Cinema and Popcorn

Awards season has officially begun! And the National Board of Review has already published their 2018's favorites. There's lot of love for A Star Is Born , but it seems they decided to give the top prize to Green Book . And If Beale Street Could Talk is also doing quite well, while Thomasin McKenzie gets recognized (once again) for her amazing breakthrough performance in Leave No Trace . Surprise, surprise... Cold War is named Best Foreign Language Film, beating Alfonso Cuarón 's critically acclaimed (and Venice winner) Roma : the game is on! Glenn Close ( The Wife ) misses another early award season prize... after losing the Gotham to Toni Collette ( Hereditary ), she loses to Lady Gaga ( A Star Is Born ) in this one, which is kind of unexpected since the National Board of Review is a much more conservative institution and Close's work in The Wife fits their tastes better on paper. Plus, really nice to see movies like We the Animals , Leave No Trace , The

Gotham Independent Film Awards might well be the awards season's first most significant award event and since its past Best Feature winners include the Best Picture Oscar nominated 2016's Moonlight and 2017's Call Me By Your Name (for example), there's no way to deny Gotham Awards really tell us something about the Oscar race. This year's edition gave the top prize to Chloé Zhao 's rodeo drama / study about masculinity The Rider ... what a shock for most of us! A movie everyone raves and everyone admires, but a movie no one really believed it could stand a chance against the Oscar titans The Favourite , Roma or If Beale Street Could Talk . So, let's have a look at Gotham winners and then, let's talk about it: BEST FEATURE: The Rider   BEST ACTOR: Ethan Hawke , First Reformed   BEST ACTRESS: Toni Collette , Hereditary   BREAKTHROUGH ACTOR: Elsie Fisher , Eighth Grade   BREAKTHROUGH DIRECTOR: Bo Burnham , Eighth Grade   BREAKTHROU

After 2016's  The Jungle Book , Jon Favreau makes another "wild" move... and it looks astonishing!

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE 1.  If Beale Street Could Talk , Nicholas Britell 2.  First Man , Justin Hurwitz 3. Isle of Dogs , Alexander Desplat 4. Mary Poppins Returns , Marc Shaiman & Scott Wittman 5.  Black Panther ,  Ludwig Göransson 6. Widows , Hans Zimmer 7. A Quiet Place , Marco Beltrami 8. Avengers: Infinity War , Alan Silvestri 9. Incredibles 2 ,  Michael Giacchino 10. Suspiria , Thom Yorke BEST ORIGINAL SONG 1. A Star Is Born - "Shallow" 2. A Star Is Born - "Always Remember Us This Way" 3. Mary Poppins Returns - "The Place Where Lost Things Go" 4.  Free Solo  - "Gravity" 5.  Boy Erased  - "Revelation" 6.  Black Panther - "Pray for Me" 7. Black Panther - "All the Stars" 8. Suspiria - "Suspirium" 9. RBG - "I'll Fight" 10. A Star Is Born - "I'll Never Love Again" BEST SOUND EDITING 1. First Man 2. Black Panther 3. A Quiet Place

It might well be the "indiest" Independent Spirit Awards in years. Past editions seemed too focused in major independent Oscar contenders, but 2019's nominees shortlist really pays tribute to some of the most unique works in indendependent filmmaking. Shocked about Suspiria to receive the Robert Altman Award (given to great ensemble pieces), since I don't think it really is an ensemble movie (like last year's Mudbound). Nice to see Thomasin McKenzie getting some award love for Leave No Trace , but it seems the producers really opted for category fraud for her campaign (like I predicted in my Best Supporting Actress predictions, 2nd ROUND)... no matter what, it is a great performance... a leading one, but a great performance! Finally, I'm really happy to see We The Animals getting recognize all over the board - what a brilliant movie it is and I was afraid it could end overlooked. So, let's have a look at the nominees shortlist. I marked my predicted

BEST EDITING Oscar voters darlings get nominated in this category very often. Of course there are times when editing craft suprasses overall movie love, but this category has a special impact in predicting the Oscar race, because the future Best Picture winner usually gets one of the 5 spots on the Best Editing nominees shortlist - since 2000 only Birdman was able to take Best Picture home without being nominated in this category. First Man is a clear frontrunner here because of the amazing editing work, in spite of not being able to see it winning Best Picture... but Roma  and  A Star Is Born  might have enough "pedigree" for Best Picture. So, you can count on 3 big Oscar players... and maybe a respected movie (Widows, which seems to craft great editing work) and a "blockbuster" movie with some exceptional editing work - and between A Quiet Place , Widows and Mission Impossible: Fallout , I believe A Quiet Place might be elevated by the buzz in other catego

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Screenplay nominations are key so a Best Picture win can happen! So, there's no way to exclude some of the year's most Oscar buzzy movies. Green Book benefits from being a crowd-pleaser with a heart in the right place and a topic about racial issues and it is likely to have an Oscar nomination in this category in the bag! Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite might not be written by the sadistic director, but it seems Davis & McNamara were able to write all the directors perversions and eye for the grothesque without sacrificing the characters' arcs - yes, another lock for Best Original Screenplay. Roma , considered Alfonso Cuarón's intimate masterpiece (after his extravaganza sized masterpiece production Gravity ) is also considered one of the very best of the year and while the Netflix signature might hurt its award chances, I don't believe it will hurt the movie in a category that recognizes real auteurs like Cuarón. Finally, two