Oscarathon 2019: Oscar Forecast Megathread – Technical Awards

This is always quite the category, and it had quite a number of competitors this year. That led to a lot of people being left out. The biggest probably being either James Laxton’s work in If Beale Street Could Talk, which got nominated by the Critics’ Choice Awards and the Satellite Awards, or Linus Sandgren’s work for First Man, which got nominated by BAFTA, Critics’ Choice Awards, and the American Society of Cinematographers. Then there was Newton Thomas Sigel’s work on Bohemian Rhapsody (*gag*), which got a BAFTA nomination, and Rachel Morrison’s work on Black Panther, which got a Critics’ Choice and Satellite nomination (which considering the limitations Marvel places on its cinematographers is rather impressive). The actual nominees for this category were ultimately quite strong and showcased how much the Academy was willing to look at Foreign Films this year.

First Director-Cinematographer Double Winner?

Roma

If you somehow hadn’t noticed, Alfonso Cuarón has had a very good year so far, and is the first director to get an Oscar nomination for shooting his own film. Now it is possible he could build on this and be the first person to be a double winner as well. Roma won the Critics’ Choice Award and got nominations from the ASC, BAFTA, and the Satellite Awards. Combine this with Roma‘s status as a Best Picture frontrunner, and Cuarón is in the favored position once again. This isn’t the strongest position, though, so both the ASC and BAFTA could certainly change things, and the fact that no one has ever done before what Cuarón is trying to do could ultimately work against him in the end.

Best Picture Favored Status

The Favourite

Robbie Ryan’s cinematography is an integral part of a major Best Picture contender, and oftentimes, that can be enough–but in this case, The Favourite also has the fact that it is a nominee at the ASC, BAFTA, Critics’ Choice, and Satellite Awards. Ryan hasn’t won yet, but he still has two chances at BAFTA and ASC, so that could move him into the top position.

Hey, it has a Best Picture nomination, too

A Star Is Born

The biggest strength that Matthew Libatique has is that his work is part of a Best Picture nominee. The problem is that so do two other films in this category, and they are in a much better position to win right now. That is not all, though, as this film also has a head-to-head win against Roma at the Satellite Awards, while also garnering nominations from ASC, BAFTA, and Critics’ Choice Awards. So if it can pick up another win, it could jump to the front of the race quite quickly.

Black and white always makes things better

Cold War

If Roma didn’t exist, the success of Cold War would be something to behold. With three nominations, it is quite the success for a foreign language film, and Łukasz Żal’s cinematography is masterful. Żal also got nominations from BAFTA, ASC, and the Satellite Awards, so he could still have something to say in this race if he can get a win at BAFTA and/or the ASC Awards, but right now in so many ways this film is in Roma‘s shadow, and it is likely to stay that way.

Well this is a surprise

Never Look Away

This came as a shock. Never Look Away had failed to get any other nominations, and well is a Foreign nominee, so it just seemed so unlikely it would be able to garner a nomination here, especially with two other Foreign Language nominees already getting one, but the superb work of Caleb Deschanel was in fact recognized. Now, this is the only film where I would be truly surprised if it won in this category, but it was a deserved nomination nonetheless.

A surprise indeed, as Łukasz Żal picks up the win for Cold War. This is an upset, at least somewhat, and if nothing else means that Cuarón’s path to victory is much more complicated. Now, the ASC isn’t the best indicator of the Oscar winner, with just 14 out of 32 previous winners going on to claim the Oscar. This is likely because once you get to Oscar voting everyone gets to vote instead of just cinematographers, which is going to lead to a lot of people simply voting for movies they like and not necessarily the craft behind the movies. It is very possible that the cinematographers just weren’t quite ready to award a Director-Cinematographer in Cuarón and so instead went with Żal. I wouldn’t take this to mean that Cold War is now definitely going to win. At the same time, it doesn’t hurt, and four of the last five ASC winners did go on to win the Oscars, so this could be a sign of good things to come for Żal and Cold War.

Cuarón picks up the win and regains some momentum after the ASC loss. This helps Roma regain firm control of its spot at the top. Things still aren’t as clear as they could be, but it looks like Cuarón and Roma are the safest bet at this point.

