Echoes from Oscars Past

by Cláudio Alves

The past always returns, one way or the other. It haunts the present and prophesizes our uncertain futures. That's why History is a cycle of recurring nightmares and dreams, one overtaking the other in ruthless combat.

Anyway, we're here to talk about the Academy Awards. The ghosts of Oscars past always come to haunt the current races, helping shape narratives, setting records to be broken and announcing patterns of cyclical discontent. Regarding the Best Picture nominees of 2019, here are some of the Oscar champions of the past that haunt them… 

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"Because you love movies"

by Cláudio Alves

There's something mercenary, a bit unseemly, about many Oscar campaigns. Nobody should be slighted for campaigning too hard or for showing they want the award too much, of course -- that's not what we're saying (no Hathahating here). Still, studio's FYC ads tend to feel pushy, more interested in vacuous hyperbole than a genuine celebration of any film's particular merits.

All of that said, sometimes a campaign hits the nail right on the head, negotiating the needs of clever promotion and cinephile wonderment with utmost ease. Such is the case of Once Upon a Time ...in Hollywood's latest ads. As the final Oscar voting starts, Sony has played its last card in the campaign game. It's a rather simple one, focused on special screenings and a bunch of traditional paper ads as well as some internet banners. Their genius lies in the simplicity of it all, avoiding incomprehensible lists of critics' prizes in favor of a simple powerful message...

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9 days till Oscar

Final voting has begun for the Oscars with just 9 days until the big night. Preferential balloting is such that we can dream of crazy outcomes on the big night even though it's fairly clear that 1917 is in the lead amongst the 9 Best Picture contenders. (Have you voted on our "who should win polls yet?If not do so on each Oscar chart) Only Parasite and Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood are well poised to spoil the war film's party if preferential balloting is kind to them.

For those who don't know how preferential balloting works it's a complicated math system which begins rather simply by counting #1 votes until one of the contenders has reached 50.1% of the votes. Since that rarely happens on first pass, #2 votes become important... but only from the ballots that have been discarded by whichever film came in last on the most recent round.  It's a process of elimination whereby the least loved pictures votes are continually reallocated to that movie's biggest fan's next preference until one movie eventually gets half of the voters on its side...

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1917: Acting an Epic

by Cláudio Alves

Sam Mendes may be winning prizes left and right for his World War I epic, but a big element of the production has been ignored by awards bodies. As it happens with many epics, the actors of 1917 are forgotten amid their picture's celebration. It's difficult to consider the human element of a spectacle that calls so much attention to the craft of its construction, its beauty, and savagery. Instead of chewing on the scenery, these actors are consumed by it and fully digested.

As we start approaching the finish line of this Oscar race, one question looms over the Best Picture category. Can 1917 overcome its actorly lacunas and defeat Parasite in all its SAG-crowned glory? On the other hand, are those perceived lacunas a reality or a byproduct of the epic scale...

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"Bad Boys for Life" and audiences check out those BP nominees

The box office report comes real late this week since it takes a while for the coins to settle after holiday weekends. But here we go with the long weekend estimates (which probably aren't all in).

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are both in their 50s but there's no aging out of action franchises (as we saw with Hamilton & Schwarzenegger last summer in Terminator Dark Fate). The first Bad Boys arrived in 1995 as an instant smash and its sequel waited until 2003 but audiences haven't fallen out of love in the long gaps. They came back in droves 17 years later for round three.

Since this was the first weekend after the Oscar nominations and most of the Best Picture nominees (re) expanded their screen counts, let's check in with EVERYTHING in wide release... and their counterparts in platforming.

Weekend Box Office January 17th-20th (ESTIMATES) 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = recommended
WIDE RELEASE (800+ screens)	PLATFORM TITLES
1 🔺  BAD BOYS FOR LIFE  $73.4 *NEW*	1 🔺   WEATHERING WITH YOU $1.7 on 486 screens *NEW* REVIEW  ★

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