Aftersun
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
Babylon
The Banshees of Inisherin
Bardo (or False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Bones & All
Bros
Close
Decision to Leave
Elvis
Empire of Light
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Happening
I Wanna Dance with Somebody
Living
One Fine Morning
Raymond & Ray
She Said
Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies
Tár
Till
Top Gun: Maverick
Triangle of Sadness
The Whale
The Woman King
Women Talking
Other (Write-in your prediction)
Exactly. It would absolutely be the completely locked BP frontrunner... if this was the 80s/90s. While both have some hurdles, Babylon is being positioned as a powerful late-breaker and EEAAO is the obvious underdog with a ridiculous amount of industry and audience passion (and probably win-competitive in Screenplay and Editing). Fablemans could absolutely lose BP.Originally Posted by Jonathan
I sort of think Babylon's either going to have so much pressure coming in as the only late breaking contender this year that it'll crush under the weight of it and end up in the bottom five as a filler nominee OR people will have turned so ambivalent by this crop of contenders by the time it screens that they'll immediately cling to it like it's the second coming of The Godfather and it'll just swoop in and sweep everything. I don't really see a middle ground for some reason.
Yep. I think this second scenario is not that far tbh. And considering the La La Land backlash had been cooled down and being late without a full new backlash with many of the Oscar bait films flopped, this can be as "the new consensus at the end"
2022 World Cup Golden Rush here
DEADLINE FOR THE FOURTH AND FINAL ROUND: TUESDAY 13 DECEMBER 09:59 AM PT / 13:59 AM ET
EEAAO is indeed goofy but I think it’ll be wrong to reduce it to a “multiverse movie about buttplugs and hotdog fingers” (not you, but I’ve seen people increasingly parade that argument). I think the key reason why the film resonated with audiences is how it tackles generational trauma, immigrant stories, and queer acceptance. The scenes/quotes that went viral are not the flashy action stuff, but the emotional scenes in the film’s second half. And this definitely gives the film that “importance” angle which films like Get Out, Parasite, PYW, CODA had. Whether enough Academy members will see past its goofiness and recognize these themes is unclear for now, but I think with how much passion the film has so far, I’m gonna have some faith in them.
I guess it’s also a test of how truly diverse the Academy has become over the past couple years. Of course not saying all young/immigrant/Asian people will vote for EEAAO but these are the people that the film will resonate with the most after all I suppose.
TG can absolutely benefit from preferential voting, highly doubt it wins, but the passion is there
I would be more willing to accept that The Fabelmans is winning if this year was as weak in terms of top contenders as 2021 or 2020. It's not. The "too silly", "too popcorn" arguments are as invalid as the "foreign language" argument against Parasite. There's a HUGE amount of passion for both Everything Everywhere and Top Gun, AMPAS members won't be thinking "hey, this isn't the kind of movie I am supposed to be voting for". They vote for what they want to see win, not what they suppose to like. And it remains to be seen if people will actually think that The Fabelmans is worthy of Best Picture once it's out of TIFF.
If The Fabelmans is the "by-the-numbers Oscar bait" it appears to be, you just know that there will be zero rooting factor for it to win BP. This ain't the underdog CODA or the big crowdpleaser Green Book. Those two were the most liked movies by the public in their fields. In this field those movies will be Everything Everywhere and Top Gun, not The Fabelmans. You have to go back to The Artist to find some kind of a precedent for The Fabelmans, but that movie was also an underdog and it was Weinstein at the height of his power. So the actual last precedent for Oscar bait to win over a more beloved, more successful crowdpleaser top contenders is... A Beautiful Mind over The Fellowship of the Ring? (But A Beautiful Mind is a beloved bait, it's #143 on the IMDb all-time ranking.)
Maybe I am wrong and people will be passionate about The Fabelmans. But for now this reeks of the same "well, this is the kind of movie that wins, ain't it?" predictions that almost always prove to be wrong in Best Picture.
Last edited by Vektor; 09-18-2022 at 02:14 AM.
It feels pre-ordained at this point, but six months is a long time to be called the frontrunner by Clayton.
Right now, I would say:
1. The Fabelmans
2. Babylon
3. Everything Everywhere All at Once
4. Triangle of Sadness
5. Women Talking
6. Top Gun: Maverick
7. Avatar: The Way of Water
8. The Whale
9. Tar
10. The Banshees of Inisherin
With only the top five having a path to win.
@Vektor Dune? And it showed there’s still bias among AMPAS re certain things.
"And there on top of his head were faces like she had seen only in a dream, almost too beautiful to be recognized as people at all:
the most beautiful woman and the most beautiful man in the world, she the female version of him, and he the male version of her"
Dune was never a contender to win Best Picture. I still think that Arrival is the stronger Villeneuve awards contenders of the two and Dune was just lucky to be in one of the weakest years ever. I mean, we always have to see the ratings in context, an 8.0 on IMDb for a small female-led drama about a girl is far better than an 8.0 for a movie that is "made for the IMDb crowd". (Fantasy epic, male-led, Villeneuve is supposed to be the next Nolan that Reddit champions, etc.) If Dune had a chance of winning, it would be permanently in the IMDb Top100 like Top Gun Maverick.
