HOLLYWOOD—I might get slack for this, but I don’t give a rat’s butt. I hate that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences expanded the Best Picture race. I’m sorry, you are just nominating movies that just don’t have a chance of winning the top prize and for what, to say you got nominated? All this debacle was a direct result of “The Dark Knight” not earning that nomination for Best Picture that it absolutely should have earned the previous year before the big change. The Academy should have stopped being pretentious and voted for a movie that totally changed the superhero genre and movies in general.
With that said, we have 10 contenders again this year, I would love to see just six or seven one year, but whatever. So, who’s vying for the top prize? We have “Anora,” “The Brutalist,” “A Complete Unknown,” “Conclave,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Emilia Perez,” “I’m Still Here,” “Nickel Boys,” “The Substance” and “Wicked.”
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but “I’m Still Here,” “Nickel Boys,” “The Substance,” “Wicked,” and “Dune: Part Two,” don’t have a chance. They are just lucky to be nominated. If we only had five nominees, the only one that may have potentially snuck in is “Wicked,” and even then, I don’t think it would have made the cut. “Emilia Perez” has the most nominations and was the favorite, but scandal can tank a movie very fast, which is what happened with the musical that doesn’t have a chance in hell of winning Best Picture, so take it out of contention.
Then you have “A Complete Unknown,” which is a great drama with a riveting performance by Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan. However, it hasn’t won any major Best Picture prizes at all this awards season so that takes it out of the mix for me. Then you have “The Brutalist” which is a sweeping drama, quite long, but it has won more directorial prizes compared to Best Picture, the only win it did obtain was at the Golden Globes. Now, there is a chance, while small, that it could be a contender IF Brady Corbet wins Best Director, but I’m not sure that is going to happen.
So that brings us to the two movies that have the biggest chances of victory: “Anora” and “Conclave.” Before Sunday, I would argue this was “Anora’s” to lose. I mean it just won the Producer’s Guild for Best Picture, The Film Independent Spirit Award for Best Picture, and its director Sean Baker won the Director’s Guild of America prize and Writer’s Guild of America prize for Best Director and Best Screenplay respectively. I like the movie, but it did not blow my socks off like “Conclave.”
The thing about “Conclave” is that it’s amazing on a first watch, just as good if not better on a second watch, and the acting is superb. I mean Ralph Fiennes is amazing, John Lithgow wicked, Stanley Tucci fantastic as always, Isabella Rossellini is a revelation. It was some top tier acting, writing and directing which is the trifecta when it comes to movie making, where you might have one or two, but the others lack.
The religious thriller also gained serious momentum with the BAFTA win for Best Picture, and most recently taking home the SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture over “Anora.” Why is that important? The SAG Awards tend to be a big predictor of where things are heading for Oscar voters with its actors’ branch holding the most members and plenty of spillover with SAG membership. So let me say this, if Sean Baker wins Best Director there is a chance Oscar also gives “Anora” Best Picture, but the prize has been split more often than ever in recent years.
So, I think “Conclave” is coming out on top with the Best Picture prize, and it’s unfortunate that its director Edward Berger was not nominated because I think he would have been dueling massively with Baker for that Best Director Oscar. In years past, it has always been the movie people haven’t seen that brings home the Best Picture prize, but plenty have seen “Conclave” and I have yet to run into someone who wasn’t fascinated with what they witnessed on big screen or at home streaming with that movie compared to “Anora.”