Oh boy, is this category a mess. There is very little consensus. First Man‘s Tom Cross got BAFTA and American Cinema Editors (aka the Eddies) nominations, as well as a win at the Critics’ Choice Awards, but failed to get an Oscar nomination. Roma‘s Alfonso Cuarón and Adam Gough won the Satellite Awards and got nominations from BAFTA, the Critics Choice Awards, and the Eddies, and it also did not get nominated. So, okay… then, umm, what did get nominated? Well, it certainly wasn’t Critics’ Choice and Satellite Awards nominee Joe Walker for his work on Widows, nor was it Satellite Award nominees Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders for their work on If Beale Street Could Talk. A Star Is Born‘s Jay Cassidy, Satellite and Eddie nominee, also came up short. Instead, we were left with one abysmally wrong choice, one wrong but not downright embarrassing choice, one kind of boring choice, one mostly qualified choice, and one actually qualified choice (all of which happened to be Best Picture nominees). All of which could win in the one category that has no real favorite, considering the two big precursor awards so far went to movies that weren’t even nominated for the Oscar. So yeah, my own thoughts are coming into play here more than normal, because why not?

The Actually Qualified Choice

The Favourite

This is the only nominee whose editing impacted the film at a constant clip. Yorgos Mavropsaridis also got nominations from BAFTA, the Critics’ Choice Awards, and the Eddies. This should win, so it probably won’t, but the fact that The Favourite has the most nominations of any film this year besides Roma is once again a strong reason to suggest that it is I guess the leader right now, because yeah, that’s all we have at this point.

The Mostly Qualified Choice

BlacKkKlansman

Unlike The Favourite, this film’s editing really matters for some very specific scenes but disappears a bit too much the rest of the movie. Still, the scenes when it matters are amazing. Barry Alexander Brown also has nominations from the Satellite Awards and the Eddies, which puts this film a bit behind some of the others, but a win at the Eddies could change this quickly.

The Boring Choice

Vice

This may seem weird, because the editing itself isn’t boring inherently, but it sure is the same type of editing the Oscars seem to love a bit too much every year, and it is like the cut-rate version of The Big Short‘s far superior editing, which makes sense seeing as Hank Corwin did both of them–and, well, because Vice is a cut-rate version of The Big Short in general. The film did get BAFTA, Critics’ Choice Awards, and ACE nominations, so it has that going for it too, but really Vice‘s biggest strength right now is that the Academy has an editing type it prefers and this is definitely it.

Oscar Nominees Should Be Better Than This Choice

Green Book

Like, really? This film’s editing? I know that Best Picture nominees have to get Editing nominations most of the time, but nothing about this editing job is particularly interesting. That’s not to say Patrick J. Don Vito did anything wrong, and good editing is often the kind you can’t really see during a film, but good editing is not, well, good enough for an Oscar nomination–or at least, it shouldn’t be. This film did get an Eddie nomination, and if Green Book wins Best Picture, who knows, maybe it can win this too… but like, why? The only reason I am not more annoyed about this nomination is, well…

WTF Is Wrong With Everyone Choice

Bohemian Rhapsody

Just, why? This editing is so bad. The film is aggressively cut to music, but wrongly, and in a disjointed way that combines with terrible cinematography to create just a poorly made movie. Great editing actually does draw attention in a work, and I commend John Ottman for trying to make some great editing, but he failed miserably and now it is awful. But hey, no one seems to care about the rest of the issues with this film, so why the hell would they care about this? In fact, this film got BAFTA and ACE nominations, so it can still win, and for now it is right in the thick of this race, because this awards season is insistent on making us guess until the very end whether we are in the worst Oscar timeline.

I just have to accept that for whatever reason people think the disastrous editing (yeah, I am so done with this movie) of Bohemian Rhapsody is actually good, as it picks up the Best Drama Editing Award (over BlacKkKlansman), and now, like I feared, it is right in the thick of this race. In better news, The Favourite picks up the Best Comedy Editing Award (over Vice and Green Book). If nothing else, this helps narrow down the possible winners, as it continues to look like this category will be quite the crapshoot.

