Okay, not ever, but you get what I mean. At least ina very long time. The way things are shaping up is just so out there...

There are basically seven films left in contention: Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Atonement and Into the Wild.

It is looking very good right now for TWBB, NCFOM, Michael Clayton and The Diving Bell as far as getting in for Best Picture goes. Juno, Atonement and Into the Wild will fight for #5. With four SAG noms, including Best Ensemble, Intio the Wild is a bit ahead in the race, I'd say. If it gets nominated, then we'll get the least commercial and least successful line-up for BP in, like...ever?

Box-Office:

I mean, realistically, No Country for Old Men would probably make $60-80 million with a BP win, There Will Be Blood will make something like $25-40 million, Into the Wild with an extra push maybe $25 million or so, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly maybe $10 million and Michael Clayton maybe $50 million. I think that would already make it the least-grossing Best Picture line-up in ages. Only if Juno is nominated that can be avoided.


Content:

This would probably also be the most unusual picks altogether made by the Academy. No films that are clear Oscar baits here, if Atonement and Juno are snubbed. I mean let's face it:

No Country for Old Men - A dark film by the Coens with a sadisitic psycho killing people and an artsy ending. Well, that's what I've read anyway, I haven't seen it yet.

Into the Wild - a 140 minutes long tale about a guy wandering off into the wilderness and dying. Yeah...

There Will Be Blood - a 150+ minutes long study of a misanthrope, sociopathic, greedy oilman with a crazy finale.

Michael Clayton - Seems like the most accessible of 'em. It looks like a solid thriller, but I think I'm not the only one who is a bit lost about the fact that it had come this far.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - A French film about a man with the locked-in syndrome, one of the worst conditions that can ever occur to anyone.

So...yeah. That says it all.


Precursors and the race so far:


The way parts of the race have occured by now are simply weird. I mean Atonement is getting snubbed at the WGA, the DGA, the SAG and the PGA as well as for its Editing - what the hell?! It's probably the most Oscar-y film of the bunch. It's actually doing solid box-office, it has gotten very good reviews and unlike, say, Walk the Line or Cold Mountain, there seemed to be some solid passion behind it unlike, say, Michael Clayton. It is the perfect film for the Academy and the guilds to recognize. Good, well-liked, tech-heavy... How the hell did it miss the guilds? Then again, No Country for Old Man sweeps almost every award known to man and then loses the Globe for Best Picture (Drama) to Atonement...?! And loses Best Director to a French flick that made less than $2 million at the box-office and that despite sweeping prety much everything? So, Atonement got snubbed everywhere and then wins the Golden Globe and in the past, I remember, only three films ever won the Globe for BP (drama) and were snubbed for a Best Picture nom at the Globes. And now Atonement also got 14 nominations at the BAFTA's. So, is it in or is it out?!

Then, somehow, films like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (I repeat, a sub-$2 million grossing French film) and Michael Clayton make almost all the guilds.

But we've also got the SAG which snubbed Michael Clayton for Best Ensemble despite giving it three individual acting noms. Uhh...wha? Into the Wild scores just two insignificant noms at the Globes...but then gets in for WGA, DGA and gets four noms at the SAG (including Best Ensemble). Out of the seven remaining films in contention only two actually got SAG noms for Ensemble (NCFOM and Into the Wild). Never happened before I think and it is even possible that NCFOM will be the only film of that bunch to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, since ITW is not 100% certain yet.

And that not to mention the fact that Juno missed the SAG Ensemble nom and the SAG usually likes indie comedies' ensembles a lot.....Instead Hairspray and 3:10 to Yuma (well-deserved, but still..?!?!?!) got in!

And then, the Academy gives us the shortlist of Best Foreign Films still in contention: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Persepolis, Belle Toujours and The Orphanage are out.


It's not that I complain, especially not about the BP line-up which looks to be rather daring this year and less conventional (then again, the foreign films selection is just insane, not in a good way)....but it all doesn't take away from the fact that this year is simply way out there, beyond all norms and sanity.

This is a good read, especially for anyone who wants to get caught up on the last few weeks of Award drama.

Anyways...I WANT NOMINATIONS! NOW!

Just to think of it, though...if Atonement and Juno are snubbed then I'd say it's five smaller films and no big one.

And as for the list above, I'd put The Queen as borderline popular. I mean many casual moviegoers watched it and it did make $50+ million at the box-office, almost as much as Crash.

Mhm, very true.

I mean Michael Clayton is a fairly commercial film...it just wasn't very successful. Atonement is a film that could get quite big with the needed Oscar noms (speak: gross $70+ million), but as I don't see that happening...

And after ROTK, I really don't see it happening for a long long time since the #1 of the year almost always goes to a sequel nowadays.

