Welcome to Movie Porti's 5th Annual Oscars Viewer's Guide!
And also welcome to what I am now referring to as ... "The Post-Argo Oscars Era"!
For some reason, when Ben Affleck was snubbed for a Best Director nomination in 2012 something shifted in the Academy's thinking. Suddenly they realized they could name Argo the Best Picture, and also recognize the work of another film's worthy director(in that case it was Ang Lee for Life of Pi), and there would be nothing wrong with that. Before 2012, the six previous Best Picture winners had also won for Best Director: The Departed+Martin Scorsese, No Country for Old Men+The Coen Brothers, Slumdog Millionaire+Danny Boyle, The Hurt Locker+Kathryn Bigelow, The King's Speech+Tom Hooper, and The Artist+Michel Hazanavicius. But in the five years post-Affleck snub, only one Best Picture winner has also won for Best Director: Birdman+Alejandro G. Iñárritu in 2014. This year we could be looking at a repeat of this "new normal" situation.
Guillermo Del Toro is an absolute lock to win
Best Director tonight for
The Shape of Water, but his film is by no means a lock to win Best Picture, even though it leads the pack with 13 total nominations. Last year Damien Chazelle was also a lock to win Best Director, and
La La Land appeared to be a lock (
oops) for the top prize with 14 total nominations, but it ended up losing to the film that was in 2nd place throughout the awards season,
Moonlight. This year the film that's in 2nd place is
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, with 7 total nominations. If it wins Best Picture, then that would make it 5 out of the 6 post-
Argo years where Best Picture and Best Director don't match. And
Three Billboards would have an extra
Argo connection if it wins because like that era-defining film, it didn't receive a Best Director nomination either.
But there is another film in contention for Best Picture this year that could actually match two of the winners from this new era, and that's Get Out. Get Out received the all important Best Director nomination that Three Billboards didn't get, but that was one of only 4 total nominations it got, the others being for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay. I already established that Del Toro is winning Best Director, and Get Out also has no shot for Best Actor since Gary Oldman is a lock there for Darkest Hour, so that only leaves a realistic chance of winning 2 Oscars for Get Out: Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture, which would be a repeat of Spotlight's Best Picture win just two years ago.
Spotlight was also in a 3-way race that year, against
The Revenant and
The Big Short, but it was in a stronger position than
Get Out, having received 6 total nominations, including one of the most important categories where
Get Out missed out: Best Editing. But that snub leads us back to
Birdman, which 3 years ago helped define this
impossible-to-predict era by becoming the 1st film to win Best Picture without a Best Editing nomination in over 30 years. Those are two comparisons that definitely work in
Get Out's favor.
*Birdman and Spotlight's lucky charm: Michael Keaton, celebrating with each film's director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Tom McCarthy
Speaking of Best Picture winners from over 30 years ago, the film with the lowest total of nominations to end up winning the top prize in the past 65 years was
Annie Hall, which received 5 total nominations exactly 40 years ago, and they happened to be in the same categories as
Get Out: Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Acting.
Annie Hall did end up with 4 wins, something that, again,
Get Out won't be able to match, but the 5 Best Picture winners from this era have only averaged 3 total wins per year, so a
Get Out win wouldn't throw that average off by much. And I'll still take the comparison with what is widely regarded as one of the
greatest Best Picture winners ever (regardless of your feelings towards Woody Allen today), plus the comparison to the two recent winners,
Birdman and
Spotlight, ahead of the films that best compare to
Three Billboard's scenario:
Argo, and the previous Best Picture winner without a Best Director nomination,
Driving Miss Daisy in 1989.
So in my official predictions that eliminates Three Billboards from the top prize, even though it's a lock to win Best Actress (Frances McDormand's 2nd career win in the category), it's a very heavy favorite for Best Supporting Actor, and it's very much in contention for Best Original Screenplay. But since I believe the voting will not go in Three Billboard's favor, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the Best Actress win will be its only win of the night.
I'm actually predicting a surprise win for Willem Dafoe from
The Florida Project for
Best Supporting Actor (that film's only nomination.
