A note from Scott: The 62nd New York Film Festival has been chugging along and will wrap up on Monday. But the main topic of discussion in Hollywood at the moment is the crashing and burning of Warners’ Joker: Folie à Deux: How was it allowed to be made? How much money will it end up losing? And who will be the fall guy(s) for it? But for our purposes, I’m curious to see if the film — which is clearly D.O.A. in the best picture, director and adapted screenplay Oscar races — can survive as a contender in any categories.
It seems to me that Joker: Folie à Deux’s performances and below-the-line work are no less impressive than the original Joker’s. That film, just five years ago, received, in addition to best picture, director and adapted screenplay noms, noms for best actor, cinematography, costume design, film editing, makeup/hairstyling, original score, sound editing and sound mixing, and won for its score. So why would the branches that nominate work in those fields punish the people who contributed to the new film for its overall shortcomings? Or might they not?
I’ve been wondering the same thing about another Warners film, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the sequel to 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road. The earlier film received, in addition to picture and director noms, noms for best cinematography, costume design, film editing, makeup/hairstyling, production design, sound editing, sound mixing and visual effects, and won six of those. The work in those areas on the newer film, in many cases done by the same people, is not of a markedly different quality and certainly is not to blame for the newer film’s overall shortcomings.
I guess what it boils down to is whether or not voters in those branches want to nominate the best work that was done in their fields, or the best work that was done in their fields in a film that they liked overall. They are supposed to do the former, but, being human, may well do the latter. We shall see.
In other news, Apple’s Blitz opened the London Film Festival on Wednesday night. Its overall Rotten Tomatoes score is 94 percent, but some of the most influential publications, including THR and Variety, were decidedly mixed on it. I found Steve McQueen’s film to be very well made from a directing, crafts and technical standpoint, but with a plot that’s a bit old-fashioned, which may somewhat limit its overall prospects.
With Blitz having shown its cards, there are now only a handful of awards hopefuls that have yet to screen or that I have seen and cannot yet write about: Searchlight’s A Complete Unknown, Paramount’s Gladiator II, Sony’s Here, Warners’ Juror No. 2, Focus’ Nosferatu and Universal’s Wicked. That status will change very soon for Gladiator II (Oct. 18) and Juror No. 2 (Oct. 27), and in the near future for the others as well.
The deadline for countries to submit a film for the best international feature Oscar race passed on Oct. 2. Word is still dripping out about which film some countries chose to enter — in the last week we have learned about entries from South Africa, Bangladesh, Singapore and Thailand, among others, and it turns out that Venezuela replaced its original choice. But as of now, as is reflected below in the updated chart for the category, I am counting 86 submissions, which would be only slightly down from last year, when 92 countries submitted a film and 88 of those films were found to be eligible.
Looking ahead, this coming weekend will mark the wide debut of Focus’ animated/documentary feature Piece by Piece and the limited openings of Briarcliff/Rich Spirit’s The Apprentice, Greenwich’s Carville: Winning Is Everything and Apple’s The Last of the Sea Women. Meanwhile, Neon’s Anora, one of the buzziest films at Cannes and the fall film fests, is gearing up for its limited release the weekend after that. With all of its principal talent in tow, it screened at the Academy in L.A. on Oct. 6 and for another audience of L.A.-based Academy members on Oct. 7, and will screen at the Academy in New York on its opening day.
Please remember: You can bookmark this URL and return to it at any time to see my latest picks — I intend to update it once a week, usually on Mondays. Think of me like a meteorologist — my aim is to correctly predict what will happen, not to advocate for what I think should happen. My picks are arrived at by screening films, consulting with voters, analyzing campaigns and studying results of past seasons. I do not rank things that I have not seen, because doing so is just silly. And now for my current forecast…
