Obsessing about the Telluride Film Festival and the film awards season since 2008!
"The best blog out there for predicting what will be going to Telluride."-Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture
"The Nostradamus of Telluride"
-Tim Appelo, Movies for Grownups
"But it's our job." - Anne Thompson, Indiewire
Welcome back from the Thanksgiving weekend...hope you survived your food-induced coma...
UPDATING THE LEAD ACTING OSCAR PREDICTIONS
As we get ready to ring down the curtain on November, here is an update of where The Film Awards Clearinghouse now thinks the Best Actress and Best Actor categories stand.
Our last look at these two categories was on Nov. 2nd.
As always, potential nominees from TFF #44 films are in Bold.
BEST ACTRESS
Here were the standings on Nov. 2nd:
1) Frances McDormand/Three Billboards 2) Sally Hawkins/The Shape of Water
3) Margot Robbie/I, Tonya
4) Meryl Streep/The Post 5) Saoirse Ronan/Lady Bird
Others: Emma Stone/Battle of the Sexes, Jessica Chastain/Molly's Game, Kate Winslet/Wonder Wheel
And today's new set of predictions:
1) Frances McDormand/Three Billboards
2) Sally Hawkins/The Shape of Water
3) Meryl Streep/The Post
4) Margot Robbie/I, Tonya
5) Saoirse Ronan/Lady Bird
Others: Jessica Chastain/Molly's Game, Kate Winslet/Wonder Wheel and Judi Dench/Victoria and Abdul
Comment: It feels like the top four are bunched very tightly and that Emma Stone's chances for a back-to-back Oscar win have all but disappeared.
BEST ACTOR
Here's where the Best Actor race seemed to be three weeks ago:
1) Gary Oldman/Darkest Hour
2) Jake Gyllenhaal/Stronger
3) Timothee Chalamet/Call Me By Your Name
4) Daniel Day Lewis/Phantom Thread
5) Denzel Washington/Roman Israel, Esq.
Others: Steve Carell/Last Flag Flying, Andrew Garfield/Breathe, Tom Hanks/The Post
And here's the most recent FAC predictions for the category:
1) Gary Oldman/Darkest Hour
2) Jake Gyllenhaal/Stronger
3) Timothee Chalamet/Call Me By Your Name
4) Tom Hanks/The Post
5) Daniel Day Lewis/Phantom Thread
Others: James Franco.The Disaster Artist, Denzel Washington/Roman Israel Esq. and Andrew Garfield/Breathe
Comment: Hanks has some serious buzz now that some people have actually seen The Post in screenings.
TFF TIME TRAVEL- A LOOK AT TFF #14
The Telluride Film Festival historical retrospective that has been an on-going project on this site since I began with a throw back to 2005's in April continues today with a look back to the 14th Telluride Film Festival. TFF #14 took place Sept. 4-7, 1987.
Tributes: Don Siegel, Stephen Frears and Tenghiz Abuladze.
SHOWS:
Acting Our Age
Au Revoir Les Enfants
Babette's Feast
Barfly
The Beguiled
The Blot
Brightness
Broken April
Candy Mountain
Confession
A Flame in My Heart
Hail, Hail Rock and Roll
Haiti Dreams of Democracy
The Houses Are Filled with Smoke
A Hungry Feeling: The Life and Death of Brendan Behan
I've Heard the Mermaids Singing
The Magic Toyshop
The Magic Tree
Manon of the Spring
The Marvelous Life of Joan of Arc
Molba
Polyester
Repentance
Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
Sans Soliel
Shy People
They Made Me a Fugitive
This Is Our Home, It Is Not for Sale
Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done
The Tingler
Traveling North
Wagonmaster
Walter and June
The Whales of August
Guests:
Harry Carey, Jr.
Taylor Hackford
Ben Johnson
Chuck Jones
Louis Malle
Leonard Maltin
Helen Mirren
Bill Plympton
Barbet Schroeder
John Waters
DOUG JONES IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Actor Doug Jones has been a frequent collaborator with Guillermo Del Toro and that relationship continues with Del Toro's The Shape of Water. Jones plays "The Asset", the focus of Sally Hawkins desire and Michael Shannon's obsession.
Jones was profiled this past week in an article from Jenna Marotta for Indiewire.
