"The Misfortune Teller" (One-Act Link)

Strange to see a non-Oscars/movie related post on this site, I know, but I've been sitting on this thing for a couple weeks and thought it might be a good idea to share it. Below is a link to The Misfortune Teller, a 34-page one-act play I wrote for a college playwriting course this past semester. Though I don't have much intention to publish it, I'm proud of it and enjoy how it turned out, so I thought I'd share it online for everybody. This is the first piece of writing approaching formality that I've posted publicly before, so if there are better ways of sharing these things that you know of, feel free to tell me and I'll heed your words for future works. I'll talk about what it's about and all that jazz below.


Click here to read it.


The Misfortune Teller (working title) is a one-act play with five scenes and four characters. It's centered on Nathan and Martha, a couple in their twenties who are planning a big move to Atlanta after Nathan and their roommate Ben get a job offer there, a plan which is derailed when Martha's mother Donna, a self-avowed psychic, predicts that the trip to Atlanta will spell disaster for their relationship. Martha grows weary after hearing this, but Nathan is unconvinced, and believes Donna to be a fraud.

For this play, I wanted to explore how people reconcile differing beliefs in relationships, and was inspired by my generation's curious embrace of various informal "mystic" belief systems - astrology, mediums, psychics, chakras, etc. As someone who doesn't believe in those things, I wanted to try my best to not make any one character the hero or villain. I didn't want Nathan to be "the smart one", or for Martha to be unreasonable or for Donna to be a clear huckster. My goal was to present these characters as they were, and let the audience judge them based on their own experiences and beliefs. Whether or not I've succeeded in doing that is up to you, I guess.

I'm not actively pursuing a career in playwriting, but I enjoy all forms of writing and would like to write a play again sometime. This is a second draft (actually more like third or fourth, but the second complete draft after a wave of changes), so there are some errors here and there. I'm considering coming back to this work and maybe trying to revise it again, but not for a long while. For now, I'd like it to just exist and be out there and I welcome any feedback and constructive criticism you'd be willing to give me on the writing and content.

I hope you enjoy, and thank you to anyone who takes the time to read the whole thing.
(PS - My December predictions for the technical Oscar categories will be up in a few days, if you were wondering)

90th Academy Awards - December 2017 Nominations Predictions - MAIN CATEGORIES

It's been a good while since I've written anything on this site, as I've been mostly focusing on writing video reviews rather than on here, but I'm just gonna go ahead like nothing happened and post my predictions for this year's Oscar nominees. Precursor award nominees have begun to come out, enough so that we can gauge about where the conversation is at in the major categories (directing, acting, writing), but not yet to the point where we can make very specific predictions about nominees for every category, which will be later in December and in early January when guilds name their nominees. So far, the Los Angeles and New York film critics circles have announced their runners-up and winners, the National Board of Review and American Film Institute have named their top 10 of the year, and the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards announced their nominees in the past week. The most useful to us so far when it comes to predicting the Oscar nominees is still probably the LA and New York critics organizations. The Golden Globes are merely the opinion of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which is an extremely small sampling of people with particular and specific tastes, and only set the stage for the Oscars insofar as being a movie award show a month beforehand. Critics Choice sheds more light on the positions of critics, but for one thing it's not like we don't already have other ways of seeing that (critics circle awards by city, as well as Rotten Tomatoes of course), but critical acclaim doesn't always necessarily guarantee or predict Oscar nominees. The NBR and AFI lists are definitely a decent litmus test for what "prestigious" people in Hollywood loved this year, but they aren't historically incredibly predictive, though they do help us out with rounding out some nominees a bit. The recent numerous additions to the Academy membership, skewing young, female, and nonwhite, are also of possible significant weight in guessing what will make it.

I'm gonna keep this post pretty simple. I'm only talking about the major categories in this one, and I'll offer some brief commentary for each category if it warrants it, then list my predicted five. Okay, let's do it.


~~~BEST PICTURE~~~

As always, the writing and directing nominees/winners will determine Best Picture more clearly later on. Right now, the major threats for winning this one (and the ones that are almost guaranteed to be nominated) I think are Dunkirk, The Post, Call Me by Your Name, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, and Get Out. Ones I think are fairly likely to round out the bottom three or four nominees are Lady Bird and The Shape of Water, which are also pretty surefire nominees but I think have a smaller chance of winning. Assuming the nominee list annoyingly ends up at being eight like usual, I see that bottom spot being taken by Darkest Hour or Mudbound (maybe they'll bring it to nine, but I don't want to overestimate the Academy's willingness to give a BP nomination to a Netflix movie). Phantom Thread and I, Tonya are other outside shots I could see taking it.

Locks:
1. Dunkirk
2. Call Me by Your Name
3. The Post
4. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Very Likely:
5. Get Out
6. The Shape of Water
7. Lady Bird

Fighting for Bottom Spots:
8. Darkest Hour
9. Phantom Thread
10. Mudbound

Outside Shots:
11. I, Tonya
12. All the Money in the World
12. Downsizing


~~~BEST DIRECTOR~~~

As has been the case lately, there are plenty of completely plausible nominees for this category, but it all depends on how vanilla the Academy decides to be with their tastes. I've tried to blend optimism with realism as much as I can, but I'm not sure.

Locks:
1. Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk)
2. Steven Spielberg (The Post)

Very Likely:
3. Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water)
4. Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name)
5. Jordan Peele (Get Out)
6. Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird)
7. Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards)

Outside Shots:
8. Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread)
9. Ridley Scott (All the Money in the World)


~~~BEST ACTOR~~~

I really can't imagine my predicted five changing at all, honestly. Franco's spot is the most in trouble.

Predicted Five:
1. Tom Hanks (The Post)
2. Timothee Chalamet (Call Me by Your Name)
3. Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread)
4. Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
5. James Franco (The Disaster Artist)

Might Beat Out Franco:
6. Jake Gyllenhaal (Stronger)
7. Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out)
8. Robert Pattinson (Good Time)


~~~BEST ACTRESS~~

This is another one where I kind of can't imagine my predicted five ending up different, but the bottom spot may be in contention here as well. Numbers 6-8 would all be perfectly fine choices, but just kind of underwhelming considering the top five.

Predicted Five:
1. Saiorse Ronan (Lady Bird)
2. Frances McDormand (Three Billboards)
3. Meryl Streep (The Post)
4. Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water)
5. Margot Robbie (I, Tonya)

Might Beat Out Margot:
6. Jessica Chastain (Molly's Game)
7. Judi Dench (Victoria and Abdul)
8. Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman)


~~~BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR~~~

Usually this category is filled to the brim with worthy and plausible nominees. This year, I think it's come down to three locks, a few that will battle it out for the bottom two spots, and then a lot of lightweight ones I don't find incredibly likely below that. That said, Dafoe has won literally every supporting actor award he could have so far, and he already looks like a surefire win even if Oscar most likely won't embrace The Florida Project as a whole.

Locks:
1. Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project)
2. Armie Hammer (Call Me by Your Name)
3. Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards)

All Fairly Likely, Will Fight For Bottom Spots:
4. Richard Jenkins (The Shape of Water)
5. Michael Stuhlbarg (Call Me by Your Name)
6. Bob Odenkirk (The Post)
7. Jason Mitchell (Mudbound)
8. Mark Rylance (Dunkirk)

Longer Shots:
9. Michael Shannon (The Shape of Water)
10. Christopher Plummer (All the Money in the World)
11. Woody Harrelson (Three Billboards)
12. Patrick Stewart (Logan)


~~~BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS~~~

Locks:
1. Allison Janney (I, Tonya)
2. Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird)

Likely Nominees:
3. Holly Hunter (The Big Sick)
4. Mary J. Blige (Mudbound)

Fighting For Bottom Spot:
5. Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread)
6. Octavia Spencer (The Shape of Water)
7. Melissa Leo (Novitiate)

Longer Shots:
8. Hong Chau (Downsizing)
9. Catherine Keener (Get Out)
10. Tatiana Maslany (Stronger)
11. Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip)


~~~BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY~~~

One of the most bittersweet rarities of Oscar season is when there are so many respectable choices for original screenplay, and that is the case this year. While I'm fairly certain of my predicted five, plenty of ways this could go that could ultimately alter the course of the Best Picture field.

The Predicted Five:
1. Get Out (Jordan Peele)
2. Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)
3. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh)
4. The Post (Liz Hannah and Josh Singer)
5. The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor)

Could Shake Things Up:
6. Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson)
7. The Big Sick (Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon)
8. The Florida Project (Sean Baker)
9. I, Tonya (Steven Rogers)

Outside Shots:
10. Darkest Hour (Anthony McCarten)
11. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan)
12. Baby Driver (Edgar Wright)
13. Good Time (Safdie Brothers)
14. Downsizing (Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor)


~~~BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY~~~

Lots of possibilities in this one, but only because it's so bereft of legitimate competition. Call Me by Your Name is the only clear lock and the only adapted script of 2017 that seems to stand a chance with the Academy and is actually widely liked. It's not that none of these are deserving, but when left with so few films with stereotypical Oscar qualities, we've got some lighter entries than normal in this one.

