Predictions Friday: Here Comes Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

We are currently in the midst of film festival season, with the New York Film Festival kicking off this weekend and Savannah, Middleburg, Napa, Mill Valley, etc. all soon to come. Festival season will reach its climax in early November as the AFI Film Festival finishes things off. By then, we will have the total number of films eligible for awards just as the critics prepare themselves to hand out their prizes.

The Oscar race used to go:
Films are released to the public.
Some Oscar movies are introduced at the Toronto Film Festival.
Critics hand out their awards.
Oscar voters vote.

Now it goes:
Movies are curated by Oscar strategists and selected for critics and bloggers to see at Cannes, Sundance, Telluride, Toronto, Venice, AFI, etc.
Critics vote on the movies, and even the bloggers who cover the race vote on the movies.
A small selection of the presumed best films of the year are presented to the film industry.
The Oscar voters draw from the winnowed down selection.

Is it better? Is it worse? I don’t know. I started in 1999 and back then the public’s intrusion into the contest was not seen as a good thing. It seemed to cloud assessment of quality whenever box office was considered. But in the recent move away from moviegoer’s input, the films haven’t gotten more artistically daring so much as they’ve gotten more “Oscar-y,” as my 18 year-old would say.

I think of it like any kind of algorithm directed at helping users find what they like best and give it to them. The NPR app, for instance, decides what its listeners like and tailors the news to satisfy their individual interests. In many ways, the early part of the awards race has become just that — basing selections on what Academy voters might like as opposed to what is “best.” When a film like Inside Llewyn Davis fails to make the Best Picture cut, we know we are no longer really dealing with “best” but with “most liked by a certain type of person.” And so it goes.

For the most part, the Oscar race is not about serving the public — deciding what is best based on what ticket buyers believe is best. Now, the race is centered on a smaller, more elite group of people who decide what suits them best, often without the general public’s interest.

Some films, of course, have crossover interest like Gravity, The Martian, and Avatar. But a film like Brooklyn’s success with the Academy has nothing whatsoever to do with what audiences thought of it. It is 100% to do with a group of voters whose tastes are catered to every year with screeners, parties, and VIP screenings. No one really thinks much about what “the people” like best anymore.

Here are the release dates of upcoming movies we think might be in contention for the awards race. Films with an asterisk have already been seen, reviewed and positioned.

October 7
The Birth of a Nation*
The Girl on the Train

October 14
The Accountant
Certain Women*

October 21
American Pastoral*
Moonlight*

November 4
Hacksaw Ridge*
Loving*
Bleed for This*

November 11
Arrival*
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
Elle*

November 18
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Manchester by the Sea*
Nocturnal Animals*

November 23
Allied
Rules Don’t Apply

December 2
Jackie*

December 9
Miss Sloane
La La Land*

December 16
Collateral Beauty
Neruda*

December 21
Passengers

December 23
A Monster Calls*
Silence

December 25
Fences

December 28
Paterson*
Gold
20th Century Women*
Toni Erdmann*

And somewhere in there, for a limited release, will be Ben Affleck’s Live by Night.

We are looking at a very small number of films that have not yet been seen, and an even smaller list of films that won’t be seen by the time the AFI Fest comes to an end.

Over at Indiewire, Anne Thompson currently has these films ranked and predicted. The frontrunners she has seen. Some of the contenders and long shots she has seen. Here is how she lays it out:

Frontrunners:
“Arrival” (Paramount)
“La La Land” (Lionsgate)
“Manchester by the Sea” (Amazon, Roadside Attractions)
“Moonlight” (A24)
“Sully” (Warner Bros.)

Contenders:
“20th Century Women” (A24)
“Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk” (Sony)
“Fences” (Paramount)
“The Jungle Book” (Disney)
“Lion” (Weinstein Co.)
“Loving” (Focus Features)
“A Monster Calls” (Focus Features)
“Rules Don’t Apply” (New Regency/Fox)
“Silence” (Paramount)

Long Shots:
“Allied” (Paramount)
“The Birth of a Nation” (Fox Searchlight)
“Elle” (Sony Pictures Classics)
“Eye in the Sky” (Bleecker Street)
“The Founder” (Weinstein Co.)
“Maggie’s Plan” (Sony Pictures Classics)
“Nocturnal Animals” (Focus Features)
“Queen of Katwe”(Disney)
“Passengers” (Sony)
“Patriot’s Day” (CBS Films/Lionsgate)

You can see how our list has narrowed over the past few months. Anne’s list seems pretty solid to me in terms of frontrunners, knowing that Arrival is going to be an interesting experiment with Oscar voters. On the one hand, how can they ignore something THAT spectacular? On the other hand, Scott Feinberg believes it is such a long shot, he has it way down on his list.

What I’m wondering is whether this year will be a year of smaller films or if it will be a year where box office figures in.

Here are our current predictions. The biggest change for me is that I have more faith in Denzel Washington’s Fences now that I’ve seen the trailer than I did before. The asterisk indicates films I’ve seen.

Best Picture
La La Land*
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
Fences
Silence
Moonlight*
Arrival*
Loving*
Sully*
Manchester by the Sea*
Lion*

Next tier:
20th Century Women*
Jackie
Live by Night
Passengers
Hidden Figures
A Monster Calls

Best Director
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Martin Scorsese, Silence
Ang Lee, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight

Next tier
Denis Villeneuve, Arrival
Jeff Nichols, Loving
Denzel Washington, Fences
Clint Eastwood, Sully
Pablo Larrain, Jackie

Best Actor
Denzel Washington, Fences
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Dev Patel, Lion
Joel Edgerton, Loving
Tom Hanks, Sully

Next tier:
Michael Keaton, The Founder
Joe Alwyn, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge/Silence
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Miles Teller, Bleed for This

Best Actress
Emma Stone, La La Land
Viola Davis, Fences (unless supporting)
Natalie Portman, Jackie
Annette Bening, 20th Century Women
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

Next tier:
Amy Adams, Arrival
Ruth Negga, Loving
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Rebecca Hall, Christine
Rooney Mara, Una

Supporting Actor
Liam Neeson, Silence
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea
Hugh Grant, Florence Foster Jenkins
Aaron Eckhart, Bleed for This

Supporting Actress:
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Greta Gerwig, 20th Century Women
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

Original Screenplay
La La Land
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight (if not adapted)
Loving
20th Century Women

Adapted Screenplay
Fences
Silence
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
Sully
Arrival

Cinematography
La La Land
Hail Caesar
Arrival
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
Silence

Production Design
La La Land
Silence
Hail Caesar
Silence
Passengers

Documentary Feature
The 13th
OJ Simpson: Made in America
Weiner
Life Animated
The Ivory Game

And so we press on, with more and more to come as the New York Film Festival unfurls.