Cinema and Popcorn

This time, we go "below the line", which includes all the visual and sound categories - Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup & Hair and Best Visual Effects (for the "visual") and then Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing (for the "sound"). The thing about predicting these categories is that, Best Editing aside, they don't have to be serve as a vehicle for Best Picture contenders. Of course it helps, but craft can be the only thing that matters in these categories, no matter the movie "status" in the Best Picture race - you only have to consider "this movie has to be seen". So, let's start: In the last 20 years, only 1 Best Picture winner wasn't nominated in this category - 2014's Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) - so, Best Editing and Best Picture are like best pals. Of course they also honou...

Independent Spirit Awards nominees have just been announced! It seems it is a great day for Marriage Story , which keeps building strong Oscar buzz - this time, the Noah Baumbach's latest is competing for Best Feature and Best Original Screenplay, but it will also receive the Robert Altman Award, which honors the director and the ensemble cast (and that's why Marriage Story is absent from Best Director and the acting categories). Another movie that got a strong indie boost is Uncut Gems : the Safdie brothers crime thriller got nominated in 5 categories, including Best Feature, Best Director and even Best Male Lead - so, is Adam Sandler a stronger contender than I thought initially? Plus, good news for Clemency , which got Best Female Lead and Best Screenplay nods, which only makes for Woodard as a stronger awards contender. As for The Farewell ... a strange response I would say, but I love having Shuzhen Zhao in the run for Best Supporting Female. Waves  scored one sole nom...

Considering I used to reveal my Best Picture predictions after predicting all the other categories, I realized it was wrong: a lot of things come with Best Picture heat and not the other way! This year, things are getting very interesting: it seems people/critics/the Academy are willing to apologize Netflix; the streaming giant is distributing and releasing some of the most acclaimed movies of the year and it is building a massive Oscar campaign for them; Best Foreign Picture turned Best International Film and its new rules make AMPAS members to watch a movie before they can really vote for it; Parasite keeps getting rave reviews, making a lot of money in its limited US release and it is also a huge crowd pleaser (something Roma was not that much); there are a big couple of potentially strong Oscar players that will only be released coming December, which is strange because these late releases don’t bound that well with Oscar, but they didn’t lose any buzz because of it; and there ar...