Well, since the big show is tomorrow, I guess it’s time for me to try to predict what I think will win. Up until four weeks ago, I would thought Power of the Dog would be the obvious front runner but CODA seems to be the film that people are responding too. The same is true of Penelope Cruz, who went from being an also-ran to the new front runner in just a matter of days.
In short, this Oscar race is up in the air. Almost anything could happen. It should be exciting, though I think most people will be tuning in not to see who wins but to see how bad the show is.
Anyway, here are my predictions! We’ll see how right I am (or how wrong I am) tomorrow night!
Best Picture — CODA
Best Director — Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Best Actor — Will Smith, King Richard
Best Actress — Penelope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
Best Supporting Actor — Troy Kostur, CODA
Best Supporting Actress — Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
Best Original Screenplay — The Worst Person In The World
Best Adapted Screenplay — CODA
Best Animated Feature Film — Encanto
Best International Film — Drive My Car
Best Documentary Feature — Attica
Best Documentary Short Subject — Audible
Best Live Action Short Film — The Long Goodbye
Best Animated Short Film — Affairs of the Art
Best Original Score — Dune
Best Original Song — Dos Origuitas from Encanto
Best Sound — West Side Story
Best Production Design — Dune
Best Cinematography — The Power of the Dog
Best Costume Design — Nightmare Alley
Best Makeup and Hairstyling — The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Well, here we are. Another awards season is wrapping up. Almost all of the regional critic groups have announced their picks for the best of 2021. The Guilds have spoken. The front runners have emerged. Both Don’t Look Up and Being the Ricardos have weathered bad reviews and become probable Oscar nominees. If nothing else, I’ll have something to complain about for the next three or four months. At the same time, Power of the Dog has emerged as the critical favorite. Belfast seems to be the populist favorite. West Side Story is the big production that has to be nominated, even though no one seems to feel particularly strongly about it one way or the other. Dune is the blockbuster that the Academy is hoping will cause people to tune into the ceremony, especially now that it appears that the Spider-Man Oscar campaign has fizzled. Don’t Look Up is the “Let’s piss off the cons” nominee. Being the Ricardos is this year’s “Wow, our industry really is the best” nominee. Personally, I’m going to view tick, tick….Boom! as being the most likely dark horse to pull off an upset.
So, with all that in mind, here’s my last set of 2021 Oscar predictions.
Looking at the list below, I have to say that we certainly have a good race this year. It’s interesting that, this year, only films that were released between March and the end of December were eligible for the Oscars. 2021 was a very good year for movies! Not only do we have the nominees below but we also had films like The Father and Judas and the Black Messiah, both of which are 2021 films as far as I’m concerned.
(Consider this. If the Oscars had kept the eligibility window the same last year instead of extending it to accommodate films delayed by the pandemic, Anthony Hopkins would probably be the Best Actor front runner right now and the Academy probably would have given Chadwick Boseman a posthumous Best Actor award last April. I also imagine that Jesse Plemons would have a better chance of picking up a supporting actor nomination if the members of the Academy were currently screening both The Power of the Dog and Judas and the Black Messiah at the same time.)
The Detroit Film Critics Society announced their nominations for the best of 2021 earlier today. It’s an interesting group of nomination, though I would point out that Detroit is usually one of the quirkier of the critics groups. Every awards season, they nominate something or someone unexpected, there’s a brief flurry of excitement, and then everyone moves on.
I guess that’s one reason why I love them.
Anyway, here’s their nominations:
BEST PICTURE
Belfast
CODA
Cyrano
Don’t Look Up
King Richard
BEST DIRECTOR
Sean Baker – Red Rocket
Kenneth Branagh – Belfast
David Lowery – The Green Knight
Adam McKay – Don’t Look Up
Lan-Manuel Miranda – Tick, Tick…Boom!
BEST ACTOR
Nicolas Cage – Pig
Peter Dinklage – Cyrano
Andrew Garfield – Tick, Tick…Boom!
