MTFB Oscar Predictions: Screenplays #2 / Critic's Choice Awards and Documentaries

 MTFB OSCAR PREDICTIONS: SCREENPLAYS #2

Today I am concluding my second wave of Oscar predictions for this year with the focus on the Screenplay categories.  All contenders from TFF #52 films are listed in Bold.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) Sinners (1)

2) Sentimental Value (2)

3) Marty Supreme (3)

4) Jay Kelly (4)

5) It Was Just an Accident (5)

Others: A House of Dynamite, Weapon and Blue Moon.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) Hamnet (2)

2) One Battle After Another (1)

3) Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (3)

4) Bugonia (4)

5) Train Dreams (5)

Others: Frankenstein, No Other Choice and Wicked: For Good.

CRITIC'S CHOICE AWARDS AND DOCUMENTARIES

The Critic's Choice Awards recognized Ken Burns The American Revolution as Best Historical Documentary of the year.  The film tied with Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time for the honor.  Burns was also named winner of the Critic's Choice Impact Award.

Burns also serves as a member of the TFF Board of Governors.

The American Revolution screened as a part of the 52nd Telluride Film Festival on Friday, Aug. 29th at 10:00am (MDT) at the Sheridan Opera House.

The Perfect Neighbor was named the Best Documentary Feature as well as four other awards to lead the event.

The complete list of all doc winners for The Critic's Choice awards can be found here.

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MTFB Oscar Update: Predicting the Winners Part Four / Critics Choice and TFF / Director's Guild and Producer's Guild

MTFB OSCAR UPDATE: PREDICTING THE WINNERS PART FOUR

Here's the last set of initial predictions for what will win at the Oscar ceremony on March 2nd.  I'll have fresh predictions for Best Picture, Direction and the Acting categories on Thursday.  As always, TFF films are in Bold.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

1) Wicked

2) Conclave

3) Nosferatu

4) A Complete Unknown

5) Gladiator II

BEST MAKEUP/HAIR

1) The Substance

2) Wicked

3) Emilia Perez

4) A Different Man

5) Nosferatu  

BEST SOUND DESIGN

1) A Complete Unknown

2) Wicked

3) Dune Part Two

4) Emilia Perez

5) The Wild Robot

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

1) Dune Part Two

2) Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

3) Wicked

4) Better Man

5) Alien: Romulus

Comment: Among these four categories, TFF's best shot at a win looks to be Conclave in costumes and even that seems fairly unlikely.  Maybe the tightest category of any is Sound.  A Complete Unknown, Wicked and Dune Part Two seem to be in dead heat.  It'll be interesting to see if that changes over the next couple of weeks when we re-visit these categories.

CRITICS CHOICE AND TFF

The Critics Choice awards were presented on Friday.  TFF #51 films won seven awards total including a Best Picture win for Sean Baker's Anora.

Other TFF winners included:

Conclave: Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Acting Ensemble.

A Real Pain: Best Comedy (tied with Deadpool & Wolverine), and Supporting Actor (Kieran Culkin).

Emilia Perez: Best Foreign Language Film and Best Song (El Mal).

DIRECTORS' GUILD AND PRODUCERS' GUILD

Probably the most important Guild awards named their "Best of" 2024 on Saturday and both organizations awarded the same film.  Sean Baker won the DGA Best Director for a Feature Film award for Anora.  The PGA also awarded Anora as Best Picture.  The PGA is very interesting as it uses a preferential ballot just like the Academy does for Best Picture.

Also winning the DGA Award for Best First Time Feature was RaMell Ross for Nickel Boys, which, of course, was also a TFF #51 film.

With the three wins over the weekend, DGA, PGA and Critic's Choice, Anora will surely come raring back to the top of the list of predictions for Best Picture (My updated Best Picture predictions will be posted on Thursday).  It seems difficult to concoct plausible scenario for any other picture at this point.  

Anora's stunning set of wins this past weekend also suggests that Mikey Madison is firmly in a real tussle for Best Actress with Demi Moore. Moore had surged over the past few weeks.

As a matter of fact, Anora could be in line to win five of the six Oscars it's nominated for.  I could see it taking Picture, Direction, Actress, Original Screenplay and even Editing.  The exception likely being in Supporting Actor where Kieran Culkin seems almost unbeatable and if anyone has any shot at knocking him off the Oscar stage it's probably Edward Norton for A Complete Unknown rather than Anora's Yura Borisov.

