2025 Oscar Predictions: Telling the Truth Is Dangerous Business

Greetings, Oscarwatchers. Yes, a story dropped about me in the Hollywood Reporter. No, I’m not going to read it. You can read my response here at my Substack if you’re interested. Instead, I’d like to write about telling the truth and why it matters.

I’ve heard that a publicist interviewed by THR spoke his or her own mind when asked about me. This publicist said he feels my brand has become “toxic,” and indicated that he doesn’t plan to place ads on the site this year. Whoever said that actually believes this is a virtuous response. But in a sense, some publicists (not all) see money as a way to influence bloggers, critics, and journalists to say what they want us to say. But they’d be wrong about that. That kind of attitude has destroyed the Oscar-blogging industry, buying favors from people like me to keep us in line.

I also heard that one of them said they would not invite me to screenings. As if my fellow bloggers like Tom O’Neil and Pete Hammond would scream in terror and run out of the room fuming. OH NO, NOT HER! But also, if they think this way about me, imagine what they think about you. You pay money to see their movies but unless you agree with them, then they don’t want you watching their movies. But we already kind of knew that, didn’t we?

And that’s fine. I get it. They don’t want to be associated with outsiders or dissidents. But my brand has always been firebrand. When I first started my site in 1999, the internet was a wide-open playing field. Back then, I was fueled by boundless excitement to create something that had never existed before. It was a new frontier, and people like me were like the intrepid homesteaders who ventured westward to stake a claim, build our settlements, and seek whatever fortunes or hardships fate may offer.

Better yet, on the internet, our ambitions didn’t involve displacing or defeating anyone else, because there was no online before us. That doesn’t mean there were no causalities offline. Amazon quickly put the big brick-and-mortar bookstores out of business. Netflix would replace Blockbuster. And so it goes. Adapt or die.

I started my site because virtually the only publications that handled Oscars publicity were the two daily trade papers, Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. Then once a year, as Oscar Night drew night, magazines like Premiere and Entertainment Weekly would feature their in-house Oscar predictions. We would look forward to Dave Karger’s Oscar prognostications, and we tried to read the tea leaves based on which actors and actresses were put on the cover.

Back then, legitimate news journalists were respected and even feared because they told the truth—or at least it seemed that way. As a less serious subject, Oscar coverage never really took that route. Casual moviegoers didn’t have much interest about Oscar history, even about milestone years like 1941, when Citizen Kane lost to How Green Was My Valley. Most people I knew considered the Oscars bland and boring, a step down from the ostensibly highbrow greatness of sophisticated film criticism.

I came along and wanted to shake that up. Truth be told, that was the best thing about being my own boss. I could think and write whatever I wanted because I had no advertisers to answer to. Back then, the New York Times could tell its own truth, too, because it was so big it couldn’t be bought off. And boy am I ever glad I remained among the last remaining mom-and-pop sites online.

For a single mother like me who scrounged for change to put under my daughter’s pillow when she lost a tooth and worked as a janitor to make ends meet, when studio began buying ads, it was a very big deal. I was doing well financially for the first time in my life, and I could take care of my daughter the way I’d always dreamed of doing.

But that security came with a price. I felt obligated to be kind to my advertisers, protect them and do my best to advocate for their Oscar contenders each year. I’m proud to say, I didn’t completely destroy my credibility like others did and have done; I still told the truth as much as possible, but I pulled punches. My attitude wasn’t hypocritical, it was simply Hippocratic: “First, do no harm.”

Gradually but inevitably, as the studios bought off bloggers and consolidated the major Oscar sites, honest coverage was replaced with a well-oiled publicity machine. Even avid Oscar-watchers began to wonder: Were the movies in the mix each season really this good, or were the studios and their publicists really that powerful? You can think of it a bit like the movie Quiz Show. It’s not a crime, but it’s a little slippery.

To me, the trades these days seem lifeless. They have nothing new to write about. That’s why my two-word tweet ended up as a headline today. In utopias like ours, people who think differently ARE the story. Otherwise, everyone is in lockstep. Read one press release, or one column in the trades, and you’ve read them all.

There is no variation; most of them are de facto publicity sites for the studios. I have always tried to offer something different, but I promise you I’ve been around a long time…That’s no offense to them — it’s just that it’s all come full circle, back to where it was when I started. So if, in fact, I lose advertising money and access, it may be the greatest thing that ever happened, because I can finally tell things the way I see them. And who knows, maybe my site will become more popular than ever. Why? Because we all want the truth.

Here’s the truth: Hollywood has insulated itself from the rest of the country. Almost no one really likes to go to the movies anymore. Millions of others certainly can’t stand the Oscars. There is a reason for the ratings stall. The only way out of that mess is to tell the truth, and as you can see, almost no one can—those who can get the eyeballs because telling the truth is dangerous business.

The funny thing is, they think their brand would be toxic if associated with me, but they don’t realize their brand is already toxic to the majority of Americans. If they aren’t already they soon will be. No one will say so but the box office, the layoffs — this is not a healthy industry and much of that has to do with the climate of fear than has crippled honesty and truth.

Not to mention, siding with one political party and one ideology against everyone else. If you say to half the country you are no longer welcome in our restaurants, in our houses, at our parties or to watch our movies, how do you think that will work out for your business?

As I’ve been saying forever on this site, the only way to save Hollywood and the Oscars is to shatter the totalitarian control of the Left or the political machine that now seems to control everything. The movies and television shows are always on-message. There is no way out of it.

