Talk Elections

Film Discussion & Awards Season Discussion

I'm pretty into films and awards season, and I like to discuss upcoming awards as well as years past. The thread about Joker is showing me that others like to discuss as well. Here's a thread for that. This also for discussing movies in general, as long as they're well made or half-decent. Fast & Furious 9 and badly written comedy / action can be discussed if you really want to, but intended the focus here is more on film: acting, directing, screenplay, editing, pacing, score, plot, cinematography, etc.

Discussion of 2024 movies
Will Dune: Part Two win Best Picture? Which films do you think will be big players this year? Will Sing Sing go far and maybe win it all as the pundits are predicting, or is that premature? Will Conclave, Queer, Blitz, Flint Strong get into Best Picture? Will Coppola's new film Megalopolis be a dud?

Discussion of 2023 movies
Did Oppenheimer deserve to win Best Picture over Barbie, Poor Things, Killers Of The Flower Moon, Anatomy Of A Fall? Did Killers Of The Flower Moon deserve zero Oscar wins (including Actress)? Do you think Anatomy Of A Fall would have defeated The Zone Of Interest for International Feature if France had submitted it to the Oscars? Should Past Lives been nominated in more than 2 categories?

Discussion of 2022 movies
Did Everything Everything All At Once deserve to perform so strong at the Oscars? Should Babylon and the performances from Babylon have been nominated in the bigger categories? Which awards were you disappointed about the results of?

Discussion of 2021 movies
Did you find The Power Of The Dog leading the pack all year to be boring? Were you happy with CODA winning Best Picture? Were you annoyed at some of the extremely well made films like The Greeen Knight, Spencer, The Humans all getting zero nominations for technical categories?

Discussion of 2020 movies
Did you find Nomadland leading the pack all year to be boring? Should The Father have won instead? Were you annoyed that Another Round didn't get into Best Picture? Was Mank under-nominated?

Discussion of 2019 movies
Did 1917 deserve to win Best Picture or at the very least Director over Parasite? Did Marriage Story deserve more Oscars than the one it got? Did The Irishman winning zero Oscars sit well with you? All 5 directing nominees were men, but did all 5 deserve to be nominated over Greta Gerwig for Little Women?

Gonna leave some stuff here, just for reference:


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

2023 films - Oscars - Best Picture nominees
- American Fiction
- Anatomy Of A Fall [Anatomie D'Une Chute]
- Barbie
- The Holdovers
- Killers Of The Flower Moon (apple)
- Maestro (netflix)
- Oppenheimer (winner)
- Past Lives
- Poor Things
- The Zone Of Interest

2022 films - Oscars - Best Director/Screenplay (but not Picture) nominees
- May December (netflix in North America)

2022 films - Other notable films

- (documentary) 20 Days In Mariupol
- A Thousand And One
- All Of Us Strangers
- (documentary) American Symphony (netflix)
- Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
- BlackBerry
- The Boy And The Heron
- The Color Purple
- The Creator
- Creed III
- Dream Scenario
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
- Elemental
- Fallen Leaves [Kuolleet Lehdet]
- Godzilla Minus One
- Guardians Of The Galaxy: Vol. 3
- How To Have Sex
- The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes
- Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny
- The Killer (netflix)
- Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning
- Monster [怪物]
- Napoleon (apple)
- Nimona (netflix)
- Nyad (netflix)
- Origin
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
- The Peasants [Chłopi]
- Perfect Days
- Priscilla
- Robot Dreams
- Rustin (netflix)
- Rye Lane
- Society Of The Snow [La Sociedad De La Nieve]
- Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse
- The Taste Of Things [La Passion De Dodin Bouffant]
- They Cloned Tyrone (netflix)
- Wonka

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

2022 films - Oscars - Best Picture nominees
- All Quiet On The Western Front [Im Westen Nichts Neues] (netflix)
- Avatar: The Way Of Water
- The Banshees Of Inisherin
- Elvis
- Everything Everywhere All At Once (winner)
- The Fabelmans
- TÁR
- Top Gun: Maverick
- Triangle Of Sadness
- Women Talking

2022 films - Oscars - Best Director/Screenplay (but not Picture) nominees
- Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (netflix)
- Living

2022 films - Other notable films

- Aftersun
- [documentary] All The Beauty And The Bloodshed
- Argentina, 1985
- Barbarian
- The Batman
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
- Bones & All
- Decision To Leave
- Empire Of Light
- [documentary] Fire Of Love
- Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (netflix)
- Morbius
- [documentary] Navalny
- Nope
- The Northman
- Push In Boots: The Last Wish
- The Quiet Girl
- RRR
- The Sea Beast (netflix)
- The Son
- Till
- The Whale
- The Woman King

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

2021 films - Oscars - Best Picture nominees
- Belfast
- CODA (apple +) (winner)
- Don't Look Up (netflix)
- Drive My Car [ドライブ・マイ・カー]
- Dune
- King Richard
- Licorice Pizza
- Nightmare Alley
- The Power Of The Dog (netflix)
- West Side Story

2021 films - Oscars - Best Director/Screenplay (but not Picture) nominees
- The Worst Person In The World
- The Lost Daughter (netflix)

2021 films - Other notable films

- A Hero [Ghahreman] (amazon prime)
- Annette (amazon prime)
- Being The Ricardos (amazon prime)
- Compartment No. 6 [Hytti nro 6]
- C'mon C'mon
- Cruella (disney +)
- Cyrano
- Encanto (disney +)
- Eternals (disney +)
- Flee
- Happening [L'Evenement]
- In The Heights
- Last Night In Soho
- Luca  (disney +)
- Mass
- Nitram
- No Time To Die
- Nobody
- Pig
- Raya And The Last Dragon  (disney +)
- Red Rocket
- Spencer
- Spider-Man: No Way Home
- Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings  (disney +)
- The French Dispatch
- The Green Knight
- The Hand Of God (netflix)
- The Harder They Fall (netflix)
- The Humans
- The Last Duel
- The Matrix Resurrections
- The Mitchells vs The Machines (netflix)
- The Novice
- The Suicide Squad
- The Tragedy Of Macbeth (apple +)
- Tick, Tick... Boom! (netflix)
- Titane

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

2020 films - Oscars - Best Picture nominees
- Judas And The Black Messiah
- Mank (netflix)
- Minari
- Nomadland (winner)
- Promising Young Woman
- Sound Of Metal (amazon prime)
- The Father
- The Trial Of The Chicago 7 (netflix)

2020 films - Oscars - Best Director/Screenplay (but not Picture) nominees
- Another Round
- Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm (amazon prime)
- One Night In Miami (amazon prime)
- The White Tiger (netflix)

2020 films - Other notable films
- Ammonite
- Bad Boys For Life
- Bill & Ted Face The Music
- Birds Of Prey (Harley Quinn)
- Cherry (apple+)
- Da 5 Bloods (netflix)
- Emma.
- First Cow
- Greyhound (apple+)
- Hamilton
- Happiest Season
- Hillbilly Elegy (netflix)
- I'm Thinking Of Ending Things (netflix)
- Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (netflix)
- Mulan
- Never Rarely Sometimes Always
- News Of The World
- Nine Days
- On The Rocks (apple+)
- Onward
- Palm Springs
- Pieces Of A Woman (netflix)
- Possessor
- Relic
- Sonic The Hedgehog
- Soul (disney+)
- Tenet
- The Devil All The Time (netflix)
- The Gentlemen
- The Hunt
- The Invisible Man
- The King Of Staten Island
- The Midnight Sky (netflix)
- The United States vs Billie Holiday
- The Way Back
- Wolfwalkers (apple+)
- Wonder Woman 1984

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

2019 films - Oscars - Best Picture nominees
- 1917
- Ford V Ferrari
- Joker
- Jojo Rabbit
- Little Women
- Marriage Story (netflix)
- Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
- Parasite [Gisaengchung] (winner)
- The Irishman (netflix)

2019 films - Oscars - Best Director/Screenplay (but not Picture) nominees
- Knives Out
- The Two Popes (netflix)

2019 films - Other notable films
- A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood
- A Hidden Life
- Ad Astra
- Avengers: Endgame
- Blinded By The Light
- Bombshell
- Booksmart
- Clemency
- Crawl
- Dark Waters
- Dolemite Is My Name
- Fighting With My Family
- Frozen II
- Harriet
- Honey Boy
- Hustlers
- I Lost My Body [J'ai Perdu Mon Corps]
- John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
- Judy
- Just Mercy
- Klaus
- Late Night
- Long Shot
- Luce
- Midsommar
- Missing Link
- Monos
- Queen & Slim
- Pain & Glory [Dolor Y Gloria]
- Portrait Of A Lady On Fire [Portrait De La Jeune Fille En Feu]
- Richard Jewell
- Rocketman
- Shazam!
- The Farewell
- The Last Black Man In San Francisco
- The Lighthouse
- The Peanut Butter Falcon
- The Report
- Toy Story 4
- Uncut Gems
- Us
- Waves

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

2018 films - Oscars - Best Picture nominees
- A Star Is Born
- Black Panther
- BlackKklansman
- Bohemian Rhapsody
- Green Book (winner)
- The Favourite
- Roma (netflix)
- Vice

2018 films - Oscars - Best Director/Screenplay (but not Picture) nominees
- Can You Ever Forgive Me?
- Cold War [Zimna Wojna]
- First Reformed
- If Beale Street Could Talk
- The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs (netflix)

2018 films - Other notable films
- A Quiet Place
- At Eternity's Gate
- Avengers: Infinity War
- Blindspotting
- Burning [Beoning]
- Capernaum [Capharnaum]
- Eighth Grade
- First Man
- Free Solo
- Hereditary
- Incredibles 2
- Leave No Trace
- Mary Poppins Returns
- Never Look Away
- Shoplifters [Manbiki Kazoku]
- Sorry To Bother You
- Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse
- Upgrade
- Widows

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

2017 films - Oscars - Best Picture nominees
- Call Me By Your Name
- Darkest Hour
- Dunkirk
- Get Out
- Lady Bird
- Phantom Thread
- The Post
- The Shape Of Water (winner)
- Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

2016 films - Oscars - Best Picture nominees
- Arrival
- Fences
- Hacksaw Ridge
- Hell Of High Water
- Hidden Figures
- La La Land
- Lion
- Manchester By The Sea
- Moonlight (winner)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

2015 films - Oscars - Best Picture nominees
- The Big Short
- Bridge Of Spies
- Brooklyn
- Mad Max: Fury Road
- The Martian
- The Revenant
- Room
- Spotlight (winner)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A Quiet Place was wonderful.  This year's movies overall were not very memorable.  I think its going to be another boring season.

Parasite is really really good and a future classic, but it hasn't been seen by hundreds of thousands of people yet. Not so artsy that it would turn people off, though it is a bit of a thinking man's movie. Highly recommend it.

Midsommar was also great, but it's a horror movie that isn't scary, somewhat artsy and 2.5 hours long. Obviously not for everyone, but I strongly recommend it if the previous sentence didn't turn you off.

The only film I've seen so far that feels like a strong best picture contender is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and that's largely because Hollywood loves movies about Hollywood (The Artist is among the most glaring examples of this causing weird Oscar results).  And that's a shame because Booksmart, Pet Sematary, Ready or Not, The Lighthouse, Joker, Us, Child's Play, and Toy Story 4 were all much better movies.  

Alas, I'm pretty sure that aside from a Best Actor nomination for Phoenix's performance in Joker and a Best Animated Film win for Toy Story 4, none of those films are going to get nominated for anything above-the-line :(  

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was basically 1/3 self-indulgent snoozefest, 1/3 perfectly serviceable (but decidedly inoffensive) "Movie about Movies," and then 1/3 great film that kept reminding me of how much I wished the film's B-plot about the Manson family was the main focus of the movie (although the parts with DiCaprio's character trying to shoot that one guest villain scene in some western TV pilot were perfect).  Honestly, it's one of Tarantino's weaker outings.

Anyway, I'll end by saying that if you have any interest in seeing a smart, unpredictable, and extremely entertaining horror comedy whose satire about income inequality is (despite the dumbed down, spoiler-laden trailers) in the same ballpark as Get Out's satire of limousine liberal racism, you should really check out Ready or Not.  It's one of the real hidden gems of 2019 (I was lucky enough to go in blind because I was bored and there was nothing else remotely interesting playing nearby).

I expect a lot of accolades for 'The Irishman.' Other than that and 'Once Upon a Time In Hollywood,' I can't think of too many shoo-ins for awards season yet, this year. It's still early though, and this time of year is when most awards season films come out too, so it might be too early to speculate still.

The Goldfinch shouldn't be overlooked here.

The Goldfinch was trashed by critics and bombed at the box office. It might pick up a few Razzie nominations.

I think Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker too will be nominated fir awards like best sound, for example like The Force Awakens.

Some chance to ne nominated:
- Best Score
- Best Sound Mixing
- Best Visual Effects
- Best Production Design

Long shot but not totally impossible to be nominated:
- Best Original Screenplay
- Best Cinematography
- Best Editing
- Best Sound Editing

I think it's pretty safe to say that Marriage Story is getting nominated. Many many people that have seen it claim that it's got a good shot at Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Director. Reviews in general have been extremely good as well. The type of film and style are very Academy-friendly as well, and it was one of the two People's Choice Award runner-up films at the Toronto International Film Festival (tied for second place with Parasite).

- I have a pretty hard time seeing another Star Wars movie come anywhere close to repeating A New Hope’s feat of earning a screenplay nod, plus it’d be contending in the best adapted screenplay category.  Best Editing is probably too much of a reach given how that has been increasingly treated as pseudo-above-the-line award by voters trying to find another place to vote for there preferred BP winner (why, IDK, but it seems to be a trend).  

- A Best Cinematography nod is always a possibility with a film like Star Wars - especially given the tendency of the Oscars to sometimes treat this as a second Best Visual Effects category (ex: Avatar and Gravity’s otherwise inexplicable wins) - but it largely depends on the strength of the field.  The field doesn’t seem weak enough this year on paper, although it’s also not strong enough for me to rule out the possibility before Star Wars: Episode 2019 has even come out, especially when I’ve yet to see so many of the top contenders like 1917 and The Irishman.

What I can say is that a Best Cinematography win is highly unlikely at best, 1917 will probably be tough to beat here if Mendes actually made a good war film in one long tracking shot and even if the film is a dud quality-wise, voters may still want to reward the technical achievement of doing a war movie - of all things - in one shot.  Now, if 1917 is “only” a few long tracking shots seamlessly made to look like a single one, that’s another story since Birdman, The Haunting of Hill House, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and season one of True Detective would’ve all beaten 1917 to the punch by over a year (albeit in different genres).  Plus, there’s also The Irishman if voters want to go the “second Best Visual Effects category” route.

- Otherwise, I completely agree with your assessment of Star Wars’ chances.  

- Btw, could you remind me what the difference is between sound mixing and sound editing?  I always forget this and end up getting them confused.  IIRC, one is sound effects during filming and the other is sound added in post, but I could be misremembering.  

Sound Editing is the creation of sounds... think about creating the T-Rex roar for Jurassic Park or the lightsaber sound for Star Wars.

Sound Mixing is putting all the sounds for a movie together, how loud and quiet each sound is (including the score and sound from the set from microphones like talking, doors closing), and how left-speaker / right-speaker / advanced surround sound details everything is .

Sadly and pathetically, the Academy voters don't even seem to know the difference. They gave Bohemian Rhapsody the award for Sound Editing over A Quiet Place and First Man. They gave Bohemian Rhapsody the award for Sound Mixing over Roma. It's so cringe and facepalm worthy, but I guess the Academy just doesn't care. I consider being nominated as one of the five films up for each of those awards to be an equal or greater honor than actually winning the award at this point.

Of the moves I've seen from OP's post, I'd tier them as:

Very good:
A Star is Born, The Favourite, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, Sorry to Bother You

Good:
Black Panther, BlackKklansman, Vice, Infinity War, Eighth Grade, First Man, Can You Ever Forgive Me, If Beale Street Could Talk (which, btw, I liked a lot more than Moonlight), The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs, Avengers: Endgame, Dolemite Is My Name, Rocketman, Eighth Grade, Cold War

Ok:
Bohemian Rhapsody, Incredibles 2, Leave No Trace

A few others I liked: "Love, Simon," "Mid-90s," "Support the Girls", "Isle of Dogs"

For what deserved to win/be nominated in 2018, my thoughts:

Best Picture
1) Hereditary
2) BlacKkKlansman
3) Boy Erased
4) Detainment (this may be the best short film ever made, the only other one I've seen that comes close is Everything Will be Okay)
5) Can You Ever Forgive Me?
6) Green Book
7) Eighth Grade
8) Paddington 2
9) A Star is Born
10) Christopher Robin (I saw this one on Amazon Prime and was sobbing like a baby for much of the runtime, by time it got to the heffalump trap scene I almost had to shut the movie off because the first half was so sad).

Best Actor
1) Ely Solan - Detainment
2) John David Washington - BlacKkKlansman
3) Christian Bale – Vice
4) Bradley Cooper - A Star is Born
5) Lucas Hedges - Boy Erased

Best Actress
1) Toni Collette - Hereditary
2) Melissa McCarthy - Can You Ever Forgive Me?
3) Lady Gaga - A Star is Born
4) Elsie Fisher - Eighth Grade
5) Saoirse Ronan - Mary Queen of Scots

Best Director
1) Ari Aster - Hereditary
2) Joel Edgerton - Boy Erased
3) Spike Lee - BlacKkKlansman
4) Bradley Cooper - A Star is Born
5) Vincent Lambe - Detainment

Best Adapted Screenplay
1) Spike Lee, David Rabinowitz, Charlie Wachtel, and Kevin Willmott - BlacKkKlansman
2) Joel Edgerton – Boy Erased
3) Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty – Can You Ever Forgive Me?
4) Rhett Reese, Ryan Reynolds, and Paul Wernick - Deadpool 2
5) 
Simon Farnaby and Paul King - Paddington 2


Best Original Screenplay
1) Brian Hayes Currie, Peter Farrelly, and Nick Vallelonga – Green Book
2) Bo Burnham - Eighth Grade
3) Ari Aster - Hereditary
4) Vincent Lambe - Detainment
5) Paul Schrader - First Reformed

Best Supporting Actor
1) Russell Crowe - Boy Erased
2) Richard E. Grant - Can You Ever Forgive Me?
3) Alex Woolf - Hereditary
4) Timothée Chalamet - Beautiful Boy
5) Daniel Kaluuya – Widows (the bowling alley scene alone was a masterclass in acting).

Best Supporting Actress
1) Amy Adams – Vice
2) Claire Foy - First Man
3) Milly Shapiro - Hereditary
4) Margo Robbie - Mary Queen of Scots
5) Olivia Colman - The Favourite (this was a supporting role imo)

I forgot to comment on 2018. I found most of the movies nominated to be overrated. Especially 'A Star is Born,' 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' and 'Roma.'

'Boy Erased,' 'First Reformed,' 'Thoroughbreds,' and 'The Old Man and the Gun' were underrated for that year. I also wanted to include 'A Simple Favor,' one of the most unique films I've ever seen for its ability to seamlessly blend the comedy and thriller genres, was also very underrated. But I don't think it's a film that screams "deserves awards recognition."

The biggest snub was definitely 'Won't You Be My Neighbor' in the best documentary category. That probably would have won. It at least should have. And that's not just because it was probably my favorite movie of 2018.

JOJO RABBIT (no spoilers)

This movie lacks truly top-tier directing, cinematography, acting, score, and the script isn't perfectly paced. This is not an "artistic masterpiece". All of the things I just mentioned are actually pretty good, but not at that very top level.

That being said, this was a DAMNED good film and I absolutely loved it. People worried that this film is offensive need to go see it. It's great, and it's message is great. Thomasin Mackenzie has a long career in Hollywood ahead of her - she upstaged both Johansson and Rockwell. BIG recommendation for anybody reading this to go and check this film out. Best Picture nomination is expected and it better not get overlooked.

Saw three Oscar contenders over the weekend: Jojo Rabbit*, Parasite, and Where is My Roy Cohn?

- Where is my Roy Cohn? is definitely a contender for a best documentary nomination, but I was disappointed that I didn’t learn more about him.  However, the film does a better job than most docs or biopics of seamlessly weaving together all the key points in Cohn’s life without it feeling like checking off boxes.  I may’ve simply known too much about him going in to get the full effect.  3/5

- Parasite: It was good and I’m glad I saw it, but I also think this movie has been waaaaaaaaaay overhyped.  It’s really good, has some great twists, interesting social commentary about human nature, and was surprisingly funny.  Without spoiling anything, I’ve never heard of a home invasion film being done in anything remotely like what Parasite does, so that was good.  With an aggressive campaign, it should be able to get a BP nomination (probably not a win), has a shot at a Best Director nomination due to its passionate fanbase, and will definitely get a nomination (*maybe* even a consolation win, but I doubt it) for best original screenplay.  I could also see a nomination for best editing, but that feels like a longshot.  

Ultimately, Parasite is a good film, but I was hoping for a classic and it just isn’t.  It’s a smart, creative, well-made thriller with a good sense of humor and there’s no shame in that.  3.5/5 (it probably deserves a better rating, but the #InstantClassic hype probably set me up for disappointment when it turned out to be “only” a good movie).  

