Oscar 2018

I said last year that I'll write at most one entry on the topic of Oscar 2018 and I'll keep my word. More, I'll try to just limit myself to some predictions. If these work out = if we won't get again some major surprise awards based on political/social criteria that have nothing in common with the cinema/art factor, maybe I'll resume next year the extended coverage of the event I was typically doing... maybe... But, let's get to the point.

For VFX the Oscar should go to "War of the Planet of the Apes". It's the third time in three movies when we have a nomination for this series and if it still loses I guess this category will also completely lose any credibility it still might have. "The breakthrough" to say it so was made by the first movie in the series, which brought something consistently new in the area of CGI depicting an animal in a movie. Even if the sequels didn't have something as revolutionary on the technical side as the first, the VFX complexity is still on top of the competition, first of all considering the nature of the movie. Unfortunately though, this award was way too much assimilated with the one for cinematography in the recent years, and it's not the same thing (it also happens the other way around...), but hopefully not this year too...

The sound categories of this year - editing and mixing - came with something that didn't happen for quite some time - the nominees list is identical. "Traditionally" four of them were the same and there was one difference. Normally, for editing the award should go to "Dunkirk", but I say that we might get a surprise winner here with "Blade Runner 2049". Again, normally the mixing award should go to "Baby Driver", where the final track mix is absolutely brilliant - and that's the stuff that should matter the most here, but the Oscar will most probably be awarded to "Dunkirk".

On production design = art direction & set decoration, we have a pretty tight competition, but I'd choose "Blade Runner 2049" as winner. For me this part is the strongest technically in the whole movie, considering the feeling it brings = transposing you in the created world, it's at least on par with the rest, and the advantage comes from the variation it brings. And from all this variation, if we just look at the Vegas part is already enough.

It's been long since there was such a tight competition on the score/soundtrack as this year. Even though the favorite movies seem to be others I say there are good chances for a surprise win for Jonny Greenwood and the music from "Phantom Thread". This is also judging based on the way the "ear" of the Academy works, which typically is sort of conservatory on this category. As personal taste I prefer the score of Carter Burwell from "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri", but it's far less likely to have a win here.

If we stopped at "Phantom Thread" let's just stay a bit longer with a certain prediction in this year awards: costume design. Not that I'm an expert on this, but given the topic of the movie I hardly see how it could lose here.

"The Shape of Water" will most probably bring a first Oscar for directing to Guillermo del Toro, which is a bit unfair considering that "Pan's Labyrinth" still remains his best movie. More unfair is that "Dunkirk" will not bring to Nolan a first Oscar for directing, given that, and I'll repeat once more, this man managed to put together and excellently composed piece of cinema from a subject that's hardly fit for a movie.

Generally I avoid talking much about the actor's performances, and this year the awards are anyway pretty predictable here. I'd still have comment on the leading actor where Gary Oldman is considered the certain winner for his Churchill take on "The Darkest Hour". As I wrote in the movie review, despite the character that was built where I can't objectively comment being extremely well studied/acted by the level of gesture, speaking habits, etc. and where the makeup had its share of contribution, I'd still would've found more natural the choice of some other actor who should've been naturally closer to the wanted result. Based on this criteria I would give the Oscar to Daniel Day Lewis, who in "Phantom Thread" has probably his best performance in a movie after the one in "There Will Be Blood". The irony is that he got it for "Lincoln", where he wasn't far from the position where Gary Oldman is this year, so...

I guess I covered enough categories to stop this year's "overview" with obviously, Best Picture. We have two favorites here: "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri" and "Shape of Water", which I say deserve their position in the current selection of nine nominees. As long as we don't have any surprise as in the last years where the title of best movie of the year reaches a production that's somewhere behind half of the rest even on some critics list (the few ones that are still not judging on political criteria), we'll have a step forward. I have blog entries for both movies above so, I'd like to end the Oscar 2018 chapter without more details. I'll just stick to my previous evaluation of the movies = although close, my final vote & prediction goes to "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri".