Cinema and Popcorn

A24's Everything Everywhere All At Once was the big winner of the 95th Oscars - and the biggest winner in years! It took home a total of 7 golden statuettes - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Yeoh), Best Supporting Actress (Curtis), Best Supporting Actor (Quan), Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing (Rogers) - out of its 11 nominations. I believe it will be remembered as one of the best Oscar triumphs in cinematic history! In fact, A24 also took home Best Actor (Fraser, The Whale ) and Best Makeup & Hairstyling ( The Whale ), while Netflix also had a strong showing with All Quiet On the Quiet Front winning 4 Oscars (Best International Film, Best Cinematography and the "upsets" Best Original Score and Best Production Design), while The Elephant Whisperers took Best Documentary Short and Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio won Best Animated Feature - what an accomplishment! So, it seems the Academy likes to nominate critically raved movies, but voters do...

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...

Here are the complete list of the Academy Awards 2023 nominees. Everything Everywhere All At Once overperforms here, getting surprising (yet quite deserving) nominations in Best Costume Design and Best Original Score. Could this strong showing be an indicator of widespread love and support from all the branches of the Academy, which might lead to a Best Picture win? I believe so. Still in the running for the top prize, The Banshees of Inisherin also managed to get all the key nominations that show strong support from the Academy branches and so did Tár ! As for Elvis ... a strong showing in the technical categories, just like All Quiet On the Western Front which also got a deserving (yet still kinda surprising) Best Adapted Screenplay nomination - getting its title already engraved in the Best International Film Oscar trophy. I am also quite happy about some nominations: Women Talking in Best Picture (its chances were fading in the last weeks); Paul Mescal for Best Actor for Aftersu...

CRITICS' CHOICE AWARDS The organization that tries too often to be an Oscar predictor rather than a critics group that really goes for their very favorites, but I must say I am quite pleased with their choices this year - I believe they show here the general consensus from critics. With Everything Everywhere All At Once winning here, beating some big favorites (and much more "made for Oscar taste" contenders) it takes the lead in the Oscar race. What a joy it is to see a small production with an early release going this far in the awards season! A note about a couple of speeches: Brendan Fraser 's acceptance speech earned him an instant Oscar nomination (moving, personal, inspiring!) and it generate even more goodwill towards him, which might lead to an actual Oscar win some months from now; and Cate Blanchett who had some negative words and made fun of prizes saying it is for competition purposes (and not for the recognition of quality)... is she too confortable t...