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MTFB Oscar Update: Best Picture and More / Critics Choice Awards Nominations / Precursor Roundup / New Nickel Boys Trailer / Interviews and Profiles: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Danielle Deadwyler and More

MTFB OSCAR UPDATE: BEST PICTURE AND MORE

Here are updated nomination predictions for the Best Picture Direction, International, Animated and Documentary Features.  These categories were last predicted on Dec. 2nd.  A film's previous rank appears to the right of their names in parentheses.  TFF #51 actors/films are in Bold. 

BEST PICTURE

1) Anora (1)

2) Conclave (2)

3) Wicked (6)

4) The Brutalist (3)

5) Emilia Perez (4)

6) Dune Part Two (5)

7) A Real Pain (7)

8) A Complete Unknown (-)

9) Sing Sing (10)

10) Nickel Boys (-)

Others: The Substance, September 5 and Gladiator II.

BEST DIRECTION

1) Brady Corbet/The Brutalist (2)

2) Sean Baker/Anora (1)

3) Edward Berger/Conclave (4)

4) Jacques Audiard/Emikia Perez (3)

5) RaMell Ross/Nickel Boys (-)

Others: Jon M. Chu/Wicked, Coralie Fargeat/The Substance and Denis Villenueve/Dune Part Two.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

1) The Wild Robot (1)

2) Inside Out 2 (2)

3) Flow (5)

4) Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (4)

5) Memoir of a Snail (3)

Others: Moana 2, Piece by Piece and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

1) Emilia Perez (1)

2) The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2)

3) I'm Still Here (3)

4) The Girl with the Needle (4)

5) Kneecap (-)

Others: Vermiglio, Dahomey and Flow.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1) No Other Land (1)

2) Daughters (2)

3) Sugarcane (3)

4) Will & Harper (-)

5) Black Box Diaries (4)

Others: Dahomey, Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat and Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story/

CRITICS CHOICE AWARDS NOMINATIONS

The Critics Choice Association announced its nominees for film excellence last Thursday.  TFF #51 Conclave tied with Wicked for most nominations at 11.  Emilia Perez was right behind at 10.  All togther, 14  TFF #51 films accounted for 48 nominations plus an additional nomination for TFF #50 film Janet Planet (Best Young Adult Performance).

Here are the CCA nominations for TFF #51 films:

Conclave (11): Best Picture, Direction, Actor (Fiennes), Supporting Actress (Rossellini), Ensemble, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Production Design, Costumes and Score.

Emilia Perez (10): Best Picture, Foreign Language Film, Direction, Actress (Gascon), Supporting Actress (Saldana), Ensemble, Adapted Screenplay, Song (El Mal), Song (Mi Camino) and Score.

Anora (7): Best Picture, Direction, Actress (Madison), Supporting Actor (Borisov), Ensemble, Original Screenplay and Editing.

Nickel Boys (5): Best Picture, Direction, Supporting Actress (Ellis-Taylor), Adapted Screenplay and Cinematography.

A Real Pain (3): Supporting Actor (Culkin), Original Screenplay and Best Comedy.

Maria (2); Best Actress (Jolie) and Costumes.

Saturday Night (2): Best Comedy and Ensemble.

September 5 (2): Original screenplay and Editing.

The Piano Lesson (1): Best Supporting Actress (Deadwyler).

Better Man (1): Best Visual Effects.

Memoir of a Snail (1): Best Animated Film.

All We Imagine as Light (1): Best Foreign Language Film.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig (1): Best Foreign Language Film.

Will & Harper (1): Best Song (Harper and Will Go West).

Complete nominations can be found here.

PRECURSOR ROUND UP

I took a look at six prominent Oscar pre-cursor nominations/awards to get a feel for what films seem to be hot as we close in on one month before Oscar nominations are announced on Jan. 17th.

Pre-cursors included were:

 

National Board of Review (NBR)

American Film Institute (AFI)

Golden Globes (GG) 

Critics Choice (CC)

Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LA)

New York Film Critics Circle (NY)

Two films hit five of these:

Anora: NBR, AFI, GG, CC, LA (winner)

The Brutalist: AFI, GG, CC, NY (winner), LA (Runner-up)

Three films made four to the lists:

Wicked: NBR (winner), AFI, GG, CC

A Complete Unknown: NBR, AFI, GG, CC

Conclave: NBR, AFI, GG, CC

And five films were named by three of the pre-cursor organizations:

A Real Pain: NBR, AFI, GG

Sing Sing: NBR, AFI, CC

Emilia Perez: AFI, GG, CC

Nickel Boys: AFI, GG, CC

Dune Part Two: AFI, GG, CC

What's next are the Guilds.  Producers, Directors, Screen Actors and Writers being the primary ones to look at.