Hey kids, this Harry Dean Stanton for an Oscar nomination thing seems to have at least a little traction. A cursory examination of some of the best of Oscar prediction websites have Harry Dean in play. Here's where he is placed by some of those sites:
Awards Daily has HDS at #15
Awards Circuit #15
Scott Feinberg/THR #18
The Film Experience #16
Awards Watch #17
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
We're coming down to the home stretch of Oscar Season. The BAFTA's were handed out in London last night (see below) and that's the last piece of evidence pointing us in any direction for what might happen on Oscar night itself.
Oscar final voting begins today and runs to Feb. 21. Of course, the envelopes are opened on Feb. 26. with today's installment of The FAC I'll have completed a set of predictions for all 24 categories in the last week. I'll update categories as we move through the next two weeks and have a final posting update in the Thursday, Feb. 23 posting. That said...
Here are the Oscar winner predictions for the last six categories that The FAC hasn't addressed in this last week: Cinematography, Costumes, Makeup/Hair and the Shorts: Animated, Documentary and Live Action.
As always The FAC uses the published predictions of the following experts to derive its picks:
Erik Anderson/Awards Watch
Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit
Greg Ellwood/The Playlist-Awards Campaign
Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter
Joey Magidson/Hollywood News
Nathaniel Rogers/Film Experience
Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Kristopher Tapley/Variety-InContention
Anne Thompson/Indiewire
TFF #43 films are in Bold.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
1) La La Land
2) Lion 3) Moonlight 4) Arrival
5) Silence
Comment: Despite Lion's ASC win last week, La La Land seems fairly secure for the win here.
COSTUMES
1) La La Land
2) Jackie
3) Florence Foster Jenkins
4) Fantastic Beasts
5) Allied
Comment: La La leads here but it's a tight race with Jackie. This is one of about three or four categories (the others are probably Original Screenplay, Sound Editing and Cinematography) that will determine whether La La Land gets double-digit wins, ties for most Oscars won of all time (11) or, conceivably, breaks the record.
MAKEUP/HAIR
1) Star Trek Beyond
2) A Man Called Ove
3) Suicide Squad
Comment: A moderately close contest between Star Trek and Ove with the Treksters having a sight edge.
ANIMATED SHORT
1) Piper
2) Pearl
3) Borrowed Time
4) Blind Vaysha
5) Pear Cider and Cigarettes
Comment: This is perceived as a tight two horse race between Piper and Pearl. Off The FAC metric...I wouldn't be stunned by a win from either or even Borrowed Time.
DOCUMENTARY SHORT
1) The White Helmets
2) Joe's Violin 3) 4.1 Miles 4) Extremis
5) Watani: My Homeland
Comment: A dead heat between The White Helmets and Joe's Violin and that's no exaggeration. The two films were tied in The FAC metric with the tie broken in The White Helmets favor as it had one more pick at the top from The FAC professionals. This Oscar could easily swing to either film.
LIVE ACTION SHORT
1) Silent Nights
2) Sing
3) Timecode
4) Ennemis Interieurs
5) Le Femme et le TVG
Comment: The predictions in this category are all over the place. Any of the five could win.
Should The FAC be 100% accurate, La La Land would win another two trophies and added to the previous FAC predictions over this past week would give it a total of 10 trophies on Oscar night: Picture, Director, Actress, Film Editing, Cinematography, Original Score, Original Song (City of Stars), Costumes, Production Design and Sound Mixing.
La La would miss, according to the FAC, in Original Screenplay, Sound Editing, Best Actor and its other Original Song nomination. The loss to itself for Best Song means that 13 Oscars are the ceiling for La La and the loss of Ryan Gosling in the Best Actor category seems all but certain (to either Denzel Washington or Casey Affleck). That means that La La Land has to run the table of every one of its remaining nominations to set the all time record which seems a tall order.
I've been saying for a long while that I think La La Land ends the night with nine Oscars. A great night, but not record setting. Still, it would be the most since 2003's Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Currently The FAC has La La Land winning 10 Oscars.
Moonlight wins two.
Fences wins two.
Single Oscar winning films look to be:
Manchester by the Sea
Zootopia
O.J.: Made in America
The Salesman
Hacksaw Ridge
The Jungle Book
Star Trek Beyond
And the Shorts: Piper, The White Helmets and Silent Nights.
Total Oscars going to TFF #43 films: 14.
BAFTA NAMES ITS WINNERS
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (sometimes referenced as the British Oscars) awarded their accolades for the 2016 film year last night (which was late afternoon here in the states).
