Greetings, reader!
Well, award season is upon us - so much so, that the 94th Academy Awards are literally tonight. As is tradition, I shall be posting my predictions here, whilst heavily knocking on wood as my blog has a history of jinxing my prediction success. Before I had this blog of mine, I often got great scores on my prediction sheets - I think one year it was 21 out of 24. But ever since I started publishing my predictions for anyone to see, my success rate has plummeted, as witnessed by the subpar 12 out of 24 two years ago and 13 out of 23 last year. Maybe this will finally be my year!
Also, my two cents on the controversy regarding the cutting of certain categories from the ceremony: at this point, the Academy is a f**king joke. Attempting to get more viewers by cutting out the awarding of "less important" categories is idiotic and disrespectful. They actually thought that they could discredit the incredible work done by film editors, set designers, composers et cetera, at the expense of having more flashy entertainment and more focus on the 'sexier' categories, without pissing off every fan of cinema? So, yeah, I've really been enjoying all the backlash that the Academy has been getting for this derogatory bullshit, and I really hope next year's ceremony will once again be a celebration of the best in all of cinema, instead of just the famous people you see and recognize.
Best Writing - Original Screenplay: Belfast (Kenneth Branagh)
Once again, due to Covid reasons and student budget reasons, I haven't seen nearly as many of this year's Oscar nominees as I would have liked to. So, for a large chunk of my predictions, I'm going based on what I know about the films based on trailers, reviews, trends, award season hype et cetera. Best Original Screenplay is quite a toss-up, as a few of the films have a solid chance, but the one I'm going with is Kenneth Branagh's Belfast. The semi-autobiographical story of a young man's upbringing during the Troubles in Northern Ireland sure sounds like something right up the Academy's alley, and the film won the Golden Globe for best screenwriting (extra impressive since the Globes don't separate it into original and adapted screenplays, so it's just one award for all scripts).
Best Writing - Adapted Screenplay: The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion)
Thankfully, some of the Oscar films are available to see even when one's budget and/or coronavirus sensibilities don't allow a trip to the cinema - and such is the case with Netflix Original film The Power of the Dog, a film with twelve Oscar nominations (more than any other this year). It stands to reason that a film so Oscar-friendly will win at least some of its nominations, and Jane Campion's screenplay based on Thomas Savage's 1967 novel was certainly decent - I haven't read the book, so I can't say if it was as 100% masterfully adapted from page to screen as fellow nominee Dune, but I do know that a slow-paced character drama about sexuality, alcoholism and jealousy will win an Oscar for writing before a science fiction masterpiece any day of the week.
Best Visual Effects: Dune
Now here's a category that sci-fi films are worthy of, in the strange world of the Academy Awards. While all of the five nominees for Best Visual Effects have achieved great-looking landscapes in their own right, Denis Villeneuve's Dune is in a category of its own with its breathtaking visuals worthy of the world from Frank Herbert's imaginative source material. Dune got the second-most nominations this year, so it's pretty clear that the Academy does value its technical achievments, which is why I'm calling that it will win the most awards tonight.
Best Sound: Dune
Every year, there are one or two categories that I feel really sure about, while most ones are toss-ups at least to some degree. And just like last year and the year before that, I've picked the one individual category that I'm the most sure about, and promising that if I get this one wrong, I will watch all the Sharknado! movies and rank them in excruciating detail. I haven't had to do that yet, as 1917 did indeed win Best Cinematography two years ago, and Soul won Best Animated Feature last year.
This year, I'm making my annual Sharknado! promise about Dune winning best sound - as far as I know, no other nominee used methods such as collecting sand from Death Valley, California and dusting it with Rice Krispies in order to create the perfect auditive feel for the spice of Arrakis, not to mention burying an underwater microphone in the sand and whacking the sand with a mallet in order to create the sound of the thumper used in the film, and several other out-of-the-box methods in order to create the 3200 unique sound effects that came together to create Dune's soundscape.
Best Short Film - Live Action: The Long Goodbye (Aneil Karia & Riz Ahmed)
This powerful short film can be found on YouTube on Riz Ahmed's channel, and I do recommend watching it - in under 12 minutes, one is powerfully exposed to the blistering sense of fear in the lives of immigrants in Boris Johnson -age Britain. The short is certainly worthy of an Oscar, and all the signs seem to be pointing towards a win, as it has more hype around it than the other candidates and seems to be the most praised Oscar-nominated short film that we've seen in several years.
