While the Oscars are still over a month away, another major awards show took place last night which may have given us some insight into the choices that will be made on February 28th. The movie that’s given the most love at the Critics Choice Awards often sees the same love from the Academy come Oscar time, and if that happens again this year, then Oscar night will be a good night for Mad Max: Fury Road.
The post-apocalyptic wasteland action blockbuster took home more awards than any other movie at last night’s Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards in Southern California. While it lost out on the overall Best Picture award to Thomas McCarthy’s Spotlight, it won in 10 of the 13 categories in which it was nominated. The biggest win of the night came with George Miller’s win for Best Director.
The majority of Mad Max: Fury Road’s wins were in technical categories like editing, visual effects, and production design, but that’s what makes up the majority of the film’s Oscar nominations as well. If Mad Max: Fury Road runs the table on the technical achievements at the Oscars like it did with the Critic’s Choice Awards, then it will win eight of the ten categories in which it’s nominated. If George Miller takes Best Director again, that will be nine. And if it wins nine out of 10 awards that it’s up or, then certainly many Academy voters might also think it should be considered the Best Picture of the year.
To be clear, it’s far from a guarantee that Mad Max Fury Road is going to run all over the Oscars like a muscle car covered in spikes. As The Hollywood Reporter points out, the Critic’s Choice Awards are voted on by critics, and as much as we love them, they do sometimes have a different perspective than the people who actually make the movies, a.k.a. who are the people who decide the Oscars. Last year, the critics gave Best Picture to Boyhood while the Academy gave it to Birdman. Having said that, the critics gave seven awards to Birdman that night, while Boyhood only won three, so perhaps quantity with the critics equals quality at the Academy.
What this does prove is that Mad Max: Fury Road is a contender worth taking seriously. While some might think about writing it off a summer action movie, last night proved that Fury Road is much more than that. It’s still pretty hard to believe that one of the Mad Max films is Best Picture, but that is the real and awesome world we’re living in. How big a night do you think The Road Warrior is going to have come Oscar time? Leave your predictions in the comments below.