Boo!), even though Sam Rockwell comes in with precursor wins from the Golden Globes, BAFTAs, Critics Choice, and the Screen Actors Guild, and there's only been one other instance where an actor had accumulated all those wins and then lost at the Oscars: Russell Crowe in 2001 for
A Beautiful Mind. But you know what they say, if it happened once it can happen again. My gut is telling me that the controversy surrounding Rockwell's character(in the film, not in real life), plus the fact that Dafoe is a respected industry veteran with 2 previous nominations to his name, will be sufficient factors to cause an upset in a category that has seen its fair share of those in the past.
Then there's the Best Original Screenplay category, where I believe the Academy will go in the same route as the Writer's Guild and give the win to Jordan Peele and his brilliant script for Get Out. This is actually the most important category of the entire ceremony, because if I'm wrong and Get Out loses, then it would mean that either Three Billboards or The Shape of Water could strengthen its Best Picture chances with a screenplay win. Things could get even more confusing if the Academy decides to recognize the extremely popular Greta Gerwig and her Lady Bird script here(one of 5 total nominations for the film), seeing as this could be the only spot where they could give it a win. It has another chance at a win with Laurie Metcalf in the Best Supporting Actress category, but I'm predicting a win for the frontrunner there, Allison Janney from I, Tonya.
Any one of those four films could win in that free-for-all of a category, and if any of the non-Get Out scenarios plays out, then a Get Out Best Picture win would become even more historic. The last film to win Best Picture, and only Best Picture, was Mutiny on the Bounty way back in 1935. But this decade has been full of historic wins. Before The Artist's Best Picture win in 2011, the only other silent film to win Best Picture was actually the first ever Best Picture, Wings, back in 1929. That 82-year difference between those two completely different and random Oscars Trivia facts is way too coincidental for it not to mean something. I believe that there are some cosmic forces aligning here all pointing to the same thing: Get Out *will win* Best Picture.
There, I said it. It's official. I'm going with the bold prediction this year, but for some reason it doesn't feel that crazy. Maybe it's because in the years where I've correctly predicted the eventual winner(
12 Years a Slave in 2013 and
Spotlight in 2015), I've chosen more with my heart than with my head, and I've allowed myself to go with that gut feeling that tells me that the Academy voters are leaning in one direction, even though the precursor awards and all the pundits might say otherwise. There's also the fact that
Get Out was beloved by everyone, and it stayed relevant throughout the entire year even though it premiered more than 12 months ago. I believe that staying power will be rewarded tonight.
Three Billboards is just too divisive. Those who don't like it really don't like it, causing it to fall in the preferential ballot system. And The Shape of Water is not that strong of a frontrunner. In fact, if it wins it will become the first film since Braveheart back in 1995 to win Best Picture without having been nominated for Best Ensemble Cast by the Screen Actors Guild. You also have to consider the fact that it's a Sci-Fi/Fantasy film, and in the entire 89 year history of the Oscars, full of classic Sci-Fi/Fantasy films like The Wizard of Oz, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, E.T, Jurassic Park, etc, only one film from that genre has managed to win Best Picture, and that was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2003.
So thats's my reasoning, and I'm sticking to it. As the frontrunner, it certainly wouldn't be a surprise if The Shape of Water wins Best Picture. And if that happens, I certainly wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow morning the fine folks over at Fox & Friends were saying: "See, we told you that a gay film winning Best Picture would cause a slippery slope! Now we have a woman/fish-man love affair winning!". All jokes aside, I think that particular description of the film could've definitely affected it with certain voters. Or maybe some of the more conservative voters out there just preferred the racist cop being redeemed, sort of, in Three Billboards. Just a thought.
Personally, I think Three Billboards is the most overrated film of the bunch. It was good but not great in my opinion. If it wins Best Picture that would be the worst possible outcome of the night for me. But the fact that it has a very strong chance at a win, along with two other contenders in The Shape of Water and Get Out, and a possible out-of-nowhere wild card in Lady Bird, if it manages to surprise in Best Original Screenplay or Best Supporting Actress, makes this 90th Oscars ceremony a very interesting one to watch.
