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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Final Oscar Nomination Predictions

The 92nd annual Academy Awards are almost upon us. They're just 29 days away at this writing. We'll have the official Oscar charts back up for you as soon as is humanly possible once the potentially exciting event has occurred on Monday (they're coming down now to prep for Monday's unfurling). But until then, it's time to make final predictions.

BEST PICTURE

The sure things: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Parasite, The Irishman, Joker, Jojo Rabbit, 1917. That's six titles that we can't imagine missing on Monday morning given their success to date in precursor awards and with critics and the public. The extremely probable: Marriage Story. The only reason we've begun to worry is that there's been virtually no traction for Noah Baumbach in Best Director which suggests that people have reduced the movie to "an actor's showcase"... but then where was the SAG Outstanding Cast nomination? It's likely in but if there's a shock omission Monday morning...

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Producers Guild goes with Oscar's expected top ten... no box office deviations this year.

The Producers Guild have announced their nominations for the film and television year. Unlike in some previous years they've ignored unexpected non-prestige-ready blockbusters this time, focusing exclusively on films expecting to do well on Oscar nomination morning.

Little Women isn't down for the count yet in the Best Picture raceOutstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures

• 1917 Producers: Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris, Jayne‐Ann Tenggren, Callum McDougall
• Ford v Ferrari Producers: Peter Chernin & Jenno Topping, James Mangold
• The Irishman Producers: Jane Rosenthal & Robert De Niro, Emma Tillinger Koskoff & Martin Scorsese
• Jojo Rabbit Producers: Carthew Neal, Taika Waititi
• Joker Producers: Todd Phillips & Bradley Cooper, Emma Tillinger Koskoff
• Knives Out Producers: Rian Johnson, Ram Bergman
• Little Women Producer: Amy Pascal
• Marriage Story Producers: Noah Baumbach, David Heyman
• Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood Producers: David Heyman, Shannon McIntosh, Quentin Tarantino
• Parasite Producers: Kwak Sin Ae, Bong Joon Ho

In short, it's Best Picture predictions again. I know people have issues with the MCU but since this award is for producers, it seems strange to shun the gargantuan producing effort that worked so hard for 12 years to culminate in Avengers Endgame. Thinking it should have been here. Also strange to ignore the in-no-way-a-sure-thing success of The Farewell and Hustlers which just as easily could have been a indies that everyone ignored but for their success in execution and delivery. But then, those films are about women and most of the mainstream awards bodies prefer stories about men (sigh)

But all is not lost for films that didn't make this list and all is not secure for films that did make this list. Here's a trivia list for you...

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