They Shoot Oscar Prognosticators, Don't They?

The Oscar Race Post-PGA Tie - Can Gravity Pull it Off?

By J. Don Birnam

January 21, 2014

Women drivers, am I right?

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One narrative for this season is that Best Picture frontrunner fatigue set in against 12 Years a Slave, allowing Hustle to take the lead. But if this is true, then the question becomes whether, if given enough time, the ultimate outcome of the race can change as people can reexamine more dispassionately what they think is the Best Picture. There may be some truth to these theories, but I would take also both narratives with a grain of salt. There are many examples of movies in recent years that have steamrolled the awards circuit from start to finish. The Artist, for example, was anointed the presumptive Best Picture winner since its May debut in Cannes, and was ultimately crowned victor without a hiccup almost a year later. Similarly, Argo won last year despite theories that its presumptive frontrunner status would spell its downfall because it wasn’t that good. People like what they like, and it was very easy to like The Artist and Argo.

To be sure, it’s worth noting that this year the Oscars are one week later than in the past few years, because of the Winter Olympics, thus giving voters more time to ponder their choices. But what this fact should really remind us of is this: voting for the Oscars hasn’t even begun - indeed, it won’t start for almost a full month. All the tea-leaf-reading from current “momentum” is in a sense vacuous. There’s plenty of time for people to step back and simply vote for what they like. Again, people do like to support a winner. They like to feel like the movie they’re voting for is liked by others - safety in numbers so to speak. Moreover, in this age of 24 hour news cycle and constant Internet feedback, I would wager that most Academy members would rather not rock the apple cart too much by picking something completely out of left field. Occasions like when Crash beat Brokeback Mountain after the latter won every single precursor imaginable, and the criticism that AMPAS received as a result, come to mind. But all that this means is that any of the three movies, respected by different groups, have a real chance.




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So popularity matters, and past guild wins absolutely matter. Therein lies the beauty of this year: Oscar voters will just have to vote for what they like. They won’t be able to resort to a clear precursor domination streak to tell them what to vote for.

So what’s our best prediction six weeks away from the Oscars? A reasonable scenario to watch for is a three-way split among the top contenders for most prizes. Here’s a challenge, however: take an Oscar ballot and try to allocate major prizes amongst American Hustle, Gravity, and 12 Years a Slave without upsetting the apple cart in “locked” categories (i.e., Cate Blanchett still wins Actress - more on that later). It is nearly impossible to do this, as you will see by the state of my current predictions below. One can split the major awards when there are two movies, but it is much harder to do when there’s three.


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