And now, some more Get Out fun facts ...
- If Get Out wins Best Picture it would be the 3rd film with a black director to win in the past five years(12 Years a Slave in 2013 and Moonlight in 2016) after it had never happened in the first 85 years of the Academy Awards.
*That's Dede Gardner there in the middle, with Brad Pitt and Steve McQueen to her left. She is the only woman ever to win Best Picture twice, for, you guessed it ... 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight
- If Get Out wins Best Picture it would be only the 2nd Horror film ever to win, after The Silence of the Lambs in 1991. In fact, it's only the 5th Horror film ever nominated for Best Picture, with The Exorcist, Jaws, and The Sixth Sense rounding out that group.
- Another similarity that Get Out shares with The Silence of the Lambs is that both films premiered in February. That would easily be the earliest premiere date for a Best Picture winner since then. The last film to premiere before Labor Day and then go on to win was The Hurt Locker in 2009, which premiered on July 31st. The only other films from the 21st century to accomplish that were Gladiator in 2000 and Crash (ugh) in 2005, which premiered on May 5th and 6th of their respective years.
- If Get Out wins Best Picture, it would become the highest grossing winner ($255 million) at the U.S. Box Office since The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2003.
There's another Best Picture nominee tonight that joins Get Out in those final two categories: premiering before Labor Day and being a big draw at the Box Office, and that's Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk. It doesn't have much of a chance to win Best Picture, but it fared pretty well when nominations were announced, receiving 8 total mentions, including the 1st career Best Director nomination for Nolan. I really thought the Best Director race would be much closer between Nolan and Del Toro, but Del Toro is a shoo-in for the win at this point, making it the 4th time in the past 5 years(Alfonso Cuarón in 2013 for Gravity and Alejandro G. Iñárritu in 2014 and 2015 for Birdman and The Revenant) that a Mexican-born filmmaker will win in the category, after no hispanic had won in the 1st 85 years of the Academy Awards.
Nolan will have to settle for the satisfaction of being nominated twice tonight, since he's also nominated as one of the producers of Dunkirk. In fact, all five of the Best Director nominees are multiple-nominees tonight. The age of the auteur has finally made it to the Academy Awards! Paul Thomas Anderson joins Christopher Nolan with nominations for Best Director and Best Picture(2 of the 6 total nominations for Phantom Thread), but neither one has a chance of winning.
Then there's 1st-time director Greta Gerwig, who becomes only the 5th woman ever nominated in the category, after Lina Wertmüller, Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola, and Kathryn Bigelow. Gerwig has no chance of winning there, as Bigelow did for The Hurt Locker in 2009, but she does have an outside chance of winning for Best Original Screenplay. If that happens she would be the first woman to win in the category since Diablo Cody in 2007 for Juno. Gerwig already is the first solo female nominee in the category since 2008. Vanessa Taylor, who is Guillermo Del Toro's co-screenwriter on The Shape of Water, also has a fairly decent chance to add to the total of 16 wins by women in the writing categories in Oscars history.
*Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody
3 more firsts for women tonight, all from Mudbound ...
- Rachel Morrison becomes the first woman ever nominated for Best Cinematography.
- Dee Rees becomes the first black woman ever nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, and just the second black woman ever nominated in one of the Screenplay categories.
- Mary J. Blige becomes the first person ever, man or woman, to be nominated for Acting and Original Song for the same film.
Back to the two remaining Best Director nominees, Jordan Peele and Guillermo Del Toro, who are both 3-time nominees tonight. Peele becomes the first black person ever nominated for Best Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay for the same film. He also becomes just the 3rd person ever nominated for Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay for his debut film as a director(Warren Beatty for Heaven Can Wait and James L. Brooks for Terms of Endearment are the other two), and of those three, he is the only one to achieve the feat with an Original Screenplay. Impressed yet?
I must now pause to include an obligatory Orson Welles/Citizen Kane mention. Back in 1941 the nomination for Best Picture went to the studios and not the individuals who actually produced the films. Welles produced, wrote, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane when he was only 25 years old. It is widely regarded as the Best Film of All-Time. Watch it.