Dates for each of these nominee announcements are:

Jan. 8: Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild

Jan. 9: Writers Guild

Jan. 10: Producers Guild

NEW NICKEL BOYS TRAILER

Amazon/MGM released a new trailer for RaMell Ross' Nickel Boys on Friday.  Here it is from YouTube:

INTERVIEWS AND PROFILES

Q+A for Zurawski v. Texas with the directors and actual participants in the lawsuit.

RaMell Ross for Nickel Boys from The Contending.

RaMell Ross for Nickel Boys from Awards Watch.

RaMell Ross for Nickel Boys from APNews.

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor for Nickel Boys from Awards Watch.

Eric Herisse and Brandon Wilson for Nickel Boys from The Contending.

John Magaro for September 5 from IndieWire.

Danielle Deadwyler for The Piano Lesson from The Playlist.

Mohammad Rasoulof for The Seed of the Sacred Fig from InSessionFilm.

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MTFB Oscar Take: Score, Song and More / Awards Weekend-Two Weeks from Oscar: BAFTA, DGA and Critics Choice

MTFB OSCAR TAKE: SCORE, SONG AND MORE

Here's your latest update of feature Oscar winners in the categories of Score, Song, Costume, Visual Effects, Sound and Makeup/Hair.  The last predictions for these categories was posted on Mar. 3rd.  As always, TFF #48 films are Bold.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

1) Dune

2) The Power of the Dog

3) Encanto

4) Don't Look Up

5) Parallel Mothers

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

1) No Time to Die/No Time to Die

2) Dos Oruguitas/Encanto

3) Be Alive/King Richard

4) Down to Joy/Belfast

5) Somehow You Do/Four Good Days

BEST COSTUMES

1) Cruella

2) Dune

3) Nightmare Alley

4) West Side Story

5) Cyrano

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

1) Dune

2) Spiderman: No Way Home

3) No Time to Die

4) Shang Chi

5) Free Guy

BEST SOUND

1) Dune

2) No Time to Die

3) West Side Story

4) The Power of the Dog

5) Belfast

BEST MAKEUP/HAIR

1) The Eyes of Tammy Faye

2) Dune

3) Coming 2 America

4) Cruella

5) House of Gucci

AWARDS WEEKEND-TWO WEEKS FROM OSCAR

The last 48 hours held a cascade of film awards.  BAFTA, DGA and The Critics' Choice Awards all landed.  here's the lowdown on each especially how they pertained to TFF #48 films:

BAFTA- The British Association of Film and Television Arts.  From TFF #48, The Power of the Dog won Best Film and Best Direction (Jane Campion).  Belfast won Best British Film and Will Smith won Best Actor for King Richard.  TFF #47's After Love won for Best Actress with Joanna Scanlan taking that prize.

All of the BAFTA winner are here from the official BAFTA site.

THE CRITICS CHOICE AWARDS:

The CCAs where announced last night and here's the rundown on TFF #48 films:

The Power of the Dog won four: Picture, Director (Campion), Adapted Screenplay and Cinematography.

Belfast won three: Best Ensemble, Best Original Screenplay and Best Young Actor/Actress (Jude Hill)

King Richard's Will Smith won Best Actress.

The Critics Choice Awards full winners are here from Variety.

DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA

The Directors Guild of America awarded Jane Campion Best Director of a Feature Film for TFF #48 SHOW pony The Power of the Dog.  Additionally Maggie Gyllenhaal was named winner for Best First Feature for TFF #48 entrant The Lost Daughter.  

In Telluride-adjacent DGA news. this year's Guest Director and Shorts programmer Barry Jenkins won for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television and Limited Series.

The complete DGA winners list plus commentary is linked here from The Hollywood Reporter.

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SAG Nominees / Critics' Choice Nominees / Newest Gurus Assesses Golden Globe Chances / Variety's Directors on Directors / Mr. Tapley's Two Cents

It's a Thursday and here's your latest installment of MTFB.

