Welcome to Beyond The Trailer’s coverage of the 2016 Academy Awards, giving you an
in-depth look at the top categories - in a year where the ceremony has been overshadowed
by controversy!
Will anyone show up?
Will anyone watch?
In response to the shocking lack of diversity amongst the nominations for the second year
in a row, The Academy has already implemented sweeping reforms for NEXT YEAR'S vote.
But you can let your voice be heard this year in Beyond The Trailer's annual Oscar poll
where there is not only a write-in category, but also this year you can vote on whether
or not Straight Outta Compton, Creed and Beasts of No Nation deserved to at least be nominated.
The link for the poll is in the video descritpion, and right now let's take a look at the movies
that were nominated for Best Picture...
The Big Short While it's pretty shocking to see an Adam
McKay movie nominated for Best Picture - in fact, it has five nominations overall - it's
become business as usual to see Brad Pitt and author Michael Lewis at the Oscars.
Lewis is three for three now with The Blind Side, Moneyball and The Big Short, while Pitt
has become quite the savvy awards producer.
That's right, looks like the field is no longer dominated by just Harvey Weinstein and Scott
Rudin!
In fact, neither one of those guys has a Best Picture contender this year!
But in addition to producing Moneyball and The Big Short, Pitt also produced Selma and
12 Years a Slave - for which he won his first Oscar, as a producer!
And while it lost out to The Martian in the Best Picture Comedy or Musical Category at
the Golden Globes, it just won Best Picture from the Producers Guild of America - and
guild wins are huge because they represent voting blocks within The Academy.
Although, while many commented there was nothing funny about The Martian, there really isn't
a lot ot laugh about in The Big Short.
Yes while an Oscar win for all these other movies would be nice, giving the gold to The
Big Short could potentially do some real good going forward if it can open people's eyes
to the warning that movie tries to be...
Bridge of Spies Well isn't this nice?
That's the reaction many people had to Bridge of Spies in general when they saw it in theaters
- if they saw it in theaters - because it's without a doubt a handsomely made film.
It's Spielberg and Hanks, together again, doing what they do best - but not really pushing
themselves outside of their comfort zone either.
I mean, to be honest, Bridge of Spies has about zero chance of winning here - and can
only really say that this film and Brooklyn, which showcase "important topics" long fallen
out of favor and arguably over-exposed at this point, deserve to be nominated over more
modern films like Straight Outta Compton, Creed and Beasts of No Nation?
Uh, Academy Voters, your age and out of touchness is showing...
But in all seriousness, Bridge of Spies is a nifty little movie that deserves your time
and money - just not an Oscar!
But this is a nice little nod to the days when Dreamworks dominated the Oscar race.
And this has got to make Disney even more frustrated that they're losing Spielberg to
Universal, as the only times they've made it into this category over the last few years
was via Spielberg and his Dreamworks shingle - and Pixar.
But Pixar ain't never goin' nowhere... (evil laugh)
Brooklyn This film has left many scratching their heads,
including me.
But that doesn't mean this is one of those out of left field nominations like The Reader.
No sir, some audiences have really taken to Brooklyn, which has been doing solid box office
business for three whole months thanks to very strong word of mouth.
Critics like it too, as does the industry, as it's made almost all of the year's Top
Ten lists.
What's driving this film's awards success?
Because we all know that quality isn't enough.
It certainly isn't director John Crowley who's coming off of the non-starter Closed Circuit,
and it's not screenwriter Nick Hornby either who was nominated for An Education but has
plenty of his other films ignored by the Academy.
Saoirse Ronan's star-making turn?
Well she's got a Best Actress nomination.
But why Best Picture?
That's likely thanks to Fox Searchlight, which has evolved into a major awards player.
In fact, the last two Best Picture winners were from Fox Searchlight, and 20th Century
Fox overall is responsible for THREE of the EIGHT nominees.
That's mighty impressive, but is it due to savvy awards campaigning, or having built
a strong "relationship" with Academy voters?
That means to all of those who become Academy voters next year under the new rules, expect
some goodies from Fox and Fox Searchlight...
Mad Max Fury Road So this isn't the first time that The Academy
has made sweeping changes to the rules for the Oscars in the hopes of keeping up with
the times.
Waaaay back in 2009, audiences were pretty ticked off that The Dark Knight wasn't even
NOMINATED for Best Picture.
Blaming the snub on the fact there were only a mere five slots for Best Picture, The Academy
expanded the category to UP TO ten slots.
See, if they'd made it a hard and fast ten maybe Straight Outta Compton would've been
nominated, and this whole "Whiteout 2" controversy would have been totally avoided...
Ah, the benefit of hindsight.
Anyway, ironically, since the expansion of the category it's only meant that more Oscar
bait pics got nominated - with many of them not having any real chance of winning but
at least getting to put "Best Picture Nominee" on their Blu-Ray box.
Only now, seven years later, has the expanded category finally allowed a genre blockbuster
to compete.
But beyond following in The Dark Knight's footsteps, a lot of Mad Max Fury Road's awards
success can be credited to George Miller, who has a VERY healthy relationship with The
Academy.
While he got his first Oscar nom in 1993 for co-writing Lorenzo's Oil, he's already been
in the thick of awards season twice - first with Babe which was also nominated for Best
Picture, and then Happy Feet which won Best Animated Feature.
