Cinema and Popcorn

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Everybody's excited about Al Pacino being back to high profile productions and while we have no guarantee about The Irishman 's excellence besides Martin Scorsese's signature or all the talent involved in the production, I believe Netflix will sell it as its greatest production of the year à la Roma , so Pacino's name is likely to be promoted so it can generate Oscar buzz for him. Banderas has become a major name in Hollywood in spite of his humble origins as an actor often associated as an "Almodóvar actor" and 2019 might be the year he finally gets an Oscar nomination - he's said to play a member of a team who works on the Panama Papers in the upcoming Steven Soderbergh's drama, which can be a juicy role or an unthankless one, but I have a nice feeling about The Laundromat (and Banderas also benefits from the nice reviews he has been getting for Almodóvar's Dolor y gloria ). As for the fresh Aldis Hodge, this young bl...

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS The Academy loves movies about Holocaust and director Taika Waititi is bringing us Jojo Rabbit this year, with Scarlett Johansson playing a young boy's mother hiding a young Jewish girl in her home in what seems to be a meaty role and an extremely likeable character - and since Johansson is one of the best actresses of her generation and she's overdue for her 1st Academy Award nomination after atrocious Oscar snubs for performances in Lost In Translation , Match Point or Her (for example), I believe Hollywood has realised its about time to make Johansson an Academy Award nominee and Avengers: Endgame popularity won't hurt (but the movie's comedic tone about a serious subject might be a problem for some). Supporting parts in musicals tend to be scene-stealing parts and Jennifer Hudson has already won an Oscar for a memorable scene-stealing supporting part in 2006's Dreamgirls ... and she's back this year as Grizabella, the Glamour ...

Looks promising. It's a true teaser trailer: one of those that isn't almost a final trailer. Nothing is told and it makes you star guessing... 

BEST ACTRESS Clemency was 2019 Sundance Film Festival champion by taking home the Grand Jury Prize - Dramatic and it features what critics described as an astonishing performance from veteran actress Alfre Woodard (Academy Award nominee and Emmy winner/multiple nominee), who plays a warden who deals with death row executions - it's a movie about personal demons, a lead performance driven movie that's likely to attract Oscar votes. Joe Wright's movies always feature strong leading performances (Knightley in Pride & Prejudice , McAvoy and Knightley in Atonement , Ronan in Hanna , Knightley in Anna Karenina or Oldman in Darkest Hour ), which makes Amy Adams as a natural contender for her performance in The Woman in the Window ... The AMPAS loves portrays of madness and paranoia and Adams will be playing an agoraphobic woman who witnesses a crime (it might sound a bit too much like Rear Window, but I believe the movie can work) - Oscar glory soon? At 44, she's a...

BEST ACTOR The AMPAS tasted Christian Bale for the first time back in 2010 in David O. Russell's The Fighter and he got his first Oscar nomination (and win)... And since then the Oscar voters have embraced him by nominating him three more times so he can be considered an Academy's darling and one of the best working actors alive - it's no surprise he entered this year's Oscar talk thanks to his role as Ken Miles in James Mangold's Ford v. Ferrari , which can easily materialize in a fifth Oscar nod for Bale. Away from the Oscar voters attentions, DeNiro might have his best role since his Academy Award nominated turn in 2012's Silver Linings Playbook : this time he re-teams with Martin Scorsese for The Irishman , playing Frank Sheeran, an American labor union official with links with a criminal family (do you remember Scorsese "gave" 3 Oscar nominations to DeNiro, right?). Then, there's Tom Hanks who is still looking for his first Oscar nomin...