Lock:
1. Call Me by Your Name (James Ivory)

Likely Nominees:
2. Mudbound (Dee Rees and Virgil Williams)
3. The Disaster Artist (Scott Neutstadter and Michael H. Weber)
4. Molly's Game (Aaron Sorking)

Outside Shots:
5. The Beguiled (Sofia Coppola)
6. Stronger (John Pollono)
7. Last Flag Flying (Richard Linklater)
8. All the Money in the World (David Scarpa)

Mainstream Releases That May Score Attention:
9. Blade Runner 2049 (Hampton Fancher and Michael Green)
10. Logan (James Mangold, Michael Green and Scott Frank)
11. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Rian Johnson)
12. Wonder Woman (Allan Heinberg, Jason Fuchs and Zack Snyder)


~~~BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM~~~

Coco will win. This may be the first year in a while that there will only be three animated nominees instead of five; mainstream competition is mediocre and Academy doesn't historically pay enough attention to quality indie/foreign animated releases brought out with not much bluster, of which there are many this year.

Lock:
1. Coco

Likely Nominees:
2. The Breadwinner
3. Ferdinand

Fighting for Bottom Spots:
4. The Lego Batman Movie
5. Loving Vincent
6. Mary and the Witch's Flower
7. The Boss Baby
8. Despicable Me 3
9. A Silent Voice



I'm abstaining from Foreign Language Film until the shortlist is posted, which will be soon. Anyway, these are the main ones. I'll be addressing the technicals (VFX, editing, cinematography, design, score/song, sound) in an upcoming second blog post soon.

"Spider-Man: Homecoming" Review

Spider-Man: Homecoming is the sixteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the sixth theatrical Spider-Man film, is directed by Jon Watts (Clown, Cop Car) in his big-budget debut, and stars a large ensemble cast including Tom Holland, Robert Downey Jr., Michael Keaton, Marisa Tomei, Jacob Batalon, Laura Harrier, Zendaya, Donald Glover, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Favreau, Donald Glover, Tony Revolori, and Martin Starr, with about a billion other supporting players. The film is the third cinematic iteration of Spider-Man since Sam Raimi's trilogy that began in 2002, and follows the failed would-be-trilogy by Marc Webb that began in 2012 with The Amazing Spider-Man. It is a joint project between Sony/Columbia Pictures, who hold official ownership of the Spider-Man character, and Marvel Studios, who have inducted the character into their Avengers lore after introducing him in the second act of last year's Captain America: Civil War. I think it's important to get all these franchise details out of the way straight out the gate, considering how complicated these superhero storylines are getting both in terms of their actual overarching fictional stories and the complex web of property ownership and corporate slip-ups that have led to so many different versions of these tights-wearing crime-fighters appearing on the big screen, small screen, and comic pages in the 21st century.

As far as actual plot goes, Spider-Man: Homecoming follows Peter Parker (Holland) shortly after the events of Civil War, where he has been recruited by Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark/Iron Man to be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, giving his assistant Happy (Favreau) daily updates on his small-time crime-fighting activities on the streets of Manhattan, an assignment Peter covers up at school and with his aunt May (Tomei) as the "Stark internship". Peter is dismayed that Stark falls short of offering him a formal role in the Avengers, but is nonetheless excited to be a secret superhero. The film follows his struggle to balance regular high school life - getting a date for homecoming dance, keeping his identity secret from his friends and family, participating in an academic decathlon - with his discovery of a middle-aged man named Adrian Toomes (Keaton), who has been illegally collecting alien technology leftover from Avenger battles to craft high-tech weapons and become the supervillain Vulture, a threat Peter is eager to stop on his own, much to the chagrin of Stark and his best friend Ned (Batalon), who just wants him to focus on being a cool kid.

The biggest relief in this film is that it skips past the origin story of Spider-Man, so the first act doesn't revolve around Peter getting bitten by a radioactive spider or watching Uncle Ben get murdered. Instead, the film plops us right in the middle of Parker's superhero life, and we get our insights into his character and the world around him through his relationships with supporting characters and through Holland's spirited performance. Holland is arguably the main highlight of Homecoming. Especially in contrast to the dark, brooding, "mature" Spider-Man from Andrew Garfield's iteration, it's nice to see a Spider-Man who not only exudes youthful exuberance, but just plain enjoys being Spider-Man. Holland is funny, sweet, incredibly charismatic, and toward the third act even has moments of surprising depth, allowing Peter to exhibit the flaws of any high school kid, being at times dangerously eager to face the world head-on as he attempts to make sense of it. I find him to be just about as good a Spider-Man as Tobey Maguire, though they are admittedly accomplishing very different things.

Peter/Spider-Man is supported by a remarkable ensemble cast of colorful characters, which is rich, finely wrought, diverse, and always fun to watch. Peter's friend Ned garners possibly the most consistent number of laughs out of any character, and Jacob Batalon is a young actor with impeccable comedic timing who is also extremely charming. Robert Downey Jr. has made a believable transition as the snarky, full-of-himself Tony Stark to one that is trying to break through the snark to be the cautious, wise, almost parent-like Stark that we got a glimpse of in Civil War. Michael Keaton strikes a convincing balance between empathetic and intimidating as Toomes/Vulture, who is one of the best-written villains in a cinematic universe plagued with uninteresting, bland, poorly written villains. The Spider-Man universe has always been unique in that many of his adversaries genuinely respect him and know that they're wrong, but have a misconstrued understanding of what they deserve/have to do. Keaton's character has a clear and even understandable motivation rooted in a personal desire to keep his family life afloat in the wake of sudden unemployment that has left him excusing his reprehensible morals for a perceived deserving rebuke of the rich and powerful's oppression of the little guy. It's refreshingly layered stuff for a Marvel villain, and Keaton does it great justice.

The film is also peppered with numerous smaller supporting players and bit parts that somehow feel earned and properly explored for a first film in a planned trilogy despite their short screen time. Homecoming keeps the laborious exposition at an impressive minimum considering the number of narrative gears turned and characters introduced. And those bit parts are well utilized - Martin Starr plays Peter's decathlon leader with his idiosyncratic grasp of perfect deadpan, Zendaya is charming and dryly funny as the sarcastic MJ, Donald Glover finely portrays a small-time criminal in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Hannibal Buress plays Holland's gym teacher who somehow managed to elicit belly laughs from my entire theater audience with just three lines of dialogue in the entire film.

The effectiveness of these characters is also bolstered by the well-constructed world they inhabit. This is the first MCU film where the "cinematic universe" concept has been used effectively for me. The elements in other previous Marvel movies meant to interconnect these franchises within franchises to each other have been inclusions of outside characters, quick tangential references to Infinity Stones, and in-jokes. Homecoming has all of those in short supply, but it also manages to make us really feel as though Peter Parker is going to high school in a world that has superheroes. Students play bang/marry/kill with their favorite Avengers, a civics teacher discusses the Sokovia Accords in class, and Captain America is the star of industrial videos on lab safety and puberty shown in classes. The high school world in general is wonderfully fleshed out, with my favorite detail being the wooden, bewildered students on the low-budget student news show (which gives us what I think is the first appearance of Comic Sans in a blockbuster film). There is quite a bit of downtime in this movie, with much of the movie's narrative leg work focused less on the squabbles of deities and giant beams shooting into the sky and more about the internal and interpersonal struggles of its main character. Especially the first half of this movie feels like a John Hughes movie with superheroes in it. Young children may find it boring and prefer the loud, colorful, fast-paced action they're used to in these Marvel flicks, but I appreciate the time this movie takes with its characters.

Of course, you won't miss out on any fun action sequences with Spider-Man: Homecoming. It's hard to come down from the high of action-directing and editing in Baby Driver (though this is total recency bias talking), but the action in this movie is standout for a Marvel film. They're decently crafted, well paced, lots of fun and peppered with good-natured humor, propped up by Michael Giacchino's thrilling score, and have a much sharper sense of stakes than other typical superhero films. An element of modern superhero movies I've often bemoaned is their tendency to inflate their conflicts into world-shattering scenarios with demigods punching and shooting at each other with no real visual consequences. Homecoming never even makes it outside of Manhattan, and while the visual effects here are as dazzling and about as plentiful as any other Marvel fare, the stakes here are entirely personal for Peter. Our villain is not concerned with literally destroying the entire universe like most Marvel villains, but rather just doing illegal and immoral things to keep his family safe. Remarkably, when your villain's to-do list shrinks from "end all existence" to simply "kill Peter Parker", the level of believability of their success increases, and any encounter with them becomes vastly more tense and exciting. There is one scene in particular in the third act (that I will not spoil the details of because it's actually a pretty great twist) involving Keaton's character and Peter that brims with uncommon tension for a Marvel film simply because of the fact that we have been made to believe this villain could try anything at any time. Another scene involving Spider-Man having to save people trapped inside the Washington Monument is surprisingly heart-pounding despite its relative simplicity. These may sound like small differences, but they are meaningful.

Overall, Spider-Man: Homecoming does not reinvent the wheel as far as blockbuster superhero movies go, and is not even the best Spider-Man film in my opinion (although this and the Sam Raimi films are both excellent at achieving very different things), but it gets a lot right and avoids a lot that could have been trite, boring, or uninspired. It's not perfect, but it's impressive that a film with six screenwriters could be a more focused and complete product than many other big-budget action flicks of our time. The most important thing it gets right, and the main reason for its success, is that it steeps all of its conflicts, be they on the small scale of high school dramas or on the larger scale of extraterrestrial arms dealing, in interesting, likable characters. Tom Holland and his mosaic of supporting characters make Homecoming eminently watchable from start to finish. Watts and company's tight grasp on the source material combine with the film's consistent humor, exciting action, strong characterization, and beguiling sense of charm and breezy fun to make this a superlative modern superhero movie.

I recommend this film to anyone looking for a fast, fun time at the movies who likes good characters, good-natured humor, and some sleek and decently directed action. It may be as meticulously manufactured and packaged as any other Marvel product, but it reeks of good intentions and gets it right far more often than it gets it wrong. Upon a second viewing I'm considering bumping this up to an A-, but for right now this is getting a B+, albeit an enthusiastic one. I look forward to seeing this Spider-Man in theaters again.

