2018 Oscar Predictions

[+ StLouisOct]

The Barnes Foundation (near my apartment) owns several Van Gogh paintings but most people come for all the Cezanne paintings. Pure chance. The Cezanne paintings were much more available when Dr. Barnes was buying art. I am thrill that he chose a few Van Gohn paintings too.

And the relevance of this is????? Did you like the movie???

[+ pitman]

Two of the best films of last year have been totally ignored during awards season:

 

Detroit

Wind River

[TruthBTold]

Faye & Warren will be presenting the Best Picture Oscar again this year. Let's hope they don't screw it up again. ~Boomer~

 

God, couldn't they get anybody else to give out the awards. There are plenty of great actors (who can read) available.

[Kenny]

“Loving Vincent” is a gorgeous film. And the uniqueness of how it was made, what it took to make it, and the painstaking process that brought it to the screens should earn it the Oscar.

Seriously? It was hard to make, even painstaking, so deserves an Oscar? This ain’t the Olympics, dude. Degree of difficulty is not an artistic standard.

[BroadwayDave]

Watched four movies this weekend nominated or that had nominees, my personal opinions:

 

1) Lady Bird - enjoyed this quite a bit. IMHO no real standout performances though. Also has a role played by Timothée Chalamet. Not a must-see, but if you have some extra time on a rainy day.

 

2) The Florida Project - this whole movie just made me mad. Sure there were some cute bits, but overall. It was disturbing, maddening, and rendered so many emotions. Weird ending after all that. Recommended.

 

3) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - powerful performances by Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell. This was my favorite of the four I watched.

 

4) Darkest Hour - amazing performance by Gary Oldman. Great movie.

 

 

A few guesses (favorites) for tonight:

 

BEST PICTURE

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

 

BEST ACTOR

Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour

 

BEST ACTRESS

Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

 

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Loving Vincent

 

 

I’d already seen Dunkirk in the theaters. Enjoyed the movie and the parts in Darkest Hour that described what was involved in saving those men off of the beachhead.

Edited March 4, 2018 by BroadwayDave

[+ StLouisOct]

OK. Time to place my bets:

WELL, 7 out of 9 is OK I guess.

PICTURE

The Shape of Water. YES

 

ACTOR

Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread NO

 

ACTRESS

Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri YES

 

DIRECTOR

The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro YES

 

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Allison Janney, I tanya YES

 

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri YES

 

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Coco YES

 

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor. NO

 

ORIGINAL SCORE

The Shape of Water YES

[Populist Fury]

Frances McDormand stole the show, as she always does <3 Glad she won in the strongest acting category of the night.

 

The entire event had mostly predictable outcomes tho... kind of dull, but I guess not a bad show. There needs to be a new host for next year.

[bostonman]

and the "surprise" visit to a "actual screening" of a movie by select famous audience members.

 

Led by a guy whose schtick for the evening was trying to get the ceremony to be shorter. Yeah, that was truly awful.

 

kind of dull, but I guess not a bad show.

 

I actually thought that in general it was the most boring and lifeless ceremony in a while. Not that there weren't good moments, but in general it really dragged. Lost of lame writing (the Star Wars appearance?? Ugh), and too much bad filler in general.

[Kenny]

I was thrilled and honored that Jimmy Kimmel described Armie Hammer as “a Ken doll.” Easily the high point of the broadcast.

 

But, damn that set was ugly. Ug-lee.

[LoveNDino]

The speech for COCO made me cheer almost as hard as I did for Mr. Ivory, but not because I was necessarily a fan of Coco...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cClLL7f3H8k

[bostonman]

Likewise, I was very happy for Robert Lopez and his wife for their win for Coco's best song - but I also thought the on-air performance of said song was one of the lowlights of the ceremony.

[bostonman]

The speech for COCO made me cheer almost as hard as I did for Mr. Ivory, but not because I was necessarily a fan of Coco...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cClLL7f3H8k

 

And yes - but ugh, get the Star Wars cast off the set...they're awful...