- Jojo Rabbit: This was an excellent movie.  It has some problems (such as the mom - who just doesn’t work at all as a character - and MacKenzie’s character who feels more like a plot device than an actual person), but this was a great movie.  Definitely a contender for BP and has an outside shot at winning although the (grossly unfair) Green Book comparisons may keep it from actually winning.  Best Director and Best Supporting Actor (Watiti) nominations are both possible, but really feel like long-shots (especially the latter), definitely a lock for Adapted Screenplay (which will probably come down to this and The Irishman competing for the win).  

The kid who plays the lead gives an absolutely amazing performance that runs the full emotional gauntlet flawlessly and while he certainly deserves a Best Actor nomination (maybe even a win), I highly doubt he’ll be nominated :(  Hopefully this is a star-making role because this kid has truly amazing emotional range.  His performance alone is more than worth the price of admission.  Sam Rockwell (gets a good character arc) and Stephen Merchant (really creepy) are also quite good in smaller parts, as is the kid who plays Jojo’s best friend.  Thomasin Mackenzie was good, but her character was really more of a plot device.  

This is a hilarious, well-made, first rate movie with a great message.  Also, it’s not really about WWII/the Nazis so much as it is about a 10 year old German boy coming of age during that period.  5/5

*A really good movie and one that - unlike the deeply offensive Holocaust/death camp “comedy” Life is Beautiful - understands the difference between making a comedy set in Nazi Germany (you have to tread lightly, but it can absolutely be done and isn’t an inherently offensive concept) and a comedy about the Holocaust (which is unacceptable, period, end of story regardless of the film’s merits or lack thereof).  

Mel Brooks himself explicitly recognized this distinction when he spoke about how grotesque and offensive Life is Beautiful (a comedy by a gentile writer-Director which posits that you can even make even a Nazi death camp seem like a fun-filled adventure as long as you use the power of imagination and keep your sense of childlike wonder).  Brooks argued that you cannot make a joke about everything and argued some things should be off-limits, especially to those with no connection to the pain the events caused in real life.  He noted that while most Jews would be fine with a post-WWII comedy like The Producers mocking the absurd self-indulgent, decidedly effeminate OTT theatricality of Nazi propaganda and certain fascistic symbols (ex: the de facto dance choreography which was used in Triumph of the Will), that was very different from making a whimsical feel good comedy about Jews trying to survive a death camp (Life is Beautiful).  It’s the difference between mocking the perpetrators of a genocide through satire and trivializing the actual suffering which occurred during the genocide through whimsical feel-goodism.

One more update, I finally saw 'Blindspotting' yesterday. Holy s***! Now this was a snub! This is the other best movie I have ever seen of 2018. It's right up there with 'Won't You Be My Neighbor.'

It's like 'Friday' meets 'Do the Right Thing,' but for this generation. It explores themes of class, criminal justice, culture, gentrification, identity, race, and more all in a very organic way with just as much as humor as there is meaningful, gripping drama. Massively underrated!

Blindspotting's biggest problem BY FAR is that not enough people have seen it. Great film that I always recommend to others. For whatever it's worth, I have it at #13 on my rankings for 2018 films.

Huh.  I'll have to check it out.

Regarding the awful "Life is Beautiful", I like what Oscar historian Damien Bona said about a decade ago: Benigni is the Richard Nixon of Oscars. If you ask the Acdemy members today, nobody will admit that voted for him.

I really hope "Parasite" gets nominated for BP, and many other awards. I saw it today and it's the best film of the year.

I lurk "r/oscarrace" on Reddit and read all the predictions for who will get NOMINATED (not win the award) for all the categories, and Parasite is looking to do well.

Best International Feature: 99.999% guarantee

Best Picture: extremely good chance

Best Director: very good chance
Best Original Screenplay: very good chance
Best Production Design: very good chance (*** see note at end)

Best Cinematography: good chance
Best Editing: good chance

Best Score: somewhat likely, about 50/50

Best Supporting Actor: unlikely but possible
Best Supporting Actress: unlikely but possible


*** NOTE - They partially built the big fancy house just for this film, though some of it was CGI apparently. They also built the entire street that the sub-basement apartment is on just for this film.

I think Joaquin Phoenix will be nominated for Best Actor for his role as the Joker in Joker.

Gonna do my first predictions now. Will possibly do another one around New Years and a final one in the last week or two before the Oscars.



BEST PICTURE
Marriage Story
The Irishman
Parasite
Little Women
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Jojo Rabbit
1917
Ford V Ferrari
Bombshell
(#10 = Joker, I predict they nominate only 9 though)


BEST DIRECTOR
The Irishman, Parasite, Marriage Story, Once Upon / In Hollywood, Little Women

BEST ACTOR
Marriage Story, Joker, Once Upon / In Hollywood, The Irishman, Pain & Glory

BEST ACTRESS
Marriage Story, Judy, Bombshell, Little Women, The Farewell

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Irishman, A Beautiful Day / Neighborhood, The Irishman, Once Upon / In Hollywood, The Lighthouse

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Little Women, Marriage Story, Bombshell, Hustlers, Jojo Rabbit

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
 Marriage Story, Parasite, Once Upon / In Hollywood, Bombshell, The Farewell

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Irishman, Little Women, Jojo Rabbit, A Beautiful Day / Neighborhood, The Two Popes



BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
Parasite, Pain & Glory, Les Miserables, Atlantics, Monos

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Toy Story 4, Frozen II, How To / Dragon 3, Weathering With You, I Lost My Body

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
American Factory, Apollo 11, One Child Nation, The Cave, Honeyland



BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
1917, Once Upon / In Hollywood, Parasite, The Irishman, The Lighthouse

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Irishman, Avengers: Endgame, Ad Astra, Star Wars 9, The Lion King

BEST EDITING
Marriage Story, The Irishman, Once Upon / In Hollywood, Parasite, Ford v Ferrari

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Once Upon / In Hollywood, Parasite, Ad Astra, 1917, The Irishman

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Little Women, Jojo Rabbit, Dolemite Is My Name, Once Upon / In Hollywood, Downton Abbey

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
Bombshell, Judy, Rocketman, Joker, Little Women

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Marriage Story, 1917, Star Wars 9, Little Women, Joker

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Frozen II, Harriet, Toy Story 4, Rocketman, The Lion King

BEST SOUND EDITING
1917, Ford V Ferrari, Star Wars 9, Ad Astra, Avengers: Endgame

BEST SOUND MIXING
Ford v Ferrari, 1917, Star Wars 9, Ad Astra, The Lighthouse

BEST (Documentary, Live-Action, Animated) SHORT
I honestly don't care about short films and these 3 awards. Maybe I should, but it is what it is.



6 Oscars - Marriage Story
4 Oscars - The Irishman
2 Oscars - Little Women, 1917
1 Oscar - Parasite, Once Upon / In Hollywood, Ford v Ferrari, Bombshell...
               ...Toy Story 4, Frozen II, American Factory


9 Nominations - The Irishman, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
8 Nominations - Marriage Story, Little Women
7 Nominations - Parasite
6 Nominations - 1917
5 Nominations - Bombshell
4 Nominations - Jojo Rabbit, Ford v Ferrari, Ad Astra, Star Wars 9
3 Nominations - Joker, The Lighthouse
2 Nominations - A Beautiful Day / Neighborhood, The Farewell, Pain & Glory, Avengers: Endgame...
                         ...Rocketman, Toy Story 4, Judy, Frozen II, The Lion King
1 Nomination  - The Two Popes, Harriet, Hustlers, Dolemite Is My Name, Downton Abbey...
                        ...and all other international / documentary / animated nominees

And who do you think will be the nominee for best supporting actor for Irishman according to you? Pacino or Pesci?

I haven't seen it yet, but I'm reading a lot of people saying Pacino and a lot saying Pesci. It's a toss up. Voters might feel the same and end up voting Tom Hanks instead, just so they don't have to pick one over the other. I personally support Dafoe in The Lighthouse, but I don't think it'll happen.

So I saw The Irishman and - unpopular opinion alert - I didn’t think it was anything special (and I say that as someone who usually really enjoys Scorsese’s films).  Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t bad and it definitely had its strengths.  Joe Pesci gives an excellent, highly restrained performance as an elderly mob boss who felt like the most believable character* in the film.  The de-aging effects didn’t really work with Al Pacino and I often felt like I was watching Al Pacino playing Jimmy Hoffa as opposed to watching Jimmy Hoffa, but he had such great energy that it wasn’t really a problem.  Bobby Cannavale (Sheeran’s first boss), Ray Romano (a corrupt mob lawyer), and especially Stephen Graham (Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano) were also good in smaller supporting roles. 

On a technical level, the cinematography was great, the de-aging technology worked really well with Pesci generally and with De Niro’s face.  The film had great production values (it better given its budget :P ).  There was also a great WATN running joke that’s too good to spoil and gets funnier every time. 

The biggest problem is the movie’s length.  3 and a half hours is a long time and you feel it.  The movie is okay quality-wise, but once you get to hours and realize you’ve got another hour and a half of meh, it feels more and more like a chore.  It’s also a pretty slow movie.  Plus De Niro still moves like an old person, so that was really distracting.

*And that’s the right word since the film is based on a book about the now largely discredited claims of a mid-level union racketeer with delusions of grandeur.  As such, much of what happens is heavily fictionalized, sometimes to an absurd degree.  While this generally wasn’t a problem, three things required more suspension of disbelief than I could give: specifically, the film’s 1) implication the mafia had JFK assassinated, 2) claim that Frank Sheeran killed Joe Gallo on Bill Bufilino’s orders when in fact neither man was even tangentially connected to Gallo’s murder or the events that caused it, and 3) its depiction of Joe Gallo as a boorish, hot-headed John Gotti type who went rogue when he had Joe Columbo shot when in fact he was by most accounts a very well-mannered, cultured, and genuinely intellectual individual who - while a fierce inter-family rival of Columbo’s - didn’t have Columbo whacked until after he was given permission to do so by the bosses of three other NY families b/c Columbo spat in Carlo Gambino’s face and screamed obscenities at him during a public argument.

FORD V FERRARI (no spoilers)

I didn't like this as much as the critics seem to. I'd say it's an above-average film, and probably not praise it further than that, except to say that the acting and sound design were really good. I'm having a hard time articulating why I didn't love it. The pacing / plot movement perhaps. The story progressing from scene to scene to scene didn't "feel organic" as mucg as it felt like a list of plot points that we slowly move down one by one. Does that make sense? Another movie totally different movoe that I had this problem with is Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Overall, I recommend the movie if you don't have high expectations, but I don't strongly recommend it.

In terms of the Academy Awards, I'd say Joker absolutely deserves to be the 8th or 9th or 10th Best Picture nominee if this one of the few movies it's competing against for that spot. Due to "Oscar politics" (not the left wing right wing stuff) this may get a fairer shake than Joker, which is really too bad. In a fairer world, Joker would get the #8 spot and this would be competing for #9 or #10 with Bombshell and The Two Popes (with an outside chance for The Farewell or A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood). This should be a front runner for Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing, with a shot at Best Editing and an outside shot at Best Actor (Christian Bale).

Joker wins Golden Frog, The Two Popes wins Silver Frog at EnergaCamerimage

This is a Polish festival where the Golden Frog winners often go on to Oscar nominations for the category of Best Cinematography. Joker has been talked about as maybe getting a nomination in this category or maybe just missing. The Two Popes has been in I guess the top 15 films talked about for this award? But not top 5 in most predictions. We'll see if this is the beginning of The Two Popes gaining momentum for a Best Cinematograpgy nomination or not.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/camerimage-joker-wins-golden-frog-1255133

Just saw The Report last night.  This was a phenomenal movie that - despite seemingly having Oscar bait written all over it - is really a one of those rare movies that everyone should see.  There’s reading about what we did to detainees and then there’s seeing a guy get water boarded or mock-buried alive in a wooden coffin.  The attempted CIA coverup (including its efforts to frame a Senate staffer using trumped up charges) are a whole horror story unto themselves.  Naturally most of the CIA officers involved were promoted and one of the top ones later became general counsel at AIG b/c of course she did ::)  This movie should really be shown in every high school American history class, but obviously that’s never gonna happen.

This movie probably isn’t more than a long-shot play for a nomination in BP, best adapted screenplay (probably its best chance for a nom), and maybe best editing.  However, it really deserves to be a top contender in numerous categories.  This is a movie that needed to be made and will absolutely horrify anyone with a soul...and I say that as someone who was in high school and college when this was coming out.  It’s not preachy either, it just shines a light on some of the monsters on our side.

5/5 - Highly recommended, then tell your friends to go see it :P

Sounds great! Most theaters aren't playing it, sadly.


There is SOME talk of Annette Benning getting a Best Supporting Actress nomination as well, but she's gotta beat out two of Lopez, Mackenzie and the grandma from The Farewell (always forget her name). Dern, Pugh and Robbie seem to be fairly locked in already.

Honestly, while the makeup team did a great job making her look just like Feinstein, it really wasn’t a large or meaty enough role to merit serious awards consideration, especially given that it’s not exactly a weak field this time around.  The only real acting play this film has is Adam Driver for Best Actor and while he is excellent, I’m pretty sure he’s gonna get nominated for Marriage Story instead. 

Also, I am not at all a car person (never have been, I just wanna get from point A to point B safely with good fuel economy without paying more than I should for the car, I don’t care if it has all these random new features or not), but I saw Ford v Ferrari and loved it.  Is it the best film of the year?  No.  Is it an excellent film that deserves a BP nomination?  Absolutely, one of the best sports films I’ve ever seen (especially if we’re talking non-boxing sports films).  While it’s not as smart or insightful as Rush, it still has a solid script which includes two fascinating characters: Ken Miles and Henry Ford II. 

While the race scenes are riveting (so much so that during the Daytona one mid-way through the film, I actually stood up in the theater in excitement at the end before remembering where I was lol), the film’s ace in the hole is Ken Miles.  He’s a very interesting guy and Bale did a great job playing him.  I won’t spoil the end, but at first it reminded me of another classic sports film...and then something happened that I never would’ve seen coming in a million years and really hit me like a ton of bricks.  I started tearing up in the theater.  Also, Tracy Letts was excellent as Henry Ford II (stole every scene he was in before the final race) and the scene where we see his reaction upon learning of a particularly cutting insult Enzo Ferrari directed at him was a real masterclass in acting.

That said, Matt Damon’s performance was pretty meh and has gotten much more praise than it deserved.  It was just him using an awkward-sounding southern accent while playing a pretty bland, generic protagonist.  The film’s Carroll Shelby lacked the edge it needed to make the character work and a lot of the blame for that lies with Damon.  The problem is all the more glaring in his scenes with Bale, whose performance has this in spades and transcends the “non-threatening lovable rogue” stock character in a way Damon was seemingly unable to. 

I think it has a shot at a BP nomination, but it’s lost a lot of momentum in that race and I doubt it has any chance of winning at this point.  Bale has a shot at a Best Actor nomination, but it’ll depend on the strength of the field and whether he can get a SAG nomination.  If so, then he’s probably a serious contender for the fourth or fifth slot, but if he can’t crack the field there then he’s probably gonna get snubbed...probably.  Mangold did a great job directing (easily the best of his career thus far), but he’s got no chance of even a nomination.  I think the film will be a serious contender for Best Editing (though a win - while possible - definitely feels like a reach right now), nominations in both sound categories (b/c Hollywood doesn’t know the difference and just treats them as a catch-all “best sound”), and has an outside shot at a best cinematography nomination depending on how the field shakes out and how many people confuse visual effects with Cinematography (as the academy is wont to do). 

Don’t be surprised if the film over-performs at the Globes and then gets bupkis everywhere else.  If anyone is gonna respond to this movie on the circuit, it’ll be Globes voters (although to be clear, it’s not a sure thing that they will).

I give Ford v Ferrari a solid 4/5.  If you go in expecting an excellent sports movie that will entertain you for the night, you won’t be disappointed.  Just don’t expect anything more than that :P

Note: I went in with pretty low expectations, so that may well have caused me to be a bit more positive than I would otherwise have been.

The new Netflix holiday "Santa origin story" movie Klaus was pretty good, and better than I expected. The locks are Toy Story 4, Frozen 2 and How To Train Your Dragon 3, but I'm now hoping Klaus gets a Best Animated Feature nomination. I haven't seen Weathering With You, I Lost My Body or Abominable yet, but it was definitely better than Missing Link, which itself was a half-decent movie.

2017 Oscar race and The Shape Of Water

Just watched The Shape Of Water again, and I think I agree with the Academy awarding this Best Picture in the 2017 competition. I can also see very good arguments for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Phantom Thread and Call Me By Your Name winning. I agree with Lady Bird and Get Out receiving Best Picture nominations, but I'm glad they weren't awarded over (IMO) better films. I'm 50/50 on whether Dunkirk and Darkest Hour should have been nominated or not, though they are very well made films. The Post should not have been nominated IMO. I think Bladerunner 2049, The Wife and especially Logan should have received nominations.

The Shape Of Water (winner)
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Logan (my addition)
Phantom Thread
Call Me By Your Name

Lady Bird
Get Out
Bladerunner 2049 (my addition)

Darkest Hour
The Wife (my addition)
Dunkirk (my subtraction)

The Post (my subtraction)

Since we're also doing 2017 and that's a year which 1) was a pretty great one for film and 2) where I have some rather...unusual thoughts about what should've won/been nominated (especially the latter), here are my thoughts on that year in the major categories:

Best Picture
1. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
2. Get Out
3. World of Tomorrow - Episode Two: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts
4. Wonder (This movie really didn't get its due, but it spoke to me on a very personal level and was one of the year's true hidden gems...or perhaps not so hidden since it shocked many by becoming one of 2017's big sleeper hits, speaking of which...)
5. IT: Chapter 1 (I know movies like this don't usually get nominated, but this was a great movie which managed to be both a near-perfect adaptation of a well-known doorstopper and very much its own thing)
6. Coco
7. Lady Bird
8. Okja (Fun fact: While I ultimately fell off the wagon, this movie inspired me to try to become a vegetarian and I went literally eight and a half months without eating any meat; talk about a powerful movie :P )
9. Detroit (another surprisingly under-appreciated film during award season)
10. I, Tonya

Best Actor
1. James Franco - The Disaster Artist (I'm not gonna complain about a sex predator not even getting nominated, but on the merits of performance quality, Franco deserved the win)
2. James McAvoy - Split (career best work completely overlooked :( )
3. Daniel Kaluuya - Get Out
4. Jacob Tremblay - Wonder (I thought he was much better here than in Room tbh)
5. Gary Oldman - Darkest Hour (Oldman was good, but the makeup did some of the work here and I feel like a lot of the awards were really for "best performance by someone who is ‘overdue’ in an Oscar-bait role” b/c he wasn't "give him every award ever" level good in Darkest Hour, not by a long shot)

Best Actress
1. Frances McDormand - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

2. Saoirse Ronan - Lady Bird
3. Margot Robbie - I, Tonya
4. Ahn Seo-hyun - Okja (an under-appreciated performance in an under-appreciated movie)
5. Sally Hawkins - The Shape of Water

Best Director
1. Andrés Muschietti - IT: Chapter 1 (his direction is part of why this film worked as well as it did)
2. Martin McDonagh - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
3. Greta Gerwig - Lady Bird
4. Jordan Peele - Get Out
5. Lee Unkrich - Coco

Best Adapted Screenplay
1. Don Hertzfeldt - World of Tomorrow - Episode Two: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts
2. Stephen Chbosky, Steve Conrad, and Jack Thorne - Wonder (The screenwriters of this film got robbed; the fact that Logan was nominated instead of Wonder was easily one of the year's worst Oscar snubs)
3. Gary Dauberman, Cary Fukunaga, and Chase Palmer - IT: Chapter 1
4. Scott Neustadter and Michael A. Weber - The Disaster Artist
5. Mike Flanagan and Jeff Howard - Gerald’s Game

Best Original Screenplay
1. Jordan Peele - Get Out
2. Martin McDonagh - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
3. Matthew Aldrich, Jason Katz, Adrian Molina, and Lee Unkrich - Coco
4. Greta Gerwig - Lady Bird
5. Mark Boal - Detroit (although there’s definitely an argument for giving Okja the fifth slot)

Best Supporting Actor
1. Sam Rockwell - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
2. Will Poulter - Detroit (I suppose the Oscars were never gonna nominated two performances as violently racist cops in the same year in the same category)
3. Harrison Ford - Blade Runner 2049
4. Richard Jenkins - The Shape of Water
5. Steve Carrell - Battle of the Sexes (so hard to choose between this, Jake Gyllenhaal balls-to-the-walls madcap turn as a washed-up, alcoholic, cartoonishly evil Steve Irwin parody in Okja and Jack Dylan Grazer's hilariously neurotic performance as Eddie in IT: Chapter 1, but Carrell’s scene-stealing, hammy as hell yet surprisingly nuanced take on Bobby Riggs probably deserves the fifth slot most for turning what could’ve easily been a one-note caricature into a three-dimensional, always entertaining, decidedly obnoxious yet just as often sympathetic portrait of flawed man trying to hide his failings behind a MAGA-lite public persona)

Best Supporting Actress
1. Allison Janney - I, Tonya
2. Laurie Metcalf - Lady Bird
3. Betty Buckley - Split (about 80% of her lines were silly nonsense, but Buckley sold every one of them perfectly and made it look easy in her career best performance; that's right Cats fans, you heard me :P )
4. Betty Gabriel - Get Out
5. Brooklynn Prince - The Florida Project

Best Animated Film
1. World of Tomorrow - Episode Two: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts - Don Hertzfeldt
2. Coco - Lee Unkrich
3. The Breadwinner - Nora Twomey
4. Loving Vincent - Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman
5. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie - David Soren

Best Documentary
1. Get Me Roger Stone - Dylan Bank, Daniel DiMauro, and Morgan Pehme  (Great documentary, also far less preachy than I had feared)
2. Icarus - Bryan Fogel
3. Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond - Chris Smith
4. Last Men in Aleppo - Firas Fayyad
5. Kedi - Ceyda Torun

Best Foreign Film
1. Loveless (Russia) - Andrey Zvyagintsev
2. Raw (Belgium) - Julia Ducournau

3. The Square (Sweden) - Ruben Östlund

4. First They Killed my Father (Cambodia) - Angelina Jolie
5. BPM (Beats per Minute) (France) - Robin Campillo

Best Original Score
1. IT: Chapter 1 - Benjamin Wallfisch
 (Another ridiculous Oscar snub)
2. The Shape of Water - Alexandre Desplat
3. Phantom Thread - Jonny Greenwood
4. Okja - Jaeil Jung
5. Darkest Hour - Dario Marianelli

Best Original Song
1. Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez - Remember Me (Coco) (A great example of a song being perfect in the context of the story, much harder than merely writing hummable tunes)
2. Sufjan Stevens - Mystery of Love (Call Me by Your Name) (Probably the only nom the film deserved tbh)
3. Germaine Franco and Adrian Molina - Un Poco Loco (Coco)
4. Bilal and The Roots - It Ain’t Fair (Detroit)
5. Andra Day and Common - Stand Up for Something (Marshall)  (As good a choice to round out the fifth slot as any)

Best Film Editing
1. Wonder - Mark Livolsi
2. Baby Driver - Jonathan Amos and Paul Machliss
3. All the Money in the World - Claire Simpson
4. Dunkirk - Lee Smith
5. Lady Bird - Nick Houy

Best Cinematography
1. IT: Chapter 1 - Chung-hoon Chung
2. Darkest Hour - Bruno Delbonnel
3. Baby Driver - Bill Pope
4. Blade Runner 2049 - Roger Deakins
5. Detroit - Barry Ackroyd

If we're talking about the movies of 2017, 'Blade Runner 2049' was my absolute favorite film of that year. I also loved 'Coco,' 'Lady Bird,' 'The Shape of Water,' and 'Three Billboards' of those were received awards season attention.

