{"id":32135,"date":"2022-12-31T06:58:11","date_gmt":"2022-12-31T14:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=32135"},"modified":"2023-09-18T13:10:41","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T21:10:41","slug":"and-now-for-some-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/blog\/and-now-for-some-fun\/","title":{"rendered":"And now for some fun"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Avatar: The Way of Water | Official Trailer\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/d9MyW72ELq0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption>Is the second time the charm for James Cameron?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">Back on Dec. 21, we reported on nascent <strong>Oscar<\/strong> odds. What a difference 10 days makes. <em>Babylon<\/em>, &#8220;an early favorite to take home hardware at the 95th <strong>Academy Awards<\/strong>&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbettingdime.com\/entertainment\/oscars-odds\/\">according to<\/a> one betting site, is spiraling from contention, thanks to its total implosion at the box office. Award-mooching <em>Empire of Light<\/em> also collapsed, meaning that both its star (adorable Academy fave <strong>Olivia Colman<\/strong>) and <em>Babylon<\/em> termagant <strong>Margot Robbie<\/strong> can kiss their Best Actress chances goodbye. Honors momentum continues to fill the sails of <em>Everything Everywhere All At Once<\/em>, Irish drama<em>The Banshees of Inisherin<\/em> and\u2014I dread to say it\u2014the pompous<em> Women Talking.<\/em> The first and third should receive last-minute Oscar tailwinds from the March 4 <strong>Independent Spirit Awards<\/strong>, and <em>Banshees<\/em> will likely get a <strong>Golden Globes<\/strong> lift on January 10. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>The box office failures of several Oscar wannabes, like <strong>Steven Spielberg<\/strong>&#8216;s charming <em>The Fabelmans<\/em>, ($40 million cost, $11.5 million return) are also sure to raise the award prospects of such event pictures as <em>Avatar: The Way of Water<\/em>, <em>Elvis<\/em> and <em>Top Gun: Maverick<\/em>, all of which had the commercial virtue of living up to expectations and then some. It&#8217;s been a long time since the Academy swooned over a large-scale movie but this might the year it A) forgives <strong>James Cameron<\/strong> for being an insufferable egomaniac; B) acknowledges the existence of <strong>Baz Luhrmann<\/strong> or C) decides to give <strong>Tom Cruise<\/strong> some overdue love, even for a mediocre action movie that <em>did<\/em> manage to save <strong>Paramount Pictures<\/strong>&#8216; bacon, at the cost of a $100 million paychek. Paramount is going to need all that <em>Top Gun<\/em> money to cover its $110 million <em>Babylon<\/em> fiasco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>DraftKings<\/strong> just weighed into the 2023 Oscar odds and was indicative of these shifting fortunes. Erstwhile frontrunner <em>The Fabelmans<\/em> (+150) is now running dead even with <em>Everything &#8230; <\/em>(+150). Only <em>Banshees<\/em> (+500) and <em>Avatar<\/em> (+700) are even close. <em>Maverick<\/em> is at +1,200 (as is <em>Women Talking<\/em>) if you feel like playing a long shot. <strong>Cate Blanchett<\/strong> (<em>Tar<\/em>) is still the pick for Best Actress (-125) but <strong>Michelle Yeoh<\/strong> continues to come from behind (+250). With Colman (+1,200) and Robbie (+1,100) on the outside looking in, new contenders are <strong>Michelle Williams<\/strong> (<em>The Fabelmans<\/em>, +700), <strong>Danielle Deadwyler<\/strong> (<em>Till<\/em>, +900) and <strong>A\u00f1a de Armas<\/strong> (<em>Blonde<\/em>, +1,000), although Deadwyler may be hurt by the fact that <em>Till<\/em> went largely unseen. <em>The Woman King<\/em> spawned controversy but the Academy loves <strong>Viola Davis<\/strong> (+1,100), so don&#8217;t count her out either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Whale | Official Trailer HD | A24\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nWiQodhMvz4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Best Actor remains <em>The Whale<\/em>&#8216;s <strong>Brendan Fraser<\/strong>&#8216;s to lose (-185), but <strong>Colin Farrell<\/strong> is coming on strong (+225), blowing past <em>Elvis<\/em>&#8216; <strong>Austin Butler<\/strong> (+400), leaving <strong>Hugh Jackman<\/strong> (<em>The Son<\/em>, +1,400) and <strong>Christian Bale <\/strong>(<em>Amsterdam<\/em>, +2,000) even further back. Look for dark horse <strong>Bill Nighy<\/strong> (<em>Living<\/em>, +2,200) to move into serious contention soon. As for Best Director, Spielberg is still seen as a lock (-250) but DraftKings has Cameron a distant second at +550, with our favorite-to-upset, <strong>The Daniels<\/strong>, at +700, <strong>Sarah Polley<\/strong> (<em>Women Talking<\/em>) at +800\u2014and some sites <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vegasinsider.com\/awards\/odds\/oscars\/\">have her even closer<\/a>\u2014and <em>Babylon<\/em>&#8216;s <strong>Damien Chazelle<\/strong> at +900 but we don&#8217;t think that will hold up. The Academy punishes box office disasters and <em>Babylon<\/em> is likelier to be the butt of scripted Oscar-night jokes than the recipient of nominations, as befits a film that&#8217;s on track to lose its entire production cost. Both Luhrmann and <em>Banshees<\/em> auteur <strong>Martin McDonagh<\/strong> are hanging out at +1,400, positioned to crack the top five.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, <strong>Netflix<\/strong>, the N-word in <strong>Hollywood<\/strong>, should finally get out from behind the eight ball this year with Best Animated Feature. Nobody&#8217;s taking odds on it yet but the beloved <strong>Guillermo del Toro<\/strong> has a stop-motion <em>Pinocchio<\/em> in contention and it looks like a prohibitive favorite, if the Golden Globe nominations are any indicator. We think any del Toro picture (yes, even <em>Nightmare Alley<\/em>) is worth seeing and this year should be no exception.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back on Dec. 21, we reported on nascent Oscar odds. What a difference 10 days makes. Babylon, &#8220;an early favorite to take home hardware at the 95th Academy Awards&#8221; according to one betting site, is spiraling from contention, thanks to its total implosion at the box office. Award-mooching Empire of Light also collapsed, meaning that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83928,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1728],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83928"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}