[LoveNDino]

Just Like That, Coco Songwriter Robert Lopez Is the First Ever to Double EGOT

By Dee Lockett

 

Though it seems like only yesterday that songwriter Robert Lopez joined the EGOT club — because it was, in 2014, when he won the Oscar for Frozen’s “Let It Go” — he’s now in a league of his own. On Sunday night, he and his wife, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, won Best Original Song for Coco’s “Remember Me,” making him the first person in history to complete the EGOT for a second time. He now has two Oscars, two daytime Emmys (for Wonder Pets), three Grammys (for Book of Mormon, the Frozensoundtrack, and “Let It Go”), and three Tonys (two for Book of Mormon and one for Avenue Q). Lopez was already the youngest, at 39, to ever complete the EGOT the first time around; he’s now 43, meaning it only took him another four years to do it all over again. What have you done with your life?

 

although, they are Daytime Emmys;)

[+ WilliamM]

Frances McDormand stole the show, as she always does <3 Glad she won in the strongest acting category of the night.

 

I only watched the last 45 minutes. To me, Frances McDormand's comments were overly theatrical, maybe not if I had watched from the beginning.

 

Also were there any surprise wins?

[bostonman]

And, it seems to me that it could easily be a head-to-head between the Lopezes (Frozen) and David Yazbek (The Band's Visit) for best score and best musical Tonys this season.

[+ WilliamM]

And the relevance of this is????? Did you like the movie???

 

My point: There are 4 or 5 Van Gogh paintings owned by the Barnes Foundation. I never considered seeing the film.

 

Also, for years the Bernes was in the Philadelphia suburbs, now it is in Center City Philadelphia. Some people may not be aware of the change of locations -- to a museum with much more space and light.

[Kenny]

My point: There are 4 or 5 Van Gogh paintings owned by the Barnes Foundation. I never considered seeing the film.

 

Also, for years the Bernes was in the Philadelphia suburbs, now it is in Center City Philadelphia. Some people may not be aware of the change of locations -- to a museum with much more space and light.

And the Barnes “Postman” is as great as Van Gogh gets.

[LoveNDino]

I only watched the last 45 minutes. To me, Frances McDormand's comments were overly theatrical, maybe not if I had watched from the beginning.

 

Also were there any surprise wins?

I thought Jordan Peele's was a surprise. The same with the Frozen couple's song win (although that was probably just me, jonesing for a Sufjan Steven's win).

[OCClient]

I enjoyed the Independent Spirit Awards more. Shorter, more relevant, and a lot of funny stuff.

Even the Oscars poked fun at itself (such an easy target) with some of the schtick last night, and all this pandering to the fans just wastes time. Got a lot of laundry done.

 

Eddie Vedder was my favorite part, the in memoriam. His cover of Room at the Top by the late Tom Petty was so apropos. It's up on YouTube for now, anyone wants another listen.

[bostonman]

Eddie Vedder was my favorite part, the in memoriam. His cover of Room at the Top by the late Tom Petty was so apropos. It's up on YouTube for now, anyone wants another listen.

 

Except that I could swear that Jennifer Garner introduced him as Eddie BUTTER.

 

Though in this case, I think it's more how her pronunciation came across, more than it being an "Adele Dazeem" kind of moment.

 

(you can all judge for yourselves at the start of the video clip...)

 

[Kenny]

pandering

Ding! Ding! Ding! Winning word for the Oscars. Pandering.

 

And not once but twice there was a gush about thanking the movie-going audience for buying tickets. The Academy is freaking out about streaming platforms, just as it did in the ‘50s-‘60s when broadcast TV took off.

[bostonman]

Ding! Ding! Ding! Winning word for the Oscars. Pandering.

 

Agreed - but then again, what are all of these awards shows really about, lol? Ideally, they should be about the nominees and winners, and an all-around celebration of the industry. But they all wind up being overlong "infomercials" for the industry instead. And I doubt that's going to change anytime soon.

[Kenny]

In the new world of the Oscars, surprises are a thing of the past

By Kenneth Turan

| Los Angeles Times Film Critic |

Mar 05, 2018 | 4:00 AM

What if they awarded the Oscars and not one of the winners was a real surprise, not a single solitary one? What would the show be like, would people be glad they watched or wish they'd played pinochle instead?

