Predictions Friday: No Direction Home

Days until Oscar voting begins: 19. A lot can happen in 19 days. This is the most fertile period for a movie to make or break its chances to win. This is when the controversies bubble up, the think pieces start flooding in, the tribes begin taking sides. It all has to happen right now, in this agonizingly long waiting period. The moment final Oscar ballots are turned in is the moment all of us can breathe a sigh of relief. But this is the exact moment for hopes and dreads: who will rise and who will fall in the next 19 days.

Today I will try to predict what can’t be predicted, what can’t be known, what eludes us all. And that is the unknowable Best Picture race. Last year, Moonlight’s surprise win not only freaked out the pundits who had asserted with certainty beyond a reasonable doubt that La La Land could not lose, but in a sense it freaked out the Oscar strategists too.

We know, for instance, that the two arguably most influential of those strategists are both on Lady Bird. That’s why there are so many well placed New York Times stories about Greta Gerwig, about the film. But it’s also why we aren’t seeing a major blitz, either with ads or anything else, the way you did with La La Land which was given a massive push to drive home what people already assumed was the frontrunner. That those two are on Lady Bird is the biggest reason I think it will win. They have a strategy and that strategy appears to be the Moonlight/Spotlight strategy: low key, look like the honorable good guys in a world gone cray cray. I think it’s working, though there aren’t enough significant wins for Lady Bird to know for sure. The other studios can’t afford to try that tactic — they can only push to see if they can win.

We know that the three top films in the race for Best Picture appear to be, or seem to be, or might be the same three: The Shape of Water, Get Out, and Lady Bird, with an outside shot for Three Billboards and Dunkirk — i.e., the DGA five. What we don’t know yet, what we haven’t known for months, is whether or not one movie will win on the first round of voting or if voting will last multiple rounds (and which film might take advantage from that). We don’t know how they’re going to rank the movies so we can’t know which film would benefit from such a thing. Of course, we aren’t totally flying blind. You want the movie that has the most crossover appeal as your predicted winner. Which film has the least controversy whatsoever? There’s only two, I think: Get Out and Lady Bird.

Over at Gold Derby, the majority of the pundits have The Shape of Water winning, so that, by default, makes it the frontrunner. Some have Three Billboards pulling an Argo (which it absolutely could) to win without a directing nomination. Just a few have Get Out and a few more still have Lady Bird. Both of those are in the underdog position, according to experts there.

PGA — roughly 8,000 on a preferential ballot went for The Shape of Water
SAG — roughly 150,000 voters on a plurality ballot went for Three Billboards
ACE — numbers undetermined (a few thousand maybe) — went for Dunkirk (which beat The Shape of Water) and I, Tonya (which beat Three Billboards, Get Out and Lady Bird)
ADG — went for The Shape of Water.

The WGA factor: Although Moonlight didn’t win PGA/DGA/SAG, it did win the WGA, besting Manchester by the Sea and La La Land. That showed it was pulling in a consensus vote late in the game. Since screenplay and Best Picture are so closely linked now with the preferential ballot, perhaps the WGA will become the most important guild for determining Best Picture, even over the DGA. The problem is that so many scripts have been deemed ineligible, which makes looking at their history difficult, as films like Birdman and The King’s Speech won Best Picture despite not being eligible for the Writers Guild. If Lady Bird is to win Best Picture, it’s going to have to win the WGA and perhaps the Oscar for screenplay, beating out an array of very tough competitors. Without Three Billboards there, the picture is somewhat muddied but if The Shape of Water beats Lady Bird and Get Out that shows it is building momentum and a gathering consensus. If Get Out wins, I would think it has a shot to win Best Picture and Original Screenplay.

What’s interesting to note: if Lady Bird, The Shape of Water, or Three Billboards win Best Picture, it will be the first time since 2004 that a film featuring a woman nominated for Best Actress took the top prize. No Best Picture has won since Million Dollar Baby that even had a lead actress nominated, which was also the last time actress and film both won.

There is nothing more to say about Best Picture at this point, except that we just don’t know until we see what happens on Oscar night.

