This is our last piece covering the 85th Annual Academy Awards. Our first part covered bits and pieces of other categories. Part two covered the Screenplay categories. Part three covered the Supporting Roles categories. Part four covered the Lead Roles categories. And our previous piece covered the Best Director race.
This one is the big one, covering the Best Picture nominees. Like always, before I get to why I think the Academy is full of a bunch of boring people, let’s look at the actual nominees:
· Amour
· Argo
· Beasts of a Southern Wild
· Django Unchained
· Les Miserables
· Life of Pi
· Lincoln
· Silver Linings Playbook
· Zero Dark Thirty
I alluded to the fact that I was going to have something wrong with the nominees but the Best Picture category is one of the few that Academy has gotten right recently and a lot of that is because they can pick up to 10 nominees for the award. That greatly reduces the chance of a film being overlooked, something that is in large part because the Academy failed to recognize 2008’s The Dark Knight, much to the dismay of millions of nerds (and critics) everywhere. After that blunder, they upped it to 10 nominees but recently tweaked it so that it can be anywhere from 5 to 10. Like I said, this is the one category that the Academy seems to be thinking outside of the box by increasing the amount of nominees. So I don’t really have any issues with the nominees. I may not be interested in a couple of the films nominated but from everything I’ve heard, they’re deserving so I won’t get too mad about them.
There are some films that I thought were outstanding that have been shut out of the event entirely but it doesn’t surprise me that much since Lawless and Killing Them Softly aren’t exactly the type of films the Academy loves. A few years ago I’d probably be a bit more upset but I’m at the point where I just accept that the Academy has a certain profile for their favorite films and some of the films I love just won’t make it.
Anyways, looking at actually predicting this category, I must say that a week ago I would’ve given a completely different answer than the one I’ll say today. A week ago, I was convinced that Lincoln was the frontrunner. Considering the fact the lead actor is the frontrunner in the Best Actor category and the director is the frontrunner in the Best Director category, it’s pretty easy to see why I’d think that.
However, this past weekend that all changed and for the better, I might add. Both the Producers Guild and Screen Actors Guild awarded their versions of Best Picture to Argo. Now, I think I’ve made it clear that I believe Argo should be recognized as the best of the year. It’s great and honestly, fits the profile of a typical Academy Award winning film so I felt that it should be the film to get the award and now that seems quite likely. And that’s because in the 23 year history of the Producers Guild of America Awards, 16 of the films that won the top PGA Awards honor, also won the Academy Award for Best Picture. There are some landmark cases that would indicate that it could still lose. On the surface, it compares favorably to 1995′s Apollo 13 because that also won the top award at the PGA and SAG awards (as well as the DGA) but director Ron Howard failed to be nominated for Best Director and ended up losing out to Braveheart for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. I just hope that’s not the case because like I said, Argo would be my personal choice for the top spot. If it wins, it would be the first film since 1989′s Driving Ms. Daisy to win Best Picture despite the film’s director not even being nominated for Best Director.
All in all, this is shaping up to be quite the interesting year for the Academy Awards, something I don’t think I would’ve said a week ago when it seemed like Lincoln was the clear frontrunner. That’s all for our preview on the event but be sure and check back during the event on Sunday, February 24, 2025 as I will be live-tweeting/blogging the entire event!
Author: Kyle Russell
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