Technicolor Trumps All: The MS Maven's Fearless Oscar Predix 2017

"City of Stars" was good the first hundred times I heard it. But how many times will we hear it played come Oscar Sunday? Methinks La La Land will win nine times, barring an upset in Song or Sound  Mixing.

Yes, La La Land will win a shit ton of Oscars. Usually an indicator for how Best Picture will go is by seeing what film wins Editing, which I expect La La to do. Now, many are predicting the win in Sound Mixing, but if you see it also win Sound Editing? Game over.

But I'm not so sure a juggernaut will take place because I don't know if Academy members have just ticked off their ballots or that everyone that went ga ga for La La cooled a bit. A month ago there was a surge for Hidden Figures, a well-acted (Henson and Monae should have been up; I love you, Octavia, but still) crowd-pleaser that struck a chord, but then that film seemed to cool. As the ballots came due this past week, it seemed there was a lot of resurgent love for Moonlight, which pleases The Maven greatly. Will this translate into a Picture win? Probably not, but w/ the preferential ballot, who knows?

Moonlight will get some love for Ali (probably, but I'll get to that) and for Jenkins (Adapted Screenplay). But there's not much room to spread the wealth this year unless a backlash has kicked in against La La, and I don't think it has. And in this almost week-long nadir between the final ballots and the show is when you hear the crazy theories, talk of backlash, and, this year, trolls trying to politicize La La Land for not being representative, yada yada. This is called the boredom before the storm, so please stop.

But the ceremony will be political, and while I think/hope it will be fun show, I hope some folks are vocal and burn it down. Will shake up the ceremony a bit. I will only say this about the diversity issue that has kicked around the past couple of years: The non-white nominees this year are damned good overall, period, no matter the color. Last year, save for Idris Elba not making it for Supporting Actor, the films and performances just weren't there (and Will Smith in Concussion doesn't count, it was pedestrian and you know it, so don't @ me), while an abundance of good films and performances flooded the zone this year. And as I mentioned last year, this has more to do w/ Oscar politics and release schedules and not racial politics. And if it meant getting a crop of films and performances that will be remembered for years (Washington and Davis's performances in Fences are two of the best, up there w/ DeNiro in Raging Bull, Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influcence, Robert Duvall in The Apostle, Elizabeth Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, etc, because something snapped loose in them, allowing them to embody culture and humanity in a new way, filmed play or no. If Davis doesn't win, I may wind up throwing a beer can like I did in 1992 when Marisa Tomei won for My Cousin Vinny. My then-roommate still hasn't recovered.

So, what's sad is w/ this decent crop of good films and performances, a few will be hosed, such as Hidden Figures, Arrival, Lion, and Hell or High Water. Look at it this way: Star Trek Beyond will have an Oscar for Visual Effects and these films won't. Call it the Kim Basinger Effect.

If there is one surprise that I will predict (and I have as an upset, no guts to call it outright), it is that Dev Patel may win for Lion. He's a terrific actor (even in Slumdog Millionaire, not my favorite film) who's quietly built a solid career, and many like him. And many folks like his film, as do I. Plus, he's hot, but that's for another discussion.But there's been a bit of rumbling about his performance, and I've also heard several folks voting for Viggo Mortensen, which is a bit curious considering the film had a good run early in the year, and he's not campaigned much. And I will also posit that Joe Walker may win Editing for Arrival, a film I cannot stand but is quite well edited. So I don't foresee a Brexit happening here.

So that's the end of my 77-minute analysis of how these awards may go, so enough already. Here are my predictions, with the upsets:

Best Picture: La La Land
Upset: Moonlight

Best Director: Damien Chazelle
Upset: Barry Jenkins

Best Actor: Denzel Washington
Upset: Casey Affleck

Best Actress: Emma Stone
Upset: Isabelle Huppert

Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali
Upset: Dev Patel

Best Supporting Actress: Viola Davis
Upset: Michelle Williams

Best Original Screenplay: Manchester By the Sea
Upset: Hell or High Water

Best Adapted Screenplay: Moonlight
Upset: Hidden Figures

Best Animated Feature: Zootopia
Upset: Kubo and the Two Strings

Best Foreign-Language Film: The Salesman
Upset: Toni Erdmann

Best Original Score: La La Land
Upset: Moonlight

Best Original Song: "City of Stars"
Upset: "How Far I'll Go"

Best Cinematography: La La Land
Upset: Lion

Best Editing: La La Land
Upset: Arrival

Best Production Design: La La Land
Upset: Arrival

Best Costume Design: Jackie
Upset: La La Land

Best Sound Editing: Hacksaw Ridge
Upset: La La Land

Best Sound Mixing: La La Land
Upset: Arrival

Best Visual Effects: The Jungle Book
Upset: Kubo and the Two Strings

Best Makeup: Star Trek Beyond
Upset: A Man Called Ove

Best Documentary Feature: OJ: Made in America
Upset: I Am Not Your Negro

Best Documentary Short: Joe's Violin
Upset: The White Helmets

Best Animated Short: Piper
Upset: Pearl

Best Live-Action Short: Ennemis Interieurs
Upset: Timecode

Wins

La La Land                    9

Moonlight                      2

Fences                            2

Manchester By the Sea   1

Hacksaw Ridge              1

Running Time: 3 Hours 26 Minutes

Them's my prefix, and I'm sticking to them. As usual, I'll vent my annual rite of Oscar passage via Facebook and Twitter in all my Maven glory. Again, no Oscar pool, March Madness awaits. Here's hoping someone streaks, preferably Dev!

Happy Oscar Sunday, y'all! And. of course, shalom...