I can see the critics rally behind EEAAO.
Avatar 2 and Black Panther are also technically late-breaking contenders but I agree with what you're saying. Babylon will ultimately come down to the reviews, more than any other film. If it premieres to raves, (in the 90s on MC say), I have a hard time seeing it not just sweep everything but if it's more divisive (which is definitely a possibility) it'll probably just end up a lower-tier BP contender. I don't expect pans so as you say, those are probably the only two scenarios.
Why? The reviews aren't that great. TAR and Banshees are way higher on MC.
"And there on top of his head were faces like she had seen only in a dream, almost too beautiful to be recognized as people at all:
the most beautiful woman and the most beautiful man in the world, she the female version of him, and he the male version of her"
I think Everything Everywhere will repeat what Get Out did at the critics awards. It won't win any of the trifecta, but it will win a LOT of the lower tier critics awards and it will be #1 on the Metacritic Scoreboard. I think it will also very clearly be the #1 on CriticsTop10s.
But who knows, Everything Everywhere seems even more of a crowdpleaser than Get Out, it has better audience scores, so maybe LAFCA and NSFC can go their way. Get Out was in a very competitive year, Lady Bird and Call Me by Your Name were raved to the high heavens. Everything Everywhere doesn't have that kind of a competition this year, Banshees and TÁR are not on the level of Lady Bird and Call Me by Your Name.
Personally I don't see Banshees as a trifecta winning movie. TÁR will likely win at least one, but it won't sweep. We don't have a strong foreign language contender. That leaves them with Everything Everywhere as the "cool choice", unless they go for a completely left field BP winner, which is always possible.
Last edited by Vektor; 09-18-2022 at 04:38 AM.
The Departed was supposed to just be a commercial film after his big Miramax oscar bait Gangs of New York and the Aviator. It didnt go to fall festivals, they didnt do the usual award season campaign, it didnt win SAG/PGA/GG, and it definitely wasn't Warner Bros' Oscar push(that would be the Clint Eastwood two-fer Letters from Iwo Jima/Flags of our Fathers). After the critical/commercial success of the movie though, there was definitely a "Scorsese Best Director oscar is due" narrative. I think Little Miss Sunshine had the underdog factor being the little Sundance movie everyone liked and it won SAG/PGA, but it wasn't nominated for director or editing. Nobody seemed that passionate about Babel or the Queen either(outside Hellen Mirren). Dreamgirls not getting nominated for BP was a shock at the time. So The Departed, which never got touted like a frontrunner, kinda just stealhily became the big winner anyway.
Maybe Marty should do a late release again, preferably this year
"And there on top of his head were faces like she had seen only in a dream, almost too beautiful to be recognized as people at all:
the most beautiful woman and the most beautiful man in the world, she the female version of him, and he the male version of her"
10 100’s on Metacritic, 8.6/10 RT average rating and is the hippest movie of the year.
now there's an idea, stealing the late-breaking December hype from Babylon, avoiding the frontrunner status until the last minute. Marty with Leo/DeNiro doesn't need festivals, just show up on Apple+ Dec 31.Maybe Marty should do a late release again, preferably this year
I mean Tar got 7 10's on MC already, with 37 less reviews. Unless they are totally overselling it I don't see how it doesn't dominate critics list this year.
"And there on top of his head were faces like she had seen only in a dream, almost too beautiful to be recognized as people at all:
the most beautiful woman and the most beautiful man in the world, she the female version of him, and he the male version of her"
Decision to Leave (Best Picture Winner)
Babylon
The Banshees of Inisherin
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Elvis
The Fabelmans
TAR
Triangle of Sadness
The Whale
Women Talking
Avatar: The Way of Water
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
The Woman King
Given the recent trends at the Oscars, it seems reasonable to expect a Picture/Director split, and for one of the Screenplay winners to take Best Picture.
Picture: Women Talking
Director: Spielberg
Original Screenplay: Everything Everywhere All At Once
Adapted Screenplay: Women Talking
My feeling is that support for Spielberg will coalesce in the Director category as a way to recognize him for his career and his “personal” film this year.
The issue with Women Talking is that I can see it as another Spotlight situation where the film wins Picture, Screenplay, and nothing else. Williams will block it in Supporting Actress, and IDK if they’ll rally around Whishaw (just imagine the thinkpieces if they do); we can’t rule out a Director win for Polley if it does go for the top prizes, but I’m not really feeling it right now.
Everything Everywhere All At Once has the same path as always: Screenplay and at least one Acting trophy.
The big problem with predicting Top Gun is that no film has won Picture without taking another above the line category since at least the 1960s, if ever. So unless you’re also predicting it to win Director, Actor, or Adapted Screenplay…
Banshees or Babylon never felt like winners to me.
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