Grade: B+

"Baby Driver" Review

Baby Driver is an action comedy crime film directed and written by Edgar Wright, known for the films Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World's End, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, all of which I guess I should note right out the gate that I love. This film stars Ansel Elgort, Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm, Lily James, Kevin Spacey, and Eiza Gonzalez, and follows a young getaway driver named Baby (Elgort), who provides death-defying vehicular escapes to small-time crooks from crime scenes in an effort to pay off a debt owed to an Atlanta crime boss (Spacey). Stricken from a young age with tinnitus, Baby constantly plays music on his iPod throughout his life, especially during jobs, with different iPods for different days and moods, and even makes mixtapes out of conversations he secretly records. He eventually falls for a cute waitress in town (James) just as he is recruited to help with one last job that seems doomed to fail, helmed by a psychotic criminal named Bats (Foxx). 

Edgar Wright is a favorite filmmaker of mine. An adroit connoisseur of visual comedy, quick wit, soundtrack assembly, and exact breakneck pacing, his feature outings thus far have been largely confined to the farcical. None of that self-referential humor is lost in Baby Driver, despite its genre trappings being less clear-cut than Wright's previous flicks. In fact, all of Wright's best and most memorable traits as a filmmaker are intact in Baby Driver, from his blink-and-you-miss-it sight gags to his snappy, cheesy one-liners to his unabashed love for the 80s. And it works just as well here in a heist comedy played mostly straight as it does in the realm of satire. While I haven't decided where it falls in comparison to Wright's other films, fans of his style will not be disappointed with this one.

Wright often gets flak for being mostly style over substance, and while I don't personally hold that to be true, I think it's important to talk about that style, because it's something Wright has in spades over the majority of other action and comedy directors of today. When we talk about the "style" in Edgar Wright movies in the context of style and substance, it's not "style" like in the Transformers movies or what have you. This isn't mere candy for the eyes and ears or quick cuts and swooping camera moves for the sake of being "different" - Wright's style is exact, measured, exhaustive, and requires a great deal of talent as a filmmaker, as well as an infrequently offered amount of creative control. Wright is the rare kind of comedy director whose films don't get away with being funny simply by having actors saying funny things or being in silly situations. The filmmaking - the relationship between things in and out of the frame, and the use of camera movement, editing, and sound design - often times create jokes where there were none, deliver information about a character, set and alter tones, etc. We expect these things with genres deemed more sophisticated; why not with comedies?

The point is, even if the assertion that Wright exercises style over substance were true, it would ignore the fact that his style is not superficial. And that is very true in Baby Driver as well. If you've heard any of the praise for this movie, of which there is a lot, you probably already know about its main standout element - its soundtrack is not only wonderful and varied, but it also underscores the entire film and the character of Baby, with the music syncing up with everything from car door slams to coffee cup taps to machine gun fire. This isn't just a feat of purposeful editing - there are long, uninterrupted takes of numerous very subtle character actions synced perfectly up to very specific songs, sometimes even sung along to or mouthed by characters in the scene. The music quite literally informs and drives every scene in the movie, to exhilarating effect. Even when there aren't any car chases or gunfights going on, the scenes of snappy dialogue and exposition never feel boring because of Wright's crackling direction, some great performances, and brilliant pacing, all not only underscored but emboldened by great song choices across the board (I also give this film credit over other recent films with great soundtracks like Guardians of the Galaxy, which, while having numerous great songs, is mostly filled with familiar chart-toppers, whereas this film gives the spotlight to some real deep cuts). This is a rare film that, to me, is never boring.

They are not the only impressive thing about the film, but the car chase/action sequences are incredibly impressive, and worth noting for sure. Wright underwent a painstaking effort to do the vast majority of the eye-popping, eardrum-rattling car tricks practically, with stunt actors and even the actual actors like Elgort and Hamm performing some spectacularly exciting maneuvers. Wright manages to wring both humor and thrills in nearly equal measure throughout these scenes. The opening scene in particular, in which Baby makes a harrowing getaway from the Atlanta PD to the song "Bellbottoms" by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, is legitimately some of the best car chase stuff ever put to film. In total, it's probably Wright's most singularly thrilling film, and the most exciting and impressively directed action flick since Fury Road.

On top of that, most of the performances are excellent. Ansel Elgort officially surprised me, going from what I always saw as a rather bland actor who would be relegated to young adult novel adaptations before making a strained Oscar bid in his 30s to an empathetic, charming character actor that oozes cool. Kevin Spacey isn't doing anything exactly "new", but he delivers his lines, both sinister and silly, with equal precision. Though her character is under-written (I would like for Wright to try writing a non-"dream girl" female character, although they are always well-done and fit their respective films), Lily James is unbelievably charming as Debora the waitress. Eiza Gonzalez is given some big moments to shine in what I hope is a breakout role for her, Jamie Foxx is silly and not always on his A-game but frequently steals the show as Bats, and Jon Hamm gives what might be my favorite performance of the film portraying perhaps the most compelling character.

As far as story goes, the movie stays relatively within normal crime/action/heist thriller territory, but it's never exactly predictable. Astute viewers will pick up on Wright's set-ups for both jokes and story beats alike that vary in their subtlety, but exactly how the shit is about to go down is always hard to predict. Partially through his direction and partially through his complete willingness to suddenly and unceremoniously kill off major characters in his films, Wright has an uncanny ability to keep the audience guessing at every turn, and to make almost any potential outcome seem plausible, a quality that can be and is used to conjure up both visceral tension and sudden belly laughs. This is also owed a lot to his characters - believable, but never exactly "real". We feel real sympathy for Baby when told his backstory, and we feel real fear that Foxx and Spacey's character have the capacity to do terrible things to Baby or anyone, and yet they all embody a sort of cartoonishness that not only lets them spit out zingers without looking ridiculous, but also make some outrageous decisions. There is a veil of fantasy to Baby Driver, but it never feels like an excuse or a "get out of jail free" card to eschew all sense. Instead, like most Wright films, it invents a reality very close to ours, one where we believe with near equal conviction that Baby is a real human being who is in real danger, as well as someone who could convince a girl he's known for a few days to commit to taking a never-ending road trip with him as soon as he's done being an accessory to theft and murder. (We believed Scott Pilgrim, played by a scrawny Michael Cera, when he said he punched a guy so hard he saw the curvature of the Earth, so stranger things have happened)

Baby Driver is ultimately a film about connection through music. It's a strong visual whenever Baby shares his earbuds with someone, literally physically connecting him to someone with music. Baby not only uses music to self-medicate his condition, but also to escape his life, keep himself moving, and just generally add rhythm and melody to his day, to the point that the whole world around him as we see it revolves around the music playing (which makes the very few scenes where there is no music playing just that much more harrowing). It's often as fantastical as any other Wright film thus far, but it's populated with characters anchored by great performers given great direction, and quite literally choreographed with an impressive attention to detail.

I'll note that, like most Edgar Wright films, Baby Driver's ending may not sit well with everyone, though it's not nearly as bleak as some of his others (his last film ends with the literal apocalypse), but I can't really think of a reason to not recommend this film unless you hate good action scenes, good music, humor, handsome men, or fun. It's fast, inventive, funny, sweet, and features some of the most impressively directed, shot, and edited sequences, action and otherwise, I've seen in a film in a while. It's more fun than any big blockbuster I've seen this summer, made for about one fourth the price. It is an almost perfectly executed fun time at the movies. If it is not on my list of favorites at the end of this year, we will have had a historically good year at the movies.

Grade: A 

"Beauty and the Beast" Review

Beauty and the Beast is a romantic musical fantasy drama film from Walt Disney Pictures, directed by Bill Condon, and written by Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos as a remake of the classic 1991 2D animated version of the same name. It stars Emma Watson as Belle, a transgressive, intelligent young woman who becomes the prisoner of the Beast (Dan Stevens), a former prince who was recently cursed by an enchantress and locked away in a tower until he can find it in his heart to love someone. Also included in the large ensemble cast is Luke Evans as Gaston, Josh Gad as Le Fou, Kevin Kline as Maurice, Ewan McGregor as Lumiere, Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Plumette. This is I believe the fourth or fifth film in the unofficial franchise of live-action reboots of classic Disney animated films, and after this film following in the box office footsteps of its predecessors, it certainly doesn't seem it will be the last. The recent high-tech live-action remakes of Disney flicks has seen both ups and downs, with Tim Burton's 2010 Alice in Wonderland remake being a simultaneously dark and garish mess, and last year's Jungle Book reboot adding new narrative and technical dimension to its source material. 2017's Beauty and the Beast doesn't quite belong in either category, but is somewhere in-between.

I'll start with the positives, which means pointing out the obvious: this is a gorgeous looking film, for the most part. The costumes are an enchanting blend of dark fantasy and French period wear, and the sets - especially the fabled castle where most of the movie takes place - are crafted with an elegant eye for detail, and the film presents numerous glamorous, fantastical setpieces for its mostly well choreographed musical numbers. The talking servant characters are particularly marvelous to watch, with Cogsworth being probably the one with the least amount of screen time but also the one I found myself staring at most often. The movie does have a weird tendency to sometimes teeter between delightfully campy and extravagant, and slightly bombastic. The "Be Our Guest" sequence can be at once dazzling and garish.

