Top Five Highlights of the 2016-17 Awards Season

I've vented my biggest frustrations, but the only proper way to put the season to rest is by celebrating those moments which made me most happy.

Top Five Highlights of the 2016-17 Awards Season:

5. Biopic curse broken

We were this close five years ago to having a winning lineup of actors who played four fictional characters, but then Meryl's imitation of Maggie Thatcher thwarted that plan by beating Viola Davis' ordinary hero Aibileen Clark in what we can only speculate was a photo finish. How fitting it then is that Viola is now part of the first winners' circle to feature no real life roles since the class of '97. Chalk it up if you must to a year that was a bit leaner on biopics than usual, but it's still refreshing to see four thespians clutching Oscars for playing the kinds of 'ordinary people' that Viola so passionately celebrated in every acceptance speech this season.

Top Five Pet Peeves of the 2016-17 Awards Season

Alright, the time has come to move on from this craziness. A new year in cinema is upon us, with its own horrors and treasures to discover. But first, one final look back at the horrors and treasures from the recently concluded Oscar derby:

Top Five Pet Peeves of the 2016-17 Awards Season:

5. Back-ended release calendar

This gets me every year, but why are distributers so bent on waiting until the last minute? Nearly all of my essential viewing for the year had to be crammed into December, January and February, which is no way to consume movies. Spread them out, for God's sake! At least Moonlight had the good sense to begin its roll-out in October, and look how that turned out for them. Compare that with another marvelous little movie, 20th Century Women, that held off until freakin' January. You do the math.

No Words -- Should've Sent A Poet

March is the month to decompress, go enjoy some bad movies, and stop thinking about Oscar for a spell. It does even the hungriest awards enthusiast good to take one's mind off the madness. But none of this sabbatical comes before extensive analyses and rundowns of the season that was, so I'll be rolling out my thoughts sporadically as we creep out of winter and into a new movie year.

I normally devote an entire piece to dissecting my predictions, but why even bother this year? With so many categories defying the patterns on which most pundits have come to rely (especially in the crafts), I wound up with an unexpected and historic low of 13 (uck), and in what I foolishly assumed would be a bounceback from last year's lacklustre 16/24.

I can deliver my thoughts on how I reacted to those losses -- some of which provided me with the most satisfying moments of the night, the year, and possibly the decade so far -- at a later date. First I have to go out of order and address the elephant in the room.

You know what I'm talking about.

One Category at a Time: Best Picture

In just over two days from now the 89th Academy Awards will be underway and everyone will be tuned in to see just how many Oscars La La Land can win on its triumphant march to Best Picture. Anyone predicting an upset in the top category at this point is just looking for attention. This is a done deal. Sure, you could point to its lack of a SAG Ensemble nod, a stamp which every Best Picture winner since Braveheart managed to attain en route to Oscar immortality, but why split hairs? We know why it didn't get that nod (it's far from an ensemble piece), and we know it doesn't matter. A happy ending is coming for the marvelous musical that hit the ground running this season and never looked back.

Top Twenty Movies of 2016, Part 2 (#10-1)

And then there were ten. I've tried my best not to squawk about it too much over the course of the year, but I stand by the opinion that 2016 was not a vintage year for film. I do, however, think it may be the year wherein the importance of film (and our cultural sphere, in general) was clearer than ever.

Many might dismiss the pageantry of awards seasons and the minutia of 'Top Ten' lists as utterly frivolous in a year with so much noisy social and political unrest, with much larger (and disheartening) things happening outside the cinema bubble. But such tumultuous times are when we should cherish the movies even more.

The right movie at the right time can have tremendous power; It can soothe the vexed mind with magical escapism, it can educate by giving exposure to unseen people or issues, and it can provide connection to worlds we may never have known we could connect with. These ten movies do all that and then some. Congratulations to them, especially the top five, which represent my personal nominations for Best Picture of 2016.

Good Times Keep Rolling for 'La La Land' with PGA Win

La La Land continued its precursor dominance last night with the Producers Guild of America's top award. Zootopia and O.J.: Made in America also continued their similar dominance in the corresponding animation and documentary categories.

Top Five Highlights of the 2015-16 Oscar Season

Twelve days removed from the Oscars, and I'm more than ready to leave it in the rear view. The overall season felt a bit fatiguing and lacklustre this year, which I can owe that to my own pessimistic misreading of the Best Picture race. But the big night itself had a few positively thrilling outcomes, and the preceding months were not completely without their pleasures. Herewith are my top 5 highlights.

5. Leo's Red Carpet Rampage and other fun stuff
Leo winning what many would call his overdue Oscar for such an uninteresting performance (Hoo-Ah!) would normally bother me a lot more, but a couple of things allowed me to enjoy it. A) I don't weep for his competition. B) There was just so much glee to be had on the Internet! The Red Carpet Rampage video game is an obvious highlight, but there were plenty of other good guffaws.

