Tag Archives: 2020

2020 Oscar Predictions — Best Cinematography

The 2020 group of Best Cinematography nominees are composed of a three-time winner, a three-time nominee, a one-time winner (15-time nominee), and two first-time nominees. It is mostly a respectable group. I can’t say there aren’t others I would like to see represented here, but it’s not a bad group.

The Nominees:

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2020 Oscar Predictions — Best Director

I think this year’s Best Director race is really intriguing. It is a group of filmmakers doing a variety of different things, and they all have their merit. While this makes predicting the winner a tough task, and there are many different ways this race could go, I think there are two presumed frontrunners heading into the Directors Guild of America’s award ceremony.

The Nominees:

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2020 Oscar Predictions — Best Supporting Actress

The Oscar acting categories can be predictable. Come this evening, following the Screen Actors Guild awards, the 2020 acting races may very likely be even more predictable. And Best Supporting Actress is no exception. The category has its frontrunner, and a SAG win for her will all but seal the race up.

The Nominees:

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2020 Oscar Predictions — Best Supporting Actor

As we head into the Screen Actors Guild awards, which will help clarify the frontrunners in the four Oscar acting races, perhaps it is a good time to look at the Academy’s nominees and their current place in the Best Supporting Actor race.

Of all the acting categories, Supporting Actor is, I think, the one without a clear frontrunner. In the other three categories, it is a matter of one nominee poised to win, where any other winner would be viewed as an upset. In this category, there are three actors in this category who could win this award.

The Nominees:

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2020 Oscar Predictions – Best Actress

Often times, the acting races at the Academy Awards are fairly cut and dry. By the time we get to the Oscar ceremony, it is usually pretty clear which actor is the frontrunner. A lot of this certainty lies in the Screen Actors Guild awards, whose winners often go on to win the Oscar. This is because the acting branch of the Academy is the largest, and the overlap between those voters and the SAG voters is enough to see a general pattern of voting.

This is not to say that upsets are impossible. An upset happened as recent as last year in this very category. So let’s look at who could possibly unseat the frontrunner this year.

The Nominees:

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2020 Oscar Predictions — Best Actor

It is rare to see two different actors win an Oscar for playing the same role. I can only think of one—Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro as Vito Corleone in The Godfather and The Godfather II. John Wayne and Jeff Bridges were both nominated for playing Rooster Cogburn in two different True Grit adaptations, but only Wayne won.

This year, we could very well see a repeat character in Joker, which is somewhat surprising given the blockbuster films Joaquin Phoenix and Heath Ledger were a part of are not the usual suspects for the Academy Awards.

2020 Oscar Predictions — Best Picture

Twitter was ablaze the morning the Oscar nominations were announced. Joker received 11 (count ’em, 11!) nominations? No The Farewell? No Uncut Gems? No J-Lo? No Greta Gerwig for Best Director? No this. No that. Why this, but not that? There was room for X, but they choose Y? Blah-blah-blah.

The grumblings from Film Twitter is not without their merit. The Academy is known for its massive oversights year after year, and this has become particularly evident in the past few years. But there is a futile exhaustion to the Film Twitter banter, which is equal parts righteous, ironic, furious, annoyed, and contrarian. The reality is that the Academy is a somewhat arbitrary selection of industry insiders choosing what is culturally relevant. It has its limited import, but it is not worth getting up in arms about.

The Nominees:

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Dolittle (2020) Movie Review

In one way or another, the movie Dolittle broke me. Coming home from the theater and sitting down to write this review, my mind still cannot think clearly after witnessing a film that my eyes actively rejected. Robert Downey Jr., coming off of his triumphant tenure as Iron Man in the Marvel films, leads an all star cast—a cast which includes Antonio Banderas, Emma Thompson, Rami Malek, Ralph Fiennes, Jim Broadbent, and Octavia Spencer, among many others—in what can only be described by technical definitions as cinema.

It might be important to note that the 1967 Doctor Dolittle, which starred Rex Harrison and was made with a lofty budget, was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards and won in two other categories (despite how atrocious it is). It might be just as important to note that Continue reading Dolittle (2020) Movie Review