MTFB Oscar Update: Oscar Winners Predictions: Screenplays and More / BAFTA and TFF #51 / Writers' Guild and TFF #51

 MTFB OSCAR WINNERS PREDICTIONS: SCREENPLAYS AND MORE

We're under two weeks to Oscar night.  Today I am updating predictions for both screenplay categories as well as International , Animated and Documentary features.  These categories were first predicted two weeks back on Feb. 3rd.  As always, TFF films are Bold.  A film's previous ranking is indicated to the right in parentheses.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) Conclave (1)

2) A Complete Unknown (2)

3) Nickel Boys (3)

4) Emilia Perez (4)

5) Sing Sing (5)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) Anora (1)

2) The Substance (3)

3) A Real Pain (4)

4) The Brutalist (2)

5) September 5 (5)

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

1) I'm Still Here (1)

2) Emilia Perez (3)

3) The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2)

4) Flow  (4)

5) The Girl with the Needle (5)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

1) The Wild Robot (1)

2) Flow (2)

3) Inside Out 2 (3)

4) Memoir of a Snail (5)

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

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1) No Other Land (1)

2) Porcelain War (4)

3) Black Box Diaries (3)

4) Sugarcane (2)

5) Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat (5)

Comments:  Despite the backlash, Emilia Perez still looks like it has a real shot at the International Feature Oscar.  I still have it behind I'm Still Here but it feels close.  Additionally, Porcelain War has surged in the Documentary category.  The biggest lock from these categories seems to be Conclave in Adapted Screenplay.

Should these predictions prove out, TFF #51 films would win three of the five categories.

BAFTA AND TFF #51

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced their winners on Sunday.  each with Conclave leading the way with four wins including Best Film. Four TFF #51 films landed a least two BAFTAs including Conclave with four wins including Best Film.

Here's the rundown of  TFF #51 films' BAFTA wins:

Conclave: Best Film, Best British Film, Adapted Screenplay and Editing.  

Anora: Best Actress (Madison) and Casting.

Emilia Perez: Best Film Not in the English Language and Best Supporting Actress (Saldana).

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

Among non-TFF films The Brutalist had four wins as well for Best Direction, Actor (Brody), Cinematography and Score.

The Conclave win for Best Film gives it a little life for Oscar night.  Wins for Saldana and Culkin cement their status for Supporting Oscars and all of the hubbub regarding Emilia Perez didn't seem to slow it down in London.

TFF #51 films were nominated for a total of  45 awards.

WRITERS' GUILD AND TFF #51

Two TFF #51 films picked up Writers' Guild of America awards on Saturday night.  Sean Baker won for Anora as Best Original Screenplay while RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes shared the trophy for Nickel Boys as Best Adapted Screenplay.

These results are likely indicative of an Anora Oscar win in two weeks.  The Nickel Boys win is likely less predictive as Conclave was ineligible under WGA rules.  Most of the Oscar prediction community thinks Conclave is the favorite.  Currently 29 out of the 34 Gold Derby experts are predicting Conclave to pick up the Oscar win.

Here is the complete list of winners from the WGA.

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Post Oscar Nomination Thoughts / Writer's Guild and TFF / U.S. Trailer for Godland / Visitations: Foy, Buckley and More

POST OSCAR NOMINATION THOUGHTS

So after  last Tuesday we have moved to the final phase of the 95th Oscar season in which Academy voters will winnow nominees down to winners in the 23 categories.  Final voting runs from March 2nd and ends March 7th with the ceremony set for March 12th.

Some random thoughts about what we know and what might be coming.

Everything Everywhere All at Once was always going to have a big morning last Tuesday but even the EEAAO crew had to be a little surprised that the film picked up 11 nominations and was the only film earning double digit nominations.

All Quiet on the Western Front; I had it getting nine nominations and was pretty queasy that I had gone overboard assessing its chances.  I really did think that my predilection for picking it would wreck my overall level accuracy.  In so many of its categories I had it getting in at the fifth spot.  Shaky at best.  But all turned out fairly well.  AQOTHWF did get nine nominations.  My predictions very nearly matched nomination for nomination save for picking Edward Berger getting in for Best Direction.  That didn't happen but the film picked up a nomination for Original Score which put it at nine total nominations.

TFF:  TAR overperformed a bit with its six nominations.  I had it predicted for four (Picture, Direction, Actress and Original screenplay) all of which it got in addition to Cinematography and Editing.

I had hoped Women Talking would get a least Supporting Acting nomination and had predicted a Best Original Score nomination but those did not materialize.  I was gratified that it pulled in that Best Picture nomination.  Many thought that it would not and my prediction was shaky.

I was also very pleased to see Bill Nighy get his first ever Oscar nomination.

Ultimately I had TFF films earning 16 nominations and they ended up with 17.

I was [leased that I went 93 for 120 for a success rate of 77.5% which, I gather, was a respectable number for Oscarologists.  Over at Gold Derby I would have finished behind just two experts: Indiewire's Anne Thompson who was tops with 95/120 and Gold Derby's Joyce Eng who had 94/120.

So yeah, it's true.  I outperformed a bunch of the folks who get paid to do this stuff.  Here's the link to all of the experts scores from Gold Derby.

Now it's on to March 12th.  Several actual races to make this a fun end to the awards season.  The Best Picture front runner right now seems to be Everything Everywhere but it's certainly not a lock.  Best Actor seems like a tight race between Fraser, Butler and Farrell.  Best Actress looks like  a showdown between Blanchett and Yeoh.  Supporting Actress seems to be leaning toward Angela Bassett but I wouldn't count out Condon or Curtis.  Supporting Actor looks like a slam dunk for Ke Huy Quan.  Best Direction appears to be a battle between The Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinart) and Steven Spielberg.  

