The Oscar
nominations came out yesterday, and, in part because I post on an ‘Oscar Buzz’
Facebook group where the prize for correctly predicting as many categories as
possible was a Dunkirk DVD, I actually put some welly into thinking through my
predictions this year, rather than some really counter-logical guesses I made
last year, purely because I hoped they’d happen (Taraji P. Henson for Best
Actress, and Lucas Hedges’ scowling in Manchester by the Sea to not get
nominated, etc).
There
wasn’t a snub that riled me as much this year as last year when Amy Adams got
overlooked for Arrival (yes, I'm still mad). What’s more, of the Best Picture nominees that I’ve
seen, none irked me as much as Manchester by the Sea and Blah Blah Bland did,
so, whilst there were films I disagreed to getting nominated on principle (like
I, Tonya), overall, I really can’t complain! 🎬
The Oscar nominations come out tomorrow, and, as movie award commentary is one of the chief functions of my blog, I thought I’d predict them! The rankings are from most to least likely.
Saoirse Ronan and Beanie Feldstein (Jonah Hill's sister!) in Lady Bird
Best Film
01. The Shape of Water
02. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
03. Get Out
04. Dunkirk
05. Lady Bird
06. Call Me By Your Name
07. The Post
I forsee there being 7 nominees in Best Picture, but with the expanded Best Pic facilitating as many as 10 nominees, the extra predictions, should there be that many nominees...
08. Phantom Thread
09. The Florida Project
10. I, Tonya
I, Tonya has been performing very well with the Guilds (nominations for Producers Guild, at the WGA and Editing), but I'm hoping that what is ultimately a morally bankrupt movie which makes light of a woman complicit in her opponent having her kneecaps smashed in doesn't get enough #1 votes to make the Best Film shortlist!
The SAG nominations were announced yesterday and they concretised some actors’ positions in the Oscar race, whilst throwing doubt on others. Here be my thoughts on the film categories (I don’t watch enough TV to be able to comment on those).
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading RoleJUDI DENCH / Queen Victoria – “VICTORIA & ABDUL” (Focus Features)
SALLY HAWKINS / Elisa Esposito – “THE SHAPE OF WATER” (Fox Searchlight)
FRANCES McDORMAND / Mildred – “THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI” (Fox Searchlight)
MARGOT ROBBIE / Tonya Harding – “I, TONYA” (Neon)
SAOIRSE RONAN / Lady Bird McPherson – “LADY BIRD” (A24)
Dame Judi Dench is the surprise nominee here, who takes what many had predicted would be Meryl Streep’s slot (although the complete omission of The Post altogether has led some to speculate that it probably screened too late for SAG voters, who post their ballots in early), means that there are more English actresses here (Dench and Hawkins) than American ones (McDormand).
Margot Robbie’s shameless Oscar-begging appears to have paid off (whenever a beautiful woman de-glams, awards bodies shower them with awards) and she’s likely to be nominated for the Oscar in this category along with Hawkins, Ronan and McDormand, leaving fifth place up for grabs.
As I said in my prediction post, I didn’t watch the Oscars live on Sunday, because I anticipated a La La Land sweep, culminating in it winning 8 Oscars, including Best Picture.
In fact, it did win six of the eight I’d predicted it to. It did not, graciously, take Best Sound, because the superlative that should be awarded to its sound is quite the opposite of ‘best’.
But the real miracle was that it also didn’t win Best Picture.
I love movie stars (films, food and football are my entire life), but I won’t be staying up tonight for this dross. The dressing up box mafia preaching about politics at the BAFTAs was cringe AF and I won’t be subjecting myself to a bunch of millionaires lecturing me again, in addition to the yawn-tastic Blah Blah Land love-in.
Film
Who will win: La La Land
Who should win: Moonlight
Who might win: In the infinitesimal chance LLL doesn’t walk away with this, Moonlight has about a 0.0007% chance of an upset.
Who should have been nominated: A United Kingdom was ineligible, so Zootopia and er, Café Society. Honestly, it’s way better than Blah Blah Land! The stars in it actually had chemistry! The closing shot of the dreamy looks on Eisenberg & Stewart's faces was far more resonant and moving than that cliched, hackneyed 'what if' montage at the end of LLL.
