Best Picture Update and a Big Push

Over at the Gurus of Gold,  Best Picture is kind of, sort of, taking shape. Glenn Whipp and Anne Thompson continue to not predict sight unseen movies – which kind of messes with the overall consistency of results of the Gurus. They were asked to name two contenders in each major category that need a push. Check that out there. Meanwhile, here are the Best Picture contenders right now, according to the Gurus of Gold at Movie City News:

This time last year, the Gurus had about 6 out of 9 films on the list that eventually became nominees. I’m guessing a similar thing will happen here – though, to be sure, the only two titles on this list that haven’t been seen yet are Joy and The Revenant. With the exception of Scott Feinberg who has included two sight unseen movies at number 1 and 2, the current leader seems to be split between The Martian and Spotlight.

In November of 2015, the Gurus had Boyhood at the top and Birdman just below it. The year before, 12 Years a Slave on top, Gravity below it. In 2012, Argo was in the lead at the beginning of November, though Lincoln overtook the top spot the following week.  In 2011, at the very beginning of November, The Descendants was out front with The Artist close behind at number 2. The King’s Speech was at number 1 back in November roughly around this time in 2010. In early November in 2009, no one but Anne Thompson had chosen The Hurt Locker. The rest of the participants were either going for Precious or Up in the Air. DOH!

So we have to go back to 2009 to find a time when the Best Picture winner wasn’t number 1 or 2 on the Guru’s radar. If you think this year will be like every year since then — the past five years — you will have to believe Best Picture will come down to either Spotlight or The Martian. Or at the very least, Room. One of those three, Guru history would tell us, is the winner. We just don’t know which one yet.

Gold Derby rankings are similar, as you can see:

Meanwhile, Marshall Flores compiled a comparison of how people are predicting across the web. The notable difference is that with AwardsWatch and AwardsCircuit (not to be confused with the one, the only AWARDSDAILY, thank you very much), is how far down The Martian is on those two sites. Also folding in Kris Tapley at In Contention who doesn’t do either Gurus or Gold Derby:

When asked which film and filmmaker to push, here is how Best Pic and Best Director went: