Two more precursors today, ASC and CAS. It tickles my weird ass brain to see those two be announced on the same day, being anagrams of one another (anagrammed acronyms, to boot. This is the type of shit that interests me. I can’t explain it).
ASC is the cinematographers and CAS is the sound mixers. We had MPSE yesterday, so this’ll give us 2/3 of the Sound precursors. And with BFCA, we’ll have 2/3 of the Cinematography precursors as well. Both categories are still waiting on BAFTA, but we’ll have a pretty good idea.
We’ll go over them in the order they were announced, CAS first and then ASC.
Best Sound Mixing
Dune
No Time to Die
The Power of the Dog
Spider-Man: No Way Home
West Side Story
No huge surprises here. All five are on the shortlist. I half-expected to see Quiet Place II here after its MPSE showing. And also, no Matrix here either. Not that I’m particularly shocked to see either get left off. Dune and West Side Story are gimmes all the way through, and No Time to Die makes a lot of sense and helps solidify that as a nominee in my mind (especially since I can’t imagine BAFTA leaves it off). Power of the Dog also feels pretty set, just because those big Best Picture films tend to always pull Sound nominations.
The only two major things to note here are no Belfast and the Spider-Man situation. Belfast is a big Best Picture contender, but to this point, it’s only managed the one MPSE nomination. We’ll need to see if it hits BAFTA, because if it does, then I’m still leaning toward it getting on (especially if The Matrix doesn’t hit BAFTA). If not, that’s a huge red flag. And then Spider-Man… this is all the precursors it’s gonna get, since it’s ineligible for BAFTA, so we pretty much need to decide whether or not we think it’s gonna happen. My gut has always said no, just because only two Marvel movies have ever been nominated for Sound at the Oscars, and at least four got nominated by CAS. So to me, the single MPSE nomination is the important part there. I don’t see the kind of support I’d want, and history being what it is, it feels unlikely (and I can’t hang my hat on the first two Raimi films making it, because that’s 20 years ago).
So, currently, what I’m looking at is this category:
Dune
The Matrix Resurrections
No Time to Die
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
And honestly, I’m ready to take The Matrix off the minute I see what BAFTA does, whether it’s for Belfast or A Quiet Place (or possibly even Spider-Man, depending on what BAFTA leaves off). I don’t think there’s a situation where I guess Tick Tick Boom unless BAFTA has it on, and I don’t think I guess Last Night in Soho even if BAFTA puts it on. I kinda need to see them nominate Edgar Wright again before I believe he’s in that class of filmmakers who pull Sound nominations (and that Baby Driver wasn’t just a one-off).
So yeah, that’s where I’m at now. I feel really confident about four of the films and just need to see what BAFTA does before I can decide what to do with the fifth. Honestly not that bad.
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And now ASC. Only BFCA has announced cinematography nominations to this point, and since they’re not actual voters, they don’t mean as much as ASC.
But, before I even see what got nominated, BFCA nominated Belfast, Dune, Nightmare Alley, Power of the Dog and West Side Story. So, just seeing those, I feel like we’ve already got six easy contenders and I can’t envision anything else even being in the conversation. French Dispatch? Only Grand Budapest got nominated for Wes/Bob Yeoman, and French Dispatch is getting nowhere near that kind of support. Licorice Pizza? It’s Anderson shooting it himself again (though he did also credit his gaffer, Michael Bauman), and I don’t even know if he’s a guild member or if they’ll go for a director shooting his own movie like that (hasn’t worked for Soderbergh). So yeah. I’m fully expecting five of these six to get nominated (and if I had to guess, Nightmare Alley is gonna be the outlier).
Let’s see:
Best Cinematography
Belfast
Dune
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
The Tragedy of Macbeth
Oh wow. They left off Janusz. Okay then. So now I gotta look and see what the deal is with him historically…
Janusz has six nominations: Schindler’s List, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, Diving Bell and the Butterfly, War Horse and Lincoln. He was nominated by both ASC and BAFTA for Schindler’s List, Private Ryan, Diving Bell and Lincoln. Amistad, he was only nominated by ASC and War Horse he was only nominated by BAFTA (and technically BFCA, but they’re less helpful). Also of note, he was nominated by both ASC and BAFTA for Bridge of Spies but was not nominated. Seems he got left off in favor of Bob Richardson that year, who consistently gets nominated without ASC or BAFTA (especially for Quentin’s films). But yeah, this definitely makes him vulnerable, knowing he hasn’t been nominated since 2012.
I wanna see where BAFTA goes, since they can only nominate five. And looking at their longlist, I don’t expect House of Gucci, Don’t Look Up, Cyrano or C’mon C’mon to get nominated. Last Night in Soho could, but I doubt it. No Time to Die is 50/50 just because of the Bond factor. French Dispatch would be a monkey wrench if it happens. Last Duel I don’t know about, but I guess could happen if they really liked it. Not helpful if it does, but it’s not gonna make me think it’ll be nominated either. Licorice Pizza is another monkey wrench that I could very much see them doing. But they left Phantom Thread off, so maybe not.
If BAFTA leaves Janusz off, then I guess he’s the odd one out. If he gets on, then I wanna see who gets left off. But my guess is the two major outliers for the fifth spot are West Side Story or Nightmare Alley. Normally I’d say Power of the Dog, but if it hits BAFTA then I can’t see it being left off. The stature plus it being a western… if the guild nominated it even with the DP being the least experienced of the major contenders (though she still has Lady Macbeth and Zola on her resume), it’s hard to see it being left off. But, we’ll see. BAFTA noms are in nine days.
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Tomorrow’s the only light day of the week, just Costumes and CDG. Which should be fun. But then Thursday… whoo boy, we’ve got some stuff to talk about. PGA, DGA, WGA, ACE. Picture, Director, both Screenplay categories and Editing. And then we’re done with guilds. After that it’s all BAFTA and then we guess nominations.
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