The same can be said for most of the performances. Luke Evans, alongside being a considerable few dozen pounds lighter than the picture his character song paints of him, vastly over-sells as Gaston, turning a lovably hateable exaggerated super-hunk narcissist into an entitled, believable, snakelike asshole. With his over-expression more fit for the stage he hails from, Evans manages to make this live-action adaptation of Gaston somehow more cartoonish than his hand-drawn predecessor. Josh Gad, a respectably talented actor and singer in his own right, sometimes seems to be playing his role of Le Fou sarcastically, with his appearance on screen alongside his credit at the end making me legitimately laugh out loud at how oversold and goofy it was.

Emma Watson is very attractive, and suitably okay as Belle, being at least the minimum of how likable a character played by Emma Watson can be, and delivering some sweet performances of the songs, but Watson is a mostly more restricted singer, and many of the most memorable songs lose their power at her inability to nail those really high notes. The cast playing the servants fill their computer-generated roles fairly marvelously, with McGregor and McKellen making usually cute and fun banter, and their musical performances mostly great. The vocal performances here don't match or exceed those of the original cartoon, but they're different and entertaining in their own right. Dan Stevens has an original new song composed by Alan Menken in the third act called "Evermore" where he actually gives a very good (if slightly noticeably over-produced at some points) vocal performance. The song is basically useless from a narrative standpoint, and as many critics before have pointed out the cartoon managed to communicate the same basic emotions in about five seconds and had a greater impact, but if we're going to throw in new musical numbers to pad out the running time and increase Oscar chances, they might as well be serviceable and nice to listen to, and "Evermore" does that.

It's hard to evaluate Stevens's regular performance, as the visual effects team deserves most of the credit for the visual aspects of his performance. The design of the Beast has always been strange to me. As far as cartoons go, this Beast is a perfectly suitable looking one, but it unfortunately was not convincing enough when it really needed to be, i.e. when the filmmakers are trying to make the audience forget Emma Watson is doing the waltz with a 6'7" man in a neon green leotard.

And I think that's my main problem with this movie - the fact that it exists. There are just some stories or aspects of them that are not properly adaptable from cartoons and drawings to live-action films, and in my opinion, a story about a woman who falls in love with a giant lion-bull-goat-man after being seduced by his hypemen - who are a candle, a clock, a cup, and a drawer - is one of them. When an entire film is vibrantly sketched drawings, my disbelief is suspended to degrees unattainable by anything put to real celluloid within the first seconds of the film. When most of the characters and surroundings are tangible and real and are interacting with hunks of data that objectively aren't there, filmmakers need to work harder to make my brain disconnect from how strange and incongruent it is so I can accept the story. The visual elements of this film are either mostly unconvincing or done precisely how I'd expect from watching the cartoon.

The narrative doesn't act as an antidote to this problem either, as no real changes are made to the original story, save for minor details shifted around that mostly either do nothing or introduce new or more plot holes. Not much of this film, visually or narratively, is imaginative, subversive, or wholly realized enough to justify its adaptation. I personally don't have any real emotional or nostalgic attachment to the 1991 animated Beauty and the Beast, so I'm not accusing this movie of ruining my childhood, and I wouldn't even if I did have a connection to the original, because that's ridiculous. I'm also not one to complain that this explosion of reboots, remakes, and sequels is surprising or new. But outside of money, I like to have a fairly clear narrative or aesthetic justification for the decision to remake something that already exists. Beauty and the Beast falls on the side of films where I can't really find any. For every opportunity it takes to be superficially subversive, it matches with a watered down carbon copy of your favorite things from the cartoon. This adaptation often feels like a discount version of the original, except it also cost seven times as much money to make. With all that money and technology, couldn't we have either tried something new or doubled down on the unironic romanticism? At least make the choice.

I have no problems with remakes and reboots, and Beauty and the Beast is mostly pleasant and sometimes even beautiful, but it also feels mostly pointless. It will take longer than it should and Hollywood will learn all the wrong lessons from it, as this world often goes, but eventually having entire quarter-billion-dollar movies serving as just two-hour reminders and suggestions of better, more honestly crafted movies past is not going to be enough to pacify, much less enchant audiences. It's passably entertaining for now, but I feel that these types of films could get old very fast. These live-action adaptations will have to start having some great artistic vision and focus if they want to continue tricking people into seeing stories they've already seen, as they've done forever. Overall, this live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast has some gorgeous visuals, nice songs, and some decent performances, but mostly fails to justify itself as anything more than a big-budget eye candy-filled piece of nostalgia baiting. It's not quite trash, but it is disposable.

Sidenote: The thing keeping me from giving this film a "C-" is a scene where Belle playfully hits the Beast with a snowball, and the Beast returns fire and nails her in the face, sending her flopping on her back. It had me laughing for a solid two minutes and is unquestionably the best scene in the whole movie.

Grade: C

89th Academy Awards - Winner Predictions

Apparently this blog is strictly an Oscars predictions site now. I always begin every post with an apology that I haven't been keeping up on reviews, but at this point it should be expected behavior. I will get to them eventually; my personal life has been pretty busy the last few months.

And in all the confusion, I completely forgot that the Oscars are this Sunday and I haven't posted my official predictions for them yet. We have all the relevant guilds and precursor awards done at this point, and there's not really much of anything that could happen within the next four days that could change where I stand on most of these, barring a discovery that the entire cast of La La Land supports dogfighting or something. I'll be doing things a little differently this time format wise - rather than highlight each category individually, I'll be simply giving a quick synopsis of each type of category split up into a few sections (picture, writing/directing, acting, aural/visual technicals, animation, documentary, shorts, and foreign). This will save time and get things right to the point. After that bit, I will have the full list of my predictions for each category with no additional commentary, shown with four different identifiers - "Will Win", "Could Win", "Should Win" (in my opinion of course), and "Should've Been Here". Let's get into it.

Picture

The general consensus seems to be that La La Land will sweep the Oscars to some extent, now that it's been nominated for a record-tying 14 nominations. I'll comment on the pointless arguments being tossed around about La La Land at a later date, but needless to say a lot of people are confused as to why this movie is getting such amazing attention even though it's not an absolutely air-tight or groundbreaking musical. As someone who loved La La Land (it's still probably my favorite of the year), I'm of course defensive of it, but you'll notice that I have Moonlight in the "should win" line for Best Picture below.

La La Land was definitely my personal favorite movie of last year, given that I think it's excellently made and the subject matter spoke to me a bit more on a personal level, but I do believe Moonlight deserves Best Picture, and the reason actually has nothing to do with politics like many defenses of it I've read. I actually think it's kind of over-simplified to pare down Moonlight's genuine merits to its identity politics as the main reason for why it should win awards, because it's an almost perfect film in my estimation. Its subject matter specifically may be dealing with a very niche audience, but it is written, directed, and acted brilliantly enough that its themes are universal and its emotional impact is palpable. Still, I loved La La Land as well and will be happy to see it probably win this Sunday, and think pretty much all of its projected wins are at least defensible. It may be relatively simple, idyllic, primarily white, and centers around the artists and movie buffs that the Academy loves to honor, but it's a fantastic film made with love and care.

As for the other nominees, the lineup was close to what I'd figured, though the inclusion of Lion still kind of baffles me, not for any reason of the film's quality but because of how little I heard about it until the second it was nominated for a ton of awards. Having now seen Hidden Figures too, I'm not sure I'd count it among the best films of last year, but it has a great cast and is entertaining. Hell or High Water was a pleasant surprise, as someone who enjoyed it more than most regular audiences, it seems. Manchester and Arrival have extremely outside shots.

Directing and Writing

Damien Chazelle took home the Directors Guild of America Award for La La Land, which historically is a fairly surefire predictor for the Oscar winner in the Best Director category. Barry Jenkins could have a come-from-behind win (and become the first black Best Director winner in Oscar history) if the Academy chooses to really go hard for Moonlight, which is fairly unlikely but not impossible by any means. I can't see much of an argument being made for any of the other directing nominees, but Lonergan has goodwill and Manchester is beloved by many, so maybe in Bizarro World it could happen.

As for the writing categories, the differences in designation of Moonlight as original vs. adapted has made guessing these two categories annoyingly difficult. Moonlight took home the WGA Award for Best Original Screenplay this week, but is nominated as an Adapted Screenplay for the Oscars, going against the WGA Adapted winner, Arrival. Considering it's historically safe to err on the side of the winning script regardless of designation, I'd say Moonlight has a better shot over Arrival for Adapted, which leaves the Original category wide open. La La Land could come in for the win considering how many other awards it'll be getting (and because it's not badly written at all), but it's incredibly uncommon for musicals to win screenplay awards. That, and Kenneth Lonergan has a much longer history and better rapport with the writers' branch, especially because of his history in theater, so I have Manchester by the Sea winning in that category (even though I didn't particularly enjoy it).

Acting

In my opinion, the Screen Actors Guild Awards have these categories basically locked up - Washington, Stone, Ali, and Davis is a winning acting lineup that makes a lot of sense to me. Such a setup would be quite the milestone for the Academy, giving us the first year ever where three-fourths of the acting categories go to people of color, Denzel Washington being the first black person to win three Academy Awards, and Viola Davis being the first black woman to receive three nominations. Potential spoilers abound and can be seen below, but this lineup seems fairly safe to me.

Technicals - Visual

