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...

The Best Supporting Actress feels a little volatile this year: the only sure thing seems to be Laura Dern for Marriage Story , with all the other spots with no rock solid contenders besides Margot Robbie for Bombshell (maybe!). But why is Laura Dern such a solid contender? Well: first, Marriage Story is a Best Picture contender and it has the giant Netflix backing its award campaign... and since Best Supporting Actress (and Best Supporting Actor) are closely related with Best Picture, things sound good for her; second, she has the rave reviews, the Golden Globe win and the critics prizes, for a truly supporting review (not my favorite performance from her, but predicting it's not only about "me"); third and last, she's a member of the Board of Governors in the Actors Branch, which means she's part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (really, she's a Governor!). Plus, she's living a sweet moment in her career and there's a lot of good...

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...

I would just say: "No surprises!". And I think the win is anyone's game! Just have a look at the complete list of nominees for Theatrical Motion Pictures:  The Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures 1917 - Producers: Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris, Jayne‐Ann Tenggren, Callum McDougall Ford v Ferrari - Producers: Peter Chernin & Jenno Topping, James Mangold The Irishman - Producers: Jane Rosenthal & Robert De Niro, Emma Tillinger Koskoff & Martin Scorsese Jojo Rabbit - Producers: Carthew Neal, Taika Waititi Joker - Producers: Todd Phillips & Bradley Cooper, Emma Tillinger Koskoff Knives Out - Producers: Rian Johnson, Ram Bergman Little Women - Producer: Amy Pascal Marriage Story - Producers: Noah Baumbach, David Heyman Once Upon a Time In Hollywood - Producers: David Heyman, Shannon McIntosh, Quentin Tarantino Parasite - Producers: Kwak Sin Ae, Bong Joon Ho The Award for Outstanding Producer of Ani...

Unlike Best Actor, the race for Best Actress is closed to 7 contenders who raised above all the others, but it looks like a very volatile category in terms of who’ll get the 4th and 5th spots. There are 3 actresses I would considered “locked” for a Best Actress nomination this year: Scarlett Johansson for Marriage Story ; Renée Zellweger for Judy ; and Charlize Theron for Bombshell . From these three, I would say Charlize Theron is certainly competing for a nomination, while Johansson and Zellweger are competing for a win if both manage to get nominated. Johansson has the most interesting narrative of all the Best Actress contenders: a former child actress who has become one of the biggest Hollywood stars with one of the greatest careers when compared to the actresses of her generation, but she has never received any Oscar recognition! In Marriage Story , she delivers one of the greatest performances of her career as an actress going through a divorce so she can have a life of her ...

I would call Best Actor the most competitive category in this year’s above the line Oscar races. So many worthy contenders that I must mention the ones I left out my top 10 simply because there aren’t enough spots for all of them: George McKay for 1917 ; Roman Griffin Davis for Jojo Rabbit ; Paul Thomas Hauser for Richard Jewell ; or Robert Pattinson for The Lighthouse . All worthy of a nomination or more widespread award recognition, but Best Actor is a bloodbath indeed.   Just like in my previous round of predictions, Adam Driver ( Marriage Story ) and Joaquin Phoenix ( Joker ) still are the clear frontrunners. The later delivers the showiest performance of the pack of Best Actor contenders – a man with psychiatric issues who turns into a criminal. It’s a descent to madness tale and Phoenix excels in a transformative performance! It might well be his first Oscar nod since his Oscar nomination for Best Actor for 2012's The Master - with amazing (snubed) performances i...

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...

As we know, there are some categories the Academy releases a shortlist after excluding some submissions or eligible contenders and this year is no exception. So, have a look at each category's finalists for your Oscar consideration: DOCUMENTARY FEATURE IMAGE 1 -  Honeyland From the 159 eligible films, the Academy released the shorltist of 15 that made the final step before the noms: Advocate American Factory The Apollo Apollo 11 Aquarela The Biggest Little Farm The Cave The Edge of Democracy For Sama The Great Hack Honeyland Knock Down the House Maiden Midnight Family One Child Nation BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM IMAGE 2 -  The Painted Bird There were 91 official submissions considered "eligible". The Academy has now released the 10 movies that made the final shortlist so members can now vote for the nominations: Czech Republic, The Painted Bird Estonia, Truth and Justice France, Les Misérables Hungary, Those Who Remaine...

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...