Damien Chazelle's La La Land did well but it wasn't the blowout that the Golden Globes night was for the film. La La Land picked up five of the 11 BAFTA's it was nominated for. Of course, the five wins did include the biggest prize of the night: Best Picture. La La Land also won for Chazelle's direction and Emma Stone won Best Actress. It also won for Score and Cinematography.
Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea won two honors for Original Screenplay and for Casey Affleck as Best Actor.
Denis Villeneuve's Arrival won the award for Best Sound (a trophy that many thought La La Land might well pick up.
Barry Jenkins' Moonlight surprisingly went home empty-handed. The film had been nominated for four BAFTAs.
Lion was the other surprise of the night winning two awards for Dev Patel as Best Supporting Actor and also winning for Adapted Screenplay.
Major (Oscar analogous categories) winners here with TFF #43 films in Bold.
Picture: La La Land Director: Damien Chazelle/La La Land Actress: Emma Stone/La La Land Actor: Casey Affleck/Manchester by the Sea
Supporting Actress: Viola Davis/Fences
Supporting Actor: Dev Patel/Lion
Adapted Screenplay: Lion Original Screenplay: Manchester by the Sea
Documentary: 13th
Foreign Language: Son of Saul (TFF #42)
Animated Feature: Kubo and the Two Strings Original Music: La La Land Cinematography: La La Land
Editing: Hacksaw Ridge
Production Design: Fantastic Beasts
Costumes: Jackie
Makeup/Hair: Florence Foster Jenkins Sound: Arrival
Visual Effects; The Jungle Book
What does any of this mean for Oscar night?
Does it mean that La La Land is likely to fall short in film editing, production, design, costume or film editing?
Does Moonlight get shut out on Feb. 26th?
Most of the pundits seem to think that the BAFTA results might show a smallish trend away from the La La Land avalanche but that it's still solid for a number of wins including picture and director. It does seem less likely that it will tie or break the record of winning 11 trophies.
On Monday, The FAC took its first stab at predicting the winners of the Oscar in 12 categories. In today's post I continue down that road with a look at six additional categories: Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects.
As always The FAC uses the published predictions of the following experts to derive its picks:
Erik Anderson/Awards Watch
Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit
Greg Ellwood/The Playlist-Awards Campaign
Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter
Joey Magidson/Hollywood News
Nathaniel Rogers/Film Experience
Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Kristopher Tapley/Variety-InContention
Anne Thompson/Indiewire
Telluride #43 films are in Bold.
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
1) La La Land 2) Moonlight
3) Lion
4) Jackie
5) Passengers
Comment: Looks like La La's to lose.
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
1) City of Stars/La La Land
2) How Far I'll Go/Moana 3) Audition/La La Land
4) Can't Stop the Feeling/Trolls
5) The Empty Chair/Jim: The James Foley Story
Comment: I still think the Moana song could win this despite The FAC metric.
PRODUCTION DESIGN
1) La La Land 2) Arrival
3) Fantastic Beasts
4) Hail. Caesar
5) Passengers
Comment: La La Land seems to be the prohibitive favorite.
BEST SOUND EDITING
1) Hacksaw Ridge 2) La La Land 3) Arrival
4) Deepwater Horizon 5) Sully
Comment: This category could tell the tale in as far as La La Land's quest to tie or break the record for most Oscar wins ever. The record is 11. La La is nominated for 14 but at the maximum can only win 13 because of the double Best Song nominations. Hacksaw is a solid favorite but certainly doesn't have a lock on the trophy.
BEST SOUND MIXING
1) La La Land
2) Hacksaw Ridge 3) Arrival
4) Rogue One
5) 13 Hours
Comment; Back to solid La La Land ground here.
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
1) The Jungle Book
2) Rogue One
3) Doctor Strange
4) Deepwater Horizon
5) Kubo and the Two Strings
Comment: Looks solid for Jungle Book.
In these six categories La La Land is leading for four Oscars and Hacksaw Ridge and The Jungle Book would get one each. Added to Monday's totals, The FAC has La La Land at eight wins with Moonlight at two and Fences at two. Manchester by the Sea would be the other TFF #43 film with a win.
I'll have The FAC's look at the final six categories on Monday.
