Reardon: Oscar picks and the politics of award shows
The 91st Oscars won’t be handed out until Sunday, but Roma has already made history. With a 32.6 percent chance to win best picture, it sets a new record: No foreign-language film has ever had a higher chance of winning the top award on Oscar night. That’s according to Hollywood Reporter Oscar handicapper Ben Zaumer. You can read about the method to his mathematical madness here.
I’ll run down my picks for this weekend’s awards in a moment, but first a little primer on the politics of awards season. As a member of the Broadcast Film Critics’ Association and other critics groups I start getting bombarded by screeners of movies, postcards, thank you letters signed by folks like Bradley Cooper, posters, bound copies of scripts, and various other we’ll call them “trinkets”---aka bribes.
In the gallery above are some examples of the items shipped to me only by Participant Media — the studio behind best picture favorite “Roma” — along with Netflix, which handles distribution. There’s an amazing, gorgeous, GINORMOUS coffee table book, a bound script, another bound script with a fancier cover, and finally...a framed poster signed by director Alfonso Cuaron.
Now I don’t know that every member of the Academy gets all that...but rest assured they get some of it. That doesn’t that ROMA isn’t deserving of best picture honors…but I offer it as an example of the manipulative process of getting movies attention during awards season. The fact is nobody voting on these awards or others have seen EVERY film. It’s human nature to play “follow the leader” — people want to feel good about their votes and voting for a frontrunner to ensure you voted for the winner is common.
But let’s help you win your Oscar pool this weekend with my selections in the major categories.