@ladygaga verdade pic.twitter.com/mvmi2RJFb6

— luscas (@luscas) February 28, 2016

March is for postmortems

My usual week of Oscar night cataloging will have to stretch out into more of a post-mortem month.

We'll start by examining the winners as soon as possible (within the week). Lots to discuss here. Some good, some bad, and one bona fide craft category shocker that I still can't wrap my head around. But for the moment, let me just keep a positive footing by saying I can't remember the last time I was this excited about the outcome of Best Picture.

The right choice.

One Category at a Time: Best Picture

Usually by this point in the season, we've had enough indicators lining up behind one title to make calling Best Picture a mere formality on our Oscar night scorecards. The only instance in the last ten years that caused any confusion was two years ago, when the PGA ended in an unprecedented tie. The Producers Guild may not have split hairs this year, but they may as well have, because the rest of the industry has been so uniformly divided among the top three contenders that this may be an even tighter race than the famous Gravity/Slave sprint.

For starters, we can pare down the field of eight nominees. Figuring where they'd rank is an exercise in pure, unfounded speculation. But it's also kinda fun, so humour me.

Top 20 of 2015 continued (Top Ten)

And so I arrive at that time of year when I have to suck it up and commit to a top ten, although it's been a bit harder in the past than it was this year. That's not to comment on the relative quality of the class of 2015 to any other year. I think it was a very fine year indeed, just one with less position shifting than usual. Subsequent viewings of certain titles merely galvanized their place on this list, with little depreciation (or significant appreciation) in value. We'll see if the years allow any of them to rise to the top.

The only oscillating I ended up doing came down to my top two. Imperfect, arguable masterpieces both -- you could also say the same of #3 and #4 -- who each sat in my #1 spot for lengthy stretches throughout the year; A testament to their staying power. At the end of the day, I had to go with the one that moved me most at first blush. Even once multiple revisitations have softened its novelty, that intense initial response is a hard feeling to forget.

But all ten of these deserve gold stars. They have given voice to the voiceless, kept us on the edge of our seats in moments of silence and bombast alike, horrified us with brutal truths, and made human emotion beautifully tangible. Without further ado, my Top Ten Movies of 2015:

'The Revenant' and other BAFTA winners; How closely will Oscar follow?

Last year, the winners of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts were particularly noteworthy because they foretold a number eventual Oscar outcomes in categories that had pundits scratching their heads. This year, I may end up taking their cues in a few such races, especially the design and sound categories.

So what's the big takeaway from this year: The Revenant is the real deal. The Big Short may have the PGA's recent track record in its favour, but it looks like Inarritu's epic is a done deal in Best Actor, Director, Cinematography, and could possibly win both Sound prizes (or more) on top of that. Do we really think a movie with that kind of haul is going to lose to a film that may only win a single other category?

I'm going to be tossing and turning on this one folks, and in no small part because I happen to think either movie would we the worst Best Picture winner in decades.

But some of BAFTAs decisions have given me real hope -- albeit very cautious hope -- for Oscar night in their embrace of Mad Max's craft elements. Sweeping all three design categories plus Best Editing is a fine showing for George Miller's astonishing actioner, and should the Academy follow suit two weeks from now, well that'd be just fine by me.

Check out the list of winners after the jump, with a few remarks on what they may (or may not) mean in terms of the tightly contested Oscar race:

Con Job: 'The Big Short' stuns as PGA winner

Well fuck.

The only fraud bigger than the one Wall Street perpetrated against the American public prior to the 2008 housing crisis, is the one The Big Short -- which "smartly" depicts that shameful recent chapter of history -- is pulling over on Hollywood as we speak.

And yet there it stands, as our new Best Picture frontrunner by "virtue" of having won the Producers Guild of America's top prize late last night in Los Angeles. Anyone who claims to have seen this coming is being a revisionist historian. Under no circumstance did this film -- as abrasive, impenetrable and, at its worst, condescending a comedy as you'll likely see -- have the qualities of a consensus pick. It's victory here, and its now inevitable victory at the Oscars, will baffle me for years to come.

Time's Up

Oscar voting closed today, capping off a busy week of industry nominations. I won't parse through them all, but merely highlight that the critical favour of Carol has not converted the way its fans (yours truly among them) hoped that it would, while sleeper contenders Straight Outta Compton, Ex Machina, and especially Sicario have turned up the heat at the tail end of this fertile voting phase.

What it all means in the Best Picture race... Hard to tell with that maddening variable-number-of-nominees system. All I know is that in five of the last six years, at least two PGA nominees have missed the Academy's cutoff, and at least one PGA-snubbed contender always squeaks in.

