Handicapping The Oscars Before The Guilds Go

 Hurrah, the useful practice of prognosticating film awards. It's hard to guess which way the wind blows - critics awards can be helpful, but hose people don't vote in the academy. Yes, I think these awards do matter, as it gives old people a list of movies to stream now that nobody sees dramas in theaters anymore. Anyways, here's my best guess at where the race is going.

 Best Picture has who knows how many films seriously in contention to win it? The three best reviewed, most acclaimed films of the year are Tar, The Banshees of Inisherin, and Everything Everywhere All At Once. Any of these could be winners, and all have plenty of reasons why they might not win - "Tar" is challenging and doesn't make anyone feel good, "Banshees" is not particularly about much (at least in the way that the Oscars usually want their big winners to be some kind of commentary on some kind of social issue), and "Everything Everywhere" is a strange genre film that I can't imagine appealing much to any voters older than Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan. But what else could sneak up here? The Fabelmans is a bit less acclaimed but much more of a stereotypical "Oscar picture" on paper, although it's worth saying that the academy has not actually embraced Spielberg all that much these days (his last statue won was for directing "Saving Private Ryan" in 1998, "West Side Story won just 1 award for actress Ariana DeBose last year, 2015's "Bridge of Spies" won just 1 award for actor Mark Rylance, 2012's "Lincoln" led the year with 12 nominations and won only 2 categories, etc). And then there is, I suppose, Top Gun: Maverick, which I was very confident would go nowhere until it appeared on the BAFTA longlist of the 10 best films of the year. If non-Americans in the film industry are voting for it, it's happening, end of story. 

 The second tier (virtually guaranteed a nomination, virtually impossible to win) appears to only claim Elvis and Women Talking at the moment. Can't wait to see it, whenever it moves out of the NYC and LA only release strategy which it has held for a few weeks now. Then we have a mess: 3 spots for some combo of underwhelming would-be shoe-ins (Babylon, Triangle of Sadness), blockbusters that don't appear to have awards momentum (Avatar, Glass Onion, Nope, Black Panther - it's criminal that Jordan Peele's latest seems least likely), indie films that basically nobody has actually seen (Aftersun and Living both made the BAFTA longlist), and whatever foreign film can pick up momentum (RRR is the populist favorite, All Quiet on the Western Front has been successful on shortlists for both BAFTA and the Academy, regional critic groups haven't been able to decide if they like EO or Decision To Leave more, which might be to the detriment of both). Right now I'll guess "Glass Onion", "Triangle of Sadness", and "Aftersun" make it in, with the note that Best Director will almost certainly nominate an international film regardless of whether one cracks the Best Picture lineup - I'll thinking it's S.S. Rajamouli for RRR. No clue which supposed favorite he takes the spot of, but the Directors branch tends to not love people who feel more like writers than directors, which is why both Martin McDonagh and Todd Field have never been nominated in that category. At least one of that pair certainly could get snubbed.

 Lead Actor and Actress look similar: if people vote for the performance/role/film they like the most, Cate Blanchett and Colin Farrell will win. If people vote from an angle of the narrative and the meaning of the award, I expect Michelle Yeoh to win (her first, while Blanchett already has two), and Brendan Fraser... might? I don't know to what extent The Whale being kind of bad will be held against him, or even if the Academy agrees with critics that "The Whale" is kind of bad. I'm worried writing it out like that makes it look like I'm pulling for Blanchett over Yeoh, which is not necessarily true. I think that both of these thought processes are perfectly valid. Supporting Actor will almost certainly go to Ke Huy Quan, which is a win I would be very happy with. No clue how Supporting Actress will turn out, except to say that it would be a shame if the "Everything Everywhere" nominee here was Jamie Lee Curtis (a respected veteran actress who doesn't do anything in the film) instead of Stephanie Hsu (the emotional core of the film). They made this exact same mistake last year with "Belfast", nominating a 10 minute role for Judi Dench in what will end up being a footnote of her career instead of wonderful work from Caitriona Balfe. 

 Having not seen Saint Omer or Close, I think that the most logical set in International Film is those two plus the 3 mentioned above which I think have a viable shot at breaking in to other categories. Realistically, I expect Alejandro Iñárritu's Bardo to get votes, as Iñárritu is fully known in America and none of the other filmmakers in the hunt are. Animated Film will consist of Pinocchio, Marcel The Shell With Shoes On, and 3 Disney/Dreamworks pics. I did not love either of those bolded titles and would much rather see Richard Linklater's tender Apollo 10 1/2 in this category, but that was dumped to Netflix without fanfare in March.