As previously stated, La La Land looks poised to take a number of these categories, but not all of them. In fact, in my opinion, there are only two visual categories where La La Land is an absolute lock - cinematography and production design. The next most likely is film editing, which I'm still predicting LLL will win, but I believe could just as easily go to Moonlight (maybe I'm overestimating how much the Academy will love that movie, but eight nominations for an almost entirely black film about homosexuality is not nothing). Costume design seems poised to go to Jackie, given the Academy's penchant for period pieces in that category and the "I remember this" factor with the subject matter for the mostly-in-their-60s Academy voting crowd. The Jungle Book looks like it will be taking Visual Effects, but this category has surprised me before. Makeup probably should go to Star Trek Beyond, but my instinct that sometimes the world is bad has kicked in and made me stupidly believe Suicide Squad has a chance for a surprise win there. Ick.

Technicals - Aural

La La Land will be taking the majority of these four categories, with the exception of Sound Editing most likely. Musicals understandably perform well in the Song, Score, and Sound Mixing categories, and even though the Academy had plenty of work from old reliable oft-nominated faves, they decided to go for a decidedly young and fresh crowd this year, so the new talent on show is certainly interesting. Congratulations in advance to young composer Justin Hurwitz for his forthcoming two Oscars. Sound Editing on the other hand will most likely go to Mel Gibson's gory war film Hacksaw Ridge, following the unwritten rule for this category that the loudest film is the winner, but for some reason I can imagine a world where either Deepwater Horizon or Sully take this award out of nowhere.

Animation, Documentary, and Foreign Film

Probably my boldest prediction out of all of these is that Kubo and the Two Strings will be the victor in the Best Animated Feature race. Being one of only two animated nominees this year to be nominated in multiple categories (and for one as odd and significant as Best Visual Effects, no less) as well as the amazing goodwill Laika has as a studio despite major financial troubles convinces me that this movie might just win out, especially if Disney votes are split between Moana and Zootopia. To be fair, Zootopia has been the frontrunner since almost a year ago (a nearly perfect Rotten Tomatoes score and early talk of a picture and screenplay nomination are not nothing for an animated kids' flick), and it did win top honors at the Annie Awards, but it wouldn't even be the first time recently that the Academy differed from the Annies. It's a bold choice but I'm going for it.

O.J.: Made in America seems to be the frontrunner for Documentary, though I believe 13th has a very good chance, as they are both excellently made treatises on racial issues in America from what I'm aware. As for foreign film, the Academy has a chance to make a heavy political statement if they choose to award Asghar Farhadi's film The Salesman. It's gotten pretty great reviews and Farhadi is an Oscar winner in this category, and his boycotting of the ceremony due to Donald Trump's immigration and travel ban last month would give them a chance to make what I am assuming will be one of hundreds of political statements Sunday night. If they decide to go with the flow though, previous frontrunner Toni Erdmann from Germany will take home the gold (weird that the two foreign frontrunners are both countries that Trump supporters seem to hate).

Shorts

I know jack shit about the short categories. My guesses are Piper, Timecode, and The White Helmets. All right, we're done. Full list of winner predictions below. 

FULL WINNER PREDICTIONS LIST

Best Picture

Will Win: La La Land

Could Win: Moonlight

Should Win: Moonlight

Should've Been Nominated: The Lobster

Best Director

Will Win: Damien Chazelle (La La Land)

Could Win: Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)

Should Win: Damien Chazelle (La La Land)

Should've Been Nominated: Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Swiss Army Man)

Best Actor

Will Win: Denzel Washington (Fences)

Could Win: Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea)

Should Win: Denzel Washington (Fences)

Should've Been Nominated: Adam Driver (Paterson)

Best Actress

Will Win: Emma Stone (La La Land)

Could Win: Natalie Portman (Jackie)

Should Win: Natalie Portman (Jackie)

Should've Been Nominated: Amy Adams (Arrival)

Best Supporting Actor

Will Win: Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)
Could Win: Dev Patel (Lion)
Should Win: Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)
Should've Been Nominated: Trevante Rhodes (Moonlight)

Best Supporting Actress
Will Win: Viola Davis (Fences)
Could Win: Naomie Harris (Moonlight)
Should Win: Viola Davis (Fences)
Should've Been Nominated: Janelle Monae (Hidden Figures)

Best Original Screenplay
Will Win: Manchester by the Sea
Could Win: La La Land
Should Win: The Lobster
Should've Been Nominated: The Nice Guys

Best Adapted Screenplay

Will Win: Moonlight
Could Win: Arrival
Should Win: Moonlight
Should've Been Nominated: The Handmaiden

Best Visual Effects
Will Win: The Jungle Book
Could Win: Doctor Strange
Should Win: The Jungle Book
Should've Been Nominated: Arrival

Best Film Editing
Will Win: La La Land
Could Win: Moonlight
Should Win: Moonlight
Should've Been Nominated: 10 Cloverfield Lane

Best Cinematography
Will Win: La La Land
Could Win: Arrival
Should Win: La La Land
Should've Been Nominated: The Handmaiden

Best Production Design
Will Win: La La Land
Could Win: Hail, Caesar!
Should Win: La La Land
Should've Been Nominated: The Handmaiden

Best Costume Design
Will Win: Jackie
Could Win: La La Land
Should Win: Jackie
Should've Been Nominated: The Nice Guys

Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Will Win: Star Trek Beyond
Could Win: Suicide Squad
Should Win: Star Trek Beyond
Should've Been Nominated: Jackie

Best Original Score
Will Win: La La Land
Could Win: Moonlight
Should Win: La La Land
Should've Been Nominated: Kubo and the Two Strings

Best Original Song
Will Win: "City of Stars" (La La Land)
Could Win: "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)" (La La Land)
Should Win: "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)" (La La Land)
Should've Been Nominated: "Drive It Like You Stole It" (Sing Street)

Best Sound Mixing
Will Win: La La Land
Could Win: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Should Win: La La Land
Should've Been Nominated: The Jungle Book

Best Sound Editing
Will Win: Hacksaw Ridge
Could Win: Deepwater Horizon
Should Win: Arrival
Should've Been Nominated: 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Jungle Book

Best Animated Feature Film
Will Win: Kubo and the Two Strings
Could Win: Zootopia
Should Win: Zootopia
Should've Been Nominated: Your Name

Best Foreign Language Film
Will Win: The Salesman (Iran)
Could Win: Toni Erdmann (Germany)
Should Win: no comment; haven't seen any of them yet
Should've Been Nominated: Elle (France)

Best Documentary Feature
Will Win: O.J.: Made in America
Could Win: 13th
Should Win: 13th
Should've Been Nominated: Weiner

Best Animated Short Film
Will Win: Piper
Could Win: Blind Vaysha

Best Documentary Short Subject
Will Win: The White Helmets
Could Win: Extremis

Best Live Action Short Film
Will Win: Timecode
Could Win: one of the other nominees


All right, that's about it for now. Reviews coming eventually as always. Tune in next week for the Oscars on Sunday and sometime after for my Top 15 Favorite Films of 2016 list!

89th Academy Awards - List of Final Nominee Predictions

Okay, this is the last Oscars post for a while, and I've figured out my new classes and everything, so I will finally start back up on reviews sometime this week. The movies I'll be catching up on include Fences, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and Hidden Figures.  The nominees for the 89th Academy Awards will be announced at 8:15 AM EST tomorrow on January 24th. I'm planning on possibly doing a live stream of the nomination announcements, but that'll be decided pretty close to the time. So, here are my final final final predictions for the nominees. A few of them are a bit different than the ones in my long post last week, but they're the same for the most part. This is the final list of guesses, so this is the one you can check against the actual list of nominees tomorrow. Unlike the past posts, these will simply be listed in alphabetical order rather than in order of how likely I feel they are to be nominated, so don't assume I'm completely confident in every single guess. I'm including ten films in the Best Picture category, but keep in mind this category almost always comes out to eight or nine nominees, so I do not at all expect all of them to be nominated.

Also, I am including the Short categories for the first time. These are mostly formalities, as there is not much available to industry outsiders on these categories to go by outside of just general buzz and past winners. Anyway, without further ado, here is the list:

Best Animated Short Film

- Blind Vaysha

- The Head Vanishes

- Inner Workings

- Pearl

- Piper

Best Live Action Short Film

- Bon Voyage

- Nocturne in Black

- Sing

- Timecode

- The Way of Tea

Best Documentary Short Subject

- Extremis

- Joe's Violin

- The Mute's House

- The Other Side of Home

- The White Helmets

Best Documentary Feature

- 13th

- Cameraperson

- Fire at Sea

- O.J.: Made in America

- Weiner

Best Foreign Language Film

- Land of Mine (Denmark)

- A Man Called Ove (Sweden)

- The Salesman (Iran)

- Tanna (Australia)

- Toni Erdmann (Germany)

Best Animated Feature Film

- Kubo and the Two Strings

- Moana

- My Life as a Zucchini

- The Red Turtle

- Zootopia

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

- Deadpool

- Florence Foster Jenkins

- Star Trek Beyond

Best Sound Mixing

- Hacksaw Ridge

- The Jungle Book

- La La Land

- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

- Sully

Best Sound Editing

- Deepwater Horizon

- Hacksaw Ridge

- The Jungle Book

- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

- Sully

Best Visual Effects

- Arrival

- Captain America: Civil War

- Doctor Strange

- The Jungle Book

- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Best Costume Design

- Florence Foster Jenkins (Consolata Boyle)

- The Handmaiden (Sang-gyeong Jo)

- Hidden Figures (Renee Ehrlich Kalfus)

- Jackie (Madeline Fontaine)

- La La Land (Mary Zophres)

Best Production Design

- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Stuart Craig)

- The Handmaiden (Seong-hie Ryu)

- Jackie (Jean Rabasse)

- The Jungle Book (Christopher Glass)

- La La Land (David Wasco)

Best Film Editing

- Arrival (Joe Walker)

- Hacksaw Ridge (John Gilbert)

- Hell or High Water (Jake Roberts)

- La La Land (Tom Cross)

- Moonlight (Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders)

Best Cinematography

- Arrival (Bradford Young)

- La La Land (Linus Sandgren)

- Moonlight (James Laxton)

- Nocturnal Animals (Seamus McGarvey)

- Silence (Rodrigo Prieto)

Best Original Song

- "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)" (La La Land)

- "City of Stars" (La La Land)

- "Drive It Like You Stole It" (Sing Street)

- "How Far I'll Go" (Moana)

- "Runnin'" (Hidden Figures)

Best Original Score

- The BFG (John Williams)

- Kubo and the Two Strings (Dario Marianelli)

- La La Land (Justin Hurwitz)

- Moonlight (Nicholas Britell)

- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Michael Giacchino)

Best Adapted Screenplay

- Arrival (Eric Heisserer, based on "The Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang)

- Fences (August Wilson, based on his play of the same name)

- Hidden Figures (Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi, based on the book by Margot Lee Shetterly)

- Moonlight (Barry Jenkins and Tarrell Alvin McCraney, based on McCraney's play "In Moonlight Black Boys Looks Blue")

- Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford, based on the novel "Tony and Susan" by Austin Wright)

Best Original Screenplay

- Hell or High Water (Taylor Sheridan)

- La La Land (Damien Chazelle)

- The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos and Ethfymis Fillipou)

- Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)

- Zootopia (Byron Howard, Jared Bush, Phil Johnston, Rich Moore, Josie Trinidad, Jim Reardon, Jennifer Lee)

Best Supporting Actress

- Viola Davis (Fences)

- Naomie Harris (Moonlight)

- Nicole Kidman (Lion)

- Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures)

- Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea)

Best Supporting Actor

- Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)

- Jeff Bridges (Hell or High Water)

- Hugh Grant (Florence Foster Jenkins)

- Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea)

- Dev Patel (Lion)

Best Actress

- Amy Adams (Arrival)

- Isabelle Huppert (Elle)

- Natalie Portman (Jackie)

- Emma Stone (La La Land)

- Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins)

Best Actor

- Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea)

- Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge)

- Ryan Gosling (La La Land)

- Viggo Mortensen (Captain Fantastic)

- Denzel Washington (Fences)

Best Director

- Damien Chazelle (La La Land)

- Tom Ford (Nocturnal Animals)

- Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)

- Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea)

- Denis Villeneuve (Arrival)

Best Picture

- Arrival (Dan Levine, Shawn Levy, David Linde, Karen Lunder, Aaron Ryder)

- Florence Foster Jenkins (Michael Kuhn, Tracey Seaward)

- Hacksaw Ridge (Terry Benedict, Paul Currie, Bruce Davey, William D. Johnson, Bill Mechanic, Brian Oliver, David Permut, Tyler Thompson)

- Hell or High Water (Sidney Kimmel, Peter Berg, Julie Yorn, Carla Hacken)

- Hidden Figures (Peter Chernin, Donna Gigliotti, Theodore Melfi, Jenno Topping, Pharrell Williams)

- La La Land (Fred Berger, Gary Gilbert, Marc Platt, Jordan Horowitz)

- Lion (Iain Canning, Angie Fielder, Emile Sherman)

- Manchester by the Sea (Laren Beck, Matt Damon, Chris Moore, Kimberly Steward, Kevin J. Walsh)

- Moonlight (Dede Gardner, Adele Romanski, Jeremy Kleiner)

- Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford, Robert Salerno)

And there you have it. See you tomorrow to see how many I got wrong.

89th Academy Awards - Final Nominees Predictions

Before I start, I'd like to apologize for the lack of movie reviews the last few weeks. I have gotten the chance to catch up on some films from 2016 that I missed (which will be how I spend much of the time between now and the Oscars in February) but haven't gotten around to writing reviews of them. That should change soon though.

Anyway, the Oscar nominee announcements are a week away now, and it doesn't look like we'll get any clearer idea of what direction they're most likely going in between now and then, so I guess it's time to do my final Oscar nominee predictions. We have announced nominees for the DGAs, PGAs, WGAs, BAFTAs, and the guilds for editors, cinematographers, production designers, visual effects artists, and costume designers. We also had a surprise-filled Golden Globes ceremony. While the Globes aren't incredibly predictive of the Oscars, they do set the stage for what's generally in the conversation in Hollywood. That, and the Globes are often helpful when paired with more relevant and predictive precursors, like the SAGs or PGAs. They're not so much a good educator of guesses themselves, but can help bolster an argument for a film. There have been surprises in the decisions of each of these precursor awards, both involving what has been included and what has been omitted.

As with the last two posts, I'll be ordering my guesses for nominees in order of most to least likely to be nominated. Unlike the last post, though, I will be offering commentary on every category, except Best Live Action Short Film, Best Documentary Short Subject, and Best Animated Short Film - I don't really have any great insight into these categories other than regurgitating titles I've heard mentioned from typically reputable sources, so my guesses for those categories will just be shown in alphabetical order in the full list I'll be posting right before nominees are announced. Come back on January 24th to see how I do.

Best Foreign Language Film

The foreign film category seems particularly weak this year given the Academy's ludicrous exclusions on their nominee shortlist, particularly the omission of Elle, the well-agreed-upon frontrunner for the category back in the fall. Right now consensus seems to be around Maren Ade's film Toni Erdmann, with previous winner Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman as a close second. The other nominees are mostly up in the air from there. A Man Called Ove's inclusion on the also crazy shortlist for Makeup make me think it has vocal fans, and possible inclusion in other categories bodes well for foreign nominee hopefuls. Despite that, I'm guessing that My Life as a Zucchini is more likely to show up in the animated category than here, even though it is eligible for both. This is a notoriously inconsistent category though, so outside of those two frontrunners it could go basically wherever.

Predicted Nominees:

1. Toni Erdmann (Germany)

2. The Salesman (Iran)

3. Land of Mine (Denmark)

4. A Man Called Ove (Sweden)

5. Tanna (Australia)

Possible Spoilers:

6. My Life as a Zucchini (Switzerland)

7. Paradise (Russia)
8. It's Only the End of the World (Canada)

Best Documentary Feature

2016 was apparently the year everyone became obsessed with the trial of O.J. Simpson, between the praise heaped on the ESPN documentary O.J.: Made in America and the fictional Globe phenomenon miniseries The People v. O.J. Simpson. O.J.'s formidable length and genesis on television made me apprehensive about deeming it a frontrunner earlier, but it seems to be most people's idea of the film to beat, and is a fairly safe bet for a nomination at the least. Ava DuVernay's 13th, about the history of racism in the American criminal justice system, is also a very safe bet based on its award performance and unanimous acclaim.

Both in this category and others, there are a surprising number of Oscar frontrunners that have to do with American racial issues, and I Am Not Your Negro has been heavily praised. Tackling issues outside of America, the Italian doc Fire at Sea detailing the European migrant crisis seems like it could make a splash despite being excluded from the foreign shortlist, given its timeliness. I'm still giving the edge to Weiner for the fifth spot just because there's always an under-discussed nominee in these types of categories and I personally just think it's excellent and timely. That said, the animated doc Tower about the 1966 University of Texas massacre garnered a PGA nomination last week, and Cameraperson, The Eagle Huntress, and Gleason all have arguments to be made for them. These categories are always more open-ended, but my five picks seem like good ones to me.

Locks:

1. O.J.: Made in America

2. 13th

Other Predicted Nominees:

3. I Am Not Your Negro

4. Fire at Sea

5. Weiner

Possible Spoilers:

6. Tower

7. The Eagle Huntress

8. Gleason

9. Cameraperson

10. Zero Days

Best Animated Feature Film

Kubo and the Two Strings has actually been the most consistently represented animated film among precursor awards, surprising because of its poor box office performance. It's on the shortlist for Visual Effects strangely enough, and garnered a fair number of Annie nominations, so it's a much more formidable adversary for its nearly year-old frontrunner, Zootopia. Moana will get in based solely on its throwback musical numbers and idiosyncratic touch of Clements/Musker. The Red Turtle isn't even released wide in America until this weekend, but it's been screened basically everywhere and has gotten rave reviews and included on most award lists, so it's a safe bet. Beyond those four, it's a bit more up in the air. Finding Dory got the PGA nomination and a BAFTA nod, but it lacks a Globe nod and was well-received and commercially successful, if an underwhelming Pixar offering after the lauded Inside Out, but Pixar's namesake alone can be enough to get it a nomination. Dory and My Life as a Zucchini have been included on several awards list and are the major films fighting out for the fifth spot in my opinion. The commercial success of Your Name, Sing, and The Secret Life of Pets, however, could prove beneficial to their chances despite their spurious awards recognition.

Locks:

1. Zootopia

2. Kubo and the Two Strings

Safe Bets:

3. The Red Turtle

4. Moana

Disputed Fifth Nomination:

5. My Life as a Zucchini

Possible Spoilers:

6. Finding Dory

7. Your Name

8. Sing

9. The Secret Life of Pets

10. Sausage Party

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Jesus, what a snooze of a category this turned out to be this year. In my opinion, a nomination shortlist is very weak when the frontrunner to win is Florence Foster Jenkins, which wasn't even in the top 10 of possibilities pre-shortlist. Either way, Star Trek usually scores here and Deadpool is getting a lot of in my opinion undue awards recognition, and this seems like the most likely category for it to show up, if for nothing else than the weakness of its competitors. A Man Called Ove being a foreign competitor could work in its favor, and after that it's basically a craps shoot of mediocre choices.

Predicted Nominees:

1. Florence Foster Jenkins

2. Deadpool

3. Star Trek Beyond

Possible Spoilers:

4. A Man Called Ove

5. Hail, Caesar!

6. Suicide Squad

Best Sound Editing

Guesses for the sound categories are always kind of all over the place. There aren't any super official predictive guilds or precursor awards to go off of, so it's more of a matter of observing voting trends than anything. Hacksaw Ridge is the frontrunner here because of the "the loudest film wins sound editing" rule of thumb, and war films generally clean up in these categories. I'm apparently the only one thinking The Jungle Book will show up here, but I'm standing by it. Deepwater Horizon has made surprising ground, and is a safer bet than Berg's more recent release Patriot's Day, and then I think Sully will sneak up on people in technicals despite it being shut out of most major precursors. The Academy likes Clint Eastwood (they've nominated even his more lackluster films), and I think people are under-estimating how influential the old white dude demo is in AMPAS.

Arrival and La La Land are threats, though. Arrival isn't a crash-bang action sci-fi film, but Academy voters may see trailers for it and peg it to be one anyway. And everyone and their mother is (understandably) predicting major love for La La Land, and the Academy generally over-nominates films it really loves, so even though it wouldn't really make sense, it could end up here.

Predicted Nominees:

1. Hacksaw Ridge

2. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

3. The Jungle Book

4. Deepwater Horizon

5. Sully

Possible Spoilers:

6. Arrival

7. La La Land

8. Patriot's Day

9. Silence

Longer Shots:

10. Captain America: Civil War

11. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

12. Hell or High Water

Best Sound Mixing

The sound mixing category and sound editing category usually very closely overlap, the only difference being Best Picture nominees are more often represented here. La La Land is a musical, which gives it an automatic leg up (Oscar's last musical Best Picture nominee Les Miserables won this category). but outside of that I'm leaving my guesses mostly the same, with Deepwater Horizon being the film that gets kicked out due to it being the nominee with the smallest chance of showing up in bigger categories.

Predicted Nominees:

1. La La Land

2. Hacksaw Ridge

3. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

4. The Jungle Book

5. Sully

Possible Spoilers:

6. Deepwater Horizon

7. Silence

8. Arrival

9. Patriot's Day

Best Visual Effects

My five top guesses for this category haven't changed since my first write-up, but some of the potential spoilers have gained more traction lately, namely Fantastic Beasts and Kubo and the Two Strings, though I'm slow to accept either of them as surefire nominees. The Harry Potter universe is not super well represented in this category, and Kubo is a stop-motion animated film, albeit a visually rapturous one that is technically eligible. Other minor offerings could theoretically sneak in here, but the five I have here seem like very safe bets. Rogue One and The Jungle Book are the only true locks, the former possibly spoiling as the winner in February due to its impressive presence at the VFX Awards.

Locks:

1. The Jungle Book

2. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Other Predicted Nominees:

3. Doctor Strange

4. Arrival

5. Captain America: Civil War

Possible Spoilers:

6. Kubo and the Two Strings

7. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

8. The BFG

Best Costume Design

La La Land, Jackie, and Fantastic Beasts are the only true surefire nominees for this category, due to broad critical love, period work, and industry love for Colleen Atwood, respectively. Outside of that, it's a fairly open-ended competition between primarily period pieces, as is the norm with this category. You'll notice that I'm predicting a surprising amount of love for Florence Foster Jenkins, which comes from the fact that there's always at least one film everyone considers but doesn't really give much credence to with these awards, and Stephen Frears's last film, Philomena, proved to be just that in 2013. That, and Streep and Grant are safe bets for acting nominations, and the film was given some unexpected extra facetime with the public after Meryl's Globes speech. The fifth spot I'm giving to The Handmaiden, which was not even the submission for foreign film for South Korea, despite being nearly tied with Elle and Toni Erdmann for most frequently featured foreign nominee in precursors and critics circles. It wasn't submitted, but people are seeing it and the buzz is there.

On the other hand, Allied has picked up some nods in this category from guilds despite its lukewarm reviews, and Hidden Figures is poised to make a decent showing with its surprising box office performance the week voting started, so they are definite possibilities. Many of the other numerous period flicks from this year also have decent shots.

Lock:

1. Jackie (Madeline Fontaine)

Other Predicted Nominees:

2. La La Land (Mary Zophres)

3. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Colleen Atwood)

4. Florence Foster Jenkins (Consolata Boyle)

5. The Handmaiden (Sang-gyeong Jo)

Possible Spoilers:

6. Allied (Joanna Johnston)

7. Silence (Sandy Powell)

8. Hidden Figures (Renee Erlich Kalfus)

9. Love & Friendship (Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh)

10. Fences (Sharen Davis)

11. Hail, Caesar! (Mary Zophres)

12. Rules Don't Apply (Albert Wolsky)

Longer Shots:

13. Live by Night (Jacqueline West)

14. Loving (Erin Benach)

15. Hacksaw Ridge (Lizzy Gardiner)

16. Captain Fantastic (Courtney Hoffman)

Best Production Design

Once again, La La Land and Jackie seem to be basic locks here, and the Harry Potter universe as envisioned by Stuart Craig is well-loved with the Academy, so Fantastic Beasts is another safe bet. The Jungle Book has often been referred to as the Avatar of this year as far as visual effects and artificial world-building go, and as far as CGI-heavy design goes, it seems to be the frontrunner, so I'm pulling for a nomination here. My fifth spot goes to Hidden Figures, just because I think it'll end up being a Best Picture nominee and it'd be weird to see such an icon-filled period piece not pick up a design nod, but there are arguments to be made for my spoilers as well. Doctor Strange also has an outside shot after some nods in relevant guilds here.

Locks:

1. Jackie (Jean Rabasse)

2. La La Land (David Wasco)

Other Predicted Nominees:

3. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Stuart Craig)

4. The Jungle Book (Christopher Glass)

5. Hidden Figures (Wynn Thomas)

Possible Spoilers:

6. Arrival (Patrice Vermette)

7. Silence (Dante Ferretti)

8. Hail, Caesar! (Jess Gonchor)

9. Doctor Strange (Charles Wood)

10. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Doug Chiang and Neil Lamont)

11. The Handmaiden (Seong-hie Ryu)

12. Florence Foster Jenkins (Alan MacDonald)

Longer Shots:

13. Hacksaw Ridge (Barry Robison)

14. Cafe Society (Santo Loquasto)

15. Fences (David Gropman)

16. Rules Don't Apply (Jeannine Oppewall)

17. Live by Night (Jess Gonchor)

18. Love & Friendship (Anna Rackard)

Best Film Editing

Now into the upper echelon of categories, the Film Editing category seems to be fairly straightforward, with La La Land and Moonlight being essential locks given their Best Picture threat status. Manchester by the Sea surprised with an ACE nomination, but I still think it will be seen as more of an actor's film rather than anything brimming with technical achievement, so I'm leaving it out of the top five. Arrival editor Joe Walker was previously nominated for Denis Villeneuve's last film Sicario, so he seems like a fair bet here, Hacksaw Ridge is probably more likely to score here than any other technical besides sound, and Sully is my oddball choice. I really do feel like the Academy will latch onto it more than precursor awards did - that is to say, more than not at all.

Locks:

1. La La Land (Tom Cross)

2. Moonlight (Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders)

Other Predicted Nominees:

3. Arrival (Joe Walker)

4. Hacksaw Ridge (John Gilbert)

5. Sully (Blu Murray)

Possible Spoilers:

6. Manchester by the Sea (Jennifer Lame)

7. Hell or High Water (Jake Roberts)

8. Silence (Thelma Schoonmaker)

Longer Shots:

9. Fences (Hughes Winborne)

10. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Jabez Olssen)

11. Lion (Alexandre de Franscheschi)

12. Hidden Figures (Peter Teschner)

13. Patriot's Day (Colby Parker, Jr.)

14. The Jungle Book (Mark Livolsi)

Best Cinematography

In my mind, the three locks here seem to be Moonlight, La La Land, and Arrival, the most frequently cited films in discussions of the best camerawork of the year, even if Moonlight is a comparatively more subtle choice for this usually quite flashy category. This is the only category I have Silence being nominated for. You'll notice the number of nominations I've predicted for Silence is substantially fewer than my first write-up. It's missed some crucial guild and precursor points, hasn't necessarily been critically acclaimed, has had some disappointing box office numbers, and reportedly did not have all of its screeners properly disbursed. It did, however, manage a nomination for the ASC awards, and Rodrigo Perito is a known and respected DP, so I'm betting it shows up here. 

My fifth spot is going to Nocturnal Animals because of that film's uneven but surprising ubiquity in precursors. I don't think it'll manage a picture or director nomination as it's quite polarizing, but it's a beautifully shot film and McGarvey is respected.

Locks:

1. La La Land (Linus Sandgren)

2. Moonlight (James Laxton)

3. Arrival (Bradford Young)

Other Predicted Nominees:

4. Silence (Rodrigo Prieto)

5. Nocturnal Animals (Seamus McGarvey)

Possible Spoilers:

6. Hacksaw Ridge (Simon Duggan)

7. Lion (Greg Fraser)

8. Hail, Caesar! (Roger Deakins)

9. Live by Night (Robert Richardson)

10. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Greg Fraser)

11. Jackie (Stephane Fontaine)

12. The Jungle Book (Bill Pope)

Longer Shots:

13. Hell or High Water (Giles Nuttgens)

14. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (John Toll)

15. Allied (Don Burgess)

16. Sully (Tom Stern)

Best Original Song

Big surprise - La La Land is the frontrunner for this category. The only real question is which song(s) will be nominated, and how many. The Academy allows two song nominations per film, and the two most popular seem to be "City of Stars" and "Audition", the former being the more frequently nominated even though, while it's the first song anyone heard from the film, it's actually one of the least memorable or consequential to the story. "Audition" would be a good choice, as it's basically a summation of the film's themes and it's beautifully performed in one take by Emma Stone in the film's climax. Any other songs are a bit of a long shot, but the opening number "Another Day of Sun" could possibly replace one of the two. Stranger things have happened in this category.

Outside of that, Moana, Disney's first true musical in a few years, is set to be nominated for its girl power anthem. Assuming La La Land gets two and Moana gets one, I have the final two slots filled by "Runnin'" from Hidden Figures (it's probably a Best Picture nominee and is written and performed by previous nominee Pharrell Williams) and "Drive It Like You Stole It" from Sing Street (it's considered an outside shot by many, but it got a major Globe nod and lots of critical acclaim, and its director has made musicals successful with Oscar in the past like Once and Begin Again). Oddly enough, the latter song is also one that isn't the best of its film (I'd give that to "Brown Shoes"). The music branch is stupid. 

Locks:

1. "City of Stars" (La La Land)

2. "How Far I'll Go" (Moana)

Other Predicted Nominees:

3. "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)" (La La Land)

4. "Runnin'" (Hidden Figures)

5. "Drive It Like You Stole It" (Sing Street)

Possible Spoilers:

6. "Can't Stop the Feeling" (Trolls)

7. "I'm Still Here" (Miss Sharon Jones)

8. "A Minute to Breathe" (Before the Flood)

9. "The Rules Don't Apply" (Rules Don't Apply)

10. "A Letter to the Free" (13th)

Longer Shots:

11. "Another Day of Sun" (La La Land)

12. "We Know the Way" (Moana)

13. "The Great Beyond" (Sausage Party)

14. "Try Everything" (Zootopia)

15. "Faith" (Sing)

Best Original Score

This category is very open-ended this year for a reason that can really describe most of the more unanswerable questions with this year's Oscars, and that is that many of the agreed-upon best of the year come from people completely unfamiliar to the Academy. There is a not unlikely lineup for this category that would be completely made up of first-time nominees, including several young newcomers. It's an exciting prospect, but somewhat of a pipe dream. The Academy likes safety and sameness to a degree, so they gravitate toward names they know (don't we all?). 

That said, and this is pretty much a given at this point, La La Land is a lock. If you haven't seen La La Land and are already tired of all the awards buzz, sorry, but the film really is an achievement on numerous levels, and it deserves to win here. Anyway, Moonlight seems like a decent bet based on the meager precursors we have to go off of, and outside of that it's pretty much a game of "recognizable name or disputed best newcomer". I'm going with Debney, Desplat, and Giacchino because their films are well-liked already and they are previous nominees. But, like I said, there's a lot to be said for other possible nominees both by way of precursors and voting trends so we'll see.

Lock:

1. La La Land (Justin Hurwitz)

Other Predicted Nominees:

2. Moonlight (Nicholas Britell)

3. Florence Foster Jenkins (Alexandre Desplat)

4. The Jungle Book (John Debney)

5. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Michael Giacchino

Possible Spoilers:

6. Lion (Dustin O'Halloran and Hauschka)

7. Jackie (Mica Levi)

8. Nocturnal Animals (Levi Korzeniowski)

9. The BFG (John Williams)

10. Kubo and the Two Strings (Dario Marianelli)

Longer Shots:

11. Moana (Mark Mancina)

12. Finding Dory (Thomas Newman)

13. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (James Newton Howard)

14. Hacksaw Ridge (Rupert Gregson-Williams)

15. Patriot's Day (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross)

16. Doctor Strange (Michael Giacchino)

Best Adapted Screenplay

Three out of five slots for this category seem fairly locked in, especially after the WGA Awards. Arrival, Fences, and Moonlight (which was inexplicably moved here even though it's being counted as original by everyone else including the WGA) all look like surefire nominees. Screenplay nominees usually skew to Best Picture nominees, so the direction of that category will determine the direction of this one, or vice versa. Some people are calling Lion a lock here which I do not understand, as it's been nominated for zero major screenplay awards so far. I've decided to go with Hidden Figures and Nocturnal Animals, both WGA nominees and both finding late-term success. This would boost Nocturnal Animals's chances for a best picture nomination, but not unequivocally.

