The long slog to Oscar Sunday is almost over. You're tired, I'm tired. This, despite the Olympics pushing the Oscar ceremony to June.
Thus, the usual overanalyzing, politicizing, backlashing, surging, and pontificating has been in overdrive. The result? Best Picture is still up in the air as I write this. The preferential ballot is the wild card and has been since BP went to more than five films. Forget the guild winners, for those ships have sailed. They're not the barometers they used to be, which makes this all the more fun, and frustrating as hell.
I've always said that Best Picture, for me, was an afterthought, because I'm the geek who cares about writing and editing and cinematography (and I don't know shit about sound, nor do you). Various elements make a movie, but Best Picture is the shiny object Hollywood wants to hold up to the world to say, "See what we made?" It's about putting butts in seats, not art, these awards, sadly. However, sometimes better, less pedestrian films break through, which is why the Oscars are like a bad car accident, we can't help but look at them despite ourselves.
You have to admit, last year's envelope snafu was a hell of a lot of fun. But what I like to keep pointing out is that art did break out last year. Moonlight, the small-budgeted film that could with fine performances, a terrific screenplay, and a last shot that packs an emotional wallop, won fucking Best Picture, and that fact has gotten lost in the shuffle.
Will a more artistic film break out again this year, what with the more diverse makeup of new Academy members? The jury's still out, because just because a new crop of voters have joined the Academy doesn't mean they won't also give their ballots to others to vote, vote for studios that employed them, etc. I've always appreciated more the nominations over the wins because that's where the true diversity lies. I think this is largely because each faction votes only for their own categories (actors for acting, editors for editing, etc.). With the entire membership voting for every category, this is why we are back to square one of trying to figure out what will win any category, especially Best Picture this year.
If I was a voting member of the Academy (and I still hold to my claim of willing to sleep with a member of PricewaterhouseCoopers to get the vote totals for any given year), this is how I would vote for the major categories:
Picture
Lady Bird
Phantom Thread
The Shape of Water
Get Out
Call Me By Your Name
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
The Post
The Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Acting
Timothee Chalamet
Saoirse Ronan
Woody Harrelson
Laurie Metcalf
Writing
Lady Bird
Call Me By Your Name
But I'm not a voting member of the Academy.
My last-minute observations:
1--Don't count on Editing to tip you off to what will win BP. I think Baby Driver will win. But if you see a couple of early awards for Three Billboards or The Shape of Water, maybe. But it was an hour and a half into the show last year before La La Land won its first award. The days of folks ticking off a single film to sweep awards are gone, baby, gone.
2--Roger Deakins will finally win a goddamned Oscar more than likely. Won't be upset with Shape of Water if it wins, and this may be more an indicator of BP this year.
3--I know Agnes Varda won an honorary Oscar this year, so will she or one of J.R.'s cutouts make an appearance? I still can't believe this is her first nomination (not for Vagabond? Seriously?), and I think she will and hope she wins. Her win and Deakins will make my year.
4--You know how romantic it seems to shower with your significant other? The problem with this is that someone always is left cold. When the nominations were announced, I thought that Get Out would be that film to be left out in terms of any wins, especially with just four nominations. But my gut this past week says that Lady Bird will be the one to go empty-handed, and it pisses me off. I thought Lady Bird (and Phantom Thread) was the best film of the year, it was quite well reviewed, and I know a lot of folks love Ronan. As much as I loved Brie Larson in Room, I think that vote total was closer than we think because there have been a lot of folks invoke Ronan's performance in Brooklyn when discussing her nod this year. Will voters tick off her name to make up for Brooklyn, not unlike Renee Zellweger winning for Cold Mountain (which I thought she deserved/earned) when she should have won for Chicago? Maybe. Ronan's the only threat to McDormand (and Sally Hawkins is lovely, and she should have been up for Happy Go Lucky, underrated). And, seriously, like being on the jury to convict OJ, would you vote against McDormand? She can do anything. She's not as good here as she was in Fargo, but she and Harrelson are what make Three Billboards work, not the directing and definitely not the screenplay, for Martin McDonagh; he wrote himself into a hole in the last third of the film. I enjoyed the hell out of it, I didn't find it racist, and I like the sloppy aspects. But the best? Nope.
