OSCAR #97 IN THE REAR VIEW
Sunday night's Oscar ceremony brought few, if any, real upsets. I personally was 16 of 23 for a 69.6% success rate which is among the lowest rates of success since I started posting Oscar predictions on this site.
Still, in the case of the seven misses, my "Possible Upset" picked up the statuette in five of the seven categories: Actress, Documentary, Animated Feature, Editing and Documentary Short. Leaving out the Shorts categories, I was a much more respectable 16 of 20 for 80% among the Feature categories.
I felt some better the next morning when Gold Derby posted the records of their experts.. Had I been among them (there are 38 of them) I would have tied for eighth overall. Among those with which I tied were Indiewire's Anne Thompson and The Contending's Mark Johnson. Some experts over which I had a better score were: The Hollywood Reporter's Scott Feinberg (65.2%), Deadline's Pete Hammond (65.2%), ABC's Peter Travers (56.5%) and Variety's Clayton Davis (56.5%).
So, as I said after the nominations dropped in January...where do I apply to be a Gold Derby expert?
Again. TFF films nabbed 10 Oscars. That's the best since the 2016 edition of TFF when fest films earned 12 Oscars (the year of Moonlight and La La Land). This year's collection is either tied for second or third most depending if you count the 2008 year wherein Slumdog Millionaire won eight and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which won three. Button only screened a few minutes as a part of the tribute to David Fincher. So 2008 might be eight or eleven if you count Button.
TFF's 2013 edition had 10 Oscars. That was the 12 Years a Slave (3) and Gravity (7) year.
Here's another thing that I found revealing. Since I started the polling of Telluride attendees both with the People and the Professionals TFF has had nine films win Best Picture:
Argo
12 Years a Slave
Birdman
Spotlight
Moonlight
The Shape of Water
Parasite
Nomadland***
Anora
Eight of the nine finished at #1 on the Composite Telluride ratings where I add the ratings from the People and the Professionals together. The only exception was Nomadland which, of course, couldn't be polled as the fest didn't happen due to Covid. I still count it as TFF film Best Picture Oscar winner as the fest went out of its way to premiere the film in Los Angeles as a Drive-In experience.
Seems to me that hitting that #1 Composite spot is kind of telling.
Other films since I started polling that had the #1 Composite rating but did not win Best Picture:
2018- Roma
2021-The Power of the Dog
2022-TAR
2023-Poor Things
Anora became the 12th TFF film to win Best Picture.
Of the 12, six World Premiered at Telluride:
Slumdog Millionaire
The King's Speech
Argo
12 Years a Slave
Moonlight
Nomadland (see above)
Three screened at Venice before Telluride:
Birdman
Spotlight
The Shape of Water
Three screened at Cannes before telluride:
The Artist
Parasite
Anora
Of the five other films that have won Best Picture since Slumdog in 2008, no other festival World Premiered the subsequent Best Picture more than once:
2009: The Hurt Locker (Venice, so it totals five)
2018: Green Book (Toronto)
2021: CODA (Sundance)
2022: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (South by Southwest)
2023: Oppenheimer (No Festival appearance)
FORGING AHEAD
So Oscar is done for another season and MTFB turns to the sleuthing of films for the TFF #52 lineup. Regular readers have already seen some analysis here based on "Most Anticipated" lists from a couple of outlets since the turn of the year.
Now our attention will turn to two primary areas that can give clues...early Oscar predictions and Cannes speculation. I'll start parsing that with Monday's post.
For those who might remember last year's debacle concerning purchasing tickets...no problem this year. We've got them and lodging locked down. Bring on TFF #52!
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