Deany Predicts the Oscars 2018

Part III: Quezon City Drift

We’re back!

Despite being a pretty bad year overall, 2017 was fantastic for cinema, with great films coming out seemingly every week. This year was so good that when the Oscar nominees films came out, you couldn’t even be too mad about the films that didn’t get any recognition, because most of the ones that did totally deserved it. I spent an inordinate amount of time agonizing over my picks, and I think I’m finally settled. Maybe. We’ll see.

Let’s get right to it, then.

Technical Awards

I won’t be offering up write-ups for these categories, since I’m notoriously bad at guessing them. I will be including some sidebars wherever I see fit, though. All of them are who I think will win, but not necessarily who I think should win.

Also won’t be venturing any guesses for the short film categories, since I haven’t seen any of them.

Best Sound Editing: Blade Runner 2049

Best Sound Mixing: Dunkirk

Best Original Score: Phantom Thread

Best Original Song: “Remember Me”, Coco (#JusticeForSufjan)

Best Costume Design: Phantom Thread

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Darkest Hour

Best Production Design: The Shape of Water

Best Editing: Dunkirk (#JusticeForBabyDriver)

Best Visual Effects: War for the Planet of the Apes

Best Cinematography: Blade Runner 2049

Best Documentary: Icarus

Best Foreign Film

• A Fantastic Woman
• The Insult
• Loveless
• On Body and Soul
• The Square

In our first plot twist among this year’s nominees, presumptive favorite In the Fade from Germany failed to even make the cut, despite feeling increasingly like a shoo-in for this award, given its tally on the lead-up scoreboard. That leaves us with a surprisingly open field, with five films that have all garnered plaudits from different corners of the industry. Put a gun to my head, and I’ll say the Palme d’Or-winning The Square from Sweden is the current front-runner. Still, Chile’s A Fantastic Woman is the critical darling: A moving, impeccably written feature about how we alienate those unlike us.

Who Will Win: The Square

Who Should Win: A Fantastic Woman

Best Animated Film

• The Boss Baby
• The Breadwinner
• Coco
• Ferdinand
• Loving Vincent

Let’s not drag this out. While it never reaches the crystalline highs of Pixar’s absolute finest, Coco is a fine, oftentimes wonderful production, featuring some of the animation studio’s best visual work in years. Three of its competitors are mediocre at best, and the fourth — The Breadwinner — is the kind of left-field pick the Academy loves to reward with a nomination, but never with a win. This is a no-brainer.

Who Will Win: Coco

Who Should Win: Coco

Best Adapted Screenplay

• Call Me By Your Name
• The Disaster Artist
• Logan
• Molly’s Game
• Mudbound

Another no-brainer, mostly because this slate is pretty shallow aside from Call Me By Your Name. James Ivory’s elegant adaptation of Andre Aciman’s book is a slam-dunk for this award, and an absolutely deserving winner. For a film that’s fallen out of the awards conversation as of late (more on this in a bit), this is a hell of a consolation prize.

Who Will Win: Call Me By Your Name

Who Should Win: Call Me By Your Name

Best Original Screenplay

• The Big Sick
• Get Out
• Lady Bird
• The Shape of Water
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

The Big Sick is one of this year’s most singularly enjoyable delights: An intelligent, soulful rom-com based on the real-life love story of its two authors, Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon. Released in the middle of summer — traditionally the season for blockbusters, not awards contenders — and never really posturing at being a capital-F Film, The Big Sick is a welcome presence on this list, even if it likely isn’t winning. On some years, it might, but this year’s slate is just so damn stacked.

In many ways, the winner of this category is going to be an indicator of how everything else shakes out, which makes it all the more difficult to figure out. All four of the current front-runners for Best Picture are nominated for this category, and the Academy is going to want to spread the wealth among all of them. None of them deserve to be American Hustle-d and shut out, after all. The pulse right now indicates that The Shape of Water is seen as more of a directorial accomplishment, while Three Billboards… an acting one. This leaves us with a toss-up between Lady Bird and Get Out, and because I’m pretty sure Lady Bird isn’t taking Best Picture (more on this later), I’m calling it for this consolation prize, even if I think Get Out’s screenplay edges it out by a hair. With two all-time great films like these, we’re all winners anyway.

Who Will Win: Lady Bird

Who Should Win: Get Out

Best Supporting Actress

• Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
• Allison Janney, I, Tonya
• Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread
• Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
• Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

Lesley Manville sneaking in gives us the first (and, really, only) surprise nominee among the four acting categories, edging out favorites Holly Hunter (The Big Sick) and Hong Chau (Downsizing) to make it into the final five. This category was loaded this year, and while I’m disappointed at the Hunter snub, I can’t really complain. This just makes me want to see Phantom Thread even more, and how can you be upset about that?

But the race here is really down to two nominees, both giving vastly different performances as mothers to temperamental girls with big dreams. Allison Janney’s turn is packed to the brim with sound and fury, while Laurie Metcalf’s is quiet and subdued. This, of course, means that Janney stands a much better chance at recognition, and the scoreboard so far shows it. Still, I will carry Laurie Metcalf’s turn in Lady Bird as a mother trying her best to understand her daughter to my grave. What a beautiful, understated, totally genuine performance.

Who Will Win: Allison Janney, I, Tonya

Who Should Win: Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird

Best Supporting Actor

• Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
• Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
• Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water
• Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World
• Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Pour one out for Armie Hammer and especially Michael Stuhlbarg, victims of an inexplicably poor awards campaign by Sony Picture Classics for Call Me By Your Name. It’s hard not to notice their omissions on this list, especially with Woody Harrelson and Christopher Plummer sneaking onto the list despite their hype trains starting significantly later. I mean, Hammer and Stuhlbarg have been getting raves since Sundance twelve months ago! How do you mess this up, SPC?

