And Now, As If Anyone Cares, Here’s My 2022 Oscars Score

As I and everyone else predicted, Troy Kutsur wins the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for CODA

When I posted my predictions for the 94th Academy Awards over the weekend, I speculated that I might get more wrong than I ever have before. Actually, I had a pretty good, but typical score: 19 out of 23.

For most of the last decade, there have been 24 categories, and my scores were twice 16/24, and 19/24 twice, with my lowest score being 13/24 in 2019 (the year of GREEN BOOK), and my highest score being 21/24 in 2014 (the year of BIRDMAN, though I had predicted BOYHOOD).

In 2021, they combined Sound Design and Sound Editing into just plain Sound, so of this year’s 23 categories here are the four ones I got wrong:

BEST PICTURE: My prediction: THE POWER OF THE DOG/What won: CODA.

I had told people before the show that I wouldn’t be surprised if Sian Heder’s CODA won as it was the feel-good family overcoming obstacles drama that regularly received Oscar love, but I was still going with Jane Campion’s western. Maybe because Netflix sent me this swag:

CODA sent me nothing! Nah, that really didn’t sway me. I really preferred TPOTD, and really thought it had a great chance of winning. Over the last ten years, I have only gotten four of my Best Picture predictions right, so the category is apparently not my strongest.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: My prediction: Ari Wegner for TPOTD/What won: Grieg Fraser for DUNE. I went with TPOTD because of its excellent old school imagery, but should’ve guessed that DUNE would add it to its six Oscar tech sweep.

BEST ANIMATED & BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORTS: My predictions: Dan Ojari and Mikey Please’s ROBIN ROBIN, and Matthew Ogens’ AUDIBLE/What won: Alberto Mielgo and Leo Sánchezdouble-dagger's THE WINDSHIELD WIPER, and Ben Proudfoot’s THE QUEEN OF BASKETBALL. These picks were of the eeny meeny miny mo variety so I have no argument here.

So there’s my score. Now we can go back to talking about the Chris Rock/Will Smith altercation, which I did in this post.

More later...

Hey Kids! Fun Time 2022 Oscar® Predictions!

Emilia Jones in CODA, a front runner for the 2022 Best Picture Oscar

Yes, it’s that time again - the 94th Academy Awards® Ceremony is tonight, and I’ve got my predictions ready. After last year’s weird ceremony with no official host at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, the show is back at the Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center, and this time, there are three hosts - Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes and Regina Hall - who I’m sure will bring the funny.

This Oscars further displays how much the streaming services are gaining ground in these races. Netflix got 27 nominations for 10 titles, while Apple got six, Amazon got four, and Hulu got one. The two front runners (CODA, and THE POWER OF THE DOG) in the Best Picture showdown is basically Apple vs. Netflix. But let’s get right to it my complete, final predictions of what’s gonna go down tonight:

1. BEST PICTURE:  Jane Champion’s THE POWER OF THE DOG

Sien Heder’s CODA has picked up a lot of Oscar buzz late in the game, and many critics from such outlets including the New York Times, Variety, IndieWire, and Vulture are predicting that it’ll win the big one, but I have a feeling that Jane Campion’s THE POWER OF THE DOG, an early major contender will still out. It would be fun to have an upset in this category, like if BELFAST or LICORICE PIZZA somehow got more votes. I won’t be surprised if CODA wins, as it’s so much more of a crowd pleaser than POWER OF THE DOG, but I’m gonna still go with the Campion crowd.

2. BEST DIRECTOR: Jane Champion (THE POWER OF THE DOG) Same deal here.

3. BEST ACTOR: Will Smith (KING RICHARD) 

I’m not the biggest Will Smith fan, but I think he’s excellent in this film as the stubborn tennis coach father bully, Richard Williams, and deserves to take home the gold. Several weeks ago, I would’ve said Benedict Cumberbatch was a lock for TPOTD, but Smith has the edge now, and I bet his acceptance speech will be epic.

4. BEST ACTRESS: Jessica Chastain (THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE)

This may be the toughest category in a program full of tough category as there doesn’t appear to be an actress that doesn’t have a big chance. Nate Jones of Vulture wrote, “Many categories, including Best Picture, seem like genuine fifty-fifty calls. (Best Actress might be 20-20-20-20-20.)” I’m going with Chastain, whose performance as the scandal queen televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker was stunning, despite the actual film being way less so. Like Smith, it’s her third Oscar nomination, so I’m counting on it being the charm.

5. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Troy Kotsur (CODA)

Now, I’ll be very surprised if this guy doesn’t win this. He’s the best thing in CODA, and he’s already won a British Academy Film Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Critics' Choice Award, and stole the show at each ceremony. If he wins, he’ll be the first deaf actor to score the statue (his CODA co-star, Marlee Matlin, was the first deaf actress to win an Oscar for CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD in 1987), so that’ll be a cool thing.

6. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Ariana Debose (WEST SIDE STORY)

I don’t have a strong feeling on this one, I’m just seeing that just about everyone is saying this is a lock, and I’m going with the flow.

