I’ve given it some time & thought and I have to circe back to my inital thoughts on the Joker picture. The Venice reviews were mostly positive; largely citing how great Joaquin Phoenix is. This is not surprising. The Vegan King is pretty good at acting. The positive remarks is not what is pushing me to reevaluate my original stance. I stepped out of my old person reactionary stance and looked back at older pictures. Now, I’m not comparing these pictures to each other,but I thought about Natural Born Killers and the inital panic that one caused. I remembered the inital panic that picture caused and for the most part, it was much ado about nothing. That has always been the case with pictures that seem relatively violent and dark. The picture will create some sort of world wide spike in violence and deviant behavior. So, I just want to walk back my initial concerns about the Joker picture because I should just judge the picture on its own merits and I don’t want to seem like an old person.
After Telluride, the race hasn’t changed all that much. Marriage Story might’ve taken the lead with the influencers and columnists. Parasite is still beloved. Trey Edward Shults’s latest picture, Waves probably made the biggest splash at the mile high festival. It may replace Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat in many Best Picture predictions. The Venice reaction seems to indicate Soderbergh is in Informant! mode as opposed to a more measure Erin Brockovich like approach to the material. Is it time to update the 2020 prediction master list? It may be too early to call.
2 Scoops of Awards Buzz 