Cannes 2019 Betting Thread

[flip]

Just for fun, as we did last year, a chance to guess based on very little info what will win the awards at Cannes this year.

To participate, just pick the films you think will win the Palme d'Or, the Grand Jury Prize, the Jury Prize, and the Best Director Prize, and pick one Alternate film for potential extra points. Ballots must be in before Cannes starts on May 14, so voters don't have the benefit of seeing film reviews before voting (though note the Almodovar has already been released in Spain, to quite good reviews).

Scoring - I'm using a new system, because I think it's more impressive to pick multiple award winners, even in the wrong order, than to peg one particular award correctly:

If your pick for the Palme or GJP wins one of the four awards: 3 points each
If your pick for the JP or Director award wins one of the four awards: 2 points each
If your Alternate pick wins one of the four awards: 1 point
If you pick the Palme correctly: 3 additional points
If you pick the GJP correctly: 2 additional points
If you pick the JP or Director correctly: 1 additional point each

If an award is given ex-aequo, I'll still award full points if you picked one of the two tied films.

Prize:
- the winner will get the chance, if they want to, to nominate one additional director in our Director Poll series, outside of the normal cycle of nominations.
- or: if the winner does not want to nominate, they can choose any other scfz'er to get an extra nomination in their place
- or: if the winner does not like all the director polls, they can choose to have a one-week moratorium on director polling
- or: the winner can instead choose a genre for a brand new 'genre poll' - with the restrictions that it must be a genre we haven't polled before, and it must be an established genre of some kind (so 'musicals' or 'animation' would be fine, 'films featuring skydiving' would not)

Deadline: May 14

The films in competition at Cannes this year are, with directors:

Atlantique (Mati Diop)
Bacurau (Kleber Mendonca Filho/Juliano Dornelles)
The Dead Don't Die (Jim Jarmusch)
Frankie (Ira Sachs)
A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick)
It Must Be Heaven (Elia Suleiman)
Little Joe (Jessica Hausner)
Matthias and Maxime (Xavier Dolan)
Les Miserables (Ladj Ly)
Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo (Abdellatif Kechiche)
Oh Mercy! (Arnaud Desplechin)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)
Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodovar)
Parasite (Joon-ho Bong)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma)
Sibyl (Justine Triet)
Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach)
The Traitor (Marco Bellocchio)
The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumboiu)
The Wild Goose Lake (Diao Yinan)
The Young Ahmed (Dardenne Brothers)

[flip]

Palme d'Or: Bacurau (Kleber Mendonca Filho/Juliano Dornelles)
Grand Jury Prize: The Young Ahmed (Dardenne Brothers)
Jury Prize: Little Joe (Jessica Hausner)
Director: The Wild Goose Lake (Diao Yinan)
Alternate: It Must Be Heaven (Elio Suleiman)

i might change this, edits to ballots are perfectly fine up to may 14, after which no changes please!

edited on monday may 13-- replaced les miserables (ladj ly) with little joe (jessica hausner) for jury prize

[Umbugbene]

Palme d'Or: The Traitor (Marco Bellocchio)
Grand Jury Prize: Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodovar)
Jury Prize: The Wild Goose Lake (Diao Yinan)
Director: Atlantique (Mati Diop)
Alternate: Les Miserables (Ladj Ly)

Mostly shots in the dark, but the top two are wishful thinking - which served me well last year, though the field looks a lot thinner this time.

[---]

Palme: Matthias and Maxime (Xavier Dolan)
GJP: A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick)
JP: Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma)
Dir: Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo (Abdellatif Kechiche)
Alt: Parasite (Joon-ho Bong)

[john ryan]

Palme: Atlantique (Mati Diop)
GJP: Parasite (Joon-ho Bong)
JP: Little Joe (Jessica Hausner)
Dir: A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick)
Alt: Sibyl (Justine Trent)

[...]

How does the voting work at Cannes for the different prizes? I've never really known.

