1. The Souvenir
2. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
3. Uncut Gems
4. Luce
5. The Irishman
6. Parasite
7. The Lighthouse
8. Crawl
9. Dragged Across Concrete
10. Doletmite Is My Name
11. Avengers: Endgame
12. 1917
13. Joker
14. The Two Popes
15. The Aeronauts
16. Hustlers
17. The Report
18. Brittany Runs A Marathon
19. Rocketman
20. The Last Black Man in San Francisco
21. Apollo 11
22. I Lost My Body
23. The Farewell
24. Us
25. Midsommar
26. Spider-Man: Far From Home
For those of you trying to perfect your Oscar nominations before they’re announced in January, here are the 20 semi-finalists for the Best Visual Effects Oscar! So, if you were planning on predicting a nomination for Godzilla or Shazam!, drop them from your list because they didn’t make it. Instead, the nominees will come from the list below:
The Hollywood Critics Association was, up until a few days ago, known as the Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society. Perhaps realizing that HCA just plans looks better than LAOFCS, they announced yesterday that they were changing their name.
They also announced their nominees for the best of films and performances of 2019! While the HCA may not be one of the major precursors of awards season, their nominations do give a fairly good picture of which films and performances are currently being touted as possible Oscar nominees.
And here they are:
BEST PICTURE
“1917”
“Booksmart”
“The Farewell”
“The Irishman”
“Joker”
“Jojo Rabbit”
“Parasite”
“Marriage Story”
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
“Waves
BEST ACTOR
Adam Driver, “Marriage Story”
Eddie Murphy, “Dolemite Is My Name”
Joaquin Phoenix, “Joker”
Leonardo DiCaprio, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
“Taron Egerton, “Rocketman”
BEST ACTRESS
Awkwafina, “The Farewell”
“Charlize Theron, “Bombshell”
Lupita Nyong’o, “Us”
Renée Zellweger, “Judy”
Scarlett Johansson, “Marriage Story”
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Brad Pitt, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Joe Pesci, “The Irishman”
Shia LaBeouf, “Honey Boy”
Sterling K. Brown, “Waves”
Tom Hanks, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jennifer Lopez, “Hustlers”
Laura Dern, “Marriage Story”
Margot Robbie, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Taylor Russell, “Waves”
Zhao Shuzhen, “The Farewell”
BEST MALE DIRECTOR
Bong Joon-ho, “Parasite”
Martin Scorsese, “The Irishman”
Noah Baumbach, “Marriage Story”
Quentin Tarantino, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Taika Waititi, “Jojo Rabbit”
BEST FEMALE DIRECTOR
Alma Har’el, “Honey Boy”
Greta Gerwig, “Little Women”
Lorene Scafaria, “Hustlers”
Lulu Wang, “The Farewell”
Olivia Wilde, “Booksmart”
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Bong Joon-ho & Han Jin-won, “Parasite”
Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel, & Katie Silberman, “Booksmart”
Lulu Wang, “The Farewell”
Noah Baumbach, “Marriage Story”
Rian Johnson, “Knives Out”
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Anthony McCarten, “The Two Popes”
Lorene Scafaria, “Hustlers”
Scott Silver and Todd Phillips, “Joker”
Steven Zailian, “The Irishman”
Taika Waititi, “Jojo Rabbit”
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR OR ACTRESS 23 AND UNDER
Kaitlyn Dever, “Booksmart”
Julia Butters, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Noah Jupe, “Honey Boy”
Roman Griffin Davis, “Jojo Rabbit”
Thomasin McKenzie, “Jojo Rabbit”
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE
Jessie Buckley, “Wild Rose”
Kelvin Harrison Jr., “Waves”
Paul Walter Hauser, “Richard Jewell”
Taylor Russell, “Waves”
Zack Gottsagen, “The Peanut Butter Falcon”
BEST CAST
“Avengers: Endgame”
“The Irishman”
“Knives Out”
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
“Waves”
BEST FIRST FEATURE
“Brittany Runs a Marathon”
“Booksmart”
“Honey Boy”
“The Peanut Butter Falcon”
“Queen & Slim”
BEST INDEPENDENT FILM
“Booksmart”
“The Farewell”
“Honey Boy”
“Luce”
“Waves”
BEST ACTION/WAR FILM
“1917”
“Avengers: Endgame”
“Captain Marvel”
“Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw”
“John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum”
BEST ANIMATED FILM
“Abominable”
“Frozen II”
“How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World”
“Missing Link”
“Toy Story 4”
BEST BLOCKBUSTER
“Avengers: Endgame”
“Captain Marvel”
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
“Shazam!”
