How often do two top Globe victories translate to Oscar gold?

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

Sam Mendes had a great night on Sunday when he took home both Best Director and Best Motion Picture – Drama for his war epic 1917. That two-hander worked out very well for him exactly twenty years ago for his debut feature, American Beauty, since he went on to repeat at the Oscars. Winning both prizes at both ceremonies, however, doesn’t actually happen often. 

Between Mendes’ two bookends, that feat has only occurred twice...

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Five critics groups today. Five different Best Picture winners!

In today’s roundup of five regional critics awards Jennifer Lopez and Willem Dafoe emerge as the big winners with 3 Supporting wins each for their arguably leading roles. But no film is dominant in Best Picture with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Parasite, Marriage Story, 1917, and The Irishman all being cited.  

Check out the latest roundup after the jump...

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A Best Picture think... what if there were only five?

by Nathaniel R

 

Consensus is taking clear shape with film critics and awards bodies. They're finding Parasite the very best film of 2019 fairly regularly now. In terms of both critics and larger more 'industry' organizations Martin Scorsese's elegaic The Irishman is leading the English language films in nomination counts and prizes. Noah Baumbach's impressive superbly-acted dramedy Marriage Story and Tarantino's shape-shifting gorgeously executed 1969 homage Once Upon a Time in Hollywood are not far behind in the collective love sweepstakes. That could mean that any of those four will be vying for the Best Picture win at the Oscars in February. With the preferential ballot it helps to have passion votes and all of them have that. It also helps to be everyone's second or third favourite and each of those films could theoretically score high on virtually any voter's ballot.

But what's in fifth place?

Since 2011 rules have been in place to deliver between 5 to 10 Best Picture nominees depending on percentages of votes. To date, though, this system has only produced years with either 8 or 9 nominees for the top prize. But a though exercize today. Which of the remaining films would make it in a year with only 5 films in play...

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"The Two Popes" rising...

by Nathaniel R

"I have four more Oscars nominations than you. I've also won!"

Yours truly is still trying to get back into the swing of daily life after the always delightful Middleburg Film Festival. At the conclusion of the festival, the votes were counted and The Two Popes emerged as the Audience Award winner. You may recall that Green Book won that prize just last year before it went on to very leggy box office (final international tally $321.7 million on only a $23 million budget) and the Best Picture Oscar win.

The Two Popes is a less controversial crowd-pleaser and surely an Oscar nomination threat for two categories...

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Best Picture / Director Oscar chart updates !

by Nathaniel R

Marriage Story would have been a true blockbuster like Kramer vs Kramer or Terms of Endearment in a different era. Now it will just stream but could still be a big player at the Oscars.

There’s still so much we don’t know.

That’s an important fact to start with because reading online discourse about Oscar predictions each year is like pretending we live in a perpetual January when the precursors are well underway and the template is already set which will only vary slightly from organization to organization/pundit to pundit. Oscar fanatics (and pundits) never know as much as they pretend to know early on. History is filled with films with breathless first screenings that didn’t amount to much at the Oscars and vice versa. These things take time and all parts of the cycle should be considered when making predictions. If your predictions are exactly the same as someone else's this early, take a risk. Then you can be wrong in different ways instead of in the same way. Haha.

Five Very Important Things We Don’t Yet Know...

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