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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

24 Weeks To Oscar: Where We Are After TIFF

Only two movies came out of North American premieres at TIFF (which is essentially over, even though it goes on for five more days) with legitimate Best Picture hopes, Molly’s Game and the Venice-premiering Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

Five more movies that were not at Telluride (two at Venice) and stirred the waters in a big way at Toronto: The Disaster ArtistI, Tonyamother!Roman Israel, Esq. and Victoria & Abdul.

Of these five, only Victoria & Abdul has a legitimate chance of a Best Picture nomination. The others may turn up in other categories, including acting and writing, but it would take an awful lot of A24 magic to make The Disaster Artist anything more than the most beloved inside-baseball (for people under 60) movie of the season.

So what does that mean?

I have a hard time putting either of the big TIFF movies on a list a likely or in without seeing them. So…

IN
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk

LIKELY IN
Lady Bird

TWO OF THESE
Spielberg
PTA
Ridley Scott
Eastwood
Blade Runner

GOOD CHANCE
Victoria & Abdul
Big Sick
Molly’s Game
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

PUNCHER’S CHANCE
Baby Driver
Call Me By Your Name
The Disaster Artist
Downsizing

IN THE GAME… AS LONGSHOTS
Battle of the Sexes
Beauty & The Beast
Detroit
First They Killed My Father
The Florida Project
Get Out
Mudbound
Wind River
Wonderstruck
Wonder Woman

Don’t get me wrong. If the “Longshot” list all got nominated, it would be a great year for Oscars. No one would watch the show, but all those films have passionate support, completely deserved.

Five of the six major studios could all be represented (big studio or dependent) with Best Picture nominations, with A24, Amazon, and against the odds, STX… and perhaps Weinstein, Annapurna, Sony Classics and Netflix.

There is every chance this will be one of the calmer award seasons… lots of very good movies and not a lot of hate. But then again, Greta Gerwig and Denzel Washington could be the primary representatives of women and people of color this season. (Can Greta Gerwig actually get nominated for Best Director for her first solo directing gig? Just writing the question is freaking me out.)

I don’t have a ton more to say at this point, so why stretch? I have four key movies to see, aside from the movies that won’t likely be seen at all until November.

Off we go…

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11 Responses to “24 Weeks To Oscar: Where We Are After TIFF”

  1. YancySkancy says:

    It’s Gerwig’s solo directing debut. She co-directed Joe Swanberg’s Nights and Weekends in 2008.

    I haven’t seen much this year, but this seems like a more interesting field than usual.

  2. lockedcut says:

    The highest oscar ratings always correlate to blockbusters with best picture nominations. So if Wonder Woman and beauty and the beast were nominated (from the long shots) the oscars would have its highest ratings since the avatar year, not the lowest, 100% wrong to say no one would watch if the longshots were all nominated. If all the top films were nominated, no one will watch, if blockbusters are nominated, people will watch.

  3. lockedcut says:

    I would say :

    IN
    Dunkirk
    Blade Runner
    Wonder Woman

    LIKELY IN
    Lady Bird
    Darkest Hour
    Get Out
    Florida Project
    Beauty and the Beast
    The Shape of Water

    IN IF IT GETS A DECENT TITLE CHANGE
    The Papers (what an awful re-title effort, profoundly stupid and insulting your audience)

    SO HAPPY WE LUCKED INTO SCRIPT AND ACTING NOMINATIONS
    Victoria & Abdul
    Big Sick
    Molly’s Game
    Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
    Call Me By Your Name
    The Disaster Artist
    Downsizing

    OH! AN EDITING NOMINATION THAT MEANS WE ALMOST GOT A PICTURE NOMINATION (…NOT!)
    Baby Driver

    DEFINITELY NOT IN THE GAME (Maybe a single nom somewheres)
    Detroit
    First They Killed My Father
    Mudbound
    Wind River

    MAKING CRITICS WHINGE ABOUT HOW UNFAIR _____ IS
    Wonderstruck

  4. Sergio says:

    IN:
    Wonder Woman
    Dunkirk
    The Shape of Water
    Blade Runner
    The Post
    Eastwood (if out in time)

    LIKELYs
    Florida Project
    Lady Bird
    Wind River
    Three Billboards
    Get Out

  5. Bradley says:

    Oh my god,I like you a lot Dave but these picks are stunningly bad. I’m excited about Lady Bird but to have it higher than Call Me By Your Name is willful ignorance. You find me a movie this year with better reviews and audience reception. Tap your compass friend, you’re way off course.

  6. tarah says:

    It’s likely Gerwig receives a director nomination. I mean she has a lot of support from her colleagues and critics, and A24 are taking LADY BIRD all the way. Other likely nominations including best picture, best actress, best supporting actress and original screenplay.

  7. Chris says:

    Sounds like you must not have cared for “Stronger?” I would not underestimate its Oscar potential, particularly if it becomes the bit it seems like it could be (if they can get out the message that it’s nothing like the other Boston Marathon-derived movie).

  8. John E says:

    Beauty & the Beast should have 0% chance of Best Picture nod. I know it made a lot, but come on. I’d eliminate Detroit too.

  9. Poet says:

    The highest Oscar telecast ratings correlate more to who’s hosting than to what’s nominated.

  10. MyMommaSays says:

    Why does no one talk about “Columbus,” the best movie of the year? And something else will emerge from the pile, like “Marshall” (at least for Boseman?)

  11. Chris says:

    No one talks about (excellent, agreed) “Columbus” because they haven’t seen it. And because it doesn’t have a chance in hell at any Oscar nominations.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon