DGA Nominations: Lion, La La, Manchester, Moonlight, and Arrival

The Directors Guild of America announcement was once the single most crucial nomination in understanding the Oscars to come. It famously meant "these films will be nominated for Best Picture"... more than it even meant "these films will be nominated for Best Director" statistically speaking. In ye olden times that would mean that your five strongest best picture contenders, given today's DGA nominations were La La Land, Moonlight, Lion, Manchester by the Sea and Arrival.

But that was in the days of 5 nominations. Times are different now and have been since 2009...

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Amy & Isabelle... and that perplexing Best Actress race.

Isabelle Huppert shared this lovely glamorous blur of two of our Best Actress Contenders at a Globe party on her Instagram account. Share worthy it is though our favorite part is Huppert's matter of fact no-frills captions which are usually "avec [insert celebrity's name]" brief. 

These two ginger beauties remind us that we've been playing with that Best Actress Chart all day and no combo of five women still feels quite right. Something's got to give. But we don't want to give any of them up! Now more than ever can't we cancel one of the male acting categories and just give them women another 5 slots?

Who do you think is stronger than the buzz suggests? I keep thinking Ruth Negga which is why I still am betting on her (for this update at least. We'll obviously have to revisit each chart for final predictions). And which leading lady is more vulnerable and could be a surprise miss? Sound off!

Cinematography Prizes: ASC and Oscar

The American Society of Cinematographers recently added an very welcome category called "Spotlight" in which they note the work of DPs working in films with either very limited releases or festival only entries. It's a smart way to draw attention to work that might otherwise go unnoticed. In this new category they've nominated Lol Crawley for Childhood of a Leader (which we recently discussed), Gorka Gomez Andreu's work on the Georgian Oscar submission House of Others, Ernesto Pardo for the Mexican film Tempestad, and Juliette van Dormael's lensing of the Belgian film Mon Ange (My Angel). Why there are only 4 honorees and not the traditional 5 we do not know.

But the marquee category is of course Theatrical Motion Pictures. And here's the beauties they most loved looking at this year...

Bradford Young for Arrival
1st ASC nomination. Also his first BAFTA nomination. One previous Spirit nomination for Selma. Other key credits: A Most Violent Year, Pariah, Ain't Them Bodies Saints

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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?

FYC: Jackie's Original Score by Mica Levi

by Sean Donovan

You sit down in a movie theater to see the latest biopic that has earned a superstar Oscar heat, and after the series of trailers for undoubtedly happier movies you could be seeing, you stare at a black screen. Gradually you hear something, a strong string note that quickly careens down the scale into dissonant whine. It’s immediately upsetting, destabilizing: flat and lacking grace when you were promised a classy portrait of one of America’s most iconic first ladies. So disjunctive it possesses a strange, ethereal beauty. It reminds me of the sound of an airplane flying overhead, fitting for a film where some of the most dramatic scenes occur onboard Air Force One. 

Music is the standard-bearer for everything that makes Jackie an unusual Oscar contender...

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