So surely, Miller is a friendly face to Academy voters, even if his work is radically different
here.
But will Mad Max Fury Road get the nomination AND the win, or will it be up to another genre
blockbuster to take the next step?
As a summer release, one has to admit Mad Max Fury Road has lost some momentum, and
fanboys aren't pushing for it anymore either as many have thrown it over ALREADY for Star
Wars The Force Awakens.
Ooh, it's brutal out there, right Max?
The Martian As we just discussed, Fox has done incredibly
well this awards season for a mainstream studio, and The Martian is their most mainstream awards
entry.
But the movie is so damn uplifting, so finely crafted, that it's still a very strong contender
to actually win.
Fox nabbed BOTH Best Picture awards at the Golden Globes, and The Martian is on almost
every top ten list imaginable.
And here at the Oscars, it's seven nominations strong, meaning everybody liked it across
Tinseltown.
But does everybody feel passionate about it?
That's what it'll take to win here, and it's never a good sign when a Best Picture contender's
director isn't nominated as well.
Plus it doesn't seem entirely fresh coming right on the heels of Gravity and Interstellar,
the latter which didn't even earn a nomination and the former which didn't win.
Yes, when you get right down to it, The Martian could find itself shut out with The Revenant
dominating in the creative categories and Mad Max Fury Road in the more technical categories.
But if The Academy decides to be more democratic, well, The Martian's best shots at a big win
are Best Actor and...Best Picture.
The Revenant Suddenly, The Revenant is the movie to beat
- at this moment.
But behold the power of the Golden Globes!
This is why studios are willing to pay for 'em, Ricky.
Before the Golden Globes it was the new Heaven's Gate, plagued by rumors that Alejandro Innaritu
was abusing his crew and cast, not to mention had estranged his producer over the insistence
of shooting with natural light and real snow, which had caused the budget to balloon to
a hundred and thirty-five million.
After the Golden Globes, it's now the Oscar frontrunner and moviegoers are so curious
it's topping the box office charts.
Hey, when you already spent that much why not shell out a few extra bucks for the Hollywood
Foreign Press Association's stamp of approval.
So is The Revenant a sure thing on Oscar night?
Not quite and here's why.
The biggest reason is that it wasn't even nominated for the SAG equivalent of Best Picture,
and actors are the biggest voting block in the academy.
And speaking of guilds, as I said moments ago the Producers Guild picked The Big Short
as Best Picture, so that block likely won't go to The Revenant either.
We'll see who wins over at the Directors Guild, but at this rate it seems The Oscars might
simply prove all those Golden Globes were bought...
Room There's always one quirky Best Picture nominee
that nobody but Academy voters and cinephiles have seen, and this year it's Room.
This is the nominee that when announced will have everyone at home going "Who?"
But what's different this time is that pretty much anyone who's seen Room, even if there
numbers are small, agrees it deserves to be here.
However, this is also as far as it will get - at least when it comes to Best Picture.
See Room has just four nominations but what a quartet.
Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Many consider Best Actress for Brie Larson a lock, and considering the democratic way
in which Oscars are usually distributed, that's likely to be it's only win.
But if Room wins any other Oscars, it's most likely to be Best Adapted Screenplay - with
director, the real win is Lenny Abrahamson taking Ridley Scott's spot.
So, Room deserves to be nominated for Best Picture, but with seven other nominations
it has no chance of winning?
This is the downside of inflating this category...
Spotlight If it's to be believed that the SAG awards
predict the Best Picture winner, and they often do again because they represent such
a big voting block, then The Big Short and Spotlight are the only real contenders here.
That's because the three other SAG Best Picture nominees - Beasts of No Nation, Straight Outta
Compton and Trumbo - weren't even nominated!
Then again, those three films were mostly ignored by The Academy, and in the case of
Beasts of No Nation totally shut out.
So maybe there's been an overall shift that's even swayed the actors?
To be fair, any other year Spotlight would be a frontrunner.
But this is an unusually competitive year with a lot of strong and aggressive message
movies.
What's more, Spotlight is hard to nail down.
Is it the new All The President's Men, celebrating investigative journalism?
Or is it exposing the rampant sex abuse in the Catholic Church?
If Academy voters can't definitely say what they're voting for, will they vote for Spotlight?
Furthermore, Spotlight has not captured the public's attention.
It's done moderate box office, but nobody's really talking about it.
That could be because like the Big Short, it's something people don't want to talk about
- even if it is true.
But at least The Big Short is zany and breaks the fourth wall, and has Brad Pitt, and Adam
McKay!
Michael Keaton is so last year, right?
And isn't Mark Ruffalo's always nominated?
Plus I don't know about you but having seen Spotlight, well, I'd believe it of the Catholic
Church was pulling all the strings it can to keep this movie from winning...
And those are the 2016 Best Picture nominees!
Which films are you rooting for, and which are you rooting against, and which films have
you actually seen?
Be sure to leave your comments down below, as well as vote in Beyond The Trailer’s
annual Oscar poll via the link in the video description.
I’m Grace Randolph, and I hope you’ll check out the rest of BTT’s Oscar coverage
- right now!