As for films that were completely underrated for that year:
-'Brad's Status'
-'Colossal'
-'Detroit'
-'Ingrid Goes West'
-'The Blackcoat's Daughter'
-'The Killing of a Sacred Deer'
-'Wind River'

And now for those that I found overrated:
-'Call Me By Your Name'
-'Darkest Hour'
-'Dunkirk'
-'Logan'
-'Phantom Thread'
-'Star Wars Episode XIII: The Last Jedi'
-'The Disaster Artist'
-'The Post'

You really hated Logan and Call Me By Your Name, huh? I wasn't a huge fan of Call Me By Your Name overall - I thought it was good but overrated - but the craftsmanship (cinematography, directing, acting) was objectively very good. Logan I absolutely loved, but it's harder to objectively argue it's merits without inserting my biases, so I won't do that.

- I didn't see what all of the fuss was about Call Me By Your Name tbh.  Then again, I've never really been a fan of Luca Guadagnino or James Ivory's work.  I didn't hate it, it was perfectly serviceable...but 2017 was a very strong year for movies and there are only so many slots to go around (same reason Shape of Water is missing from so many categories)

- I didn't hate Logan, but my understanding is that Wonder and Logan were always battling for the fifth slot that year in Adapted Screenplay

A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD (no spoilers)

This movie is a lot more experimental and outside-of-the-box than I thought it would be, and that's mostly a good thing.  From a story perspective however, it feels like a TV movie but with way above average budget, cinematography, acting, and some very interesting creative decisions that I can't get into in a non-spoiler review. The "TV movie plot" aspect is my biggest criticism here, because IMO it prevents this movie from being "great" or "amazing" or "a classic", but there's so much more to this movie besides the plot. It's an emotional and inspirational film and some may cry.

When it comes to acting, Matthew Rhys was just as good as Tom Hanks IMO. I actually feel like Hanks was slightly miscast, but made it work well enough regardless. Hanks may or may not deserve an Oscar nomination, but he was goox. IMO he doesn't deserve to win the Oscar as his performance wasn't mindblowing.

The marketing for this movie is misleading as well, be warned. The movie as a whole is all about Mr. Rodgers, but the man himself is a supporting character in the plot. I prefer not to elaborate for non-spoiler purposes.

VERDICT - I can see some mainstream movie watchers disliking this for being a drama and not being a Fred Rogers bio-pic. If you like "Oscar drama" type movies, you will probably appreciate this movie and like it. I'm going to give this a "B+" rating. There are lots of great elements that make me want to go higher, but the plot just didn't do enough for me.

OSCAR NOMINATIONS - This is going to miss out on Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor IMO. There is a good chance that Tom Hanks is nominated for Best Supporting Actor, 50/50 chance for Best Adapted Screenplay and an outside shot at Best Cinematography.

I feel so bad for forgetting about 'The Founder' in my underrated films list.

 I usually tend not to care for conventional, straightforward biopics, but the character of Ray Kroc ( I say character since, even though he is a real person, I am just going off how he was portrayed in the film) and Michael Keaton's acting as that character felt really compelling to me. I guess the biopics I like the most are ones where the subject borders on being a villain. I would put 'The Social Network' in that category too. They almost feel like super-villain origin stories.

It was especially interesting since I remember that 'The Founder' came out around the time of Trump's inauguration, and while I hate to bring him into everything (especially my means of escapism), I couldn't help but pick up on the similarities between him and Kroc.

I thought the film was fascinating, and it's a damn shame that it didn't get more attention or praise.

I accidentally deleted my The Irishman review trying to post my brand new Knives Out review. Damn.

Cut-and-paste recap from another thread:


THE IRISHMAN (no spoilers)

I posted a short spoiler-free review in the Oscars & Awards Season thread.

Basically, I view it as a very good film that deserves a lot of the praise, but there are several aspects that I think are being over-rated, that ARE very good but are not amazing and incredible. Some of those would be Pacino's performance, the cinematography, how the film delivers the message it's trying to deliver, and the entire film overall. I think major praise is fully deserved in regards to DeNiro, the de-aging special effects, and the pacing of this 3.5 hour film.

Some people are saying masterpiece, but I would give a score of "A minus" or possibly "A".

FINAL SCORE
A minus

KNIVES OUT (no spoilers)

Hard to talk about this without spoilers. First off, I have to say, this is a political movie that you can also enjoy if you ignore the politics. The politics seem like small, unimportant window dressing, and the movie works 100% without them and without focusing on them. If you want to though, you can peel back all sorts of layers here and see all kinds of politics. I can't discuss any of that because of spoilers, but maybe that's something that could entice you to go and see this (very good) film. It's a murder mystery whodunit with thriller elements and the all-star cast does a good job. The main character played by Ana De Armas is probably the best performance.

DECENT BUT NOT GREAT
- Cinematography
- The cast. ALL good acting but nobody was incredible
- The twists and turns are pretty good
- I really liked Toni Collette's performance

DESERVES A LOT OF PRAISE
- Ana De Armas was good, deserves praise for pulling off a lead role
- The subtle politics was icing on the cake. Your Mileage May Vary

FINAL SCORE
A minus

OSCAR TALK
The one Oscar that Knives Out has a 50/50 shot at being nominated for is Best Original Screenplay. Some other non-Oscar awards have a Best Ensemble Cast award, and this has a good shot at those awards for sure. Ana De Armas was pretty good, but probably not good enough to get a Best Actress nomination in a year full of good female lead performances. There's some small chance that Daniel Craig gets nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but it's a long shot.

I saw A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.  I liked it well enough, I guess, but it wasn't an amazing movie by any means.  Really good message though!  It was a perfect tribute to Fred Rogers and what he stood for.   It might be a contender for an Adapted Screenplay nomination given how weak the field is this year as far as #OscarMovies go, but I think that it probably doesn't get nominated in any category.  It just isn't going to get many #1 votes and the Oscar nominations are determined by the number of first choice votes.

3/5

J'AI PERDU MON CORPS (I LOST MY BODY) [Netflix] (no spoilers)

This is a well-made and well-animated artsy fartsy French film following two plots - the story of a young arab Frenchman living in Paris and the story of a walking severed hand with a mind of it's own. It is a good movie and I would recommend it either strongly or not at all, depending on how you feel about artsy European films. Make sure you watch it it's original audio of French and use subtitles. When I watched it, my Netflix account started me off in an english dub, which is not the way the actual movie was envisioned, written or voice-acted.

THINGS THAT WILL BE DIVISIVE
- Does the artsy stuff help the story or waste time?
- What are the deeper meanings here? Expressed well enough?
- The third act

DESERVES A LOT OF PRAISE
- The animation
- The scene where he first meets Martinez
- The way the film expresses moods and emotions

FINAL SCORE
B plus

OSCAR TALK
This is only going for Best Animated Film I think, and is expected to be a top 7 movie (nominated or just misses out). I think this is the kind of film the Academy LOVES, so my personal opinion is that it will get nominated by beating out Missing Link and one of Klaus / Weathering With You. I actually see this as a long shot to win the Oscar over Toy Story 4. It's pretty unlikely but IMO not impossible.

A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood's reddit Oscar nominations chatter says...

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR - 75% chance or even higher
BEST PICTURE - top 15 film but not in the top 7 (only 8/9/10 get nominated)
BEST DIRECTOR - top 10 film but not in the top 6 (only 5 get nomonated)

Just saw it today, it's brilliant.  Belonging more to the 'coming of age in war' genre than to satire, the humor serves to frame Jojo's experience.  You can see how a young boy might fall under the spell of the propoganda, and his discovery of it an empty shell that opposes what he truly loves.  A few moments nearly brought me tears. Visually beautiful and the score was great as well. 

Thomasin is excellent, I loved her in Leave No Trace - my favorite film of last year and unfairly passed over by the Academy.

I mean, is there really any difference between this and Tom Hanks’ general screen persona?  I feel like this is the same performance he’s given in at least half of his post-Cast Away roles.

IMO yes there's a difference, and the best parts of Hanks' performance were subtle. That said, I'm not as huge of a fan of his performance as others are. In my opinion though, it's a weak year for Best Supporting Actor. Nobody has really impressed me outside of performances that might not even be nominated (Willam Dafoe, maybe Johnathan Pryce based on the trailer I saw).

Of all the different awarfs ceremonies nominees and winners that tend to indicate who will get Oscar nominations, the Golden Globes are probably the most relevant, followed by the BAFTAs, followed by the Critics Choice Awards and PGAs. We'll be getting the Golden Globe nominees announcement tomorrow, and today we have the Critics Choice Awards nominees.

In 2020, from early January to mid January, we have those two awards ceremonies, the other two sets of nominees announced, the PGA awards and the Oscar nominees announced.

Early February is the BAFTAs and then the Oscars.


Critics Choice Awards nominees

BEST PICTURE
The Irishman
Marriage Story
Parasite
1917
Little Women
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Jojo Rabbit
Ford V Ferrari
Joker
Uncut Gems

BEST DIRECTOR
The Irishman
Marriage Story
Parasite
1917
Little Women
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Uncut Gems

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Marriage Story
Parasite
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
The Farewell
Knives Out

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Irishman
Little Women
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
The Two Popes
A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

BEST ACTOR
The Irishman
Marriage Story
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Joker
Uncut Gems
Pain & Glory
Dolemite Is My Name

BEST ACTRESS
Marriage Story
Little Women
Bombshell
The Farewell
Us
Judy
Harriet

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
The Irishman (Pesce)
The Irishman (Pacino)
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
The Two Popes
A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood
The Lighthouse

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Marriage Story
Little Women
Jojo Rabbit
Bombshell
The Farewell
Hustlers

BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS (Non-Oscar category)
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Jojo Rabbit (Davis)
Jojo Rabbit (Mackenzie)
Jojo Rabbit (Yates)
Honey Boy
Us

BEST ENSEMBLE CAST (Non-Oscar category)
The Irishman
Marriage Story
Parasite
Little Women
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Bombshell
Knives Out

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Parasite
Pain & Glory
Portrait Of A Lady On Fire
Les Miserables
Atlantics

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Toy Story 4
Frozen II
How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
I Lost My Body
Missing Link
Abominable

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Irishman
1917
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Ford V Ferrari
The Lighthouse

BEST EDITING
The Irishman
Parasite
1917
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Ford V Ferrari
Uncut Gems

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Irishman
1917
Ford V Ferrari
Avengers: Endgame
Ad Astra
The Aeronauts
The Lion King

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
The Irishman
Parasite
1917
Little Women
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Joker
Downton Abbey

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
The Irishman
Little Women
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Rocketman
Dolemite Is My Name
Downton Abbey

BEST HAIR & MAKEUP
The Irishman
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Bombshell
Joker
Rocketman
Dolemite Is My Name
Judy

BEST SCORE
The Irishman
Marriage Story
1917
Little Women
Joker
Us

BEST SONG
Rocketman
Harriet
Wild Rose
Frozen II
The Lion King
Aladdin
Breakthrough

BEST ACTION MOVIE (Non-Oscar category)
1917
Ford V Ferrari
Avengers: Endgame
Spider-Man: Far From Home
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

BEST COMEDY (Non-Oscar category)
Jojo Rabbit
The Farewell
Knives Out
Booksmart
Dolemite Is My Name

BEST SCI-FI OR HORROR MOVIE (Non-Oscar category)
Avengers: Endgame
Ad Astra
Us
Midsommar


My thoughts in the top 13 contenders...

- The Irishman did great
- Marriage Story doing good but no Editing no Cinematography
- Parasite doing well but no Cimematography and only Ensemble for acting
- 1917 doing as expected
- Little Women doing as expected
- Once Upon A Time In Hollywood doing good, no snubs
- Jojo Rabbit did poorly here, at least it got Screenplay and Supporting Actress
- Ford V Ferrari only gets Picture and technical stuff, no Actor
- Joker no Director no cimematography but overall did okay
- Bombshell doing bad, only acting and hair makeup
- The Two Popes did poorly, only Screenplay and Supporting Actor
- The Farewell doing as expected
- A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood did poorly, only Screenplay and Supporting Actor

- Uncut Gems did VERY well, has some shot at a Best Picture Oscar nomination now


If this ends up having some bearing on the final Oscars results, the Best Picture race would now look like this:

FRONT-RUNNERS
The Irishman, Marriage Story, Parasite

COULD WIN BEST PICTURE
1917, Little Women, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

WILL BE NOMINATED
Jojo Rabbit

JUST GET IN OR JUST MISS
Ford V Ferrari, Joker, The Farewell, Uncut Gems

WILDCARD TO GET IN
Bombshell, The Two Popes, A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

Gotta disagree, this group was never going to be among Jojo Rabbit’s strongest supporters whereas Parasite needs to absolute clean up with critics groups to have any shot at winning Best Picture.  At this point the contenders for a BP win are (in order)

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (Hollywood loves seeing itself romanticized)
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit (this is definitely the “everyone at the Thanksgiving table will like it even if only some of people love it” contender)
Marriage Story (if it gets best director and best editing nods...watch out)

Parasite will definitely be nominated, but right now I doubt it has more than an outside shot although a Best Director win is still possible.  Any acting nominations seem extremely unlikely though tbh.

Also not to nitpick, but Jojo Rabbit did get nominated for Best Picture :P

Marriage Story is my hope to win Best Picture, on the strength of Original Screenplay, Actor, Actress and some technical Oscars. The only movie I'd prefer at this stage is Parasite, which is more of a long shot. To win Best Picture, Parasite like you said needs to win Best Director or have both of Marriage Story and The Irishman underperform, or both. The third option in my mind is the most likely, where The Irishman wins based on Adapted Screenplay, acting, and technical. If The Irishman gets both Adapted Screenplay and Director, the game is over for everybody else.

Outside of those 3, my gut tells me Once Upon A Time In Hollywood isn't happening and I would kind of be okay with Jojo Rabbit being this year's version of Crash / Green Nook and winning over better films. I loved Jojo Rabbit so much.


I'm still holding out hope on acting, but it's looking unlikely.

Thanks I missed that. This is good news IMO.

MARRIAGE STORY (no spoilers)

I'm having a hard time reviewing this. It was overall just so damn good, that I can't really say what was bad (nothing) or what were the strong points of the film (everything). This is my generation's Kramer Vs Kramer, and I can say with confidence that Marriage Story is the better film and therefore an instant classic. Drop everything you're doing, log onto Netflix and watch this movie right now. You owe it to yourself. I was blown away when I saw this late Thursday night, and I'm thinking about it all the time still days later.

DECENT BUT NOT GREAT
- Alan Alda
- Ray Liotta
- The pacing
- The smaller characters in the movie

DESERVES A LOT OF PRAISE
- Laura Dern
- The how good and confident in itself the script is
- The underrated subtle cinematography
- The emotion
- How REAL this movie feels

DESERVE MORE THAN PRAISE, WORSHIP-WORTHY
- Adam Driver
- Scarlett Johansson

FINAL SCORE
A (maybe A plus, I'll think on it)

OSCAR TALK
This is a big player for Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Actor, Actress and Supporting Actress. It also has a reasonable chance at Director, Cinematography, Editing and Score. Unlikely but possible is Supporting Actor. This is IMO going to win Best Picture unless the Academy goes with The Irishman (likely) or Parasite (unlikely). What a film.

I'm in the process of watching it. It's another one of those that I've had to watch in pieces. I'll get back to you with my thoughts, if I feel like I have anything to add.

Golden Globes nominations are here!

Joker and The Two Popes did very well, definitely better than Ford V Ferrari and Bombshell. These movies are all just outside the top 7 for Best Picture Oscar nominations, fighting fir the #8 spot and a possibly #9 (and #10?) spot. Golden Globes are probably the biggest film awards that influence and/or reveal how the Oscars might go, so this is big news.

Little Women was not nominated for Best Picture or Director, with The Two Popes and Joker taking it's places.

Also big news, Marriage Story and Little Women were both not nominated for Best Director, but Joker was.

Robert DeNiro wasn't nominated for Best Actor, it went to Anthony Hopkins instead.

Knives Out did pretty good, but other movies trying to get in - or back in - to the conversation got nothing done here... The Lighthouse, Just Mercy, A Hidden Life, Queen & Slim, Waves, The Aeronauts and Clemency. The only nomination for A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood was Tom Hanks, so it looks like a Best Picture nomination is really slipping away fast for that film.

Golden Globe Awards nominees

BEST PICTURE
The Irishman (drama)
Marriage Story (drama)
1917 (drama)
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (comedy/musical)
Jojo Rabbit (comedy/musical)
Joker (drama)
The Two Popes (drama)
Knives Out (comedy/musical)
Rocketman (comedy/musical)
Dolemite Is My Name (comedy/musical)

BEST DIRECTOR
The Irishman
Parasite
1917
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Joker

BEST SCREENPLAY
The Irishman
Marriage Story
Parasite
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
The Two Popes

BEST ACTOR
Marriage Story (drama)
Joker (drama)
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (comedy/musical)
The Two Popes (drama)
Pain & Glory (drama)
Ford V Ferrari (drama)
Rocketman (comedy/musical)
Dolemite Is My Name (comedy/musical)
Jojo Rabbit (comedy/musical)
Knives Out (comedy/musical)

BEST ACTRESS
Judy (drama)
Marriage Story (drama)
Little Women (drama)
Bombshell (drama)
The Farewell (comedy/musical)
Harriet (drama)
Knives Out (comedy/musical)
Booksmart (comedy/musical)
Late Night (comedy/musical)
Where'd You Go Bernadette (comedy/musical)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
The Irishman (Pesce)
A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood
The Irishman (Pacino)
The Two Popes

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Marriage Story
Bombshell
Hustlers
The Report
Richard Jewell

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Parasite
The Farewell
Pain & Glory
Portrait Of A Lady On Fire
Les Miserables

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Toy Story 4
Frozen II
How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
Missing Link
The Lion King

BEST SCORE
1917
Marriage Story
Little Women
Joker
Motherless Brooklyn

BEST SONG
Rocketman
Harriet
Frozen II
The Lion King
Cats

Always happy to see Roman Griffin Davis getting some unexpected, but very well-deserved recognition :)

Still haven't seen most of the Best Picture front-runners, but I just saw Marriage Story, and I thought it was really good. I definitely think it's good enough to win BP.

Ford v. Ferrari was the ultimate dad movie (and in fact, my dad really liked it). I thought it was a solid, entertaining film that was a little long. Along with Rocket Man, Booksmart, and Dolemite is My Name, I'd be fine with it getting a BP nomination, but I wouldn't want it to win Best Picture.

For 2017, my favorite film was Thor: Ragnarok. But in terms of Best Picture, I would have given it to Lady Bird. I really liked the first half of Three Billboards, but it fell apart for me in the second half. The Shape of Water was a good movie but I didn't think it deserved to win. My rankings of 2017:

Very good: Lady Bird, The Post, Florida Project, The Big Sick, The Death of Stalin, Blade Runner 2049, Thor Ragnarok

Good: Three Billboards, Logan Lucky, Wind River, Get Out, Darkest Hour, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Baby Driver, Mudbound, Spider-Man Homecoming, Wonder Woman, The Shape of Water, I Tonya, Mother!, Good Time, The Disaster Artist, Logan, The Meyerowitz Stories, probably a few others

Ok: First Reformed, Phantom Thread, Dunkirk, The Lost City of Z, Columbus

Most disappointing: Last Jedi, Alien Covenant

Worst movie I saw all year: Singularity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_(2017_film))

As far as Best Picture goes, the movies that can actually win the award at this point are The Irishman, Parasite, Marriage Story and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, with 1917 being an underdog 5th option and Jojo Rabbit being a long-shot highly unlikely 6th option. There is theoretically a chance for a few movies to go from a 0% chance of winning up to a 5% long-shot chance between now and the Oscars, those movies being Little Women, Joker and The Two Popes. So there are 4 or 5 real contenders and 9 total contenders at this point.

