Obligatory Oscar Predictions (now With Gratuitous Gifs!)

Obligatory Oscar Predictions (now with gratuitous gifs!)

I’ll be belatedly posting my reviews of various movies including a top ten list over the next few weeks, but if I’m going to turn this into a consistent (mostly) movie review blog, I may as well start with the obvious.

BEST PICTURE

There are about a half-dozen that seem to be locks at this point -- Three Billboards, The Shape of Water, Dunkirk, The Post, Lady Bird, and Get Out. (if one is missing tomorrow morning, expect it to be the last, but I doubt it) 

First off, let’s pour one out for 2017, a year so bizarre and awesome that a fantasy about a mute woman having an affair with a fish-monster and a horror-comedy are front-runners. That’s like if the 1987 Best Picture nominees had been The Last Emperor, Hope and Glory, Broadcast News, Evil Dead II, and The Witches of Eastwick.

The remaining 3 or 4 slots are where it gets trickier.

Now, the Academy obviously isn’t cool enough to go for Wonder Woman, Logan, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and The Last Jedi. That said, if they do go for one of the critically beloved blockbusters, I’d bank on the first one, with Logan being an extremely dark horse. 

The remaining probable options are: Call Me By Your Name, I Tonya, The Darkest Hour, The Big Sick, Mudbound and Molly’s Game. All should get screenplay nominations and at least one acting nod; the question is just which of them are going to carry over to the big prize. 

The Big Sick mostly has the problem that there’s already three comedy slots taken between Three Billboards, Lady Bird, and Get  Out; they don’t typically go for one comedy, let alone a whole slate. Still, it was widely embraced enough that it certainly will have some momentum.

Call Me By Your Name is a good bet simply on the cynical account of being the serious gay romance of the year. I suspect its support will be better than for The Danish Girl but not as strong as Moonlight simply on account of it being much better than the former but not as great as the latter; that said, it’s lovingly crafted enough to push over the line, I suspect.

I, Tonya is probably a lock for Actress, and seems like the sort of film to get an extra boost on the power of that incredible lead performance; it helps that it’s a really good film that scores very strongly on feminist scales in a year where that’s going to be the groundswell in the Academy.

The Darkest Hour is trickier to guess; similarly, it’s a film built around one astounding performance, but isn’t nearly as strong as I, Tonya outside of Oldman Oldmaning the hell out of his best role in years.

Molly’s Game falls in the same category; Chastain is sensational, and I’m surprised Idris Elba doesn’t have more buzz and Costner doesn’t have any, but the movie itself is good, not great. Aaron Sorkin truly has a way with words, but as director, he’s a little too in love with his words, and too often doesn’t trust his visual telling of the story to carry it when he can dilute the impact with a 500 word speech explaining the images.

Finally, Mudbound has the severe disadvantage of Netflix’s hostility toward theaters and the traditional film business, which I suspect keeps them from really effectively campaigning. Although it’ll probably get noticed somewhere, the big prize will likely elude it.

FINAL CHOICE FOR BEST PICTURE: 

(in decreasing order of likeliness)

Three Billboards

The Shape of Water

Dunkirk

The Post

Lady Bird

Get Out

Call Me By Your Name

I, Tonya

The Big Sick

Wonder Woman

BEST DIRECTOR

The picture pool largely shows who’s in line, with the bottom three films unlikely to show up here. McDonough and Del Toro are locks, and Greta Gerwig probably is, as well. Christopher Nolan seems like he should be a lock, but you would have thought so for The Dark Knight and Inception, too; has the director’s branch has gotten over whatever their Nolan-hate? Conversely, Spielberg would normally seem to be a lock, but he has so many nominations over the years that he might seem too obvious a choice; would they be voting because he did such a great job, or just because he’s frickin’ Spielberg? (in this case, definitely the former; his work in The Post is masterful) Then there’s the question of whether Jordan Peele has even more momentum than he seems to have, and if Luca Guadagnino manages a spoiler. Peele and Nolan getting DGA nods suggests they have the strongest support among the directors; I’ll chose them, but won’t be shocked to see wither Spielberg or Gaudagnino on there. (call Patty Jenkins the one-in-a-million longshot)

Martin McDonough - Three Billboards

Guillermo Del Toro - The Shape of Water

Greta Gerwig - Lady Bird

Christopher Nolan - Dunkirk

Jordan Peele - Get Out

BEST ACTOR

Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour

Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread

Timothy Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name

Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out

Tom Hanks, The Post

POSSIBLE SPOILERS: Denzel - Roman J Israel Esq. (though nobody seemed to like anything else about the movie); James Franco - The Disaster Artist (reports of his long-known douchey, misogynist behavior may keep him down, but then again, Casey Affleck); Hugh Jackman - either The Greatest Shomwan or Logan (having both in the mix probably kills his chances, and with The Greatest Showman embraced by audiences but loathed by critics, and Logan being a superhero movie released way back in Spring, it’s a hell of a longshot either way. I just really want him to get it for Logan.)

BEST ACTRESS

Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water

Frances McDormand, Three Billboards

Margot Robbie, I, Tonya

Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird

Meryl Streep, The Post

SPOILERS: Jessica Chastain, Molly’s Game (honestly a tossup between her and Streep); Jude Dench, Victoria and Abdul (minor, barely seen film, but it’s Dench); Michelle Williams, All the Money in the World; Diane Kruger, In the Fade

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards

Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project

Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World

Armie Hammer, Call Me By Your Name

Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards

SPOILERS: Richard Jenkins or, less likely, Michael Shannon, The Shape of Water; Michael Stuhlberg, Call Me By Your Name; Idris Elba, Molly’s Game; Patrick Stewart, Logan (I will mention Logan every chance I get in an effort to will nominations into existence) 

(and yes, that gif is from Iron Man 2)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Allison Janey, I, Tonya

Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird

Mary J. Blige, Mudbound

Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

Holly Hunter, The Big Sick

SPOILERS: Hong Chau, Downsizing (but everyone seems to have hated the movie otherwise); Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread; Tiffany Haddish, Girls Trip (if there’s an out of nowhere nod); Kristin Scott Thomas, The Darkest Hour; Michelle Pfieffer, mother!; Dafne Keene, Logan (see above)

OTHER VARIOUS NOTES

Murder on the Orient Express was one of my favorite films this year, but it seems to have been largely forgotten by the various awards communities. Still, it should at least get nominations for Costume Design and Production Design, and just possibly Cinematography. Tragically, there is no category for “Best Mustache”, a category this film would not only win but fill all the nominations.

The Shape of Water, apparently, is not even being considered for best makeup for reasons that I can’t possibly fathom. It will be one of the films that really cleans up in the tech categories, though.

Star Wars, Wonder Woman, Beauty and the Beast, and Dunkirk will dominate the technical awards. War For the Planet of the Apes, the best in the series since the original in ‘68 and one of the highlights of the year, will be ghettoed into just Visual Effects.