Cinema and Popcorn

I know these categories come a bit late, but to be honest nothing has changed that much since I first drawed these charts. In fact, the awards race seems like the pundits consensus in these fields, with some titles eyeing a surprise ascension at this point of the race. Funny how so many Cannes-titles have managed to enter the awards race: Anatomy of a Fall ( Anatomie d'une chute ), The Zone of Interest , The Taste of Things ( La passion de Dodin Bouffant ), Asteroid City , May December , Perfect Days or, from a certain perspective, Killers of the Flower Moon . Also, the Summer titles Oppenheimer and Barbie also managed to live-up their critical and box-office successes and their studios are campaigning them successfully. I don't remember a season with so many early titles under the consideration for the top categories, recently. It amazes me and it defies the concept of "Oscar-baity release date" - it shows that if a film is good, then it will stand the test of Su...

With the delay of Dune: Part II release, I had to re-do my Oscar predictions in all categories. The thing is: I wasn't able to re-think and re-write that fast and I failed my personal deadline (before Fall film festival season) and one thing that I noted was how influenced my last predictions changes were because of the reactions coming from Venice and Telluride. TIFF remains the biggest test for most Fall Oscar hopefuls since it's the biggest festival happening in American/Canadian soil, which means it will be attended by many critics from critics associations in US, the ones who are actually responsible for the start of the awards season (and for the Oscar buzz-creation process). Personally, I consider Oscar predictions folks tend to overestimate the Fall film festival buzz - we are in that time of the year where EVERYTHING is crowned an "Oscar player", but if we recall the recent previous years, early releases can do really good in the awards trail (and even bett...

TIFF and Venice are coming soon and it's time to line-up the first serious Academy Award nominations predictions. As I said in a previous post, all comes around which movies the studios/distributors are determined to promote and build an awards campaign around - and aspects like box-office performance and critical reception are key factors in the decision process, but they are not the only ones. Considering the cultural impact of the internet, social media and niche target audiences are also valid points when start predicting - Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores might indicate the general reception, but if a movie is truly loved, even for a smaller group of moviegoers, then it might score enough #1 votes in the Best Picture ballot. Basically, you must know the Academy members and you must sense which movie might target a certain group of Academy members better. That said, I believe this year can be one of the most diverse in terms of cinematic offer for voters. Of course, there ...

Genre: Drama Director: Christopher Nolan Writer: Christopher Nolan Starring: Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Josh Hartnett, Emily Blunt, Kenneth Branagh, Florence Pugh and Benny Safdie Oppenheimer is good... in fact it is quite good! I believe it is the most assured movie Christopher Nolan has ever made in his career. It doesn't mean it is my favorite movie of his, but here you feel he is in full control of every dimension of his movie at the same time: narrative, style, acting and technical aspects. Technically, this movie seems perfect - everything is in perfect harmony with everything - but there's a lot of information going on-screen and it is a movie that demands you to be focused. The movie switches from a narrative line to another: the central storyline, which tells the story of Oppenheimer and how his personal and professional life have led him to the creation of the atomic bom; then there's Lewis Strauss' public hearing (the black and white par...

With the announcement of the TIFF lineup, I believe it's time to look at the current state of the race according to what each big distributor has on its plate. Of course there will be movies without a distributor that will be picked during Fall film festival season that are not being considered here (like Elliot Page's starring vehicle Close to You, Kristin Scott Thomas directorial debut North Star or Michel Franco's Memory) and they might actually shake the Oscar predictions of Oscar predictions folks. The thing is... with the recent WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, I believe this year's early releases might actually benefit from the lack of promotional campaigns (specially from actors, which always boost the movies' profiles). Let's not forget this is a war against the billion-dollar studio-system and not against the independent/auteur films A24 Past Lives :  After winning rave reviews in Sundance Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival (where it was in...

It's only April, but it's time to make the very first (blind) Oscar predictions. The 76th edition of Cannes Film Festival marks the start of the award-playing movies of this year's award season - the event takes place from May 16th to 27th, 2023 - and it is expected to show the world the new works from Martin Scorsese ( Killers of the Flower Moon ) (not official yet), Wes Anderson ( Asteroid City ) or the Johnny Depp starring vehicle Jeanne Du Barry (the selected movie for the Opening Night).  Still, Sundance Film Festival, SXSW and Berlinale have already launched some award-deserving features that include A Thousand and One (the Sundance champion), Ben Affleck's Air or the latest A24 drama Past Lives - all three received widespread critical acclaim! Other much antecipated movies will only be released by the Fall film festival season (or even Christmas season), but I believe Oppenheimer , Dune: Part II , the musical adaptation of The Color Purple or Universal'...

The EE BAFTA Film Awards took place last Sunday (February 19) at the Royal Festival Hall, London, and it didn't bring that much clarity in terms of Oscar predictions. In fact, I must say I consider BAFTA went mostly for the "challengers", while it also carried All Quiet On the Western Front to the top seats of many categories. The German-speaking anti-war movie took home 7 trophies, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Film Not in English Language, besides Best Adapted Screenplay - is Netflix Best Picture Oscar closer than we expect? BAFTA Awards are a reliable Oscar indicator, specially in terms of wins. The Brits clearly loved All Quiet On the Western Front - the movie is splendid, indeed - but is this win also a political message? A movie about the horrors of war, about the lives lost, about how pointless it can be! Could the AMPAS go the same way? The 1930's adaptation took home Best Picture and Best Director back in the time when the Nazi regime was trivi...