Category Archives: 2018 Academy Awards

2018 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Documentary Feature

January 24, 2018 Alex Brannan

The Best Documentary category features one of the more prominent snubs of the 2018 Oscar nominations. The arguable front-runner in the category, Jane, did not appear in the final five (I disputed this front-runner status in favor of Agnes Varda’s Faces Places, but I in no way foresaw Jane not even earning a nomination).

With that film out of the running—as well as other notable docs like City of Ghosts not showing up—the conversation around the Best Documentary category has changed drastically. So let’s have that conversation!

The Nominees:

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2018 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Cinematography

January 24, 2018 Alex Brannan

Best Cinematography is shaping up to be an exciting, if not predictable, category in 2018. A couple of bits of trivia. Roger Deakins, the front-runner, has been nominated for Oscars 14 times in the past and has never won. The man essentially invented the way movies are color graded today, so he kind of deserves the recognition.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the nomination for Rachel Morrison for Mudbound marks the first time in Academy history that a woman has been nominated for Best Cinematography. I remember at some point in my academic career I was given a statistic that the number of employed female DPs in Hollywood only make up about 3% of DPs (don’t quote me on this exact number). It is surprising how the world of cinematographers is still a boy’s club, and thus this nomination for Morrison is a pretty big deal.

So…should we talk winners and losers now?

The Nominees:

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2018 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Animated Feature

January 24, 2018 Alex Brannan

Whelp, it’s time to pat myself on the back for getting these five nominees correct—including the long shot The Boss Baby—in my previous article.

…

That was fun. Now let’s move back to the present. That these are the five that ended up getting the nod actually makes this job a bit easier, so let’s get into it.

The Nominees:

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2018 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Original Song

January 23, 2018 Alex Brannan

Sometimes, the nominees for Best Original Song come from unexpected places. This time around, not so much. The Marshall nod was a bit out of left field but certainly nothing unforeseeable.

The winner for Best Original Song, though, often comes from the most popular film of the bunch. This is to say, whichever film was most widely seen or whichever had the most widely-heard song or whichever has the highest Oscar stock. This, or the film is a popular musical, in which case it often wins by default.

This year, the nominees include a (somewhat) popular musical, a widely seen animated film, and a film with a relatively high Oscar stock. So…who wins?

The Nominees:

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2018 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Original Score

January 23, 2018 Alex Brannan

The 2018 crop of Best Original Score nominees is mainly comprised of familiar faces to the Academy: Williams, Desplat, Zimmer, etc. That said, there’s one newcomer to the Oscar-nominee club that could shake things up in this category.

The Nominees:

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2018 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Sound (Editing and Mixing)

January 23, 2018 Alex Brannan

With the two sound categories—Sound Mixing and Sound Editing—holding the same five nominees, it is tempting to give the win for both awards to the same film. While usually I would warn against this notion, this year the possibility for that happening is certainly there.

Best Sound Mixing:

The Nominees:

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2018 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Adapted Screenplay

January 23, 2018 Alex Brannan

As opposed to the Best Original Screenplay category, the Oscar race for Best Adapted Screenplay is fairly narrow. There are some interesting picks, but the winners and losers are clear cut. For the most part.

The Nominees:

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2018 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Original Screenplay

January 23, 2018 Alex Brannan

This year, Best Original Screenplay is a category stacked with talent. All five of the scripts here are sharp, personal, and powerful when they need to be.

Only one can win, of course, so let’s talk about it,

The Nominees:

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2018 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Who Will Win

January 23, 2018 Alex Brannan

Oscar nominations have been announced. As such, it is time to begin CineFiles’ annual slog/tradition of futile guessing as to who/what will win in each of the 24 Academy categories.

Let’s get into it!

Best Picture

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2018 Academy Awards, Award Ceremonies

2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Picture

January 23, 2018 Alex Brannan

It’s the big one. The Oscar for Best Picture, 2018. Nine films, one statue. Yadda yadda, movie yadda.

This field is pretty open. Award season has started narrowing in on one or two front-runners, but, by and large, this crop of films is strong. I could foresee a number of quality upsets.