Voila ~ the April Foolish Predictions are Complete!
Monday, April 30, 2018 at 11:30PM by Nathaniel R
Whew. Can y'all give me a round of applause? Somehow I finished the April Foolish charts in all the early doable categories (i.e. all but documentaries and the three shorts categories) before April was done! Let this be a new leaf turned as we need lots of new leaves while we reinvent ourselves FOR 2018.
The freshly baked charts...
PREDICTION INDEX | PICTURE | DIRECTOR | ACTOR
And the charts that previously went up, some of which we've discussed on the blog....
ACTRESS | SUPPORTING ACTOR | SUPPORTING ACTRESS | SCREENPLAYS | FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM | VISUAL CATEGORIES | MUSIC AND SOUND CATEGORIES | ANIMATED FEATURES
As you can see if you peruse them, they're filled with all sorts of narrative possibilities. Some of those stories they tell are in direct opposition to one another. I urge all of you to try this year in advance thing at home some year. It's incredibly confusing because each time you place a movie here you have to figure how it might affect things over there since there are distinct patterns to the way things happen.
Steve Carell in "The Women of Marwen" based on the story that also informed the documentary "Marwencol"
It's like trying to construct a crazy intricate jigsaw puzzle without the final image to work from! You can make it up as you go along but what the hell kind of picture are your fingers forming? And no matter how careful you are some things never end up making any sense...
I decided not to predict Robert Zemeckis's Women of Marwen in any category because I've been burned so often before with that director's post Forrest Gump oeuvre which usually sounds more intriguing on paper than it ends up being. And yet by the time I got to Best Actor I went there... despite another Steve Carell option on the table in a film (Beautiful Boy) I expect will go over better. Perhaps it's this year's Leonardo in Blood Diamond instead of The Departed gobsmacking conundrum!? But I'm quite well aware that the Best Actor predictions make less sense than they should as three men predicted are from films from which I've predicted no other nominations to emerge. That would be highly odd if not quite record breaking. Still, the Best Actor and Best Director fields were tough to finalize this year as I had no strong hunches or, when I did the strength of the hunch collapsed as soon as I put it into chart form. Eventually I finalized with frankenstein monster charts sewn from bits of previous attempts.
Moving on to a sillier topic, I don't quite have the faith in Mary Poppins Returns that the charts suggest I do so if the charts are 100% accurate this early (tee hee!) I've accidentally predicted that Mary Poppins Returns will break Carol's modern expanded BP era record of "most nominations without a Best Picture nod". This was accidental but the predictions for Mary Poppins and A Star is Born were otherwise quite intentional because I tend to give musicals the benefit of the doubt and the culture is definitely getting used to them again. I also like how showing faith in musicals tends to make other stuffier people's heads explode since the knives are always out for musicals before they've been screened... and afterwards, too!
I couldn't tell you why I'm optimistic about "Mary Poppins Returns" but somehow I am.
I'm so happy that the charts are finished (until the next do-over). It's your turn. What are your hunches for 2018's Oscar movies and, more crucially, which hunch can't you shake even though you know that it's ridiculous or a least the longest of shots?
Spill it in the comments!
Reader Comments (19)
Thanks for all your work, Nathaniel. I basically cheat and use all your hard work to then bounce off for my own 10-month-out predictions, so everything is much appreciated.
Interesting to me that you don;t even put Joaquin Phoenix's Cannes-winning performance in YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE in any part of the Best Actor page. I understand that Cannes usually doesn't translate to an Oscar nod, but to not even feature in the "Other Male Leads" section? (And yet the picture of him from that movie is right there in front of me! :-) )
FYC, Josh Brolin as Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War for Best Supporting Actor.
The whiteness of this category is actually irksome. Especially when Lakeith Stanfield's headlining movie Sorry to Bother You is getting so much early positive press and public anticipation. Unlike Best Actress where Viola will be the perennial Black default when wanting to save face and avoid push back -- Best Actor can be nonwhite friendly to potential nominees.
Thank you for all of your incredible hard work. And keep pushing for those musicals. It feels like they might finally be here to stay, naysayers be damned.