The other movies people mention in regards to Best Picture can only hope for a nomination at best, which is still a big deal in itself. Those movies are Ford V Ferrari, Bombshell, The Farewell, Knives Out, Uncut Gems, A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood, and then again for this category there are 5 or 10 highly unlikely other movies with a 10% chance or less of sneaking in as a suprise nomination.

Out of the 9 actual contenders, I've seen 6, and the one I would recommend most to anybody is Parasite. Totally worth a watch if you get the chance to see it.

I'm surprised The Farewell isn't getting much love this awards season. It seems like the type of movie critics would love. IMO it was better than Marriage Story, which was also very good, and certainly better than Joker

It's doing okay IMO. It got Golden Globes nominations for Foreign Language Film, Actress (Comedy/Musical), and likely would have gotten Screenplay as well if The Golden Globes zplit it into two categories in the same way that the Oscars do.

At the Oscars, it still has a really good shot at Screenplay and Actress, and has small chances at Picture and Supporting Actress. Those last two will likely need a few nominations from other awards in the next 2 months, which is possible.

The direct competitor movies for Best Picture are The Two Popes, Ford V Ferrari and Bombshell. There are between 0 and 2 slots left and The Farewell could realistically beat out those films to get in. Florence Pugh getting snubbed at the Oscars is also good for The Farewell for Best Supporting Actress. Annette Bening and Cathy Bates - at this point - haven't solidified their status in the category and could be bumped out between now and February. Dern is a lock and I don't see Robbie or Lopez getting bumped out.

The SAG nominations coming out in just a few hours are going to give us a better look at the acting categories, which will be interesting.

EDIT - Also a REALLY important point that I missed. The rules of the Golden Globes are that foreign films are not allowed to compete for Best Picture. That's why Parasite didn't get a Best Picture nomination. It's very reasonable to assume that The Farewell would have beaten out Dolemite Is My Name and maybe also Rocketman if it was allowed into the Best Picture category. Therefore, the Golden Globes did not make any sort of an indication whether or not The Farewell is worthy of a Best Picture Oscar nomination. There was no snub here whatsoever, and IMO it's very likely tbat it would have been nominated if the rules were different.

SCREEN ACTORS GUILD NOMINATIONS.

Akwafina got snubbed for Nyongo and Zhao Shuzhen (as well as Annette Bening and Cathy Bates) didn't get in over Scarlet Johansson and Nicole Kidman. This doesn't help The Farewell. At least it did okay at the Golden Globes.

The Irishman, Parasite and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood got an Ensemble Cast nominations while Marriage Story did not, despite Driver Johansson Dern all being major acting contenders. I'd say this hurts Marriage Story and helps Once Upon A Time In Hollywood in this four-way Best Picture race.

Bale and Edgerton nominated for Actor over Banderas and Pryce. Pugh passed over again for Actress. Foxx over Hopkins for Supporting Actor.

I haven't followed Best Picture closely yet, but based on my understanding from previous years I think that you're probably right in saying that there are 5 movies with an actual chance. I would be really surprised, though, if Parasite or 1917 won based on the fact that foreign language films and war movies (respectively) don't seem to win very often. My guess is that it will come down to the Irishman (peak Scorsese is always a contender), Marriage Story (the kind of film that often wins Oscars), and Once Upon a Time (subject matter + Tarantino being due for a win).

- Banderas was never going to get nominated here. 

- Bale's nomination is a nice surprise.  IDK if it was deserved or not, but either way, he was great in Ford v Ferrari, so I won't complain about him getting some attention. 

- I haven't seen Rocketman, but folks keep recommending it and while I still worry about it being another Bohemian Rhapsody, I may well end up checking it out. 

- The Two Popes missing out completely, however, is a very bad sign for that film's Oscar prospects although it could still score a Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, or Best Adapted Screenplay nomination (although even the former is looking more and more like a heavy lift).  It may well have to content itself with a lone Best Adapted Screenplay nomination (which will likely end up annoying me to no end if the movie turns out to be even half as good as it looks)

- Adam Sandler missing out on SAG and especially Globes nominations is not a good sign for his Best Actor prospects.  What may save him, however, is that folks who love Uncut Gems seem to really love it.  As in "it might get enough 1st choice votes to eeek out a surprise BP nomination" love it.  Then again, critics don't vote for Oscars.  And Adam Sandler has [somehow] made a lot of money for a lot of people over the years.  We'll see what happens.  I suspect he would've gotten nominated were there six SAG slots. 

- Finally, we reach a group where Jojo Rabbit will likely do quite well: the Guilds.  From what I've read, industry types seems to love Jojo Rabbit.  Film critics, not so much :P  I still think Jojo Rabbit is very much in the thick of the BP contest, although obviously not the frontrunner, but we'll know more with this film once the Oscar nominations are announced. 

- I gotta say, I'm kinda sad that Ray Liotta (Marriage Story) and Shia LaBouf (Honey Boy) aren't getting much recognition for their respective Oscar-caliber performances this year. 

- Parasite [somehow] getting a Best Ensemble nomination means that T'Chenka was probably right.  Parasite may be a strong contender for a BP win after all.  If Bong Joon-Ho starts consistently winning Best Director from non-critics awards groups, watch out!

- Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood did exactly what it needed to here and was pretty clearly the HFPA (Golden Globes) favorite film.  But then, Globes voters don't vote for Oscars. 

- Jojo Rabbit and Parasite did really well here.  We're probably looking at a tossup between Jojo Rabbit, Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, Parasite, and The Irishman.  I absolutely loved Marriage Story (honestly, it's a perfect movie; I don't even know what nitpick I could make much less actual substantive criticism) and expect it to both win some major awards and get tons of nominations, but for some reason I can't shake the feeling that it's a bit of a longshot to take home the big prize.  We'll see what happens on nomination day.  A best director nomination for Noah Baumbach would be a really good sign for its chances.

- Clearly, the industry is not responding to Little Women at all though.  The Globes were one thing, but that SAG shutout...yikes.  I'm not exactly complaining, mind you, but still...you'd think actors would be this film's base.

Tarantino has two Oscars (one more than Scorsese) and even his fans admit that OUATIH is his weakest film.

Many fans think it's his best film...

I finally saw 'Marriage Story' in its entirety. It really was superb.

It kind of made me depressed though because it really reminded me of my parents' divorce; which became final just this year, right down to one of my parents wanting to settle the divorce outside of using lawyers, and the other going through with getting a lawyer anyway. Thankfully, as messy as it was, their's wasn't as complicated as Charlie and Nicole's. There was no custody issue, for one thing. And unlike the kid in this movie, I took, and am still taking, my parents' divorce very poorly. And that's as an adult too!

 I guess that's one of the movie's strengths though-how relatable it is. It was apparently inspired by Noah Baumbach's own divorce, and as such it really is a story that can resonate with anyone who has been through family issues like this. Our main characters are very realistic, neither of them are perfect but neither of them are bad people either. They're just people. That goes for the very nuanced situations in the divorce too. There will always be awkwardness, there will always be heartbreak, there will always be humor. All of that was here in spades.

 Unlike another Baumbach film, 'The Squid and the Whale,' which was supposedly inspired by his parents' divorce, you don't really root for one person over the other (in that film, the dad ends up being much less sympathetic than the mom). By that notion this film is superior to that one, which I also liked though. There is the added benefit of this film not having the creepy-ass younger brother character from 'The Squid and the Whale,' I will say. Baumbach seems to really like to focus on themes of family conflict in his films, and he's great at portraying them. That even goes for 'The Meyerowitz Stories,' which is another of his films that I would recommend.

I would agree with T'Chenka that it is like a better, updated 'Kramer vs. Kramer.' That's not to take anything away from that movie, it was ahead of its time, and deserves its place as a classic. It's just that 'Marriage Story' is better at balancing its focus on both the dad and mom, and is more contemporary and potentially even timeless.

Scarlett Johansson is an actress who I always thought was great, but never really blew me away with one of her performances until this one! This is her best performance ever. Same with Adam Driver. Both are great in different ways though-Johansson gets a lot of individual moments where she shines, but Driver shines in his interactions with other characters. Needless to say the explosive scene at the apartment features both of those strengths coming together. That entire scene almost felt like it could be its own excellent one act play. Both really ought to be nominated for whatever awards possible.

The supporting characters are all great too. Especially all of the lawyers. Alan Alda was just adorable and Laura Dern was extremely charismatic. I was very surprised to see Ray Liotta make an appearance. I haven't seen him in a recent movie in awhile, and it was nice to see him not playing him typecast as the usual cop or gangster for once.

So yeah, this is definitely one of the best films of the year, and the best that I have seen so far (if we don't count 'Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus'). I found few to no flaws with it. I mean okay, maybe the Steven Sondheim songs could have been cut out, but whatever. They didn't bother me or disrupt the film's pacing too much.

And one last thing: did anyone else think that the boy who played Henry was a dead-ringer for the actor who played Danny Torrance in 'The Shining?' He looked exactly like him! It was almost off-putting! I kept expecting him to talk to his finger.

Also Bob Fossil from 'The Mighty Boosh' playing the judge was kind of distracting.

Yeah, I should have been more specific. He's won two Oscars, but they were both for screenwriting. He's never won Best Director (despite two nominations) and a Tarantino film has never won Best Picture (despite three nominations).

This is probably my bias, but I think Parasite might win. Roma almost won last year, which was foreign and Netflix and slow and artsy, four potential downfalls. Parasite is foreign, but not only is it NOT Netflix, but it's actually competing against Netflix. It's also not slow and not "artsy" in the way that might turn some people off, even though it's extremely well made. People who want to see justice for Roma, people that don't respect Netflix and people who dislike slow artsy stuff might all come out this year for Parasite.

Also keep in mind that The Irishman Once Upon A Time In Hollywood are long films that some might feel are slow, and Marriage Story is a mildly artsy drama. If you can get past the foreign language aspect, Parasite is arguably the most accessible (mainstream friendly) film, the fastest-paced and best film overall out of the top 4 of Irishman, Marriage Story, Hollywood, Parasite. I think it's also (slightly) better than Roma or ay least equal, and much more accessible.

Hollywood is full of liberals trying to be progressive and inclusive, as we all know. What better time to show it than to choose an Asian culture film? I just this second realizef how incredibly white Irishman, Marriage Story and Hollywood are. Don't Hollywood libs like to pat themselves on the back for supporting minorities? Here's their chance.

Honestly, I haven't heard/read anyone say that. There are many people who love it but even they don't think it's his best effort.

The thing with Roma that I think hurt it more than anything tbh is that it (at least imo) does not play well on the TV.  Like, it's a slow film and I come at it as someone who didn't see what all the hubbub was about (aside from the Cinematography which totally deserved an Oscar), but I feel like the issues I had with the film were almost all far more pronounced b/c I saw it on TV rather than in a theater.  OTOH, like Green Book last year, all five of this year's frontrunners will play very well on screener (especially The Irishman since you can take breaks which is probably the best way to watch it). 

To your point in the last paragraph, I mean, they do like to pat themselves on the back for supporting minorities in superficial ways.  I'm sure the industry's immediate narrative if Parasite would be some cringey-as-hell version of "We did it!  We just struck a huge blow against Trump's xenophobic policies by giving an award to an Asian people movie; no need for applause, this sort of enlightenment just comes naturally."

At the same time, though, they also really like movies about Hollywood and they really like movies set during WWII.

9 Academy Awards Short-Lists Revealed
9 of the 16 "below the line" (minor) categories now have short-lists.
0 of the 8 "above the line" (major) categories have short-lists out.


BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
Parasite (South Korea)
Pain & Glory (Spain)
Les Miserables (France)
Atlantics (Senegal) (netflix)
Honeyland (North Macedonia)
Beanpole (Russua)
Corpus Christi (Poland)
The Painted Bird (Czech Republic)
Those Who Remained (Hungary)
Truth And Justice (Estonia)
SNUBS - Monos (Colombia) is a big snub, should have made the short-list.
SNUBS - France snubbed Portrait Of A Lady On Fire by submitting Les Miserables instead.
SNUBS - And Then We Danced (Sweden)
SNUBS - The Invisible Life Of Euridice Gusmao (Brazil)


BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
American Factory (netflix)
Apollo 11
One Child Nation
The Cave
For Sama
Honeyland
Maiden
The Biggest Little Farm
Knock Down The House (netflix)
The Great Hack (netflix)
The Edge Of Democracy
Aquarela
Midnight Family
Advocate
The Apollo
SNUBS - Varda By Agnes
SNUBS - I thought "Hail Satan?" would make the short-list.


BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Irishman
1917
The Lion King
Cats
Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker
Gemini Man
Avengers: Endgame
Alita: Battle Angel
Captain Marvel
Terminator: Dark Fate
SNUBS - Ad Astra is a MASSIVE snub. WOW. Unbelievable.
SNUBS - Ford V Ferrari
SNUBS - The Aeronauts
SNUBS - Spider-Man: Far From Home


BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
Bombshell
Joker
Dolemite Is My Name
Judy
Little Women
Downton Abbey
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Rocketman
Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil
1917
SNUBS - Nothing comes to mind.


MUSIC - BEST SCORE
Marriage Story
Joker
1917
Little Women
Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker
Motherless Brooklyn
Us
Jojo Rabbit
Avengers: Endgame
Ford V Ferrari
The Farewell
Pain & Glory
Bombshell
Frozen II
The King
SNUBS - Parasite
SNUBS - Uncut Gems
SNUBS - Waves


MUSIC - BEST SONG
Harriet - "Stand Up"
Frozen II - "Into The Unknown"
Rocketman - "(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again"
The Lion King - "Spirit"
Aladdin - "Speechless"
Wild Rose - "Glasgow"
Breakthrough - "I'm Standing With You"
Motherless Brooklyn - "Daily Battles"
Toy Story 4 - "I Can't Let You Throw Yourself Away
The LEGO Movie 2 - "Catchy Song"
The Lion King - "Never Too Late"
Parasite - "A Glass Of Soju"
The Black Godfather - "Letter To My Godfather"
The Bronx USA - "Da Bronx"
Joni Morrison: The Pieces That I Am - "High Above The Water"
SNUBS - A pretty big snub would be Cats - "Beautiful Ghosts"


LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
I don't really care about the 3 short film categories. Information can be found below.
https://oscars.org/oscars/92nd-oscars-shortlists (https://oscars.org/oscars/92nd-oscars-shortlists)


ANIMATED SHORT FILM
I don't really care about the 3 short film categories. Information can be found below.
https://oscars.org/oscars/92nd-oscars-shortlists (https://oscars.org/oscars/92nd-oscars-shortlists)


DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
I don't really care about the 3 short film categories. Information can be found below.
https://oscars.org/oscars/92nd-oscars-shortlists (https://oscars.org/oscars/92nd-oscars-shortlists)

Favorite films: Titanic (1997), Apollo 13 (1995)
Best character development ever: Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993). Everything, down to every little detail, was spot-on.

The official trailer for Tenet came out today, Christopher Nolan's new film that comes out in July, starring John David Washington. What an absolute MIND-F__K.

If you're the kind of person that watches movie trailers, this is a must-watch trailer.  The trailer doesn't give away exactly what's going on, but you get a bit of an idea. This is Inception-level mind-f__kery going on here. Based on that trailer, this has the potential to be the best film of 2020. Not sure on how likely it is to reach that potential, but the potential is there IMO. Future classic film? Let the hype begin.

The cast includes Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debecki. Kenneth Branagh, Michael Caine, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Himesh Patel. Ludwig Goransson does the score, which is in the trailer. He won an Oscar for Best Original Score for Black Panther.

TENET Official Trailer
https://youtu.be/LdOM0x0XDMo

I just saw a few movies:

1) Her Smell - Great, vanity-free, Oscar-worthy lead performance by a manic Elisabeth Moss as an incredibly unlikable punk rock singer...but in a very meh movie.  I give it a C.
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2) Bombshell - Man, what an awful movie.  And they made up false instances of sexual harassment and sexual assault by Ailes.  Like, why do that?  Even if you were dead set on having Margot Robbie in the movie for some reason, you could’ve at least began the film with a disclaimer saying “some of this is true.”  Or have her play one of the less well-known victims of Ailes in a flashback, Idk.  Ideally, her whole character could’ve been cut from the movie.  

I usually give movies a lot of leeway about fictionalizing certain (or even most) elements of true stories as long as they capture the spirit of the truth, but there are some things where you can’t just make stuff up even if you capture the spirit of the truth (which tbf Robbie’s character’s storyline did) and depicting someone committing sex crimes is one of them...even if said person really was a sex predator.  

The Loudest Voice may’ve been - aside from Russell Crowe’s suburb performance as Ailes - a dull, poorly-written, superficial miniseries, but at least it tried to stick to the facts.  Bombshell didn’t even try and it was still a boring, poorly written film with no interest in going beyond the most superficial surface level.  In any case, Robbie’s character didn’t even exist, much less get sexually assaulted or harassed by Ailes.  I know Ailes did the things he does to her character to a number of women, but making up a character who really just exists to be a naive idealist who becomes a victim...it really bothered me.  Maybe I’m getting too hung up on this and it doesn’t matter b/c Ailes did do this stuff to other people, idk.  Either way, it was still a boring and very by-the-numbers movie.

Tbh, Bombshell really should’ve focused on Gretchen Carlson who was actually...you know...sexually harassed by Ailes and was certainly the real hero of this scandal.  Margot Robbie’s character and Kate McKinnon’s secretly Hillary supporting lesbian [see, audience, even Fox employees are really liberals deep down ::) ) didn’t exist irl.  

For that matter - unlike Carlson - Megyn Kelly didn’t come forward until it was clear that Ailes was going down no matter what and she was a pretty horrible person even compared to Carlson.  I’m not sure why they tried to shoehorn her into this as some sort of hero nor did I think Theron even gave that good a performance, but whatever.

I mean, this movie was just plain dull.  The only good things were Nicole Kidman and John Lithgow’s (stealing every scene he was in as Ailes) excellent performances, the makeup (good prosthetics on Lithgow and Theron looked just like Kelly), the bit about Hannity and O’Reilly’s rivalry, some genuinely funny lines mocking O’Reilly’s use of a vibrator (yes, that actually happened and raises so many questions), and the bit of the film’s score used for the brief elevator scene which inexplicably constituted the film’s entire theatrical trailer.  

Anyway, Bombshell barely gets a C- b/c of Lithgow and Kidman’s performances, otherwise I’d have given it a D.  It’s just a boring, generic, dull movie.
____________________________
3) Uncut Gems - This film was amazing.  Loved every minute of it!  The film has this chaotic, propulsive, violent, hyper-active energy that grabs you and then never lets go.  It’s probably the most immersive film I’ve seen since Hereditary.  Uncut Gems also excels as both a crime film and a character study of a degenerate, deeply unsympathetic gambling addict.  

It is superbly edited and directed, but the real MVP is Adam Sandler.  He just completely disappears into the character and delivers such a raw, powerful, nuanced, vanity-free performance that you never for a second remember you’re watching Adam Sandler.  For the duration of the movie, there is no Adam Sandler, only Howard Rattner.  I always thought Sandler could give a solid dramatic performance in a supporting part as hammy [inks]hole villain if he were so inclined (something like a white version of Tuco Salamanca’s character from Breaking Bad), but this...wow.  I mean, I just didn’t think Sandler had it in him.  Uncut Gems also features good supporting performances by Julie Fox (Howard Ratner’s girlfriend), Eric Bogosian (a loanshark), and Kevin Garnett (as himself in a non-cameo role...apparently the dude can act)

The script is excellent and contains tons of great twists (you’ll want to go into this one as close to blind as possible).  It always keeps you on the edge of your seat and everything just feels so realistic.  You can well that a lot of careful research went into every aspect of this movie.

I suspect that Uncut Gems will do well (relatively speaking) with nominations b/c while it’s very much not an academy movie, those who like it will absolutely love it.  BP and Best Director are probably not in the cards, but I think it has a solid shot at nominations for editing, Best Actor, and quite possibly original screenplay and maybe even cinematography.  I suppose an upset BP nom is possible, but I doubt it.  A Best Director nomination is too heavy a lift imo (that’ll be Scorsese, Tarantino, Bong Joon-Ho, Mendes, and one of Waititi, Baumbach, or *maybe* Phillips).  

Not gonna lie, if he gets nominated then Sandler has a real shot at winning Best Actor imo.  The only danger sign is that he got snubbed by the SAG since they use the same preferential voting system as the OSCARs.  I think Bale edging Sandler out was a fluke, but we’ll see.   

I give it an A+ and highly recommend seeing it, ideally in theaters since watching this one really is an experience that will be amplified by seeing it that way.

Knives Out! was a great movie. Mysteries are not all that common a genre, and this one was suberbly executed. I for one did not see the details coming.

From what I've read, every country outside of the USA is getting Uncut Gems on Netflix on January 31st. Can't wait. Going to see Bombshell tonight and trying to keep my expectations relatively low.