Director
Who will win: Damien Chazelle for La La Land
Who should win: Barry Jenkins for Moonlight
Who might win: Kenneth Lonergan for Manchester by the Sea. Although the odds of Damien Chazelle losing this is even slimmer than LLL not taking Best Picture. He’s got this sewn up.
Who should have been nominated: Ken Loach for I, Daniel Blake. Although had he won, he would have just taken the opportunity to hector the audience about what terrible people they were and how he knows better than all of us had he won, so on second thoughts…
Actor
Who will win: Creepy Affleck for Manchester by the Sea
Who should win: Honestly, I wasn’t enamoured with any of the three performances I've watched (Washington, Affleck, Gosling), but if I were to judge them on quality of the acting, Denzel owns this.
Who might win: Denzel Washington for Fences
Who should have been nominated: Chris Pine for Hell or High Water and Jesse Eisenberg for Café Society (JE will have to make do with the Razzie he won yesterday instead)
Actress
Who will win: Emma Stone for La La Land
Who should win: So once, I was on a date with insufferable clown who kept acting like he was the authority on The Wolf of Wall Street (even though he hadn't seen it). I'm afraid I'm now going to be a massive hypocrite and emulate said clown and say Isabelle Huppert, despite not having seen Elle. Because she’s a brilliant actress who’s long overdue, and everyone’s been raving about her icy portrayal of a complex character.
(and also because I'm hella salty towards Yellowface and the overrated film she was in).
Who might win: Isabelle Huppert for Elle
Who should have been nominated: Amy Adams for Arrival(!!!!) and Emily Blunt for The Girl on the Train. Note: I haven’t seen Aquarius or 20th Century Women.
Supporting Actor
Who will win: Mahershala Ali for Moonlight
Who should win: Mahershala Ali for Moonlight
Who might win: Unfortunately, Dev Patel is going to run Ali close for this Oscar. I think the balance is currently 51/49 in Ali’s favour, but it's so finely judged right now I wouldn’t be surprised if I checked the results tomorrow morning to see Patel has won. I’d be devastated, but not surprised.
Who should have been nominated: Trevante Rhodes for Moonlight (stunning performance and my favourite of the year by far) and Alden Ehrenreich for Hail, Caesar!
Supporting Actress
Who will win: Viola Davis for Fences
Who should win: Viola Davis for Fences. Knockout performance, despite the clunkiness of Denzel Washington’s slightly vain direction doing her no favours. Plus she's a screen queen who never phones it in (see: Suicide Squad) who's well overdue.
Who might win: Michelle Williams for Manchester by the Sea
Who should have been nominated: Lily Gladstone for Certain Women and Hayley Squires for I, Daniel Blake.
Original Screenplay
Who will win: Kenneth Lonergan for Manchester by the Sea
Who should win: Taylor Sheridan for Hell or High Water
Who might win: Damien Chazelle for La La Land
Who should have been nominated: Jared Bush and Phil Johnston for Zootopia, and the Paedo for Café Society. But he's a paedo so who cares.
Adapted Screenplay
Who will win: Barry Jenkins for Moonlight
Who should win: Barry Jenkins for Moonlight
Who might win: Eric Heisserer’s slow-burning, cerebral script for Arrival has a fair bit of awards momentum, but if anyone’s going to trump Moonlight it’ll be Lion’s script due to the sheer brazenness of the Weinstein Company’s campaign. Just remember how hard they and Felicia Vikander campaigned for her fraudulent category Oscar last year. And Felicia saw the gold, so.
(Sidebar: The Weinstein Company are really trying to make that wannabe Leonardo DiCaprio, Dane DeYawn happen. Just check out this (unintentionally) hilarious trailer to Tulip Fever, which stars DeHaan and their girl Felicia:)
Who should have been nominated: Liu Zhenyun for Someone to Talk To and Whit Stillman for Love and Friendship
Editing
Who will win: Hacksaw Ridge. The vast majority of my predictions are copy+paste jobs from Nathaniel’s blog, but I disagree with him that LLL has this locked up. Hacksaw Ridge won the BAFTA in this category and seems to have ‘more’ editing in the in-your-face meaning of the word, so I’ve gone for that for my prediction.
Plus, this category, in recent years, has thrown up a few surprises, particularly The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s win in this category, meaning Editing is no long an automatic vote for the film Academy voters enjoyed the most.
(Obviously, I’m just deluded and refuse to accept a LLL sweep).