"A Star is Born" and "Mary Poppins Returns" should, at the very least, be real crowd pleasers even if Oscar doesn't warm to them (and I hope it does, if they're good.)
Thank you again for all of it.
I have huge hopes for the return of the popular musical that connects with different audiences and pleases die hard fans.
MPR will be huge and Blunt undeniable.
I think Phoenix in You Were Never Really Here will be a contender. It's the one performance this year that I've seen that really stands out.
And I hope The Death of Stalin and The Rider aren't forgotten.
Thanks!!
I've read the book The Front Runner is based on. It mainly takes place in the present day, with the author interviewing Hart about what occurred in 1987. Are they keeping this structure for the film, aging Hugh Jackman, and using flashbacks to tell the story?
The book is also very sympathetic toward Hart - and honestly, the whole story does not play well for him or the author in retrospect (reading the book, you realize that the reason Clinton succeeded where he did not is because Clinton handled the extramarital allegations much better than Hart did, but the author tries to pretend that America was much less puritanical in 1992 than in 1987). It just seems like a very odd choice for an adaptation, and Jackman seems like a strange casting choice for an outdoorsy senator from the middle of the US.
Black Panther could set some records if it misses a Best Picture nomination. Nat has 7 nominations lined up, and that does not include a potential Kendrick Lamar nomination for Best Original Song.
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? got 9 nominations without Best Picture, but there was also three acting nominations and Best Director. Black Panther could be a tech giant and miss the big 8 categories.
Suzanne...
Hugh Jackman not outdoorsy? Have you seen him as Wolverine?
2018 has been really interesting so far (and May has just arrived) in terms of Oscar contenders:
# A QUIET PLACE - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Emily Blunt), Best Supporting Actress (Millicent Simmonds ) and Best Original Screenplay
# ISLE OF DOGS - Best Picture (???), Best Director (?? but Berlin went for him), Best Animated Feature and Best Original Screenplay
# WHERE IS KYRA? - Best Actress (Michelle Pfeiffer)
# BLACK PANTHER - Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Visual Effects
# AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR - Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Visual Effects and Best Original Score (??)
# LOVE, SIMON - Best Original Screenplay
# YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE - Best Director (Lynne Ramsay), Best Actor (Joaquin Phoenix), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Cinematography
.
WOW, 2018 promises to be a great year for movies. Crossing my fingers for an unpredictable awards season
You've left out You Were Never Really Here and you should probably be more bullish on Black Klansmen. Topher Grace as David Duke sounds like a supporting actor surprise waiting to happen.
A round of applause, absolutely.
I always admire your curiosity, wide-ranging interest, and fairness in assembling your lists.
It always makes me enthusiastic about the year to come.
"Have you seen him as Wolverine?"
No. But do you have any memory of Gary Hart? He was really weathered by 1987 and looked as though he spent his entire life in the sun. He seemed older than the 50-year-old politicians of today.
It's incredibly tricky to pull off movies about contemporary politics in general, and I highly doubt this one will work.
Will Paul Dano's Wildlife make it to US cinemas in 2018? If so, and especially if Cannes reaction echos Sundance, that could be a player.
Disney actually has 2 live-action Best Picture nominations- Mary Poppins and Dead Poets Society. The latter was a Touchstone release which is Disney although essentially defunct now probably even moreso when Disney takes Fox into their stable.
Hoping this Glenn thing happens. I mean winning.
Thank you for doing this! This is so satisfying.
I would love to see Cynthia Erivo in the Best Supporting Actress mix for Widows. In my dream world, they've written an original song for her to sing either in the movie or over the credits.
I've got the weird feeling "Everybody Knows" can manage the unthinkable... first Foreign Language film to win Best Picture. It looks a viable winner for Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actor (Darín), Screenplay, Film Editing and Foreign Film. Probably cinematography, score, could easily join the pack of noms. I have a lot of faith in this project, given the names involved. So far, I'd say it's probably winning one acting award, screenplay and probably director.
Doesn't Willem DaFoe seem wildly miscast playing Vincent van Gogh when the the painter was between 30 to 35 years of age? I love DaFoe, but this casting reeks of disaster.