The weird question here is whether Deadpool will be nominated, because yes, it was nominated for a WGA Award in this category, as well as a PGA Award, which are significant. I've also said in the past that Deadpool's awards performance is like Shrek's, in that it will be showered with nominations from guilds and critics for being subversive but will later seem overrated and dated. If it truly follows in that film's footsteps, it'll get a nomination here, just as Shrek did in 2001 (it was loosely based on a children's picture book - Shrek was, that is).

Locks:

1. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins and Tarrell Alvin McCraney)

2. Fences (August Wilson)

3. Arrival (Eric Heisserer)

Other Predicted Nominees:

4. Hidden Figures (Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi)

5. Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford)

Possible Spoilers:

6. Deadpool (Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick)

7. Hacksaw Ridge (Andrew Knight and Robert Schenkkan)

8. Lion (Luke Davies)

9. Silence (Martin Scorsese and Jay Cocks)

10. Love & Friendship (Whit Stillman)

Longer Shots:

11. Sully (Todd Komarnicki)

12. The Handmaiden (Park Chan-wook)

13. Elle (David Birke)

14. The Jungle Book (Justin Marks)

15. Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt)

Best Original Screenplay

La La Land's Globe win for this category is not necessarily 100% predictive of it winning here (if it wins the WGA Award it's pretty much a lock), but it's found great success in this category, so I'd say it and Manchester by the Sea are the only absolute locks. Hell or High Water is a very likely choice given its WGA nod and surprising goodwill with awards. The last two slots are pretty up in the air, and I'm being bold and giving them to The Lobster (which notably missed out at the WGAs but is written by a previously nominated writer/director and is very well liked) and Zootopia (which hasn't gotten any major screenplay awards but is arguably the most talked-about animated film of the year and could pull an Inside Out for its thematic ambitions).

Locks:

1. Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan)

2. La La Land (Damien Chazelle)

Other Predicted Nominees:

3. Hell or High Water (Taylor Sheridan)

4. The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou)

5. Zootopia (Byron Howard, Jared Bush, Phil Johnston, Rich Moore, Josie Trinidad, Jim Reardon, Jennifer Lee)

Possible Spoilers:

6. Florence Foster Jenkins (Nicholas Martin)

7. 20th Century Women (Mike Mills)

8. Loving (Jeff Nichols)

9. Captain Fantastic (Matt Ross)

10. Jackie (Noah Oppenheim)

Longer Shots:

11. Hail, Caesar! (Joel and Ethan Coen)

12. I, Daniel Blake (Paul Laverty)

13. Everybody Wants Some!! (Richard Linklater)

Best Supporting Actress

With the SAG Awards out, this seems like a five-way lock to most people: Harris, Williams, Davis, Kidman, and Spencer. I'm under the impression that Hidden Figures could possibly pull off a double nomination here with Spencer and Janelle Monae, but it's never super wise to bet on something that usually never happens (I want to say the last time it happened was Up in the Air in 2009, which oddly enough was also in this exact category). So, I'm going with the magic five, and, due to unfortunate lack of great supporting female roles this year (Davis's category fraud appearance here really brightens it up, though not to undermine the work of Williams and Harris), I don't see it going far outside of these five.

Predicted Nominees:

1. Viola Davis (Fences)

2. Michelle Williams (Manchester by the Sea)

3. Naomie Harris (Moonlight)

4. Nicole Kidman (Lion)

5. Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures)

Possible Spoilers (Although Anything Other Than This Five Seems Unlikely):

6. Janelle Monae (Hidden Figures)

7. Greta Gerwig (20th Century Women)

8. Molly Shannon (Other People)

9. Lily Gladstone (Certain Women)

Best Supporting Actor

So, apparently, people really like Nocturnal Animals and didn't make that apparent until right now. And apparently Michael Shannon isn't the actor to look at for a nod here, but Aaron Taylor-Johnson, of all people. I guess it's not that weird - after all, this time last year I was pining for an Oscar campaign for Vin Diesel for Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. Anyway, this is always a weird category. They typically like crazy weirdos in this category, which is why I'm giving ATJ a significant bump, but for right now I'm sticking close to the SAG nominees. Ali and Bridges can be considered basically locks, but it's fairly all over the place beyond that, as always. Somewhat limited field somehow, at the same time.

Locks:

1. Mahershala Ali (Moonlight)

2. Jeff Bridges (Hell or High Water)

Other Predicted Nominees:

3. Hugh Grant (Florence Foster Jenkins)

4. Dev Patel (Lion)

5. Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea)

Possible Spoilers:

6. Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Nocturnal Animals)

7. Liam Neeson (Silence)

8. Issei Ogata (Silence)

9. Ben Foster (Hell or High Water)

10. Stephen McKinley Henderson (Fences)

Longer Shots:

11. John Goodman (10 Cloverfield Lane)

12. Kevin Costner (Hidden Figures)

13. Alan Rickman (Eye in the Sky)

14. Andre Holland (Moonlight)

15. Trevante Rhodes (Moonlight)

16. Ralph Fiennes (A Bigger Splash)

Best Actress

Isabelle Huppert's win at the Globes for Elle was certainly significant, especially given the Academy's love for French film and her status as a storied but unrecognized actress. A nod here could make up for Elle's omission from the foreign film shortlist, and it wouldn't be the first time the female star of a foreign film was nominated here without a SAG nomination (it last happened in 2012 with Emmanuelle Riva for Amour). Stone and Portman have always been locks for their performances and will duke it out for most likely to win (right now Stone has the edge), and Amy Adams is a very safe bet for Arrival. I'm giving the fifth spot to Meryl Streep for Florence Foster Jenkins - it's a great performance, she's obviously a force to be reckoned with, she has a Globe and a SAG nod for it, and her Globes speech has drawn her into the spotlight again, for better or worse. There are certainly threats, but this five seems pretty tight to me.

Locks:

1. Emma Stone (La La Land)

2. Natalie Portman (Jackie)

Other Predicted Nominees:

3. Amy Adams (Arrival)

4. Isabelle Huppert (Elle)

5. Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins)

Possible Spoilers:

6. Annette Bening (20th Century Women)

7. Ruth Negga (Loving)

8. Taraji P. Henson (Hidden Figures)

9. Emily Blunt (The Girl on the Train)

10. Jessica Chastain (Miss Sloane)

Longer Shots:

11. Sally Field (Hello My Name is Doris)

12. Kate Beckinsale (Love & Friendship)

13. Jennifer Lawrence (Passengers)

14. Marion Cotillard (Allied)

15. Sonia Braga (Aquarius)

Best Actor

It's a bit bold, but this seems like a four-way lock to me. Affleck, Washington, Garfield, and Gosling seem poised to almost certainly be nominated by the looks of things, with Affleck the current frontrunner to win, although there's an argument to be made for Washington and to a lesser extent Gosling taking the gold home. The fifth spot is where things are shaky - Viggo Mortensen surprised with a SAG nod, and its nomination for Best Ensemble Cast proves there are plenty of vocal fans, but I'm weary of naming him a definite nominee. I've been following the SAG nominees fairly closely so far, and that's never super smart. Something tells me the Academy will respond to Sully more than critics and guilds, and Tom Hanks hasn't been nominated in 16 years despite his late-period work outshining his trophy-heavy heyday, in my opinion. To be fair, the number of legitimate threats to the fifth spot are down to two or three, but they all are formidable.

Locks:

1. Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea)

2. Denzel Washington (Fences)

3. Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge)

4. Ryan Gosling (La La Land)

Battling Out For the Fifth Spot:

5. Tom Hanks (Sully)

6. Viggo Mortensen (Captain Fantastic)

7. Joel Edgerton (Loving)

Outside Shots:

8. Adam Driver (Paterson)

9. Michael Keaton (The Founder)

10. Jake Gyllenhaal (Nocturnal Animals)

11. Matthew McConaughey (Gold)

12. Colin Farrell (The Lobster)

13. Andrew Garfield (Silence)

14. Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) - it got a PGA nom, anything could happen

Best Director

Three locks exist for this category in my opinion - Chazelle, Jenkins, and Lonergan, with Villeneuve fairly safe. Once again, it's the fifth spot that is really in contention. The DGA Award nominations surprised with Garth Davis for Lion, but Oscar almost never follows the DGA nominations five for five, and Lion seems almost definitely like the weakest film in the lineup (I swear I don't have anything personally against this movie, I just don't see why it's getting so much guild attention while not really making sense for Oscars). I'm giving the fifth slot to Denzel for Fences, just because the adaptation from stage to film is pretty successful and the film was well received and commercially successful at just the right time of year.

However, the Academy may very well respond to the Gibsonaissance, so Hacksaw Ridge is not impossible here, and Tom Ford surprised with a Globe nod in this category, so that's a possibility. I don't see many other major players here, except maybe Martin Scorsese for Silence. It's weird that Scorsese would be a "maybe" here, but the film came out much too late and has really failed to connect on a wide level, and would need much greater presence in more minor categories for it to make any sense in the higher-ups, so I'm guessing he gets left out. Not that ol' Marty will be bothered by it, I'm sure.

Locks:

1. Damien Chazelle (La La Land)

2. Barry Jenkins (Moonlight)

3. Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea)

Other Predicted Nominees:

4. Denis Villeneuve (Arrival)

5. Denzel Washington (Fences)

Possible Spoilers:

6. Mel Gibson (Hacksaw Ridge)

7. Garth Davis (Lion)

8. Tom Ford (Nocturnal Animals)

9. Martin Scorsese (Silence)

Longer Shots:

10. David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water)

11. Pablo Larrain (Jackie)

12. Clint Eastwood (Sully)

Best Picture

The three locks for this category have not changed since my first write-up, and truthfully we're still dealing with the same 10-13 films as before, just in different orders. In short - Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge, and Hell or High Water have mostly stayed the same in terms of likelihood; Fences, Hidden Figures, and Lion have moved up; and Silence, Jackie, and Sully have moved down.

Once again, I'm not convinced Lion is a definite shot here. It got a PGA and Globe nod, but its predicted weak performance in most major categories makes me weary. Silence is still a threat as always, but it may have been too little too late, Jackie has failed to connect outside of Portman and costumes for some reason, and Sully still has a good shot but would be a comparatively ho-hum inclusion. I actually think a come-from-behind nominee could be Florence Foster Jenkins. It's well-reviewed, half its cast is likely to be nominated, and it'll do decently in technicals, and they surprised everyone with a nomination here for the director's last film. Deadpool's PGA success also gives it an incredibly slim chance of nomination. Probably not, but expect thinkpieces aplenty if it does.

This category can have between five and ten nominees and usually ends up at eight. There's a good chance it could go 9 this year, but I think my top 8 is pretty solid.

Locks:

1. La La Land

2. Manchester by the Sea

3. Moonlight 

Other Predicted Nominees:

4. Arrival

5. Hacksaw Ridge

6. Hell or High Water

7. Fences

8. Hidden Figures

Possible Ninth or Tenth Nominees:

9. Lion

10. Jackie

11. Florence Foster Jenkins

12. Sully

13. Silence

14. Nocturnal Animals

Longer Shots:

15. Captain Fantastic

16. Loving

17. Zootopia

18. 20th Century Women

19. Patriot's Day

20. Deadpool

There you have it, my final predictions before the reveal on Tuesday, January 24th. I'll be posting the full list of my predicted nominees (without spoilers/long shots and commentary) the day before, and hope to have a post going through each Best Picture nominee guess individually, but we'll see. Stay tuned for some reviews catching up on films of 2016 I'm only now getting to see, and for reviews for 2017 films starting very soon.