Oscar Isaac – The Card Counter
Will Smith – King Richard
BEST ACTRESS
Jessica Chastain – The Eyes Of Tammy Faye
Alana Haim – Licorice Pizza
Jennifer Hudson – Respect
Nicole Kidman – Being The Ricardos
Kristen Stewart – Spencer
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Jon Bernthal – King Richard
Troy Kotsur – CODA
Jared Leto – House Of Gucci
Ray Liotta – The Many Saints Of Newark
Kodi Smit-McPhee – The Power Of The Dog
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Ariana DeBose – West Side Story
Kirsten Dunst – The Power Of The Dog
Aunjanue Ellis – King Richard
Rita Moreno – West Side Story
Diana Rigg – Last Night In Soho
BEST ENSEMBLE
CODA
Don’t Look Up
The French Dispatch
The Harder They Fall
House Of Gucci
BREAKTHROUGH
Alana Haim – Actress – Licorice Pizza
Emilia Jones – Actress – CODA
Woody Norman – Actor – C’mon C’mon
Agathe Rousselle – Actress – Titane
Emma Seligman – Writer/Director – Shiva Baby
BEST USE OF MUSIC/SOUND
Cyrano
In The Heights
Last Night In Soho
Tick, Tick…Boom!
West Side Story
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Don’t Look Up
The French Dispatch
The Harder They Fall
Licorice Pizza
Parallel Mothers
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
CODA
The Green Knight
In The Heights
The Power Of The Dog
Tick, Tick…Boom!
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Belle
Cryptozoo
Encanto
Flee
Luca
The Mitchells vs. The Machines
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Flee
Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain
The Sparks Brothers
Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street
Summer Of Soul
It’s time to take a little break from horror so that I may once against do my list of my monthly Oscar predictions! I guess some people would consider predicting the Oscars to be a scary thing. Personally, I have fun doing it, even if my predictions often seem to be for naught. That said, I did manage to predict that Thomas Vinterberg would be nominated for Best Director last year so take that, haters.
Probably the biggest development this month is that I’ve lost all faith in Spielberg’s West Side Story. It’s just not getting the type of hype that I would expect from a Spielberg Oscar movie. In fact, it seems like everyone involved is in kind of a hurry to move on. So, for now, I’m dropping it from my predictions. While West Side Story goes, Dune has definitely established itself as a probable nominee. I think the only problem that Dune will have is the possibility of people saying, “We’ll just nominate the sequel instead.”
I’ve also added C’mon C’mon and Passing to my list of Best Picture nominees. This is almost totally due to their popularity with the Gothams. If the other critics groups don’t duplicate the love, they’ll probably get dropped from my predictions come January.
As always, keep in mind that I don’t claim to be an expert. The picture is a bit clearer but I don’t claim to have any inside information or anything like that. These are just my guesses, for better or worse. To see how my thinking has evolved, check out my predictions for March and April and May and June and July and August and September!
No, not that time! That time ended two days ago. I’m talking about the fact that it’s time for me to once again share my monthly Oscar predictions. Thanks to the festival circuit, we’ve finally gotten some advance word on the big Oscar contenders that will be coming out over the next few months.
Belfast, as of right now, sounds like the prohibitive favorite to win it all. At first, it seemed like the reaction to The Power of the Dog was a bit mixed but later reactions were almost overwhelmingly positive. It sounds like the type of film that will be nominated even if it won’t necessarily win. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter is coming on strong, as is Spencer. For me, the biggest surprise has been the amount of acclaim that Dune has been getting. I was a bit dismissive of its Oscar chances earlier this year but now it definitely sounds like it will be in the hunt.
West Side Story has been seen by no one but I continue to list it because it’s a Spielberg film and, with all the musicals that are being released this year and which have subsequently struggled with either critics or audiences or both, it still seems the most likely to pick up a nomination. I’m a little bit skeptical on whether or not Nightmare Alley is going to be an “Oscar picture” but the trailer was nice to look at so I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt. House of Gucci is three hours long and full of stars so it’s either going to be an Oscar nominee or a complete bomb.