[Wulff]

Palme: Pain & Glory (Almodovar)
GJP: Sybil ( Justine Triet F)
JP: Wild Goose Lake (Diao Yi' nan)
Dir: Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)
Alt: Matthias and Maxime (Xavier Dolan)

[wba]

This is NOT AT ALL what I would personally like to see win those prizes, but still:


Palme: The Traitor (Marco Bellocchio)
GJP: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino)
JP: The Dead Don't Die (Jim Jarmusch)
Dir: A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick)
Alt.: Parasite (Joon-ho Bong)

[Wulff]

This is NOT AT ALL what I would personally like to see win those prizes, but still:

What would you like to see win?

[Silga]

This is NOT AT ALL what I would personally like to see win those prizes, but still:

Sorry, @wba , but I don't really understand this. If films are yet to be seen, how do you make your preferences for the winners? Simply based on their previous track record? I don't know, I for one wouldn't care whose name is under the film that wins Palme d'Or as long as it's a good one. Even if I didn't like a single film from one particular director until now, I could still appreciate a good film if he or she manages to deliver one.

After all it is a competition between the selected films, not a lifetime achievement award for best director.

[wba]

Yeah, well, but based on previous track records...

Of course I'd have to see the films to find out which ones I'd want to win, and in which category, so of course the ones I listed are not the ones I'd like to win, cause I haven't seen them.

Still, looking at the (seemingly extremely lame) lineup, I'd probably enjoy it if the Kechiche wins the palm, and the Hausner gets something big as well.

EDIT: Hell, this looks even more boring than a regular Berlinale lineup under Kosslick.

[flip]

i don't think it's too strange to have preferences at this stage - like, i don't want ken loach to win, because he has won three fipresci prizes, three jury prizes and two palme d'ors already, and nothing against loach but cannes has probably feted him enough by now (loach and the dardennes this year both have a chance to become the first filmmakers to ever win three palmes, incidentally). and if i knew any of the newer directors on the list, i might think 'this person is doing interesting things, it would be cool if they got more recognition'. of course once i actually see the films, i'll have much stronger feelings about what ought to have won, but i have very slight preferences right now, if only for something interesting to win instead of something predictable.

[Wulff]

I didn''t pick it to win anything but Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the first Tarantino film I've been interested in since I don't know when. QT has a pretty good handle on late 60s early 70s Hollywood.

[Joks Trois]

That lineup is bloody awful!

[DT.]

Yeah, it's anyone's guess at this stage.

Palme d'Or: It Must Be Heaven (Elia Suleiman)
Grand Prix: Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach)
Jury Prize: The Dead Don't Die (Jim Jarmusch)
Best Director: Matthias & Maxime (Xavier Dolan)
Alternate: Oh Mercy! (Arnaud Desplechin)

[Silga]

Palme d'Or: The Traitor (Marco Bellocchio)
Grand Jury Prize: Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodovar)
Jury Prize: Bacurau (Kleber Mendonca Filho/Juliano Dornelles)
Director: It Must Be Heaven (Elia Suleiman)
Alternate: Matthias and Maxime (Xavier Dolan)

[MayaDeren_fan]

Palme d'Or: Matthias & Maxime - Dolan
Grand Prix: A Hidden Life - Malick
Jury Prize: Parasite - Bong
Director: Pain and Glory - Almodovar
Alternate: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - Tarantino

[flip]

reminder that the deadline to post a ballot is tomorrow, tuesday - that's when cannes starts!

[ofrene]

Palme d'Or: The Traitor (Marco Bellocchio)
Grand Jury Prize: Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodovar)
Jury Prize: Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma)
Director: Atlantique (Mati Diop)
Alternate: The Wild Goose Lake (Diao Yinan)

[rischka]

https://twitter.com/joshuapascall/statu ... 1901477891

[flip]

ha ok could be an interesting year. i wish i knew where that person was betting the tenner - i was looking around for palme d'or betting odds this year, but couldn't find anything official, wanted to post them here in case people were interested to know if they'd picked favourites or longshots.