SAG NOMINEES

SAG/AFTRA announced their nominees for acting superlatives for 2018 yesterday.  TFF #45 films were represented as follows:

Best Actress: Olivia Colman/The Favourite, Melissa McCarthy/Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Supporting Male: Richard E. Grant/Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Supporting Female: Emma Stone/The Favourite, Rachel Weisz/The Favourite.

Despite three individual acting nominations, The Favourite did not crack the Best Cast nominee list.  Also, somewhat surprising was the absence of Ethan Hawke for TFF #44's First Reformed.

Indiewire has the complete rundown of all the nominees linked here.




CRITICS' CHOICE NOMINEES

TFF #45 favorite Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite led all films in Monday's announcement of nominees for the Critics Choice Awards from the Broadcast Film Critics Association with 14 nominations.  Ryan Coogler's Black Panther was the second most nominated film with a dozen.  Damien Chazelle's First Man was next with 10 nominations.  Alfonso Cuaron's Roma had eight.

Best Picture nominations went to Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, The Favourite, First Man, Green Book, If Beale Street Could Talk, Mary Poppins Returns, Roma, A Star Is Born and Vice.

Here's how the nominations broke down for TFF #45 films:

The Favourite (14): Picture, Direction, Actress (Colman), Supporting Actress (Stone and Weisz), Ensemble, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design, Costumes, Film Editing, Hair/Makeup, Comedy Film and Comedy Actress,

First Man (10): Picture, Direction, Actor (Gosling), Supporting Actress (Foy), Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design, Film Editing, Score and Visual Effects.

Roma (8): Picture, Direction, Actress (Aparicio), Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design, Film Editing, Foreign Language Film

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (3): Actress (McCarthy), Supporting Actor (Grant), Adapted Screenplay

Boy Erased (1): Supporting Actress (Kidman)

Cold War (1): Foreign Language Film

Shoplifters (1): Foreign Language Film

Additionally, First Reformed from TFF #44 had two nominations: Best Actor (Hawke) and Original Screenplay.

The complete list of all nominees with some commentary from Anne Thompson is linked here from Indiewire.

The Critics Choice Awards will be handed out on Jan. 13, 2019.


NEWEST GURUS O' GOLD ASSESSES GOLDEN GLOBES CHANCES

Those of us comprising this season's Gurus of Gold were asked this past week to take a stab at predicting winners for the Golden Globes in three categories now that we know the nominees.  We were tasked with evaluating Best Motion Picture Drama, Musical or Comedy and Director.

My ballot was topped by A Star Is Born (Drama), The Favourite (Musical or Comedy) and I named Alfonso Cuaron as the likely Best Directing winner.

As you might expect, not all the individual Gurus agreed with my assessment.

Check out the latest Gurus o' Gold linked here.


VARIETY'S DIRECTORS ON DIRECTORS

Variety posted a very cool article on Wednesday with lauded directors writing a few words about 17 of this year's films thought to be contenders during this awards season.  Among those 17 films are six that screened as apart of TFF #45.  They are:

Guillermo Del Toro on Alfonso Cuaron's Roma
Ron Howard on The Front Runner
Haiffa al-Mansour on Marielle Heller's Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Christopher Nolan on Damien Chazelle's First Man
Alexander Payne on Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War
Josh Safdie on Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite

The complete article is linked here.


MR. TAPLEY'S TWO CENTS

Logo via Variety

And finally on this Thursday...Variety's awards expert Kristopher Tapley has weighed in with his first run at predicting Oscar nominees.  Tapley gives his best insight to the 21 feature categories with TFF #45 films pegged for 32 nominations (which would be a little above the Telluride average for the past decade or so).  He also has a TFF #44 film in play for a couple of nominations.

Here's the breakdown with total predicted nominations in parentheses:

Roma (8): Best Picture, Direction, Foreign Language Film, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing.

The Favourite (7): Best Picture, Actress (Colman), Supporting Actress (Stone and Weisz), Original Screenplay, Costumes, Production Design.

First Man (7): Best Picture, Cinematography, Film Editing, Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects.

Cold War (3): Best Direction, Foreign Language Film, Cinematography.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (3): Best Actress (McCarthy), Supporting Actor (Grant), Adapted Screenplay

Border (2): Foreign Language Film, Makeup/Hair

Shoplifters (1): Foreign Language Film

Free Solo (1): Documentary Feature

AND...from TFF #44: First Reformed (2): Best Actor (Hawke), Original Screenplay.

Tapley's complete set of predictions are linked here.



More on Monday!

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