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Best Animated Short
Can you believe that Pixar hasn't won this award since 2001's For the Birds? They've drawn so many nominations here and so many wins in Best Animated Feature that no one seems to have noticed or cared. Maybe their losing streak ends this year on this tale of a baby bird in the sea. The only other nominee I saw was Pearl, which has the gimmick of being a VR short made by Disney alum Patrick Osborne (2014's Oscar winner Feast) for Google. Your guess is probably as good as mine here.
Best Animated Feature
Between Pixar and their own animation department, Disney has dominated this award for years. While Animated Feature is open-minded enough to recognize foreign works with nominations, the win usually goes to the most widely-seen nominee. That is Zootopia by a wide margin, and though Kubo and the Two Strings has its passionate supporters, Zootopia is the best reviewed and most deserving film here.
Best Foreign Language Film
As soon as I finish these predictions, I'm going to watch Tanna, which will make this the first year I've seen all five Foreign Language Film nominees prior to the ceremony. Prevailing wisdom says this category is a two-horse race between The Salesman and Toni Erdmann. On the quality of the films, I would think Toni Erdmann has the edge, but The Salesman probably has benefitted from the fact that its director Asghar Farhad is boycotting the Oscars after being affected by Trump's travel ban. Is a vote for Farhad's a film a vote against Trump? Maybe. It's not like this award makes or breaks the industry or careers. I do think, however, that the pleasant A Man Called Ove, also nominated for makeup, could sneak a win in here.
Best Director
Director and Picture splits are historically rare, but we've had them happen in three of the last four years. I don't see it happening this year, with Chazelle deserving recognition for a film that belongs to him more than anyone else.
Best Actress
Streep's nomination seems more for her Golden Globe speech than the movie and Negga's is a nice way of Loving getting acknowledged. But only the other three have a shot of winning. Portman's film has not been embraced as much as expected and her win six years ago for Black Swan is enough to handicap her. The long respected and never before nominated Huppert seems to have some support, but Elle is not really an Oscar movie and even the nomination was kind of a surprise. That leaves us with Emma Stone, a young talent with a bright future who seems likely to take this honor.
Best Actor
Casey Affleck seemed to have the lead early on in the season, racking up a number of critics' awards. After he won the Screen Actors Guild, though, Denzel Washington has edged Affleck as the favorite. Washington is great and wouldn't be a bad choice, but he's already won two Oscars (and one of them for Training Day) and the Academy seems to have been less receptive towards Fences than perhaps any of the other Best Picture nominees. (If it matters, too, he won a Tony for this same role back in 2010.) With Davis' win in Supporting Actress all but guaranteed, I think Affleck comes away with his first and deservedly so for his outstanding understated work in Manchester. Gosling stealing this award out of nowhere is something I can imagine, but I don't foresee it happening.
Best Picture
If La La Land were to lose this, it would be the most shocking reversal of precursor award trends ever. It almost certainly will not.
Final Tally
La La Land wins 9 (from 14 nominations). Best Picture nominees Arrival (8 nominations), Hell or High Water (4 nominations), and Hidden Figures (3 nominations) are shut out.
Zootopia, Toni Erdmann, O.J.: Made in America, The Jungle Book, and Star Trek Beyond all win 1 each.
Piper, The White Helmets, and Ennemis intιrieurs win the shorts Oscars. |