Best Short Film - Animated: Robin Robin (Dan Ojari and Mikey Please)
Netflix's Robin Robin seems to be more 'on the radar' than its fellow nominees, as witnessed by it having a higher IMDB nomination than the other four nominees for best animated short, and that rating being from a significantly larger amount of votes. The modern twist on classic stop-motion animation seems like an aesthetic the Academy would appreciate, and while I haven't gotten around to watching Robin Robin yet, I've gathered that its story about an animal's journey to self-discovery has 'Oscar bait' written all over it as well.
Best Production Design: Dune
This is one of the toughest categories to call - Nightmare Alley's film noir sets look very impressive based on the trailer alone, while The Power of the Dog's set department clearly put a lot of work into the film's western aesthetic, and Spielberg's West Side Story has been criticized a lot for "having no substance or anything new to say while looking fancy and extremely polished", which might hurt its Best Picture chances but give it a shot in visual categories like production design. Still, I'd say that the frontrunner is once again Dune, as the film's majestic sets are ambitious as hell and loyally adapted from the pages of Frank Herbert's novel.
Best Music - Original Song: Encanto (Lin-Manuel Miranda - Dos Oroguitas)
Every year, there are a few categories that are a clear two-horse race, and this year, Best Original Song is one of them. I'd be extremely surprised if any other nominee than Lin-Manuel Miranda's Dos Oroguitas from Encanto or Billie Eilish's No Time to Die from No Time to Die got the win, but between those two, it's fifty-fifty. On one hand, No Time to Die is an excellent Bond theme by the world's arguably biggest artist right now, and it won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song. On the other hand, Encanto is a critical darling that got nominated in several categories, and Dos Oroguitas is just the sort of powerful musical piece from an animated family film highlighting Latino culture that the Academy is prone to vote for. While neither choice will surprise me, I'm gonna go with Dos Oroguitas.
Best Music - Original Score: Dune (Hans Zimmer)
I haven't seen Encanto or Parallel Mothers yet, but after listening to their soundtracks on Spotify, it feels like it makes sense for their scores to be nominated, but neither felt especially much like a winner. Especially in a year when something as masterful and exceptional as Hans Zimmer's Dune score is nominated. I'll be mad as hell if Don't Look Up or The Power of the Dog somehow win this award, because while both had decent soundtracks arguably worthy of a nomination, neither was especially mind-blowing, groundbreaking or genius in the way that Dune's soundtrack absolutely was.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: The Eyes of Tammy Faye
In the last few years, the clear trend in this category has been highlighting films based on true stories, for their makeup and hairstyling departments transforming an actor to look exactly like the real-life icon they're portraying: the last four winners have been Darkest Hour where Gary Oldman looked more like Winston Churchill than Gary Oldman, Vice where Christian Bale was practically unrecognizable as Dick Cheney, Bombshell where John Lithgow became the spitting image of Roger Ailes, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom where Ma Rainey's one-of-a-kind look was recreated on Viola Davis.
While many films over the past year had brilliant instances of makeup and hairstyling, and it wouldn't surprise me if Dune or Cruella nabbed the win instead, my money is on the biopic trend continuing, and The Eyes of Tammy Faye winning thanks to the very accurate look of Jessica Chastain as televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker.
Best International Feature Film: Drive My Car
For the first time in years, this category isn't set in stone. The last few times, only one of the Best International Feature films has also been nominated for various other categories, and it has therefore been clear that it would at least win this one. But this time, there are multiple nominees also nominated in other categories - the Norwegian The Worst Person in the World is also nominated for Best Original Screenplay, the Japanese Drive My Car is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture, and the Danish Flee has the obscure combination of nominations for Best Documentary Feature, Best Animated Feature and Best International Feature (I'm guessing it's the first film in history to have those three nominations).
Still, I do see Drive My Car as the likeliest choice, because it's the only one out of the bunch with a Best Picture nomination, not to mention the fact that it won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.