And things just get more complicated, as Vice picks up the win. Now it really is a toss-up. BAFTA has been pretty good at predicting the winner of this category in trickier years, so that might be a reason to give this more weight, but this could also be a year where how a film ultimately does in relation to Best Picture could swing things. It feels like at least it is down to Vice, The Favourite, and Bohemian Rhapsody (one would be the correct choice, one would be a boring but not awful choice, and one would be a travesty–I’ll let you guess which is which), but honestly, if either Green Book or BlacKkKlansman won it would not be all that shocking.

And time for the annual “what the hell is the difference between Sound Editing and Sound Mixing?” PSA. Sound editing is about putting together the sounds that go into the film, while sound mixing is more or less about what you do to the sounds once they are collected for the film. They are very distinct things, but the Academy could at least try and change up the nominees in each category, as four films are shared between the two categories this year. Missing out on this category are films like Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Ready Player One, and A Star Is Born. Instead, we were left with three Best Picture nominees, an astronaut tale, and a film about being quiet. Quite the collection.

Pseudo-Musical movie + Best Picture nominee = Winner

Bohemian Rhapsody

Musicals and war movies tend to do well in these categories, and there is no war movie to chose from this year, but there is more or less a musical, and well, the sound is the one thing that’s actually good in this movie. The mixing is better than the editing, but honestly, this is one of the times I don’t think it will matter, as the love for Queen is so strong that people are willing to ignore all the issues in this move. Oh, also this film his BAFTA and two Golden Reel nominations, so that helps.

Space, the final frontier of sound

First Man

There is a good chance this film was on the cusp of a Best Picture nomination, but instead it is left with tech nominations. This is one of them, and it has a chance of winning here if the love affair with Bohemian Rhapsody doesn’t corrupt everything it touches. This film also got BAFTA, Satellite, and two Golden Reel nominations, so plenty of chances to make something happen.

This film is all about the sound or, well, lack thereof

A Quiet Place

From a pure number perspective, this is the frontrunner, but let’s just say this year has made trusting numbers a bit hard to do. This film won Best Sound at the Satellite Awards (which is a combined category, so not quite as helpful as it could be) and got a BAFTA and two Golden Reel nominations, so if it can get some more wins that could make things more comfortable.

Superhero Movie Effect

Black Panther

Superhero films tend to get some sort of coverage here, and this is also the closest to a war movie this category has. The film has a nomination each from the Satellite and Golden Reel Awards, but likely it will be overlooked in this category, unless Black Panther has a really good Oscars night.

Sure, why not Roma?

Roma

This is kind of a weird choice. Certainly not a bad one, but still weird. This film got a Satellite Award nomination and three Golden Reel nominations, so it has support, but ultimately this feels like a stat-filling nomination for Roma, and even on its best night, it is not going to be able to pull off this win.

Bohemian Rhapsody won for Best Sound, which likely means it is winning at least one of the sound categories, and if we are being honest, probably both. Musicals tend to do better in the mixing category, so this would be the one the film would have more trouble with if push comes to shove, but it has a strong chance of winning both at this point.

Well, this creates some intrigue, I suppose, as A Quiet Place is able to win the all-important Effects/Foley Golden Reel; but Bohemian Rhapsody wasn’t even in that category, and it was able to win two awards for Best Musical and Best Dialogue/ADR, so even though the Effects/Foley is generally the more important one, this likely evens it out at best for A Quiet Place, and we are back to where we were before, with Bohemian Rhapsody in front. But if you want a different choice, A Quiet Place is the one. Also, Roma did win for Best Foreign Film Sound, so it continues to get a measure of success across many guilds, which bodes well for its Best Picture chances.

Honestly, I could just write what I wrote for Sound Editing, because the only real difference the Academy tends to show between these categories is that musicals are generally treated better in this category than in the Best Sound Editing category–hence why A Star Is Born got a nomination here, but not in editing. The same could not be said for Mary Poppins Returns, for example. Cinema Audio Society nominee A Quiet Place also failed to get a nomination to make room for A Star Is Born.

