Well, we knew there would be surprises.
Despite my best efforts at predicting the shockers (like moving Alicia Vikander into Lead for The Danish Girl, oops!) I still had many a miss on my ballot. Though I got four of the nominees correct in most categories. And all eight Best Picture contenders were listed in my top ten. So where do we stand now?
The race is wide open. Perhaps even more so than before. With a whopping 12 nominations (only the 15th film in Academy history to reach that number), The Revenant is looking pretty damn good. True it missed a screenplay nod, but it isn't a particularly dialogue heavy film. It's strength lies in its stark contrast to the smaller "issue driven" front-runners (I'll get to them in a minute). The Revenant is epic film-making. This is a filmmaker's movie, one that you go to the cinema to see.
The two other films which had previous sat atop the pile were Spotlight and The Big Short. Both films give you a cause to root for them, sexual abuse in the church and the destruction of the housing market, respectively. They are well made movies with actors you love. And they scored across the important categories: director, acting, screenplay, and editing. Spotlight is slightly ahead the way I see it. After struggling to find nominations for its actors in the precursors and getting shut out of the Eddie awards, it rallied with two acting nominations and showed up in editing at the Oscars.
Trailing close behind is Mad Max: Fury Road. In second place for most nominations with an impressive 10, the film has resonated across most of the Academy branches. It has great odds to dominate the crafts categories and even wind up with the most wins of the night. One other curious revelation occurred in it's favor: The Martian director Ridley Scott was shockingly snubbed. Scott has been competing with George Miller all season for the best director trophy as a sort of de facto lifetime achievement award. Miller now has a major hurdle out of the way.
Can any of the other films take the top prize? The Martian was ranked high in many pundit's predictions, but the film may have been crippled by its snubs in director and editing. If the campaign can smartly turn Ridley Scott's absence into outrage (a la Ben Affleck and Argo) then maybe the film has a shot. But when it has to go up against Mad Max, Star Wars, and The Revenant in most of the craft categories...how many trophies can it really win?
Bridge of Spies performed well, but came up short for Spielberg and the Coen brothers. It has a shot at supporting actor and score, but not much else. Brooklyn has the fewest nominations of the best picture players, but distributor Fox Searchlight is an expert at navigating the awards field (they've won the past two years). Best Picture may not be in the cards this time, but I wouldn't be shocked if their savvy campaign can eek out best actress or adapted screenplay.
Room is the true dark horse candidate this year. After performing terribly with the guilds, it made a comeback taking a best director slot for Lenny Abrahamson. I would have loved to see young Jacob Tremblay nominated as well, but he didn't stand a chance in the crowded supporting actor field.
Speaking of which: get ready for Sly Stallone. His biggest hurdle was just getting the nomination, and he managed that. He has the best narrative of any nominee this year. He is campaigning, being humble and charming and saying all the right things. Everyone wants to see him on stage, finally taking home a trophy decades after creating Rocky. His closest competition is Mark Rylance. The theatre legend will certainly take the BAFTA in his native UK and has the love for Bridge of Spies on his side, but he is still relatively unknown in Hollywood.
Supporting Actress is the most difficult to predict. Kate Winslet recently took home the Golden Globe, but she didn't have to compete with Alicia Vikander and Rooney Mara. The Oscar voters listened to the category fraud and said "eh, we don't care" and threw both ladies in supporting. As recent winners indicate, a beefy lead role in supporting tends to take home the gold. Vikander is the "it girl" of the season and portrays a more dominant character, so she has a slight edge. But that category is anyone's game.
Over in animated feature we saw my GKIDS prediction come true, though not necessarily the way I thought. I'm angry for not sticking with my gut, which told me The Good Dinosaur was out and When Marnie Was There was in...alas. I am surprised The Prophet didn't make the cut, but it seems the branch preferred the more inventive art style of Boy and the World. In any case, Inside Out has this one in the bag. Sorry, Anomalisa.
Now that the entire Academy can vote on the winners of best foreign film and documentary, the widely seen entries are far out in front. So, Son of Saul and Amy should feel comfy in their respective categories. Their closest competitors are the only female directed nominees in any category: Mustang and What Happened Miss Simone?. Though I don't think either of them have the campaign or awards presence to take down their bigger rivals.
As for disappointments on nomination morning, I will again bang the drum to going back to a set number of ten nominees. Academy members are annoyed Star Wars didn't make the cut to boost their ratings. More dire is the absence of Straight Outta Compton from the best picture lineup and the reintroduction of #OscarsSoWhite. I normally don't go in on the Academy for the lack of diversity since they are so often a symptom and not the root problem. By and large it is the industry itself that needs to change. But, when you have a film like Compton that did well with audiences, critics, and the box office? Frankly, it looks ridiculous to not include it among the year's best. Idris Elba's snub stings too. This should have been the year when an actor who continually puts out exceptional work (seriously, has he ever been bad in anything??) finally gets his due. If the Academy went back to a guaranteed ten best picture nominees, look at the bubble films that may have made the cut: Straight Outta Compton and Creed (two excellent films from black filmmakers), Carol (a film from a female perspective so desperately needed), and Inside Out (how does the most inventive film of the year not break out of its ghettoized category?). Any of those films would have made the Best Picture lineup more diverse, more interesting, more emblematic of the wonderful year in film that was 2015.
The Oscar ceremony will air Sunday February 28th. The race can (and probably will) shift a number of ways until then, as studios shovel cash into heavy campaigning in this wide open season. One thing is for certain: as the only black man guaranteed to take the Oscar stage, Chris Rock is going to have a field day.
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