2016 Best Educated Guesses on the Academy Award Nominations: Part Five

And now we come to the end. 

Best Picture. Oddly enough, this has not been an easy category to pick this year. Usually you get a sense of a clear front runner like two months out. But this year, it seems like we only really got a sense of what film was going to win this award like three weeks before the ceremony. 

At the very least, it has made the awards season a lot more interesting. But with all that in mind, let's look at the race for Best Picture and who is going to win. 

BEST PICTURE

The Big Short 

Bridge of Spies 

Brooklyn 

Mad Max: Fury Road 

The Martian 

The Revenant 

Room

Spotlight 

To look at this lot of Best Picture nominees, at least the Academy decided to mix it up this year. Granted it would have been nice if Straight Outta Compton could have been nominated. It probably would have saved the Academy all the headache that #Oscarssowhite is bringing down upon them now. But alas that is an issue for another blog post. The film's that we have nominated now have one thing in common in that they are are all audience friendly this year. If you look at the audience score for each of the films, audience actually gave them all really good reviews. 

The most popular of the bunch up here would be The Martian. It kinda has fit itself into the spot that Gravity was in a few years ago. Like that Sandra Bullock film, Martian is a film that is wholly approved by most everyone. Critics, audiences, people in the industry. It is the type of studio film that you love to see come down the pipeline about once every year. Any other year, I think it would be the film to beat. But for some reason, I don't see it winning on this night. Whether it is the fact that the film came out all the way back in October or the fact that Ridley Scott missed out on a nomination for Best Director, The Martian just has the look here in this category of something that people have already moved on from and that is just sad for this film. 

Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, and Room, all have the same problem. They are great films with great performances, but nothing about them screams "best film of the year." On paper, Bridge of Spies should be one of the front runners. It is one of Spielberg's best films and it got great notices across the board from audiences and critics. But Spielberg has been so successful for so long, that he probably is always going to be judged by his past work. Whether it is fair or not is a good question to ask, but Spies will just have to settle for the nomination. Same goes for Brooklyn and Room. The two real independent films in this category. They are both great films but they really are more noted for the performances of their female leads. The nominations alone are probably a victory for both of those films. 

The real wild child in this race however is Mad Max: Fury Road. My favorite film of the year. In fact, if it were to win Best Picture, I don't think you would find that many people upset about it. It is an imaginative film. It is not boring. The action scenes are great. The acting was good. But the film I am sure scares off the older branch of the Academy. It probably is a little too B-movie like for the members to accept as super high art. Sure they will nominate it just to show they are hip and with the times. But give Mad Max Best Picture? Not a chance in hell sadly. 

Oddly enough, that is the same problem I think The Big Short is having as well. The people who have seen the film and it's biting commentary on the financial collapse of 2008, love the film. Adam McKay is a very well respected comedy writer and director in the industry and the film is one of the best reviewed of the year. But you wonder if it is just a bit too hip for the Academy to pick as Best Picture. I mean, the film doesn't exactly end on a inspirational note. The film will probably win Best Adapted Screenplay for sure. I think the Academy members will see that and just move on with the other films. 

So that leaves The Revenant and Spotlight. If it came down to these two films, to me I would go Spotlight. A great story, amazing acting, a story that is still relevant. This is usually the type of film that the Academy cannot wait to give Best Picture too. Sure it has not been a monster Box Office success, but has never stopped a film from winning Best Picture before. Think back to 2009, when The Hurt Locker beat all time Box Office champ Avatar for Best Picture. Spotlight on paper would seem to be the easy choice for Best Picture. But it will not win. 

Why? Because the campaign for The Revenant by it's producers and it's star Leonardo DiCaprio has been very effective so far. They have been all over the press circuit talking about how hard it was making the movie in the harsh winter conditions they were in. How hard it was for DiCaprio as he had to grow a beard and how he contracted the flu three times during the shoot. How they had to rush the movie to get it finished on time. You start to sense in the last couple of weeks, with the awards that the movie is starting to rack up, that the Academy is absolutely in love with this narrative. Plus Alejandro G. Innaritu is a big hit with the Academy at the moment. Birdman was the best picture winner last year. Innaritu directed that film as well. Once the Academy really loves you, they will not stop with the nominations and the trophies that come your way. For an example, look at Meryl Streep. 

