For more than a decade, our Oscar predictions have had a single purpose: to forecast how and where the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) changes its perception of the artists (and art) involved in filmmaking. The question, by the way, isn’t always about the best film getting due credit.
Hollywood is, and always will be, a politicised playground lobbied by agendas ranging from the noblest intentions (racial diversity, for example) to those that simply pander to the largest, most commercial mindset, that is, patting the backs of certain filmmakers and studios for doing an average job. This makes our job all the more challenging.
Predicting La La Land’s landslide victory isn’t difficult. The film has received critical and commercial acclaim. However, after binge-watching almost all the 47 nominated titles, one understands that there are far bigger issues at hand.