 

That question is not an academic one — it happened Sunday night at the 90th Academy Awards. Of all the 24 little gold statues handed out, none of them could qualify as a genuine upset.

 

A night like this has been headed our way for quite some time as the world of Oscar prognostication has grown over the years from a genial hobby to a serious business practiced by crack teams of experts.

 

Analyzed and scrutinized from a multitude of angles for days, weeks and months, it was inevitable that many of the award's secrets would be revealed, that the predilections of the academy members would be easier and easier to read.

 

 

Yet even as favorite followed favorite to the Dolby Theatre podium, there were reasons to be glad you were metaphorically in the house, watching it all play out.

 

The most obvious reason is if films you cared about came away victorious, validating your belief in them. Ten feature-length dramas, not counting foreign-language ones, went home with Oscars, including seven of the nine best picture nominees, and of films that had a realistic chance to take home something, only the wonderful "Lady Bird" fell winless by the wayside.

 

The big winner of course was Guillermo del Toro's "The Shape of Water," achieving a 2018 high of four Oscars, including best picture and director.

 

When the filmmaker took the stage those two times, once wonderfully quoting a classic line from James Cagney in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" about his mother, his father and he himself thanking you, I flashed back to running into Del Toro at an event at Cannes last year.

 

When I asked what he was working on, the usual question for that time and place, Del Toro said nonchalantly that it was "just a little picture, nothing with a big budget." But I could tell it was something close to his heart, and so it proved to be for everyone else as well.

 

But if these surprise-less Oscars proved anything, it was that rooting interest wasn't the key to the event's value.

 

We are watching, as it turns out, for the unscripted, spontaneous human moments, the times when people speak from the heart and tell us what they are really feeling at this highly emotional moment.

 

Sometimes it's ad libs, like presenter Jane Fonda cracking that the Dolby Theatre set reminded her "of the Orgasmatron in 'Barbarella.'"

 

Even better was supporting actress Allison Janney — mocking the tedious laundry list of thank yous that nothing, not even Jimmy Kimmel's offer of a jet ski for the shortest speech, could stem — started out by saying "I did it all myself."

 

The most memorable moment of the evening, hands down, was Frances McDormand's announcement, "I've got some things to say," followed by her plea to every one of the female nominees to stand and be recognized, singling out Meryl Streep in the first row with a personal "if you do it, everyone will."

 

Other moments were quieter but not any less heartfelt for that, like supporting actor winner Sam Rockwell remembering his father sneaking him out of school to go to the movies and Gary Oldman telling his soon-to-be-99-year-old mother, "put the kettle on, I'm bringing Oscar home."

 

And then there was the night's oldest winner, James Ivory, for adapted screenplay, taking a moment to mention his longtime partners, now departed, producer Ismail Merchant and screenwriter Ruth Jhabvala, responsible with him for films like "Howards End" and "Room With a View." "In voting for me," he said with simple feeling, "you are remembering them."

 

While the academy seems to know that a touch of the genuine is a good thing, the show's attempts to manufacture naturalness, like a trip by some stars to bring snacks to "real people" at the Chinese Theater, fell woefully flat.

 

Sometimes, even moments that were planned work beautifully, like the "In Memoriam" section, always a heart-tugger.

 

And then there was 93-year-old Eva Marie Saint, puckishly saying "I'm older than the academy" and talking movingly about her late husband Jeffrey Hayden before she presented the costume design award. Like the best of movies, moments that touch our emotions are the ones we remember most of all.

[EZEtoGRU]

I didn't watch the show last night....so I woke up to see who the winners were this morning. All very predictable in the main categories. No real surprises (not that there should be any.....but it does add excitement with there are). I liked Shape of Water...but Best Picture?

[hornytwells]

I didn't watch the show last night....so I woke up to see who the winners were this morning. All very predictable in the main categories. No real surprises (not that there should be any.....but it does add excitement with there are). I liked Shape of Water...but Best Picture?

I found Shape of Water charming as a sort of homage to Creature from the Black Lagoon/Splash and ET, but agree I wouldn't have thought it was best picture-worthy?