Who should win: Moonlight
Who might win: La La Land
Score
Who will win: La La Land
Who should win: Jackie
Who might win: Passengers, because the fact that Thomas Newman (who's haunting scores for Finding Nemo, The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty and Road to Perdition are part of the reason I persevered with the violin when the going got hard) doesn't have an Oscar but Jennifer Lawrence does is a bit *clown music*. But I think LLL's got a tight grip on this, so he'll have to keep waiting for his Oscar.
Song
Who will win: 'Shitty of Stars', La La Landdespite the fact that Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone's duet of it hurt my ears even more than the Boston accents in Manchester by the Sea did
Who should win: 'How Far I'll Go' from Moana
Who might win: there’s a chance that due to Blah Blah Land having two bland songs in this category ('Audition' being the other), they might split the vote, with some people voting for 'Shitty of Stars', and the others voting for 'Yawndition', there’s a glimmer of hope that Moana might be the beneficiary. I would love this.
Who should have been nominated: ‘Never Give Up’ by Sia, for Lion. It played over the closing credits whilst set to footage of the real Saroo’s journey and that in itself was more poignant than the majority of the movie.
I most certainly would not have nominated Shakira's song in Zootopia, which despite me loving both the film and the singer, was one of the most saccharine songs ever, and downright irresponsible in its suggestion that 'I wanna try everything
I wanna try even though I could fail'. I daresay parents of children who decide to try to fly off the top of a building wouldn't be quite as fond of such a lyric.
Cinematography
Who will win: La La Land
Who should win: Moonlight
Who might win: Lion Sound
Who will win: La La Land
Who should win: Arrival
Who might win: Hacksaw Ridge
Who should have been nominated: Kubo and the Two Strings Sound Editing
Who will win: Hacksaw Ridge
Who should win: Anyone other than La La Land. I couldn't hear what they were mumbling half the time!
Who might win: La La Land
Who should have been nominated: Kubo and the Two Strings Animated Film
Who will win: Zootopia
Who should win: Zootopia, although I love Kubo and the Two Strings, too. Both are 8.5/10s in my book and in my current top 6 of 2016.
Who might win: Kubo and the Two Strings. The surprise BAFTA win will definitely give their producers some hope, but ultimately, I think Zootopia’s charm is too strong.
Who should have been nominated: Nothing I can think of. Certainly not that over-long and over-convoluted Your Name, or that phoned in, disappointing sequel, Finding Dory. And DEFINITELY not that unbelievably unfunny, wannabe edgy Sausage Party. #ByeFelicia
Documentary Feature
Who will win: The 13th
Who should win: Haven’t seen any of them.
Who might win: OJ: Made in America
Foreign Film
Who will win: The Salesman. London Trafalgar Square is actually hosting a screening of this film today at 4:30pm, which I was intending on going to, but unfortunately I have some freelance programming work that needs to be done, so guttingly, I’m sitting this one out.
Who should win: Haven’t seen any of them.
Who might win: Toni Erdmann.
Who should have been nominated: Julieta
Makeup and Hair
Who will win: Star Trek Beyond
Who should win: Don’t care
Who might win: Suicide Squad
Who should have been nominated: A bit random, but I would go with Moonlight, for how they transformed Naomie Harris (who is 40 in real life but looks younger than Emma Stone, 28 #JustSaying) from the sleek Moneypenny we’re used to seeing, to a haggard druggie.
Visual Effects
Who will win: The Jungle Book
Who should win: Kubo and the Two Strings, hands down. Those origami battles were astonishing.
Who might win: Inception with A-levels, aka Doctor Strange
Who should have been nominated: Not Batman v Superman or Suicide Squad's distractingly bad effects, that’s for sure. I’m just surprised the Academy voters didn’t honour La La Land here, seeing as they seem to be giving out nominations to that Hollywood-fellating movie like smarties.
Production Design
Who will win: Unfortunately, La La Land
Who should win: Arrival
Who might win: Fantastic Oscar-Beggers and Where to Find Them
Who should have been nominated: Love and Friendship and Jackie
Costume
Who will win: I refuse to believe LLL will take this for some suits & skinny ties and Emma Stone’s colourful dresses. That would be one of the most egregious and lazy wins in Oscar history. I refuse to believe it and am refusing to predict it, even though it probably will. But I’m stubbornly predicting Jackie
Who should win: Jackie
Who might win: La La Land
Who should have been nominated: Café Society and Love and Friendship
I don’t predict short films, so I make that 8 wins for La La Land, which is excessive, to say the least, but given that they actually could win 13 (ties aren’t possible under this preferential ballot system), I’ll cut my losses and take 8. No more, please!