The good news: Carol seems a likely candidate to be this year's squeaker. The bad news: It could just as easily be something like Trumbo. I'm keeping the former in my predicted lineup for now, but it may be wishful thinking -- I've long since given up on Inside Out, Steve Jobs, Son of Saul, Room and Creed (looks like minimal overlap between me and AMPAS this year).

Golden Globe nominations

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association sounded off this morning on the heels of yesterday's SAG nominations, adding fuel to the campaign fire of many a project. Flagging contenders like The Martian, Joy, and various acting hopefuls got some badly needed exposure, while the unlikely Oscar player Mad Max: Fury Road kept its engines purring with a pair of citations in top categories. The nomination leader: Critics' pet Carol, which continues its maddening lethargic roll-out. It had damn well better speed up after this successful showing.

Check all the feature film categories with some quick thoughts of mine:

Best Picture - Drama
Carol
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight
Looking more and more like Spotlight is the only movie in this scattered season with enough widespread approval to make it a frontrunner. It may be that everybody else is just playing for nominations now, but there are important battles to be won in that contest; The Globes have been proving themselves far cooler than the Academy for a few seasons now, and here's AMPAS's chance to keep in step. Putting these five on the Oscar Best Picture ballot would be a good start (I know I say this without having seen Carol or The Revenant yet, but I have high hopes, and the other three are highly deserving).

Early Oscar Predictions: Best Picture & Director

If you've been tracking the various films I've been predicting in certain categories, then it should go without saying what I'm anticipating to be Best Pictures players. I'll go the limit and pick ten, even though we all know that'll never happen.

Scattered Pictures: AMPAS Going Back to the Way We Were?

As you've no doubt heard by now, THR is reporting that a "significant faction" within the Academy (however many that ambiguous number may be) is pushing for the Best Picture category to be reduced back down to five nominees.
The board of governors will give the issue serious consideration during their annual meeting at the end of March. It's entirely possibly that before the end of the month, the 2016 Oscar race will be thrown for its first big loop.

For starters, I truly believe it behoves no one to get all worked up about this potential decision before it's even made. There are valid arguments to be made for either side of the fence on which the board of governors may fall, but there are also facile arguments that hold no water. My own opinion on the matter is a bit complicated, but it helps to go back six years ago to when this all began.

Was this the TSN Turning Point for AMPAS?

One Category at a Time: Best Picture

Ordinarily, any self-respecting Academy Awards prognosticator (is there such a thing?) would be mightily embarrassed to guess Best Picture -- often the most predictable of categories -- incorrectly for two straight years.

But these last two years have been anything but ordinary.

A mere twelve months ago, many pundits, stunned by the unprecedented PGA tie between Gravity and 12 Years a Slave, were calling it arguably the closest race in Oscar history. Flash forward and we have another Oscar race that, while perhaps not the closest of all time, is certainly not at a lack of suspense when it comes to the top prize. It's a good thing.

Traditionally, I've broken down the Best Picture contest by analyzing which films have the requisite trifecta of nominations; Best Editing, Best Screenplay, and Best Director. This year, for reasons that will be discussed, I have to throw all that out the window. The preferential ballot has made it possible for a movie to win without being cited in all three of those categories. A film-by-film rundown seems more appropriate.

My Award Nominees: Best Picture

And the big category is at last unveiled. I don't know who these people are that say it was a weak year for cinema. It thought it was pretty great. Maybe not quite as many four-star knock-outs as last year, but more than your average year if you ask me.

These are the five that knocked me out. My five Best Picture nominees (plus the five runners-up that round out my top ten) are:

The Die is Cast: Inarritu wins DGA

The Directors Guild of America has spoken, naming Alejandro G. Innaritu's Birdman the best directed film of 2014, echoing the preference of both the Producers and Screen Actors Guilds.

That's the game, right? The only movie to collect that triumvirate of awards and not win Best Picture was Apollo 13. I suppose some could argue that with Oscar voting having just opened and with well over a week before the polls close, there's enough time for a backlash to take effect. However, backlash is always more of a media reaction to the awards race, and doesn't really reflect any shifting opinions within the industry. If Birdman somehow loses Best Picture, and it might, it'll be because some other option was always more popular within the Academy the whole time, not because voters suddenly decide they dislike it on account of its awards success thus far.

I, for one, can't complain about this. Birdman is one of the year's best, and what a refreshing change of pace it'll be to see a comedy win the Academy's top honour.

But that still doesn't quite settle things in Best Director...

'Birdman' Shocks as PGA Winner

I was hoping I'd be wrong about The Imitation Game coasting to a Producers Guild Award, and subsequently the Oscar, on the preferential ballot system.
I knew there was at least a decent chance of it not having quite enough support to edge out other Best Picture heavyweights like Boyhood and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Any of those three seemed like plausible victors with the guild, given how they had all the requisite Oscar nominations needed to win the big prize.

But this, I did not see coming.

Inarritu rockin' the blazer and the hoodie... and the PGA Award for Best Picture.