Oscar Picks and Preferences 2019

I’ll be watching the entire Academy Awards show again this year, and will still be missing Billy Crystal. Without a host this year, who will order pizza, take a selfie of the stars, or bring tourists into the auditorium? I do not have many strong preferences among the top Oscar contenders this time, since, in many categories, the nominees are so tightly matched. There are also a few glaring oversights that I will discuss. Here are some of the major categories:

Best Picture:

There is quite a range here, including the first superhero film to be nominated, Black Panther, which explores themes and character like no other movie in this genre before it. There haven’t been many foreign films nominated for Best Motion Picture, but this year is an exception with Roma, director Alfonso Cuarón's fictionalized memoir of his Mexican youth. The film has The Great Gatsby theme of how the poor must clean up the messes left behind by the careless rich. Vice provides us with a virtuoso piece of filmmaking, with many camera and writing techniques that make it an effective satire on Vice-President Dick Cheney’s life. The acting and writing in The Favourite are top-notch in this sort of Jonathan Swift satire on the diabolical nature of humans pretending to be civilized. There have been only two films that have won the top Oscar prize without having the movie’s director nominated for Best Director. Bruce Beresford was not considered, yet his film, Driving Miss Daisy, won. More recently Ben Affleck was not included among the nominees even though his motion picture, Argo, took home the statuette. I believe this year Green Book will join those two. The story connects with the audience on an emotional level as we see two characters, Tony Lip and Don Shirley, struggle with how they identify themselves in a racially divided nation. The Producers Guild awarded this movie the Best Picture prize, and it also won that accolade at the Golden Globes.

Pick:  Green Book

Preference: Green Book, which only slightly bests Vice and The Favourite in my opinion.

Best Actress:

This is a very competitive category. I don’t believe that Yalitza Aparicio in Roma should be included here. Except for a couple of scenes, she appears wooden in that film. Charlize Theron should definitely have been nominated for her portrait of a stressed-out mother in Tully. Also, Emily Blunt was very good in A Quiet Place, and she won the Screen Actors Guild award, but strangely, in the supporting acting category. The other women nominated gave strong performances. Lady Gaga shows she can act as well as sing in her role as the star on the rise whose love life ends in tragedy in A Star is Born. Olivia Colman in The Favourite gives us a queen who, despite her power, is vulnerable amid the schemers surrounding her. Melissa McCarthy shows us a wounded woman in Can You Ever Forgive Me who shields her pain with a tough, outsider facade as she can only be accepted as a writer through autobiographies of famous people, or pretending to be those esteemed people by writing fake letters passed off as genuine. However, Glenn Close has been nominated before and she has already won the Golden Globe and SAG awards. In The Wife, she shows a woman with the real writing talent imploding as her cheating, immature husband accepts the accolades she deserves, leading to an explosion of feminine rage. Since the only time there was a tie for Best Actress was when Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn were chosen as joint winners for Funny Girl and The Lion in Winter, respectively, I believe Close will prevail here.

Pick: Glenn Close, The Wife

Preference: If it was up to me, Close, Gaga, Colman, and McCarthy would share the Oscar.

Best Actor:

I am a fan of Viggo Mortensen, but I think his portrayal in Green Book of an Italian American bodyguard relies too much on exaggerated stereotypical elements. Willem Dafoe is good but is a dark horse here. Christian Bale’s Dick Cheney in Vice is a one-trick performance, but like Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, and Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, Bale completely nails the side-smirking politician. Bradley Cooper does it all in A Star is Born, singing, playing guitar, and depicting a devastated man who can’t go on living while the woman he gave a chance takes center stage. But, Rami Malek’s Freddie Mercury is what makes Bohemian Rhapsody work. He hits all the notes (even though he didn’t do the singing by himself) as the rock singer who was one of the “Champions.” Malek has already won the Golden Globe and the SAG award.

Pick: Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody

Preference: Here I go again. Malek, Bale, and Cooper are equally deserving.

