As the precursor awards continue unabated until Oscar night, I’m going to be providing a weekly update highlighting the films that have won and lost momentum through the precursor awards (and in some cases other outside influences).

This week, we had five precursors, four that could have Oscar impact and one that’s purely informative. The latter one is the Grammys. Their off-set eligibility period (October through September), leaves the vast majority of Oscar competitors off the list, so we largely ignore them. The others are fairly impactful.

Two are guilds: Visual Effects Society and Art Directors Guild. One is an outside organization with a tremendous track record of predicting Adapted Screenplay: USC Scripter. One is the British equivalent to the Oscars and they have, at times, been a fine forecaster of the Oscars.

But, before we get into this week’s winners and losers, let’s take a look at what’s coming up this week:

Week 13

Saturday, Feb. 18 – Audio Society Awards (Official)
Sunday, Feb. 19 – Make-Up Artists Guild Awards (Official)
Sunday, Feb. 19 – Sound Editors Awards (Official)
Sunday, Feb. 19 – Writers Guild Awards (Official)
Sunday, Feb. 19 – Satellites (Ceremony) Awards (Official)

Big Winners

La La Land (above the line) performed almost as expected this week. Taking honors from the Art Directors Guild and BAFTA, the film has been chugging along fairly well. The five wins at the BAFTA awards on Sunday proved that even a love letter to L.A. can appeal to those in other countries, which helps solidify its chances.
Emma Stone gets her own shout out this week thanks to her victory at the British Academy Awards. Going into BAFTA, she didn’t have a lot to bolster her chances. The Screen Actors Guild award was expected because she’s playing someone most of the members of SAG can relate to. She won at the Globes because they have separate comedy/musical categories. BAFTA was the first time she was on fairly equal footing with all things considered and she came out on top. That win helps push her further into the lead than she already was and cements her status as fundraiser. Some believe acting legend Isabelle Huppert could come from behind and win. While she wasn’t nominated at BAFTA, this line of reasoning flies in the face of two decades of Best Actress history.
The Jungle Book swept the Visual Effects Society, making it the most likely film to win its only Oscar nomination. There might have been some rumbling that the film’s lack of real sets or environments might have hindered its chances, but that and the BAFTA win assure its likely victory at the Oscars.
Lion got a nice boost from BAFTA over the weekend by winning Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay. That it was a homegrown effort may have helped considering Dev Patel beat Oscar frontrunner Mahershala Ali. The problem with its chances at the Oscars are that Ali and Moonlight have quite a few more nominations and an entire season of precursors supporting it. Sometimes, BAFTA starts the ball rolling for a previously unexpected competitor (think Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton), but more often than not, they are an outlier. That’s likely to be the case here, especially since Moonlight was nominated in original for BAFTA and is in Adapted at the Oscars, where it should easily scare off Lion.

Big Losers

La La Land (below the line) may have had a good week, but it also had an unexpected weak one. Above the line, La La Land claimed victories almost everywhere it was expected. Below the line, it didn’t perform that well. Some feel it has a chance of topping Manchester by the Sea in Original Screenplay, but BAFTA may have put a nail in that narrative’s coffin. The film is also expected to win categories like Film Editing, Cinematography, Production Design, and Sound Mixing. Yet, it lost all four of those prizes at the BAFTA awards. If it is a weaker frontrunner than we thought, a massive double-digit sweep might not be in the cards. However, the Academy is a slightly larger, and more homogenous group and they are likely to love La La Land a heck of a lot more and want to throw a ton of awards at it. Then again, this last decade, large sweeps at the Oscars are few and far between, so perhaps it isn’t as assured as everyone thought.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them lost at the Art Directors Guild awards, a category it was thought to be performing well in. It lost to a sci-fi spectacle, which is an atypical decision for art directors, especially at the Academy. It did manage to eke out a victory at BAFTA, but it lost the Costume Design award, an award it needed to show strength going into Oscar voting. That its hometown advantage couldn’t net it more consideration suggests its Oscar chances are a bit weaker than previously expected.
Mahershala Ali has collected more precursor awards this season than anyone other than Casey Affleck in Best Actor. 26 awards is tremendous. It’s more than considered lock Viola Davis in Best Supporting Actress. BAFTA, however, didn’t get the memo and gave the award to Dev Patel, a British actor. Maybe home field advantage worked in his favor. Or perhaps BAFTA voters didn’t care much for Moonlight. The group gave Best Picture to Brokeback Mountain, so it’s unlikely the subject matter did the film in. Ultimately, Ali is still the Oscar frontrunner, but the sharks are now circling hoping to pick him off, though Patel is unlikely to be a beneficiary at the Oscars unless Harvey Weinstein is up to his old tricks.