Cinema and Popcorn

We are days away from the big Oscars night and it's time to publish my final winner predictions for each category. My picks were based not only in the movies' performance during the precursor awards and, specially, the guild awards and BAFTA, but also based on the general conception around the movie since every voter votes for every category, which means that each winner is the result of a consensus of all branches. So, have a look: So, as you can see I expect a big night for Everything Everywhere All At Once for not only taking home Best Picture but also for being the movie with most wins ( 5 total ), followed by Elvis ( 4 wins ) and then All Quiet On the Western Front and Top Gun: Maverick ( 2 wins each). So, no sweeps here... I believe the Academy voters will continue with the "spread the wealth" thinking they've adopted these recent years - in fact, I believe they will be kind with EEAAO in the above the line categories and then manage to give an Oscar he...

The Academy Awards 2023 nominations were announced today and while I didn't post my predictions here, I did it on my Twitter account @Erib3004. The result? Well... not bad. I consider this year to be full of pleasant (and unpleasant) surprises in the nominees shortlists. Still, I was able to reach a 70% accuracy rating with "Best Short X" categories included (which I always s*ck at predicting every year). That being said, if I excluded the Best Shorts categories, my accuracy would go up to 75% overall with 79 correct picks in 105 possible nominees. As expected, Everything Everywhere All At Once, All Quiet On the Western Front, The Banshees of Inisherin and Elvis are the most nominated movies at this year's edition - BAFTA have told this to us before. I am pretty happy for some nominations: Women Talking for Best Picture, Paul Dano (Aftersun) for Best Actor, Michelle Yeoh (EEAAO) for Best Actress, Stephanie Hsu (EEAAO) for Best Supporting Actress, "This Is a Life...

2023 EE BAFTA Film Awards nominations were announced. First thoughts? Well, if the British Academy went completely wild in its picks last year (with many refreshing, inspired and out of radar choices) this year's nominees shortlists are more conventional and in-line with Oscar predictions. I was expecting All Quiet On the Western Front to get a lot of love from this award body, but I would never expected it to set a new BAFTA record with 14 NOMINATIONS! Award bodies really are s*ckers for war movies - and that's all right, because this one is pretty great! On the other hand, I predicted Aftersun to have a strong showing here, but it didn't break in the main categories with the exception of Paul Mescal for Best Actor - no Best Film, no Best Director, no Best Original Screenplay, Cinematography or Editing. Shockingly... The Fabelmans only scored 1 nominations... for Best Original Screenplay. As you can check in the nominees shortlist, Everything Everywhere All At Once , The...

Golden Globes night is almost there and it comes with a lot of expectations surrounding its winners choices. If the nominees shortlists were, in fact, a kind of a letdown considering how the HFPA didn't quite embrace diversity as I was expecting it to do considering how it should try to prove the world it is a different (and more diverse) organization now.  So, a few notes about some categories: I do believe Best Motion Picture - Drama will be between The Fabelmans and Elvis , but the later seems to have a more passionate fanbase and it is a box-office hit biopic (but we have the box-office titans Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick also contending and the trifeca winning Tár also in the run, so it feels like anyone's game); Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama can go in many different ways, but the HFPA usually go for either fresh new female actresses or titanic acting veterans, which makes me believe it will be a Ana de Armas vs. Cate Blanchett ... but I exp...

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE One of the greatest working actresses these days, Cate Blanchett 's performance in Tár met some of the "best of her career" kind of reviews and it has already earned the Volpi Cup for Best Actress of Venice International Film Festival and a couple of other film festival prizes - some people are already talking about a possible Oscar win since the movie is also Focus Features' top priority this awards season, so an Academy Award nomination seems locked. Next in line, there's Michelle Yeoh , the star of Everything Everywhere All at Once , who delivers her best performance since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). Yeoh is not the greatest actress in the world, but her character Evelyn is simply tailor-made for her acting talent, providing her some juicy scenes while it also pays homage to her career in wuxia films. It makes audiences feel a "it's her time" when we talk about Oscar nominations. Plus: Everything Everywh...

BEST DIRECTOR Steven Spielberg is back in the Oscar race for the second year in a row... and now he's eyeing his 9th Academy Award nomination for Best Director! A 2 time winner already, Spielberg has met critical acclaim once again thanks to The Fabelmans , which is a tale of his own childhood and pursue of cinematic dreams - and considering it won the People's Choice Award at TIFF, The Fabelmans is both a critics darling and a crowd-pleaser! The Academy loves when directors put their own memories on the big screen (Cuarón won Best Director for Roma and Branagh won Best Original Screenplay for Belfast , recently) and Spielberg's career has been asking for a 3rd Best Director win lately! Then, there's Sarah Polley with one of the most acclaimed movies of the Fall film festival circuit: Women Talking . Critics highlight her sensivity while handling the heavy dramatic material about a group of women who deals with sexual assault by the community's men (it's far...

BEST PICTURE The Power of the Dog and Belfast feel pretty much secure. West Side Story and Dune are the big below-the-line players with Best Picture buzz, so it feels like they also have a spot in the TOP 5. Then, I would say we have three crowd-pleasing/passion films: Licorice Pizza , CODA and King Richard , which managed to get some key precursor noms along the way (and even overperforming sometimes). So, there are 3 spots left to fill... Don't Look Up has done quite good with the guilds and audiences and Netflix is pushing it hard as an Oscar contender. The critics' darling Drive My Car is also a strong bet here, since it managed to grow in the awards season and it is a big contender in Best International Film, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay fields too. The last spot... well, the guilds would say Being the Ricardos or No Time to Die , but Netflix's tick, tick... BOOM! will pick some passion votes for sure - and it is a movie about being an artist which m...