Random Thoughts on the 2019 Oscars

1. Black Panther just won the SAG award for Best Ensemble. This has a decent track record with the Academy Award for Best Picture, matching 11 times out of 24.
2. Glenn Close, Rami Malek and Mahershali Ali seem to be heavy favorites in their categories.
3. I wonder if Emily Blunt’s win for A Quiet Place in the SAG awards strategic. She wasn’t nominated for an Oscar, and Regina King from If Beale Street Could Talk is the favorite, but she wasn’t nominated for a SAG award. Voting for Blunt allows voters to show support for someone snubbed by the Academy, while also depriving potential competitors of Regina King of any momentum. If you wanted King to win, you don’t want Amy Adams, Emma Stone or Rachel Weisz to be giving a good speech.
4. That didn’t exactly work out well for Sylvester Stallone, who was nominated for Creed in the Academy Awards but not SAG. Idris Elba won the SAG award after an Oscar snub, but the Oscar still went to Mark Rylance.
5. This logic might also hurt Black Panther‘s chances of getting Best Picture. The Oscar race is relatively wide open, so it could just that actors weren’t able to vote for Green Book or Roma in the category. Though it does suggest A Star is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody and Blackkklansman aren’t major contenders, since all were nominated for best acting ensemble (SAG’s equivalent of Best Picture.)
6. As a comic geek, I would be ecstatic if Black Panther won. It’s probably the most significant work of afrofuturism in any medium, so it’s also dominant in a genre.
7. Roma is excellent, so I have no problem with it being the first foreign language film to win the Best Picture oscar.
8. Green Book was good, too, so I don’t mind it winning Best Picture either. The blowback seems to be based on a BS premise.
9. It’s kinda funny how Andy Serkis isn’t with the rest of the ensemble for Black Panther at the SAG awards, even though Chadwick Boseman said he was one of them. A lot of the photos of the award have him cropped out.
10. The moment Christian Bale appeared as Dick Cheney in the Vice trailer, he seemed assured of a nomination. That said, it’s a bit surprising that Hollywood decided to nominate a relatively sympathetic take on George W Bush, especially considering how brief it is in the context of the film.