Saturday, 3 March 2018

2018 Oscar Predictions



Best Picture:

Call Me by Your Name
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Post
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

This was a tricky one. I was inclined to think that the Academy was going to go with The Shape of Water, with its 13 nominations (and winner of the Director’s Guild Awards, The Producer’s Guild Awards, and Editor’s Guild Awards). The next closest choice seemed to be Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, with 7 nominations (and wins at the Golden Globes, SAG Awards, and the BAFTAs). But since 2009, with the higher number of nominees crowding for recognition inside of a preferential balloting system, combined with a more diverse Academy voting body, I’m going with the 4 time nominated Get Out. Its so crazy a prediction, it just might win. It doesn’t hurt that its my favourite of the bunch.


Best Director:

Dunkirk
Get Out
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Shape of Water

I would have voted for Jordan Peele’s, Get Out, and some will clamour for Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk or Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, and Paul Thomas Anderson is starting to look like Martin Scorcese (pre 2006), but I think Guillermo Del Toro will take Best Director for so slickly celebrating the magic of movies.


Best Actor:

Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Equal parts bombast, make up, and lifetime achievement award, nets Oldman his first Oscar. Start the narrative about how it’s not time, for Chalamet and to a lesser extent, Kaluuya. See you next year Danzel. Thank god I don’t believe Day-Lewis is retiring (again).


Best Actress:

Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri
Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
Meryl Streep, The Post

That was easy.

Best Supporting Actor:

Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri
Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water
Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World
Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

I’m going with Rockwell, but I’ll be delighted if it’s Dafoe.


Best Supporting Actress:

Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

Bummer it probably won’t be Laurie Metcalf.


Best Original Screenplay:

The Big Sick
Get Out
Lady Bird
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

Screenplay awards are keys to predicting Best Picture. Very rarely do Best Pictures win without 1 of the 2 Screenplay awards. Get Out is startlingly original and familiar, a believable blend of entrenched racism and science fiction. Watch for a Lady Bird upset?


Best Adapted Screenplay:

Call Me by Your Name
The Disaster Artist
Logan
Molly's Game
Mudbound

If Molly’s Game wins, can Jessica Chastain narrate the rest of the Oscars? In the meantime, book one for the Hollywood icon James Ivory. I’m okay with Mudbound taking it though.


Best Cinematography:

Blade Runner 2049
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Mudbound
The Shape of Water

The only category I’ll be offended at if I’m wrong. Roger Deakins needs 1 of these bad boys before he dies- can it be for the best looking film of the year?
Props to the first female cinematographer ever nominated, Rachel Morrison, for the great looking, Mudbound.


Best Visual Effects:

Blade Runner 2049
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2
Kong: Skull Island
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
War For the Planet of the Apes

Tough one to call, but the updated Apes series have continued to impress me with the motion capture performances, so much that you wish the humans had as much character as the chimps. The Academy seems to hate Star Wars over the past 3 plus decades and I don’t know if that will change?


Best Editing:

Baby Driver
Dunkirk
I, Tonya
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

Another tough 1 to call between Baby Driver’s frantically cool sequences and Dunkirk’s hydrophobic scenes.

Best Sound Editing:

Baby Driver
Blade Runner 2049
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Best Sound Mixing:

Baby Driver
Blade Runner 2049
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water
Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Best Original Song:

“Mighty River,” Mudbound
“Mystery Of Love,” Call Me by Your Name
“Remember Me,” Coco
“Stand Up For Something,” Marshall
“This Is Me,” The Greatest Showman

Tough to see the Academy not going for the hankies for Coco’s song, but a win for Sufjan Stevens’ Mystery of Love would make me happy.


Best Musical Score:

Dunkirk
Phantom Thread
The Shape of Water
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

Not sure why John Williams received his 51st nomination for a score that originally made him a household name 40 years ago, Billboards’s score was better when it was called, Fargo, and I definitely have some Hans Zimmer fatigue for the score of Dunkirk, but Alexandre Desplat’s European themed score for The Shape of Water seems to be a favourite- although I wouldn’t mind Johnny Greenwood’s music for Phantom Thread winning.


Best Animated:

The Boss Baby
The Breadwinner
Coco
Ferdinand
Loving Vincent

A walk, although I wouldn’t mind The Breadwinner getting some love.


Best Animated Short:

Dear Basketball
Garden Party
Lou
Negative Space
Revolting Rhymes

The Leonardo DiCaprio of basketball players (Kobe Bryant) gets 1 more thing to lord over Shaquille O’ Neal.


Best Documentary:

Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
Faces Places
Icarus
Last Men in Aleppo
Strong Island


Best Documentary Short:

Edith+Eddie
Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405
Heroin(e)
Knife Skills
Traffic Stop

Use a dart board, this is where Oscar Pools descend into violence.


Best Short:

DeKalb Elementary
The Eleven O'Clock
My Nephew Emmett
The Silent Child
Watu Wote/All of Us

Ibid.

Best Foreign Film:

A Fantastic Woman
The Insult
Loveless
On Body and Soul
The Square


Best Make Up and Hair Design:

Darkest Hour
Victoria & Abdul
Wonder

Not to be confused with Best Actor.


Best Costume Design:

Beauty and the Beast
Darkest Hour
Phantom Thread
The Shape of Water
Victoria & Abdul

The movie about the tailor is going to win, right? Probably goes to Beauty and the Beast.


Best Production Design:

Beauty and the Beast
Blade Runner 2049
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
The Shape of Water

I’ll take a Blade Runner win too. 


See you next year all! I wonder if Jimmy Kimmel can pull off another solid hosting job- or will Matt Damon ruin his night?

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