represent on the animation side. Charlize Theron and her gang of feminist fugitives could dominate the effects genre films for the year, eclipsing Age of Ultron quite handily. Perhaps The Force Awakens will indeed feature a female at its center (not counting on it just yet). Finally, we have two films headed for the Best Picture race, Carol and Joy. Not to mention Suffragette, Freehold, Crimson Peak, and Brooklyn.

But let’s get real, shall we? You know as well as I do that Best Picture is dominated by male-driven movies MOST OF THE TIME. That’s why when looking over the upcoming slate of films it is easy to see the ones that scream Oscar versus the ones that don’t:

“Important men doing important things.”

Or

“Failed men attempting to do important things and failing.”

Or

“Men doing things.”

While there is a whole year of choices to come, film festivals and breakthrough movies no one has yet heard about, there is also the game of Oscar watching wherein people like me will start to make their list of hopefuls. It might be based on “prestige” or it might be based on highly praised films. But if you asked me right now to list ten movies I pick for Best Picture sight unseen I’d probably go with:

Steve Jobs
The Revenant
The Walk
Trumbo
Crimson Peak
Bridge of Spies
Carol
Mad Max: Fury Road
Brooklyn

The Oscar voters don’t pick ten, though. They pick five. The Academy then counts the votes and the accountants end up with between five and ten nominees. But you’re still talking about five choices for each voting member. That is when shit starts to get real and films are quickly dropped that might have had a shot with ten blanks to fill. With five you mostly land on “important/failed men doing/failing at important things.”

In other words, you might be looking at something more like this:

Steve Jobs
The Revenant
The Walk
Trumbo
Crimson Peak
Bridge of Spies
Carol
Mad Max: Fury Road
Brooklyn

In a year that America saw its first black president the Oscars saw its first Best Picture winner as a story about slavery as told from the black perspective, directed by a black man (though British, not African American).   We’re on the verge of potentially the first female president in America’s history. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t. Maybe it will impact the Oscar race. Maybe it won’t.  There is no reason to be hopeless about it all just yet, but keep in mind when pundits are making their lists of films that will get in you’re going to always be chasing the male-centric drama. Man in crisis. Man makes good.

Here is a list of upcoming films in the months ahead.

August
Ricki and the Flash (Meryl Streep)

September
A Walk in the Woods (Robert Redford, Nick Nolte)
Time out of Mind (Richard Gere)
Black Mass (Johnny Depp)
Pawn Sacrifice (Tobey Maguire)
Everest (Jake Gyllenhaal)
Sicario (Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro)

October
Freeheld (Ellen Page, Julianne Moore)
The Keeping Room (Sam Worthington, Olivia Wilde, Nicole Beharie, Hailee Steinfeld)
Legend (Tom Hardy)
The Walk (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender)
Crimson Peak (Jessica Chastain)
Bridge of Spies (Tom Hanks)
Suffragette (Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham-Carter, Meryl Streep, etc)

November
Trumbo (Bryan Cranston)
Brooklyn (Saoirse Ronan)
Midnight Special (Kirsten Dunst, Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton)
The Danish Girl (Eddie Redmayne)
The Martian (Matt Damon)
By the Sea (Brad and Angie)

December
In the Heart of the Sea (Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whishaw, Cillian Murphy, Chris Hemsworth, Jordi Molla, Benjamin Walker, Tom Holland)
The Lady in the Van (Maggie Smith)
Carol (Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara)
The Force Awakens
Concussion (Alec Baldwin, Will Smith)
The Revenant (Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Lukas Haas, Will Poulter, Domhnall Gleeson)
Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
Escobar (Benicio Del Toro)
Joy (Jennifer Lawrence)

Additionally, here are some other titles that don’t yet have release dates to keep in mind:

Money Monster  (dir. Jodie Foster) (written by son of Elia Kazan)
The Whole Truth  (dir. Courtney Hunt)
Diary of a Teenage Girl (dir. Marielle Heller)
The Second Mother (dir. Anna Muylaert)
Fresno (dir. Jamie Babbitt)
Hello, My Name Is Doris (Michael Showalter)

One thing to remember is that your Best Picture winner will ordinarily have to show up before October, preferably at Telluride or Toronto, most likely Telluride.  When last checked, passes to T Ride fest were sold out, faster than ever before. That’s mainly due to the fact that Best Picture has visited Telluride in the past four years.

Birdman
12 Years a Slave
Argo
The Artist

While two of these were seen BEFORE Telluride, no film seen after Telluride has won Best Picture since 2006’s The Departed, almost ten years ago.  Though it never FEELS like we’ve seen the winner by the time the fest closes, it simply turns out that way.

Fasten your seatbelts, Oscarwatchers.