2017 Oscars Preview
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Viola Davis / Fences
Naomie Harris / Moonlight
Nicole Kidman / Lion
Octavia Spencer / Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams / Manchester by the Sea
The actress categories are a total mess this year thanks to one huge instance of category fraud and two cases of legacy nominations. Viola Davis is incredible in Fences, and she’s going to deservedly—and finally—win this award easily after winning most of the preliminary trophies. However, she is in no way a supporting actress in Fences. Submitting in the supporting category is her team’s way of avoiding a repeat of the disastrous 2012 Oscars when Meryl Streep somehow stole the Academy Award for Best Actress away from Viola. Unfortunately, her placement here has taken away spots from other deserving supporting performances, while also making the Best Actress in a Leading Role category less competitive.
The rest of the field are all great in their respective performances, although Octavia Spencer is very much here because she’s been here before. Her Hidden Figures costar Janelle Monae is just if not more deserving of a nomination here (really for either Hidden Figures or Moonlight), and in an ideal world Viola Davis in the Best Actress category opens up a spot for her.
Who Will Win: Viola Davis
Who Should Win: Someone who was actually in a supporting role
Who Might Win: No seriously Viola Davis is gonna win
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Janelle Monae (Hidden Figures/Moonlight), Greta Gerwig (20th Century Women), Dakota Johnson (A Bigger Splash), Sarah Gadon (Indignation)
Best Actress in a Leading Role
Isabelle Huppert / Elle
Ruth Nega / Loving
Natalie Portman /Jackie
Emma Stone / La La Land
Meryl Streep / Florence Foster Jenkins
The Academy giving Meryl points for just showing up has to stop. This is one of the worst nominations in recent memory (well ok the Streep nomination for Into the Woods might have been worse), there were many more deserving performances this year. Complicating matters, I don’t think Ruth Nega was that great in Loving, a movie that I wanted to like a lot more than I did. And then there’s the fact that Viola should clearly be here. In a perfect world, Janelle Monae takes her spot in the supporting category, Viola moves here to take Meryl’s spot, and Amy Adams is nominated for Arrival.
Instead Emma Stone is the favorite here, after winning the all important SAG and BAFTA awards. But she’s not a lock, Isabelle Huppert has been competitive as well for her wonderful work in Paul Veerhoven’s Elle, and Natalie Portman is lingering too. I’m not a fan of Portman’s work generally; Jackie didn’t feel like a good performance rather it felt like what Natalie Portman thinks the Oscar voters want a good performance to look like. There’s always a level of artifice to her performance, you can always see her acting (I know there’s an argument that in Jackie, that’s the point, but I don’t buy it).
On the other hand Emma Stone is completely effortless in La La Land. Because she’s been the front runner for so long, and because we assume she’s just “playing herself”, I think her performance has become underrated. There are few working actresses who could pull off the range she demonstrates in La La Land. She has to be funny and charming and relatable, while also having dramatic emotional scenes, while also singing and dancing. An Oscar win would be well deserved.
Who Will Win: Emma Stone
Who Should Win: Emma Stone
Who Might Win: Isabelle Huppert
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Viola Davis (Fences), Annette Benning (20th Century Women), Amy Adams (Arrival)
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Mahershala Ali / Moonlight
Jeff Bridges / Hell or High Water
Lucas Hedges / Manchester By the Sea
Dev Patel / Lion
Michael Shannon / Nocturnal Animals
In contrast to the actress categories, the best actor categories are all well deserved. I like every performance here, and it’s particularly good to see Michael Shannon get recognized for his outstanding work in Nocturnal Animals, I film I liked more than the critical consensus. The only issue here is that there are only five spots and so many other performances that deserved nominations. But like the Supporting Actress category, this isn’t a particularly competitive race. Mahershala Ali won almost every award during this season — it’s his to lose. And he’s tremendous in Moonlight. So much so that the film suffers from his absence in the later two-thirds. The dinner table scene was the best single bitof acting this year, and he deserves to be rewarded for it. Ali had a hell of a year, with great performances in Luke Cage, Hidden Figures, House of Cards, and of course, Moonlight. Winning the Oscar is the perfect way to cap off his breakout 2016.
Who Will Win: Mahershala Ali
Who Should Win: Mahershala Ali
Who Might Win: Mahershala Ali has this locked up
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Glen Powell (Everybody Wants Some), Jake Gyllenhall (Nocturnal Animals), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Nocturnal Animals), John Goodman (10 Cloverfield Lane), Daniel Radcliffe (Swiss Army Man), Alden Ehrenreich (Hail, Caesar!)
Best Actor in a Leading Role
Casey Affleck / Manchester by the Sea
Andrew Garfield / Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling / La La Land
Viggo Mortensen / Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington / Fences
Another solid crop of nominees, with Andrew Garfield the only one to give me pause. I’m a fan (he’s still Spider-man to me damnit), and he’s good in Hacksaw Ridge, at least, he’s decent in the good hour of Hacksaw Ridge, after the completely miserable, schlocky, unsubtle first hour. I liked him much better in Silence, which was criminally ignored and destined for a critical renaissance. In a world where the nominations make sense, Dev Patel could have easily taken his spot as that should be a lead performance, freeing up another spot for a deserving best supporting actor nominee.
