Some Oscar stuff
Awards season is a cut throat business
I wanted to take quick dip into some Oscar prognostication as sit here on a (at least for me) gloomy Friday, waiting for the wind storms to pick up. Wind storms that would have been great viral marketing had Wicked opened this weekend.
Your Oscar bait this weekend is Marty Supreme, a movie about a guy who wants to be really good at ping pong or something…
Ok, arguably it’s about more than table tennis. And while there’s a bunch of buzz swirling around it, even with the (still needs to really rev up) smear campaign against Chalamet, One Battle After Another feels to be the prohibitive favorite to snag the Best Picture statue.
HOWEVER…
The Oscar campaigning landscape forever changed in 1999, the infamous Academy Awards with Saving Private Ryan v, Shakespeare in Love. This article does a great job of explaining how Harvey Weinstein worked to get his film the best picture award. Once a dick always a dick. But anyway, while campaigns since then have had varied success on achieving what they want, the blueprint is out there.
And I can see an Oscar night where One Battle After Another can get got. The seeds are out there.
Now, is this something that can gather some momentum? I don’t know. I don’t feel the traction gripping just yet, but the Oscar campaign machine hasn’t started just yet; aside from the obligated, “Movie X is awesome and you should see it,” People Magazine 101 strategies every movie does around this time.
But I do believe there’s a non zero chance that some shrewd studio/firm/company/exec that could put together a smear campaign against the movie based on the race dynamics it portrays. Whether you agree or not isn’t the point; that there is hard, heavy discussions around it is. And while I believe the current opinions out there on the web are genuine, honest, important and not the cogs of a smear campaign, they could also be the Death Star plans showing some rebel force how to blow the movie up.
And I feel that’s where Marty Supreme could sweep in and Shakespeare In Love this whole thing. Time will tell, and I can’t predict what will happen, but I’d be shocked if we didn’t hear more about this in the months ahead.
Speaking of Oscars and films, we’ve got the new Avatar popping this weekend:
I think I saw the first one? Gotta be honest, when I heard “unobtanium” lo those many years ago, I kinda didn’t want to engage. And if I’m honest, I feel as though this movie was created because a bunch of people saw creating CGI fire in different ways was a cool challenge to overcome.
I know these movies are technical marvels. I know they make billions of dollars. But to me, (and sometimes it feels like to the pop culture landscape in general) they are the U2 of the movie world. Acknowledged for their accomplishments; never brought up seriously about much else.
And this one? The fire one? Not sure it’s gonna get nominated for best picture. I know there are ten slots, but off the top of my head:
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Train Dreams
Frankenstein
Sentimental Value
Blue Moon
The Secret Agent
That’s nine that I believe have a strong chance of being nominated. It’s a pretty crowded field and if Avatar: Firestarter doesn’t get that big box office push into headlines in the next few days, it may just crash and burn, which I also predict will be Variety’s headline about it.
What Else?
Is This Thing On? is a puzzle to me. Directed by “I really wanna Oscar” Bradley Cooper, I can’t quite get the temperature on it. Released in the prime of the awards season, it’s currently sitting at an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes. Of course, you can use data to sell anything and it feels as though that’s what’s happening here: the data might not lie, but the interpretation may be. Going through some of the reviews, it looks like people like it, but don’t love it. Which makes sense. I am intrigued by it based on its premise (a dude using stand up comedy as therapy for a crumbling marriage) and I think it’s a good base hit for Cooper in his never ending quest for the gold man, taking his base this inning to show he’s an all around player and not the Rob Deer of Hollywood. I’m certain he’ll be back up swinging for the fences soon.