There are a variety of approaches for watching the Oscar race. Quick history: back in 1999, when I built my website, there were Oscar predictions done in major newspapers and magazines, Premiere, Entertainment Weekly and Los Angeles Times MOSTLY. There was Tom O’Neil’s Gold Derby, which predicted winners the way you predict winners of, say, a horse race. My aim in starting my site was to figure out why certain films were in the Oscar race and others weren’t, with the burning question: why did Citizen Kane, considered to be the greatest film of all time, not win Best Picture?
Sixteen years later I know the answer to that and every other question I had because I realized that, for the most part, the Oscar race is a rigged game. That is, it is controlled mostly by studios and publicists. Moves are either found or made to be Oscar contenders and that helps their box office and can make careers for those involved.
The Oscar race now is extremely competitive because people like me, and Jeff Wells and David Poland and Kris Tapley and Anne Thompson and Pete Hammond and Scott Feinberg (to name just a few) are in the game in so much as we can help get people to see movies they might not ordinarily see. Just a whiff of “buzz” on a film can sometimes mean the difference in ticket sales, particularly for independents or tough to get made movies. We can bring attention to films and other contenders. We can work with publicists if we think the movie is good enough to try and launch it into the Oscar race. But that is where our “power” stops. You can lead a horse to water…or a whore to culture but you can’t make her drink.
Where it gets a little sticky is when that hype blurs into predicting. I am currently predicting Ava DuVernay for Best Director over Angelina Jolie over at Gold Derby because I see them having an equal (sight unseen) chance for a nomination. In DuVernay’s case she would make history. In Jolie’s case, she comes armed with Roger Deakins as her cinematographer and the Coens on script and a World War II male driven cast – it seems, on paper, to be an Oscar “frontrunner.” In my corner, I look at the story of Martin Luther King’s march for the voting rights act and a potentially bravura performance by David Oyelowo and I think, that one SEEMS like it COULD be a frontrunner. But this is pure speculation and guess work based on subject matter, history, the need to diversify these very white, very male awards. In short, there really is no THERE there. Not yet.
But it is always smarter, and more responsible, to reserve the word “frontrunner” for actual frontrunners, not films that no one yet has any idea how they will land. Did no one learn the lesson from Nine? Many pundits will predict “sight unseen” movies but few will call them frontrunners because that is misleading. A frontrunner means a film that people are talking about as a potential awards contender, not what publicists and studios will hope will be contenders. There is a difference.
Feinberg’s “frontrunners” piece has this headline, “FEINBERG FORECAST: As New York Film Fest Wraps, Only a Few Question Marks Remain.” Only a few question marks? When a lot of films have yet to be screened either for press, critics or pundits?
for Best Picture right now are:
BEST PICTURE
Frontrunners
Interstellar (Paramount) — NOT BEEN SEEN by press, not reviewed…
Unbroken (Universal) — NOT BEEN SEEN by press, not reviewed…
Boyhood (IFC Films)
The Imitation Game (The Weinstein Co.)
The Theory of Everything (Focus Features)
American Sniper (Warner Bros.) — NOT BEEN SEEN by press, not reviewed…
Whiplash (Sony Pictures Classics)
Birdman (Fox Searchlight)
Foxcatcher (Sony Pictures Classics)
Citizenfour (RADiUS-TWC, Participant Media, HBO) NEW — DOCUMENTARY
Major Threats
Gone Girl (20th Century Fox)
Selma (Paramount) NOT BEEN SEEN by press, not reviewed…
Into the Woods (Disney) NOT BEEN SEEN by press, not reviewed…
Chef (Open Road Films)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Fox Searchlight)
Wild (Fox Searchlight)
Possibilities
Inherent Vice (Warner Bros.)
A Most Violent Year (A24) NOT BEEN SEEN by press, not reviewed…
Fury (Sony)
Mr. Turner (Sony Pictures Classics)
Get On Up (Universal)
Still Alice (Sony Pictures Classics)
Long Shots
Noah (Paramount) NEW
The Judge (Warner Bros.)