[flip]

three things:

- i've updated the prizes! more options for the winner!
- today is the last day to post a ballot - no downside, it's just a guessing game, so everyone encouraged to participate!
- i'm about to copy all of the ballots posted so far into a separate document, so no one can make edits to posted ballots that i might miss. so if you change your ballot today, please create a brand new post with your new ballot (do not edit any earlier posts please!)

[flip]

and if anyone is curious which films scfz thinks are favourites, i did a quick tally using ballots above, where i gave 3 points to palme/gjp picks, 2 to jp/dir picks, and 1 to alternates, and these are our top four, tiebreaker for appearing on more ballots:

P d'Or: Pain and Glory (Almodovar)
GJP: The Traitor (Bellocchio)
JP: Matthias and Maxime (Dolan)
Director: A Hidden Life (Malick)

all of the above appear on four or five ballots, as do two other films:

Parasite (Bong)
The Wild Goose Lake (Yinan)

two films got absolutely no support, so will be surprise winners if they win anything:

Frankie (Ira Sachs)
The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumboiu)

[rischka]

https://tcm.tumblr.com/post/18485227185 ... ror-of-the

first woman juror at cannes: the fabulous dolores del rio

[flip]

fairly sure the jarmusch film, which is opening cannes this year, just finished, so we'll start getting film reviews soon, and our prediction contest is now closed to new entries.

[flip]

as i did last year, i'll post the star rating from the guardian for each film after it screens (using the guardian only because they seem to post quickly and it tends to be the first review i see). maybe i'll add in the screen international jury grid score once that's available. guardian ratings are out of five, last year, the four winning films in the categories we've voted on got 4, 3, 3 and 5 stars (in order, Palme, GJP, JP, Director), so i'm thinking of three stars as the likely minimum a film would need to be a candidate.

edit: i'm also adding the screen international jury grid score, that's an average of the star ratings awarded by seven different critics, on a 1-4 scale only, so 4.0 would be the max possible. last year the winning films in the palme, gjp, jp and director categories and jury grid scores of 3.2, 2.5, 1.9 and 2.9, respectively, so films with low scores can still win things. only two films had a score of 3.0 or higher, so that's really rare. one of them won the palme d'or, while the other, burning (lee chang-dong) didn't win a thing despite a 3.8 average rating.

Parasite (Joon-ho Bong) **** / 3.5
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Celine Sciamma) ***** / 3.3
Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodovar) **** / 3.3
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino) ***** / 3.0
Atlantique (Mati Diop) **** /2.8
The Wild Goose Lake (Diao Yinan) *** / 2.7
Bacurau (Kleber Mendonca Filho/Juliano Dornelles) **** / 2.6
It Must Be Heaven (Elia Suleiman) *** / 2.6
The Traitor (Marco Bellocchio) *** / 2.6
Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach) ***** / 2.5
The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumboiu) **** / 2.5
A Hidden Life (Terrence Malick) *** / 2.5
Les Miserables (Ladj Ly) *** / 2.4
Young Ahmed (Dardenne Brothers) *** / 2.4
Oh Mercy! (Arnaud Desplechin) ** / 2.4
Little Joe (Jessica Hausner) ** / 2.3
The Dead Don't Die (Jim Jarmusch) *** / 2.2
Sibyl (Justine Triet) ** / 1.8
Matthias and Maxime (Xavier Dolan) **** / 1.7
Frankie (Ira Sachs) * / 1.6
Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo (Abdellatif Kechiche) ** / 1.5

[DT.]

Thanks for that great article, rischka!

[rischka]

you're welcome i was afraid someone would yell i was 'off topic'

[flip]

you're welcome i was afraid someone would yell i was 'off topic'

i hope that wouldn't happen! that article is more interesting than the main topic of this thread, imo

[flip]

i've added the screen international jury grid scores to my post above, they average seven film critics' star ratings (out of 4) so they give more of a 'consensus' view (among film critics) of the cannes films. i'll only update those sporadically because it seems like there's a limit on how many articles you can read on that site without paying money - if anyone else is looking at their site and can post some updates of their grid scores here, that would be great!