THE TWO POPES (no spoilers)

This was a nice film, well made and intimate, about two polar opposites in the Vatican spending time together. You learn a lot about Pope Francis, and you get to know how Pope Benefict was in his 80s. The cinematograghy is excellent and the acting is pretty good. I loved all the politics: Benedict thinks the church needs to stay conservative and Francis believes in a liberal church. This is definitely a "slow character drama", which will completely tirn some people off, but it's good.

WEAK POINTS
- "Excitement level", feeling the plot progress

DESERVES A LOT OF PRAISE
- Cinematograohy was delicious
- Pryce and Hopkins both act very well in this
- Church political discussion was great

FINAL SCORE
B plus

OSCAR TALK
VERY good chance at Best Adapted Screenlay. This may sneak into Best Pictue.. Pryce (Actor) and Hopkins (Supporting Actor) are going to either just sneak into nominations or just miss out. There isn't much talk about Best Cinematography, but there should be IMO.





RICHARD JEWELL (no spoilers)

This was a good drama. There isn't much to praise but there isn't much to criticize. Hauser, Rockwell and especially Kathy Bates were pretty good in this. Hamm and Wilde were forgettable.

OKAY BUT ONLY OKAY
- Side characters (script, acting)

DESERVE PRAISE
- Kathy Bates, Sam Rockwell, Paul Walter Hauser

FINAL SCORE
B

OSCAR TALK
Not much. Kathy Bates has some chance to get a Best Supporting Actress nomination. Rockwell could on a longshot get into Best Supporting Actor because the Academy loves him (see: Vice Rockwell nomination last year over over Beautiful Boy Chalamet).

Small nitpick: The Two Popes is adapted from a play, it’s not an original screenplay.

Oops! Golden Globes messed my head up.

BOMBSHELL (no spoilers)

This is more or less the Vice of 2019. True fact-based political drama with a great cast and great makeup that has great potential and doesn't quite live up to the hype due to the script. This movie was a real mixed bag, but it's absolutely worth a watch and I would recommend it if the concept / story / trailer have you interested.

CRITICISMS
- The script has issues. Some scenes and messages were home runs, some didn't work as well as they should have, and the third act didn't hold even close to the gravity that it should have
- The movie adressed a lot of issues very clearly, but didn't seem to have a clear message on about solving these problems noving forward. The film tried to criticize post-Ailes Fox as well, but didn't do a good enough clear enough job making it's case

DESERVES PRAISE
- The make-up was GREAT. There was one scene with Bill O'Reilly that looked off, and you only notice how they changed Kidman from certain angles in certain scenes. Theron and Lithgow were INCREDIBLE though.
- Charlize Theron gives a top 10 lead actress performance for 2019, maybe top 5.
- Margot Robbie was better than I expected. I always underrate her but she keeps proving me wrong.
- Lithgow and Kidman were good. Didn't blow me away but I have no criticisms.
- A few scenes and moments here and there were great, like scenes out of a Best Picture front-runner quality

FINAL SCORE
B plus (maybe just a B)

OSCAR TALK
This is the front-runner for Best Hairstyling And Makeup. Charlize Theron is a lock for a Best Actress nomination and an underdog to win. Robbie has a pretty good chance for a Best Supporting Actress nomination. Bombshell is in the top 11 or top 12 for Best Picture, but probably not one of the 8 or 9 (or 10) nominees. Lithgow is a longshot for Best Supporting Actor.

I saw The Irishman last week. I thought it was a really good movie, and I really liked how Scorsese sort of counter-glamorized mob films (and went over some fairly accurate political history!) even while he made a classic Scorsese film.

But I would also say that it wasn't quite as good as Goodfellas, and it was obviously very, very long. Without the need to give Scorsese an Oscar (given his Best Picture and Best Director win for Departed) I'm skeptical that it will win BP (though it will almost certainly be nominated). In my intuition-driven (i.e. probably worthless) opinion, I'm now gonna say that Marriage Story and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (which I still haven't seen) are the co-frontrunners, though I do acknowledge T'Chenka's persuasive argument regarding Parasite.

I like The Irishman, but my personal preferences to win Best Picture are:

COULD ACTUALLY WIN
1 - Parasite
2 - Marruage Story
3 - Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
4/5 - The Irishman
4/5 - 1917  ---  (haven't seen yet)

OUT OF NOWHERE SHOCK WINNER
6/7- Jojo Rabbit
7/8 - Joker
6/7/8 - Little Women  ---  (haven't seen yet)

NO REAL SHOT TO WIN
9 - The Two Popes
10 - Bombshell
11 - Ford V Ferrari

Based on all the awards nominations and actual awards that happen at this time of year, big and small, things are always in a state of flux from week to week. The most influential things remaining before the Oscars are the Golden Globes, the SAG Awards, and both nominations and awards for the BAFTAs and PGAs.

Based on what the experts and armchair "experts" are all saying this week, The Irishman (#1), Parasite (#2) and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (#3) are the three front-runners right now. The Irishman is very very slowly trending downwards and Parasite is very very slowly trending upwards. Hollywood probably won't rise any higher, so it will only "move up" by Irishman or Parasite dropping down.

Marriage Story was in the top 4 as a front-runner as early as 2 weeks ago, but suprisingly it has basically fallen out of "front-runner" status and dropped to a second tier as #4, still above 1917 at #5 and still way above the third tier (Jojo Rabbit, Joker), fourth tier (Little Women) and fifth tier (Ford V Ferrari, The Two Popes, Bombshell). The main reason for this is that it keeps getting snubbed for Best Director nominations, which are going to Joker and Little Women instead.

Fair point, and TIL that Crash was the most recent film to win BP without being nominated for Best Director at the Golden Globes. On the other hand, I remember a few years ago Argo surprised a lot of people by winning Best Picture even though Affleck wasn't nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards.

I was planning on making a post specifically about this right before the Oscars, but perhaps I'll just re-quote this post at that time. The Best Picture winner also wins either Director or Screenplay or both at the Oscars 95% of the time. If it wins both, it's 95% likely to win Picture. Last year right before they announced Best Picture, the odds of it being anything other than Green Book (Original Screenplay) or Blakkklansman (Adapted Screenplay) or Roma (Director) were 5% or less.

When you watch the actual awards live, Screenplay and Director are HUGE hints as to who will not be winning Picture at the end of the night. For example, last year with The Favourite, Green Book winning Screenplay was s dagger in The Favourite's heart, since Roma was a lock for Director. Two years ago, Get Out winning Screenplay wss a dagger in the heart of Three Billboards, especially since it wasn't even nominated for Director. If Marruage Story isn't nominated for Director this year, it's Best Picture chances drop to 5% or less if it doesn't win Screenplay.

BEST PICTURE last ten years:

- Green Book (Original Screenplay)
- The Shape Of Water (Director)
- Moonlight (Adapted Screenplay)
- Spotlight (Original Screenplay)
- Birdman (Director + Original Screenplay)
- 12 Years A Slave (Adapted Screenplay)
- Argo (Adapted Screenplay)
- The Artist (Director)
- The King's Speech (Director + Original Screenplay)
- The Hurt Locker (Director + Original Screenplay)

I saw The Two Popes and I really liked it, but I agree with T’Chenka’s observations about why it won’t be for everyone.  Great acting, excellent screenplay (despite being kinda slow at times, I was never the least bit bored), and just a really thoughtful, well-made film.  A religious film in the best sense and a very insightful one at that.  It’s also a beautiful film to watch even if the cinematography sometimes left a bit to be desired.  I’d give it an A-  Watch the trailer first though.  If you see it and think you’d like a deep, dialogue-heavy film along those lines then I highly recommend it.  Otherwise, you might wanna sit this one out.  Then again, it’s on Netflix so you can always shut it off if you don’t like it.

Oscar talk:

This has a shot at getting either the fourth or fifth adapted screenplay slot although it’s not a lock.  Jonathan Pryce and especially Anthony Hopkins do have a real - albeit less than 50% - chance of sneaking in for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor nominations respectively (even though they’re really both leads and the real supporting performance is the guy who played a younger Pope Francis in the flashbacks).  B/c of the Academy’s preferential voting system, I’d be shocked if this film got a BP nomination...not b/c it is undeserving, but b/c nominees in all categories are determined by the films with the most first place votes from that branch of the academy.*  Only the Oscars and the guilds do it that way.
————————
Warning: Incoming Inside Baseball (just skip ahead if not interested)

What this means is for, say, BP, you don’t vote for your top ten (otherwise a BP nod, Adapted Screenplay nod, and probably a nomination for Hopkins would be locks and Pryce would have a good shot at a nomination).  The Producer’s Branch members each vote for just one film and then once you have the nominees, the whole academy votes in every category.  This is an under-appreciated factor in who gets nominated (ex: Captain Philips would’ve been a lock for Best Director and Best Actor nods under a normal voting system, but was the sort of film likely to get a lot of 3-5th place votes, so it missed out in both categories). 

They briefly BP an exception to this rule and allow the producers branch to have ten votes (top ten films) for the 2010 Oscars, but a few films got nominated that the academy felt were from “low art genres” like The Blind Side (mainstream crowd pleaser/sports film), District 9 (Sci-Fi), A Serious Man (comedy), and Up (animated film).  Up and District 9’s BP nods in particular pissed off a lot of folks in the academy.  The academy promptly opted to return to the “pick one film” rule as a sort of genre gerrymandering of BP nominations. 
______________________
Inside baseball over.

Ultimately, preferential favors two types of films in the nominations voting: 1) Obvious Oscar bait frontrunners like The King’s Speech, Spotlight, La La Land [or really anything about Hollywood that depicts it as a magical place], Green Book, etc and 2) Films like Jojo Rabbit, Joker, The Wolf of Wall Street, Tarantino films, etc which are very much not for everyone, but that are absolutely beloved rather than just liked/respected by those who enjoyed them.  All of which is to say that I doubt anyone considers The Two Popes the best film of the year even if many academy members will consider it a top ten film. 

Similarly, Jonathan Pryce is so beloved in the film industry that many want him to get “his” Oscar nomination at some point (and you better believe the academy is that superficial about this stuff; “s/he’s overdue” is probably the single best narrative someone seeking an acting nomination could hope for), but is it enough to get Pryce the fifth most first place votes?  Hopkins gives his best performance in over twenty years, but is it good enough to crack the Best Supporting Actor field as an actor who has already won an Oscar and has periodically annoyed the academy by publicly expressing his contempt for the idea of actors campaigning for Oscar nominations (lest we forget many Academy members publicly called for Mo’nique not to be nominated for Precious [she ultimately won] b/c she “isn’t showing us the respect we deserve [by campaigning for an Oscar],” these are some petty folks). 

Anyway, we’ll see what happens, but I doubt it gets more than a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination.  Tbh, Pryce not getting a Best Actor nomination from the SAG might be a death blow to his chances since they use preferential voting and are the industry group most likely to be inclined to nominate a beloved, widely respected actor like Pryce.  The Globes are a bit weird [they’re less useful for predicting nominations since they’re mainly used as A) FYC to Academy members with a mountain of screeners to get through and B) a way for Globes winners to give a good speech to show the Academy members “hey, you’ll feel good about me being on the stage if I win”] and DiCaprio is a lock for a Best Actor nomination, but was nominated in the musical or comedy category at the Globes.

You're not wrong, but the Oscars aren't 100% predictable, despite definitely being 95% predictable. Almost nobody but Roma stans were predicting Marina De Tavira to get a Best Supporting Actress nomination. It came way out of left field. After the Golden Globes, I'm simply not willing to write this film or these actors off just yet.

Pryce and Hopkins could still sneak in, a BP nod would shock me though.

That's a shame, Up and District 9 were both very good films, and there's nothing wrong with the Academy giving BP noms to particularly good animated/genre films. I'd easily take both of those films over e.g. War Horse and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

Agreed

The biggest problem is the movie’s length.  3 and a half hours is a long time and you feel it.  The movie is okay quality-wise, but once you get to hours and realize you’ve got another hour and a half of meh, it feels more and more like a chore.  It’s also a pretty slow movie.  Plus De Niro still moves like an old person, so that was really distracting.

Couldn't agree more

Who are these Academy members who had a problem with Up being nominated but were ok with Black Panther or Hacksaw Ridge?
What a bunch of idiots.

LITTLE WOMEN (very mild spoilers only)

This is a really good coming-of-age classic tale, remade pretty well by Greta Gerwig. I don't know what else to say besides giving my pros and cons, but it's a very solid film and I would recommend it to anybody who likes the premise.


CRITICISMS
- The script is the weak point, specifically how it jumps back and forward in time. It works suprisingly well in most regards, but the non-linear timeline softens the emotional blows unfortunately.
-  I felt that the side characters could've been fleshed out a little bit more. The movie being 5-10 minutes longer in order to do that would've been okay with me, despite already being over 2 hours as is.

DESERVES PRAISE
The sets, costumes, camera work were all pretty good
- The main 7 actors plus a few side actors were all VERY good
- All of the emotional scenes hit hard due to acting, despite script softening blows

BEYOND PRAISE-WORTHY, TRULY GREAT
- Saoirse Ronan and Florence Pugh are SO good. Cannot praise them enough
- If Florence Pugh doesn't get her Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, we riot

FINAL SCORE
A minus (briefly considered B PLUS)

OSCAR TALK
This is a front-runner for Best Costume Design, also has a very good shot at nominations for Best Original Score and a 50/50 shot at Best Production Design. Saoirse Ronan is very likely to get a Best Actress nom, Florence Pugh is 50/50 on getting a Best Supporting Actress nom. Chalamet won't get a Best Supporting Actor nom with better competition this year. Best Adapted Screenplay is a very very likely nomination. Greta is going to probably just miss out on Best Director, unless Marriage Story and Joker both miss. The 8th slot for Best Picture should belong to Little Women, though it could be stolen by Ford V Ferrari, The Two Popes, Bombshell, or in a longshot scenario by Uncut Gems, The Farewell or Knives Out.

On top of that, around the two hour mark the movie just gets f***ing repetitive. That's my biggest issue with it outside the unnecessary length.

*Spoilers?*

How many God damn scenes did we need of Sheeran having a conversation with Bufalino or Hoffa about how Hoffa either needs to stop putting his interests ahead of the mob's or how he needs to get whacked!? There is like a 45 minute segment of the film where this is all that happens, starting with that seemingly never-ending scene at Frank Sheeran's party. Oh, sometimes they're eating. That changes it up, right? No! I don't mind a long, slow movie, including other Sorcese films, but 'The Irishman' was just self-indulgent.

This will be my second Oscar predictions, before the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, BAFTA nominations, PGA nominations, BAFTAs and PGAs. I will do a third and final prediction in the final week before the Oscars.

EDIT - Also, like my first predictions, I'm predicting all the nominees AND the winners. Nominees are announced in two weeks, and my final predictions will be after that, and therefore only predicting the award winners.


BEST PICTURE
Parasite
The Irishman
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Marriage Story
1917
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women

BEST DIRECTOR
Parasite
The Irishman
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
1917
Joker

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Marriage Story
Parasite
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Knives Out
The Farewell

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Little Women
The Two Popes
A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

BEST ACTOR
Marriage Story - Adam Driver
Joker - Joaquin Phoenix
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - Leonardi DiCaprio
Pain & Glory - Antonio Banderas
Ford V Ferrari - Christian Bale

BEST ACTRESS
Judy - Renee Zellweger
Marriage Story - Scarlett Johansson
Bombshell - Charlize Theron
Little Women - Saoirse Ronan
Harriet - Cynthia Erivo

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - Brad Pitt
The Irishman - Joe Pesci
A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood - Tom Hanks
The Irishman - Al Pacino
The Two Popes - Anthony Hopkins

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Marriage Story - Laura Dern
Hustlers - Jennifer Lopez
Bombshell - Margot Robbie
Little Women - Florence Pugh
Richard Jewell - Cathy Bates

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
Parasite
Pain & Glory
Les Miserables
Atlantics
Beanpole

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Toy Story 4
Frozen II
How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
I Lost My Body
Missing Link

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
American Factory
Apollo 11
One Child Nation
For Sama
Honeyland

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
1917
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Joker
The Irishman
Portrait Of A Lady On Fire

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Irishman
Avengers: Endgame
The Lion King
1917
Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

BEST EDITING
The Irishman
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Parasite
Ford V Ferrari
Marriage Story

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
1917
Parasite
The Irishman
Joker

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Little Women
Dolemite Is My Name
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Rocketman
Downton Abbey

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
Bombshell
Judy
Rocketman
Joker
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Marriage Story
1917
Joker
Little Women
Motherless Brooklyn

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Rocketman - (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again
Frozen II - Into The Unknown
Harriet - Stand Up
Toy Story 4 - I Won't Let You Throw Yourself Away
The Lion King - Spirit

BEST SOUND EDITING
Ford V Ferrari
1917
Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Joker

BEST SOUND MIXING
Ford v Ferrari
1917
Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker
Rocketman
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

BEST (Documentary, Live-Action, Animated) SHORT
I honestly don't care about short films and these 3 awards. Maybe I should, but it is what it is.



4 Oscars - Marriage Story
3 Oscars - Parasite, The Irishman
2 Oscars - Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Ford V Ferrari
1 Oscar -  1917, Little Women, Bombshell, Rocketman...
                ...Judy, Toy Story 4, American Factory


12 Nominations - Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
9 Nominations - The Irishman
8 Nominations - 1917, Joker
7 Nominations - Marriage Story
6 Nominations - Parasite, Little Women
4 Nominations - Ford V Ferrari, Rocketman
3 Nominations - Bombshell, Star Wars: The Rise Of Sywalker
2 Nominations - Jojo Rabbit, The Two Popes, A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood...
                         ...Pain & Glory, Judy, Harriet, Toy Story 4, Frozen II, The Lion King
1 Nomination  - The Farewell, Knives Out, Hustlers, Richard Jewell, Avengers: Endgame...
                         ...Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, Dolemite Is My Name, Downton Abbey, Motherless Brooklyn...
                        ...and all other international / documentary / animated nominees

With it being the last day of the year, here is every film of 2019 that I have seen, listed in order of how much I enjoyed them:

Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus
Marriage Story
Paddleton
Everybody Knows
Cold Pursuit
Shazam!
Us
Under the Silver Lake
Rocko’s Modern Life: Static Cling
How To Train Your Dragon 3
The Irishman
The Last Black Man In San Francisco
Serenity
The Fanatic
Loqueesha

Thoughts:

- A movie worse than The Fanatic? Wow. Impressive, almost.
- Isn't Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling a mini-series not a film?
- I hope you eventually get to see Parasite

'Loqueesha' is a film released to Amazon Prime that depicts a white guy getting a job as a radio host who gives advice to people. However, he's posing as a black woman when he hosts the show because they wanted to hire more people of color for their programs. The movie isn't as overtly racist as you might think, but in trying to be self-aware of that aspect and trying to seem smarter than it is, it becomes offensive in an entirely different way. This movie thinks it's somehow going to solve racism yet falls flat on its face with the message it wants to communicate. It's also a "comedy" that is far less humorous than 'The Fanatic' and is extremely cheaply made. I enjoy terrible movies often, and this one isn't quite in that "funny-bad" category like 'The Fanatic' is, but is uniquely baffling still.

And 'Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling' was one 45 minute movie released on Netflix.

I don't follow the Golden Globes as much as the Oscars, but they're coming on Sunday night and I wanna take a stab at some predictions.

I slept on this and changed a few picks the next morning.

The biggest thing to watch for is if Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Parasite or The Irishman win 2 or 3 of Director, Screenplay and their respective Best Picture/Film categories. That's a strong hint at who might be winning the Oscar for Best Picture.

BEST PICTURE (DRAMA)
Joker
I have Joker beating the much more obvious The Irishman and the obvious runner-up Marriage Story as 2020's version of Bohemian Rhapsody beating A Star Is Born and Black Panther. I see Joker as this year's Bohemian Rhapsody, riding a wave of fan support into awards season. Which ever film wins here helps their Oscar chances for Best Picture, whether that means The Irishman keeping the top 3 as a top 3, Marriage Story or 1917 pushing from just outside the top 3 into front-runner status, or Joker moving from "no real chance" to "potential upset". The Two Popes has ZERO chance here.

BEST ACTOR (DRAMA)
Joker - Joaquin Phoenix
It's the Joaquin Phoenix and Adam Driver two-way race this year. Phoenix seems like more of a "Globes" choice, whereas the Oscars are less audience-driven and care more about what the critics think. It's one of the two for sure.

BEST ACTRESS (DRAMA)
Judy - Rene Zellweger
I had this as Scarlett Johansson last night, but Zellweger is winning all of the smaller awards and will probably continue that success here and at the Oscars. Theron would be a big suprise, the other two women have no shot.

BEST PICTURE (COMEDY/MUSICAL)
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
This is pretty clearly Hollywood's award to win, however there is a small small chance of Jojo Rabbit winning, which would crush Hollywood's Best Picture Oscar chances and push Jojo Rabbit from "outside the top 5" to "almost a front-runner but not quite". Any other result would crush Hollywood ever more. It's gonna be Holywood though.

BEST ACTOR (COMEDY/MUSICAL
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - Leonardo DiCaprio
Edgerton or Murphy aren't happening IMO. People keep forgetting how good DiCaprio was and how good Hollywood was because it came out way back in July. This is a pretty easy choice.