And if Mahershala loses to Dev Patel, then the Weinstein Company will have done their worst. As misdirected penance, I will write a scathing review of Tulip Fever on my blog (although let’s be real, it stars Dane DeYawn and Felicia Vikander. I was totally planning on doing that regardless). That'll teach them.
I refuse to watch Hacksaw Ridge because it looks like an absolute chore (and I despise Mel Gibson), so here be my rankings, from least favourite to favourite, of the 8 films nominated for Best Picture that I have seen. I’ll list the three most Bye Felicia ones today, and give the better five later this week.
08. Manchester by the Sea
Kenneth Lonergan’s bleak-fest has Casey Affleck in a domain he’s completely unfamiliar with: Boston. He plays a reclusive handyman, Lee Chandler, who is made legal guardian of his nephew Patrick after Patrick’s father dies, forcing him to revisit painful memories in his Massachusetts hometown of Manchester.
I got three out of five on my SAG predictions, which isn't very good. I should have predicted Denzel, given SAG have never awarded him, and they must have been keen to set that right. However, I am delighted I got that wrong, because I don't want to see Creepy Affleck run away with the award.
Given Brie Larson's rightly frosty response at the Golden Globes when she had to read Affleck's name out and hand him the trophy, I was wondering if the mere fact that she even bothered to show up at the SAGs to honour her presenting duties (as with the Golden Globes and Oscars, last year's winner of Best Actress presents the award to Best Actor) was a slight giveaway as to the recipient of the award.
I'm guessing that she didn't want to show up, knowing she'd probably have to present to The Perv, but then SAG told her that she needn't worry, because it wasn't going to The Perv, but a talented, humble, amazing actor instead, and thus, Brie showed up after all?
Leonardo DiCaprio's capital in Hollywood is higher than Brie Larson's, so he can afford to Bye Felicia these events if all he's doing is reading out the name of someone and handing them a blue statue. SAG's interesting choice for his replacement, his Wolf of Wall Street co-star Jonah Hill, also got me thinking if JH knew in advance who the winner was.
(Speaking of Jonah and SAG, remember when he took the SAG minimum wage of $60,000 for WoWS, just so he could work with Marty? I also love how he deputised for Leo at the SAGs like Donnie was Jordan's de facto stand-in in the film XD)
Jonah Hill starred opposite Emma Stone in her first film role, Superbad, where she played the object of his affections, and their reunion yesterday when he announced her name was totally adorable. He looked ecstatic for her, and the way he screamed 'Emma Stone La La Land' when he read it out was freaking adorable!
Find you someone who looks at you the way Jonah Hill looks at Emma Stone 😻
Even though I will never stop being salty about the yellowface thing, even I have to admit Emma Stone gave it her all in La La Land, and, acting-wise, at least, it was an irresistibly charming performance. She was by far the best thing about LLL, and never in her wildest dreams could prissy Emma Watson have given that performance. There were moments when I got lost in Stone’s massive eyes, Bambi's in size and sea-green in colour and her rendition of 'Audition (Here's to the Fools Who Dream)' was spectacular. Much worse performances have won the Best Actress Oscar (hi Jennifer Lawrence), so I've made my peace with her winning.
I'm pretty pleased with the SAG results yesterday, three of the four film acting awards going to people of colour is incredible!
Best film Arrival I, Daniel Blake La La Land Manchester by the Sea Moonlight
Aside from the inclusion of the very British (and very fine, my second of the year so far) I, Daniel Blake, the other four are all now considered locks when Best Picture at the Oscars get announced.
Best British film American Honey Denial Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them I, Daniel Blake Notes on Blindness Under the Shadow
Best film not in the English language Dheepan Julieta Mustang Son of Saul Toni Erdmann
Elle and The Handmaiden weren't eligible because they're not being released here until March and April, respectively. Son and Saul and Mustang, which were nominated at last year's Oscars, weren't eligible in time for last year's BAFTAs, but were obviously too strong to be forgotten, so they have their belated nominations now.
