02 Feb ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ is my new pick for Best Picture
Judas and the Black Messiah is my new pick for Best Picture. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last night to glowing reviews (its Metascore is currently an 86). What a film needs to be to win in this day and age is timely/relevant and conventionally entertaining. 4 of the 5 last Best Picture-winning films (except for maybe The Shape of Water) could be put in both of those categories.
Peter Debruge of Variety calls the film “explosive” and “indisputably timely” in his review and those are exactly the kind of words that I was looking for and I truly do believe that this film will win Best Picture.
Nomadland is the frontrunner for most people and was my frontrunner but I do not think it is a conventionally entertaining movie. It has the most support from the critics, but like ‘Roma’ two years ago, it could falter because the average moviegoer might find it “boring”.
From the reviews I have seen, ‘Judas’ is the opposite of boring and it is timely so it has everything it needs to win Best Picture. The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Promising Young Woman also have the qualities I mentioned above but Judas and the Black Messiah seems comparatively more relevant considering this past year with the massive racial justice protests we have seen across the country.
So, with all that said, I’ll probably have Judas and the Black Messiah in the top spot in my predictions this month.