BEST ACTRESS (COMEDY/MUSICAL)
The Farewell - Awkwafina
Ana De Armas would be a cool choice, but this category is basically one potential Oscar nominee versus 4 other actresses. It's not much of a contest. Consider Awkwafina's Oscar nomination chances on life support if she loses this.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - Brad Pitt
Joe Pesci could maybe steal this, but I don't think so. The Irishman is a newer shinier toy, but Hollywood was great and Pitt was pretty good.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Hustlers - Jennifer Lopez
Some - myself included - think Laura Dern's whole front-runner status is built on her career and how good Marriage Story is, but not on her Marriage Story performance itself. Lopez is the audience choice that the Globes can be swayed by. Florence Pugh was robbed of a nomination here.

BEST DIRECTOR
Parasite - Bong Joon Ho
This is 1917's big shot to get back into Oscar talk for Best Director and Best Picture, but the three front-runners look like unbeatable powerhouses. Whoever wins here, this is BIG for the Oscars. This can push one of the three Oscar front-funners ahead of the other two, especially if Hollywood or The Irishman win this AND Best Picture here. Joker or 1917 winning this and/or Picture is obviously a really big deal and makes them Oscar front-runners or just outside that group in the second tier with Marriage Story.

BEST SCREENPLAY
Marriage Story - Noah Baumbach
This is a HUGE moment for Marriage Story, where it needs to win this to stay in the Best Picture conversation. The Two Popes has no chance. Any of the three front-runners winning this is a big deal, especially if they can also win Picture and/or Director.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Parasite
It's just gotta be Parasite. If Portrait Of A Lady On Fire wins, it hurts Parasite in the big picture.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Toy Story 4
I don't think Frozen II can beat Toy Story 4.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Joker - Hildur Gudnadottir
This category is a bit more wide open than others. I'm going with Joker.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Rocketman - (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again
It's this or "Into The Unknown" from Frozen II, I hope. Lion King winning this or Animated Feature is a cringe job.

I just found this... interesting... video essay on Marriage Story, possibly made by a MGTOW guy. I honestly haven't watched it yet, but the text description ALONE made me want to post it, which I'll share below.

MARRIAGE STORY spoilers ahead!!!



https://youtu.be/ZLfrf_00Ync

Golden Globes Predictions:

Note: I have not seen 1917, Harriet, or Rocketman

BEST PICTURE (DRAMA)


Will Win: Marriage Story
Could Win: Joker
Should Win: Marriage Story

BEST ACTOR (DRAMA)


Will Win: Joaquin Phoenix - Joker
Could Win: Adam Driver - Marriage Story
Should Win: Joaquin Phoenix - Joker

BEST ACTRESS (DRAMA)


Will Win: Scarlett Johansson - Marriage Story
Could Win: Saoirse Ronan - Little Women
Should Win: Scarlett Johansson - Marriage Story

BEST PICTURE (COMEDY/MUSICAL)

Will Win: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Could Win: Jojo Rabbit
Should Win: Jojo Rabbit

BEST ACTOR (COMEDY/MUSICAL)

Will Win: Leonardo DiCaprio - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Could Win: Eddie Murphy - Dolemite is My Name
Should Win: Roman Griffin Davis - Jojo Rabbit


BEST ACTRESS (COMEDY/MUSICAL)


Will Win: Awkwafina - The Farewell
Could Win: Beanie Feldstein - Booksmart
Should Win: Ana De Armas - Knives Out

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR


Will Win: Brad Pitt - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Could Win: Joe Pesci - The Irishman
Should Win: Brad Pitt - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS


Will Win: Jennifer Lopez - Hustlers
Could Win: Laura Dern - Marriage Story
Should Win: Laura Dern - Marriage Story

BEST DIRECTOR

Will Win: Bong Joon-Ho - Parasite
Could Win: Quentin Tarantino - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Should Win: Todd Phillips - Joker

BEST SCREENPLAY


Will Win: Marriage Story
Could Win: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Should Win: Marriage Story

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM


Will Win: Parasite
Could Win: The Farewell
Should Win: Parasite

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM


Will Win: Toy Story 4
Could Win: Frozen 2
Should Win: Toy Story 4

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE


Will Win: Joker
Could Win: Marriage Story
Should Win: Marriage Story

BEST ORIGINAL SONG


Will Win: (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again
Could Win: Into the Unknown - Frozen II
Should Win: I honestly don't care about any of these nominees :P

Not a single nomination for the DuPont movie? Not good, folks. This is why our country is dying. They're poisoning us, and Hollywood doesn't even care when the elite cabal of criminals gets exposed for harming us.

The bottom line is nointy noin percent of us have toxins in our blood, most especially people like the farmers and coal miners, but Hollywood doesn't care that we miss our carpets. That's the bottom line.

Does he ever end up mentioning that Charlie cheated on Nicole? I really don't want to partake in watching and supporting his channel in any way if he really is part of an internet reactionary circle.

As I said in my summation (well not really, it was pretty long) of the film, the movie made me move back and forth in my sympathy between the couple only for me to realize that the movie wasn't really forcing you to choose sides. It's just how divorces go. They're complicated and nuanced, as I know first-hand from my parents' recent divorce.

Also Noah Baumbach supposedly based the movie, and the character of Charlie specifically, on himself during his divorce from Jennifer Jason Leigh, so would he really have a pro-feminist agenda with that being the case?

I saw the movie and liked it, and I would say it was a well made film. That being said, absolutely none of the acting, directing, screenplay or score were amazing or best-of-the-year. It's just a good movie, that's it, despite being extremely eye-opening and culturally important.

I kind of don't want to watch it for the same reasons you stated. I might get around to it. Just that video description alone got my attention.

God, I would love to see Marriage Story do that well and The Irishman win nothing. I don't think it'll turn out this way, but I really hope it does.

By contrast, in the one non-internet conversation I've had about this film, one of the women I was talking to said that she didn't want to see it because she heard that it portrayed the guy in too good of a light.

And that may well be the ballgame for Marriage Story...

Edit: So...how about 1917?

Parasite did OK, but far from perfect.
The Irishman didn't win anyting.
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood did GREAT.
Marriage Story didn't win anything
1917 did EXTREMELY well, above expectations
Jojo Rabbit didn't win anything.
Joker did well, but didn't exceed expectations.


I think the new Oscar list for Best Picture contenders probaby looks like:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Parasite
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Irishman
1917
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Marriage Story
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Joker
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Jojo Rabbit
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Little Women
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Ford V Ferrari, The Farewell, Uncut Gems
The Two Popes, Bombshell, Knives Out
etc etc
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


This positions Best Original Screenplay and Best Director as the major indicators of who will win Best Picture between Parasite and Hollywood. If one film wins both, it's extremely likey to win Best Picture. If they win one each, it's a nail biter.

My post-Globes takeaways, with the usual caveat that it's just the Golden Globes:

Dern and Pitt seem like done deals now. I think the Supporting categories are basically wrapped.

Zellweger still seems a little vulnerable to win Best Actress, but unlike last year with Colman upsetting in the end, there's no other contender that singularly commands a strong base of support.

In Best Actor, I don't know who wins, but Phoenix absolutely could, though I wouldn't rule out Driver or possibly even DiCaprio, depending on how SAG goes. (And also in Best Actor, I could definitely see a scenario where Egerton gets nominated.)

As for Best Picture, is it between Parasite, The Irishman, OUATIH, and... 1917 now? Seemed like there was a lot of hype after it first started screening, then it died down, but I could definitely see it coming back.

I'm fairly confident in Driver/Phoenix winning Best Actor, and Scarlett Johansson has a clear leg up on Theron and Ronan in my eyes.

I agree that if Zellweger does end up losing Actress, she'll lose to Johansson. As for Actor, it's almost certainly Phoenix or Driver (I did hear a wild theory of the case for DiCaprio to sneak through the precursors at the last minute, but that doesn't seem like it's happening). In any case, SAG is the decider: if Phoenix loses, the Oscar is a photo finish. But if he wins, it's a lock.

I can't speak to the quality of many of the films that were nominated (though I may now go out of my way to see 1917 in theaters). But I wholeheartedly endorse Succession (best drama), Fleabag (best comedy), and Chernobyl (best miniseries). I also like seeing Ramy get some attention.

Movies that are basically done now (IMO), that will be nominated for Oscars but won't win:

- Jojo Rabbit
- Little Women (still tiny chance for Score, Supporting Actress)
- Ford V Ferrari (can still win technical stuff, no acting directing screenplay)
- The Two Popes
- The Farewell (Awkwafina won but Drama actresses are all "better")
- Knives Out

Did anybody else like Ricky Gervais ripping into Hollywood and all the actors/actresses? I was amazed with how hard he went after everybody. Good for you Ricky.

Full opening monologue, audio only
(NOT SAFE FOR WORK LANGUAGE)
https://youtu.be/o2y99o99GTg

Definitely disagree on Jojo Rabbit, that one is gonna play far better with the guilds and Oscars than anyone else.  If Taika Watiti gets a Best Director nomination tomorrow (sadly, I don’t think he will) and Johansson also gets a supporting actress nomination (I do think this will happen) then Jojo Rabbit is one of the frontrunners for BP.  Otherwise, it’ll have to make due with having like a 40% chance of winning Best Adapted Screenplay and various nominations.  In other words, the jury is still out on that one.


He’s always been one of the few good awards show hosts for this reason.  The Globes let him do his thing.  If you have Chris Rock, you gotta let him do race jokes.  If you have Jon Stewart, you gotta let him do political jokes.  If you have some random old person or two random actors, you’re doing it wrong and would be better off with no host.

I can't see Jojo Rabbit (Taika) winning Director. It would need Best Adaped Screenplay to win Best Picture.

(EDIT - Oops, keep thinking Hollywood is Adapted, but that's The Irishman. Scratch all of that about Hollywood being a lock moreso than before for Adapted Screenplay)

The Irishman will probably still beat Jojo Rabbit. All that being said, I hope I'm wrong. I LOVED Jojo Rabbit.

Also, Oscars nominations aren't being announced Monday (today), they're next Monday (January 13th). Unless you meant BAFTA / PGA / some other nominations which are coming Tuesday (tomorrow).

that was freaking awesome.  There are, no doubt, good people working in the business (I'd guess that a majority of the actual on screen talent are decent people), but as a whole, the entertainment industry is a cess pool of horrible people, doing every thing they can to dumb down art to the lowest common denominator just so their margins are sure to be 12% better.

Taika doesn't need to win Best Director for Jojo Rabbit to win BP, just a nomination.  Jojo Rabbit is a lock for Best Adapted Screenplay if that happens.  Also, my bad re: when they'll be announced.

2020 B.A.F.T.A. Nominees Announced

"Two days after Brits dominated the winners at the Golden Globes, the British Academy unveiled the nominees for its upcoming film awards.

Joker led the pack with 11, closely followed by The Irishman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood on 10 and Sam Mendes' 1917 just behind with nine. Elsewhere Margot Robbie will compete against herself in the best supporting actress category, nominated for both Bombshell and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood."

Source:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bafta-awards-2020-nominations-unveiled-1267114



I took the liberty of removing the BAFTA awards that aren't Oscar-related, which can be found in the link above.

"Above The Line" (Major) Awards

Best Film
Parasite
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
The Irishman
1917
Joker

Best Director
Parasite
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
The Irishman
1917
Joker

Original Screenplay
Parasite
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Marriage Story
Knives Out
Booksmart

Adapted Screenplay
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women
The Two Popes

Leading Actor
Joker
Marriage Story
Once Upon A Time In Holywood
Rocketman
The Two Popes

Leading Actress
Judy
Marriage Story
Bombshell
Little Women
Wild Rose

Supporting Actor
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
The Irishman (Pesci)
A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood
The Irishman (Pacino)
The Two Popes

Supporting Actress
Marriage Story
Bombshell
Little Women
Jojo Rabbit
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

"Unique Category" Best Picture Awards

Film Not In The English Language
Parasite
The Farewell
Pain & Glory
Portrait Of A Lady On Fire
For Sama [documentary]

Animated Film
Toy Story 4
Frozen II
Klaus
A Shaun The Sheep Movie: Farmageddon

Documentary
American Factory
Apollo 11
For Sama
The Great Hack
Diego Maradona

"Below The Line" (Minor) Awards

Cinematography
The Irishman
1917
Joker
Ford V Ferrari
The Lighthouse

Editing
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Ford V Ferrari

Special Visual Effects
The Irishman
1917
Avengers: Endgame
The Lion King
Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

Sound
1917
Joker
Ford V Ferrari
Rocketman
Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

Original Score
1917
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women
Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

Production Design
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
The Irishman
1917
Jojo Rabbit
Joker

Costume Design
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Little Women
Judy

Make Up & Hair
1917
Joker
Bombshell
Rocketman
Judy

2020 Producers Guild Awards (P.G.A.) Nominees Announced

Despite only sharing 2 categories with the Oscars, the PGAs are considered one of the 5 or 6 most Oscar-influencing precursor awards each year.


Outstanding Theatrical Motion Pictures
Parasite
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
The Irishman
1917
Marriage Story
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women
Ford V Ferrari
Knives Out

Outstanding Theatrical Animated Motion Pictures
Toy Story 4
Frozen II
How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
Missing Link
Abominable



EDIT - What's coming up each weekend from here on out:

In 1 Week: Critics Choice Awards
In 2 Weeks: Producers Guild Awards (PGAs)
In 2 Weeks: Screen Actors Guild awards (SAGs)
In 4 Weeks: British Academy of Film & Theater Awards (BAFTAs)
In 5 Weeks: Academy Awards aka "The Oscars"

DGA:

1917
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite

Jojo Rabbit just might pull off a BP win after all :D

Happy to see Todd Philips being ignored for his shameless Scorsese rip-off. 

The front-runners are Best Director locks (Parasite Hollywood 1917 Irishman) but that fifth spot is up for grabs. IMO it should realy go to Baumbach, though I would much rather settle for Gerwig or Waititi than Todd Phillips. My money's on Phillips or Gerwig getting it.

The Irishman was screwed over, I think

The only Golden Globe it should have clear-cut won was Best Picture (Drama), though it was a top contender for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor. You can look at it two ways. The movie either (A) under-performed due to the length and pacing of the movie and/or anti-Netflix bias, or (B) the movie did just fine, but the Globes voters just liked 1917 and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood ever so slightly more.

We'll see how the Oscars go, it's not over yet. It's still one of the front-runners.

AMERICAN FACTORY (very mild spoilers only)

This is a Netflix documentary that is considered the primary front-runner for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars.

This was an interesting film about a Chinese auto glass manufacturer re-oepening an old GM plant in Dayton, Ohio and hiring over one thousand Americans to work there under Chinese management and corporate philosophy. There is a focus on cultural differences in regards to worker's rights.

CRITICISMS
- The movie isn't exactly subtle, but a few scenes or moments could have maybe been given more weight.
- This movie didn't use music or score as well as it could have
- You don't get to connect with some of the workers introduced due to lack of screen time

DESERVES PRAISE
- The stuff with the anti-union managers, presidents and CEO was great. They said this stuff ON CAMERA. Wow.
- Overall well made, well shot, good quality documentary
.
FINAL SCORE
B plus

OSCAR TALK
This is a good documentary, but I feel like it's not strong enough to be the front-runner. Perhaps this is a weak year for feature-length documentaries? The only others I saw were Knock Down The House (almost as good) and Hail Satan? (solid, not Oscar-level), so I don't really know how the best documentaries this year would compare to the best docs in an average year. It will probably win Best Documentary Feature unless it's beaten by Apollo 11, or one of the war dramas (For Sama, The Cave).

I've only seen the new Pokemon movie and Parasite from this year. Hope Parasite wins, and it's luckily almost guaranteed to win the best foreign language picture which i almost always check anyway. Will watch some other movies like Joker and so on, later.

Having seen 1917, I don't really see what all the fuss is about. Visually, it's a stunning film, but that is basically it, from what I saw. I couldn't really get behind the charcters at all. I just found it hard to get into. What i can't get around is why do you hire Colin Firth, Mark Strong and Benedict Cumberbatch, and then give them only a handful of lines and a tiny bit of screentime?

Honestly, it's not a bad film, but I do think it's pretty overrated. I still think Journey's End is a better World War One film. For all the talk of 1917 being about trench warfare, it really wasn't. Journey's End was able to do a lot more with a lot less, and with fewer big names in the cast.

Not a bad film, but vastly overrated and inferior to The Irishman I think. 7/10.

Does anybody care to give a final prediction on which films will be the 8 or 9 or 10 Best Picture nominees for this year's Oscars? They're doing the official announcement on Monday morning.

I'm going to give mine and rank them by how good I thought they were. I'm having a really hard time ranking the movies within each tier.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
PARASITE (10/10)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
MARRIAGE STORY (9.5/10)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (9/10)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1917 (8.5/10)
JOJO RABBIT (8.5/10)
THE IRISHMAN (8.5/10)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
JOKER (8/10)
LITTLE WOMEN (8/10)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

predicting no 9th nominee
predicting no 10th nominee

1917 (very mild spoilers only)

This movie has an average screenplay. There is nothing special or "great" about this script. However, this film takes that screenplay and maximizes the hell out of it, with very good acting (not Oscar level), great directing, a great score that is used very well, and god-level cinematography.

Because of the screenplay, I am anticipating a lot of people finding this movie to be overrated. I've seen it already offline and online. You're entited to feel that way. I personally thought this was a great movie, and one of the very best films of 2019.

CRITICISMS
- Screenplay, script
- Acting is very good but nothing mindblowing
- The script doesn't spoonfeed you the drama and emotion
- Some minor characters have quite limited screen time

DESERVES PRAISE
- The acting and the score REALLY worked FOR ME, some may disagree
- The directing is VERY good, and the more you try to figure out how exactly it was directed, the better you realize it was. Might win the Oscar
- The diversity of the cast was just right, not unrealistically diverse to pander to SJWs, but not 100% white either

BEYOND PRAISE, WORSHIP-WORTHY
- The cinematography is mind-blowing

FINAL SCORE (updated)
A  (2 days contemplating = A not A minus)

OSCAR TALK
This is the front-runner for Cinematography, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. Also has a good shot at Best Director, Best Original Score and Production Design. There is some chance for Best Picture and Best Editing.

I still think that Journey's End is the way to go for a character-driven WW1 drama.

I assume you mean the 1930 original and not the very recent remake? Never heard of this film but I'll add it to my list of of films to keep an eye out for. I'm not very knowledgeable on pre-70s cinema.

They're both very similar, I can say safely. I mean, they both draw from the same play script.

EDIT - I accidentally edited this post instead of quotong it for copy/paste purposes.

The list of all Oscar nominees for all categories is easily available at Wikipedia.

In other news, Parasite really underperformed at the critics choice awards which should be its best group.  Once Upon a Time in Hollywood won BP Drama and Best Original Screenplay while Best Director was a tie between 1917 and Parasite.  

Parasite is struggling a bit yeah, whereas The Irishman and Marriage Story are really sinking fast. The PGAs on Saturday and the BAFTAs in three weeks are probably Parasite's last couple of chances to show it can hang with Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (and to a lesser extent 1917).

I think Best Picture at the Oscars will play out one of these ways now:

via Original Screenplay - Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (most likely scenario)
via Director - 1917 or maybe Parasite
via Adapted Screenplay - this winner won't win Best Picture this year, unless it's a huge upset

Thoughts on the Oscar nominations...

- Joker got the most nominations. LOL.
- Hollywood did good but was actually projected to do even better
- Parasite did okay but not as good as some had hoped
- The Academy seems to really like 1917. Screenplay nomination? Wow.
- The Irishman did well as expected, it's losing awards but still getting nominations
- Marriage Story did poorly. It's done, suprassed now by Joker and Jojo Rabbit.
- Jojo Rabbit did VERY well. Long shot for Best Picture via Adapted Screenplay
- Little Women did well, got into Picture and Supporting Actress.

- Jennifer Lopez was snubbed for Cathy Bates. Wow.
- Surprised to see Erivo get in over Awkwafina
- Happy to see The Lighthouse get in for Cinematography, over Parasite though?
- The Farewell and Uncut Gems did terribly, got zero nominations
- Dolemite Is My Name and Rocketman totally collapsed as well, Rocketman got Song
- Jojo Rabbit getting into Editing over Once Upon / Hollywood is confusing to me
- Atlantics snubbed in International for Corpus Christi
- Frozen II snubbed for Klaus
- Apollo 11 snubbed for The Edge Of Democracy is a HUGE snub
- Portrait Of A Lady On Fire got nothing, but we expected that

Only 2019 movies I watched were Official Secrets (good) and Ad Astra (bad). Both on the same flight. In 2020.

I have so many gripes with these nominations that I genuinely wouldn't even know where to start (though I did worry that Parasite would underperform, so it even doing on the level with what we expected is actually deeply relieving), so... let's just cut right to early predictions:

- Acting categories are 1000% locked at this point.
- Director might come down to between Bong and Mendes
- Picture is a virtual toss-up, with OUATIH, Parasite, 1917, and Jojo Rabbit all with a chance (but I think in that order if I had to guess). No clue on where this goes until the rest of the precursors.
- Screenplay winners are probably OUATIH and Irishman.

I do think that Jojo Rabbit is probably the most likely to win Best Adapted Screenplay at this point, although Little Women winning wouldn't surprise me.  I actually don't see The Irishman winning at this point, it's slowly going the way of Marriage Story (lots of nominations, but few wins).  I agree though that Jojo Rabbit won't win BP, it needed a Best Director nomination for that to be in the cards imo.  As I've said all along, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood feels like the slight frontrunner for Best Picture.    