Best documentary 13th The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years The Eagle Huntress Notes on Blindness Weiner
I haven't seen any of these because documentaries bore me to tears. #SorryNotSorry
Best animated film Finding Dory
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
Zootropolis
Haha at BAFTA not being able to find five Animated films they felt passionately about. Whilst I'm glad that means the overrated Your Name doesn't get nominated, I do feel When Marnie Was There deserves to be in the pantheon of the films listed; particularly Finding Dory which it was far superior to.
Best director
Denis Villeneuve (Arrival)
Ken Loach (I, Daniel Blake)
Damien Chazelle (La La Land)
Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea)
Tom Ford (Nocturnal Animals)
Barry Jenkins not getting nominated for Moonlight will damage the film's credentials as the main competitor to La La Land for Best Movie at the Oscars. :( I'm happy to see some recognition for Ken Loach, however. He crafted a really touching and powerful film in I, Daniel Blake and deserves to be nominated. Not so sure about Tom Ford, on the other hand.
Best original screenplay Hell or High Water
I, Daniel Blake
La La Land
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight
Jesus, dat adapted screenplay category. It's a shame that Screenplay is the only place where Hidden Figures is recognised; I hear it's quite good. And no Fences in adapted but Nocturnal Animals and Hacksaw Ridge are present? Damn. The shade of it all.
I'm also disappointed that the very British treat Love and Friendship, an adaptation of a Jane Austen novella, wasn't recognised here, given it featured some of the wittiest one-liners in 2016.
Best actor
Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge)
Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea)
Jake Gyllenhaal (Nocturnal Animals)
Ryan Gosling (La La Land)
Viggo Mortensen (Captain Fantastic)
No Denzel, BAFTA???? WTF???? It's crazy that BAFTA have never nominated Denzel Washington.
I ain't even mad about David Oyelowo's snub for A United Kingdom, as well as A United Kingdom's absence on the list overall. I presume they didn't send screeners (or I'm just gonna tell myself that).
I love Jake Gyllenhaal a lot (Brokeback Mountain is my sixth favourite film of all time and he was snubbed of an Oscar nomination for Nightcrawler) but he was, dare I say it... a little hammy in Nocturnal Animals, especially in the scene where he breaks down in front of Aaron Taylor-Johnson's redneck. It would be a shame if he got nominated for an Oscar for his awards-begging turn.
Best actress Amy Adams (Arrival)
Emily Blunt (The Girl on the Train)
Emma Stone (La La Land)
Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins)
Natalie Portman (Jackie)
With Isabelle Huppert out of contention due to her film's late release, this was pretty expected. I did expect BAFTA to use that fifth spot on their very own Emily Blunt, who was fantastic (my number 1 in Leading Actress so far) in the otherwise terrible The Girl on the Train, but, given they overlooked Charlotte Rampling last year for 45 Years, I couldn't be sure.
The fact that Jackie only has two other technical nominations indicate to me that BAFTA didn't love the film, thus they'll probably give the win to the Yellowfaced Felicia for playing Emma Stone in the Emma Stone Biopic. However, I'm praying for a curveball; Emma Stone doesn't need a BAFTA yet and Amy Adams or Emily Blunt deserve it more. I certainly haven't seen them taking any whitewashed roles.
Best supporting actor
Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Nocturnal Animals)
Dev Patel (Lion)
Hugh Grant (Florence Foster Jenkins)
Jeff Bridges (Hell or High Water)
Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)
What a week Gorgeous Taylor-Johnson is having. A few weeks ago he wasn't in the Oscar race, with most preferring Michael Shannon's work in Nocturnal Animals. Now he has a Golden Globe win under his belt, and his home nation have gotten behind him. I'm not surprised BAFTA nominated ATJ; they liked Nowhere Boy a lot (which is where he met his missus, 50 Shades of Grey director Sam Taylor-Johnson). His acceptance speech at the Golden Globes was very humble and concise and it's clear he loves his wife a lot, which I really adore. Would LOVE for all this momentum to result in an Oscar nomination. His days of being wooden in Anna Karenina are long-forgotten!
The other four nominations are probably going to be considered locks come Oscar nomination morning. It's funny; BAFTA go out of their way to show they're ~above Category Fraud~, for example, by nominating Felicia Vikander in The Danish Girl for Lead Actress last year when she campaigned for Supporting, and doing the same with Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit and as well as Bérénice Bejo for The Artist, amongst others. But Brits Dev Patel and Hugh Grant are commonly considered leading performances, yet BAFTA have nominated them in the only category they can find space for them.
