Okay, so. Some thoughts on this whole thing.
(1) Nicole Kidman is
officially the go-to presenter whenever these ceremonies have run too long and they need the biggest award of the night to be handed out as quickly as possible. She just waltzed her way onto the stage and went "The nominees are". Flat-out skipped all the crap. She almost didn't even wait for them to actually announce the nominees, and came
this close to opening the envelope right then and there. That's what I call efficiency. She did the same thing at SAG two years ago when the show ran over two hours and she presented Ensemble. Just entered the stage and said, "I'll get right to it so that the winners have their fair time to speak."
(looks down at envelope) "
Hidden Figures."
(2) As someone who hasn't watched
Bohemian Rhapsody or
Green Book yet and is therefore still basking in the comfortable warmth of ignorance, let me just take a moment to appreciate the fact that as undeserving as they probably are, at least I can take solace in knowing that
A Star is Born won all the awards it was deserving of. "All the Stars" >>, but not by a big enough margin that I'll complain.
(Okay, if I'm being totally fair, Gaga's performance
did basically hold the whole film together, so she wouldn't have been a bad winner. But on the other hand, we
were spared another speech from her, which is surely a very positive result.)
(3) Peter Farrelly, I'm gonna go into your film with a really open heart and give it a fair chance, but you're making it very fucking hard. I might even watch it twice if you promise me that that means I get to skip another speech from you. Jesus fucking Christ, just fuck off.
(4) I don't see
Bohemian Rhapsody winning Best Picture, if only because at some point these people WILL be reminded that it didn't direct itself, and if missing out on a Director nod is a huge blow (shoutout to McDonagh), missing out on a Director nod for
those reasons is an entirely different ballpark.
With that said, though, it
is looking pretty good for a nomination, and Malek may just pull a Redmayne. It may also be the SAG frontrunner, come to think of it. BAFTA will probably shower it with love as well, so the writing really is on the wall.
(5) Speaking of Best Picture:
Green Book and
Bohemian Rhapsody are about to catch a
lot of flack, so in that sense, the other main players (
Roma,
The Favourite,
ASIB,
BlacKkKlansman,
Black Panther) benefit from avoiding a flurry of takedown pieces dissecting them and exposing their flaws.
Black Panther winning would spark a flood of "ARE WE REALLY GONNA GIVE BEST PICTURE TO A MARVEL MOVIE?!" cries, so this shut-out keeps that kind of backlash at bay for the time being. I still think it's winning a few techs, and a
Big Short-type PGA upset isn't out of the picture either given its monstrous box-office success. It's still good.
Roma wasn't eligible for Motion Picture, therefore it wasn't upset by
Bohemian Rhapsody. What's important is that Cuarón won, which keeps him ahead of the competition for Director and strengthens the film's argument for a BP victory (uncertain as it may be).
The Favourite stays exactly where it was before. There was clearly a lot of love for Colman in the room and her speech was also pretty damn good, so she's still very much in the race (and I have her penciled in for the win for the time being, which I'll get to in a moment). The Screenplay loss doesn't mean much; it would've been good exposure, but none of the HFPA's last three winners in this category went on to win at the Oscars, so this isn't a fatal blow. I still reckon the Academy picks it over
Green Book. Even Supporting Actress isn't out of the picture, seeing as the Globe winner was snubbed by SAG and isn't guaranteed to win the BAFTA, which leaves an opening for Weisz to surprise.
The Favourite certainly
has lost some momentum in the last few weeks, but tonight's results neither revive nor kill its BP chances. Let's see how BAFTA and the DGA go.
The two films that sink here are
BlacKkKlansman and
A Star is Born, to varying degrees.
The former could've
really benefitted from Motion Picture or Director wins to keep it visible in the race, especially seeing as its next big shot at a major precursor trophy (SAG Ensemble) is now in jeopardy thanks to the massive
Bohemian Rhapsody love. It wasn't widely predicted to win anything here, though, so it's not hurt that much. It's still a very timely project that's doing pretty well with the guilds, so let's wait and see.
Finally,
A Star is Born. One might argue that this near-shut out means it avoids backlash, but it's been the out-and-out favorite for months now, so I don't see how some Globe love would've been the straw that breaks the camel's back. The frontrunner talk has been there for so long that whatever uptick in criticism might've resulted from a win tonight would've been negligible amidst the negative talk that it was
already being subjected to. The
Green Book/
Bohemian Rhapsody shockers are a drastic shift in the narrative, and will certainly attract hate;
ASIB taking awards that many thought it was locked for would not.
It definitely sank tonight, though, because it's no longer the easy frontrunner in any category other than Original Song (which was always gonna be the case anyway). This whole time I thought Cooper had it in the bag, but after tonight his Jackson Maine might be the Riggan Thomson to Freddie Mercury's Stephen Hawking. The parallels are very clear. We dismiss the baity performance from the crowd-pleasing film that the cinephile community dislikes until it comes back to bite us. And I'll get to Gaga in a second, but she's now dropped to #3. So that leaves Actor and Actress with brand new frontrunners (is it too soon to call Malek that?), while Cuarón solidifies his standing in Director. Unless there's a sudden groundswell of support in the aftermath of these losses, this might be the first symptom that
ASIB peaked too soon and is now being moved on from.
Finally:
(6) Gaga could
back by winning SAG because clearly they went nuts for her film, but I'm not sure that'll happen when she's still primarily known for music, her film may have already peaked, Close is a hugely respected thesp (who just got a hell of a boost), and
The Favourite clearly has plenty of support as well, judging by its 3 individual nods. And then there's BAFTA, which seems far more likely to go to Colman or Close. So Gaga has already lost the first of the big three precursors and isn't a sure thing to win either of the other two.
This Actress (Drama) upset is actually giving me major 2016 vibes:
Colman = Stone (Comedy/Musical winner).
Gaga = Portman (perceived by most to be a near-lock due to her raves and the baitiness of her project).
Close = Huppert (massively respected veteran in a lowkey film that gets doubted all season long, only to wind up swooping in and taking everyone by surprise at the last minute).
Obviously
ASIB and
The Wife are much more accessible films than
Jackie and
Elle, while
The Favourite is nowhere near the steamroller that
La La Land was, but the comparison is apt. With one single unforeseen move, the HFPA made Portman drop from #1 to #3 in many/most people's lists, which she never recovered from, and the same might be happening here to Gaga, who's already winning another Oscar for
ASIB anyway.
I expect Colman v. Close to be a much tighter battle than Stone v. Huppert was, but I'm still siding with the Comedy winner for now. The British block will probably come to bat for her, and now that she's done filming
The Crown she'll be hitting that circuit hard. SAG just got a hell of a lot more exciting.
As a closing remark, I'll say that Close was NOT fucking around with that speech. She saw the opportunity and she grabbed it by the horns like a pro, hitting damn near every beat she needed to. But Michael Keaton also had a magnificent Globes speech that had many people going "there's no way he loses after
that". So let's not call it a day just yet. Both ladies killed it with their speeches.
The wildest season of the decade may just about to unfold.