They Shoot Oscar Prognosticators, Don't They?
Handicapping the Tech Races, Part II
By J. Don Birnam
February 9, 2017
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Last year, I did poorly six weeks out in these categories, predicting a split of the awards that did not materialize when Mad Max essentially swept these races. My final Oscar predictions where much better, because all the guilds had spoken by then, which shows that these races sometimes are in flux.
This year the question in your mind in each race should be: can La La Land lose and if so, to what and why? Unless shown otherwise, my approach will be to assume that it is the presumptive winner. Could other things win? Absolutely, but as last year’s results show - and indeed the results in tech races in many years - sweeps are getting more and more common here.
Thoughts? Comments? Here I am as usual: Twitter and Instagram.
Best Visual Effects.
Of the races we will look at today, this is the only one in which La La Land is not a contender. Indeed, there is no Best Picture nominee in this category for the second time in three years, as big budget/comic book films are starting to dominate here. We know that a Best Picture nominees tends to win if present here, though that did not happen last year when Ex Machina surprised everyone.
Anyway this year Doctor Strange, The Jungle Book, Rogue One, Deepwater Horizon, and Kubo and the Two Strings face off. What I’ve noticed in these races when a Best Picture nominee is not in, is that they are snobby and will go for the more “prestigious” of the films. That seems to knock out Deepwater from the outset, and arguably also Rogue One, which could not triumph here last year despite the goodwill The Force Awakens had, not to mention five nominations.
If we are speaking of most impressive effects, the win would have to be Doctor Strange’s, but there is room for error here. The facial effects in The Jungle Book are astounding, and the film is perhaps the most widely respected of the bunch. So too is Kubo, though I do not know if it’s going to wow people outside of the branch with animated visual effects - what are those, anyway?
It’s a tough one, and I may still change my mind, but I’m going to go for quality for now. Check back later, though.
Will win: Doctor Strange
Could win: The Jungle Book
Best Costume Design.
So let’s start with: can anything beat La La Land here? The contenders to do so are Allied, Fantastic Beasts, Jackie, and Florence Foster Jenkins. You could say that La La Land has an inherent disadvantage in that it does not have the showiest costumes and you’d have a point. If you are going for that, then you’d probably go for Florence Foster, given that they normally go for more traditional dresses and have yet to really reward something way past the 1940s.
But also consider that La La is the only Best Picture nominee there. Can such a film lose here? Sure. It has happened many times, but the history of the award shows that it happens more often when two or more Best Picture nominees are here, like when Alice in Wonderland triumphed over The King’s Speech and True Grit, or Anna Karenina over Lincoln and Les Miz. The truth is they love the showy, grand costumes, and La La Land does not have that.
Still, I’m going for it. Why? Simply because it is so beloved. The costumes in the other films aren’t as grand in scale as those of Alice or Anna, but I suppose Meryl’s Streep’s movie comes close, and maybe so does the Harry Potter spinoff. Tough pick, but this is my current guess - let’s see what the costume designer say in their guilds next week.
Will win: La La Land
Could win: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Best Production Design
So, once more, it is La La Land against the field, which consists of Arrival, Fantastic Beasts, Hail! Caesar, and Passengers. Look, let’s be honest, you can make compelling cases for a lot of these, except for probably the ridiculed Jennifer Lawrence film. The truth, though, is that if you want to win your Oscar pool you are just must better off checking off La La Land in a lot of categories - you are much more likely to do well like that than trying to guess which one they could get picked off at.
Could they seek to reward Arrival here? Sure, but the sets do not quite jump out at you beyond the house she inhabits and the alien pod. Hail! Caesar, meanwhile, seems to have sets of sets, another one I have trouble seeing wining. I suppose the obvious spoiler is Fantastic Beasts. Wouldn’t it be somewhat funny for the first Oscar ever won by this franchise to be in this spinoff? Odder things have happened, I suppose.
Indeed, the history of this award is replete with examples of the same film winning both here and in Costumes - coming to mind are Alice in Wonderland but also The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Great Gasby, and of course Mad Max did it last year. So perhaps you could see a Beasts spoiler in both races. This makes sense, given that the sets in La La Land did not appear particularly memorable to me.
Unless and until I see it lose more awards, say maybe at BAFTA, I’m just sticking with this train for the moment.
Will Win: La La Land
Could Win: Fantastic Beasts
Best Cinematography.
The American Society of Cinematographers gave out their awards this weekend in, somewhat in a surprise, went for Lioninstead of La La Land. They had also nominated the camerawork of Arrival, Moonlight, and Silence, making it an exact match with the Oscar nominees.
So what gives here? I suppose one theory is that Silence could cannibalize on the other Best Picture nominees and take it, and it is perhaps the best cinematography. I am, indeed, genuinely surprised by the win for Lion at the ASC, as I thought it the least obvious of the bunch. Arrival is beautifully shot, but then again so are Moonlight and La La Land. This is a genuinely difficult category to handicap given the talent.
The thing with the ASC is that they only have about a 50/50 correspondence with the Best Cinematography Oscar. The guild seems to treasure its craft and it has not been afraid of going for the movie it likes best - think Skyfall over Hugo, or The White Ribbon over Avatar - Oscar consequences be damned. And after three years in a row of a match in which Chivo Lubezki won both awards, I think we are due for a mismatch.
So it’s really down to the Best Picture frontrunner and the movie with “light” in its title, one that depends heavily, particularly in the night scenes, of showy camerawork. But I think it’s too muted to stand out this year, so I will stick with the usual.
Will win: La La land
Could win: Moonlight
Best Film Editing
And then of course the “Best Picture” of the tech races, that one that Oscar pundits will tell you films that are headed for Best Picture wins sometimes win, despite the fact that this correspondence has actually not existed over 50/50 in the last ten years. In any case this year we have Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge, Hell or High Water, La La Land, and Moonlight as the nominees. We know that La La Land and Arrival won the ACE Eddie last week, so that augurs well for them although, again, ACE had a string of three years in which neither of its winners took home this Oscar until Mad Max did so last year.
The rub here is that action movies tend to do well, with movies from Bourne to Girl With Dragon Tattoo triumphing here. But La La Land is very well edited, particularly that final scene that is so important to the power of the movie overall. I think Arrival and Moonnligh are safely out - the former not action-y enough, the latter a bit too quiet to catch their attention. So the question is whether the other two, action movies that use editing for effect and pulse-pounding action, can take down the juggernaut.
Again, it just seems too foolish to bet against La La Land, but here’s to the fools who dream, I suppose!
Will win: La La Land
Could win: Hacksaw Ridge