29 Weeks To Oscar: Let The Wild Rumpus Start

As usual, at this point in the year, the pickings for Oscar already seem light. Lots of presumably good movies. But how much Oscar bait is there in the ocean, really?

Let’s just dive in.

My first Top 10… in which I feel strongly about the nominations bets on only 3 of these titles. The deck could shuffle a lot in the next 2 months.

(in alphabetical order)

The Accountant
Allied
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
The Birth of a Nation
Bleed For This
Fences
The Founder
La La Land
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

Robert Zemeckis, Ang Lee, John Lee Hancock, and Damien Chazelle are the four directors with films on this list who have had films nominated, or winning, for Best Picture.

Gavin O’Connor, Nate Parker, Denzel Washington, Kenneth Lonergan, Ben Younger, and Barry Jenkins have not.

And now… here are the films that didn’t make the 10 (for now). Let’s start with September releases.

The three titles that seem lock-ish are Billy Lynn, Birth, and Fences. Everything else is just… could be.

The Accountant, Allied, and The Founder have to prove that they are more than high profile. La La Land could be One From The Heart or all the things One From The Heart was hoped to be. I can’t imagine not loving it, either wa). Kenneth Lonergan has earned a lot of love, but is 0 for 2 on Best Picture. And Moonlight seems like pure indie with Barry Jenkins finding a more sizable audience, but probably a reach for Best Picture. I’m giving A24 the benefit of the doubt because they have earned the respect.

In the last decade, only one September release has been Oscar nominated. Moneyball. One-for-78.

So whether you are looking at what seem like obvious Oscar contenders – Sully or The Light Between Oceans or what promises to be the most Oscar-worthy film of the month, Snowden – or more commercial product whose Oscar prospects some will wonder aloud about – Deepwater Horizon, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, The Magnificent Seven, The Dressmaker – never bet on September… even for a nomination. (Performances, perhaps. Best Picture, no.)

As long as we are on dating issues, here are a bunch of titles with potential that either don’t have a US distributor as of yet or are dated realistically for 2017: Miss Sloane, A United Kingdom, Tulip Fever, The Circle, The Zookeeper’s Wife, Secret Scripture, and Annihilation.

Looking backwards at the year, titles with potential include The BFG, The Lobster, Money Monster, The Nice Guys… none of which were commercial enough, in their individual contexts, to make the leap to Best Picture nominee. (And this comes from someone who is upbeat about all four films.)

If there is a film that could circle the year and land a nomination, it would be Hail, Caesar!. The Coens have had this happen before. The passion for their work just keeps growing. So if enough bodies fall by the wayside, their moralistic comedy about studio-era Hollywood could be taken very seriously by mid-November. If the season turns stronger than expected, it will go away.

So… let’s move down the list.

COMMERCIAL OR RELATIVELY COMMERCIAL MOVIES
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Arrival (previously Story of Your Life)
Collateral Beauty
Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them
The Girl on the Train
Patriots Day
Passengers

When I started this year’s list, I has Rogue One in my Top Ten. I think Hollywood, as embodied by The Academy, would like to have a Star Wars movie good enough and pleasurable enough to nominate. Titles from the Trilogy of Trilogies are at a disadvantage… there has to be some kind of unique element that makes that particular movie stand out on its own. But the spin-off titles, it seems to me, have a better change, because they will feel like one-offs. But then, the buzz about trouble in post-production began, and while many films overcome problems along the way (actually, most great films), the unusual issue of Star Wars‘ breed pushed me away from the guess.

Also sure to be massive is the new Harry Potter-associated brand, Fantastic Beasts. But because that franchise skews younger, I don’t think Academy members are eagerly awaiting a chance to vote for that one.

Then, we have five commercial pieces aimed at adults. Arrival and Passengers have sci-fi elements… which are a bit scary, Oscarwise.

The Girl On The Train feels like Gone Girl, in tone, and with that, more a likely nomination for Emily Blunt than for the film.

The partnership of Allen Loeb – who write some good dramas before becoming a Sandler comedy acolyte when Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps went bad – and David “The Devil Wears Prada” Frankel is not encouraging when you look at the weighty drama of Collateral Beauty. On the other hand, a lot of great talent was attracted to this material. So… you never know… but not getting on my Top 10 this week.

And Patriots Day is Peter Berg on the Boston Marathon bombing, which takes it out of the “just commercial” arena, but doesn’t necessarily pull it into Oscar season.

INTERESTING MOVIES
American Pastoral
Denial
Loving
Lion
Nocturnal Animals
The Queen of Katwe
War Machine

These are the wildest cards in this year’s deck.

And they will all be in Toronto.

There are arguments to be made against all of these titles “on paper.” But the season doesn’t happen on paper. One or even two of these films could find their wings and take off at Toronto (and/or Telluride) and make it all the way to the big finish line.

THE LEGENDS
Rules Don’t Apply
Silence

Beatty. Scorsese.

Oscar players. Masters. Never assume they are not going to be in play. And that’s all I know until I see the movies.

And that is what I think on August 4, 2016. Big names still have an advantage. Big budgets too. And nothing, in my opinion, will change at all as a result of the efforts to change the composition of The Academy. So that is that… for now.

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