Anyway, Sam Rockwell is taking this one home, after snatching up basically every award he was nominated for in the lead-up. This race is pretty done. Still, it’s hard not to feel bad for Willem Dafoe, who gives a haunting, soulful, understated performance in the largely Academy-ignored The Florida Project. I still haven’t gotten his turn out of my head. I highly recommend that everyone reading this watch The Florida Project, because apparently, the Academy isn’t going to.

Who Will Win: Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Who Should Win: Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project

Best Director

• Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread
• Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water
• Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
• Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
• Jordan Peele, Get Out

Let’s take a second and marvel at the most perfect list of nominees I’ve ever seen from the Academy. Three of these directors have never made a bad film. Granted, two out of those have only made the one film, but my point stands. Paul Thomas Anderson, Guillermo del Toro, and Christopher Nolan are three of the most important directors of the 21st century, and all of them are somehow Oscar-less. Gerwig and Peele are the up-and-comers, loaded with talent and breaking new ground simply by being nominated. There isn’t one undeserving name on this list, which is a rarity for the Oscars.

It’s too bad we can only have one winner. Del Toro is the obvious (and not undeserving) front-runner, but I’m pulling for Nolan, which surprised even myself. I’m a known Nolan hater, but Dunkirk took my breath away with its sheer scale and immersion, like Gravity on the beach. When an artist crafts the most gripping war movie in ages without even showing the enemy troops, how can you not be floored? When a man commands literal armies in service of his grand vision, how can you not be entertained?

Who Will Win: Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water

Who Should Win: Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk (Or anyone. This slate is great.)

Best Actress

• Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
• Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
• Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
• Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
• Meryl Streep, The Post

Listen: I love Frances McDormand. She constantly brings it, and is one of our most underrated thespians. Have you seen Fargo? She is so, so good in Fargo, as well as nearly everything she is in. I am a fan of Sally Hawkins, and I think Margot Robbie needs more roles like I, Tonya. Obviously, I adore Meryl Streep, even if I don’t think she needs any more awards crowding up her home. I also love Brie Larson, and I mention this only to set up my next statement.

Saoirse Ronan, our generation’s Katharine Hepburn, was robbed in 2016, and she’s about to be robbed again in two months, unless the Academy wants to do something about it. In the span of a brisk ninety minutes, she makes you laugh and cry and cringe and find yourself wishing you were closer to being seventeen and stupid and jittery with dreams. In short, Lady Bird for president. Even Frances McDormand thinks so!

Who Will Win: Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Who Should Win: Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird

Best Actor

• Timothee Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name
• Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
• Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
• Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
• Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.

This is the first time I’ve heard of Roman J. Israel, Esq., and from the looks of Film Twitter, I’m not alone. Aside from that surprise — probably fueled by the revelation that James Franco is a terrible human being — the field is pretty much what we expected. The GOAT Daniel Day-Lewis might not be going home with his fourth Best Actor trophy come March, but Phantom Thread was a hell of a way to end a career. Gary Oldman is one of our great Oscar-less actors — a reason that makes up a good chunk of his strong case — and I wouldn’t be completely opposed to the well-worn “reliable veteran makes good” awards trope in most years.

But in a better world, we’d be looking at a two-way race between the incandescent Timothee Chalamet and the furious Daniel Kaluuya, and I wouldn’t care who’d win. I prefer Kaluuya’s turn by virtue of it being much harder to pull off than Chalamet’s, but if that fireplace scene didn’t wreck you, you might not be human. It’s going to be Oldman, but these two were my MVPs.

(And yes, I’m predicting that all my acting favorites will lose their categories. It’s the Darkest Timeline.)

Who Will Win: Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour

Who Should Win: Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out

Best Picture

• Call Me By Your Name
• Darkest Hour
• Dunkirk
• Get Out
• Lady Bird
• Phantom Thread
• The Post
• The Shape of Water
• Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Regardless of the wall-to-wall acclaim (and Darkest Hour, I guess) this slate of films boasts, this year’s Best Picture race is down to four horses, and even if it’s still first place in my heart, Lady Bird is the long shot of that group. Greta Gerwig’s debut is a masterful little indie, but it’s still a little too indie for the Academy, especially in a year that demands the Oscars make a statement beyond, “We liked this film a lot”. It’s a miracle it’s even gotten this far; it’s been a hella tight ride.

The remaining three films — Get Out, The Shape of Water, and Three Billboards — are legitimately neck-and-neck, and if you ask me tomorrow, I’ll probably flip-flop on my front-runner pick. Guillermo del Toro’s fish-man movie is coming in hot, picking up plaudits from fans of film and aquatic life alike. Get Out has sustained a remarkable amount of momentum for a film that came out a full year ago, and Three Billboards, despite its growing collection of hardware, is in the throes of #BacklashSZN. It really is too close to call, and all these films — yes, even Darkest Hour — has a reasonable claim to the throne.

But…it has to be Get Out, right? That is the only timeline that really feels just. That is the timeline we deserve. In only his first feature, Jordan Peele threw down the gauntlet on what genre cinema can do, and has told a story that feels both deliriously unique and uncomfortably close to home. It’s a rollicking horror film and a venomous satire, part Jean Renoir and part John Carpenter, but all Jordan Peele. Get Out is whatever you want it to be, and uncompromisingly itself. It isn’t my favorite film of the year (it’s up there, though), but it is the film of the year.

I’m counting on you to do the right thing here, voters. Don’t mess this up.

Who Will Win: Get Out

Who Should Win: Get Out