Best Supporting Actress:

Amy Adams, nominated numerous times, is up for playing Cheney’s wife, the driving force behind the man, in Vice. But she and Roma’s Marina de Tavira are not quite up to the level of the other three nominees. Emma Stone, playing the upstart but conniving usurper, Abigail, in The Favourite is matched by Rachel Weisz’s incumbent manipulator, Lady Sarah, with both performances dripping in venomous wit. However, Regina King in If Beale Street Could Talk, excels as the woman trying to give the young loving couple a chance at happiness in a country that has rigged the game against them. King won the Golden Globe, but was unbelievably excluded from SAG consideration.

Pick: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk

Preference: King, Stone, and Weisz are equally impressive.

Best Supporting Actor:

Another strong group of actors, but I think Michael B. Jordan’s complex character in Black Panther deserved recognition. Although I admire the work of Adam Driver’s undercover cop in BlacKkKlansman, and Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush in Vice, they don’t rise to the heights attained by the other three men in this category. When I saw A Star is Born, I immediately felt that Sam Elliott’s portrayal as Bradley Cooper’s put-upon brother was Oscar-worthy. He is without artifice and completely believable in the role. Richard E. Grant’s turn as the sometimes friend, sometimes enemy of Melissa McCarthy’s character in Can You Ever Forgive Me would steal the movie if it wasn’t for McCarthy’s great acting. He is at times flamboyantly gay, and, at others, sad and suffering. But there will be no denying Mahershala Ali’s right to the trophy here. In Green Book, he gives us an unforgettable portrait of a gifted African American musician who yearns to play the classics, and who is caught between the black and white cultures in the America of 1962. He has already won the Golden Globe and SAG awards for this role, and he may be the best American actor working today.

Pick: Mahershala Ali, Green Book

Preference: Mahershala Ali, Green Book

Best Director:

It is satisfying to see Spike Lee among the nominees here for BlacKkKlansman, after making so many memorable movies, but I don’t think he will get the Oscar. The Favourite is primarily an acting and writing achievement. However, director Yorgos Lanthimos effectively uses Stanley Kubrick-like fish-eye camera shots to stress the warped world of his vision of eighteenth century British royal court life. Adam McKay is visually energetic in employing various cinematic techniques in Vice as he makes the movie funny and frightening, which is quite an accomplishment. Alfonso Cuarón places the camera in Roma in the back of a movie theater, or at a bit of a distance on the street, to simulate a person observing the action, moving one’s head around to take in the events. A friend of mine suggested that since it is the director’s memoir, the camera takes the place of a child viewing what transpires. But, the technique, if seeking objectivity, is also uninvolving. Cuarón, an Oscar winner for Gravity, has already won the Golden Globe and the Directors Guild of America awards for Roma.

Pick: Alfonso Cuarón, Roma

Preference: Adam McKay, Vice

Best Original Screenplay:

Vice breaks the fourth wall, substitutes Shakespeare’s lines to satirize the lives of the Cheney and his wife, and economically shows the erosion of American democracy by self-involved power-hungry people. The dialogue in The Favourite is ruthlessly sharp. Green Book has scenes that expose racism, but also shows how people of different backgrounds can come together once they get to know each other.

Pick: Green Book

Preference: I would jointly award Green Book, Vice, and The Favourite.

Best Adapted Screenplay:

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, a short story collection from the Coen Brothers, who I greatly admire, is uneven, sometimes entertaining, but also tedious. I don’t think that If Beale Street Could Talk successfully adapts James Baldwin’s novel. The film has too slow scenes with moody music that act as speed bumps, inhibiting its powerful message of institutionalized racial injustice. A Star is Born and Can You Ever Forgive Me work mostly because of the acting. I think Spike Lee will get the Oscar for BlacKkKlansman, which smartly inserts words and scenes that show how past events resonate with America today.

Pick: BlacKkKlansman

Preference: BlacKkKlansman

Best Film Editing:

There are cuts in Bohemian Rhapsody that enhance the song performances and reveal the power of music, especially the ending involving the Live Aid concert. I do believe that Vice excels in this area with its edits that exhibit numerous events over the passage of many years, focusing on what counts to get the satire across.

Pick: Vice

Preference: Vice

Best Original Song:

“When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is really funny. But, when I heard “Shallow” while I watched A Star is Born, I knew that it would win the Oscar, and I’m sticking with that feeling. In fact, the whole soundtrack from that film is great.

Pick: “Shallow”

Preference: “Shallow”

The next film to be analyzed is Gentleman’s Agreement.