Ouch.


My "Bill Condon is going to be snubbed" prediction is starting to become more realistic...

It should get to 150 or more once in wide release.

that's the company it belongs to be in

I'm not really against a Dreamgirls nomination yet, it'd be a nice addition. I just didn't want it taking the big prize, but now it looks like that won't happen, so I'm satisfied.

Ah, someone also thought about Driving Miss Daisy...

I'm not sure, but I think it depends on how many films are eligible for a category. If, for example, we had X animated movies in a year, there could also be 5 nomineed in that category

No, Sound Editing can only have 3.

BTW, the other category is now called: Sound Mixing.

Well it doesn't look like it's going to be amazingly unpredictable from this point forward, but the fact that the remaining top 7 films I have...

...either seen and at least liked
...have not seen but am positively looking forward to...

...makes me a bit happier than last year when I was facing the reality of having multiple films I didn't think much of find their way to nominations.

I came in here looking for this thread, but nearly turned away as soon as I happened upon that title.

I've been listening to that ripped copy of Jennifer Hudson's talents you posted some time, loyal. She really owns it in "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going."

I sort of frowned upon the idea at first, but she is pretty fantastic. Oscar? Hopefully - based only on the singing. Now if only we could convince Eddie to shut up....

It may have won more loyal, if it won song or whatnot. There are some categories that we're not sure about yet (since an official list isn't up). The summary didn't cover all of the awards, for some reason.

But if that's it for Dreamgirls, then both Dreamgirls and The Departed won 4 awards, and Flags really dominated too. And The Queen was really left out. I'm a little surprised because I expected the IPA to go for the smaller films, like they tend to do. But they went with The Departed and Dreamgirls (assuming Dreamgirls ends up being a "big" film at the box office).

Peace,
Mike.

The IPA confuse me. They consider themselves "International", and they say they extend invitations to full-time entertainment journalists all around the WORLD. But they don't exactly reflect that, as I see it. I don't understand them.

Peace,
Mike.

And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going

I have downloaded Jennifer Hudson's version of it from iTunes and am very optimistic about her performance, considering how much passion and humanity she manages to put into that one song.

Bring Liquor!

It occurs to me that Dreamgirls probably has a better chance than any film in a long long time to be the first Best Picture winner without a Director nomination. I don't think it'll happen, but with Condon out of a slot, which I very well believe will happen, it's chances aren't completley dead, just... 90% dead. It can easily be a 175 mil+ hit or more like Chicago now, the question is if it can take it's massively popular appeal to something more than a nomination.

Why are you assuming that Condon has no chance? I think that issue needs to be addressed before you say anything about whether or not Dreamgirls could win without a Director nomination.

Greengrass, Iñárritu, Frears and anybody else but probably Eastwood and Scorsese aren't locks.

He's nominated at the BFCAs. He doesn't have a Golden Globe nomination, but it's not like the Globes matched the Oscars last year...

This year...


Eastwood can't get nominated for two Oscars, Little Miss Sunshine seems to be ineligible.

I still think we need to see how Dreamgirls is going to play over the next few weeks to figure out if it could win. I will say this, Dreamgirls can definately win:

Best Supporting Actress - Jennifer Hudson
Best Art Direction - John Myhre (although he just won last year and in 2003... hmmm)
Best Sound
Best Song - Either "Listen" or "Love You I Do"
Best Costumes
Best Make-up

I would also say that Dreamgirls can probably win Best Editing and can win Best Picture (although I say Departed wins if awards held today). Not Director. Scorsese is getting his trophy, and Iwo Jima or Departed will get adapted screenplay.

Dreamgirls will definately end up the most nominated film of the evening.

Nobody should bring up Rotten Tomatoes in an era when Crash has a Best Picture Award.

Condon isn't completely out of it, but I'm predicting that he isn't. IMO, Condon missing is more likely than not. Eastwood, Scorsese are locks, Frears and Innaritu should get in with their films, as they're direction-based films. After that it's Greengrass and Condon, and I have Greengrass taking the spot because there's no way United 93 gets shut out at these Oscars, and that's the one place they can really honor it(unless they pick out some random tech), not to mention Greengrass has been getting mention all over the place in the precursors. The fact that Dreamgirls is 76% on RT, and has been almost nowhere to be found in December precursors, doesn't exactly help his case either, it's hasn't been a steamtrain of success.

