Reel Matt
This blog started as my movie marathon — watching a movie a day for a whole year — and has continued as a place for me to write reviews about movies, TV, and various other items.
This is still a work in progress as I migrate from my old platform at Tumblr. For now, you can still access the whole backlog of posts there at http://reelmatt.tumblr.com
91st Academy Awards - Predictions
Ninety-first Academy Awards, and the seventh I’m around making predictions for it. With the 86th Academy Awards being the outlier, where I correctly predicted 22 out of 24 nominees, all other years have netted me either 16 or 17 correct predictions out of 24, good for a D+ or a C- on a letter scale — not good! And with a lot of uncertainly this year from a mixed bag of results in the Guild Awards, the path for the “Most Deserving” nominations is not clear. I am posting this pretty early (the Saturday morning before counts as early, right?), but I did not spend as much time pouring over lists of predictions over the web and cross-referencing with the Guild award winners. That is to say I’m pretty lukewarm on my chances this year. We’ll see how I do.
Thanks to my new AMC A-List subscription, I managed to catch all the Best Picture nominees except for Black Panther (which I saw last March when it was released), and BlacKkKlansman and Bohemian Rhapsody. Oh, and Roma which I missed in the very limited-release in theaters and had to watch on Netflix. The further down the ballot you go though, the less coverage I have on the nominees — the acting categories specifically. Save for nominees who also have a Best Picture nominee, I haven’t seen the films, so my “Most Likely” picks are with limited information.
I’ve come to learn my yearly prediction/public wishing that this will be the year I restart this blog in vain aren’t completely accurate (almost not at all). So this year, I’m trying for a more realistic wish/hope that I pay more attention and do a better job at watching the acting nominees for next year’s Oscars. I got myself to see more of the Best Picture nominees each year, now I want to see more of the down-ballot nominees.
Actual winners listed in bold. Final tally: 17/24 correct.
BEST PICTURE
| Film |
|---|
| Black Panther |
| BlacKkKlansman |
| Bohemian Rhapsody |
| The Favourite |
| Green Book |
| Roma |
| A Star Is Born |
| Vice |
Most Deserving: Roma
Most Likely: Roma
Why: The only thing everyone can seem to agree on is Best Picture is really up for grabs. Roma and Green Book seem to have taken on front-runner status because they’ve won some of the bigger precursor awards, but there is no real consensus. And since opinions are all over the place, it is likely the winner will be decided by the preferential ballot voting which could wind up giving the Oscar to a more obscure choice.
As I mentioned in my recent reviews, Roma is far and away my number one choice. Alfonso Cuaron told a simple story in a gripping and technically masterful way. It should be a lock for the Best Foreign Language film, which could make voters want to choose something else here. If Roma does win, it will be the first foreign language film to do so. While I also have Roma winning some other Oscars, my gut feeling is if it does win a lot early in the evening, we might be in for a different Best Picture winner. Green Book was the second most popular choice from critics, but I might go with A Star Is Born or Black Panther as more popular/appealing choices for a preferential-voting system.
BEST DIRECTOR
| Director | Film |
|---|---|
| Alfonso Cuarón | Roma |
| Yorgos Lanthimos | The Favourite |
| Spike Lee | BlacKkKlansman |
| Adam McKay | Vice |
| Paweł Pawlikowski | Cold War |
Most Deserving: Alfonso Cuarón
Most Likely: Alfonso Cuarón
BEST ACTOR
| Actor | Film |
|---|---|
| Christian Bale | Vice |
| Bradley Cooper | A Star Is Born |
| Willem Dafoe | At Eternity’s Gate |
| Rami Malek | Bohemian Rhapsody |
| Viggo Mortensen | Green Book |
Most Deserving: Bradley Cooper
Most Likely: Rami Malek
BEST ACTRESS
| Actress | Film |
|---|---|
| Yalitza Aparicio | Roma |
| Glenn Close | The Wife |
| Olivia Colman | The Favourite |
| Lady Gaga | A Star Is Born |
| Melissa McCarthy | Can You Ever Forgive Me? |
Most Deserving: Olivia Colman
Most Likely: Glenn Close
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
| Actor | Film |
|---|---|
| Mahershala Ali | Green Book |
| Adam Driver | BlacKkKlansman |
| Sam Elliott | A Star Is Born |
| Richard E. Grant | Can You Ever Forgive Me? |
| Sam Rockwell | Vice |
Most Deserving: Mahershala Ali
Most Likely: Mahershala Ali
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
| Actress | Movie |
|---|---|
| Amy Adams | Vice |
| Marina de Tavira | Roma |
| Regina King | If Beale Street Could Talk |
| Emma Stone | The Favourite |
| Rachel Weisz | The Favourite |
Most Deserving: Emma Stone
Most Likely: Regina King
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
| Film | Writer(s) |
|---|---|
| The Favourite | Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara |
| First Reformed | Paul Schrader |
| Green Book | Nick Vallelonga, Brian Currie, and Peter Farrelly |
| Roma | Alfonso Cuarón |
| Vice | Adam McKay |
Most Deserving: Green Book
Most Likely: The Favourite
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
| Film | Writer(s) |
|---|---|
| The Ballad of Buster Scruggs | Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, based on their short stories |
| BlacKkKlansman | Charlie Wachtel & David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott & Spike Lee, based on the memoir Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth |
| Can You Ever Forgive Me? | Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty, based on the memoir by Lee Israel |
| If Beale Street Could Talk | Barry Jenkins, based on the novel by James Baldwin |
| A Star Is Born | Eric Roth and Bradley Cooper & Will Fetters |
Most Deserving: A Star Is Born
Most Likely: BlacKkKlansman
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
| Film |
|---|
| Incredibles 2 |
| Isle of Dogs |
| Mirai |
| Ralph Breaks the Internet |
| Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse |
Most Deserving: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Most Likely: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
BEST FOREIGN FILM
| Film | Country |
|---|---|
| Capernaum | Lebanon |
| Cold War | Poland |
| Never Look Away | Germany |
| Roma | Mexico |
| Shoplifters | Japan |
Most Deserving: Roma
Most Likely: Roma
BEST DOCUMENTARY
| Film |
|---|
| Free Solo |
| Hale County This Morning, This Evening |
| Minding the Gap |
| Of Fathers and Sons |
| RBG |
Most Deserving: Minding the Gap
Most Likely: Free Solo
BEST DOCUMENTARY (SHORT)
| Film |
|---|
| “Black Sheep” |
| “End Game” |
| “Lifeboat” |
| “A Night at The Garden” |
| “Period. End of Sentence.” |
Most Deserving: N/A
Most Likely: “Period. End of Sentence.”
