The 95th Academy Awards are this Sunday. I will spare you in predicting all of the categories, my focus is on the top six.
What I will say about this year’s races is that they have been very entertaining to follow: Riseborough, Yeoh vs Blanchett, Butler vs Fraser, the surprise of EEAAO, “The Fabelmans” downfall, Bassett’s MCU performance, and plenty more.
At the end of the day, it’s fun to follow awards season, even with the prestige of winning an Oscar having dwindled in recent years. Will they ever gain back their relevance? I don’t know. But what’s clear to me is that it does still mean something to win an Oscar. What, exactly? I’m not entirely sure.
Best Picture: “Everything Everywhere All At Once
It has to be “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” right? Only Pete Hammond is predicting BAFTA winner “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Every other pundit is aligned with EEAAO. The problem in betting on an upset in the Best Picture category is that no other film has really stood out this awards season. EEAAO basically swept them all. It would be a major upset, one of the big ones in recent memory, if A24’s buttplug multiverse movie doesn’t win.
Best Director: Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans)
I’m going out on a limb here. The punditry consensus is that The Daniels (EEAAO) will prevail in this category, but I’ve had this hunch for weeks now that Spielberg will sneak out a third Directing win come Sunday night. The Daniels won the DGA, which is composed of more than 7000 voters, whereas the Academy’s Directors branch is just 700 or so voters. EEAAO won the popularity contest, but Spielberg might win the Academy consensus. It would of course not be that shocking to see the EEAAO duo prevail in the end.
Best Actor: Austin Butler (“Elvis”)
This is a very close race between Austin Butler and Brendan Fraser. The latter won the SAG, which made this category all the more difficult to predict. I’m still sticking with Butler, a star-in-the-making who gave the showier and better performance. Fraser has the narrative going for him, but Butler has quality of work behind his odds. Of course, the best of the five nominees is Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin) but his is a more subtle and nuanced performance, not typical Oscar-bait, ditto his movie.
Best Actress: Cate Blanchett (TAR)
The most fascinating of all categories this year. Michelle Yeoh (EEAAO) won the SAG, but again, Blanchett gave the better performance. If she is truly one of the greatest actresses of our time and she delivered one of the 2 or 3 best performances of her entire career, then how in the living hell is she not the bonafide frontrunner? I’ll leave it up to you to answer that. Yeoh could become the first Asian to ever win a Lead acting Oscar and, for many, that’s more than enough. Andrea Riseborough is the dark horse here. I bet a good chunk of the 70 or so actors and actresses who vouched for her nomination on social media will be voting for her #1 on their ballot.
Best Supporting Actor: Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
On paper, this is a fairly easy category to predict. A voting split will occur for ‘Banshees’ actors Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan. That leaves us with Short Round aka Ke Huy Quan winning the male Supporting trophy on Sunday night. People have fallen hard for him and his impressive career comeback this awards season, even voters who didn’t like EEAAO will likely vote for him here. I’d love to see Judd Hirsch win it for his 8-minute cameo in “The Fabelmans,” and maybe he has a shot, there are plenty of older voters who will go for him.
Best Supporting Actress: Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Another competitive category. Angela Bassett (Wakanda Forever) was the presumed frontrunner until Curtis won the SAG. Add in the rumors that there are Academy voters refusing to watch ‘Wakanda’ because it’s a Marvel movie and you have an alignment positively headed in Curtis’ direction. Maybe Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin) can steal it away from both of them, but again, to love her performance you must probably love her movie and I don’t know if Banshees’ pessimistic view of human nature will win over enough voters.
According to Tariq, Marvel is upfront about it. They tell you, politely, that what you're making is "a Marvel film directed by a person .. They crop your shots. They change things.”