One Category at a Time: Original Screenplay

With only a handful of weeks before the Oscars, now is the time for me to start formulating some predictions, and I'll start with what may be the surest lock of the year, Best Original Screenplay.

It's hard to imagine the prize going to anything but the former Best Picture frontrunner Spotlight. Though it's no longer favoured to win the top award after The Big Short's momentum shifting PGA win, Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer's dense journalistic procedural will surely be given its due here.

The nearest challenger -- a distant second despite being a perfectly respectable option -- is probably Matt Charman and the Coens' austere political quasi-thriller Bridge of Spies, being the only other Best Picture nominee in the field.

PGA Preview + My Award Nominations: Original Screenplay

Tonight all eyes will be on the Producers Guild of America, who have matched the Academy all six years of the expanded Best Picture era so far. Pundit logic suggests that Spotlight (my prediction) is the only movie that can survive the rigors of the preferential ballot, although I wouldn't put it past them to be sufficiently impressed by the gargantuan production that was The Revenant. Spotlight is a relatively small and very talkative movie after all; Not the type that usually wins Best Picture, but I'll try to remain optimistic.

While the producers' decision may ultimately end the perceived race for the Academy's highest honour, the race for my own awards is just getting started. Each weekend from now until the Oscars I'll be publishing my own list of personal preferences, starting with Best Original Screenplay.

Spotlight Shines Bright, but Oscar Frontrunner?

After stirring up a lot of talk at Telluride and TIFF in September, most markets finally got to set eyes on Tom McCarthy's Spotlight. Gripe as I may about sluggish release schedules, this one was worth the wait.

The journalistic docudrama about the Boston Globe's Pulitzer-winning investigation of pedophilia, corruption and complicity within the Catholic Church is dense, and in the best way. McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer's screenplay packs a lot of content into a swift, focused procedural. It requires attention, and rewards attention.

Granted, talking heads aren't always easy to make jump off the screen, but the cast is greater than the sum of their considerable parts. This is marvelous group acting, with each performer carving out distinctive personalities for a roster of characters who could have become homogenized. The SAG Ensemble prize may be sewn up, and if pundits are to be believed, perhaps the Best Picture Oscar?...

I'm not so sure.