Back in June, I predicted that “Everything Everywhere All At Once” was a lock for a Best Picture Nomination, but I had no idea that it would become the frontrunner. That was too mind-boggling to even consider.
Now, it’s set to win the Best Picture prize on Sunday, along with Director, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, among other categories. However, Deadline’s Pete Hammond is courageously saying “not so fast.”
Yes, that’s right, Hammond, who is the one pundit who maybe speaks to the most Oscar voters, is actually —prudently — predicting “All Quiet on the Western Front” to win the big prize on March 12th:
Call me nuts but I have a hunch, mostly based on Oscar voter conversations over the past few months, that it will finally be the year for Netflix, particularly with the Ukraine war making the classic anti-war story AQOTWF uncannily timely and important. There is also the factor of the Academy’s way of counting votes with a weighted ballot only used in the Best Picture race where voters must number their choice from 1 being favorite to 10 being least favorite in order to get a consensus. Conventional wisdom tells us there may be a generational divide in the Academy when it comes to EEAAO , more than an overall consensus with perhaps older voters ranking it lower and making something like a AQOTWF more acceptable or even a Top Gun: Maverick even if EEAAO easily lands more number one votes.
Hammond is basing this purely on the amount of voters he’s spoken to and the preferential ballot system being EEAAO’s downfall. Can it happen? On Monday I wrote:
“None of the other Best Picture nominees stand a chance, unless we’re all sleeping on “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which I doubt.”
It’s true, ‘All Quiet’ is probably #2 right now. But it’s way behind EEAAO in terms of momentum and Guild wins. When’s the last time a film has triumphed this much during awards season? I can’t even remember. EEAAO losing on Sunday would be one of the biggest Oscar shocks in recent years.
The fact of the matter is that the token Best Picture winner has changed in recent years. The internet opened up the floodgates of film criticsm. Now practically anybody can be a film critic or pundit. This means that younger and hipper tastes are flooding the airwaves.
Not just that, but there are also multiple platforms where one can write his or her opinion on a movie and be heard. Film Twitter, Letterboxd, Facebook etc.
What I did notice this awards season was that veteran critics, those who have been around for decades, barely listed EEAAO on their top 10s. It was the younger critics/pundits who praised it and carried it through this awards season.
Hammond might be talking to older voters (over 50) who didn’t care about EEAAO, but there are over 9500 Oscar voters, and I'd bet a large percentage of them cling to social media narratives.