With the notable absence of presumed front-runner Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Best Documentary is suddenly up in the air. What film will rise to take its place as the “Best Documentary” of 2018?
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Predictions – Best Documentary Feature
I may not have been as high on the film as the general film-lover audience, but Annihilation deserved an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects. Or at least sound editing, for that bear-monster foley…
Instead we have Ready Player One getting a nomination for Most CGI Effects.
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Predictions – Best Visual Effects
Poor Shoplifters. Such a great film, yet such a slim chance of winning an Oscar. Even in a year without Roma, I don’t know if the Academy would give Kore-eda’s film its due.
Also, Burning.
But no use crying over spilled milk. The nominees are what they are. And it is clear where the conversation goes from here.
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Predictions – Best Foreign Language Film
The Best Animated Feature Film category can sometimes be tricky. You can almost always be sure of a Pixar nominee. Usually a Disney picture is present. One or two foreign films sneak into the race. But sometimes a front-runner is hard to pin down. Putting your money on Pixar is not always a sure-thing.
And this year, in particular, the crop of films is particularly strong.
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Predictions – Best Animated Feature
Across the two 2019 writing categories, I think there are seven high quality scripts. There are two-to-three that are damn near brilliant. But that holds no bearing on the task at hand, which is to suss out exactly which scripts have a chance at taking home the trophy.
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Predictions – Best Original Screenplay & Best Adapted Screenplay
Four of the five Oscar nominees for Best Cinematography have received nominations before. Alfonso Cuaron has won two, albeit not for cinematography. Caleb Deschanel has been nominated a whopping six times. The only outlier here is Robbie Ryan, who makes a convincing case for himself in Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite.
It is a category stacked to the gills with talent. Somehow, though, I believe it is not that close of a race.
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Predictions – Best Cinematography
Editing can be a tricky category to judge when it comes to the Academy Awards. The Academy likes flashiness. It likes showmanship. But often the best editing constitutes a lack of flash and show.
The Best Editing Oscar winner often splits the difference in this regard: visible yet functional. Dynamic editing that doesn’t hinder the film itself. Films with challenging editing tasks, like war films and action films. Editing that is visible enough for the Academy at large to understand and, thus, vote on, yet subtle enough for the Editing branch to nominate in the first place.
The nominees in the Best Director category are all very good. After not getting Best Director nods for Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X, Spike Lee finally gets his due. Pawel Pawlikowski returns to the Oscar sphere with his follow up to the Best Foreign Language winner Ida. Adam McKay returns, as well, with his follow-up to The Big Short. Yorgos Lanthimos makes his debut in the Best Director category after receiving nominations in other categories for The Lobster and Dogtooth.
And then there is two-time Oscar winner Alfonso Cuaron.
Unlike Best Supporting Actor, the 2019 award for Best Supporting Actress is a tough call. There is immense talent in this pool of actresses, and no single name has risen to a front-runner status.
So this will be a fun one to talk about!
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Predictions – Best Supporting Actress
For whatever reason, Best Supporting Actor is, year after year, the easiest acting race to predict. It is often narrowed in on one or two candidates long before the Screen Actors Guild announce their awards. The SAGs just act to solidify the already established front-runner.
2019, by and large, shows the same conditions. The race is already narrowed down, and it is not hard to pick a winner before the SAGs even happen. There is always upset potential, but this race is much more predictable than the other categories.
Continue reading 2019 Oscar Predictions – Best Supporting Actor
CineFiles Movie Reviews 