Cinema and Popcorn

Some people might say the guild awards don't always translate to excelence and that they are an awards vehicle for Americanized productions...! Well, that's kinda true, but they are useful precursor in what comes to Oscar predictions, specially Best Picture (and each's guild respective categories). The AMPAS is divided in multiple branches - each branch votes a certain (or more than one) specific category, but all branches' members vote for Best Picture! This means, overall guild awards support often translates to Best Picture love! Of course there are always a couple of critics' pushes that pops-up in the Oscars shortlist, but most spots in each category were previously "predicted" by the guilds. So, let's have a look at all the guilds nominations (I am not going to include SAG Awards here, since SAG was "explored" in the previous post): PRODUCERS GUILD OF AMERICA (PGA) AWARDS Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Mot...

Last week was a busy week awards-wise. The Golden Globes took place and the SAG announced their nominees. With the boycott around the Golden Globes, SAG Award rise as the major Oscar precursor. In addition, a big couple of critics groups have announced their winners, but that's a matter for another post (since they are so many). But let's have a look. GOLDEN GLOBES The 79th Golden Globe Awards winners were announced on Sunday night via social media and not  in a nationally televised gala, like the years before - a "must" stop moment for movie stars and celebrities who get together to celebrate their movies and... well, get dr*nk! It marks the Hollywood FOREIGN Press Association 's fall from grace experienced over the past year since a piece of Los Angeles Times revealed that the organization included zero Black members and was involved in some suspect financial practices. Still, some studios celebrated the wins via social media (like 20th Century Studios, which b...

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE The most fun about Best Original Score category is that it doesn't have a direct connection with Best Picture, like Best Editing, for example. Of course the branch has its darlings like Alexandre Desplat and Hans Zimmer who can pull nod after nod (no surprise, because both are amazing!) - and I am predicting them to be back to the race this year with The French Dispatch and Dune , respectively. After his first nomination for Phantom Thread , will Jonny Greenwood be able to nab TWO Oscar nominations? The hype sure is all around his work in The Power of the Dog and Spencer , but I feel the latter is the weakest of the two (since Campion's film has all the Best Picture buzz, which elevates it). And could Aaron and Bryce Dessner land a first Oscar nomination? The buzz around Cyrano is on the rise and the score is simply beautiful! It's a musical with an original score... no adaptation or whatever! An original musical like this is rare these days, so I be...

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS This year's Best Supporting Actress race features some of the very best performances of the year regardless of being lead or supporting, male or female: Ruth Negga ( Passing ), Kirsten Dunst ( The Power of the Dog ), Aunjanue Ellis ( King Richard ), Ann Dowd ( Mass ) and Jodie Comer ( The Last Duel ) are some of the year's best acting turns (from what I've already watched). West Side Story , Belfast , The Tragedy of Macbeth and Nightmare Alley remain unseen by me (unfortunately), but there's no way to deny the universal acclaim of the performance, with Blanchett being (oddly) the least praised of the bunch. So, for #1, there's Ariana DeBose , the Broadway actress who took on the iconic Anita role in Steven Spielberg's  West Side Story and she's collecting rave reviews from critics. She's not famous (yet), but the nature of the role plus the level of acclaim she has been getting make me believe she's the frontrunner right now...

Now that the 2021's editions of Venice Film Festival and TIFF have announced their winners and there are the first reviews of NY Film Festival's major award hopefuls releases, I believe it's safe to start predicting which titles will compete for some major Oscar gold. A note about The Power of the Dog and Belfast which got the audiences' recognition at TIFF (with the later taking the People's Choice and The Power of the Dog received the Silver Lion at Venice). King Richard also got a lot of love at Telluride Film Festival and The Tragedy of Macbeth is getting rave reviews at New York Film Festival the moment we talk. A note to Sundance hit Sian Heder's CODA - which took home the Grand Jury Prize - Dramatic - and Asghar Farhadi's A Hero , which got lots of love during Cannes Film Festival and won the film festival's Grand Prix (but since it is a foreign language film, will it get stuck in Best International Film category? I believe and I hope not). D...