Best Film Editing: Dune (Joe Walker)
Again, Dune is just such a well-made production wonder that I'll be baffled if it doesn't sweep many of the more technical categories. With the smooth yet intense flow from scene to scene, Joe Walker's editing is an elegant pairing to Denis Villeneuve's directing to give the film its signature feel, and this intricate job is thoroughly worthy of an Oscar. Of the other nominees, I haven't seen King Richard but I haven't heard anyone praising its editing in particular, tick, tick...Boom! was excellent with its editing but I reckon it's not really on the Academy's radar to win anything, and I'd be floored if The Power of the Dog or Don't Look Up won this category over Dune.
Best Documentary - Short Subject: Audible (Matt Ogens & Geoff McLean)
I actually spent more time analyzing this category than any other. It doesn't help that I haven't seen any of the five nominees, and have to go based on what I've heard and read, but it also doesn't help that the so-called 'Oscar factors' of these short documentaries are very evenly divided. On one hand, The Queen of Basketball has the easily highest IMDB rating and it highlights the role of women in sports in (I'd imagine) a very Oscar-bait-y way. On the other hand, Three Songs for Benazir seems to hit Oscar bingo as it follows a difficult marriage, set in war-torn Kabul, and it has gained attention from multiple film festivals. But then there's Audible, which many critics have cited as specifically Oscar-prone, and it has been talked about more than the other nominees. So this could easily go in any number of directions, but I'm going with Audible based on my gut feeling.
Best Documentary - Feature: Flee
Like Best Original Song, this appears to be a classic two-horse race. I'm quite confident, based on everything I've seen and heard, that Best Documentary Feature will be awarded either to Danish critical darling Flee, or music icon Questlove's acclaimed documentary Summer of Soul. Flee has a lot going on for it, as it deals with immigration and war and it's nominated in two other categories (International Feature and Animated Feature), but Summer of Soul also has a foot or two in the race, as Questlove apparently takes a powerful look at cultural pride and the Black experience via the lens of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival (I really want to see this movie), not to mention its BAFTA win for Best Documentary. Still, if only based on its other Oscar nominations, I'm gonna go with Flee, but I'll be happy if Questlove proves me wrong.
Best Directing: The Power of the Dog (Jane Campion)
Best Directing is often one of the most competitive categories, but this year, there's a clear frontrunner. I suppose the other nominees have a shot, as Kenneth Branagh's directing of Belfast has been praised (though not as much as his writing) and Steven Spielberg is Steven Spielberg, even when a film is NSFW ('not Spielberg's finest work'). But, the most likely candidate by all accounts is Jane Campion, with The Power of the Dog. With the Academy still trying to recover from backlash of not highlighting female directors, the more political side of the Oscars certainly has incentive to give this award to a female director for the second year in a row, and furthermore, it would be quite a deserved win - I found The Power of the Dog a bit overrated as a whole, but Campion's directing is always a class act.
Best Costume Design: Cruella (Jenny Beavan)
It's actually the negative reviews of this 101 Dalmatians prequel that convinced me of its Oscar chances - every single criticism I've heard of Cruella has been something along the lines of "Yeah, the story was laughable and cringey, but damn, those fantastical costumes did make it barely worth watching". Cruella's aesthetic has been praised a lot, and I figure it has a chance in both the Makeup & Hairstyling category as well as Costume Design, but I don't quite see a Cruella De Vil origin story winning two Oscars. My money is on it winning Costume Design, but I won't be surprised if the category goes to Dune or West Side Story instead.
Best Cinematography: Dune (Greig Fraser)
Most years, it's quite easy to separate my subjective feelings of who I want to win from my objective views on who is likely to win. This time around, those two are a bit muddled, because my feelings of Dune being so spectacularly well-made that it should win a shit-ton of Oscars are so strong. So, I don't know - it might just be wishful thinking that I'm betting on Greig Fraser's fantastic camerawork from Dune to nab a win. But I don't think so. Wishful thinking would be believing that Dune would win Best Picture or Best Adapted Screenplay, when obviously it won't. For Best Cinematography, though, I honestly believe in its chances, although the Academy might prefer The Power of the Dog for this category (though they really shouldn't).
Also, I'd be very content if the under-the-radar The Tragedy of Macbeth won this award, as the cinematography there was on par with Dune and poor Bruno Delbonnel has been nominated for six Oscars in his career yet has zero wins. But I'm guessing that Joel Coen's Shakespeare adaptation will continue to fly under the radar, and grab zero wins in the three categories it's nominated in.