“Spider-Man: Far from Home”
BEST COMEDY/MUSICAL
“Booksmart”
“Blinded by the Light”
Dolemite Is My Name”
“Long Shot”
“Rocketman”
BEST DOCUMENTARY
“American Factory”
“Apollo 11”
“Hail Satan?”
“The Kingmaker”
“Love, Antosha”
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
“The Farewell”
“Monos”
“Pain & Glory”
“Parasite”
“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”
BEST HORROR FILM
“Crawl”
“Doctor Sleep”
“Midsommar”
“Ready or Not”
“Us”
BEST ANIMATED OR VFX PERFORMANCE
Josh Brolin, “Avengers: Endgame”
Robert De Niro, “The Irishman”
Rosa Salazar, “Alita: Battle Angel”
Ryan Reynolds, “Detective Pikachu”
Tom Hanks, “Toy Story 4”
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Drew Daniel, “Waves”
Jarin Blaschke, “The Lighthouse”
Lawrence Sher, “Joker”
Robert Richardson, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Roger Deakins, “1917”
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Arianne Phillips, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Julian Day, “Rocketman”
Jacqueline Durran, “Little Women”
Ruth E. Carter, “Dolemite Is My Name”
Mark Bridges, “Joker”
BEST EDITING
Fred Raskin, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Lee Smith, “1917”
Michael McCusker, “Ford v Ferrari”
Thelma Schoonmaker, ‘The Irishman”
Yang Jin-mo, “Parasite”
BEST HAIR AND MAKEUP
“Bombshell”
“Joker”
“Judy”
“Rocketman”
“The Irishman”
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Catchy Song” from “The Lego Movie: The Second Part”
The new trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home opens with a warning from Tom Holland. Do not watch this trailer if you have not seen Avengers: Endgame and you want to avoid spoilers. It should also go without saying that, if you are avoiding Endgame spoilers, do not read any further on this post.
Spoilers below:
Judging from the trailer, Spider-Man: Far From Home finds Peter Parker mourning the loss of his mentor, Tony Stark. Looking to get away from the pressures of crime fighting and saving the world and also wanting to pursue his crush on Zendaya’s MJ, Peter joins his classmates on a trip to Europe. Were all of Peter’s classmates from Spider-Man: Homecoming wiped out by the Snap? According to Avengers: Endgame, bringing everyone back did not change anything that happened over the previous five years. Peter got lucky that MJ apparently wasn’t around to graduate high school and move away while he was non-existent.
Peter may want to escape from it all but Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury has other ideas. Judging from the trailer, it appears that Peter has replaced Tony with three new mentors, Nick Fury, Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau, making the transition over from the Iron Man films), and Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio. Of course, anyone who is familiar with Mysterio’s history knows that Peter should be careful about trusting him.
The trailer also introduces the concept of the Multiverse. With all the questions that Endgame raised about time travel and alternate realities, the Multiverse is surely going to be an important factor moving forward. For instance, it may explain how there’s both a Loki TV show and a Black Widow movie in production when both of those characters were apparently very dead at the end of Avengers: Endgame.
Spider-Man: Homecoming was the Spider-Man that fans have been waiting for. It was able to balance the character of Peter Parker and his alter-ego of Spider-Man. Where the Sam Raimi version was able to make the former stand-out at the cost of the Spider-Man alter, the Marc Webb version swapped the two dynamics. Webb’s version had a great Spider-Man but had a Peter Parker whose moral compass was a bit skewed.
Jon Watt’s Spider-Man and Peter Parker were a nice balance. It helped that the character was now free (to a degree) to play in the huge cinematic sandbox that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Last we saw Spider-Man and Peter Parker, he was dusted just like half the living things in the universe following the Thanos Snap. The question that gets brought up whenever Spider-man: Far From Home, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming, gets talked about is does this film take away from the emotional sucker punch that was Avengers: Infinity War and it’s upcoming sequel, Avengers: Endgame.
From this teaser trailer and it’s international version has shown, the question still remains as both teasers mention nothing about the Avengers and keeps the timeline of the film vague enough to make one wonder if this sequel happens before Avengers: Infinity War.
I guess fans will find out on July 5, 2019 when the film is released worldwide.
Through the Shattered Lens 