OSCARS NOMINEES FOR CINEMATOGRAPHY AND FILM EDITING
Here are a couple pf profiles of the cinematographers from La La Land and Moonlight both of whom are Oscar nominated for their work:
The Film Stage posted a 2 and 1/2 hour round table of this year's DGA nominees: Chazelle, Jenkins, Lonergan and Villeneuve who were featured at TFF #43 as well as Garth Davis of Lion. That massive discussion can be found Here from YouTube:
AND FINALLY...COULD WE SEE TONY ERDMANN AT A FUTURE TELLURIDE? (yes, I spelled it Ton-y on purpose because I'll bet they Americanize it that way)
Image via ComingSoon.net
Breaking news the last two days: There will apparently be an American remake of Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann to star Jack Nicholson and Kristen Wiig. Reports say the project is at Paramount and is looking for a writer and director.
You have to wonder if a film that will almost certainly be Nicholson;s last major role might not be considered for a spot at T-ride which would be both weird and kind of fitting as the original Toni Erdmann screened for the first time in North America at last fall's soiree.
Lots of coverage here for the announcement of the new version:
It's Thursday. The Apocalypse commences in one day...otherwise, hope you're doing fine...
THE FAC UPDATES FILM EDITING AND CINEMATOGRAPHY
I'm continuing to update The Film Awards Clearinghouse predictions for Oscar nominations as we down to just a matter of days before the announcement (Tuesday, Jan. 24th 8:30 am ET/5:30 am PT). Monday's post will be the last before the word comes down and will be a final comprehensive look at all 24 categories.
Today, a look at Film Editing and Cinematography as well as a stab at the Short Form categories.
I have used the publicly available Oscar predictions from the following pundits:
Erik Anderson/Awards Watch
Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit
Greg Ellwood/The Playlist-Awards Campaign
Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter
Joey Magidson/Hollywood News
Nathaniel Rogers/Film Experience
Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Kristopher Tapley/Variety-InContention
Anne Thompson/Indiewire
TFF #43 films are in Bold.
FILM EDITING
1) La La Land (1) 2) Moonlight (2) 3) Arrival (3)
4) Hacksaw Ridge (5) 5) Manchester by the Sea (6)
6) Hell or High Water (4)
7) Lion (NR)
8) Nocturnal Animals (NR)
9) Silence (7)
10) Rogue One (10)
Hot: Lion, Nocturnal Animals
Not: Hell or High Water, Silence, Sully and Fences
On the Cusp: Sully
Comment: This might tell us a lot about the relative chances that Fences will get a Best Picture nomination. It also reflects the A.C.E./Eddie nominations and the BAFTA nominations.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
1) La La Land (1) 2) Arrival (3) 3) Moonlight (4)
4) Silence (2)
5) Lion (6)
6) Nocturnal Animals (5)
7) Hell or High Water (NR)
8) Jackie (7)
9) Live by Night (8)
10) Hail, Caesar (9)
Hot: Hell or High Water
Not: Silence and Cafe Society
On the Cusp: Rogue One
Comment: Also reflecting a bit of the Guild and BAFTA nominations.
AND NOW AN ATTEMPT AT THE SHORT FORM FILMS
Disclaimer: Unlike the 21 feature film categories, in most cases I am only working with input from four or five of the Oscar experts in these pesky and hard to pick categories...so take these predictions with a massive grain of sodium chloride...
LIVE ACTION SHORT
1) Silent Nights 2) Nocturne in Black
3) Graffiti
4) Bon Voyage
5) Sing
6) Timecode
7) Domestic Enemies
8) The Rifle...
9) Le Femme et le TVG
10) The Way of Tea
ANIMATED SHORT
1) Inner Workings
2) Piper
3) The Head Vanishes
4) Blind Vaysha
5) Pearl
6) Pear and Cider Cigarettes
7) Borrowed Time
8) Once Upon a Line
9) Happy End
10) Under Your Fingers
DOCUMENTARY SHORT
1) Joe's Violin 2) The White Helmets 3) Extremis
4) Watani: My Homeland 5) 4.1 Miles
6) Frame 394
7) The Mute's House
8) Close Ties
9) The Other Side of Home
10) Brillo Pad
If The FAC goes 60% for these three categories, I'll be pleased. Also, if these predictions hold...all five shorts that played Telluride will be nominated.
FINAL PREDICTIONS FROM...
