We had four films release this past weekend with the potential for Oscar nominations.

The Magnificent Seven

In 1954, Akira Kurosawa released one of the seminal films of his career, a film that has been copied, aped, and imitated for more than 60 years. It received two Oscar nominations, for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. Six years later, John Sturges brought another seminal film to the cineplex, The Magnificent Seven. Based on Kurosawa’s work, the film was nominated for a single Oscar for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

The concept surrounds the hiring of seven samurai (or gunfighters) to protect a specific locale. Both the original film and its American remake centered on a poor village seeking protection. The trailers for Antoine Fuqua’s modern adaptation (still a western, like the 1960 version), suggest it’s largely to aid a young widow, but the concept still centers around safeguarding a poor village. How similar or dissimilar from either of its two forebears will be up to audiences to decide. While many who check it out might not be familiar with the Kurosawa or Sturges films, the Academy most certainly will as most of them are cineastes or rabid film buffs.

What question will matter most to them? How similar is the film to its predecessors? Was it necessary to remake it? How does it stand up to the prior efforts? What is the other competition like? That’s up for individuals to decide, but the reviews were weak but passable (62% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and a 54 on MetaCritic), which means it’s sole chance at Oscar recognition come in the creative categories. All three of the predecessor’s Oscar categories are possible. James Horner wrote most of the score. It was completed by Simon Fraglen after Horner’s death. Production designer Derek R. Hill has two Emmy nods under his belt and set decorator Merissa Lombardo has nothing. This could be troublesome for that category. Meanwhile, costume designer Sharen Davis has two Oscar nominations under her belt, which could give the film a boost as recognizable names tend to do better. However, there are a lot of those this year. Being an western actioner in the modern era, it’s also very likely that the film competes in the Sound Mixing and Sound Editing categories with a Makeup & Hairstyling consideration thrown in.

Ultimately, I suspect the film may fall flat in the Oscar race. There are too many films that will compete in above-the-line categories involved in the lower ballots, which could depress turnout and typically western aren’t the kinds of movies to make lone nominations there.

Storks

Warner Animation Group, the successor to legendary animation house Warner Bros. Cartoons, has been creating original full-length animated films since 1993. With titles like Space Jam, Quest for Camelot, and The Iron Giant populating their 1990s efforts, they are a familiar entity in the realm of animation, just not really a popular one. After a string of losses, Warner shelved development for a decade, but surged to life in 2014 with the release of The Lego Movie, an astounding blockbuster. The problem is the Academy didn’t go for it.

Thought to be a shoo-in for Best Animated Feature, prognosticators were stunned by the Oscar Morning flop, a failure to get the nomination. It still picked up a Best Original Song nomination, but that wasn’t enough. Certainly a film as popular as that should have been a contender, but it wasn’t to be. There are other Lego movies in the works for the studio, but before those films do gangbuster box office business (except the Ninjago movie), they have the box office weakling Storks to deal with.

The film, starring the vocal talents of Andy Samberg, Katie Crown, and Kelsey Grammer, has a weak 64% Fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a lackluster 55 at Metacritic. With good to great reviews for the likes of Finding Dory, Zootopia, Kubo and the Two Strings, and April and the Extraordinary World, and the prospects of late releases Sing! and Moana, there just won’t be any room in the roster for a film that doesn’t have the support of critics or audiences.

The Dressmaker

Even less auspicious is the performance of Kate Winslet’s Australian drama The Dressmaker based on the novel by Rosalie Ham about a woman driven out of town years earlier for improper ways who returns to the same town to seek satisfaction for the slights and improve the town’s plight through great dressmaking. That’s an oversimplified and perhaps reductive description of the film’s plot, but the trailers don’t really suggest much more than that. It’s like Kinky Boots, but with a dressmaker.

Winslet stars opposite a sometimes shirtless Liam Hemsworth along with Oscar nominee Judy Davis and box office familiar face Hugo Weaving in a film that was a flop with critics, scoring a meager 55% with Rotten Tomatoes and an abysmal 46 with Metacritic. The film did manage some success in it home country scoring 13 nominations at Australia’s equivalent of the Academy Awards the AACTA. The film won five prizes total for Best Costume Design and three performers: Winslet, Weaving, and Davis. It was also the recipient of the audience Favourite award.

One might get the impression then that it was sure to be an Oscar contender. Just ask Russell Crowe how that worked out for him. In 2014, Crowe’s directorial debut, The Water Diviner, went over well with the AACTA with nine nominations and 3 victories, including Best Picture. When it was released in the U.S., critics weren’t that impressed and the film received nary a nomination. The same is likely to happen here with the film’s main opportunities being where it won at the AACTA: Best Actress Kate Winslet, Best Supporting Actor Hugo Weaving, Best Supporting Actress Judy Davis, and Best Costume Design. Ultimately, I suspect it won’t place anywhere.

Queen of Katwe

Disney’s live-action adaptations of animated films have been doing well in creative categories at the Oscars, but when was the last time they made a play in major categories? Not to date. The prospects have never been good for their non-animation-adapted live-action works. That could change with Queen of Katwe.

Katwe is the story of a young African girl who becomes an international chess champion with the support of her mother and her mentor. Coming in third place for the audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival, receiving an opening weekend CinemaScore of A+ and earning solid reviews from critics with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 90% and MetaCritic rating of 73, this is probably Disney’s best chance at major awards recognition in some time.

Ultimately, competition may be too fierce from more “serious” efforts. The Academy may still bestow Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o with her second Oscar nomination for her supporting role and David Oyelow might be a dark horse contender for his performance. I suspect those two will be the only ones in consideration since the type of inspirational sport drama this film appears to be isn’t the type of non-weighty film the Academy likes to recognize these days.