Time for my annual Oscars predictions. It's pretty tough this year - there are so many different films nominated in all the different categories and many did not get released in Australia until the last few weeks. I've driven my partner pretty crazy trying to cram in Oscar nominated films in the last few weeks but even then we haven't been able to see them all. So some of these are just guesses based on what the consensus view seems to be.
Best Picture
Nominees: The Big Short, Room, Brooklyn, The Revenant, Spotlight, Bridge of Spies, The Martian.
I've seen all of these except Bridge of Spies. All are very good and my personal favourite is the Martian, but that's too commercial (and released too long ago) to win. For me this is between The Revenant and Spotlight. The Revenant has so much momentum but I am going out on a limb (it's scary out here) and picking Spotlight to win as it is the more traditional type of film that Oscar loves.
Best Actor
Nominees: Leonardo diCaprio, Bryan Cranston, Eddie Redmayne, Matt Damon, Michael Fassbender.
What a difficult category to really and truly compare. How do you even begin to compare Leo's raw, brutal and almost wordless struggle for survival and revenge to the delicate, emotional and brave portrayal of one of the world's first transgender people by last year's winner Eddie Redmayne? Matt Damon's survival story in the Martian is even different than Leo's. Fassbender has to make a popular figure real and flawed while still underlining the genius.
I haven't seen most of these performances due to late release dates on 3 of the films. However there is no denying the roll that Leo is on and I'd be a fool not to pick him. A shame for Eddie, whose performance is likely to be even better than the one he won for last year, but won't win.
Best Actress
Nominees: Brie Larson, Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett, Charlotte Rampling, Jennifer Lawrence
Brie Larson is as strong a favourite here as Julianne Moore was last year, but that's because her performance is just so amazing. She has been wowing us in small and under the radar things for a few years now, but this raw and touching portrayal of a young mother is excellent deserves to win. I haven't seen the others except for Saoirse who is fantastic in Brooklyn, but Brie is the clear favourite and I'm backing her.
Best Supporting Actor
Nominees: Tom Hardy, Mark Ruffalo, Mark Rylance, Sylvester Stallone, Christian Bale
Probably the year when the supporting actor category has been fairly week on standout performances. I watched Creed the other day to see why Sylvester Stallone won the Golden Globe and is the favourite and I don't really see what the fuss is about. I think it's just the fact that we love this character of Rocky Balboa and it gets more poignant the older and frailer he gets. Someone described it as "moving and funny" but I did not see anything funny about it so it seems to be getting blown out of proportion with distance (it is not the freshest release in the roster). Mark Ruffalo was pretty good in Spotlight but both he and Christian Bale struggle to really stand out in a large ensemble cast with no particular character focus. Tom Hardy is great if a little mumbly in The Revenant and I'm surprised he isn't a bigger favourite given the momentum of that film right now. By all reports, Rylance probably would have had this if not for Sylvester. I'm going for Stallone as the sentimental winner but it's not my favourite performance.
Best Supporting Actress
Nominees: Alicia Vikander, Rooney Mara, Rachel McAdams, Jennifer Jason-Leigh, Kate Winslet
I've only seen 2 out of the 5 performances here and they are the ones least likely to win. Rachel and Jennifer also struggle to really stand out in a strong ensemble cast performance. That leaves Kate, Rooney and Alicia. The only thing I can do here is go with the consensus and guess Alica to win for the Danish Girl.
Best Director
Nominees: Tom McCarthy, Adam McKay, Alejandro Inarritu, Lenny Abrahamson, George Miller
I so want George Miller to win this for the gobsmacking action thrills and long road to completion of his vision for Mad Max: Fury Road. Plus also there should be a bit of the "it's time" feeling for him going on. But I fear it is going to be Alejandro Inarritu taking home the statue for The Revenant, for the second year in a row after Birdman last year. But on second thought, Inarritu's vision for The Revenant was pretty uncompromising and risky and also deserves to be rewarded. It looked a bit crazy at first and couldn't be more different than Birdman, but once you saw it, it totally worked. This is a really strong field of contenders and in another year, any of these could have won. Special mention to Abrahamson for his obviously great directing skills to draw such a naturalistic performance from a small boy in Room. Excited to see what he does next. But I'm naming Alejandro Inarritu as the winner here.
Best Cinematography: Has to be The Revenant for this one. Beautifully shot using only natural light, it's an amazing achievement.
Best Adapted Screenplay: Very hard to call. I would have said Room as the best here, but I think the cleverness of the way the complex financial terms were explained for the layman viewer in The Big Short has it as the runaway favourite. As a financial person, I thought the film was a bit clumsy and the tricks unnecessary but I am still going to guess it as the winner.
Best Original Screenplay: Another varied and difficult to call category. Spotlight is a cracking story but fairly traditional in structure. Straight Outta Compton had to cram a lot into the running time and just managed but could take the win due to the perceived lack of diversity in the awards overall. Inside Out would probably win for taking a complex idea and making it accessible, if not for being an animated film. Ex Machina was intriguing, thought provoking and unexpected but seems very low on champions. Bridge of Spies I haven't seen. I'm going with the sentimental favourite of Spotlight here.
Technical Awards: I'm going to guess that Mad Max will clean up the categories of Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Production Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Film Editing. Best Visual Effects will probably go to Star Wars: the Force Awakens. Best Costume Design is a tricky choice and I'm going to pick Cinderella for this category.
Let's hope that I do better in my predictions than I did last year. Let's also hope that Chris Rock can make it an entertaining and fun night without too much controversy. As for the 'diversity' issue, my belief is that the overall Hollywood system needs to have a look at itself rather than the Awards themselves. You can't choose non-White nominees and winners when there aren't any non-White people acting in major roles in well regarded, major drama motion pictures that tend to be Oscar bait. I'm sorry but Straight Outta Compton isn't as great as some people are making it out to be and it seems that Concussion (Will Smith's movie) isn't either although possibly his performance was good enough to get nominated (I haven't seen it but have heard good reports about him). A recent episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver had a very good 'skit' on why Hollywood whitewashing is the problem e.g. getting Caucasians to play Asian characters since the dawn of time. Selma, 12 Years a Slave and The Help are examples of recent films centring on black issues which were nominated for various Oscars and were worthy contenders, so I think pointing the finger at the Academy is not really illuminating the true issue. I'm not a fan of tokenism or quotas so I think that the entire Hollywood system needs to have a good hard look at itself and a very good start would be using actors who are the same race as the character they are playing. It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow.
