2019 Film Awards

This morning the nominations for the Academy Awards were announced. This event always brings along excitement, mourning, annoyance and a little happiness. Anyway what it really means is that it is time for me to announce MY choices for the best of film for 2019. 

Overall, I found 2019 to be a tremendous year for film. After a disappointing 2018 perhaps I was desperate for a good year, but no matter what the reason I gave seventeen different films a five-star rating. In 2018 I gave two films that same rating. With that in mind, I found it extremely difficult to narrow each category to six nominees. Best Picture, Director and Actress were the hardest to decide upon, but I think I've finally collected a solid set of nominees. Without anymore blah, blah, blah from me, here are my nominees and winners for the best in film for 2019. Please enjoy the third grade images! 

*NOTE that Frankie and Portrait of a Lady on Fire was not yet available to me. When I'm able to see it, I will edit these awards if applicable.

**WINNERS ARE IN BOLD

BEST PICTURE

Climax 

Greener Grass

The Irishman

Little Women

1917

Parasite

BEST DIRECTOR

***Category changed after seeing Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Jocelyn DeBoer & Dawn Luebbe, Greener Grass

Greta Gerwig, Little Women

Marielle Heller, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Bong Joon-ho, Parasite

Céline Sciamma, Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Martin Scorsese, The Irishman

BEST ACTRESS

Jillian Bell, Brittany Runs a Marathon

Jessie Buckley, Wild Rose

Elisabeth Moss, Her Smell

Lupita Nyong'o, Us

Florence Pugh, Midsommar

Saoirse Ronan, Little Women

BEST ACTOR

Antonio Banderas, Pain & Glory

Robert De Niro, The Irishman

Adam Driver, Marriage Story

Taron Egerton, Rocketman

Kelvin Harrison Jr., Luce

Brad Pitt, Ad Astra

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

*** Category changed after seeing Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Laura Dern, Little Women

Adèle Haenel, Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers

Florence Pugh, Little Women

Zhao Shuzhen, The Farewell

Marisa Tomei, Frankie

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Jamie Bell, Rocketman

Timothée Chalamet, Little Women

Willem Dafoe, The Lighthouse

Skyler Gisondo, Booksmart

Tom Hanks, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Joe Pesci, The Irishman

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Booksmart (Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, Susanna Fogel, Katie Silberman)

The Farewell (Lulu Wang)

Marriage Story (Noah Baumbach)

Pain & Glory (Pedro Almodóvar)

Parasite (Bong Joon-ho, Han Jin-won)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Noah Harpster, Micah Fitzerman-Blue)

Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria)

The Irishman (Steve Zaillian)

Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi)

Little Women (Greta Gerwig)

Toy Story 4 (Andrew Stanton, Stephany Folsom)

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Escape Room

Greener Grass

1917

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood

Parasite

BEST SCORE

A Hidden Life

Joker

The Lighthouse

Little Women

Parasite

Us 

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Climax

The Lighthouse

Little Women

Midsommar

1917

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

BEST EDITING

Ford V Ferrari

The Irishman

Little Women

Parasite

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Uncut Gems

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

"Glasgow" from Wild Rose

"I'm Gonna Love Me Again" from Rocketman

"I Punched Keanu Reeves" from Always Be My Maybe

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Echo in the Canyon

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice

Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins

Films with multiple nominations:

10 - Little Women

6 - The Irishman, Parasite

5 - Portrait of a Lady on Fire

4 - A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

3 - Greener Grass, The Lighthouse, 1917, Rocketman

2 - Booksmart, Climax, The Farewell, Hustlers, Pain & Glory, Midsommar, Us, Wild Rose, Marriage Story

Films with wins:

Little Women - 3 (Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay)

The Irishman - 2 (Supporting Actor, Editing)

Parasite - 2 (Original Screenplay, Production Design)

Us - 2 (Actress, Score)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire - 1 (Supporting Actress)

Marriage Story - 1 (Actor)

1917 - 1 (Cinematography)

Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins - 1 (Documentary)

Wild Rose - 1 (Original Song)

Oscar Predictions - On the Eve of the Golden Globes nominations.

