Hey Kids! Funtime 2018 Oscar® Predictions!

The 90th Academy Awards® Ceremony is in two days, so it’s time for my predictions. Mind you, the last few years I got the same score: 16 out of 24, so I’m no Oscar-predicting genius here (my best score was 21 out of 24 in 2014). The only real lock this time around is that host Jimmy Kimmel will touch greatly on the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.

This year is a particularly difficult roster to choose from as every other critic’s predictions are very divided especially when it comes to the big one:

1. BEST PICTURE: GET OUT

It looks like the front-runners for this category are THE SHAPE OF WATER (12 nominations), THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE OF EBBING, MISSOURI (7 nominations), and GET OUT (4 nominations). Now, if it wasn’t for that big snafu last year when LA LA LAND was mistakenly announced as the winner, when it was really MOONLIGHT that got the gold, I would probably go with THE SHAPE OF WATER. LA LA LAND seemed like such a lock, but that incident has made me rethink my pick again and again.

But I’ve settled on Jordan Peele's brilliant debut. I hesitated at first because it’s my favorite of the three, and playing favorites doesn’t always work out, but it just feels like it has the edge over its competition.

The rest of my predictions sans commentary:

2. BEST DIRECTOR: Guillermo del Toro for THE SHAPE OF WATER

3. BEST ACTOR: Gary Oldman for DARKEST HOUR

4. BEST ACTRESS: Frances McDormand for THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

5. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Sam Rockwell for THREE BILLBOARDS

6. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Allison Janey for I, TONYA

7. PRODUCTION DESIGN: Paul D. Austerberry, Shane Vieau, and Jeffrey A. Melvin for THE SHAPE OF WATER

8. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Roger Deakins for BLADE RUNNER 2049

9. COSTUME DESIGN: Mark Bridges for PHANTOM THREAD

10. DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: FACES PLACES

11. DOCUMENTARY SHORT: EDDIE+EDITH

12. FILM EDITING: Paul Machliss and Jonathan Amos for BABY DRIVER

13. MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING: Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski, and Lucy Sibbick for DARKEST HOUR

14. VISUAL EFFECTS: Joe Letteri, Daniel Barrett, Dan Lemmon, and Joel Whist for WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES

15. ORIGINAL SCORE: Alexandre Desplat for THE SHAPE OF WATER

16. ORIGINAL SONG: “This Is Me” from THE GREATEST SHOWMAN (Justin Paul & Benj Pasek)

17. ANIMATED SHORT: DEAR BASKETBALL

18. LIVE ACTION SHORT: DEKALB ELEMENTARY

19. SOUND EDITING: Richard King and Alex Gibson for DUNKIRK

20. SOUND MIXING: Gregg Landaker, Gary Rizzo, and Mark Weingarten for DUNKIRK

21. ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Jordan Peele for GET OUT

22. ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: James Ivory for CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

23. ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: COCO

24. BEST FOREIGN FILM: A FANTASTIC WOMAN

As I always say, tune in Monday to see how many I got wrong.

More later...

THREE BILLBOARDS Starts Strong But Loses Its Way

Now playing at an indie art house near me:

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
(Dir. Martin McDonagh, 2017)

Such a juicy premise: a hard as nails Missouri woman rents three billboards alongside a country road to shame her town’s sheriff who has made no arrests in the wake of her daughter’s rape and murder.

And such a great cast: Frances McDormand as Mildred Hayes, the mother whose grief has solidified into anger over this injustice, Woody Harrelson as Chief Willoughby, who doesn’t take kindly to billboards that read “Raped while dying,” “And still no arrests,” and “How come, Chief Willoughby?,” Samuel Rockwell as Officer Jason Dixon, who has a reputation of torturing black suspects; John Hawkes as Mildred’s ex-husband, and Peter Dinklage as a local car salesman who has a crush on Mildred.

Add to that the lush mountain scenery surrounding these characters which has locations shot in my home state of North Carolina standing in for the fictional town of Ebbing, Missouri, and you’ve got the elements to make up a tensely funny thriller, but roughly half way through its nearly two hour running time, the movie runs out of steam and doesn’t know where to go.

This happens right after the exit of one major player and the entrance of a suspect that initially appears to serve as misdirection, but ends up being the direction the film mistakenly decides to go with.

McDormand’s dour divorcée Mildred owns the movie’s best moments, but, like with everyone she interacts with, she never lets us get close to what she’s dealing with enough to really be on her side. Harrelson’s Willoughby draws more empathy as he’s dying of cancer and seems to have a good sincere head on his shoulders, but his character’s fate does the film no favors.

When the film shifts to the underwritten perspective of Rockwell's Officer Dixon, who we never learn whether he is guilty of racist activity or not, the narrative gets muddled, and a restlessness sets in.

Also, the presence of McDormand and composer Carter Burwell (who provides a solid yet instinctive score here) made me wish for the more purposeful (and wittier) approach of the actress and musical director’s long-time collaborators, the Coen brothers.

Writer/Director McDonagh has had better luck with this sort of black comedy in his previous films, IN BRUGE and SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, which also features Rockwell and Abbie Cornish who appears here as Harrelson’s wife. Here his screenplay strands its protagonists and possible antagonists in a pointless parable.

It’s not that every movie has to have a pat pay-off – many great films end ambiguously – but this particular story of these broken people who fight for justice that they likely will never get deserves a better thematic resolution than we get here.

More later...