The difference between Crash and Dreamgirls is Crash had an insane amount of passionate supporters, and it pulled its ass together in December with the precursors and critics lists. Dreamgirls has no importance card, it hasn't shown up in this month at all minus JenHud, and it isn't making very many critics top 10s. Crash had such passion that it was able to get past it's 78% RT score, because the people that loved it loved it so much. Dreamgirls doesn't have that advantage... it is falling behind Chicago in every way.

Well there's Cinematography...

Honestly, U93 is my favorite film but where is the support coming from? It's like A History of Violence really. Why is it "weird" to think Condon has a nomination in the bag when he's going to have a film with a likely huge box office and have the most nominations of the evening?


Crash won with less.


Multiple nominations at the Broadcast Film Critics Awards
5 nominations at the Golden Globe (despite Director)... and will actually win this one.
(and Satellite, but count those... ?)


The December precursors don't give much leeway for any film that's not Iwo Jima or The Departed. Babel has Cannes (which has never been a good predictor) Condon won Director against Babel's Iñárritu (although that's not a good indicator either).


It doesn't have to be. There hasn't been enough precursors to sort out anything that isn't Iwo Jima or The Departed. We know Eastwood and Scorsese will get nominated. We're hoping that Frears has enough. The rest is just picking and choosing. Putting money on the Director with the film with almost a guarantee of having the most nominations seems the most likely course.

78% RT score? You mean 75%?

Are you sure that Dreamgirls doesn't have that advantage? Are you sure it's not going to have the public's backing, the backing of the minority voters? The backing of Box Office?

Again, we're talking like we're assuming a win, I don't think it will. Again, my money at this point is on The Departed. But you've given me absolutely nothing to tell me that Condon has less of a chance of nomination than the other directors (save Eastwood and Scorsese) at this point.

PGA and DGA will definately tell us this. I'm sure Dreamgirls gets a SAG nomination at this point.

And while we're on the subject, Babel's RT is far less than even Dreamgirl's score and its Cream of the Crop is embarassingly almost Rotten, so that can be dropped from arguments going forward. Crash got much better reception than Babel did on that site. And Babel is still considered a competitor (even by me, at least it has eclipsed the faltering Little Miss Sunshine at this point...)

We all know at this point (or should know) that the best rated films of the year are not the ones which are nominated or win.

All I know is that Dreamgirls is nothing like Chicago thus far.

Both critically:

Dreamgirls:
Overall RT: 76%, 7.2 rating
COTC: 86, 7.5 rating
Metacritic: 77 (5 100's)

Chicago
Overall RT: 88%, 7.9 rating
COTC: 94%, 8.2 rating
Metacritic: 82 (12 100's)

And in terms of any significant awards:

Dreamgirls
5 Golden Globe Nods (no Director or Screenplay)
Nada at the critics awards except for Best Supporting Actress for Jennifer Hudson at many

Chicago
8 Golden Globe Nods (including Director and Screenplay)
More nods from critics awards, including some Best Picture attention

Qualitatively, Chicago was also in a better position in regards to reception. And Shack is right in saying that Dreamgirls has been awfully absent from critics lists in general thus far. I'm curious to see where it is going to place on Engin's critics top 10 listings. So far, no film to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars has placed outside the top 20.

Peace,
Mike.

Chicago was also a winner, something that Dreamgirls is unlikely to be. Still.. as always, there are 4 other nominees. Again, if we compare it to Babel or Little Miss Sunshine it's in at least equal territory for the most part (if not better). It's got some pluses and minuses.

Engin's list should be interesting, we'll have to see where it winds up.

I know this is going to sound weird...

But Dreamgirls feels a lot like Master & Commander as a contendor in many ways.

Steven Soderbergh was nominated twice in the same year by both DGA and AMPAS for Traffic and Erin Brockovich. So Clint could very well be nominated twice at DGA and/or AMPAS. Paramount/Dreamworks suspects Clint might be nominated twice for DGA which is why I believe they tried to send out screeners. After GG Condon appears the most likely to be snubbed for director.

Traffic and Erin Broc were both getting a fair amount of precursors. Both films were juggernauts. Flags of Our Fathers is less so than any of the top 7 contendors. Iwo Jima is a juggernaut, not Flags of Our Fathers. And both films won't be nominated, Eastwood is extremely unlikely to get two (but you are right, my language above is wrong, it is *possible*).