2. Burnt
The Hype: A cooking drama starring multi-Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper, directed by multi-Emmy winner John Wells, written by Oscar-winner Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things) and co-starring Oscar nominee Uma Thurman and two-time Oscar winner Emma Thompson? On the surface, this film, originally named Chef and then Adam Jones before finally settling on Burnt, has awards glory written all over it.
Why It's Lost The Oscar Race: Where to begin? The
mediocre trailers released to date don't paint a particularly compelling or tonally stable picture, and it's also especially telling that the film opted to forego a festival bow despite clearly being ready for the likes of TIFF and NYFF, given its US release on October 23rd. Then there's a recent Huffington Post article titled "No One Needs This Angry Chef Bradley Cooper Movie" which was hastily removed and replaced with
this message, explaining that the version viewed was not the final film, likely at the request of an angry PR trying to protect the movie. Tough they're hardly the most valid form of critical review,
several embargoed user comments on Letterboxd also suggest the film isn't much good. If this one manages to score above 50% on RT, it'll be a miracle, and given how much the film is being kept under wraps, it seems pretty clear that its Oscar hopes have been wildly overstated.