Cinema and Popcorn

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Marriage Story ’s essence is all about the script, it’s all about Baumbach’s words and silences – the actors even admitted it was all on paper – and it’s brilliant! The movie offers a raw approach to divorce and the end of a love story, which recalls its auteur own life – Baumbach is a safe bet for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination. And Quentin Tarantino enters the Best Original Screenplay race again, this time with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ! Tarantino’s latest channels Hollywood and the late 60’s beautifully, plus the dialogue is top-notch and the third act is as hilarious as it is surprising: and the AMPAS loves Tarantino as the screenwriter, so, no big deal! A daring movie, with a dynamite social satire, Parasite is a big Oscar contender across the board and Best Original Screenplay is no exception. The late awards season surprise Knives Out became a much bigger Oscar contender than most people were expecting! Best Picture is on the tab...

Best Director feels like a wide-open category this year if you think about the win, but it seems locked in terms of nominees. Martin Scorsese leads the race with The Irishman – he has the name, the prestige passion project that received critical acclaim, strong box-office numbers (despite Netflix release strategy), a streaming giant backing the campaign and enough precursor awards love – in fact, The Irishman is one of the only 3 movies this year that secured nominations with the major guild awards (PGA, DGA, WGA and SAG). Bong Joon-ho directs Parasite and the movie is enough of a worldwide hit in order to generate Bong an Oscar nomination for Best Director – a Palme d’Or winner, multiple prizes winner and a cultural phenomenon – and he has just been nominated for the DGA (and the BAFTA, and the Golden Globe, and…). Quentin Tarantino is back to the Best Director race this year with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and he also feels like a lock in this category since the movie is expe...

Best Supporting Actor is not anyone's game. At this point of the race (after the Golden Globes wins, the guilds noms and the BAFTA noms), it's clear Brad Pitt is the front runner for his charming performance in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - not only he's as magnetic as he always is, but his award buzz for the performance itself is elevated by the movie's crazy Best Picture buzz and it is expected to get recognition all over the board coming Oscar nominations morning. The other reason why Pitt seems such a lock for a nomination (and a win, since he has been sweeping almost every award) it's because Joe Pesci and Al Pacino are splitting votes for their performances in The Irishman , for sure. Pesci is more restrained as a mob boss, yet he's an haunting presence in the movie and he was singled out by critics as the MVP, winning a hand full of critics prizes. As for Pacino, not many critics considered him The Irishman 's MVP, but h...

Well, it was a Golden Globes edition full of surprises. From the Missing Link win over the Disney giants Toy Story 4  and Frozen II to the win of 1917 over The Irishman , Marriage Story or Joker . Pleased to see the HFPA didn't go for Jennifer Lopez ( Hustlers ), but for Laura Dern ( Marriage Story ) instead - not that I don't like JLo's performance, but it would be too cliché! The Irishman was completely defeated and it went home empty handed. Even Marriage Story underperformed here! This edition made one thing clearer: Best Picture is anyone's race and Laura Dern & Brad Pitt seem to have an Oscar win waiting for them (they're having the biggest sweeps of the season between the Globes and the critics prizes). I just got a 43% prediction accuracy this Golden Globes, which is extremely low when compared to other ye ars, but I really didn't see 1917 winning Best Drama and Best Director coming. But 3 of my predicted spoilers made the win, so...! Well...

As you know (or as “you should know” at least), Best Picture category is a special one: it’s all about the #1 votes of each member of the AMPAS! So, how does it affect the choosing of the nominees?  Well, people tend to go for movies they love rather for movies they “just” respect unless they recognize the movie they respect is undeniably good: and that’s why I have Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman in first place for a Best Picture nomination. It’s a movie some might not fall in love with, but it is a movie no one seems able to say “it’s bad” and it also benefits from the all-star names involved in the project: Martin Scorsese, Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino or Joe Pesci… I know it is a Netflix movie, but I can’t picture a scenario where The Irishman is left out of Best Picture nominees shortlist.   The other movie I feel pretty confident about is Parasite – the international foreign language phenomenon, Bong Joon-ho’s latest movie is one of the most critically acclaimed movie i...

The frontrunners are showing! Critics picks do say a lot about which movie is taking the lead of the awards race, since their picks are the early ones - which will influence the major industry awards' choices! Right now, it seems The Irishman is losing some heat, while Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is getting a boost and Parasite is taking the lead in the Best Picture race (besides being the obvious frontrunner for Best Foreign Language Film prizes). Little Women , a movie that was overlooked by a big couple of early awards organizations, is starting to show here and there and it even managed to win Boston - but it seems Best Supporting Actress ( Florence Pugh ), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costume Design and Best Score are its best bets. Marriage Story is also getting some love and while it misses some Best Picture prizes it seems to be getting stronger in Best Actor ( Adam Driver ), Best Actress ( Scarlett Johansson ), Best Supporting Actress ( Laura Dern ) and Best Origi...

BEST PICTURE: Parasite ; Runner-up : The Irishman BEST DIRECTOR: Bong Joon-ho , Parasite ; Runner-up : Martin Scorsese , The Irishman BEST SCREENPLAY: Noah Baumbach, Marriage Story ; Runner-up: Bong Joon-ho & Han Jun-won, Parasite BEST ACTRESS: Mary Kay Place , Diane ; Runner-up : Lupita Nyong'o , Us BEST ACTOR: Antonio Banderas , Pain and Glory ; Runner-up : Adam Driver , Marriage Story BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jennifer Lopez , Hustlers ; Runner-up : Zhao Shuzhen , The Farewell BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Song Kang-ho , Parasite ; Runner-up : Joe Pesci , The Irishman BEST EDITING: Todd Douglas Miller,  Apollo 11 ; Runner-up : Ronald Bronstein & Bennie Safdie, Uncut Gems BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN:  Barbara Ling,  Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ; Runner-up : Ha Jun Lee,  Parasite BEST DOCUMENTARY/NON-FICTION FILM: American Factory ; Runner-up : Apollo 11 BEST ANIMATION: I Lost My Body ; Runner-up : Toy Story 4 BEST SCORE: I Lost My Body , Dan Levy; R...

The American Film Institute (AFI) has just named their picks for the Best Motion Pictures of the Year - 2019. It's a major achievement for Netflix ( The Irishman and Marriage Story ), Sony ( Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood and Little Women ) and Warner Bros. ( Joker and Richard Jewell ) with each one scoring 2 mentions in the list. Pay special attention to Bong Joon-ho 's Parasite , which managed to get a Special Award out of the top 10 honoured movies. And the AFI's Motion Pictures of the Year are: 1917 (Universal) The Farewell (A24) The Irishman (Netflix) Jojo Rabbit (Fox Searchlight) Joker (Warner Bros) Knives Out (Lionsgate) Little Women (Sony) Marriage Story (Netflix) Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Sony) Richard Jewell (Warner Bros) Special Award Parasite (Neon)