Oscar Podcast #50: Post-BAFTA Bumps, Guild Talk and Near Final Oscar Predictions

In our 50th Oscar podcast, I am joined by Gold Rush Gang member Bryan Bonafede.

With BAFTA behind us, Bryan and I dig deep into that Dev Patel win and how much it and Lion’s recent surge will impact the Oscar race. We also cover most of the tech categories, their history and correlation with Oscar and where BAFTA might have convinced us to change our Oscar rankings. La La Land lost Costumes, Production Design, Film Editing, and Sound so we look closely at the films that won these, compare them with recent guild announcements from the Art Directors and ACE Eddies as well as upcoming ones like Costume Designers and both Sound guilds.

The battle for Best Actor is next and it’s a battle between the overwhelming critics’ winner Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea) and two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington (Fences). Between personality, awards history and checkered pasts, this is a category ripe for surprise and we detail the reasons we’ve chosen who we’ve predicted to win.

We also look at the Visual Effects category where, while we both agree that The Jungle Book is the undisputed frontrunner, we each make a case for a possible spoiler in Deepwater Horizon and Kubo and the Two Strings.

With the Writers Guild of America this weekend we look at how, or if, the winners there will have much impact on possible Oscar results since category placement and eligibility between the two bodies don’t match up very well. That said, Bryan and I both agree that at WGA the race for Original is between La La Land and Manchester by the Sea (where Moonlight is nominated) while the Adapted category (where Moonlight is Oscar-nominated) looks like a fight between Arrival and Hidden Figures. WGA predictions will be up tomorrow.

Don’t fret, we end with talking about Best Actress and just how far ahead Emma Stone and if a chance for an Isabelle Huppert spoiler is in the cards.

This podcast runs 1h 36m.

Intro music: ‘Going Green’
Outro Music: ‘New York City’ By Day by Thomas Newman from the Desperately Seeking Susan soundtrack

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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