Casey Affleck has been the presumed front runner since Sundance, and with reason, his performance in Manchester by the Sea is so elegantly understated it knocks you over. He’s still in the lead here, but it’s much closer than expected with Denzel Washington coming on late, winning the SAG award — the most consistent Oscar predictor. Furthermore, late rumors of a Viggo Mortensen upset make this the most compelling of the acting categories. Affleck wining the majority of the preliminary awards still makes him the front runner, but don’t be surprised if Denzel is holding his third statue Sunday night.
Who Will Win: Casey Affleck
Who Should Win: Casey Affleck
Who Might Win: Denzel Washington
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Ralph Fiennes (A Bigger Splash), Chris Pine (Hell or High Water), Colin Farrell (The Lobster)
Best Adapted Screenplay:
Eric Heisserer / Arrival
August Wilson / Fences
Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melvin / Hidden Figures
Luke Davies / Lion
Barry Jenkins and Tarbell Alvin McCraney / Moonlight
Adapted Screenplay is year-to-year one of the tougher categories, thanks to the Academy’s obtuse category rules and your interpretation of “adapted”. For example, Fences and Moonlight are both adapted from plays. But Fences is essentially a word-for-word recreation of August Wilson’s theatrical masterpiece, while Moonlight is heavily transposed for a cinematic retelling. So do you reward Moonlight for the work that went into the process of adaptation? Or does the Oscar go to Fences, one of the finest American theater texts of the 20th century? And if you’re rewarding the process of adaption, then Arrival is just as strong a contender as Moonlight. My personal preference would be Fences, which is almost pure writing, but my hunch is Moonlight or Arrival are going to take home the prize for “showing the work”.
Who Will Win: Moonlight
Who Should Win: Fences
Who Might Win: Arrival
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Park Chan-wook, Syd Lim (The Handmaiden), Tom Ford (Nocturnal Animals)
Best Original Screenplay
Taylor Sheridan / Hell or High Water
Damien Chazelle / La La Land
Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou / The Lobster
Kenneth Lonergan / Manchester by the Sea
Mike Mills / 20th Century Women
Unfortunately, the two best original screenplays of the year weren’t nominated, those being Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some and Robert Eggers’ The Witch. Linklater wrote the best comedy screenplay of the last ten years with Everybody Wants Some, and Eggers’ channeling of the 17th century in The Witch led to the best horror movie of my lifetime. Both those films will be long remembered, and should have been nominated.
Even still, this crop of nominees is one of the year’s most competitive categories, and will probably be a strong indicator early in the night of what’s to come. After winning the BAFTA, Manchester by the Sea is the nominal frontrunner. But if the Academy voters go big for La La Land as some expect, it could easily sneak in and win this award. Which would actually be a shame. I’m a huge fan of La La Land, its inevitable Oscar frontrunner backlash is incredibly pedantic (Ryan Gosling’s character is not a white supremacist come on guys). But its writing is far from the film’s strongest suit. Of the nominees, The Lobster is easily the most inventive, original, and funniest screenplay, and a win here would redeem its lack of nominations elsewhere. And the Academy has used the writing categories in previously to recognize films that won’t be on stage later in the night.
Who Will Win: Manchester by the Sea
Who Should Win: The Lobster
Who Might Win: La La Land
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Richard Linklater (Everybody Wants Some), Robert Eggers (The Witch)
Best Directing
Denis Villeneuve / Arrival
Mel Gibson / Hacksaw Ridge
Damien Chazelle / La La Land
Kenneth Lonergan / Manchester by the Sea
Barry Jenkins / Moonlight
How the hell is Mel Gibson here? Hacksaw Ridge has some great direction in it’s back half, but the first half of the film is a complete mess. And while Arrival certainly looks gorgeous, it’s the weakest film of Villeneuve’s career. There were certainly more deserving nominees: Denzel Washington’s direction in Fences has been supremely underrated, and The Witch is directing perfection.
With wins at most of the major awards, including the DGA and BAFTA, Damien Chazelle is in the driver’s seat to win for La La Land. The only suspense comes in the potential of the La La Land backlash and current political climate pushing the Academy towards Moonlight. The preliminary awards don’t seem to indicate the trend following the film twitter narrative, but it’s certainly a possibility. With a Directing/Best Picture split looking unlikely this year, the winner here will almost definitely take home the big prize at the end of the night.
Who Will Win: Damien Chazelle
Who Should Win: Damien Chazelle
Who Might Win: Barry Jenkins
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Robert Eggers (The Witch), Park Chan-wook (The Handmaiden), Denzel Washington (Fences)
Best Picture
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight
This is one of the best crop of Best Picture nominees in recent memory; I like every one of these films to one degree or another. I’m on record as loving La La Land, and I’d be happy to see it win. Its certainly the favorite here, winning the BAFTA, DGA, and PGA awards. But, like in the directing category, Moonlight remains a contender.
However, I’d argue that if there’s a big surprise at the end of the night it’s more likely to be Hidden Figures. The Screen Actors Guild makes up the largest voting block at the Oscars, and the SAG award surprisingly went to Hidden Figures. Unlike Moonlight, Figures is a crowd pleasing, historical, box office hit. And with a large voting contingent behind it — and its resonant message — it might just upset Chazelle’s love letter to classic Hollywood musicals.
Who Will Win: La La Land
Who Should Win: La La Land
Who Might Win: Moonlight, Hidden Figures
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Everybody Wants Some, The Witch, The Lobster, The Handmaiden
Other Predictions
Animated Feature Film: Zootopia
Documentary: O.J. Made in America
Foreign Language Film: The Salesman
Cinematography: La La Land
Original Score: La La Land
Original Song: “Audition”, La La Land
