Every time we received news of Martin Scorsese's Silence it's like a splash of cold water or a pinch. In other words a jarring 'oh yes, that movie' or a 'wow, we weren't dreaming it. It does exist!' thing.
Today the poster has been released and you can see a detail to your left of Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver trudging on to the shores of Japan at 17th century missionaries in search of their mentor Liam Neeson, he of frequent mentor-playing in the movies.
The Full Poster and some Best Picture thoughts follow after the jump...
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My personal pundit faith in the movie kept decreasing as we waited longer and longer for any news which is why it's sitting at #10 in the updated Best Picture chart which is not quite nominated but definitely not out of the running. At the very least we know it won't be able to count on much precursor support given its late arrival. It could of course be the late arrival that changes nearly everything (as The Revenant was last year) but that remains to be seen.
Will the precursors change much of our expectations? It's currently looking like the top tier (the 'safe' titles) are five: La La Land, Manchester by the Sea, Fences, Moonlight, and Jackie. Then there are four pictures which have good reason to hope for attention but are probably needing and banking on significant precursor attention: Lion, Loving, Arrival and Hell or High Water.
There's also Silence and Sully and 20th Century Women and a whole bunch of late release pictures that could benefit from doing well with precursors. Live by Night and Hidden Figures might factor in/ they might not... it's hard to say. But I wouldn't expect, say, The Founder or Gold to make much impact outside of, arguably, the Best Actor category where both Michael Keaton and Matthew McConaughey hope to compete given the vagueness of the category beyond the Casey Affleck vs. Denzel Washington title bout. But more on that when we get to Best Actor.
One Final Thought: Given the reviews and attention paid to them, might we see Elle or Toni Erdmann slip into screenplay contention in Adapted and Original respectively which sometimes happens for hot foreign titles?
WHICH FILM DO YOU THINK WE'RE OVERESTIMATING AND VICE VERSA? (You should also check out the Gurus of Gold charts to see how Nathaniel's expectations align or diverge from other pundits here.)
UPDATED CHARTS
(acting and directing have not yet been updated)
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VISUAL CATEGORIES
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ANIMATED FILMS / DOCS
FOREIGN FILMS
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