Gurus o’ Gold

Gurus o’ Gold: Top 8 Categories A Few Days Before The Globes Nominations

Thirteen Best Picture titles have votes from more than half the voting Gurus this week, after all the movies expected to be in play, aside from Passengers, have been seen. That is the field from which 7-10 will get Best Picture nominations. Scorsese’s Silence didn’t rise… but it didn’t fall either. Denis Villeneuve, Andrew Garfield, Isabelle Huppert and Janelle Monáe are on the rise.

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Gurus o’ Gold: Directing, Animated, Screenplay

This week, in a vote taken before the critics groups weighed in on Thursday, the Gurus take on Director, Animated Feature and the two Screenplay categories, in addition to the BP Top 10.

If there are any surprises, it is The Gurus’ unwillingness to take movies set in the 1960s very seriously or that the Top 5 Directors right now are all American.

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Gurus o’ Gold: Thanksgiving – Episode 2

In the second charts of the week, The Gurus look at Best Picture and offer their suggestions for what you must see this holiday weekend as well as what unexpected nominations would excite them. Have a wonderful holiday!

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Gurus o’ Gold: Thanksgiving – Episode 1

In this first of two pre-Thanksgiving Gurus outings, not a lot of change in Picture and the Supporting acting categories. The only real mover in Picture is… Arrival.

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Gurus o’ Gold: Who Directed That Masterpiece?

The election took The Gurus by surprise this week, but they have consulted with The Oscar Deities and are back in the saddle. This week, Best Picture and Best Director.

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Gurus o’ Gold: The Weekly Watch Begins…

The Gurus are back for the full season (weekly the rest of the way) offering up frontrunners in Best Picture and the 4 acting categories today, with only one major studio (including Dependents) leading in any of the 5 categories.

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Gurus o’ Gold: Before The Festivals…

Before the Venice Film Festival kicks off the season next Wednesday, The Gurus are putting on their thinking hats and offering a mostly film-blind look toward the future. Each Guru has a different way of approaching this process, but historically, the accuracy of the group this early in the year is surprisingly good. And a film or two always eludes their glance in August. We humbly dip a toe in the water…

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Gurus o’ Gold: Our Best Guess… Our Final Guess

The Academy’s votes are in. And now, The Gurus have spoken as well.

Ten categories have unanimous votes, including 5 of the Top 8. Another five categories have 11 or 12 of the 13 Guru votes. That would suggest a pretty boring evening, with the big unknowns being short films, Costume Design, and Sound. But it has been a season of surprises… so stay close to the TV on Sunday night.

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Gurus o’ Gold: Battleground Categories Top 3!!!

The Gurus were asked to pick their Top 3 in the 8 Battleground Categories. Only one pick to win has changed… but it’s a big one.

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Gurus o’ Gold: 2 Days Before Voting Begins

This week, the Gurus voted in every category for everyone they thought had a chance of winning. This led to some very interesting numbers, including one mad movie with 6 wins, besting everyone in the field by 3. And two categories where everyone is in agreement that there’s no potential upset.

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Gurus o’ Gold: 9 Days Until Voting Begins

The Gurus storm into February looking at the “Top 8” categories, plus Feature Documentary and Cinematography. Appropriate to this still-unsettled season, The Gurus currently foresee 7 different movies winning those Top 8 prizes, with only the Best Picture leader grabbing 2 of these 8.

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Gurus o’ Gold: The Week After Nominations

Things seem to be firming up in the top 8 categories. The Gurus offer their Top 2 in each of the categories, except for Picture. (Also worth noting – voting was done before nominee Rampling made her statements about race and Oscar.)

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Gurus o’ Gold Special: The Trajectory Of The Season

With all the controversy around the Oscar voting, we thought we would take a look at how we got to nominations Thursday. The chart shows where the contenders were, in the minds of The Gurus, in the 10 weeks of voting, from August’s pre-festival vote until the week that voting closed. We hope it is enlightening.

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Gurus o’ Gold: Nomination Day (part 1 of 2)

The Gurus (well, most of us) are back with our insta-take on where the Oscar nominees will fall. If The Gurus are right, it looks like The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road will be battling it out for the most wins, while another film wins the big prize.

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Gurus o’ Gold: Nomination Day (part 2 of 2)

back to part 1

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Gurus o’ Gold: Down To The Nomination Wire…

For a very confused season, things seem to be coming into focus, at least for the Gurus. Opinions are firming up on 8 Best Picture candidates. The Big Short is the big mover, rising to contention in a number of categories and even the top slot for Adapted Screenplay. Carol has suffered from a lack of guild nominations. And only one category seems wide open, even for the 5-slot… Supporting Actress. But will it all change again?

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Gurus o’ Gold: You Better Vote Good For Goodness Sake

The Gurus are ready for a well-deserved break. But before they go, they seem to be close to settling their minds about some things. Best Picture seems to be down to a firm 9 titles. The acting races seem to be settling in (though watch out for that Best Supporting Actor race… it could bite you.) And the Gurus expect voters to step up and see a few titles they may have missed before they vote.

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Gurus o’ Gold: What Underdogs Are Still Barking?

The Gurus offer a wildly shaken Best Picture chart, with only a single film holding the same position as last week. So then, which are the underdogs that still have a chance of getting in as we close in on the Oscar nomination voting? It’s a long, interesting list.

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Gurus o’ Gold: It’s Getting Hot In Here

The Gurus go Top 6, Picture, Director, and all four Acting categories (voted pre-SAG noms). For the first time this season, there is a lot of movement on the charts.

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Gurus o’ Gold: Critics Week

This week, The Gurus take their guesses at 6 of the winners and runners-up for the critics awards from NY Film Critics Circle and LA Film Critics Association, as well as offering their weekend Best Picture chart.

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Gurus o' Gold

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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