          Wow, this year went quickly didn't it? Tomorrow brings us the nominations for the Golden Globes. The Golden Globes of course are picked by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and act as a huge precursor for the Academy Awards.

Since the race will be a little clearer after tomorrow I thought I'd take a quick jab at the acting Oscars since the Screen Actors Guild will be announcing their picks later in the week as well.

Predictions for the acting categories at the 2020 Academy Awards:

Best Actor:
Antonio Banderas, Pain & Glory
Robert De Niro, The Irishman
Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood
Adam Driver, Marriage Story
Joaquin Phoenix, Joker

Best Actress:
Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story
Lupita Nyong'o, Us
Saoirse Ronan, Little Women
Charlize Theron, Bombshell
Renee Zellweger, Judy

Best Supporting Actor:
Tom Hanks, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Al Pacino, The Irishman
Joe Pesci, The Irishman
Brad Pitt, Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood
John Lithgow, Bombshell

Best Supporting Actress:
Laura Dern, Marriage Story
Jennifer Lopez, Hustlers
Florence Pugh, Little Women
Margot Robbie, Bombshell
Zhao Shuzhen, The Farewell

The official stanning list of 2018

2018's award season is shaping up to be a very strong year for some of my favorite actors.

Toni Collette has received rave reviews for Hereditary. Collette is near the top of my list of favorite working actors (if not #1!) and is well overdue for a second Oscar nomination. Hopefully she can carry through up to the stage.

Saoirse Ronan has a strong-on-paper role in Mary, Queen of Scots. I'm sure she'll kill the role, hope the film lives up to her performance.

Lady Gaga isn't one of my favorite actresses, but she is one of my favorite singers and she has great buzz for A Star is Born. Maybe she'll follow Cher and Barbara Streisand to singer-turned-actress Oscar winners?

Amy Adams plays Lynn Cheney in Backseat. She's been nominated a thousand times and was snubbed for Arrival just a couple of years ago. The role seems juicy and with Adam McKay in charge it should be a little off-kilter as well. She should be a threat in supporting actress.

Ryan Gosling is one of my favorite actors, he chooses quirky roles and is thus often out of the picture for awards. However he was nominated for La La Land, and now plays Neil Armstrong in First Man from Damien Chazelle, and hopefully he will win the trophy.

Timmy Chalamet gave one of my favorite performances of all-time last year in Call Me By Your Name, and he seems to have a juicy role in Beautiful Boy. Test screenings have given him a ton of praise and hopefully the Academy makes up for their mistake last year.




AND OF COURSE there will be some performances off of my radar at this moment that become my favorites. This year though seems like a bizarre year where at least one of my favorites can bring home the statue.

Final Oscar Predictions

This Sunday marks the end of awards season as the 90th annual Academy Awards take place. A once-promising awards season has turned into one of the most boring in recent memory. The only real question marks seem to be in best picture and original screenplay. Even then on Sunday if Three Billboards wins those categories we'll just be saying we should have seen it all along.

That being said the Oscars almost never nominate as many movies that I love as they did this year. Call Me by Your Name, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread and Get Out are all in my top five of the year, (my third ranked film of the year, mother! is nominated for worst picture at the Razzies the night before!) so I'm still excited to see many of my favorites at the ceremony. I also really liked The Post, The Shape of Water, Dunkirk and (dare I say it?) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, so it will be a mostly enjoyable evening for me. The only best picture nominee that I truly hated was Darkest Hour. What an absolute turd.

Also while I'm rooting for other actresses above them this year, Frances McDormand and Allison Janney are two of my favorites and I'm glad they'll both have more hardware to add to the trophy-case. We're also going to be able to say Academy Award Winners Roger Deakins and James Ivory, which is well over-due.

Anyway here are my final predictions for this Sunday's Academy Awards. They are mostly by the book because this year doesn't seem ripe for many upsets.

Original Screenplay is very interesting, because I don't see Get Out going home empty-handed. I think it finishes second for best picture, but I don't see Three Billboards only winning acting awards along with best picture. I'm predicting Three Billboards in picture, but if Get Out wins screenplay then I think it wins picture. I'm going to predict a split, but whatever wins original screenplay will win picture so I'm wrong already!

