Oscar Nomination Eve Jitters

It's almost Christmas! Our Christmas that is, when we open our beautiful presents and occassional lumps of coal from the Academy. What will go in the history books tomorrow as Oscar nominees? Here's a run down of my final predictions in case you missed them (with three alterations) since the charts are being pulled tonight for reconstruction tomorrow once we have the official nominations.

All predictions are after the jump...

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AMC Best Picture Marathon

Have you ever attended AMC's Best Picture Showcase? They've been doing this "see all the Best Picture nominees back to back" event since, I think, around 2008? I seem to remember a particularly hilarious writeup of The Reader at that event somewhere out there on the web back in the day. (2008 is now back in the day? Eep!). With the expansion of the Best Picture lineup, the event is now split into a two day event in dozens of cities and a marathon viewing in following seven: Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, DC . The screenings will be held on the two Saturdays preceding Hollywood's High Holy Night on Sunday February 26th. (I can't imagine that La La Land won't look even stronger in the middle of all that DDDRRRAAAMMMAAA just by virtue of being so different than the rest) 

Tickets go on sale on January 27th, three days after the Oscar nominations so at least you know what films you're signing up to see or see again if you choose to buy tickets.

Best Picture - How many and which ones?

Though the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes don't share voters, La La Land's sweep at the latter -- winning the most prizes, literally ever, at the Globes-- suggests the kind of overall crowd-pleasing and respectability strength that means the Best Picture Oscar is already won. The only suspense is how many other statues will be keeping it company on Hollywood's High Holy Night in February. But the race for nominations, which we've always maintained is the most exciting part each year anyway, is still relatively heated. So the Best Picture Oscar chart has been updated (more charts to follow over the next couple of days). But in short yours truly in punditry believe that the race currently breaks down like so

Tier 1 - The Locks... La La Land, Moonlight, and Manchester by the Sea
Tier 2 - If There Were Still Only 5.... Arrival and Hell or High Water?
Tier 3 - Probably Also In (So That Makes 8)... Lion, Hidden Figures, Hacksaw Ridge
Tier 4 - It Depends on How Many Nominees? Nocturnal Animals or Fences
Tier 4.5 - Unless I'm Wrong In Which Case Loving, Jackie, or Sully

Assuming La La Land, Manchester and Moonlight are competing for the win... how would you rank the other Best Pic hopefuls?

That's ten pictures right there which means I have less faith in the rest though there are other films making noise like Silence (albeit a quiet kind of 'Jesuit priests in Japan but its Scorsese' noise) and Deadpool. I know I know... the PGA nomination... but I frankly can't imagine the latter as a BP nominee and my reasoning is this: it's the kind of picture you'd vote for if you're like "burn this whole place down! Oscars are silly and too elitist" -- there are surely some voters like that but in a year with so many richly loved movies I can't imagine this feeling is the dominant one. Also if the high budget superhero universal acclaim of The Dark Knight and the High Budget but similar to Deadpool (In Snark and Success) Charm of Guardians of the Galaxy couldn't do it why would the comparatively lowbudget and lowbrow Ryan Reynolds comedy be able to? And if it were to be nominated wouldn't that be like spitting in Marvel Studios' face? (Yeah, yeah, we know you've worked hard at consistent quality for a decade with barely any nominations to show for it even in tech categories, but whatever)

YOUR TURN. How many nominees do you think we'll get this year and which film is in the so-close but it's not going to happen position?

PGA Nominations: The usual suspects plus "Deadpool"

Did Deadpool just shoot some Oscar dreams in the head?It's fitting that a year such as 2016, which gave us all the middle finger in such a crass broad strokes kind of way with T**** would also prove to be the year of Deadpool and his tiny baby hand gave the middle finger to superhero blockbusters (albeit a middle finger of love since it's gleefully being everything it's snarky about). I can't imagine Deadpool transferring from the Producers Guild Nomination to Oscar's Best Picture roster especially since they have yet to nominate 10 movies in their new rules of "5 to 10 nominees" in the years since that ruling but congratulations on making it this far!

While you're perusing the Producers Guild noms keep in mind that this is not necessarily the end of Best Picture dreams for a movie that missed and here's why...

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La La Demy Land

Now that La La Land is in wide release word of mouth from regular moviegoers (rather than critics) keeps expanding. As expected with Best Picture frontrunners, not all of it is kind. This unique and ravishing film has begun to suffer from the inevitable backlash.  Some of my musical theater friends are balking that neither star is a great singer, the songs aren’t sophisticated, and it doesn’t honor Hollywood musicals in the way they’d expected.

To harp on these issues misses the point of what director Damien Chazelle has created.  It's true that neither Emma Stone nor Ryan Gosling have Broadway-caliber singing voices, and it’s also true that future composers of musical theater are likelier to study Sondheim than Justin Hurwitz.  But Chazelle isn’t making a Broadway show, he’s crafting a wholly-original tone for a film, stealing bits and pieces from a wide variety of sources, and doesn’t seem interested in making a purely traditional Hollywood musical.

Chazelle has spoken in interviews about how the single greatest influence on La La Land were the two musical films of French director Jacques Demy:  The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and The Young Girls of Rochefort...

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