Nobody knows what Angelina Jolie‘s Unbroken has in its quiver and nobody should say anything until they do…period. And yet the spitball games continue. For whatever reason (most likely the instinct to show obeisance before power) Jolie’s World War II-era survival saga has been enjoying a kind of speculative semi-front-runner status. Not king of the mountain-y but roughly on par with the Best Picture prospects of Boyhood, The Imitation Game and Birdman…all at the front of the pack.
At the very least Unbroken has seemed like one of the top hotties since Tom O’Neil‘s Gold Derby and David Poland‘s “Gurus of Gold” began asking Oscar-watchers for their hunches and guesses just before Telluride/Toronto. That’s been the general impression, I mean.
Which is why I was surprised to discover a couple of days ago that in the latest Guru chart Unbroken is now ranked seventh…even though it’s still ranked as the #2 favorite at Gold Derby. Seventh is almost indistinguishable from ninth, and if you’re going to be in ninth place you might as well be in tenth. Yes, it’s all hot air and bullshit, I know. But I was curious about who the actual friends of Unbroken are at this stage. And I was wondering how to explain the disparity between being a #2 choice vs. being seventh-ranked.