You may notice a lack of predicted nominations for Licorice Pizza. Licorice Pizza is a film that I fully expect to love but the trailer definitely feels a bit more like Inherent Vice than The Phantom Thread. I still think that the actors could get nominated but the rumor right now is that Bradley Cooper’s role is actually very small. That’s why I no longer have him listed as a supporting actor nominee.
Again, keep in mind that I’m not an expert. The picture is a bit clearer but I don’t claim to have any inside information or anything like that. These are just my guesses, for better or worse. To see how my thinking has evolved, check out my predictions for March and April and May and June and July and August!
It’s time for me to do my monthly Oscar predictions. Again, as I’ve said in the past, the majority of these predictions are based on a combination of instinct and wishful thinking. However, the picture may become a bit clearer as early as the end of this week. With the Venice and Telluride film festivals right around the corner and Toronto also swift approaching, critics are finally going to get a chance to see some of the contenders and, as the early reviews come in, it should be easier to pick the probable nominees from the also-rans.
Personally, I will curious to see how people react to Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog. Among the other possibilities that we’ll be hearing about: Spencer, King Richard, Dune, The Lost Daughter, The Last Duel, and Belfast.
If you’re curious to see how my thinking has developed, check out my predictions for March and April and May and June and July!
It’s that time of the month again! It’s time for me to make my early Oscar predictions.
This year, the Cannes Film Festival really didn’t clear much up. TheFrenchDispatch was acclaimed but, in every review, there was an admission that, for everyone who absolutely loved it, there would probably be someone else who would absolutely hate it. I did decided to include RedRocket on my list of predictions, based on the Cannes reaction. I’m still not a 100% convinced that it’s going to be a contender, of course. But the idea of a Simon Rex movie being nominated for best picture was just too wonderfully strange for me to ignore. That’s the same logic that led to me including Pig as a best picture nominee, by the way.
On the Ridely Scott front, the overacting in the trailer for HouseofGucci really turned me off so I dropped it from all of my predictions. TheLastDuel looks like it might have a chance, however.
Anyway, the main thing to remember when looking at these predictions is that the majority of them are just random guesses, based on hunches and past Academy behavior. So, as always, take them with several grains of salt.
If you’re curious to see how my thinking has developed, check out my predictions for March and April and May and June!
It’s the end of the month and that means that it’s time for me to post my monthly predictions!
What has chanced since I last made my predictions in May? Though it was acclaimed by critics, the box office failure of InTheHeights has probably ended that film’s time as an Oscar contender. For all the musicals that are coming out this year, only Spielberg’s WestSideStory really seems like a good bet to emerge as a major contender. DearEvanHansen was pretty much eliminated from consideration as soon as its trailer dropped. Tick, Tick….Boom seems to be destined to be loved by theater kids while being dismissed by everyone else. I’d love to see Joe Wright and Peter Dinklage nominated but my instincts are telling me that Cyrano will probably not be a huge contender. In the end, WestSideStory seems like the most likely musical nominee.
I’ve been reading up on Jane Campion’s ThePoweroftheDog, which is set to premiere at Venice and then be released via Netflix. Based on a novel by Thomas Savage, this sounds like the type of film that could potentially be a strong contender, depending on what approach Campion takes the story. The main character of Phil Burbank is the type of bigger-than-life role that could lead to Oscar glory. (The closest recent equivalent to Phil would probably be Daniel Day-Lewis in ThereWillBeBlood.) Phil is a sharply intelligent but cruelly manipulative Montana rancher, the type who brags about castrating cattle while quoting Ovid and who goes out of his way to bully anyone who he considers to be effeminate. Of course, there’s a secret behind all of Phil’s cruelty and how the film handles that secret will have a lot to do with how strongly the film comes on during awards season. Phil is being played by Benedict Cumberbatch, which is …. interesting casting. (Personally, I probably would have begged Michael Fassbender to take the role.) Still, it seems like Phil could be the type of change-of-pace role that, should Cumberbatch’s casting pay off, could lead to Oscar glory.