The BAFTAs aren't above category fraud themselves, then.
Best supporting actress
Hayley Squires (I, Daniel Blake)
Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea)
Naomie Harris (Moonlight)
Nicole Kidman (Lion)
Viola Davis (Fences)
Delighted for Hayley Squires, who is currently fourth in my personal ballot. The food bank scene in I, Daniel Blake was gut wrenching and her acting in it was understated perfection.
The other four ladies on this list are probably locks for Oscar nominations now.
Best original music Arrival Jackie La La Land Lion Nocturnal Animals
Best cinematography Arrival Hell or High Water La La Land Lion Nocturnal Animals
Best editing Arrival Hacksaw Ridge La La Land Manchester by the Sea Nocturnal Animals
Best production design Doctor Strange Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Hail, Caesar! La La Land Nocturnal Animals
So they saw Hail, Caesar, then? Then where's Alden Ehrenreich's nomination for his unforgettably charming, perfectly comedic turn??
Overall, this is... pretty weak stuff. The suspect acting nominations, the category fraud, the shutout for Moonlightin direction and editing, all points to a sweep for Step Up 9: The Emma Stone Biopic in the manner of their massive Golden Globes wins on Sunday. It looks like BAFTAs have tried a wee bit too hard to predict the Oscars, and the results, bar Emily Blunt and ATJ's nominations, utterly, utterly inspiring.
I really hope they throw some curveballs when announcing the winners!
The aim is to also post predictions in a month's time, and before when they get announced, on January 24th 2017, as well, so I can see how my guesses change. Here goes!
Disclaimer: as I haven't seen a lot of these films, a lot of what I'm saying is just guesswork. I could end up despising a bunch of these movies once I view them, and completely alter my predictions! For predictions more grounded in research and opinion, check out Nathaniel's impressive compendium. He's a professional film writer so he's seen most of the films discussed, and thus, his word carries a lot more clout!
Picture
Any number between 5 and 10 could get nominated, so I'm going...
01. La La Land
02. Fences
03. Moonlight
04. Silence
05. Manchester by the Sea
06. Jackie
07. Arrival
08. Lion
Of these titles, I've so far only seen Arrival, which I was very impressed with, particularly given my innate aversion to sci-fi. It was a smart movie, but more importantly, it was a humane movie, and that, coupled with the tight, unostentatious visuals, means it deserves to get nominated.
Of the other seven, Jackie interests me the least, but then again we all know my thoughts about Natalie 'earnest' Portman, haha. La La Land, Fences and Moonlight look absolutely captivating in their own ways, and I can't wait to watch them. Despite the fact that Scorsese is my favourite director, Silence's trailer left me a bit cold. I'm not sure what's up with Adam Driver and Andy Garfield's accents, and it just seems to lack the energy of a Wolf of Wall Street or The Depahted. But, we'll see.
Director
01. Damien Chazelle, La La Land
02. Pablo Larraín, Jackie
03. Martin Scorsese, Silence
04. Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
05. Denis Villeneuve, Arrival Pablo Larraín has two films that are in serious contention at the 2017 Oscars, the other being Chile's entrant in to the Foreign Language Film category, Neruda, starring Mexican hottie Gael García Bernal (I totally just said his name out loud with an affected Latinamerican accent whilst typing this, haha). Chazelle's Whiplash was my favourite film of 2014, and his direction on it (particularly the scenes where JK Simmons yells at Miles Teller) were superb. Apparently La La Land is even more assured than Whiplash so that, the strong critical response the film has garnered, surely render him the frontrunner.
Actor
01. Denzel Washington, Fences
02. Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
03. Ryan Gosling, La La Land
04. Tom Hanks, Sully
05. Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Andy Garfield is a bit of a left-of-field shout, but I just think that he can't appear in two prestige pictures and get totally ignored, and Silence's trailer didn't really seem like it had a 'proper' lead, so I've plumped for this. Plus, he was HELLA snubbed for The Social Network (fourth favourite performance of 2010, just saying).
Tom Hanks impressed audiences in both Bridge of Spies and Captain Philips and most people were surprised he didn't get nominated for at least one of them, particularly given the Academy are fond of him (he's the only actor to have won Best Actor back-to-back, for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump, respectively. Although Eddie Redcarpet sure tried hard to achieve that feat by stealing roles from transgender actresses, just saying). So many feel Hanks is due a nomination this year.
