Cinema Audio Society nominees. How are they as a precursor?

by Nathaniel R

THE BATMAN

In the mad rush of guild announcements last week (all over but for the ACE Eddie awards which will curiously be announced after the Oscar nominations this year) we missed this one: The Cinema Audio Society. While Top Gun Maverick has long been marked the frontrunner for the Best Sound nomination it has formidable competition in the sound spectacle department. Nominees, comments, superhero split, and Oscar stats after the jump...

MOTION PICTURES - LIVE ACTION

• All Quiet on the Western Front
• Avatar: The Way of Water
• The Batman
• Elvis
• Top Gun Maverick

Usually when a straight drama makes it in this list you know it's landing a best picture nomination but this year's list is free of them. All five are the typical kind of movies the sound guild likes even if they aren't snagging Best Picture nominations: war films, franchise action spectacles, and musicals. All 5 of their nominees are also on the Oscar shortlist alongside Babylon, Black Panther Wakanda Forever, Everything Everywhere All At Once, which all now look like longer shots since they weren't nominated here. The final two Oscar shortlisters for Sound are in the other CAS categories. 

In the past ten years CAS has generally lined up 4/5 with the eventual Oscar nominations. It went like so:

2021 - Spider-Man No Way Home replaced by Belfast at the Oscars
2020 - Trial of the Chicago 7 replaced by Soul at the Oscars
2019 - 3/5 kind of year  The Irishman and Rocketman replaced by Ad Astra and 1917  at the Oscars
2018 - A Quiet Place replaced by Roma at the Oscars
2017 - Wonder Woman replaced by Blade Runner 2049 at the Oscars
2016 -3/5 kind of year Doctor Strange and Sully replaced by Arrival and 13 Hours at the Oscars
2015 - The Hateful Eight replaced by The Martian at the Oscars
2014 - Guardians of the Galaxy replaced by Whiplash at the Oscars 
2013 - Iron Man 3 replaced by The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug at the Oscars
2012 - 3/5 kind of year and odd for other reasons too - The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey and Zero Dark Thirty replaced by Argo and Life of Pi at the Oscars. But then Zero Dark Thirty was nominated in Oscar's other sound category at the time (Sound Editing) and won that other category in a tie with Skyfall! If you were watching that night it was very exciting since ties are rare in Oscar history.

As you can see there's not a lot in the way of patterns since there's an exception to almost every broad generalization about what kind of movie gets replaced by what other kind of movie. Nevertheless, the truest broad generalization is that the guild voters like the sound of superhero movies more than Academy voters do. That might mean that The Batman is the must vulnerable of their five guild nominees during Oscar voting (right now) ... but on the other hand Batman is Oscar's favourite superhero by a country mile since they've nominated his long running franchise in several categories over the years.

GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO

MOTION PICTURES - ANIMATED

• Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
• Lightyear
• Minions: The Rise of Gru
• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
• Turning Red

The Audio Society goes super mainstream and American for their animated lists (as most guilds do if they have animated awards) but it's worth noting that Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio is here and ALSO on Oscar's 10 wide shortlist for Sound. 

Please note this disappointing truth, though. Once CAS started divvying up their awards into multiple categories in 2012, only one animated film has scored with Oscar for its sound (Soul for 2020), despite fairly frequent Oscar nominations for animated films in the years immediately preceding the Guild Split (WALL•E, Ratatouille, Toy Story 3, Up). It's as if giving animated films their own category has ghettoized them, or at least proved an obstacle in terms of the momentum toward wider recognition.

MOONAGE DAYDREAM

MOTION PICTURES - DOCUMENTARY

• Good Night Oppy
• Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song
• Louis Armstrong's Black and Blues
• Moonage Daydream
• The Volcano: Rescue from Whakaari

Moonage Daydream is the only one of these to land on Oscar's shortlist so it still (theoretically) has a shot at the Oscar nom. It is almost unheard of for a Doc to score with Oscar in the craft categories. The only documentary to ever receive a sound nomination at the Oscars was Woodstock (1970) over 50 years ago. Feels like it's time to see that again and that David Bowie doc sure is an aural experience!

NON THEATRICAL MOTION PICTURE OR LIMITED SERIES

• Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (episode 8 Lionel)
• Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiousities (episode 3 The Autopsy) 
• Moon Knight (episode 6 Gods and Monsters) 
• Obi Wan Kenobi (episode 6 part 1)
• Prey

TELEVISION SERIES - ONE HOUR

• Better Call Saul (s6e13 Saul Gone)
• Ozark (s4e14 A Hard Way To Go)
• Severance (sq 39 The Way We Are)
• Stranger Things (s4e7 The Massacre at Hawkins Lab)
• The White Lotus (s2e1 Ciao)

TELEVISION SERIES - HALF HOUR

• Barry (s3e8 Starting Now)
• Only Murders in the Building (s2e5 The Tell)
• She-Hulk Attorney At Law (s1e9 Whose Show is This?)
• The Bear (s137 Review)
• What We Do in the Shadows (s4e7 Pine Barrens)

TELEVISION NON-FICTION, VARIETY, OR MUSIC SERIES OR SPECIALS

• Carole King & James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name
• Formula 1: Drive to Survive (s4e9 Gloves are Off)
• George Carlin's American Dream (e1 part 1)
• Lucy & Desi
• Obi Wan Kenobi: A Jedi's Return

STUDENT RECOGNITION AWARD FINALISTS

• Chelsea Rae Adams
• Colette Grob
• Marîa Clara Calle Jiménez
• Sophia L White
• Timo Nelson

Comments

[Rick Huang]

Good job on the coverage, but seems like ASC nomination was missed as well.