I'll start predicting for the winners in next Monday's post.

WRITER'S GUILD AND TFF

The Writer's Guild of America announced its nominees for the best work in screenplays for 2022 yesterday.  TFF #49 films scored a nomination in each of the three categories.  Todd Field earned a nomination for Best Original Screenplay for TAR.  Sarah Polley was nominated for penning the Adapted Screenplay for Women Talking and Ondi Timoner was nominated for the best screenplay for a documentary for the Last Flight Home.

As is often the case, a number of Oscar nominated screenplays likely missed out due being ineligible for the WGA honor such as The Banshees of Inisherin, Living and All Quiet on the Western Front.

The WGA will announce its winners on March 5th.

Here is the complete list of WGA nominees.

U.S TRAILER FOR GODLAND

VISITATIONS

WOMEN TALKING

Sarah Polley on the WTF podcast.

Claire Foy and Jesse Buckley on ming5.com. 

EMPIRE OF LIGHT

Micheal Ward from Vanity Fair.

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Oscar Update: Supporting and Screenplays / Writers Guild Nominations Announced / Touring Nomadland

 OSCAR UPDATE: SUPPORTING AND SCREENPLAYS

Here's my latest take on Oscar nomination predictions for the Supporting Acting and Screenplay categories.  My last predictions for the Supporting Acting categories was on Feb. 1st and for Screenplays, it was  on Feb. 4th.  The previous position for a performer of film is indicated in parentheses.  TFF films are in Bold.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1) Glenn Close/Hillbilly Elegy (6)

2) Youn Yuh-jung/Minari (3)

3) Olivia Colman/The Father (2)

4) Amanda Seyfried/Mank (1)

5) Maria Bakalova/Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (5)

6) Ellen Burstyn/Pieces of a Woman (4)

7) Helena Zengel/News of the World (10)

8) Jodie Foster/The Mauritanian (8)

9) Dominique Fishback/Judas and the Black Messiah (7)

10) Olivia Cooke/Sound of Metal (-)

Other Possible: Saoirse Ronan/Ammonite

Hot: Glenn Close, Helena Zengel, Olivia Cooke

Not: Amanda Seyfried, Dominique Fishback, Saoirse Ronan

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1) Daniel Kaluuya/Judas and the Black Messiah (1)

2) Sacha Baron Cohen/The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2)

3) Leslie Odom, Jr./One Night in Miami (3)

4) Chadwick Boseman/Da 5 Bloods (4)

5) Paul Raci/Sound of Metal (5)

6) Bill Murray/On the Rocks (6)

7) David Strathairn/Nomadland (7)

8) Jared Leto/The Little Things (-)

9) Mark Rylance/The Trial of the Chicago 7 (8)

10) Glynn Turman/Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (9)

Other Possibles: Stanley Tucci/Supernova, Eddie Redmayne/The Trial of the Chicago 7

Hot: Jared Leto

Not: Stanley Tucci

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) Nomadland (1)

2) One Night in Miami (2)

3) Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (3)

4) The Father (4)

5) First Cow (5)

6) News of the World (6)

7) I'm Thinking of Ending Things (7)

8) Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (8)

9) Emma (9)

10) Pieces of a Woman (10)

Other Possibles: The White Tiger, The Mauritanian

No Hots and Nots...a really stable category at the moment.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) The Trial of the Chicago 7 (1)

2) Promising Young Woman (2)

3) Minari (3)

4) Mank (4)

5) Sound of Metal (8)

6) Da 5 Bloods (5)

7) Never Rarely Sometimes Always (7)

8) Judas and the Black Messiah (9)

9) Soul (6)

10) Palm Springs (10)

Other Possibles: Malcolm and Marie, On the Rocks

Hot: Sound of Metal

Not: Soul

WRITERS GUILD NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED

The Writers Guild of America announced their nominees for scripting excellence in film in three categories on Tuesday.  As always, there are some omissions that are considered possible/probable nominees that were ineligible for consideration (see note below).  The only TFF film that made the list was All In: The Fight for Democracy in the Documentary script category.

Nominees are as follows;

Adapted Screenplay:

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (#8 in my predictions above)

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (#3)

News of the World (#6)

One Night in Miami (#2)

The White Tiger (I've listed as an "Other Possible")

Both The Father, Pieces of a Woman and Nomadland were ineligible under WGA guidelines.

Original Screenplay:

Judas and The Black Messiah (#8)

Palm Springs  (#10)

Promising Young Woman (#2)

Sound of Metal (#5)

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (#1)

Ineligible Original Screenplays included: Mank and Minari.

Documentary Screenplays:

All In: The Fight for Democracy

The Dissident

Herb Alpert Is...

Red Penguins

Totally Under Control

Gold Derby has a rundown of ineligible screenplays here.

TOURING NOMADLAND 

Lots of new stuff  about Nomaldand as it nears its release date tomorrow.  

First, a new profile from Vulture on director/writer and more Chloe Zhao.  That's linked here.

SlashFilm also looks at Zhao and reports that she has become the most awarded single film maker of any award season (and there's still a ways to go!).  That analysis is linked here.

And Time digs in on the real people and stories as well as the book by Jessica Bruder that formed the basis for the film.  That article can be accessed here.

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