Here we begin linking to the Final Oscar nomination predictions from Oscar prognosticating experts:
Here are a collection of stories from the past week or so that I've collected about some if Telluride 2016's films. They range from interviews to profiles to behind the scenes posts:
THE FAC UPDATES FOR BEST PICTURE, DIRECTOR AND SCREENPLAYS
Now it's essentially all over but the waiting and the actual announcement of nominees on Jan. 24th. All of the major precursors have weighed in. Critics, Guilds, Globes and BAFTA. We're down to a week to go. As you will see in the four categories that I have listed for this post, these late breaking group announcements do move the needle when it comes to the predictions made by the Oscar experts. For example, BAFTA's love for Nocturnal Animals (which hasn't been scoring much during the past couple of months) gave it a boost and Lion and its director, Garth Davis, has clearly benefited from the nominations from the Producers and Directors Guilds.
Check the latest updates...
I have used the publicly available Oscar predictions from the following pundits:
Erik Anderson/Awards Watch
Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit
Greg Ellwood/The Playlist-Awards Campaign
Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter
Joey Magidson/Hollywood News
Nathaniel Rogers/Film Experience
Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Kristopher Tapley/Variety-InContention
Anne Thompson/Indiewire
TFF #43 films are in Bold. The film's previous position follows its title in parentheses (with trailers for the leaders in each category via YouTube).
BEST PICTURE
1) La La Land (1)
2) Moonlight (2)
3) Manchester by the Sea (3)
4) Arrival (6)
5) Hell or High Water (4)
6) Lion (7)
7) Hacksaw Ridge (9)
8) Hidden Figures 8)
9) Fences (5)
10) Nocturnal Animals (NR)
11) Silence (10)
12) Loving (NR)
Hot: Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge, Nocturnal Animals
Not: Fences, Jackie, Sully
On the Cusp: Jackie
Comment: Fences looks to be in real danger of missing a BP nomination. Of course, the Academy could nominate nine or ten films, but seems to be the groove that we've settled into over the past couple of years.
Arrival has gone from a film that looked shaky for a BP nom into a very solid contender.
La La Land's choice for the top spot scored one point short of its highest possible score.
BEST DIRECTION
1) Damein Chazelle/La La Land (1)
2) Barry Jenkins/Moonlight (2)
3) Kenneth Lonergan/Manchester
4) Denis Villeneuve/Arrival (5)
5) Garth Davis/Lion (9)
6) Mel Gibson/Hacksaw Ridge (7)
7) David Mackenzie/Hell or High Water (8)
8) Martin Scorsese/Silence (4)
9) Denzel Washington/Fences (6)
10) Pablo Larrain/Jackie (10)
Hot: Davis
Not: Scorsese, Washington
On the Cusp: Ken Loach/I, Daniel Blake
Comment:This category illustrates starkly the effect of the announcements from the PGA and DGA. Garth Davis jumps into the #5 spot, up four places while Scorsese and Washington drop precipitously.
Personally, I think the 4-5 spots are likely still a giant arm-wrestling match between Davis, Gibson and Mackenzie. I'm still pulling for Villenueve and Mackenzie to snag those spots rather than Davis and Gibson.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1) Moonlight (1)
2) Arrival (3)
3) Fences (2)
4) Lion (4)
5) Hidden Figures (6)
6) Nocturnal Animals (10)
7) Loving (7)
8) Hacksaw Ridge (9)
9) Silence (5)
10) Deadpool (NR)
Hot: Nocturnal and Deadpool
Not: Silence and Sully
On the Cusp: Sully
Comment: I haven't talked about the ascendance of Deadpool yet. It's Writers Guild and Producers Guild nominations as well as a nom for Tim Miller as a first time director from the DGA plus an editing nom from that guild has made the film a serious part of the conversation for nominations including...are you sitting down?...Best Picture (where, if I extended my chart, it would sit at #15). Additionally, another category that shows the rise of Nocturnal Animals and the diminishing chances of Silence.
The Moonlight lead is substantial in this category.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1) Manchester by the Sea (1)
2) La La Land (2)
3) Hell or High Water (3)
4) The Lobster (4)
5) 20th Century Women (5)
6) Captain Fantastic (6)
7) Jackie (7)
8) Zootopia (8)
9) I, Daniel Blake (NR)
10) Florence Foster Jenkins (10)
Hot: I, Daniel Blake
Not: Miss Sloane
On the Cusp: Toni Erdmann
Comment: The battle for the last spot seems intense between: the films in the five through eight spots.