Best Picture

Will Win:

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Should Win:

Call Me By Your Name

Best Director

Will Win:

Guillermo Del Toro, The Shape of Water

Should Win:

Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird

(But really...this is a GREAT category and all would be great winners.)

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Will Win:

Frances McDormand as Mildred Hayes in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Should Win:

Saoirse Ronan as Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson in Lady Bird 

(But really all would be great winners)

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Will Win:

Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour

Should Win:

Timothée Chalamet as Elio in Call Me by Your Name

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Will Win:

Allison Janney as LaVona in I, Tonya

Should Win:

Laurie Metcalf as Marion McPherson in Lady Bird

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Will Win:

Sam Rockwell as Dixon in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Should Win:

Willem Dafoe as Bobby in The Florida Project

Best Original Screenplay

Will Win:

Jordan Peele for Get Out

Should Win:

Greta Gerwig for Lady Bird

Adapted Screenplay

Will Win:

James Ivory for Call Me By Your Name

Should Win:

James Ivory for Call Me By Your Name

Best Cinematography

Will Win:

Roger Deakins for Blade Runner 2049

Should Win:

Roger Deakins for Blade Runner 2049

Best Film Editing

Will Win:

Dunkirk

Should Win:

Baby Driver

Best Production Design

Will Win:

The Shape of Water

Should Win:

Blade Runner 2049

Original Song

Will Win:

"This is Me" from The Greatest Showman

Should Win:

"Mystery of Love" from Call Me by Your Name

Visual Effects

Will Win:

Blade Runner 2049

Should Win:

War for the Planet of the Apes

Costume Design

Will Win:

Phantom Thread

Should Win:

Phantom Thread

Original Score

Will Win:

The Shape of Water

Should Win:

Phantom Thread

Sound Editing 

Will Win:

Dunkirk

Sound Mixing

Will Win:

Dunkirk

Foreign Film

Will Win:

A Fantastic Woman

Animated Film

Will Win:

Coco

Documentary

Will Win:

Faces Places

Make-Up and Hairstyling

Will Win:

Darkest Hour

Enjoy the show! 

Top 10 favorite performances of the year

Last night, I posted my 2017 film awards. Call Me by Your Name and Lady Bird nearly swept across the board. Today I thought I'd post my ten favorite performances of the year. Usually I have an assortment from different movies, but this year those two films claim five of the ten spots.

1. Timothée Chalamet as Elio in Call Me by Your Name

2. Laurie Metcalf as Marion McPherson in Lady Bird

3. Saoirse Ronan as Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson in Lady Bird

4. Michael Stuhlbarg as Mr. Perlman in Call Me by Your Name

5. Hong Chau as Ngoc Lan Tran in Downsizing

6. Armie Hammer as Oliver in Call Me by Your Name

7. Jennifer Lawrence as Mother in mother!

8. Sebastian Stan as Jeff Gillooly in I, Tonya

9. Daniel Day-Lewis as Reynolds Woodcock in Phantom Thread

10. Tiffany Haddish as Dina in Girls Trip

My 2017 Film Awards

2017 seemed to be a pretty good year in film, or else I had a better sense of avoiding the turds than I normally do. The top films of the year were hard to decide upon, where as in past years like 2014 it was hard to come up with a valid field for some categories. 

Here are my nominees for the best of film in 2017. The winners are in bold. 

Best Picture

Blade Runner 2049

Call Me by Your Name

Get Out

Lady Bird

mother!

Phantom Thread

Best Actress

Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water

Salma Hayek, Beatriz at Dinner

Jennifer Lawrence, mother!

Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Margot Robbie, I, Tonya

Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird

Best Actor

Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name

Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread

Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out

Ross Lynch, My Friend Dahmer

Sebastian Stan, I, Tonya

Ben Stiller, Brad's Status

Best Supporting Actress

Hong Chau, Downsizing,

Bridget Everett, Patti Cake$

Tiffany Haddish, Girls Trip

Catherine Keener, Get Out

Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread

Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird

Best Supporting Actor

Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project

Armie Hammer, Call Me by Your Name

Lucas Hedges, Lady Bird

Garrett Hedlund, Mudbound

Algee Smith, Detroit

Michael Stuhlbarg, Call Me by Your Name

Best Director

Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread

Darren Aronofsky, mother!

Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird

Luca Guadagnino, Call Me by Your Name

Jordan Peele, Get Out

Denis Villenueve, Blade Runner 2049

Best Original Screenplay

The Big Sick

Get Out

Lady Bird

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

Phantom Thread

The Post

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Beguiled

Call Me by Your Name

The Disaster Artist

Mudbound

My Friend Dahmer

Wonderstruck

Cinematography

Blade Runner 2049

Call Me by Your Name

The Florida Project

Mudbound

Phantom Thread

Wonder Wheel

Best Score

Blade Runner 2049

Call Me by Your Name

Get Out

A Ghost Story

Phantom Thread

The Shape of Water

Film Editing

Baby Driver

Blade Runner 2049

Call Me by Your Name

Dunkirk

I, Tonya

The Shape of Water

Production Design

Blade Runner 2049

Call Me by Your Name

Dunkirk

Lady Bird

mother!

Phantom Thread

Original Song

"Mystery of Love" by Sufjan Stevens, Call Me by Your Name

"Tuff Love (Finale)" performed by Bridget Everett, Patti Cake$

"Visions of Gideon" by Sufjan Stevens, Call Me by Your Name

Films with most nominations:

Call Me by Your Name -12

Phantom Thread - 8

Lady Bird - 7

Blade Runner 2049 - 6

Get Out - 6

mother! - 4

Top 10 Films of the Year:

1. Call Me by Your Name

2. Lady Bird

3. mother!

4. Phantom Thread

5. Blade Runner 2049

6. Get Out

7. Brad's Status

8. Detroit

9. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

10. The Florida Project

           

Oscar Nomination Reactions

Things I loved about this morning's Oscar nominations:

In one year, three of my favorite actresses (Allison Janney, Laurie Metcalf and Greta Gerwig) all became Academy Award nominees. Greta of course is not nominated for her acting, but for her beautiful screenplay and direction for Lady Bird.

Timmy Chalamet may have given my favorite film performance of all-time and is now an Oscar nominee.

Sufjan Steven's great "Mystery of Love" was nominated for Original Song.

Saoirse Ronan returns to Oscar glory.

I personally preferred Woody Harrelson to Sam Rockwell in Three Billboards, so I'm happy for Woody who is one of our greatest actors.

The Director and Screenplay categories are about as good as they could get. Loved PTA sneaking in.

Blade Runner in all the tech categories.

Things I did not like:

Hong Chau, Armie Hammer, Holly Hunter and Michael Stuhlbarg getting snubbed in the Supporting categories.

Otherwise I really don't have that much to complain about...WHAT A SHOCK.

Last Five Best Actress Winners

It's interesting the overlap between my Best Actress winners and my Best Picture winners. Four of my last five Best Actress winners come from my choice for the #1 film of the year. The only outlier is Amy Adams in Arrival, which was a Top 3 film for me last year. I'd say all of these performances helped make the film my top of the year. 

Adèle Exarchopoulos leaves everything on the celluloid including all of the mucus in her nose. Her performance is a complete canvas for the film to use. Her performance is so raw and complex, it's an all-time great performance. Saoirse Ronan can say so much with just her face and it's simply remarkable what she does in Brooklyn. Jessica Chastain's performance in Zero Dark Thirty represents America at every turn in a post-9/11 world. When Maya can finally sit at the end after completing the job, Chastain delivers one of the best final scenes of the decade. Under that tough, cold, no-nonsense outside is the soul of Zero Dark Thirty. Arrival didn't work for me on first watch. Amy Adams did of course, but it wasn't until a re-watch where the film really clicked for me and Adams performance rose above the rest. A brilliantly subtle turn that improves on each watch. Finally there is Anne Dorval in Xavier Dolan's Mommy. Dorval is able to match the chaotic energy of the film beat for beat, we see how exhausted she is, but see the love she has for her son. 

Last Five Best Actress Winners:

2016: Amy Adams as Louise Banks in Arrival

2015: Saoirse Ronan as Eilis in Brooklyn

2014: Anne Dorval as Diane in Mommy

2013: Adèle Exarchopoulos as Adèle in Blue is the Warmest Color

2012: Jessica Chastain as Maya in Zero Dark Thirty