This weekend sees the release of The Birth Of A Nation, a film chronicling the slave revolt lead by Nat Turner during the 1800s. While controversy has since surrounded the first time writer/director Nate Parker, his film has garnered lots of buzz. "Buzz" is a term used by movie fanatics to describe the hype surrounding movies from early audiences, i.e. critics or film festivals. Most of the buzz from The Birth Of A Nation comes from the fact that it won the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival, which is perhaps the most prestigious American film festival. With the release of a film with so much buzz, and the fact that it's the first weekend of October (the first month of "Oscar season"), I thought I'd share how you can keep up with the movies that will probably be at the 2017 Academy Awards.
Now let's be honest here: most people complain about movies that get nominated without having actually seen most of the nominated films. The 2016 nominees, while infamously non-diverse, featured the more mainstream movies than any other group of films to be nominated in years -ie The Martian, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Revenant. Otherwise, the Oscars have had a trend of nominating smaller films with more limited releases. This means that, in order for a viewer to see most of the nominated films, a viewer must consciously track the movies that might get nominated. The problem is, most people just don't know how to do that. But no more! Here's a step by step list of how you can be an informed Oscar viewer :).
1. Track/Research The Year's Major Film Festivals
Most movies that generate Oscar buzz begin doing so at film festivals. Festivals are very telling in regards to what will be the most buzzed-about movies come Oscar season. Most of them have already come and gone, but you can still Google the results if you're curious; just know that the three major festivals that you'd want to follow are: Sundance, TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival), and Cannes. These are the most prestigious festivals from around the world, and they tend to have the most influence on Academy voters. From Sundance, the big player this year is the aforementioned Birth Of A Nation. From TIFF, we saw Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone's love musical La La Land take the top prize, hinting at strong potential for a nomination after its December release. The major American release out of Cannes was Loving, a drama about the true story of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple in the 1950s; although it was the foreign film Toni Erdman that took the top prize,but it's more likely to receive a Best Foreign Film nod, in my opinion. I've heard no real Oscar buzz about it, as I have with Loving.
2. Use IMDB
You know that website that you usually use to see who's in a movie? Well, that same website can be used to create a "Watchlist" that will notify you when certain films come to your area. With most of these Oscar movies being smaller releases, it's likely that they'll come to fewer theaters on a strange schedule; and once they arrive at your local theater, they won't be there long. This is where the notification from your Watchlist will come in handy: you get notified as soon as a movie arrives in your theater, so you know that you have at least a week (probably two or three, but a minimum of one) to see it. I would not have been able to see all of last year's nominees in the theater without this handy tool.
3. Keep An Eye On Plots
Often times, the story that a movie is telling can say a lot about its potential for Oscar glory. My favorite movie of the year (so far) Swiss Army Man has zero chances at the Academy Awards; not because it's not a good film, but because it's such a strange film that it crosses the line of being "artistic" and becomes "obscure". While artistic movies certainly get nominated every year, obscure movies usually don't.
A good general rule of thumb is this: if the plot either a.) portrays true events or b.) sounds super artsy, then it's a safe bet that it will at least be considered. So while a movie like the upcoming Hacksaw Ridge hasn't really participated on the festival circuit, the true story behind the film lends it "credibility" and thus increases its chances of being nominated.
4. Keep An Eye On Names
This one is easy. Basically, watch the credits in a trailer at the movie theater and see either a.) who the lead(s) are or b.) who is behind the camera (the director). A film like the upcoming war thriller Allied is a safe bet for being nominated, and the fact that it stars Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard is one of the reasons why. Those two powerhouses names together almost guarantee quality.
Other than actors, names like Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorcese almost certainly guarantee excellence from the director's chair. Scorcese actually has a new movie coming out this year called Silence, but there sadly isn't a trailer or any footage released from the film. Still, having not even seen footage, the name "Martin Scorcese" gives me fair confidence that Silence will be truly excellent.
