' ' Cinema Romantico: Countdown to the Oscars: Totally Unreasonable, Completely Legitimate Oscar Predictions

Saturday, February 08, 2020

Countdown to the Oscars: Totally Unreasonable, Completely Legitimate Oscar Predictions


Best Picture: Little Women. Doesn’t look my dream of Greta Gerwig’s Best Director snub leading her film to Best Picture glory will come true. Instead it appears likely that Gerwig’s observation of stories about male on male violence always taking precedence will be borne out, once again. Still, we use this pick to remind readers that Cinema Romantico’s Oscar predictions have no interest in getting anything right. To paraphrase the Bodhisattva of “Point Break”, it’s not tragic to lose your Oscar pool picking what you love.

Best Director: Martin Scorsese, The Irishman. C’mon, artsy-fartsy allies, you want him to win and tell Marvel to stuff it too. Think of all the content it would produce!

Best Actor: Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory. A guy who now, before the Oscars, says he is “very satisfied, very fulfilled. I’m not in a hurry to demonstrate anything” is just the sort of guy who, like the guy who doesn’t want to become King becoming King, should win the Oscar.

Best Actress: Saoirse Ronan, Little Woman. I understand that Saoirse’s “time” will come, or so they tell me, but what if it doesn’t? (See: Antonio Banderas above.) So let’s just save ourselves heartache later and take care of this now.

Best Supporting Actor: Brad Pitt, Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood. Picking Pitt immediately dooms my longstanding dream of going 0 for 24 in Oscar picks. But that dream only deserves to come true if I’m being honest and not predicting Pitt would mean I was failing to be honest. I want him to win, so much.

Best Supporting Actress: Laura Dern, Marriage Story. See above. I mean, I know we always want surprises at the Oscars but, honestly, the two things I most want at the 2020 Oscars. Well, make that the third and fourth things I most want at the 2020 Oscars. Because...

Preemptively ordained as Oscar Night's preeminent power couple.
Best Original Screenplay: Noah Baumbach, Marriage Story. I was planning on wearing a blazer with a pajama top in honor of what might well be Bambauch’s first Oscar win...

Best Adapted Screenplay: Greta Gerwig, Little Women. ...until I realized I need to wear a blazer to honor Baumbach and the Greta Gerwig t-shirt my in-laws got me for Christmas to honor, well, obviously.

Best International Feature: Pain and Glory. In hopes of sending a little more juju toward “Parasite” for Best Picture. Plus, I just really liked “Pain and Glory.”

Best Feature Documentary: The Edge of Democracy. Because at this moment in time we need Petra Costa to get up there and say some shit.

Best Short Documentary: Walk, Run, Cha-Cha. Because it gives me hope that age will be no impediment to a cutting a rug.

Duke Caboom should be recognized.
Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 4. 2019 was The Year of Keanu and this is the only way we have to officially recognize it.

Best Editing: The Irishman. Just to give everyone who think it’s too long an aneurysm.

Best Costume Design: Little Women. For Jo’s writing jacket alone.

Best Production Design: Parasite. Not to discount its myriad other elements, but in so many ways that house is “Parasite”.

Best Visual Effects: The Irishman. Technically speaking, the de-aging effects, making Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci look so much younger, did not always work. And yet, in helping to achieve the film’s loftier aims about recounting the passage of time, it did, and that’s enough for me.

Best Makeup & Hairstyling: Bombshell. Not for Theron as Kelly or Lithgow as Ailes but for subtly making Connie Britton look like a megachurch pastor’s wife.


Best Cinematography: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood. That scene with the neon signs!

Best Sound Editing & Best Sound Mixing: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood. Sound played as big a role here as it did in “Uncut Gems” and since “Uncut Gems” isn’t nominated.....

Best Live Action Short & Animated Short: A Sister for Live Action and Kitbull for Animated. I drew the names out of a hat. If it’s good enough for the Iowa Caucus and the future of democracy, it’s good enough for us.

Best Original Score: I’m sitting this category out in protest of Fatima Al Qadiri not being nominated for “Atlantics.” That non-nomination was absolute insanity.

Best Original Song: Sitting this category out in protest, too, on account of Mary Steenburgen not being nominated for “Glasgow (No Place Like Home)” for “Wild Rose” which she co-wrote with Caitlyn Smith and Kate York (who I once saw live, opening for Kathleen Edwards, for whom York said she was the perfect opener because – and I think I’m remembering these adjectives right – Edwards was always pissed off and she, York, was always depressed). I mean, you’re gonna do Mary Steenburgen like that, Academy, you’re gonna do Queen freaking Steen like that? A plague on all your branches.

2 comments:

Will Hansen said...

Thank you for the Carlos Jacott shout-out!

Nick Prigge said...

One day we're gonna get Carlos Jacott that lifetime achievement Oscar...