I currently have Denzel listed as frontrunner just because I don't want creepy Casey Affleck to be frontrunner, given his past history of groping a sleeping woman. Hopefully that holds him back from achieving the gold and leads Denzel to receive his third Oscar.
Actress
01. Natalie Portman, Jackie
02. Emma Stone, La La Land
03. Annette Bening, 20th Century Woman
04. Amy Adams, Arrival
05. Jessica Chastain, Miss Sloane
Sigh. I am so gutted that Viola Davis is campaigning as Supporting Actress for Fences rather than Leading. From reports of people who have seen the film, it's one of those borderline cases (so not as brazen as, say, Felicia Vikander in The Danish Girl and my girl Rooney Mara in Carol last year), and Viola just submitted herself in Support to give herself more of a fighting chance of getting the gold. Which I get, #YouDoYou, but even from her clips in the trailer, she was immense, and I feel that, even with less screen time than Portman, she would have run her and Stone close. Viola is a leading lady and deserves no less than to be acknowledged as one!!!!!
Anyway, yeah, looks like Natalie Portman's heading towards her second Oscar.
Jessica Chastain for Miss Sloane is a bold pick, given most predictions have listed Isabelle Huppert, an icon of French cinema, for Elle in her place. It is indeed a travesty that Huppert doesn't even have one Oscar nomination. But as we know, talent only comes to play about 15% of the time at the Oscars. Emily Blunt doesn't have an Oscar nomination, either. 😒 I feel Miss Sloane, about a gun lobbyist, has a strongly political slant that could play well into Hollywood's hands given the recent US elections. I follow Chastain on Facebook and she's already been pointing out the parallels between the movie and life, so... Finally, Amy Adams is very well-liked by the Academy, and is due an Oscar statuette at some point. Her performance in Arrival won't win, as it was too muted and unflashy, but the overall quality of the film, her popularity, and the fact that she was also in Nocturnal Animals makes me feel it would be churlish of them to deprive her of her sixth nomination.
Supporting Actor
01. Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
02. Peter Sarsgaard, Jackie
03. Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea
04. Liam Neeson, Silence
05. Stephen Henderson, Fences Ali has been picking up raves everywhere for his performance in Moonlight, so much so that I highly doubt his limited screen time (the film is told in three parts so every actor bar Naomie Harris is only in, at most, a third of it) will be to his detriment. Plus a really solid piece of acting lingers with your regardless of how short the running time was (think: Anne Hathaway in Les Mis). From the trailers, Lucas Hedges looks like he's doing great work in Manchester by the Sea. Oscars can be a bit sexist in that in the Supporting Actress category, they're more than happy to nominate/award young girls (eg Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit, Saoirse Ronan in Atonement, Anna Paquin in The Piano), whereas they're stingier with dishing out slots for boys of comparable ages. But with their egregious omission of Jacob Tremblay last year for Room, they've got some atonement of their own to do. Hopefully Hedges reaps the dividends.
Supporting Actress
01. Viola Davis, Fences
02. Naomie Harris, Moonlight
03. Nicole Kidman, Lion
04. Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
05. Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Miss Sloane
I'll admit that the prevalence of women of colour in this category is influenced by some heavy wishful thinking on my part! But seriously, no-one needs to make reparations more than the Oscars for last year's complete whitewash. By all means nominate a white actor if they were good, but 'talent' argument doesn't really work given they nominated Eddie Redcarpet for The Danish Girl, Jennifer Lawrence for Joy, Mark Ruffalo for Spotlight and Christian Bale for The Big Short, performances that compare very unfavourably to Oscar nominated-performances in the past. To say those selections were mediocre would be an insult to mediocrity. So yeah, I don't give a sh_t if the Oscars go too far the other way in terms of affirmative action this year; performers of colour are owed some kudos. Naomie Harris is apparently amazing in a de-glam role as the junkie mum of the protagonist in Moonlight. She was always charming as flirty Moneypenny in the James Bond movies, so looking forward to seeing her in this role. Hidden Figures sounds great: uncredited women of colour who did all the grunt work for NASA and didn't get the credit for it. Apropos, and pretty similar to the Oscars, actually. And Britain's very own Gugu Mbatha-Raw is a luminous screen presence (Mark Kermode, in his review of Free State of Jones, described a scene where she smiled, saying 'the whole screen lit up'), and should have been given the role of Belle in Beauty and the Beast instead of Emma Watson. Gugu is strikingly beautiful, has musical and dramatic training (unlike Emma), has previously played someone called Belle (in Amma Asante's Belle), and, most importantly, can actually act. But ofc Emma Watson got the part. As I said, Hollywood has some serious reparations to make.
