Telluride 2021 : September 2 - 6, 2021

The door is certainly open for Will Smith to win.

Saw a critic compare King Richard to Seabiscuit too which is promising for its Best Picture chances.



ETA: Technically the Seabiscuit comparison wasn’t 100% positive, but still not necessarily a bad thing either.

So basically, he doesn't want to say he's bad...in public.

Some  more reactions for King Richard. Positive stuff for Will Smith and Anjanue Ellis (be aware though, these are mostly pundits, not critics, so critical reception could be quite different):

Full steam ahead.

Dinklage getting in complicates matters tremendously - you are now looking at year that could have Macbeth AND Cyrano in the top 5 - 2 classical roles and they are both played classically..........or you're looking at a year with 2 musical actors in the top 5 (Garfield, looming).........or you are looking at a year where THREE of the top 5 are recreated roles : Macbeth, Cyrano, Nightmare Alley

Dinklage is not just getting raves........but he's getting raves in something that doesn't seem niche and the National coming hard for that Oscar people - which should cheer them up, ammirite?  JangoB rises

Let's goooooooooooooooooooooo are we going to get serious on this board in this bad-ass category or are we going to post what someone said on Twitter and sh it? 

And I'm okay with that. 

Not unless they wrote something original for it

And even if they did, I think it's Billie Eilish and her Bond song that's gonna be taking the award.

Neither Smith nor Cumberbatch seem remotely unbeatable with these early reactions. Cumberbatch has already been dinged repeatedly as "miscast", while Smith right now seems very middle of the road Pursuit Of Happyness vibes that could score an easy nomination, but not necessarily a win. 

This has basically been a pretty good week for Denzel Washington, as none of his supposedly biggest competitors seem undeniable. If reactions to him in The Tragedy Of Macbeth are strong enough,  he could easily run away with this race.

That's pretty fucking ridiculous. Washington is the closest working male equivalent to Meryl Streep within the Academy. He's gotten the majority of his acting nominations without the benefit of being in a Best Picture  nominated film. That is rare for a male actor  with as many nominations  as him. They love him, probably more than any male actor working. He got his last acting nomination for Roman J Israel,  a film that flopped with critics and a rare box office flop for him.

Washington in any sort of "prestige" role these days is pretty much Academy catnip, for a nomination at least. He did 3 Oscarbaits  in the 2010's and got 3 acting nods. He'd have to get terrible  personal  reviews to likely miss and that never happens  with him. He is  too consistent. Anyone who thinks he's looks likely to miss out on a nomination playing Macbeth directed by Joel Coen opposite Frances McDormand  doesn't really have a fucking clue what they are talking about or how this industry works or Washington's stature within  it (and within the Academy). Doubting his pull with the Academy at this stage of his career with a project that has "prestige" written all over it is so asinine that it isn't really even worth  discussing. The film itself could be a fiasco, yet you still couldn't write off Washington's chances of getting a nod. 

Ummm, Denzel's name would have to be missing on the ballot. In fact, methinks they would just write that shit in anyway. Denzel would have to get headlines bashing him that he beyond sucks to the tenth degree. And anyone who has seen Much Ado About Nothing knows that he can hang.

The Academy loves Denzel. Period. He gets snubbed here if the voters think it is old hat. Sight unseen, I already know Denzel will be better than Will Smith. I was not impressed by that trailer.

What? It's the opposite: 

There's been 4 men ever to do it - 2 in Lead:

Brando, Olivier (4 times), Basil Rathbone (Support)  , Frank Finlay (Support)- that's the whole reason that IF he gets in I said it singlehandedly takes him from a top ~ 15 American actor to a top ~ 10 American film actor...........it would be a huge deal because it .........it almost never happens..........

Josh Hartnett got snubbed for "O". Mekhi Phifer was good too.