Much like last year, I’ll be live blogging the Oscars on Sunday evening. Hopefully, unlike last year, none of my commentary goes viral on X/Twitter — if you remember, I wrote that EEAAO superfan (and Academy President) Janet Yang had all the glory and charisma of a cold fish. That didn’t sit well with some.
Regardless, I’m predicting not many surprises in the main categories. “Oppenheimer” will win Best Picture. Nolan will get his first directing Oscar. Da’Vine Joy Randolph (“The Holdovers”) and Robert Downey Jr. (“Oppenheimer”) are bound to nab the supporting acting categories.
It’s also looking as though Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer”), despite a late push from Paul Giamatti (“The Holdovers”), will prevail and win Best Actor. At least that race is tighter than the other ones I just mentioned. It’d be great to see Giamatti win, but I suspect he won’t.
Best Animated Feature is, at very least, one of the more interesting categories. Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” will be battling it out for the Oscar. I loved both films, but how can you not root for Miyazaki? Does anyone know if Miyazaki will attend the ceremony? I haven’t heard anything. In 2003, he wasn’t there when “Spirited Away” won animated.
With all that said, the one category most folks will be eyeing is Best Actress, which seems to be between Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”) and Emma Stone (“Poor Things”). Who will prevail? I’m leaning towards Stone, and only because Gladstone got BAFTA snubbed. Otherwise, the ‘Killers’ actress winning the SAG award made some question Stone’s frontrunner status.
Can Gladstone win the Oscar despite not being nominated by BAFTA and her role being a supporting turn? She appears in less than 1/3 of ‘Killers’ runtime (56 minutes), whereas Stone is practically in every scene of “Poor Things.” If Gladstone had been campaigned in the Supporting category then she’d already have that Oscar in the bag.
What might be detrimental to Stone’s chances is that she’s already won a statuette, and Gladstone has the fresh-faced rookie narrative. Regardless, this one is going down to the wire.
The 96th Oscars will be airing live on ABC and broadcast outlets worldwide on Sunday, March 10, 2024, at the new time of 7 p.m. EDT/4 p.m. PDT. This means we’ll be able to go to bed before midnight. Rejoice!
The ‘Smile’ franchise has a new director. David Bruckner, who made “The Night House” and the 2022 “Hellraiser” reboot, has been hired to direct “Smile 3” for Paramount.