And the Winner is...

Tonight’s the big night! What an interesting season it has been. There aren’t any obvious frontrunners when it comes to best pictures, Steven Spielberg had some comments about Netflix, The Academy let us know which categories they don’t care about as much and there still isn’t a damn host.

Every year there is one or two films we can expect to win Best Picture. It started to seem like Bohemian Rhapsody was the main one, then it seemed like Roma would be the one to beat, now all of the films seem to be contenders. After watching all of them I still don’t see an obvious best film. I know what movie I prefer, but I could see arguments for many of the nominees... almost every one. It will be a shocking announcement no matter what.

Ask Steven Spielberg who he thinks SHOULD NOT win and he will answer “Roma”. He announced that he does not believe a streaming site’s films should be considered for the Emmys and not the Academy Awards. What do I think? I think Spielberg is afraid of a new medium of film. He’s stuck in the 80s and can’t accept that this generation might not see a need to actually go into the theaters to see the most recent films. Now, I agree that a movie is best seen in a theaters, but we have to learn to roll with the punches. He sounds like a silent filmmaker from the 20s who can’t accept that talkies are the way of the future. Netflix films deserve to be nominated as much as any film that made its way into the theaters.

Now something Spielberg should actually make a fuss about is the fact that the Academy almost didn’t air certain categories. They were attempting to award Cinematography, Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, and Live Action Short during the commercial break. Now I get they have to keep it entertaining for the audience but can they find a way to do that without suggesting certain aspects of filmmaking aren’t as important as others? For the first 25 years the ceremony was not even televised. It was originally made to ... wait for it... celebrate the hard work of the talented people who made the films of the year. I get that they need to make it exciting for the viewers so that they can have enough money for the lavish ceremony, but maybe with this in mind they can find other things to cut from the ceremony instead of certain awards. Well, with the uproar from the filmmaking community, they decided to keep every award televised. I’m eager to see what else they changed to keep the ceremony as short and sweet as they think necessary.

One thing they cut is the host all together. As we know from previous years, cutting a host is an extremely smart thing to do. If you can’t sense my tone, or if you don’t know what happened in 89, I’m being sarcastic. The only other year they did not have a host was the lowest ratings in Oscar history and the show was considered a huge flop. They couldn’t find anyone? Could we really not get Billy Crystal to host for a 37th time? There are so many good choices out there that would have rocked it. I think it’s just a shit show waiting to happen. But let’s hope I’m completely incorrect.

Now onto my Oscar choices. I didn’t get to see everything this year, unfortunately. Live action/documentary shorts were missed, the only foreign film I saw was Roma and I only saw three animated films. Sadly, life got in the way.

Now I don’t think my list will match up with the Academy. I can make a completely separate list of what I can predict will win, but I made my list on what I think DESERVES to win. I think there is a very important difference.

Best Picture:

Blackkklansman

Best Director:

Spike Lee

Best Actor:

Rami Malik

Best Actress:

Glen Close

Best Supporting Actor:

Mahershala Ali

Best Supporting Actress:

Rachel Weisz

Best Original Screenplay:

Greenbook

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Blackkklansman

Best Cinematography:

The Favourite

Best Film Editing:

Bohemian Rhapsody

Best Score:

Black Panther

Best Song:

Shallow from Star is Born

Best Makeup/hairstyling:

Vice

Best Costume Design:

Favourite

Best Production Design:

Favourite

Best Sound Editing:

First Man

Best Sound Mixing:

A Star is Born

Best Visual Effects:

First Man

Best Animated Feature:

Isle of Dogs

Best Documentary:

Free Solo

Best Documentary Short:

N/A

Best Foreign Language Film:

Roma

Best Animated Short:

Bao

Best Live Action Short:

N/A