Best Animated Feature Film: Encanto
This one is quite the no-brainer, with Encanto's cultural relevance, critical acclaim, Golden Globe win in the same category, and two other Oscar nominations taken into account. I suppose Flee has a slim chance as well, as it is also nominated for Best International Film and Best Documentary Feature (yes, I'm going to mention this in every category where Flee is nominated because it's such a top-tier fun fact), but I'm still guessing that they'll go with the heartfelt animated family film and not the animated Danish documentary.
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: West Side Story (Ariana DeBose)
It's a tale as old as time - no, I'm not talking about the classic 'Romeo and Juliet' narrative, but rather the fact that West Side Story gets remade on the stage dozens of times each year around the world, not to mention the already existing gold standard cinematic adaptation from 1961, which begs the question 'did we really need a big-screen remake of this musical?". Well, like it or not, a remake is what we got, and it has gotten a lot of acclaim despite very opinion-splitting overall reception.
One thing that people seem to agree on is that Ariana DeBose is great in the iconic role of Anita, and based on what I've seen of her acting/singing/dancing chops, I can certainly believe it. I might be relying a bit too much on Golden Globe precedent in my predictions, as they never tell the entire truth concerning the Oscars, but there is always quite a bit of correlation between the award ceremonies so it's a good elements to take into account - so yes, the fact that DeBose won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress is one more reason to believe that she just might do the same in the Oscars.
Best Actress in a Leading Role: The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Jessica Chastain)
This category is a tough one to call, as Nicole Kidman from Being the Ricardos also has a fair shot on all accounts. I'm still going with Jessica Chastain, who is apparently quite incredible in the role of televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. Having been nominated for films like The Help (2011) and Zero Dark Thirty (2012) but still having no Oscar wins on her resumé, Chastain's inevitable Academy Award is starting to feel long overdue and this might just be the year she gets there.
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Coda (Troy Kotsur)
While I haven't had a chance to see Coda, Troy Kotsur already has my respect - it cannot be easy to make it as a deaf actor, let alone making it all the way to an Oscar nomination. The Golden Globe in this category went to Kodi Smit-McPhee for The Power of the Dog, but with no disrespect to Smit-McPhee who certainly was decent in his role, it is hard to believe that his would be the best supporting male performance of the year. Therefore I'm betting he won't go on to win the Oscar, and based on all I've heard about Kotsur's performance in Coda, he seems like the likeliest out of the bunch to go all the way, which would be a historical feat for the deaf community.
Best Actor in a Leading Role: King Richard (Will Smith)
This one is tough - I haven't seen King Richard, but I've seen three of the other nominees, and it's hard to believe any performance from the past year being more powerful than Andrew Garfield in tick, tick...Boom! or Denzel Washington in The Tragedy of MacBeth. But, Will Smith's role as tennis coach Richard Williams in this biopic about sports and fatherhood has gotten immense acclaim, and King Richard seems like a much likelier film to play well with Academy critics than tick, tick...Boom! and The Tragedy of MacBeth.
It seems like the right time for Will Smith to win an Oscar, as his consistent career and legacy have come to the point where the sitcom where he originally broke through has just gotten the 'gritty reboot' treatment on Peacock. Say what you will, no matter how good Smith is in King Richard and even if he does win the Oscar, I'm standing by my statement that no moment in his career will ever top the scene in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990-1996) where his father has left him for the second time. That scene alone is enough to convince the world that this man had it in him to eventually win an Oscar and be among the greatest actors of his generation.
Best Picture: The Power of the Dog
A part of me is hoping that The Power of the Dog doesn't win Best Picture - no disrespect to this very well-made film which is especially notable for Jane Campion's atmospheric directing, but there were just so many better films in the past year. Still, can't complain too much if it takes the win; the people involved certainly worked hard for the film and the end result is quite beautiful in its own quaint way.
This Netflix original got 12 nominations, more than any other this year, and it won the Golden Globe for Best Picture, so all the signs are there. It also feels like typical 'Oscar bait', with its slow-paced character drama, strong performances by respected actors, and between-the-lines themes of envy, sexuality and illness woven into the story. A few other films, such as Belfast and Coda, have somewhat of a shot, but my money is on The Power of the Dog.
So, there are my predictions! Dune will win six awards, The Power of the Dog will win three, and Encanto and The Eyes of Tammy Faye will take two each. I'll let you know how I did with my prediction as a part of next week's post: the final post of Music Month! See you then.
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