*Un-pause*
Peele also becomes just the 5th black person ever nominated for Best Director, after John Singleton, Lee Daniels, Steve McQueen, and Barry Jenkins. But that group will remain winless for now, as the category currently belongs to the Mexicans. Del Toro will be looking to repeat his best buddy Alejandro G. Iñárritu's 2014 sweep, when he won Best Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay for Birdman. But there'll be another multiple-nominee who'll be trying to spoil Del Toro's possible sweep tonight, and that is Martin McDonagh, who also received a Best Picture nomination as one of the producers of Three Billboards to go along with his Best Original Screenplay nomination, his 2nd career nomination in the category, same as Del Toro.
There are two other categories where The Shape of Water and Three Billboards go head to head, which could factor heavily on who gets the final award of the night: Best Editing and Best Original Score. I'm predicting a win for Alexandre Desplat and The Shape of Water for Best Original Score, but for Best Editing I'm predicting a win for Dunkirk. It wouldn't surprise me if one of the two frontrunners won there, but even if that happens I still believe they would lose to Get Out for Best Picture.
There are two more below-the-line categories where I believe The Shape of Water will lose: in Best Cinematography to Blade Runner 2049, finally giving Roger Deakins his first win in the category after 14 nominations, and in Best Costume Design to Phantom Thread, the movie about the world's greatest costume designer, so I won't overthink that one. For Best Production Design, however, I am predicting a win for The Shape of Water, leaving it with 3 total wins for the night, which would tie it with Dunkirk for most total wins in my book, as I also think that both Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing will go in Dunkirk's favor.
An early indicator of a possible Best Picture win for The Shape of Water would be if I'm wrong on these tech categories and it actually racks up 4 or 5 wins early in the ceremony. But with strong tech contenders this year such as Dunkirk, Blade Runner 2049, and even Baby Driver in both sound categories, I just don't see that happening. Speaking of which, there are two other below-the-line categories where The Shape of Water didn't even make the final cut: Best Hair & Makeup and Best Visual Effects. Darkest Hour appears to be a lock for Best Hair & Makeup, so I'll predict a 2nd win for the film there out of 6 total nominations. For Best Visual Effects I'm sensing there's more support for Blade Runner 2049, but I'm picking this category based on who I think should win, and that's War for the Planet of the Apes. I didn't enjoy Blade Runner 2049 at all, so I can't pick it in a non-"Roger Deakins finally should win an Oscar" category.
On that note ...
Diane Warren received her 9th career nomination for Best Original Song, for the song "Stand Up for Something" from Marshall, but for the 9th time, she'll lose. I'm predicting a win for the beautiful "Remember Me" from Coco, giving husband and wife duo Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson Lopez their 2nd win in 5 years, after they won with "Let it Go" from Frozen in 2013. I'm also predicting a win for Coco in the Best Animated Feature category, giving Pixar its 9th win in the 17 years of the category's existence(Finding Nemo in 2003, The Incredibles in 2004, Ratatouille in 2007, WALL-E in 2008, Up in 2009, Toy Story 3 in 2010, Brave in 2012, and Inside Out in 2015). I 💜 Pixar!
*The directors of Pixar's Brave, Mark Andrews & Brenda Chapman. Chapman became the first woman to win in the Best Animated Feature category
Speaking of Oscars powerhouses ...
Steven Spielberg received his 10th career Best Picture nomination for The Post, maintaining his lead for most nominations ever in the category by one, since another powerhouse producer, Scott Rudin, received his 9th career Best Picture nomination for Lady Bird. Spielberg also holds the record for the most number of films by one director to be nominated for Best Picture, with 11. The ones from that group that he also didn't produce? Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Speaking of those films, one of Spielberg's longtime collaborators, John Williams, received his 51st career Oscar nomination for his Original Score for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. His 1st career nomination came exactly 50 years ago, and the last of his 5 career wins came 24 years ago and 21 nominations ago for Schindler's List. Someone get this man a 6th Oscar! You would think that the 51 career nominations would be the most by any individual in Oscars history, but that record actually belongs to Walt Disney, who accumulated 59 total nominations, and 22 wins, throughout his career.
