And the Oscar Goes To…

The voting is over, the ballots are in, and a winner will be crowned tomorrow night. The nominees this year are fantastically varied and deserving in their own right. The only one that perhaps doesn’t fit is Darkest Hour. I found it to be well acted and not much else. The one glaring snub is the The Florida Project which easily could have been nominated for Best Picture. If the Academy allows for up to ten Best Picture nominees you might as well use every slot, in my opinion. My third favorite film of last year, The Florida Project was one of the most emotionally moving films I’ve seen in a long time and it’s a shame that Willem Dafoe is its sole representative at this year’s ceremony. I’m glad that Roger Deakins’ time has finally come. 14th time’s a charm! And special mention must go to Rachel Morrison who become the first woman ever nominated in the Best Cinematography category. In addition to Mudbound, she also shot the biggest movie of the year so far in Black Panther. With her nomination and Greta Gerwig’s Best Directing nomination, women are finally starting to receive recognition behind the camera. The tightest races to watch will be Best Original Screenplay and Foreign Language Film. Get Out, Lady Bird, and Three Billboards all have a realistic chance of winning screenplay, and who knows if the Academy voters will reward A Fantastic Woman over the increasingly popular The Square. Dunkirk of course seemed like it was destined to be a heavy favorite all year long but I predict it’s only wins will come in the below the line categories like Editing and Sound Editing & Mixing. Overall it was a solid year and I’m looking forward to some of my favorite filmmakers taking home some hardware.

All predicted winners are shown in BOLD

BEST PICTURE

• Call Me By Your Name
• Darkest Hour
• Dunkirk
• Get Out
• Phantom Thread
• The Post
  
• The Shape of Water
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

• Timothée Chalamet – Call Me By Your Name
• Daniel Day-Lewis – Phantom Thread
• Daniel Kaluuya – Get Out
• Gary Oldman – Darkest Hour
• Denzel Washington – Roman J Israel, Esq.

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

• Sally Hawkins – The Shape of Water
• Frances McDormand – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
• Margot Robbie – I, Tonya
• Saoirse Ronan – Lady Bird
• Meryl Streep – The Post

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

• Willem Dafoe – The Florida Project
• Woody Harrelson – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
• Richard Jenkins – The Shape of Water
• Christopher Plummer – All the Money in the World
• Sam Rockwell – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

• Mary J. Blige – Mudbound
• Allison Janney – I, Tonya
• Lesley Manville – Phantom Thread
• Laurie Metcalf – Lady Bird
• Octavia Spencer- The Shape of Water

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

• The Boss Baby
• The Breadwinner
• Coco
• Ferdinand
• Loving Vincent

CINEMATOGRAPHY

• Roger Deakins – Blade Runner 2049
• Bruno Delbonnel – Darkest Hour
• Hoyte Van Hoytema – Dunkirk
• Rachel Morrison – Mudbound
• Dan Laustsen- The Shape of Water

DIRECTING

• Christopher Nolan – Dunkirk
• Jordan Peele – Get Out
• Greta Gerwig – Lady Bird
• Paul Thomas Anderson – Phantom Thread
• Guillermo del Toro – The Shape of Water

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
• Faces Places
• Icarus
• Last Men in Aleppo
• Strong Island

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

• A Fantastic Woman – Chile
• The Insult – Lebanon
• Loveless – Russia
• On Body and Soul – Hungary
• The Square – Sweden

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• James Ivory – Call Me By Your Name
• Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber – The Disaster Artist
• Scott Frank, James Mangold, and Michael Green – Logan
• Aaron Sorkin – Molly’s Game
• Virgil Williams and Dee Rees – Mudbound

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani – The Big Sick
• Jordan Peele – Get Out
• Greta Gerwig – Lady Bird
• Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor – The Shape of Water
• Martin McDonagh – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

FILM EDITING

• Jonathan Amos and Paul Machliss – Baby Driver
• Lee Smith – Dunkirk
• Tatiana S. Riegel – I, Tonya
• Sidney Wolinksy – The Shape of Water
  
• Jon Gregory – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

ORIGINAL SCORE

• Hans Zimmer – Dunkirk
• Jonny Greenwood – Phantom Thread
• Alexandre Desplat – The Shape of Water
• John Williams – Star Wars: The Last Jedi
• Carter Burwell – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

VISUAL EFFECTS

• Blade Runner 2049
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
• Kong: Skull Island
• Star Wars: The Last Jedi
  
• War for the Planet of the Apes

The 90th Academy Awards will take place on March 4th, 2018 on ABC, 8:00 p.m. EST. Hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.