They Shoot Oscar Prognosticators, Don't They?
The Mid-Year State of the 2015 Oscar Race
By J. Don Birnam
August 5, 2015
The State of What Lies Ahead
Sitting where we are today, it is hard to make a list of true Best Picture contenders sight unseen. After the end of the Oscars in February, I covered some of the big names releasing movies this year (from Tarantino to Spielberg to Allen) and some of those movies are still on the horizon. More interesting are the movies that have received buzz after either Sundance or Cannes screenings, but that have yet to be seen by most American audiences.
Three in particular stand out. The Saoirse Ronan vehicle Brooklyn has been critically acclaimed since Sundance, and the film hopes to become the next little-indie-that-could, ala Whiplash, by building additional buzz after it screens in both Toronto and possibly New York in the coming months. If the chatter is true, this one has a shot at Picture, Directing, Writing, and Acting nominations.
Meanwhile, out of Cannes, two highly anticipated movies seemed to have wowed critics (but then again, so did Foxcatcher last year, which later lost a lot of steam when it was released in theaters). These are Todd Haynes’ lesbian drama, Carol, which many have pegged as likely to net Cate Blanchett another Oscar, and Paolo Sorrenti’s Youth. Sorrenti won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for Italy two years ago with The Great Beauty, and Youth is a supposed companion/follow-up featuring well-known and highly revered American and British actors. You may recall that I found The Great Beauty to be too facile, the type of catnip that the old codgers that vote for this category adore at the expense of the much more difficult and heart-wrenching dramas that it defeated (its staid, old-man pace is hardly better than The Broken Circle Breakdown’s devastating story - okay, enough with bitterness from two years ago). But serious critics have sung the praises of Youth as a more deserving film, so keep your eye out for this one.
Aside from those movies, which have had at least some exposure, I’ll mention others only to keep a look out that have been seen at least by some: specifically, the have been seen by the programmers for the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival.
As a reminder, these film festivals, as hipster-y as they may sound, are, along with the first-in-time Telluride Film Festival, clear Oscar suck-ups. They don’t really try to hide it anymore. Telluride has at times featured the AMPAS logo on its red carpets, along with the festival’s own logo. The TIFF organizers routinely exhort audience members to vote for the bellwether People’s Choice Award by reminding in adds how many of that awards’ winners have gone on to win Best Picture. The New York crew is perhaps too snobby to overtly mention the Academy, but its selections year in and year out, along with the now-famed sneak peeks of unfinished movies by megastar directors, should leave no doubt in your mind about what the Lincoln Center crew is trying to achieve.
So what movies have these programmers selected? Telluride keeps its lineup hidden until the festival begins Labor Day weekend, so we won’t know for a while - but don’t forget that Birdman made a splash there after it had a sneak in Venice the week prior. Indeed, the last three Best Picture winners were screened at Telluride. Rest assured we will be keeping our eyes peeled for what they show down there.
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