Tag: academy awards

Academy Award Predictions: Roma vs. Green Book vs. Black Panther?

All good things must come to an end, though based on your personal opinions this awards season may not have been a good thing. Films came and went (First Man, Mary Poppins Returns, First Reformed) and others (Bohemian Rhapsody, Green Book, The Favourite) stayed to varying degrees of anger or pleasure. A Star Is Born kicked off the season as the de-facto frontrunner and fumbled when things started to get competitive; it hasn’t been able to regain any of the lost momentum as the season has drummed along. 

Roma has seemingly taken its place, but there’s still a bunch of uncertainty swirling around its chances as an actual winner. With wins at the Golden Globes, the PGA and TIFF’s People’s Choice Award, Green Book is seemingly next in line despite a ton of controversy and valid criticisms against the film. Also not a stranger to controversy, Bohemian Rhapsody‘s success both financially and awards wise despite it being a terrible film continues to confound even the most tenured Oscar watchers. Do people really love Queen that much? Evidently, yes. The heat around Vice was extinguished the moment the embargo was let up. Eight nominations is nothing to balk at, but nobody seems to be rushing to give this Frankenstein of a movie any awards. There seems to be a lot of love for The Favourite, but it doesn’t sound like it translates into the widespread kind of love needed to succeed on the preferential ballot. 

And then there’s Black Panther, which has both the box office receipts, critical acclaim to and a SAG ensemble win that makes it a worthy Best Picture winner. But a disappointing nomination count, despite a win at the Screen Actors Guild, is giving me pause from thinking it’s as big of a threat as the other aforementioned films. 

With each film having their own list of pro’s and con’s, it feels like a huge toss up in predicting who will win. Nevertheless, I take a stab at it below. 

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Final Academy Award Predictions

Tomorrow morning, the nominations for the 90th Academy Award ceremony will be revealed. Based on precursors, it’s going to be a big morning for The Shape of Water (which has been nominated by every major guild and won with the Producer’s) and Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (our Best Picture frontrunner). I fully expect Get Out, Lady Bird and Dunkirk to get a healthy amount of nominations as well. The biggest question is how well passion picks like I, Tonya, Mudbound and Call Me By Your Name will do. Will the Academy resist the Netflix aspect of Mudbound‘s distribution? Was the BAFTA love for Darkest Hour a fluke? 

Below are my full list of nomination predictions. 

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Final Oscar Predictions: Who Will, Could and Should Win

The big night is just hours away, and I have to say I’m happy this long awards season is finally over. What started out as a promising year for awards season turned into a dull steamroll for La La Land, which confuses me given its competition. Then again, we are talking about the Oscars after all, so maybe it’s not all that shocking. 

So yeah, La La Land will probably win everything it’s fun to think about Moonlight or Arrival upsetting in a few of the major categories. So while I’ve tried to be “realistic” and predicted Damien Chazelle’s movie musical to win just about everything from Picture, Actress to Editing and Production Design, I’m holding out for some surprises. 

But aren’t we all? 

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Breaking Down The Best Actress Race

It’s that time of the year; Sundance, Cannes, Telluride and Venice are behind us while the Toronto Film Festival has just begun, and so has Oscar season. The contenders are beginning to emerge and narratives are starting to take shape. There are some films that have gotten a head start thanks to some critical raves (Jackie, La La Land, Moonlight, Loving, Sully) and some that are playing catch up (The Birth of A Nation) while others are giant question marks in the race right now (Arrival,

One race that’s particularly interesting, as it stands right now, is Best Actress. With so much left of the race left to go there are a number of exciting possibilities that, if played right, could make this one of the best years for Best Actress in awhile. Continue reading →

Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight” Screens At Telluride, Enters the Oscar Race

I’ve been thinking about Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight from the moment its gorgeous trailer premiered over the summer. I hadn’t heard anything about it before that, but the buzz around the film became inescapable after. Film critics and various writers were all enamored like I was, while the lucky few who had seen the film in some capacity all had the same message: This was a film to watch out for, and see at any cost.

Suddenly it was announced that Moonlight would be screening at the Telluride Film Festival, with screenings at the prestigious Toronto and New York Film Festivals to follow. It’s clear that following the success of Room and Ex Machina last year, the film’s distributor A24 was not messing around with this one and if the word of mouth out of Telluride is any indicator of what’s to come, Moonlight is in it for the long haul.

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2016 Best Actress Hopefuls Include Viola Davis & Rosamund Pike

Trust me, I know we’re all still recovering from last year’s dreadful slate of Academy Award winners/nominees (I’m of course not talking about Mad Max Fury Road winning several trophies, but of course another crop of all white acting nominees and the inclusion of films like JOY and The Revenant). That being said, any news on the Best Actress category, in my opinion, is worth discussing. Especially when it concerns Viola Davis.

That’s right. The beloved actress could not only score her third career nomination (and the second in this particular category) but maybe even her first win.

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