There is no dividing line between the Democratic Party and Hollywood now. “High-profile Academy members” are basically campaigning for the Democrats; otherwise, they could tolerate a host telling a joke about them on Oscar Night. But they can’t because it’s blasphemy. Lenny Bruce is rolling over in his grave, along with Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe. The powerful can crush a little site like mine, that’s the truth, and all for what? Clicks? Views? Power?

So, is your job as a press person, a journalist, or a blogger to protect and pamper the powerful — publicists and Academy members? That’s okay if it is. What is your value more broadly other than working in publicity?

All of the lessons I’ve learned in life have come from movies. And those movies used to be great. Broadcast News, Network, All the President’s Men, Almost Famous, The Insider – in them all is the same message: hold fast and true to your integrity and never sell out for money or popularity.

Today, this is the movie that’s top of mind.

Some of us have to be brave and start tearing down the wall and shaking things up. There is already an exciting counterculture outside the bubble of the Left. I can feel it. I’m looking forward to more of it.

They can’t take away my love of movies, my love of the Oscar game at its best. To quote Jerry Maguire, “I have lost my ability for bullshit.” He was punished but he got a life out of that. Now THAT is a movie. THAT is writing. THAT is truth.

So you might say humanizing or hanging out with or siding with or even voting for Trump or MAGA is demonic and not heroic, well, that’s your right. But look at what you’re participating in. I know what is worse and so do you.

I will say this much about some of those interviewed for the Hollywood Reporter piece: at least I have the courage to use my real name and stand behind my own opinions…

So, let’s get on to the movies.

Best Picture of the Year doesn’t mean what it used to mean. It actually used to have some heft to it. I just watched From Here to Eternity the other day for the first time and I thought, for its time it was groundbreaking. It wasn’t just the women who were, how shall we say, compromised, but it was that last bit, the bombing of Pearl Harbor. That is just a WOW. And that is what Best Pictures used to be — a WOW. They didn’t used to be a way to make the richest and most powerful people in the world feel better about themselves. They weren’t a magic mirror that said, “Who is the fairest of them all? YOU ARE.”

It was, instead, about the success of the film industry. Look at what we can do. Look at what we can make. That success was measured mostly by audiences. Jeff Wells told me a story about From Here to Eternity where people were lining up the block to see it without any publicity. “They can smell it,” is what they said. And it was true. We can smell movies that make us feel like we have to go see them.

Checking in with the Oscar Expert and the Brother Bro who are about as popular as anyone who covers the Oscars can get. With 54K subs on YouTube, it’s not exactly lighting the YouTube on fire but their fanbase is bigger than anyone else except the big sites like Film Threat, etc. Here are their latest predictions for Best Picture:

Keep in mind, almost none of these movies people have seen. They are being predicted because they are part of the Oscar factory. Publicists + bloggers and pundits = the consensus. That’s in place of audiences who could “smell it” and rushed out to see movies that people remember to this day. None of the movies in the Oscar race now — with very few exceptions — are movies people even know about, much less remember.

And it doesn’t even matter. All of it is moving to streaming anyway, which is likely where the Oscars are headed too and the whole industry can live out its days floating on a cloud, no ratings pressure, no box office pressure, no market pressure. Thus, the only thing that drives the Best Picture race is what people inside of this insular world think. What movies resonate with them? These guys are probably on target. Their lists will look, more or less, like everyone else’s. Not because they’re bought off by the studios (yet) but because that’s how the consensus works. It’s a hive mind.

In two weeks, shocking as that is to hear, we’ll have much more intel waiting for us, but just so you know, what happened last year has never happened in the era of the expanded ballot (from 2009 onward). It was a clean sweep, the kind we used to see back in the day. Oppenheimer had it all. It was everything Hollywood and the Oscars need to survive. Whether they get back to that this year or any other year remains an open question.

In general, when it comes to Best Picture, you should follow the actors, or the director.

The films that have been seen already that seem ear-marked for the Oscars include:

Greg Kwedar’s Sing Sing – is in theaters now but has enough support to be one of the contenders.
Denis Villeneuve’s Dune II, which far surpasses the original and should clean up in the techs.
Sean Baker’s Anora, Baker has been quietly making a name for himself and it looks like it’s finally time for him to be more broadly recognized as it’s won the Palme d’or.
Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez, blew the roof off the joint in Cannes

At the moment, these seem like safe bets, which leaves six slots open. We have no idea which of the upcoming films will fill those slots, we can only guess. Here are my guesses:

Conclave
Gladiator 2
Joker Folie a Deux
Wicked
Nickel Boys
A Complete Unknown

And then I’m wondering about:

Eden (probably among my most anticipated – if it’s good, it will get nominations)
A Real Pain (if Kieran Culkin is a frontrunner, this will be nominated in Best Picture)
Blitz (if it’s good, it should land a nod for Saoirse Ronan, at the very least)
Hard Truths (Mike Leigh is great with actors and rarely disappoints)
Queer (if Daniel Craig is a frontrunner for Best Actor, this will likely land in Best Picture)
Saturday Night (I don’t know what to make of this but it looks to me too soft to be a rightful telling of SNL back then but I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know).

And that, as they say, is that. If you see any ads on this site in the coming months from studios, you can be sure they’re honest brokers and aren’t behaving like the thought police or the mafia.

Thanks to my longtime readers who have reached out to me today. Thanks to all of those who have been coming here for over twenty years and have rolled with the punches.