Can't blame the AMPAS.
Can't blame the audiences.
Must blame the studios...and capitalism! It's making us all st00pid, seriously. Well not us, but rather, the commoners.

But at the same time, what's the point of rewarding rehashed crap? They already tried that with Crash....didn't go over so well.

But yeah, hopefully they'll have the balls to nominate a deserving Pixar film soon. Or maybe they need to lose the balls that are so insistent on ignoring animation. Well, something has to be done with balls.

But then again, what's the point in awarding shit like the threequels, or National Treasure 2, or Alvin + the Chipmunks? This year, there's really only two options for them awarding a film in the top ten BO of the year: Bourne or Ratatouille. Could either of them conceivably be nominated for Best Picture without offending too many people? Absolutely. Will they? Almost certainly not. Whose fault is it? Hard to say.

This year, I'd say it's the audience's fault, as the top ten BO is littered with crap while there's so many quality films out there. But in years like 2005, where high-quality blockbusters were ignored for small, dark fare, you kinda have to blame the academy. If they want people to watch the Oscars, they have to nominate films that people have seen; not crap like Spider-Man 3, but great films like King Kong that had the reviews and the box office, but was ignored for Capote and Crash.

Well, but at least there was one BIG movie among them (a crowd pleaser and big box-office hit) - The Departed. The rest...yeah...*sigh*

Personally, I can't think of a single blockbuster 2007 that I'd nominate, but in the past, there were snubs, IMO: The Lion King, Batman Begins, King Kong, X2, The Matrix, Spider-Man/Spider-Man 2...

Well it's all about appearances and elitism. The Academy would never, never, never nominate a comic book film, just like they'd never nominate a Bond film, no matter how good the reviews for Casino Royale were. I mean, it was a big thing when LOTR got nominated and eventually won.

I guess it would be reasonably safe to say that the Academy stopped lining up with big-numbers when adult blockbusters vanished.
For films like Titanic and Forrest Gump, the Oscars were easy. But now that blockbusters are pretty much all Super-Heros/Comics/Dumb Animation (minus Pixar)/other silly stuff, the Academy and the audience broke away from each other. LotR would be the middle ground.

I think they might nominate an adaptation of a comic book one day, why not. Only that it'd have to be more of a graphic novel adaptation. I mean Road to Perdiction got close, obviously and something like Watchmen could get there...

You're not being serious, right??? King Kong is good. I can accept it's great to you. But Oscar worthy...???

If they want people to watch Oscar they have to shorten up the ceremony, let the winners talk as much as they want (God knows I'm much more interested in their rants than uninspired and boring rants by various hosts), cut those god-damn commercials (why do you Americans have soooooooooooooooo many commercial breakes and they last too long) and try to be a movie award show, not some glam spectacle in which some guests win a few of those funny looking statues.

It is Oscar-worthy. IMO. In fact, still the best of all 2006.

Academy is pretty stuffy. But they can surprise sometimes. Never say never. They did nominate a movie with talking animals.

If you're talking about Kong, it's 2005 (but 2006 Oscars). That's also the year Brokeback Mountain came out. And Kong doesn't come near it in technical or storytelling or acting or any other way.

yeah, I mistyped the year.

And you are right, it doesn't come near it. That's because it's so far ahead. The only Oscar film that does come close is Munich. : )

When I think of 2005, I still can't wrap my head around the fact that a film like Capote got a BP nom. Yes, it was superbly acted and all, but it is a very casual, typical and generic flick. Seriously, how could it get in there? I remember I wasn#t the only one with this sentiment back then.

The two most pathetic reasons for a movie to get nominated. The first one is generally seen as an Academy weakness too considering they like to look at the pedigree. And sometimes pedigree doesn't guarantee a good movie.

I like KK, but it has weak parts. But I'll agree with you that it's better than Crash and Capote. It's just there are 5 better movies than KK from that year. That's all.

Brokeback, Cache, History of Violence, The Squid & the Whale, Munich.

I hope I didn't disappoint (that much).

Casting Jack Black in KK definitely didn't help, despite his good performance.
Also, I think the reason KK didn't get in is that a blockbuster needs, in addition to very, very, good reviews, to have an impressive B.O. run. KK's was considered a let-down....despite the fact that it made ten times what a lot of BP noms are making nowadays....heck...100 times what Diving Bell has made!

The one I completely forgot... I'd put that instead of Cache.

It was also a remake of a movie about a giant ape. I mean, let's be honest, bigger box-office wouldn't have helped, heh.

6 of them are in my Top 10 as well (all except Murderball, Grizzly Man, Twist of Faith, The Squid and the Wahle which I all have not seen and Thew New World which was just decent).

In fact, King Kong, Munich, Downfall and Batman Begins are in my Top 5 of 2005. Maybe our tastes are more similar than I had previously thought.