Don't get me wrong, The Revenant is a great film. It is nice to see an adventure film that has zero superheroes in it connect with the public. But if you combine the narrative of the hardships of making the film with the narrative that DiCaprio is "due" for his Oscar moment, The Revenant is going to be your Best Picture winner of 2016. 

Maybe DiCaprio eating raw bison liver was worth it for him after all. 

WINNER:

-Hash

2015 Academy Awards Preview (or The Opinion of One Guy Who Has Seen Most of the Movies Nominated) Part Five

After a write up consisting of four different parts, it is time to talk about the one category that is always fun to debate about: Best Picture! 

So who do I think is going to win the big prize? Let's not start with a long paragraph this time. Let's just get right to it! 

BEST PICTURE

American Sniper 

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) 

Boyhood

The Grand Budapest Hotel 

The Imitation Game

Selma 

The Theory of Everything

Whiplash 

The thing that jumps out for me on this list is that frankly, this really is a really great list of films this year. There is no one film that is in here that makes everyone groan. I could make an argument for Foxcatcher being included on this list but other than that. I have no problems with the nominees listed here. 

So to start, who has no chance of winning? I think that honor has to go to The Theory of Everything. It's a fine movie no doubt. Well acted with a great subject matter. But it's the kind of biographic film you see at the Oscars every year and the film just doesn't really scream "BEST PICTURE!" Maybe Best Actor, but not Best Picture. The same I think goes for the other British film on this list, The Imitation Game. It is really odd with this movie because on paper, you think this would be an easy win for Best Picture. It's a prestige British Film. It is on the subject of World War II. You have two big name actors in Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley. It is also about a gay man being persecuted which is a big hot topic issue going on right now. But it seems that many people think that it is one of those movies that is really good, just not best of the year good.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is a movie that a lot of people really do love though. It's hard to find someone that hated it. However it has been put in what I call "the Moulin Rouge spot." It is going to win a good number of technical awards and be a film that many people admire for years, it is just not going to win Best Picture. The same thing can be said for Selma. This film will be remembered for years to come. It is an important historical film. Many people are upset that it will not win Best Picture and they have every right to be that way. But it is also going to join a list of amazing films that have also not won Best Picture. Seriously, go to Google and look up the list of nomintated movies that have lost Best Picture. It's not a bad list to be on. 

Now if I had my pick, Whiplash would win Best Picture no questions asked. It is the first movie that I can think of in years that I had a visceral reaction to. The movie moves you with the story, the acting, and especially the music. But the fact that the movie is such a gut punch at times I think is what's going to scare off the voters. It happens a lot. Why else could you explain why similar gut punch films like Raging Bull and Brokeback Mountain lost out on Best Picture to the more accessible to watch films like Ordinary People and Crash? 

Oddly enough, I think this also will apply to American Sniper. True it is a dark horse pick. It is the most popular film nominated. As of this writing, the film has made $308 Million Dollars at the U.S. box office. That is not a number to sneeze at. Also, it is directed by past Academy Award winner Clint Eastwood. But I have a feeling that even though it is raking in piles of money, the Academy is not going to give it Best Picture. You have a lot of liberal members in the voting branch and they really will not respond to the right leaning ways of the main character of the film. Also, you know they have to worry about a Crash-like backlash happening again if they let the movie win Best picture. 

So that leaves two films. The first one being Boyhood. For awhile, it was the presumed front runner. It has popped up on a slew of best of the year lists. Richard Linklater is a very popular director. It was filmed over a 12 year period, which definitely an interesting story to voters watching the film. It's also well acted which had to be a hard thing to continue to do over the years of filming. But the one thing that I think it is a determent to the movie is that it came out in the summer. Thus, people have had a long time to watch in theaters, watch it on DVD or on their computers. That is enough time for one movie to be picked apart and talked about by many people. So much so, that complaints about the film being gimmicky have started to surface. 

Because of that, I believe that Birdman is going to be the film that wins Best Picture. That is not a bad thing in the least. I love the movie. It's well acted with a career defining performance by Michael Keaton. It is well directed. It also has great camera work by Emmanuel Lubezki, who is hot at the moment coming off of a win for the similar one-take film, Gravity. Also if there is one type of film that the Academy in recent years have loved to honor, it is films that celebrate the world of cinema and the theater and the power they have over people. The Artist and Argo are two recent examples that come to mind. Expect Birdman to soar up into the air and join the list of Best Picture winners. 

Should Win: 

Whiplash 

Will Win: 

 

Enjoy the show this Sunday!

- Hash