Now here’s the rest of the categories, the ones that are getting the shaft this year by their exclusion from the live broadcast.

At Long Last, Film Babble Blog’s 2021 In Review

So I’m finally getting around to appraise the films of 2021 – just under the wire, in fact, as the 95th Academy Awards ceremony is this coming Sunday (March 27).

It’s nothing new for it to take a few months into the new year to do this as many movies aren’t accessible until well into the awards season, and there’s a lot of films to catch up with. However, there are a lot fewer than in years past for obvious pandemic reasons. In the Before Times of 2019, there were 792 films released in the U.S. and Canada; in 2021, there were 403. I haven’t crunched the numbers to calculate how many movies of those that I’ve seen, but I think I’ve seen enough to say that it was a good, not great, year for film.

Like last year, I’m not posting a Top 10, but if I were, I would pick Paul Thomas Anderson’s LICORICE PIZZA as my #1 movie of the year. The film resonated with me as it matched my memories of being a kid with acting aspirations in the ‘70s, and delighted me with its radiant, real-feeling turns by its leads, Cooper Hoffman (son of Phillip Seymour Hoffman), and Alana Haim. A brash Bradley Cooper steals the show as producer Jon Peters (the inspiration for SHAMPOO!), which made much more of an impression on me than his performance in NIGHTMARE ALLEY.

Speaking of Guillermo del Toro’s NIGHTMARE ALLEY, that was one of a number of movies from the last year that I admired more than I enjoyed. Likewise, I found Jane Champion’s THE POWER OF THE DOG, a front-runner for the Best Picture Oscar, to be a fascinatingly weird western with a masterful performance by Benedict Cumberbatch, but I didn’t connect with it in any great, emotional way.

Same goes with DUNE. Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of the first half of Frank Herbert’s iconic sci-fi bestseller is amazing looking, and powerful in its presentation, but I felt a bit distant to it when I wanted to be more inside the action.

That’s not to say that it isn’t a worthy epic as it boasts a strong ensemble headed by “it boy” Timothée Chalamet, eye-popping visuals, a primo Hans Zimmer score, and a solidly intriguing storyline, yet I was still left somewhat cold by it. DUNE received ten Academy Award nominations for good reason, but I’m just hoping that PART TWO, due for 2023, will resonate more greatly with me.

2021 films that did speak me include Joel Coen’s spare black and white Shakespeare adaptation, THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH, which earned Denzel Washington a Best Actor nomination (he deserves it for his intense handling of the “Is this a dagger which I see before me” soliloquy alone); Joachim Trier’s THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD, which should’ve gotten Renate Reinsve a nom; Kenneth Branagh’s BELFAST (read my review here); and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s elegantly poignant DRIVE MY CAR, which I bet will win the Best International Feature Oscar on Sunday night.

James Bond movies usually don’t make my year-end best lists, but Cary Joji Fukunaga’s magnificent NO TIME TO DIE certainly deserves such accolades. Daniel Craig’s swan song as 007 is one of the series’ best, and you can read my reasons why in my review from when the film hit theaters. 

One category that flourished in 2021 is the musical documentary genre. Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s SUMMER OF SOUL leads the pack of pop infotainment with its colossal concert footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. How an event that featured such iconic performers as Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone, The 5th Dimension, The Staple Singers, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and Sly and the Family Stone (among other luminaries) could linger in obscurity for so long is baffling, but thanks to Questlove, we’ve got an essential, and joyous addition to the roster of classic concert festival docs that includes WOODSTOCK, MONTEREY POP, and SOUL POWER. 

Second to that in the rock doc division is Edgar Wright’s THE SPARKS BROTHERS with its loving breakdown of the eccentric career of Ron and Russell Mael’s Los Angeles-based band, Sparks. It’s one of the most entertaining, and funny rockumentaries I’ve ever seen, and since I’m a big fan of the genre, I’ve seen a lot of them. Wright’s film really should’ve been nominated for Best Documentary - I’d say instead of Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s FLEE. Not that FLEE is undeserving, it’s just that it’s also nominated for Best Animated and Best International Feature too, so it’s pretty well covered.

Also worth seeing is Todd Haynes’ THE VELVET UNDERGROUND (read my review), Dan Lindsay and T. J. Martin’s TINA, about legendary singer, Tina Turner; and Garret Price’s WOODSTOCK 99: PEACE, LOVE, AND RAGE, which scarily depicts what’s been considered the worst music festival ever.

Finally, the musical documentary event of 2021 was THE BEATLES: GET BACK, Peter Jackson’s eight-hour exploration of the fab four’s sessions for their next-to-last album, Let it Be. We witness John, Paul, George, and Ringo rehearsing, joking around, arguing, and working on new material, capturing the band’s creativity as never seen before. The Apple Corps rooftop concert by itself makes for one of the year’s best docs as it’s been shown at IMAX theaters as a standalone film. Read my review of GET BACK here.

So there’s my overview of cinematic highlights of 2021. Friday, I will post my Oscar predictions for this Sunday’s broadcast. Hope to see you here.

More later…