Predictions Friday a Day Early – Predicting an Anomaly

Year after year, we in the predicting business become accustomed to predicting things that rarely happen. We’re comfortable predicting them because we hope that the race is really going to be that predictable/unpredictable, or we predict them because we really don’t know. The most likely outcome for this year is a matching Picture and Director. We imagine them splitting because, more often than not, we see two movies that seem like frontrunners. This year is particularly difficult to predict which film will be that frontrunner that challenges the other frontrunner. How do we know they’re challenging each other? They both keep popping up with critics awards and other nominations. If there was to be a split this year, all signs point to Best Director going to George Miller for Mad Max, since he keeps winning critics awards. He’s also doing something unusual with his film. Mostly, the thing his film has going for it is that it’s a wow. A major directorial wow. The latest Gurus of Gold has not George Miller out front but instead Sir Ridley Scott for directing the crowd-pleasing hit of the year, the love letter to science and human ingenuity – The Martian. We’ve already mentioned how, in recent years, the Best Director prize has gone to the film that wins all of the techs, or a lot of them, like Gravity, like Life of Pi. Neither of those films won Best Picture.

The simplest way out of this quandary is to think: Well, George Miller and Ridley Scott will likely split the non-Tom McCarthy vote and either he will win or some outrageous person no one could ever predict in a million years might, like let’s say Lazlo Nemes for Son of Saul or even Inarritu for The Revenant — thus making Oscar history by winning two years in a row. But the Oscars almost always want Picture and Director to go together. Marshall Flores says “63 BP winners have also won Best Director. 63/87 ~= 72%.”  That’s not high 80s or 90s, of course, but it’s decent sized average.

I suspect that if Spotlight is winning Best Picture and there is no pre-ordained consensus around any director (as it did with Alfonso Cuaron in 2012) then it’s either, simply, Tom McCarthy’s win – or it’s someone we can’t predict, a long-shot surprise like Roman Polanski for The Pianist in 2002 which took Director, Actor and Adapted Screenplay is an 11th hour shocker. Chicago still took Best Picture that year. I’m also going to be stubborn and say what I usually say (sometimes I’m right, sometimes wrong) that if The Martian is going to take Best Director, beating both George Miller and Tom McCarthy? Well, The Martian is winning Best Picture, along with a host of other Oscars. It won’t be a small take, as Spotlight’s would be, winning just Picture, Screenplay, maybe Director, maybe Score. It will be a big sweep, where it wins Picture, Director, maybe Actor, maybe Screenplay, and a bunch of techs. Right now, I’m not sure I see it toppling Mad Max for the techs. But if it’s strong enough to win Director, by god, it’s winning Best Picture, even without any SAG nominations. This is, incidentally, why I’m NOT predicting it to win Director. I think Spotlight is winning Best Picture and probably McCarthy. But if not McCarthy, then Miller.

On the other hand, if Scott Feinberg, Anne Thompson and anyone else who talks to voters are still bullish on Ridley Scott, that makes me wonder what’s being said among Academy members behind the scenes.  Ridley Scott has already won the National Board of Review and been nominated for a Golden Globe and a Critics Choice Award. The Martian, Mad Max and Spotlight are all likely to get Producers Guild nominations, at the very least, very likely Directors Guild nominations, barring some freak occurrence. It will be interesting to see where the race heads in terms of Best Picture and Director, whether they split or not. In the past many years I’ve never seen anyone accurately predict a split except in 2012 (when Ben Affleck wasn’t nominated), and in 2013 when some people predicted the split between Cuaron and 12 Years a Slave. Many were still thinking Gravity would take both, probably because idiots like me made a good case that predicting splits is a harder thing to do than predicting non-splits.

All the same, we will be looking at the potential for a split once we get a better idea of where the race is heading, which we probably won’t know — say it with me now — until the Producers Guild makes its top choice. We’re pretty sure the SAG ensemble is going to Spotlight, so that’s one out of the way. The only other film that could challenge Spotlight at the SAG, I think, is The Big Short, which also threatens to become the dark horse juggernaut winner of the whole race. Just saying.

A few other things to note.

1. Generally speaking, the Screen Actors Guild five for Best Actor is usually one off, meaning one of the actors they chose is going to get left out at the Oscars. Not always, of course, but much of the time. I think Matt Damon could be the actor who gets in, but really it could be anyone. I do not know which actor will get left off.  The general rule is that the stronger the Best Picture nominee the better the chances, but then again, not always. So, for instance, last year Jake Gyllenhaal for Nightcrawler was replaced by Bradley Cooper for American Sniper because it was the stronger film overall heading into the race. The year before, Leonardo DiCaprio got in for Wolf of Wall Street bumping Forest Whitaker for The Butler. Of our Best Actor contenders right now, Johnny Depp and Eddie Redmayne do not have strong Best Picture contenders heading into the race, neither does Michael Fassbender, and the jury is still out on Trumbo. Really, in the SAG lineup you’re looking at Leonardo DiCaprio as the strongest contender for SAG and Oscar wins. When looking at who might replace any of them, the contenders who are in strong best picture contenders include Matt Damon for The Martian, Steve Carell for The Big Short. Spotlight, Mad Max, Carol and Room do not have any Best Actor contenders, which makes this a very unusual year. I’m going to predict Steve Carell and Matt Damon both get in.
2. Kristen Stewart won the Cesar and the New York Film Critics but did not earn either a SAG or a Golden Globe nomination. Only two actresses have been in this situation and gone on to an Oscar nomination — Marcia Gay Harden, who won for Pollock, and Shohreh Aghdashloo for House of Sand and Fog. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that Stewart could get in, but yeah, remains a long shot especially with a film that has no other nomination prospects and no real campaign support for Stewart.
3. Best Actor and Actress have a frontrunner, the supporting categories do not. Anyone can win.

