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Wednesday, February 9, 2022

MTFB Oscar Thoughts / So, You Want to Predict Best Picture?

MTFB OSCAR THOUGHTS




Well, the Oscar nominations are out and now we make the turn into the final leg of the Oscar race with the awards ceremony scheduled on March 27th.

Here's the rundown of the results of Tuesday morning's announcement in as far as Telluride films were concerned:

The Power of the Dog...WOOF!  12 nominations: Picture, Direction, Actor, Supporting Actress, 2 Supporting Actors, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Production Design, Score and Sound.

Belfast 7 nominations: Picture, Direction, Supporting Actress (Dench not Balfe?), Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Song and Sound.

King Richard 6 nominations: Picture, Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, Editing  and Song.

Flee 3 nominations: International Film, Documentary Film, Animated Film

The Lost Daughter 3 nominations: Actress, Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay

Single nominations for:

Spencer: Actress
The Hand of God: International Film
Cyrano: Costumes
Lead Me Home: Documentary Short

TFF #48 totals 35 nominations with nine films being mentioned.  Noticeably missing nominations from the TFF #48 crop were Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch, Mike Mills C'mon C'mon, Asghar Farhadi's A Hero, the documentaries The Rescue, The Velvet Underground and Procession.

 Where did TFF #48 Best Picture nominees end up last fall on the MTFB set of polls: The Professionals, The People and The Composite?

The Power of the Dog: Pros #2 ($.32), People: #1 (4.63) and the Composite: #1 (8.95)
Belfast: Pros #3 (4.30), People: #4 (4.12), Composite #2 (8.42)
King Richard: Pros #7 (3.92), People #5 (4.06), Composite #5 (7.98)

Going forward you have to think that The Power of the Dog is sitting pretty.  The field leading 12 nominations reveals strength throughout the Academy.  The actors branch, the largest in the Academy, favored the film with four acting nominations (Cumberbatch, Dunst, Smit-McPhee and perhaps most indicative of its popularity, Jesse Plemons.  The Jane Campion film could end up with the biggest haul of trophies for an Oscar Best Picture winner in years with Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay and Supporting Actor seeming very likely and awards for Actor, Supporting Actress, Cinematography,  Editing and Original Score not at all out of the question.  Other "below the line" nominations for Production Design and Sound could turn into wins but seem less likely.

My early thoughts as to who gets a trophy on Oscar night in the Big Eight categories:

Picture: The Dog
Director: Campion/The Dog
Actress: Who knows?  Say Kidman for the moment for Being the Ricardos
Actor: I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict Cumberbatch rather than Will Smith for King Richard...at least for now.
Supporting Actress: DeBose/West Side Story
Supporting Actor: Smit McPhee/The Dog
Original Screenplay: Belfast
Adapted Screenplay: The Dog

Nominations I liked: Kotsur, Hinds and Nightmare Alley
Non-noms I did not like: Balfe
Surprises Dench in, Villenueve out, Gaga out.

I go 87/120  in my nomination predictions for 72.5%.  Lowest in a few years.  

In the "Close but no cigar" Department, films/performers that got nominated that I had in the "first one out" position included: Nightmare Alley in Best Picture, Hamagughi for Director with Drive My Car, Stewart for Actress with Spencer, Bardem for Actor with Being the Ricardos, Dune for Adapted Screenplay, Attica in Documentary, West Side Story in Cinematography, The Tragedy of Macbeth in Production Design, Parallel Mothers in Original Score, Cyrano in Costumes and Ali Kachuu: Take and Run in Live Action Short.  11 of the 23 categories.


SO, YOU WANT TO PREDICT BEST PICTURE?




Here's what you need to know to predict the Best Picture Oscar.  Check out the Telluride Film Festival lineup each year and then pick the film that sits atop the MTFB Composite ranking/ratings after the festival.  Why?  Because every Best Picture winner since 2012 (except, of course,  Green Book which didn't play Telluride) has been those two criteria.

2012- Argo
2013- 12 Years a Slave
2014- Birdman
2015- Spotlight
2016- Moonlight
2017- The Shape of Water
2018- well, you know, Green Book... but the MTFB Composite winner that year was Roma
2019 - Parasite
2020- Nomadland (no Composite for this fest)

So, do you remember what landed at the #1 spot on my Composite in September?  If you said The Power of the Dog...you win a cookie (a metaphorical cookie).  



EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

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