For those who aren’t familiar with the Cannes Film Festival, it takes place each year in the French city of Cannes — which is pronounced the same way an American would pronounce “can.” Just to make sure everyone gets my horrible headline pun.
Just last week, after a long Poll Position hiatus, I got back in the driver’s seat to participate in the humiliator’s tradition of making my way-too-early Oscar picks. Just over a week later, I am already looking like a fool.
But I digress—the purpose of today’s installment is not to wax on about my probable misses, but to recap how Cannes may have shaped the Oscar race.
Big Best Picture contenders falter while a new contender gains steam
I had two films premiering at the acclaimed festival in my Best Picture predictions: Parthenope and Megalopolis. But it does not appear from the early reviews that either of them has the strongest chance of making the top 10 after mixed critical reviews.
One of my bigger swings was picking Parthenope as a Best Picture nominee, but Parthe-NOPE. I thought it might have been A24’s play at picking up a second Best Picture contender—for all I know that’s still true—but some of the criticism coming out of the festival is pretty harsh. It’s not all bad, but divisive enough that I doubt the international film can crack the BP list. It could still get a nom for Best International Film, though.
I knew Megalopolis was likely going to be a disaster going into the festival, which is why I put it in the 10 spot, and despite some very bad reviews (mixed with a few good), there’s still an outside chance the Academy simply gives Coppola a nomination for bringing an ambitious passion project to film at great personal cost, regardless of reception. But it is less likely today than it was a week ago.
The Apprentice has been a tough movie to predict all along and continues to have some of those same questions surrounding it. How will The Academy handle a movie about Donald Trump in an election year? The mixed reviews may not help it, despite it hitting the mark for some critics. There is near-universal acclaim, though, for Sebastian Stan as Trump, which certainly lends credence to his Best Actor campaign. Reviews have also been glowing about Jeremy Strong in a supporting role as Trump’s mentor Roy Cohn. So Strong has to be considered a contender in the Best Supporting race as well.
I threw The End on my top 10 list on a whim based on its premise and other lists, and largely because of its distributor NEON. Now it’s looking like I should’ve taken the known commodity with director Sean Baker, whose sex worker Cinderella tale Anora claimed the coveted Palme d’Or. Considering the unanimous glowing reviews, it’s hard to imagine NEON won’t be putting their chips behind the film in multiple races. Baker could factor into the Best Director race, and Mikey Madison is being talked about for Best Actress for her lead performance.
Some speculation has pegged Kinds of Kindness as a Best Picture contender since it reteams last year’s successful duo of director Yorgos Lanthimos with Emma Stone. But reviews for the movie, while promisingly positive, seem to indicate this is a weirder vein of Lanthimos film and by nature less Oscar-friendly. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but the more likely awards nominee based on reviews is Jesse Plemons who already stole his single scene in Civil War and now has been named Best Actor at Cannes.
That’s all for now, screenagers.