Coming up in July, we’ve got Cannes and we’ll be getting our first look at contenders like Wes Anderson’s TheFrenchDispatch. Though Cannes is hardly a reliable precursor, the Oscar race should start to become a bit clearer as the festival start up and the contenders — many of which we’ve been waiting to see for over two years — will finally start to be released. Until then, take all predictions with a grain of salt!
If you’re curious to see how my thinking has developed, check out my predictions for March and April and May.
I was recently surprised to discover that Jessica Chastain has only been nominated for two Oscars. She received a best supporting actress nomination for her role in The Help (and mind you, this was the year in which she also appeared in The Tree of Life and Take Shelter) and she received a nomination for best actress for her role in Zero Dark Thirty. Though her performances in Miss Sloane, A Most Violent Year, Molly’s Game, and Crimson Peak all received some buzz, none of them led to an Oscar nomination. That’s odd, as Jessica Chastain is one of those actresses who I think we tend to assume gets nominated every year. There’s already a narrative about how she’s long overdue for an Oscar.
Well, this year, she’ll be getting another shot at the Oscar. For that matter, so will Andrew Garfield and Vincent D’Onofrio. (Garfield was nominated for Hacksaw Ridge. D’Onofrio has never been nominated that, in all fairness to the Academy, he’s recently been more busy on television than in the movies.) They will be appearing in the upcoming autobiographical film, The Eyes of Tammy Faye. This film is directed by Michael Showalter, who previously did the respected (if not exactly Oscar-embraced) The Big Sick. Chastain and Garfield will be playing televangelists Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker. D’Onofrio will be playing Jerry Falwell. One imagines that the film will not only give them a chance to pick up some of those “I barely recognized them, they were so good!” reviews but it will also probably pick up some “If you want to understand how Trump happened, watch this movie” buzz. That could add up to Oscar glory, though I’m not sure if the early September release date is going to do the film any favors. With the way awards seasons goes, the most acclaimed films of September often seem to be forgotten by the time January roles around.
The trailer was released earlier today. As I watched it, I found myself thinking about I, Tonya, a film that picked up a lot of acting nominations, even if it didn’t pick up a nomination for best picture. Who knows? It’s probably silly to even speculate at this point. I will say that, based on the trailer, Chastain and Garfield’s performances both look really good while D’Ononfrio looks just a bit …. well, hammy. But sometimes, hammy works!
The film is set to be released on September 17th. Here’s the trailer:
It’s that time of the month again! It’s time for me to go out on a limb and attempt to predict what will be nominated for the Oscars. Of course, trying to do this early in the year is a fool’s errand. We all know that. That’s actually part of the fun.
As of right now, the list below is full of familiar names, a few films that were acclaimed at Sundance, and a few random guesses. A lot of the predicted nominees are films that were expected to be Oscar contenders last year but which were delayed due to the pandemic. (Looking at you, West Side Story.) Some of them are contenders that I personally would just like to see nominated, even though it probably won’t happen. (I’m not going to jinx anything by pointing out which nomination about which I’m specifically thinking. You’ll probably be able to guess for yourself.) Over the next few months, the Oscar picture will become a bit clearer. Many of the contenders listed below will be forgotten about. Meanwhile, new contenders will emerge. My point is, take it all with a grain of salt and don’t put down any money just yet.
Two big developments to keep in mind:
First off, the Academy is officially going back to having a set a number of nominees. Next year, ten films will be nominated for best picture. Not seven. Not nine. Ten. Personally, I’m thrilled by this development. Nothing irritated me more than when they used to announce those weird, seven-picture lineups. (As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t like odd numbers.)
Secondly, the Academy is going back to the old eligibility dates. Yay! What that means is that only films that are released between March and the end of this year will be eligible to compete for the Oscars. More importantly, it means that the best film of 2021 will not be released in 2022.
Anyway, here are my predictions for this month! Don’t take them too seriously. If you want to see how my thinking has evolved, check out my predictions for March and April.
Through the Shattered Lens 