Pseudo musical movie + Best Picture nominee = Winner

Bohemian Rhapsody

A Star Is Born

It seems very likely that the winner of this category will be one of these two, considering they both are musicals and both got BAFTA and CAS nominations. I would favor Bohemian Rhapsody because of the job it did mixing Freddie Mercury’s and Rami Malek’s voice to create the singing in the movie, but A Star Is Born checks all the same boxes, so likely whichever of these can win at BAFTA and CAS will be the ultimate winner come Oscar time.

Space the final frontier of sound

First Man

If the musical duo is going to be defeated, it would likely be by this film, which garnered Satellite, BAFTA, and CAS nominations. If it can manage to pick up a win, that could change this race, but likely it has a much better chance in the Sound Editing category.

All that superhero jazz

Black Panther

Black Panther continues to fill out its nomination slate here. It did get a nomination from both Satellite and CAS, but it is hard to see it winning here. The Sound Editing category would make far more sense if it were to win one of these sound awards, but there is not much to suggest that, either.

Keep rackin’ up those nominations Roma

Roma

This feels even more like a stat padding nomination than Editing was, and there is no chance this film is winning here.

Bohemian Rhapsody won for Best Sound, which likely at least sets it up it to win this category considering how well musicals do.

Another win for Bohemian Rhapsody and that is likely a wrap for this category. The only real question is whether it can pull off the sweep or not?

This category has a shortlist, so snubs are always a little more clear cut. Also, saying any of them are snubs is a stretch, as this kind of feels like a weaker VFX year. The important thing is that Black Panther didn’t get nominated, because while I really like that movie, that third act fight scene between Black Panther and Killmonger should lose Marvel its VFX privileges for quite some time. Ant-Man and the Wasp was a little bit sadder, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom has dinosaurs, so that is impossible to mess up. Then there was Welcome to Marwen and Mary Poppins Returns, both of which evoke shrugs. So yeah, umm, these nominees are fine.

The important Disney one

Avengers: Infinity War

You would expect this to have been the powerhouse in this category, and it did get BAFTA, Satellite, Critics’ Choice, and Visual Effects Society nominations, but it has yet to win anything (Satellite and Critics’ Choice inexplicably went with Black Panther). It will have more chances to do so, and ultimately unless a Disney rebellion happens it will end up winning when all is said and done.

I mean, it is an ode to the ’80s, if nothing else

Ready Player One

If said rebellion occurs, this film feels like a good bet. The ’80s nostalgia will resonate with a lot of voters, and it has gotten nominations from BAFTA, the Critics’ Choice Awards, and VES. The film has lots of problems, but the visuals are, umm, mostly not one, so yeah, umm…. Man, this category sucks this year.

More practical special effects

First Man

The Oscars have tended to favor more seamless special effects, like when Ex Machina won, so this film has a good shot. It got BAFTA, Satellite, Critics’ Choice, and a supporting VES nomination, so it has support, and that could lead to a victory come Oscar Sunday.

More Disney?

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Christopher Robin

These are the Disney just owns this category nominations, and because of that, sure, they could win, but really they are both behind Infinity War in importance. In a weak visual year, the effects of Christopher Robin that make Winnie the Pooh and friends look quite realistic is the most impressive thing done this year, but that will likely get ignored. Meanwhile, the only plus for Solo is it means this film will forever have Oscar nominated appended to it, which is sure to piss some people off, and those people generally suck, so annoying them is a good thing.

The big winner was Marvel: Infinity War, which picked up the Photoreal Feature award. That award has ended up predicting the VFX winner 10 out of 16 times, although it has missed the last two years. Meanwhile, Ready Player One picked up two VES awards and First Man picked up one, so they both remain ready to take advantage if Infinity War falters.

I just don’t understand everyone else, as Black Panther wins again. Look, the rest of the movie actually looks pretty good, but you cannot give a VFX Award to a movie that fails so badly at VFX at such a significant point of the movie. This almost feels like BAFTA is trying to make up for not nominating Black Panther for almost anything, because, well, BAFTA has issues. I guess this helps Infinity War because it didn’t lose to anything that can beat it Oscar night, but it also sets up more chaos. Who knows what voters will do now? I still expect Infinity War to win, but it is a lot less certain now.