Fun fact: If Tarantino wins Best Original Screenplay, I believe he'll have tied Woody Allen's record for most wins in that category.  

So who's supposedly the frontrunner for Best Supporting Actor? I suppose that Phoenix, Ronan and Johannsen are for Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively.

Nah, it'll probably be Phoenix, Zellweger, Pitt, and Dern.  Johansson and Pesci could theoretically pull off an upset in Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor, but I doubt it (especially in Pesci's case).

My reading of this is that they're basically all heavy favorites to different degrees: Zellweger and Phoenix win because nobody else can pose a serious enough challenge to rally enough votes—in other words, there's a chance they could lose but it's not clear exactly what that scenario looks like. Pitt even moreso. And in Supporting Actress I can't even imagine how Dern loses, much less who she would lose to. That category is a lock beyond locks.

Also while I wasn't expecting any nominations, but Booksmart was snubbed. It should've at least got Best Original Screenplay and Olivia Wilde for Best Director.

This is the right answer, but I'd also add Adam Driver and basically all of the Supporting Actress nominees into the "unlikely but possible as an upset" category.

VERY CLEAR FRONTRUNNER - Phoenix, Zellweger, Pitt, Dern
UNLIKELY UPSET PICK - Driver, Johansson, Pesci, (Robbie / Pugh / Johansson / Bates)
DARK HORSE "WTF LOL" LONG SHOT - DiCaprio, Theron, Hanks, (none)

Banderas, Pryce, Ronan, Erivo, Pacino and Hopkins aren't winning jack, I would put good money on it.


There was a brief moment last week after the scrrenwriting guild announced nominations where Booksmart looked like it might jump back into the Best Original Screenplay race, but the Oscars had to go and give the 5th nomination to 1917 instead of The Farewell / Booksmart / Uncut Gems.

I have only seen 'Marriage Story' and 'The Irishman' of all the nominees...and 'How To train Your Dragon 3,' so I don't have too many stakes in this year's ceremony. All I can say is that I'm surprised that the Academy didn't give a shock Best Actor nod to Adam Sandler in 'Uncut Gems' and that 'Frozen II' didn't get nominated for Best Animated Feature. Everything else seems about in line with my expectations.

I'm also glad that there is no host again. That format worked really well last year in my opinion. It kept a better flow and helped the ceremony move faster.

I still can't comprehend what cinematic greatness people see in Joker that eludes me.
Philips got a nomination just because he aped Scorsese good enough?
A screenplay nominated for having a message that it's ok if you are mentally and don't take your medicine and/or it's ok to kill rich people if you think they wronged you?

First off, let me just say that I think Joker is a fairly good and well-made movie, but that I also think it's overrated relative to the massive hype. So I wouldn't say I'm an unobjective fanboy.

- Phoenix gives a GREAT performance

- The score and cinematography are very good

JOKER SPOILERS BELOW (no major spoilers but "medium" spoilers)

Nostalgia Critic made a video a while back that even on the rare occasion Sandler makes a good film, he gets no consideration for it because important people feel like they have to hate it.

That's a skin-deep reading at best though, so take it with a grain of salt.

Joker's only deserved nominations are Phoenix, art direction, and cinematography. Even the much praised score is generic tripe IMHO. I couldn't remember a single note the moment I left the theater.

Arthur becomes the hero by default because every other character in the movie is a horrible human being (which is another one of my big problems with the film).

And when it comes to politics Phillips wants to eat his cake and have it too. On one hand he clearly has a political message, even if it's presented in a superficial and heavy-handed way, but on the other he has Arthur declaring that he is just an apolitical clown.  

I picked up Joker on Bluray last week and watched the special features. Phillips claims that his singular vision was to show how a guy like Joker can become Joker in a completely real character study devoid of fantasy or comic elements. There are very clearly political themes and messages in the movie, but IF we take Phillips at his word, this message isn't important to him outside of the fact that it best serves his stated goal. He even specifically states in one of the special features that he "wasn't trying to make a political commentary".

Quite a good year. Hopefully Tarantino wins some awards (did he ever win best director?), and Parasite does well, but they're guaranteed one award, that of best foreign film. I have to watch all movies except Parasite, but i'll do certainly in time.

Tarantino hasn't won Director yet, no.

The only movies since the 1950s to win Director without also winning Picture:
1967 - The Graduate
1972 - Cabaret
1981 - Reds
1989 - Born On The Fourth Of July
1998 - Saving Private Ryan
2000s - Traffic + The Pianist + Brokeback Mountain
2010s - Life Of Pi + Gravity + The Revenant + La La Land + Roma

Hollywood's the favourite to win Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor, so Tarantino getting at least one Oscar this year is extremely likely.

I would be very, very careful about taking directors at their word. How many times did Romero flip-flop on Night of the Living Dead?

What does the Best Director race look like?

Probably a toss-up between Tarantino, Bong-Joon Ho, and Mendes with the latter two being slightly favored.  Small chance that Scorsese wins here, but that means The Irishman is already winning Best Adapted Screenplay, BP, and perhaps even Best Supporting Actor.  Phillips is the only one with no shot, but the nomination is the win for him here.  

Anyway, key take-aways:

- Joker's performance is a great example of how the Academy's very weird voting system often favors relatively mainstream contenders that are still much rougher-around-the-edges than typical Oscar fare and thus have a really passionate support base in the academy...albeit one that is numerically too small to win in most categories (The Wolf of Wall Street is another great example of this sort of surprise over-performance).  Joker probably wins Best Actor and maybe Best Original Score, but nothing else.

- Marriage Story is tanking hard

- Glad De Niro didn't get a lazy (and quite undeserved) nomination

- Taika Waititi's Best Director miss means no BP win for Jojo Rabbit, but I do think it'll get Best Adapted Screenplay as a consolation prize.  As I suspected, the Academy and guilds clearly liked it far more than the critics did.  

- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is the slight BP frontrunner

- Parasite doesn't have the below the line branch support to win BP imo.  It needs to win Best Ensemble (SAG) or Best Picture at the PGA to have any shot there.

- The 1917 surge is real and Mendes probably has a small lead for Best Director, but it depends whether more people want to reward 1917 or Parasite with a consolation prize...or if Tarantino is just running the board (less likely).  

- Frozen II missed :)

- Kitbull got nominated for best animated short :D

- Glad to see The Lighthouse get a much deserved cinematography nod

- American Factory is probably winning Best Documentry

- Really annoyed Luptia N'yongo missed for Best Actress

- Us, The Farewell, and Uncut Gems got completely shut out >:(

I can’t believe I would ever say this but Adam Sandler got an undeserved Oscar snub

It's true. Nine out of ten times Adam Sandler pisses me off and I hate most of his movies and his entire lazy process and reasoning for making them (at least most of the ones from 2000 on, starting with 'Little Nicky,' I liked most of his 1990's comedies) but when he acts in a movie where a real director can get a good performance out of him, he really can be great. 'Punch-Drunk Love' and 'The Meyerowitz Stories' come to mind. I haven't seen 'Uncut Gems' but the directors of that film, the Safdi Brothers, directed 'Good Time' and seem to have very unique visions. A good director can work wonders for an unconventional actor. Tyler Perry was actually very good in 'Gone Girl' to give another example, even though he is atrocious in his own films.

 I fully believe that Sandler was great in the film, and I hope to see it at some point, but it is possible that wanting to give him an accolade for it dredges up memories of 'Jack and Jill.' I almost can't blame them, though he should earn some credit for being able to be a quality part of quality films from time to time.

It's the same thing that happened to Jim Carrey when he gave some good performances in  quality movies. The Oscars snubbed him because voters were thinking about "Ace Ventura" and "Dumb and Dumber".

Okay, so we all know for sure who the nominees are now. Anybody want to share their predictions?


Post-Nominations Pre-PGA Pre-BAFTA Oscar Predictions

I was going to wait until after the BAFTAs to do final predictions, but I want to do a third one now and the post-BAFTAs one will be my fourth and final predictions. This is what I PREDICT, not what I'm hoping or cheering for. Otherwise Parasite would have won Original Screenplay and Best Picture and Florence Pugh and Adam Driver would win their acting categories.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST PICTURE
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

BEST DIRECTOR
1917

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Irishman

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST ACTOR
Joker - Joaquin Phoenix

BEST ACTRESS
Judy - Renee Zellweger

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - Brad Pitt

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Marriage Story - Laura Dern

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
Parasite

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Toy Story 4

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
American Factory

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
1917

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Irishman

BEST EDITING
Parasite

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Once Upon A Time In Holywood

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Little Women

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
Bombshell

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST SOUND EDITING
1917

BEST SOUND MIXING
1917

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Joker

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Rocketman - (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Brotherhood

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Hair Love

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Learning To Skateboard In A Warzone (If You're A Girl)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

4 Oscars - Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, 1917
2 Oscars - Parasite, The Irishman, Joker
1 Oscar  - Marriage Story, Little Women, Judy, Bombshell, Rocketman
... and 1 Oscar each to winners of Animated, Documentary and the 3 short film categories

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

1917 was awarded Best Picture last night by the Producer's Guild. This increases the odds that 1917 will win at the Oscars, as they both tend to pick the same film for Best Picture (in the last few decades) about 65% of the time.

Same as yours except 1917 as Best Picture.

Cinematography is correct.

Has Brad Pitt ever won an Oscar.

It's a shame Lighthouse was snubbed.

Brad Pitt won Best Picture; he was one of the producers of 12 Years Slave.

Phoenix, Zellweger, Pitt and Dern won the four Oscar-equivelant acting categories tonight at the Screen Actors Guild awards. All four of thenm also won Golden Globes and countless smaller awards this year as well.

I think it's safe to say they'll probably win the 4 acting awards at the Oscars, which puts even more intrigue and focus on Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Director and Picture.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

EDIT - The biggest award of the night, "Outstanding Performance By A Cast In A Motion Picture" went to Parasite (!!!). If you look back at the last 20+ years, any movie that doesn't win the PGA (which was 1917 this year) but still wants to win Best Picture at the Oscars usually needs to win DGA (coming Saturday) or this award.

Last week it was looking like Once Upon A Time In Hollywood was "in the lead", but this weekend 1917 and Parasitr both gained lots of momentum. It's really a three way race now. This weekend has been bad news for people hoping for an Irishman win this year. It's more of a long shot every day.

I still say Parasite is a long-shot and it’s a two-way race between 1917 and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

I'm not saying I agree with this, but I've seen sone Reddit chatter today that Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is now the distant third after losing both the PGA award and the SAG ensemble award to 1917 and Parasite respectively.

https://www.reddit.com/r/oscarrace/comments/erg976/is_once_upon_a_time_in_hollywood_out_of_the_best/

EXTREMELY Early 2021 Best Picture talk (Jan 2020)

The Oscars are almost here and I thought I would share which 2020 films I think will be going to the 2021 Oscars next year. Obviously at this point, this is impossible to predict and just for fun. Both lists are in alphabetical order.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

5 films most likely to be top contenders for BEST PICTURE
Bernstein (Bradley Cooper)
Mank (David Fincher) ... (Netflix)
Nightmare Alley (Guillermo Del Toro)
The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson)
The Last Duel (Ridley Scott)

15 films most likely to get in to BEST PICTURE or almost get in
Ammonite (Francis Lee)
Blonde (Andrew Dominik)... (Netflix)
Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee)... (Netflix)
Dune (Denis Villeneuve)
In The Heights (Jon M. Chu)
News Of The World (Paul Greengrass)
Next Goal Wins (Taika Waititi)
Nomadland (Chloe Zhao)
On The Rocks (Sofia Coppola)... (Apple Plus)
Respect (Liesl Tommy)
Stillwater (Tom McCarthy)
Tenet (Christopher Nolan)
The Last Thing He Wanted (Dee Rees)... (Netflix)
The Trial Of The Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin)
West Side Story (Steven Spielberg)

The Last Thing He Ever Wanted is a The Accountant-type commercial thriller, not an awards play.  Also, I keep reading rumors that The Last Duel has some really gross/problematic gender politics (specifically regarding a rape scene).  I mean, it was written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, but IIRC the initial script somehow raised so many eyebrows (in Hollywood, so that tells you how bad it was) that the studio pressured them to hire a female co-screenwriter to help clean it up.  Did she succeed?  We’ll see, but I don’t know that I’d call it a top-tier BP contender until we know how this likely controversy shakes out. 

Thanks for this info, all very interesting.


The one's I'm most excited for are NIGHTMARE ALLEY and THE FRENCH DISPATCH. The amount of talent in each movie is crazy.


NIGHTMARE ALLEY
- Guillermo Del Toro (director, co-writer)
- Bradley Cooper
- Toni Colette
- Cate Blanchett
- Willam Dafoe
- Roonie Mara
- Richard Jenkins (not confirmed)
- Ron Perlman (not confirmed)


THE FRENCH DISPATCH
- Wes Anderson (director, writer)
- Frances McDormand
- Bill Murray
- Tilda Swinton
- Timothy Chalamet
- Saoirse Ronan
- Willam Dafoe
- Kate Winslet
- Benicio Del Toro
- Christoph Waltz
- Adrian Brody
- Jeffrey Wright
- Owen Wilson
- Henry Winkler
- Lea Seydoux
- Jason Schwartzman
- Bob Babalan
- Fisher Stevens

And now it's time to play If I had an Oscar Ballot...

Note #1: I considered Willem Dafoe (The Lighthouse) and Anthony Hopkins (The Two Popes) co-leads in their respective films.

Note #2: I still haven't seen Clemency, Richard Jewell, The Kingmaker, American Dharma, or One Child Nation

Best Picture
1. Marriage Story
2. Jojo Rabbit
3. 1917
4. Uncut Gems
5. The Report
6. Us
7. Ford v Ferrari
8. Booksmart
9. Joker
10. Pet Sematary

Best Actor
1. Roman Griffin Davis - Jojo Rabbit
2. Adam Driver - The Report

3. Adam Sandler - Uncut Gems
4. Willem Dafoe - The Lighthouse
5. Joaquin Phoenix - Joker

Best Actress
1. Lupita Nyong’o - Us

2. Elisabeth Moss - Her Smell
3. Scarlett Johansson - Marriage Story
4. Aisling Franciosi - The Nightingale
5. Saoirse Ronan - Little Women

Best Director
1. 1917
2. Uncut Gems
3. Marriage Story
4. Us
5. Jojo Rabbit

Best Adapted Screenplay
1. Jojo Rabbit
2. The Farewell
3. The Report
4. Joker
5. Pet Sematary


Best Original Screenplay
1. Marriage Story
2. Booksmart
3. Us
4. Parasite
5. Honey Boy

Best Supporting Actor
1. Sam Clafin - The Nightingale

2. Brad Pitt - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

3. Baykali Ganambarr - The Nightingale
4. Ray Liotta - Marriage Story


5. Bill Hader - IT: Chapter 2

Best Supporting Actress
1. Amy Seimetz - Pet Sematary
2. Laura Dern - Marriage Story
3. Jeté Laurence - Pet Sematary
4. Zhao Shuzhen - The Farewell

5. Rebecca Ferguson - Doctor Sleep

Best Animated Film
1. Toy Story 4
2. Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus!
3. The Lego Movie: The Second Part

4. I Lost My Body
5. Frozen II  

Best Documentary
1. American Factory
2. Where’s My Roy Cohn?
3. Honeyland
4. Fyre
5. Hail Satan?

Best Foreign Film
1. Parasite (South Korea)
2. Les Misérables (France)

3. Honeyland (North Macedonia)
4. Tel Aviv on Fire (Luxembourg)
5. Pain and Glory (Spain)

Best Original Score
1. 1917
2. Joker
3. Us
4. The Lighthouse
5. IT: Chapter 2

Best Original Song
1. (I’m Gonna) Love Me Again - Rocketman
2. Stand Up - Harriet
3. Speechless - Aladdin
4. The Hide and Seek Song - Ready Or Not
5. The Buddi Song - Child’s Play

Best Film Editing
1. Ford v Ferrari

2. The Report
3. 1917
4. Uncut Gems
5. Us

Best Cinematography
1. 1917
2. The Lighthouse
3. Midsommar
4. Ford v Ferrari
5. Jojo Rabbit

Best Visual Effects
1. The Irishman
2. Shazam!

3. The Lion King
4. Pet Sematary
5. Detective Pikachu

Best Sound Editing
1. Ford v Ferrari
2. Shazam!
3. Child’s Play

4. Pet Sematary
5. Us

Best Sound Mixing
1. 1917
2. Ford v Ferrari
3. Uncut Gems
4. Rocketman
5. Pet Sematary

Best Makeup
1. Bombshell
2. Us
3. Pet Sematary
4. Child’s Play
5. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Best Art Direction
1. Doctor Sleep
2. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
3. Parasite
4. 1917
5. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Best Costume Design
1. Rocketman
2. The Two Popes
3. The Nightingale
4. 
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
5. Midsommar

We've got some more awards shows tonight that might hint towards where certain Oscar categories are going. I'll come back and edit this post with the winners of relevant categories.

Director's Guild Awards
- Best Director - 1917

Annie Awards
- Best Animated Feature - Klaus
- Best Animated Short - (not one of the Oscar nominees)

American Society Of Cinematographers Awards
- Best Cinematography - 1917

Cinema Audio Society Awards
- Best Sound Editing - Ford V Ferrari
- Best Sound Mixing - Ford V Ferrari

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is probably one of my top 3 movies of all time. that sh**t banged.

I'm watching The Lighthouse again right now. What an absolute f__king disgrace that the Oscars didn't nominate Willam Dafoe for Best Supporting Actor. Dafoe is the most deserving nominee out of all of them, followed by Hanks and Hopkins. Pitt, Pesce and to a lesser extent Pacino were good, but not as good as the hype in my eyes.

Where does SNL get off calling something as beautiful as "The Irishman" a white male rage movie? Where did such lack of taste/absolute derangement come from? Do these 'comedians' just get pleasure from irking everybody? I really fail to understand this culture.

The Irishman should be co-movie of the decade

It's SNL... don't they usually just poke fun at things? I don't see a problem unless they're being 100% serious.

I don't think they were.

I watched the episode in context last night, and it was fine. The Twitter excerpt singled out just The Joker and The Irishman without poking fun at every nominee and the whole academy. I didn't think it deserves to be singled out in a way that wholly misunderstands such a beautiful and touching plot.

The initial outlook more like the deranged Robert Mueller Christmas song obsessed subculture that is only remotely humorous to a very tiny slice of the population.

THE GENTLEMEN (no spoilers)

PROS
- Good cast of characters
- Good comedic moments
- Hugh Grant and Colin Farrell were great
- Constant fast pace makes it never boring

CONS
- Action was okay but not great, not a huge amount
- If movie slowed a bit you'd care for the characters more
- Plot was complex therefore slightly hard to follow (not too bad though)
- Henry Golding and Charlie Hunham characters slightly 2-dimensional

OVERALL SCORE - B plus (almost a B but slightly better)

Tonight was the Costume Designers Guild Awards

Excellence In Period Film - Jojo Rabbit
Excellence In Contemporary Film - Knives Out
Excellence In Sci-Fi / Fantasy Film - Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil

All 5 of the Oscar nominees for Best Costume Design are period films. Little Women was the favourite before tonight, with Once Upon A Time In Hollywood looking like a strong second choice and with The Irishman and Jojo Rabbit in the mix. The fifth nominee was Joker, which a lot of people were shocked by, as Dolemite Is My Name was snubbed. To a lesser extent, Rocketman and Downton Abbey were expected to possibly make the cut, but did not.

The new situation looks like Jojo Rabbit or Little Women will win, with Once Upon A Time In Hollywood or The Irishman being potential surprise wins and Joker still being the least likely to win.

Watching Parasite for the second time ever, this time in my living room. I forgot how good the cinematography was and also some of the acting performances (KIM FATHER! PARK MOTHER! Kim mother, Kim son, Park father, housemaid).

Noticed in the dialogue 3 times:

"It's so metaphorical."
"This is so metaphorical."
"It's so metaphorical".

To steal a line from a movie review I read: "Another Bong Hit!"

Parasite wins Original Screenplay and Jojo Rabbit wins Adapted Screenplay at the Writers Guild Awards.

Here's how the three big categories that you need at least one win from the get Best Picture (95% of the time anyways) are shaping up...

DIRECTOR
1917 (or Parasite)

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Hollywood or Parasite (or Marriage Story)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Little Women or Jojo Rabbit (or The Irishman)

NOMINATED, VERY UNLIKELY TO WIN
- Joker (Director & Adapted Screenplay)

NOT NOMINATED, ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT WIN
- Ford V Ferrari


So, if we want to look at paths to winning Best Picture, we have...

1917 (Easier Path) - Director
1917 (Harder Path) - Original Screenplay

PARASITE (Easier Path) - Original Screenplay
PARASITE (Harder Path) - Director

HOLLYWOOD (Easier Path) - Original Screenplay
HOLLYWOOD (Harder Path) - Director

THE IRISHMAN (Easier Path) - Adapted Screenplay
THE IRISHMAN (Harder Path) - Director

JOJO RABBIT - Adapted Screenplay

LITTLE WOMEN - Adapted Screenplay

MARRIAGE STORY - Original Screenplay

JOKER (Easier Path) - Adapted Screenplay
JOKER (Harder Path) - Director

FORD V FERRARI - has no path to Best Picture

BAFTA Awards results (Oscar-relevant categories)

This is it. Next and final awards ceremony is the Academy Awards on Sunday @ 8PM Eastern.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST PICTURE
1917

BEST DIRECTOR
1917

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Parasite

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Jojo Rabbit

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST ACTOR
Joker - Joaquin Phoenix

BEST ACTRESS
Judy - Renee Zellweger

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - Brad Pitt

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Marriage Story - Laura Dern

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
Parasite

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Klaus

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
For Sama

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
1917

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
1917

BEST EDITING
Ford V Ferrari

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
1917

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Little Women

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
Bombshell

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST SOUND EDITING
1917

BEST SOUND MIXING
1917

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Joker

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I still haven't seen all of the BP nominees, but I'm rooting for 1917. I really enjoyed the personal journeys of the two main characters, as well as what the film had to say about WW1. I was worried that the continuous shot thing would be distracting, but I actually loved the results and thought that the film had great pacing.