Original Screenplay
01. Jackie
02. 20th Century Woman
03. Manchester by the Sea
04. Moonlight
05. Zootopia Adapted Screenplay
01. Fences
02. Lion
03. Arrival
04. Silence
05. Hidden Figures --
I'm not going to bother predicting the technicals, foreign film and short films until closer to the time when I've seen more.
I shall check back after the actual nominations come out and compare how I did! =)
The town of Rose Creek is terrorised by mercenary Bart Bogue and his henchmen, who wishes to mine it for oil. In standing up to the villains, several innocent people are slaughtered in cold blood, including Matthew Cullen, leaving his grieving widow Emma (Haley Bennett) seeking retribution. She implores bounty hunter Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington) to defend her townspeople, a request he initially declines, until he hears who the enemy is.
However, Sam alone isn't enough to overturn Bart's army, so he recruits wayward gambler Josh Faraday (Chris Pratt) using Josh's horse as barter. Faraday then enlists the help of Sam's former acquaintance, a sharpshooter named Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke) and gets his companion, assassin Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), thrown in for free. The foursome are rounded off with wanted outlaw Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), giant Jack Horne (Vincent D'Onofrio), and a Comanche warrior Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier).
The trailer for The Magnificent Seven was so cool and enticing that it made me momentarily forget my aversion for needless Hollywood remakes, of which Oldboy is the worst of a sorry bunch from recent years. But, in Antoine Fuque's plodder of a film, I realised that the film peaked at the strategic bass drop on the ad.
The film's four most well-known stars: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke and Peter Sarsagaard barely make it out of first gear. Pratt and Sarsgaard, in particular, both who have done exemplary work in the past, phone it in on crushingly disappointing levels. Pratt, so charismatic in Guardians of the Galaxy, seems to think he can ride on the memory of his charm in this film, and exhibits no attempt at characterisation in his role. Waving his hands around to do a card trick is about the most he exerts himself.
Sarsgaard is equally limp as the villain, to the point where it detriments the film. Because The Magnificent Seven then lacks a compelling antagonist, it renders all the expensive (the film had had a eye-watering budget of $95 million) training montages shown in the film hollow, because we're simply not afraid of the force they're all priming themselves to face.
For the Training Day fans out there, of which I am one, the scenes between Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke lack the spice and spark that the two organically just had in Antoine Fuqua's earlier film. This is as much to blame on the clunky screenplay as it does the performers, where practically every character in the film speaks in (not very incisive, it has to be said) one-liners but strung together, it doesn't come close to resembling dialogue.
The cast member who makes the most lasting impression is pretty Haley Bennett as Emma, who the script graciously refrains from making a damsel in distress trope. Bennett fleshes out a 2D(ish) character into something resembling a human with a beating heart, and her early scenes where she pleads to Chisolm's sense of humanity do carry genuine pathos.
Perhaps rising star Bennett (who will next be seen in October's release The Girl on the Train), unlike the four male movie stars who I've named and shamed, actually bothered in Magnificent Seven because she cannot yet rest on the laurels of her name alone. The supporting cast also feature some witty turns, especially South Korean actor Byung-hun Lee who throws knives with panache and inhibits his taciturn/cool character with ease, and the always memorable Vincent D'Onofrio, who plays against his formidable physicality as surprisingly soft-spoken tracker.
There are a few gripping action sequences (which were the main contributor to my generous decision to award The Magnificent Seven 6/10), but they could all have been trimmed by at least 20% in the editing room. The final set piece dragged far too much and caused the payoff to feel frustratingly anti-climactic.
The Magnificent Seven touches upon topics of substance such as male companionship, the destructive nature of greed, carrying the guilt of one's actions (Hawke's character is crippled with bouts of PTSD) and bigotry, but they are all dealt with and resolved in a very superficial, Hollwood manner. Some of the cinematography is nice and the iconography of the seven men riding on horses will certainly make for some decent gifs. But sadly, The Magnificent Seven proved to be a lot less than the sum of its parts.