Predictions as of today.

Best Picture

1. Spotlight
2. The Big Short
3. The Martian
4. Mad Max: Fury Road
5. Carol
6. The Revenant
7. Bridge of Spies
8. Room
9. Straight Outta Compton 
10. Beasts of No Nation
11. Inside Out
12. Brooklyn
13. Creed
14. Sicario
15. Trumbo

Best Actor

1. Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant
2. Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
3. Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
4. Steve Carell, The Big Short (or Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl)
5. Matt Damon, The Martian (or Johnny Depp, Black Mass)

Best Actress

1. Brie Larson, Room
2. Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn
3. Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
4. Cate Blanchett, Carol
5. Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl; Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years or Charlize Theron, Mad Max

Supporting Actor

1. Sylvester Stallone, Creed
2. Idris Elba, Beasts of No Nation
3. Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies
4. Christian Bale, The Big Short 
5. Jacob Tremblay, Room or Paul Dano, Love & Mercy 
   Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight or Michael Keaton, Spotlight (too competitive for both to get in) or  or Michael Shannon, 99 Homes

Supporting Actress

1. Rooney Mara, Carol
2. Alicia Vikander, Ex Machina
3. Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
4. Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs
5. Helen Mirren, Trumbo; Kristen Stewart, Clouds of Sils Maria

Director

1. George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road
2. Ridley Scott, The Martian
3. Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
4. Adam McKay, The Big Short
5. Alejandro G. Inarritu, The Revenant 
6. Todd Haynes, Carol
7. Steven Spielberg, Bridge of Spies
8. F. Gary Grey, Straight Outta Compton or Cary Fukunaga, Beasts of No Nation
9. Lenny Abrahamson, Room
10. Jay Roach, Trumbo

Original Screenplay

1. Spotlight, Tom McCarthy, Josh Singer
2. Inside Out, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley, Pete Docter 
3. Bridge of Spies, Matt Charman, the Coens 
4. Trainwreck, Amy Schumer
5. The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino
   
6. Ex Machina, Alex Garland

Adapted Screenplay 

1. Adam McKay, The Big Short
2. Phyllis Nagy, Carol
3. The Martian, Drew Godard
4. Steve Jobs, Aaron Sorkin
5. Room, Emma Donoghue
6. Anomalisa, Charlie Kaufman 
7. Brooklyn, Nick Hornby 
8. The Revenant, Alejandro G. Inarritu,  Mark L. Smith
9. Beasts of No Nation, Cary Fukunaga

Editing

1. Mad Max: Fury Road 
2. The Big Short
3. The Revenant 
4. The Martian 
5. Spotlight 
6. Bridge of Spies
7. Creed
8. Hateful Eight

Cinematography

1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. Carol
3. The Revenant
4. Sicario
5. The Martian
6. The Hateful Eight 
7. Creed 
8. The Danish Girl 

Production Design

1. Mad Max: Fury Road 
2. Carol
3. The Revenant 
4. The Danish Girl
5. Bridge of Spies

Sound Mixing

1. Mad Max: Fury Road 
2. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
3. The Revenant
4. The Hateful Eight
5. Jurassic World
6. Love & Mercy

Sound Editing

1. Mad Max: Fury Road 
2. The Revenant
3. Inside Out 
4. The Martian
5. Jurassic World

Costume Design

1. Carol
2. Cinderella
3. The Danish Girl
4. Brooklyn
5. Mad Max: Fury Road
6. Crimson Peak

Original Score

1. Carol
2. Mad Max: Fury Road
3. Spotlight
4. Inside Out 
5. The Hateful Eight
6. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Foreign Language Feature

1. Son of Saul
2. Mustang
3. Labyrinth of Lies
4. Viva
5. Theeb

Documentary Feature

1. The Look of Silence
2. Amy
3. He Named Me Malala
4. Best of Enemies
5. Listen to Me Marlon
6. Cartel Land 
7. Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief 
8. Heart of a Dog 
9. Where to Invade Next
10. What Happened, Miss Simone?
11. The Hunting Ground

Animated feature

1. Inside Out
2. Anomalisa
3. The Peanuts Movie 
4. The Good Dinosaur
5. Shaun the Sheep

Visual Effects

1. Mad Max: Fury Road
2. The Force Awakens
3. The Walk 
4. The Martian
5. Jurassic World

Wishing you all a Happy Holiday and a Happy New Year.