(PARENTHETICAL NOTE: Good God, look at the dominance of films that played TFF #43 in these four categories...top four films in the Best Pic and Directing categories and top two films in each screenwriting category...)
DIRECTORS GUILD LOVES TELLURIDE
The Directors Guild of America (DGA) announced its nominees for excellence in direction on Thursday and four TFF #43 directors and their films were named:
Damien Chazelle/La La Land
Barry Jenkins/Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan/Manchester by the Sea
Denis Villenueve/Arrival
Villeneuve's nomination was a minor surprise.
The fifth nominee was Garth Davis for Lion. Davis was also nominated for Best Direction of a First Film. Davis' nomination was a bit of a surprise and knocked out Mel Gibson/Hacksaw Ridge, Martin Scorsese/Silence and David Mackenzie/Hell or High Water who were all thought to be serious candidates for the nomination.
The DGA is one of the best predictors (along with the PGA) among the guilds of future Oscar success, though it doesn't necessarily mean that it will predict the directing category with 100% accuracy. There's a very good chance that there will be a single divergence between the DGA list and the directors that will be announced on Jan. 24th (and more about the Academy's decision to change how that announcement is made below).
The Academy Awards nomination announcement will come a week from tomorrow but it's going to be a bit different than what we have been accustomed to over the years. AMPAS will not announce to a live group of publicists, consultants and others this year but will, instead, produce an online reveal on Oscar.com and Oscar.org as well as the network television reveal on Good Morning America on ABC.
The announcement will still come down at 8:30am ET/5:30am PT.
HANDICAPPING BEST PICTURE THROUGH GUILDS AND CRITICS
Those of you that have read this space over the years when we get to the post-Telluride six month run to the Oscars may recall that I pay more attention to some guilds and critics groups than others. For example, just this past week or so guilds for cinematographers and costumers have weighed in with their nominees and I haven't mentioned them here. It's not that I think that their contributions are less important or that their guild kudos have no predictive qualities but guild success in other areas seems to be more predictive of Oscar success.
In terms of guilds I look at the producers, directors, actors, writers and editors. I also look at the major New York and Los Angeles critics groups. In addition, I pay attention to the American Film Institutes's top film list as well the National Board of Review. Also, I pay attention to Golden Globe nominees and, when we reach this point, winners.
Throw all that in the metaphorical blender and here's what that set of data says are the most likely Best Picture Oscar nominees:
1) Moonlight- Golden Globe/Best Picture (Drama), PGA, DGA, WGA, SAG Ensemble, ACE, AFI, NBR, LA critics winner
2) La La Land- Golden Globe/Best Picture (Comedy or Musical), PGA, DGA, WGA, ACE, AFI, NBR, New York Critics winner, (also LA Critic's runner-up)
3) Manchester by the Sea PGA, DGA, WGA, ACE, AFI, NBR
4) Arrival- PGA, DGA, WGA, ACE, AFI, NBR
5) Hell or High Water- PGA, WGA, ACE, AFI, NBR
6) Fences- PGA, WGA, SAG Ensemble, AFI
7) Hidden Figures- PGA, WGA, SAG Ensemble, NBR
8) Hacksaw Ridge- PGA, ACE, AFI, NBR
You could make a pretty good argument that these eight films will be the likely Best Picture Oscar nominees.
Moonlight and La La Land are so tight as to be virtually deadlocked. I think Moonlight gets the edge for the top spot here due to its SAG ensemble nomination.
Lurking as spoilers are these films which have two of the precursors I listed above:
Lion- PGA, DGA
Silence- NBR, AFI
Sully- NBR, AFI
Hail, Caesar- ACE, NBR
No other possible Best Picture players have more than one of the precursors I am focused on including Nocturnal Animals, Patriot's Day and Loving.
As you look at The FAC from above, it seems that Lion may well bump one of these films out of the expected eight nominations. Fences? Hacksaw? Hidden Figures?
SPEAKING OF GUILDS: CINEMATOGRAPHY
The American Society of Cinematographers named their top films last week with nominations announced on Wednesday. Three films that played the 2016 Telluride Film Festival made the field of five: La LA :and, Moonlight and Arrival. The five cinematographers and their films were:
Greig Fraser/Lion
James Laxton/Moonlight
Rodrigo Pietro/Silence
Linus Sandgren/La La land
Bradford Young/Arrival
