I dissected the Oscar nominations, as well as gave my picks and predictions in every category over at my Substack! Landon's Picks and Predictions for the 98th Academy Awards
would Sinners winning BP turn people on it? it doesnt seem like an out of left field choice to me, but it feels like suddenly people would view it as unworthy.
I think people are starting to feel that way now, especially comparing it against the other nominations. I can easily see it going to Sinners but I'd be happy with Marty, The Secret Agent, Train Dreams, or Sentimental Value (I'd be content with OBAA too but would be cool to see an "underdog" win)
Most of the turning against a movie happens during the eighteen-month long season. Once the actual awards are over everyone moves on. People mostly remember winners only if it was a really bad pick.
OBAA will almost certainly win. Given the amount it has won precursors, if anything else were to win it would be treated as an unworthy/divisive win
Historically, none of the precursors are super predictive until you get to the guilds. One Battle cleaned up on the critics circuit, but I don’t see any other reason to consider it the overwhelming favorite when it comes to Oscar. Pretty close to a dead heat, IMO, and I’m giving Sinners the slight edge because it over-performed on nomination morning while OBAA missed a big category everyone expected it would get. Honestly would be super happy with either outcome, though, and I don’t see a third film coming out and winning.
Anora: Palme d’Or; NBR; critics choice; satellite awards; and tons of the small regional fest and critics bodies awards. Really the only thing it didn’t win was golden globes which in hindsight is pretty funny. Oppenheimer: not worth listing because it won virtually everything EEAAO: same case as Oppenheimer Coda and Nomadland were outliers I think for reasons discussed in here previously. Weird years with no one in the theaters or campaigning leading to weird results. Parasite: not quite as dominant as EEAAO and Oppenheimer but more so than anora. At worst it was a coin flip with 1917 before the guild awards sealed it green book: obviously no one wants to talk about it this way but this was an incredibly predictable win that dominated all the precursors honestly going too much further back before Covid doesn’t seem super helpful as the academy expanded its base around then and is almost a different body entirely now. There is also more information readily available to us than ever before. The Oscars are more predictable now than they’ve ever been. Sinners winning would be the biggest shock on this list. It isn’t even really second (anora is).
Parasite, Green Book, and CODA are all years that had other films clearly in frontrunner position until the guilds hit, and you yourself thought Anora had a 10 percent chance of winning Best Picture coming out of the Globes last year. Even EEAAO, which felt unstoppable all season, didn’t really start running the table until guild season; Tar was definitely bigger with critics groups.
Sinners has won virtually none of the precursors though lol. Sure, some of those previous winners were toss ups. That was because other films actually won some of the awards leading up to the guilds. It just feels like wish fulfillment of people wanting a blockbuster that made tons of money that was original made by someone they like to win best picture. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be the most shocking non COVID winner this decade. maybe it wins the DGA and SAG and PGA awards in the next few weeks and this changes but that appears extremely unlikely at this point. It’s gonna win like 2-4 awards below the line and that’s it
You might be right! All I'm saying is that 1) I don't think it's a sewn up for One Battle as people have been proclaiming since that movie came out; and 2) I wouldn't be surprised if the guilds vote a little differently than the critics groups. (I would probably not be saying this if Sinners hadn't scored a surprise Supporting Actor nom just minutes before OBAA missed Best Actress.)
Could share the several posts where you said conclave or a complete unknown were winning but this is an actively dumb conversation
We will know more in like two weeks. At this point sinners does not seem particularly close to winning at all.
lol, buddy, my post right there includes the words "My gut still says Anora." The Conclave conversation was not what you are remembering.