Kyle Buchanan declares Spotlight frontrunner out of Toronto

Two years ago, Kyle Buchanan saw 12 Years a Slave and declared it the Oscar frontrunner. From that point on, the film mostly had a target on its back but more from the critics than anyone else. Most who saw Spotlight in Telluride agreed that it was the one movie no one had anything negative to say about (The Artist, Argo, The King’s Speech) and really seemed to have the solid stuff a nominee needs to get into the major categories. But I’d say Buchanan is the first to declare it the actual “frontrunner,” a label I’m sure the film would rather not have if they actually want to win. The second it gets proclaimed as such, the rumblings begin. Is it really that good? It’s not that good. Really? That’s going to win Best Picture? The thing about 12 Years is that it almost didn’t win. It wouldn’t have been Buchanan’s fault then, nor would it be his fault now, for proclaiming it in the position many already thought it was anyway. It’s just the nature of the Oscar race. Buchanan is too smart to declare a movie no one has seen the “frontrunner.” It can’t be, not logically. You’ll see people predicting movies like that to win – last year and this year but truly there is no THERE there until people have seen the movie. That’s why Buchanan’s declaration holds water.

Says Buchanan:
[quote_colored name=”” icon_quote=”no”]Well, today we got a Best Picture front-runner, but it’s the furthest thing from noisy — in fact, this modest drama is probably the quietest film to lead the Oscar pack since The Artist. The stealth pacesetter I’m talking about is Spotlight (starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, and Rachel McAdams), which debuted at the Toronto Film Festival today after acclaimed bows at Venice and Telluride. There are still a handful of movies left to screen this season that could make a convincing case for Best Picture, but they’ll now have to steal the spotlight from … well, you know.[/quote_colored]

I think he’s referring to The Revenant here.  He goes on to say:

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More prizes will surely be bestowed once Spotlight comes out in November. Boy, is this movie good. It’s not a showy, bombastic picture — it has that in common with the journalists it portrays, who are mostly concerned with ducking their heads down and doing the work — but it’s so assured, so deft, and so satisfying that I think it’s destined to go far with Oscar voters of just about every demographic. The Academy has made daring picks for Best Picture over the past two years, anointing the tough, arty 12 Years a Slave and the wordy Birdman, but I think voters are yearning to return to something conventional, and Spotlight’s got a down-the-middle, perfectly executed pitch they’ll find hard to resist. It also has the sort of social significance that Oscar voters like from their Best Picture winner: You can pat your back for putting it on your ballot.

As a riveting procedural story, I’ve seen Spotlight compared to films like Zodiac and All the President’s Men, but the more instructive example for Oscar voters will be Argo, another well-engineered, fact-based drama that eventually became the Academy’s consensus pick for Best Picture. Plenty of Oscar voters will give Spotlight their No. 1 spot, but this audience-pleaser is sure to collect just about everybody else’s No. 2 votes, and that may be crucial in a year where several of the biggest movies yet to screen, like Joy and The Revenant, come from some of our most polarizing auteurs.

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A couple of things worth noting. 1) procedurals don’t win Best Picture, hardly ever. Even the best of them, All the President’s Men lost to Rocky. Zodiac was snubbed completely. 2) Argo didn’t win because of the Iran stuff. It won because of the combination of Ben Affleck’s star on the rise and the funny Hollywood stuff. Let’s face it, the Iran stuff was awkward and clumsy.  Spotlight is not funny. It is not insider Hollywood and it doesn’t have Ben Affleck at the helm. It is similar to Argo in that it is understated and the film “everyone liked” at Telluride. Argo, though, is uplifting and positive at the end. Spotlight is more subtle, more contemplative and certainly not formidable, I don’t think, enough to withstand Oscar season hype if it goes in as the frontrunner.

The reason is simple. People saw Spotlight at Telluride and Toronto with a limited amount of buzz. It was the underdog going in, not the top heavy frontrunner. Once it takes that position, people almost immediately start looking for flaws and alternatives. Just look at Hillary Clinton.

12 Years a Slave became almost the enemy of film critics and didn’t win a single award from them. The film’s director, Steve McQueen, was routinely losing to Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity. They tied for the Producers Guild. Cuaron won the Directors Guild and American Hustle won the SAG. 12 Years became the rare film to take Best Picture by only winning 1/2 of the PGA heading into the race. Has that ever happened? No. The last time a film won Best Picture without taking the DGA or the SAG?  Braveheart did it after onlly winning the Eddie and the WGA. Crash had only won the SAG. That made 12 Years winning a long shot. Some of the best predictors in the Oscar business were predicting Gravity by the end.

No one can say for sure whether naming 12 Years the frontrunner in September made it take such a hard fall with resentful critics. After all, despite it coming in as the best reviewed film of the year there was the whole “white guilt” factor involved. Such is not the case with Spotlight. Still, that’s a lot of pressure. The film could be like The Artist and just slide on in home, winning critics awards and the major guilds and Oscar. It could have no competition, like The Artist. But remember, there is a big difference between those two movies. The Artist was that quirky charmer that could melt anyone’s heart. Spotlight is a very very good film along the lines of Michael Mann’s The Insider but it’s not the kind of film that makes someone turn on their heart light like The Artist. And there is no little dog running around doing tricks either.

It’s hard to disagree with Buchanan right now, though. There was no better received film at Telluride or Toronto as Spotlight, which emerged as almost everyone’s favorite. That’s nothing to sneeze at. Still, the old timer in me puckers a little when I hear that word so early. It always makes me worry. There are many movies still to come. History tells us that they won’t have enough time to develop that kind of consensus. The consensus for Spotlight is already building. It started at Telluride and continued at Toronto and is building as we speak. Even if people are thinking The Revenant might steal the prize at the last minute, a consensus vote accumulates over months and months of word of mouth, discussions at parties, and that unnamable magic that happens between people when one idea starts to spread.

Pictures from the premiere of Spotlight.