Let’s do this as best as we can do it:

Best Picture
The Shape of Water <—frontrunner – precedent for a win would be Braveheart (won Globe director, no SAG stat)
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri <—frontrunner – precedent for a win would be Crash, Shakespeare in Love, Argo (won SAG ensemble + no director nomination)
Lady Bird <—frontrunner – precedent for a win would be Moonlight (only one Globe win heading in)
Get Out <—frontrunner – precedent for a win: would have to set one
Dunkirk <—dark horse – precedent for a win would be Bravheart
Phantom Thread
Call Me By Your Name
Darkest Hour
The Post

Best Actor
Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour <—frontrunner
Timothee Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Denzel Washington, Roman Israel, Esq.
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread

Best Actress
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards <—frontrunner
Soairse Ronan, Lady Bird <—if Lady Bird surges
Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water <—in a  sweep
Margot Robbie, I Tonya
Meryl Streep, The Post

Supporting Actor
Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards <—frontrunner
Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project  <—remains a threat
Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World <—you just never know
Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards
Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water

Supporting Actress
Alison Janney, I Tonya <—frontrunner
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird <—getting a push
Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread <—if they want to “give the movie something”
Octavia Spencer, Shape of Water
Mary J. Blige, Mudbound

Best Director
Guillermo Del Toro, Shape of Water <—frontrunner pending DGA
Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk <—remains a threat
Jordan Peele, Get Out <—could make history
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread

Original Screenplay
The Shape of Water, Guillermo Del Toro, Vanessa Taylor <— if this is the frontrunner for BP it should win this too, most likely
Get Out, Jordan Peele <—could also be this
Lady Bird <—or this
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Martin McDonagh <—or this
The Big Sick, Emily V. Gordon,  Kumail Nanjiani <—this would be a shocker

Adapted Screenplay
Call Me By Your Name, James Ivory <—frontruner
Mudbound, Dee Rees, Virgil Williams <—challenger
The Disaster Artist, Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber
Molly’s Game, Aaron Sorkin
Logan, Scott Frank, James Mangold, Michael Green

Editing
Dunkirk <—frontrunner
The Shape of Water <—in a sweep
I, Tonya <—if women continue to prove their mettle
Baby Driver
Three Billboards

Cinematography
Blade Runner 2049 <—frontrunner
Mudbound <—but Rachel Morrison could make history
Dunkirk <—might be this
Shape of Water <—in a sweep
Darkest Hour

Production Design
Shape of Water <—frontrunner
Blade Runner 2049 <—challenger
Dunkirk
Beauty and the Beast
Darkest Hour

Sound Mixing
Dunkirk <—frontrunner
Baby Driver
The Shape of Water
Blade Runner 2049
The Last Jedi

Sound Editing
Dunkirk <—frontrunner
Baby Drver
The Shape of Water
Blade Runner 2049
Star Wars

Costume Design
Phantom Thread <—frontrunner
Beauty and the Beast
The Shape of Water
Darkest Hour
Victoria and Abdul

Original Score
The Shape of Water <—frontrunner
Dunkirk
Three Billboards
Phantom Thread
The Last Jedi

Original Song 
Remember Me from Coco <—frontrunner
Mighty River from Mudbound <—but Mary J. Blige
Mystery Of Love from Call Me by Your Name
This Is Me from The Greatest Showman
Stand Up for Something, Marshall

Foreign Language Feature
A Fantastic Woman <—frontrunner
Loveless
The Square
On Body and Soul
The Insult

Documentary Feature
Faces Places <—frontrunner
Last Men in Aleppo
Strong Island
Icarus
Abbacus Too Small to Jail

Animated feature
Coco <—frontrunner
The Breadwinner
Loving Vincent
Boss Baby
Ferdinand

Visual Effects
War for the Planet of the Apes <—frontrunner
Dunkirk
Blade Runner 2049
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Kong: Skull Island

That’s all I got for you now, Oscarwatchers. We’ll see you tomorrow night for the DGA awards.