My thoughts and predictions, or results and other news on various Award shows.
Note: Annihilation is no longer eligible for the Best Visual Effects Oscar. For some reason, it did not make the cut on the 2019 shortlist, in spite of it undoubtedly being the best visuals of any film on the below list. Alex Garland’s Ex Machina won this award for doing much less ambitious visual work. It doesn’t quite make sense.
Anyway, Best Visual Effects:
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Nominations Predictions – Best Visual Effects
The 2019 Oscar race for Best Makeup & Hairstyling has been narrowed down to seven. Clips from these seven films will be screened to the makeup and hairstyling branch of the Academy, and three films will be nominated.
There is some convention to what types of films get nominations in this category. So let’s get into it.
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Nominations Predictions – Best Makeup & Hairstyling
Like with Best Actress, the Oscar race for Best Actor comes in three tiers. There are the clear front-runners, sure-fire nominees. There are two or three likely nominees. And then there’s the rest, a handful of actors in the mix that could slip in last minute.
The hardest spot to predict is the last one. The fifth spot could be filled by a number of quality performances.
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Nominations Predictions – Best Actor
The Academy has a lot of quality acting talent to sift through in the four acting categories this year.
For Best Actress, a race that began early-on as a close competition between Lady Gaga and Glenn Close, the field has expanded considerably. Gaga’s stock is holding firm; Close’s has sunk a bit since the soft release of The Wife.
With the SAG nominations out, the race is all the more complicated.
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Nominations Predictions – Best Actress
Best Foreign Language is a tough category in 2019. There are a lot of strong candidates. Pretty much every one of the nine shortlisted films have a good case for why they should be in the top five. Of course, in a year where Roma is on the shortlist, it will be hard for any other film to win. But anything could happen.
Let’s take a look at the shortlist.
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Nominations Predictions – Best Foreign Language Film
2018 was a quality year for animated film. A long-awaited Pixar sequel. An intricately-crafted Wes Anderson film. A surprising critical darling in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. A crowd-pleaser in Ralph Breaks the Internet.
It is a strong field, although there is a clear divide between the top tier and the second string candidates.
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Nominations Predictions – Best Animated Film
The ease of predicting the Oscar race for Best Documentary comes down to the category already being narrowed down to a shortlist. The contenders are already limited to 15 films. Of those 15, though, there are clear frontrunners.
The Best Documentary race appears to be one of the most cut and dry of the year, but there are one or two contenders on the outside of the top five that are strong enough to get in.
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Nominations Predictions – Best Documentary
There were so many well-directed films in 2018. That the Academy only picks five requires the snubbing of plenty of quality films. While the Best Director category logically follows from the Best Picture race, the expansion of Best Picture to a possible 10 films makes it harder to narrow down the Best Director race.
Any director whose film nabs a Best Picture nomination is in the hunt for a Best Director nod. Beyond those nominees, there is not much else in contention. And the Directors Guild Award nominations will clear up any confusion over the frontrunners. Aside from the weird year of 2012, the 2010s DGA and Academy Award nominations were almost the same. Each year, just one slot was different.
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Nominations Predictions – Best Director
The 2019 Oscar race for Best Picture seems surprisingly cut and dry. There are a handful of films that would be baffling to see not make the cut, and there are only a couple of films that have the campaign strength to move into the race.
If the race comes down to a final eight, then the films are already accounted for. The few films that could take up the rear and fill a ninth or tenth slot don’t necessarily have the consensus support needed to raise to the top of voters’ ballots.
All in all, there are only a few potential surprises in this year’s race. Might as well dig into them, anyway, right?
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Nominations Predictions – Best Picture
And, let me tell you, this is a tight race.
Continue reading 2018 Academy Awards Predictions – Best Documentary Short Subject
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