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
| Film |
|---|
| The Ballad of Buster Scruggs |
| Black Panther |
| The Favourite |
| Mary Poppins Returns |
| Mary Queen of Scots |
Most Deserving: The Favourite
Most Likely: Black Panther
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
| Song | Film | Artist |
|---|---|---|
| “All the Stars” | Black Panther | Mark Spears, Kendrick Lamar Duckworth and Anthony Tiffith |
| “I’ll Fight” | RBG | Diane Warren |
| “The Place Where Lost Things Go” | Mary Poppins Returns | Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman |
| “Shallow” | A Star Is Born | Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando, and Andrew Wyatt |
| “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs | David Rawlings and Gillian Welch |
Most Deserving: “Shallow”
Most Likely: “Shallow”
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
| Film | Composer |
|---|---|
| Black Panther | Ludwig Göransson |
| BlacKkKlansman | Terence Blanchard |
| If Beale Street Could Talk | Nicholas Britell |
| Isle of Dogs | Alexandre Desplat |
| Mary Poppins Returns | Marc Shaiman |
Most Deserving: First Man, Justin Hurwitz
Most Likely: If Beale Street Could Talk
Why: I get it. The Academy does not seem to like my picks of loud, in-your-face, electronic at parts, and especially if it is for a space movie. They passed over Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar and Dunkirk and Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Sicario, three of my last four Best Original Score picks. Not that I’m bitter. And even if Justin Hurwitz’s First Man was nominated this year, it probably wouldn’t have won for similar reasons. And I am bitter about it not even receiving a nomination because it was some of the best music work I have hear all year. That soundtrack is on frequent rotation when I’m at work and still brings the goosebumps when I hear the Apollo rocket launch sequence.
All I can say is I at least was happy to see this make a few of the “Oscar snubs” lists; that at least means other people felt the same way I do. Of the remaining ones, I only saw Black Panther, so I can’t really speak for the nominees. The consensus seemed to be between BlacKkKlansman and Beale Street with a slight edge for the latter.
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
| Film |
|---|
| Border |
| Mary Queen of Scots |
| Vice |
Most Deserving: N/A
Most Likely: Vice
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
| Film |
|---|
| Black Panther |
| The Favourite |
| First Man |
| Mary Poppins Returns |
| Roma |
Most Deserving: The Favourite
Most Likely: Black Panther
BEST FILM EDITING
| Film |
|---|
| BlacKkKlansman |
| Bohemian Rhapsody |
| The Favourite |
| Green Book |
| Vice |
Most Deserving: The Favourite
Most Likely: Bohemian Rhapsody
Why: The Favourite wasn’t my favorite film of the year, but I really appreciated a lot of the things it did. Visually and technically The Favourite was quite stunning (as was Roma), and the editing was a big reason I enjoyed the film as much as I did. The story gets weird towards the end and the characters change a lot from the beginning, but the editing was a nice steady hand. It guided me along through the changes and kept the pace at an appropriate level to process everything that was going on. For me, that is a difficult edit to do. Not the action-based, “experimental” editing à la The Bourne Ultimatum win in 2007, but a story-based edit that is a lot more subtle.
On the web, the consensus seemed to be between Bohemian Rhapsody and BlacKkKlansman, again, both of which I have not seen. Tides were shifting in favor of BlacKkKlansman, but Bohemian Rhapsody won the Eddie Award and has the good story behind it — that editor John Ottman saved the film in the editing room from a terrible directing job by Bryan Singer — so that is what I’m going with as my “Most Likely” pick.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
| Film |
|---|
| Cold War |
| The Favourite |
| Never Look Away |
| Roma |
| A Star Is Born |
Most Deserving: Roma
Most Likely: Roma
BEST SOUND EDITING
| Film |
|---|
| Black Panther |
| Bohemian Rhapsody |
| First Man |
| A Quiet Place |
| Roma |
Most Deserving: First Man
Most Likely: First Man
BEST SOUND MIXING
| Film |
|---|
| Black Panther |
| Bohemian Rhapsody |
| First Man |
| Roma |
| A Star Is Born |
Most Deserving: First Man
Most Likely: A Star Is Born
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
| Film |
|---|
| Avengers: Infinity War |
| Christopher Robbin |
| First Man |
| Ready Player One |
| Solo: A Star Wars Story |
Most Deserving: First Man
Most Likely: Avengers: Infinity War
BEST SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)
| Film |
|---|
| “Animal Behaviour” |
| “Bao” |
| “Late Afternoon” |
| “One Small Step” |
| “Weekends” |
Most Deserving: N/A
Most Likely: “Bao”
BEST SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
| Film |
|---|
| “Detainment” |
| “Fauve” |
| “Marguerite” |
| “Mother” |
| “Skin” |
Most Deserving: N/A
Most Likely: “Skin”