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Then the film festivals happened and it was, as usual, off to the races. Arrival and La La Land debuted side-by-side in Venice then Telluride, with one impressing audiences and the other robbing their hearts. La La Land garnered one standing ovation after another by critics and film lovers alike, ultimately taking home the coveted People’s Choice Award at The Toronto International Film Festival. From then on, it didn’t seem like it could lose, and it did not.

But you know what else had its start at Telluride? Moonlight. I was actually lucky to be in the first audience to see that film when it debuted there. I remember walking out of there with an audience (tired, it was late at night) quiet but obviously touched. Some immediately crowned it a masterpiece. I was surprisingly moved to tears by the last scene. A pin drop could be heard. I also remember thinking “No way, they will never go for this.” I have been proven wrong and pleasantly surprised. They have gone for it, showering it with eight nominations. Could they still shut it out? Sure. And it’s not going to win. But that a small movie like, with a small audience like this, with a small subject like this, could make it this far in the Best Picture race has to be endearing. It’s a sign that there are still thoughtful minds involved in this whole thing.

Lion also debuted then and was picked up by Weinstein, and it did well at TIFF, so that position plus distribution rights sort of guaranteed it a spot which it capitalized on with a surprise DGA nomination to boot.

So, at this point, there were easily six movies that were going to make it in, but, other than Jackie, nothing else was threatening. There was clearly room for more.

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So next came Mel Gibson with his throwback film Hacksaw Ridge, a film that in say, 1998, would have taken the Oscars by storm. It’s a formulaic film and I don’t mean that in a bad way. But it follows straightforward narratives of easy heroes and easily identifiable baddies. It has a clear message and it has the prowess of the technical arts. It found a quick respect among the core Academy constituency and never looked back even if it faltered a bit when it failed to land major BAFTA, SAG or DGA nods. Indeed, it still managed a Best Picture nomination, so there you go.

Then the last part of the calendar year came up, the part where movies with Oscar aspirations can surely get in to the Best Picture race, but where none has won since 2004 (that’s a long time). Even last year, The Revenant, a late release, arguably did not have enough time to be thoroughly vetted and ultimately lost the last and most important race of the night. So some wondered whether it would be Martin Scorsese’s Silence to steal the thunder from the darling, but it was not to be. That movie was mostly shut out, and nothing else happened to upend the Oscar race.

True, two other very late releases did get in, and they were Fences and Hidden Figures - the former somewhat surprisingly, at least given that it’s a play adaptation, but perhaps name recognition gave it the mettle it needed. The latter was also surprising and welcomingly so. The movie was a box office hit and audiences simply liked the feel-good story here, and, by God, a story about successful, independent women? How refreshing, to be honest.

So that rounded up the race, and we had our core group. But before these nominations could be announced in late January other groups started speaking. The Globes went for La La Land and Moonlight, the SAG somewhat surprised us, but then, after that La La Land never looked back. The rest is, or will be, history.

Twitter: @jdonbirnam
Instagram: @awards_predix

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