Big Eyes (The Weinstein Co.)
Dear White People (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions)
Exodus: Gods and Kings (20th Century Fox)
How to Train Your Dragon 2 (DreamWorks Animation/20th Century Fox)
So if you boil down Scott’s list, this is what it SHOULD look like:
Boyhood
The Imitation Game
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash
Birdman
Foxcatcher
Major Threats
Gone Girl
Chef
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Wild
That at least gives you a clearer picture of where the Oscar race stands right now, with many movies left to be seen that could shift the race. They can’t shift the race until they’ve been seen. Feinberg is holding their place in line but essentially when he calls them frontrunners dissolves any power in that word. They can’t be frontrunners. It’s impossible. They do not exist yet as far as the Oscar race is concerned.
The real frontrunners of the race right now have clout and legitimacy and they are:
Boyhood – still the number one film to beat
Gone Girl – captured the zeitgeist and is making money so fast it could top $150 million before it’s done. The only film featuring almost all women in its cast. The film of the year at the moment.
The Imitation Game – won the audience prize in Toronto, has the stuff to go all the way
The Theory of Everything – crowd pleasing weepy about a genius. Again, yes.
Birdman – exciting, bravura filmmaking, crackling writing
Foxcatcher – exciting ensemble cast but dark.
Whiplash – coming up from the outside, should have no problem making it on Oscar voter’s ballots.
And that, my friends, is it for the frontrunners. The real frontrunners.
Strong contenders
Mr. Turner
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Long shots:
Wild
The Homesman
Get on Up
Fury
Here’s what you have to remember about Oscar voters. They have five slots for Best Picture. It takes them a long time to get around to seeing everything. Chances are they will see the big movies with the big stars or the ones that have strong word of mouth. One thing to know about the Academy overall? They revere directors. Even if the directors branch doesn’t, the other branches do and that is how you build Best Picture, branch by branch. You look at the editors, the cinematographers, the composers. But you start with directors to help build Best Picture and right now, the hottest directors in town are:
David Fincher
Alejandro G. Inarritu
Richard Linklater
Bennett Miller
And then the directors whose movies are liked but their names are not that well known yet – they always have a harder time breaking in (if you have to IMDb them they are “unknown.”) – The Weinstein Co. has been expert at turning a virtual unknown into a winner with The King’s Speech and The Artist:
Damien Chazelle, Whiplash
Morten Tyldum, Imitation Game
James Marsh, Theory of Everything
And then the directors with movies coming out that are well known:
Christopher Nolan
JC Chandor
Clint Eastwood
Angelina Jolie
Ava DuVernay
Rob Marshall
The second way you find a Best Picture frontrunner is how many popular actors are in the movie. Ben Affleck couldn’t be more popular right now. He’s popular in the Academy (does that even need to be said again?) and with audiences. Any film with a big cast of famous stars has an immediate shot at a Best Picture nomination because the actors rule — Birdman, Gone Girl, Boyhood, Imitation Game, Foxcatcher – all strong ensembles with popular stars. That makes a very big difference. The more well known the cast, the more chance that voters will watch the movies, the bigger chance the film gets nominated.
Finally, opinions change and evolve during the season. We’re about to head into the critics awards and the top ten lists. That usually sets the tone for what the critics’ darlings are going to be. There are usually no more than three. Two of those three are likely to be crossover success stories with the industry. We don’t know yet what those will be but so far it looks like Boyhood and Birdman are tops with Gone Girl also crowding in.
But this is a point in the race where we can’t know how that buzz will change. We can’t know who will get a nomination or a snub. We don’t even know how much money any of the films are going to make or what controversies are going to spring up.
The only thing we know for sure is that you can’t be a frontrunner unless you’ve been seen. Feinberg has been doing it this way for a long while. He always says, when asked, that he will alter the titles once there is a reason to. In other words, those frontrunners that haven’t been seen on his list will have to earn their spot — and if they don’t, he will drop them.
I don’t know if that’s a good way to read the race or not. But I do know that it is misleading to call something a frontrunner when no one has any idea yet what it will be or where it will land.