5--If Jordan Peele should win in any category, I would love to see Keegan-Michael Key come out and translate his acceptance speech.
6--I think there are two possibilities of upsets for acting. One is Christopher Plummer over Sam Rockwell, not because of the circumstance under which Plummer replaced Kevin Spacey, but he is beloved and is fine in All the Money in the World. Wouldn't it be funny if he and Varda both win, making them the oldest Oscar winners in history? The other, more plausible possibility is Laurie Metcalf over Allison Janney. I've heard several members say they didn't vote Janney (whom I've always liked and hope she wins), and the chatter I heard toward when ballots were due was more for Metcalf than for any other aspect of Lady Bird, including Gerwig or Screenplay. Will she win ala Marcia Gay Harden in Pollock? Maybe it's wishful thinking of seeing an upset because Metcalf embodies everything a girl has endured with her mom, but it could happen.
7--And how the hell has Gary Oldman not won an Oscar nor had more nomination by now?
8--If there are a few upsets, think Russia had anything to do with it?
9--Should be a fun show. And the team of Jennifer Lawrence and Jodie Foster presenting Best Actor in lieu of Casey Affleck (who had no business winning last year anyway) is a class act. And will be interesting to see what politics pop loose via acceptance speeches and such.
10--Finally, I said after the nominations that I thought there would not be a Picture/Director split, even with this volatile year. Any film could pop loose because we don't know if voters even ranked all the nominated films. I said it would be The Shape of Water/Del Toro, and I still favor Shape because I flipped a coin.
Enough. Here are my predictions, with my upsets:
Best Picture: The Shape of Water
upset:
Best Actor: Gary Oldman
upset: Timothee Chalamet
Best Actress: Frances McDormand
upset: Saoirse Ronan
Best Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell
upset: Christopher Plummer
Best Supporting Actress: Allison Janney
upset: Laurie Metcalf
Best Original Screenplay: Get Out
upset: Lady Bird
Best Adapted Screenplay: Call Me By Your Name
upset: Mudbound
Best Animated Feature: Coco
upset: Loving Vincent
Best Foreign-Language Film: A Fantastic Woman
upset: Loveless
Best Original Score: The Shape of Water
upset: Phantom Thread
Best Original Song: "This is Me"
upset: "Remember Me"
Best Cinematography: Blade Runner 2049
upset: The Shape of Water
Best Editing: Baby Driver
upset: Dunkirk
Best Production Design: The Shape of Water
upset: Blade Runner 2049
Best Costume Design: Phantom Thread
upset: Victoria and Abdul
Best Sound Editing: Dunkirk
upset: The Shape of Water
Best Sound Mixing: Dunkirk
upset: The Shape of Water
Best Visual Effects: War for the Planet of the Apes
upset: Blade Runner 2049
Best Makeup: The Darkest Hour
upset: Wonder
Best Documentary Feature: Faces Places
upset: Icarus
Best Documentary Short Subject: Heroin(e)
upset: Edith + Eddie
Best Animated Short: Dear Basketball
upset: Lou
Best Live Action Short: DeKalb Elementary
upset: The Silent Child
Wins
The Shape of Water 5
Three Billboards 3
The Darkest Hour 2
Dunkirk 2
Get Out 1
Call Me/Name 1
Lady Bird 0 (Damn it!)
Running Time: 3 Hours 26 Minutes
Them's my predix, and I'm sticking to them. As usual, I'll be venting my annual rite of passage via Facebook and Twitter (@Franster23) in all my perverse glory. No Oscar pool again, saving my energy and funds for my March Madness pool (and you thought the Oscars this year are unpredictable) and to patch a hole in the wall in the event I punch a hole through it tomorrow night.
Buckle up, peeps! Happy Oscar Sunday, y'all! And, of course, Shalom!