Sticking with the old-timers ...
89 year-old James Ivory is pretty much a lock to win tonight in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for Call Me by Your Name(one of 4 total nominations for the film), which would make him the oldest winner in Oscars history. He is a first time nominee in the category, but had previously received 3 nominations for Best Director in an 8 year span from 1986 to 1993. His "oldest winner ever" record could be extremely short-lived, however, if Agnes Varda, who is also 89 years old but older than Ivory by 8 days, wins in the Best Documentary Feature category for Faces Places. But I'm predicting a win for the Russian doping doc, Icarus, in that category, so I believe that Ivory's record will stand, until next year at least.
Sticking with the foreigners for a second, Russia is actually one of the countries nominated tonight for Best Foreign Language Film, so they could find some redemption from the stain of that doping scandal. But I'm predicting a win for the Chilean film, A Fantastic Woman, in the category.
Back to one more record setting old-timer, with Christopher Plummer, who at 88 years old becomes the oldest acting nominee ever for his work replacing Kevin Spacey in All the Money in the World. He's already the oldest acting winner ever, after having won in the Best Supporting Actor category 6 years ago for Beginners when he was 82 years old. His 3 career nominations, all in the Supporting Actor category, have come in the past 8 years, after his 80th birthday. Age is just a number, folks.
And finally, here are some other "Multiple Academy Award-Nominated Actors" ...
- Richard Jenkins receives his 2nd career nomination, and first in the Supporting Actor category for his work in The Shape of Water, 9 years after being nominated as a Lead Actor for his work in The Visitor
- Sally Hawkins receives her 2nd career nomination, and first in the Lead Actress category for her work in The Shape of Water, 4 years after being nominated as a Supporting Actress for her work in Blue Jasmine
- Gary Oldman receives his 2nd career nomination for Best Lead Actor for his work in Darkest Hour, 6 years after being nominated for his work in Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy
- Willem Dafoe receives his 3rd career nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his work in The Florida Project. His 1st career nomination happened 31 years ago for his work in Best Picture winner Platoon
- Woody Harrelson receives his 3rd career nomination, and 2nd in the Supporting Actor category for his work in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. His 1st career nomination happened 21 years ago in the Lead Actor category for his work in The People vs Larry Flint
- Octavia Spencer receives her 3rd career nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her work in The Shape of Water. She won in the category 6 years ago for her work in The Help
- Saoirse Ronan receives her 3rd career nomination, and 2nd in the Lead Actress category for her work in Lady Bird. She has now tied Jennifer Lawrence's pace of 3 nominations by age 23. Her 1st nomination happened 10 years ago in the Supporting Actress category for her work in Atonement
- Frances McDormand receives her 5th career nomination, and 2nd in the Lead Actress category for her work in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. She won in the category 21 years ago for her work in Fargo. With her win tonight she will become the 14th actress with multiple Lead Actress Oscars
- Daniel Day Lewis receives his 6th career nomination for Best Lead Actor for his work in Phantom Thread. He is the only actor to win 3 times in the category, the first of those happening 28 years ago for his work in My Left Foot. Please don't go, Daniel.
- Denzel Washington receives his 8th career acting nomination(9th overall), and 6th in the Lead Actor category for his work in Roman J. Israel, Esq. He won in the category 16 years ago(his 2nd career win) for his work in Training Day. His 8 nominations now tie him with Peter O'Toole, Jack Lemmon, and Marlon Brando for 4th most All-Time for male actors
- Meryl Streep receives her 21st career nomination, and 17th in the Best Lead Actress category for her work in The Post. Last year I bet that she would get to 30 career nominations by her 87th birthday. I might have been too cautious with that prediction. She has 3 career wins.
A final note on the host ...
Jimmy Kimmel is the first person to host the Oscars in back to back years since Billy Crystal in 1997 & 1998. As long as the correct film is announced for Best Picture this time around, I will consider his performance a success. Here's hoping that film is Get Out.
And the Oscar goes to ...