I thought Parasite was a really good film that had a lot of interesting things to say about economic inequality, but I never truly connected with the characters and I think that there were some things that maybe I didn't quite understand due to cultural barriers. Supposedly they're planning for a miniseries, and I'm looking forward to watching that.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood had cool characters, a fun setting, great production values, etc., but the movie had no plot. It was fun to watch but I hope it doesn't win. It's basically Tarantino's version of an Oscar-bait film.

Marriage Story is the movie I connected with most, and is probably my co-favorite with 1917 (in fact, they're probably my favorite movies since 2016's Manchester By the Sea). I thought it did a great job of showing the breakdown of a marriage from both POVs and it really made me and my significant other think about stuff.

The Irishman documented an interesting period in history and was a fun return to Casino/Goodfellas. That said, it was way too long and De Niro really didn't work for me as a guy who was supposed to be in his 30s.

Ford vs. Ferrari is the ultimate dad movie. It definitely shouldn't win Best Picture (and it won't), but the movie is basically the best possible version of itself, and I couldn't ask for anything more (well, I wouldn't mind if it were just a little shorter).

I'm really looking forward to watching Jojo Rabbit. I'll probably watch Joker at some point, but I'm not sure if I'll ever catch Little Women (though it does have a great cast and I'm a fan of Greta Gerwig).

Other than the BP nominees, my favorite movies of the year was probably Avengers: Endgame; I also liked The Report (which I highly recommend to the political junkies on this forum), The Two Popes, Rise of Skywalker, Captain Marvel, Rocketman, Dolemite Is My Name, and The King. I'm really looking forward to watching Knives Out, Uncut Gems, and The Farewell.

I finally saw Parasite. It's my new personal favorite movie of the year, edging out Jojo Rabbit, and unlike Jojo Rabbit I can actually see it winning best picture because 1. it has the ever-elusive quality of "buzz" and 2. it's less funny (although still very funny, at least in the first half) and the Academy is allergic to comedy. I think it's fair to say that it's not necessarily a character-driven movie as such, but not everything has to be; thrillers aren't a genre that (usually; something like Notorious would be an exception) can afford to luxuriate in meticulous character-building the way something like Marriage Story (or even 1917 with its see-sawing between gory trauma and rural idylls) can.

Despite the characters being somewhat two-dimensional, except for maybe Mr. Kim and Kevin, the actors do a REALLY good job of implying character depth with their performances. Especially Mrs. Park which is a performance I LOVED.

Final Oscar Predictions

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST PICTURE
1917
*** I really want Parasite, but I predict 1917 ***

BEST DIRECTOR
1917 - Sam Mendes

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Parasite

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Jojo Rabbit

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST ACTOR
Joker - Joaquin Phoenix

BEST ACTRESS
Judy - Renee Zellweger

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - Brad Pitt

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Marriage Story - Laura Dern
*** I really want Florence Pugh, but I predict Laura Dern ***

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
Parasite

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Klaus

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
American Factory

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
1917

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
1917

BEST EDITING
Ford V Ferrari

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Little Women

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
Bombshell

BEST SOUND EDITING
1917

BEST SOUND MIXING
1917

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Joker

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Rocketman - (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Saria

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Kitbull

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Learning To Skateboard In A Warzone (If You're A Girl)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

BEST PICTURE
1917

BEST DIRECTOR
1917 - Sam Mendes

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Jojo Rabbit

BEST ACTOR
Joker - Joaquin Phoenix

BEST ACTRESS
Judy - Renee Zellweger

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - Brad Pitt

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Marriage Story - Laura Dern

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
Parasite

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Toy Story 4

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
American Factory

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
1917

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Irishman

BEST EDITING
Ford V Ferrari

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Little Women

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
Bombshell

BEST SOUND EDITING
1917

BEST SOUND MIXING
1917

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Joker

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Rocketman - (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Brotherhood

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Kitbull

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Learning To Skateboard In a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)

BEST PICTURE
1917

BEST DIRECTOR
1917 - Sam Mendes

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Parasite-Bong Jo Hoon

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Jojo Rabbit

BEST ACTOR
Joker - Joaquin Phoenix

BEST ACTRESS
Judy - Renee Zellweger

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - Brad Pitt

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Marriage Story - Laura Dern

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
Parasite

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Toy Story 4

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
American Factory

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
1917

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Irishman

BEST EDITING
Ford V Ferrari

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Little Women

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
Bombshell

BEST SOUND EDITING
1917

BEST SOUND MIXING
1917

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Joker

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Rocketman - (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Brotherhood

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Kitbull

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Learning To Skateboard In a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)

Mrs. Park's and Ki-jeong/Jessica's actresses were both snubbed big time in the Supporting Actress category.

Parasite won Screenplay
Jojo Rabbit won Screenplay

Once Upon In Hollywood has now sunk to arguably 4th place (almost 3rd) behind Jojo Rabbit in "most likely to win Best Picture". It's 90% (or higher) down to 1917 and Parasite now.

With all the technical categories accounted for, 1917 has three Oscars; Ford v Ferrari two; and Once upon a Time in Hollywood, Little Women, and Bombshell one each within those categories.

Parasite is gonna win :(

I've never really "gotten" your tastes in media, jdb.

Parasite gets Screenplay AND Director!!!

Best Picture is 95% guaranteed! WOW!!!

I'm so f__king happy. If I knew FOR SURE Parasite would get Best Picture, I would give Director to 1917 I think. But if this helps lock up Picture for Parasite, I'll f__king take it.

Have you seen it? It's fantastic.

My guess is he's seen it and just wasn't crazy about it; he gave it a mediocre rating in John Dule's thread.

Joaquin Phoenix’s speech was just...out there. Environmentalism isn’t the type of thing to talk about considering what the Oscar was for.

Especially given that the particular type of environmentalist rhetoric he used was dredged from the darkest depths of Vegan Tumblr. Yeesh.

and HERE... WE... GO! dot gif

Ehh, to each their own.  I'll grant you that I have both very eclectic and decidedly idiosyncratic tastes, but I don't think that's a bad thing.  I mean, just to give one example: I thought Hereditary deserved to win Best Picture...but now that Bojack Horseman has ended, I consider https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_(TV_series) (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_(TV_series)) to be by far the best TV show currently on air.  I love Tarantino's films and my favorite genre is Horror, but I also loved My Big Fat Greek Wedding and cried like a baby when I watched Wonder because it was just that powerful a film.

I saw Parasite and I liked it well enough.  In fact, I liked it enough that I paid to see it a second time.  It was fine.  Nothing amazing, but a perfectly good thriller with a bunch of unexpectedly funny moments in the first half.  However, things went off the rails a little bit after the flood and the ending (beginning with the birthday party murders) just didn't work for me at all.  Most of the characters were pretty one-note too although the script was good enough that this didn't become too big a problem.  A good comparison is Black Panther: A perfectly fine movie worth a watch that rewards a second viewing...but that I also think got waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overhyped.  

Ultimately, Parasite was good and that's not a knock on it.  However, it wasn't a great movie and there were some truly great movies this year.  It's one thing to say Parasite was a good film.  But to say Parasite was better than something liker 1917, Jojo Rabbit, Ford V Ferrari, Marriage Story, Us, Uncut Gems, etc...honestly, I find it kinda mind-boggling.  

Again though, this is all completely subjective.  I mean, you looked at Marriage Story and saw another generic artsy types cheating on each other film while I saw the fourth best film of the decade.  I looked at Parasite and saw a well above average, but ultimately forgettable thriller whereas you saw an absolutely fantastic film.  You liked Little Women and didn't like Joker; I loved Joker and almost fell asleep in the theater during Little Women.  Neither of us is right or wrong.


Well, at least we can agree on this :P

Aaaaaaaaaand Parasite goes yard. Love that journey for us! ("Us" is people who've wasted years of our lives writing academic papers on East Asian movies.)

Congrats, #BongHive :P

Side Note: Of course, the Academy recognizes the first film by Bong Joon-Ho I've seen that I didn't absolutely love (Mother, Snowpiercer, The Host, and especially Okja were great).

I haven't seen Okja yet, but Snowpiercer's a bona fide masterpiece. I might rewatch it tomorrow.

Okja was phenomenal; I think you'll like it although we seem to have pretty different tastes, so who knows?  Snowpiercer was so well done and despite how little time we got with the characters they all somehow felt soooooooo well developed.  It had some excellent twists too.

I was disappointed by Okja other than the first act, but it was okay.

I'll admit my heresy publically here - I've never seen Snowpiercer (!) BUT I picked up a BluRay copy for very very cheap a couple if months ago. Will have to get around to watching it.

Well, I would've voted for 1917, but Parasite was a solid film and I definitely liked it better than Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Looking back on films released from 2010-2019, I only agreed with the Academy on the best film twice: 2013 for Twelve Year's a Slave and 2010 for the King's Speech.

"Best Picture" Rankings - 2010s

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Moonlight
Parasite [Gisaengchung]
Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Shape Of Water
Spotlight
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The King's Speech
12 Years A Slave
The Artist
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Green Book
Argo
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Yup. Similar. Out of the list, 1917 was simply more enjoyable. I thought Parasite was good, but fell away slightly towards the end.

Would have given it to Midsommar to be honest.

And Lighthouse should have been nominated.

Having films of that quality missing out is a sign of a healthy and fertile movie production pipeline.

Hahahahahahahahahaha

This guy yells and screams about how Joker should have won Best Picture and how Parasite isn't deserving, but then admits on camera that he hasn't seen Parasite and doesn't even know what it's about. The like to dislike ratio on the video is hilarious, as is the comments section.

https://youtu.be/lTr6sYWWCNI

Parasite!! :D

If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend doing so.

You can tell he's genuinely passionate about it, and it's not just the thing he cares about because it's the trendy and popular thing to care about while preaching to the choir of 90% of the people in the room.  So I didn't mind it compared to most political Oscar speeches.

---------

I thought "Stand Up" was going to win for best song. "Glory" was another black history themed song that won a few years ago that wasn't nearly as musically engaging or lyrically powerful.  As someone who likes a lot of Elton John's stuff, "Love Me Again" doesn't do it for me, though tbf I haven't seen the movie so I can't judge it within the context.


Not sure how much I want to see a movie called "Parasite,"  sometimes I get grossed out easily.

It's meant in a social / political way and not a biological / sci-fi way. There are no disgusting worms inside if people's bodies or anything remotely like that.

I agree. His views are a bit out there for me, but I respect that he seems to really hold those beliefs and isn't just virtue signaling.

So happy Parasite won. Also I kinda liked Joaquin's speech. I honestly preferred his earnest rambling to 99% of pre-prepared acceptance speeches delivered with perfection.

In light of Parasite's win, I hope that the Academy starts to think about establishing a "Best American film" category; BAFTA has a similar category (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAFTA_Award_for_Outstanding_British_Film) for Best British film. I think that would be a good way of ensuring both that American films continue to be recognized by the Academy and that international films are not penalized in the Best Picture category.

I didn't watch the Academy Awards last night, but I did look up the results as soon as they were over. I can't say that there were many surprises outside of 'Parasite' absolutely cleaning up! I never thought that the Academy would award it for both Best Picture and Best International Picture. Good for it and those who worked on it though! I especially want to congratulate Bong on winning best Director too, he had some very stiff, well-established competition this year. I want to see it even more than I already did, it's one of the few movies where I haven't heard a single complain about it, and I loved 'The Host' and 'Snowpiercer' so I expect to love 'Parasite' as well. I also knew that this forum would be more than pleased by that.

Overall it seems as if every major nominee went home with at least something though, the Academy always seems to try and do that, and this wasn't much of an exception. 'The Irishman' did go home empty-handed though. I wasn't rooting against it, as underwhelmed as I was by it, but I am somewhat relieved that it didn't win for Best Editing, that one would have irked me.

I saw UNCUT GEMS the other day and it was really good. I give it 4/5 stars. Cinematography wasn't "really good" per se, but it was really unique, like the sound design and the whole movie overall actually.

Did you ever see 'Good Time?' The previous film by these director brothers.

I saw Good Time, and honestly I was underwhelmed. I really appreciated many different aspects of it, but the plot kind of fell apart for me in the second half.

I see. I for one liked it, but it didn't really stick with me. The most notable thing to me about it was that it proved that Robert Pattinson can be a good actor. I always thought so but people then still point to the 'Twilight' series as a rebuttal.

The new Wes Anderson film "The French Dispatch" has one of the best casts ever assembled for a film. It comes out in July and is one of the early favourites for the Oscars (though it is insanely early and impossible to know at this point). The first official trailer dropped yesterday. (https://youtu.be/TcPk2p0Zaw4) It seems VERY much like The Grand Budapest Hotel in terms of style and humour. Hopefully it's a great film but I honestly can't tell from the trailer.


CAST LIST (in no particular order)

Saoirse Ronan
Bill Murray
Elisabeth Moss
Jason Schwartzman
Tilda Swinton
Benicio Del Toro
Léa Seydoux
Adrien Brody
Bob Balaban
Henry Winkler
Frances McDormand
Timothée Chalamet
Lyna Khoudri
Jeffrey Wright
Stephen Park
Mathieu Almaric
Willem Dafoe
Edward Norton
Owen Wilson
Cécile De France
Christoph Waltz
Liev Schreiber
Anjelica Huston
Griffin Dunne
Alex Lawther

King TChenka got me curious about this subject, so here's (https://filmschoolrejects.com/early-2021-oscar-predictions/) one site's predictions on the next Oscar favorites, with their release month and a short explanation provided by me:

The French Dispatch (July): see above
Greyhound (May): Tom Hanks-starring war film about an American naval commander defending merchant ships from U-boats during the early part of WW2
In the Heights (June): Musical based on a Lin-Manuel Miranda stage musical about an Hispanic-American neighborhood in NYC
The Last Duel (December): Ridley Scott historical drama about a duel in 14th century France
Mank (TBA):  David Fincher film about Herman J. Mankiewicz and his battles with director Orson Welles over screenplay credit for Citizen Kane
On the Rocks (TBA): Sofia Coppola comedy-drama about a young mother (played by Rashida Jones) who reconnects with her larger than life playboy father (played by Bill Murray)
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (September): Aaron Sorkin film about the trial of the Chicago Seven, who took part in the protests/riots against the 1968 DNC
True History of the Kelly Gang (April): The story of Australian bushranger Ned Kelly and his gang as they flee from authorities during the 1870s.
West Side Story (December): Steven Spielberg's remake of the classic musical

They should also have MINARI, which debuted 2 or 3 weeks ago at the Sundance Film Festival and won several awards. Lots of people are talking Oscars for it, and it has an average rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars on Letterboxd. There are reviews online already.

MINARI - Lee Isaac Chung’s “Minari” is a personal story of tradition and family set in 1980s Arkansas about a Korean American family moving to a rural region. But it gets its title from a vegetable or plant very common in Korean culture. --- Brian Welk - The Wrap.

By the way, Letterboxd is a GREAT website and app for movie-lovers, and I trust the average ratings there way more than Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB. I recommend anyone download it and we can follow each other, or just sign up at the website if you don't want to download an app. I have ranked lists from every year of movies and lists of upcoming movies I'm anticipating.

I;m personally looking forward to seeing The Current War when it comes out.

Everyone in the France's version of the Academy have quit after nominating the child ass rapist for 12 awards.  BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51494929)

I've been interested for 3 years now, but it got bad reviews and my hype has dropped considerably.

I just saw Downsizing (2017), directed by Alexander Payne and starring Matt Damon.

... what the f__k was that? Has anybody else seen this trainwreck? Christ.

Yes. It's a shame because Alexander Payne is one of my favorite directors, I like or love all of his other films and this one had a ton of potential. The concept is great and I enjoyed the first half, but then it seems to have forgotten about it, especially once they introduced one of the most annoying Asian stereotypes I have ever seen in a film, and became a didactic message film about climate change. Payne has made message films before, but he has always done it much better and with much more subtlety.

It was one of the biggest disappointments of the year it came out.

I'll go over some Chinese films, since that's most of what I'm watching lately.

A few days ago I watched 江湖儿女 (Transl: Sons and Daughters of the Jianghu, English title: Ash is Purest White). Kind of a crime film. A mob boss and his girlfriend get into some trouble, he shoots someone and she ends taking the fall for it, and spends years in prison only to find that he's left behind that lifestyle and has a new girlfriend. As he develops health problems, it gets to be a very emotionally compelling story. Great cinematography.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0fKX6VhovQ

Today I'm planning on downing some beers and baijiu and watching the patriotic film 我和我的祖国 (Transl: Me and My Motherland, English title: My People, My Country). It is kind of an anthology of short stories meant to show the spirit of Chinese people for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China that was celebrated last October. It intrigues me because it is kind of a patriotic film - people here would say a "main melody" film, meant to convey emotionally the Party's message - that is more low-level and personal than your typical patriotic films which are filled with war and grandiose stuff. Might post about that later if anyone is interested.

Continuing on "My People, My Country", it's very impressive how the film manages to tie in small stories about regular people into many of the most important events in the history of the People's Republic. One story is about some Chinese ambassadors' insistence that the handover of Hong Kong occur at midnight (ie, at the soonest possible time) and the ceremony around it. Another very good one is about a scientist working on the first atomic bomb in China who sacrificed his life for this development, and his saying goodbye to his former lover. The later ones were some of the best - one about a man giving a ticket to the Olympic opening ceremony in 2008 to a boy whose father passed away in the Sichuan Earthquake, and another is a great story about two delinquent kids born into poverty who see Shenzhou 11 spacecraft land in China and are very emotionally moved by it.

You can see how it falls into the category of Chinese "main melody" films in that each of the stories seems to tie in, in some respect, to one of the Communist Party of China's flagship accomplishments, and more significantly: how these events affected common people. The story about the delinquent kids ties into the CCP's poverty alleviation program, to give one example. The film almost perfectly reflects the concept of the Chinese Dream in Xi Jinping's political thinking.

Last night I watched The Dreamers, a French/American film about an American student in Paris in the late 60s, his involvement with the French new wave junkie scene as well as student activism. It's hard to say a lot about it, the ethos of the film in general, reminds me greatly of the time I spent in Russia and the friends I made there. I highly recommend it, but I wish I had more of a concrete way to do so.

Tonight, probably: Lost in Translation.

My controversial opinion:

A good, solid film that is generally overrated and deserves some but not all of the praise it gets.

It's a good film about US history. I really enjoyed it.

The advent of his abundant electrical inventions takes the story in multiple directions.

I try and avoid ratings. You end up missing really good films.

My problem is that I always have so many films that I want to watch that I have to miss some in order to watch others. Those that I am truly hyped up about I will watch regardless, but others where my interest level is "medium", I sometimes put on the back-burner if the reviews are bad.

I really liked it, personally. I have a hard time giving films "ratings" and that kind of thing but it hit close to home for me as an expat. Really captures a certain feeling of alienation that's hard to place. A lot of atmosphere in that film.

Just watched:

Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019)

"Architect-turned-recluse Bernadette hates people, she hates leaving the house, and more than anything, she hates the other parents at her 15-year-old daughter Bee's school."

Amazing film (with average reviews and no real reason to watch it).

If you are after a film where you have family and children watching together, this is a classic family film.

Very clever film making.

Nice to hear a very positive review. I'm a big fan of the director and Cate Banchett.

Watched a few films recently, though I'd share my ratings. I'm a bit of a harsh reviewer, but to me a perfectly fine average movie with no big issues is a 3 out of 5 star film. To me, 3 or 3.5 stars out of 5 is definitely worth a watch. I don't hand out 4 stars like candy on Halloween, and a full 5 stars is quite rare.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998) - 4.50 / 5 stars

THE INVISIBLE MAN (2020) - 3.75 / 5 stars

BIRDS OF PREY (2020) - 3.00 / 5 stars

A MONSTER CALLS (2016) - 3.00 / 5 stars


EDIT - After seeing some 3.5 range movies a week later, I realized that The Invisible Man is better than I had previoudly rated it. Rating now adjusted to 3.75 stars.

I don't really pay attention to reviews. For instance, they loved 1917, and I just couldn't see the fuss over it. They hated Battle: Los Angeles, but I actually quite liked it.

I'll go see The Current War because the whole thing is interesting to me and i'm a one-eyed Tom Holland fan.

What were your issues with 'A Monster Calls?' I loved that movie in spite of how depressing it was.

I went to see Portrait of a Lady on Fire. I was expecting to like it a lot, and I certainly wanted to given what FFs the director and stars seem to be, but it dealt with some sensitive subject matter in ways that I found acutely upsetting (not necessarily morally depraved, but upsetting), so I ended up finding it a chore to watch. I was left thinking that perhaps we should have a shutdown of lesbian art films entering our country from France until we can figure out what the hell is going on.

I also saw Birds of Prey over the weekend and loved it.