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

Thursday, February 25, 2016

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



Some people try SO HARD to get their Oscar picks just right; Cinema Romantico just picks whatever the hell it wants.

Totally Unreasonable, Completely Legitimate Oscar Predictions 

Best Picture: Mad Max: Fury Road. They say people don't believe in Best Pictures anymore. Well damn them! You and me, Max, we're gonna give them back their Best Pictures!

Best Actor: TBD. If Kate wins Best Supporting Actress then I want Leo to win for "The Revenant" so all the post-telecast acting winners photos will include Kate & Leo. If Kate does not win Best Supporting Actress then I want Matt Damon to win for "The Martian." And I realize none of these designations mean anything since Leo is going to win

Best Actress: Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn. Because I said I was Team Saoirse from the get-go and I'm not backing down to the Brie Brigade now.

Best Supporting Actor: Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight. Stallone's a lock, yada yada, whatever, where you stand when your favorites have no chance is the ultimate demarcation of Oscar-style loyalty. And I'm not moving an inch, thank you.

Best Supporting Actress: Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs. Just let yourself imagine the most magical phrase in all Hollywoodland... "Two-time Academy Award winner Kate Winslet." {Faints.}

This film is not nominated.
Best Director: Adam McKay. But not for "The Big Short." No, this is his makeup Oscar for "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby", a seminal sports movie parody that embraces what it's parodying with all its heart while adroitly commentating on modern American values along the way.

Best Original Screenplay: I'm sitting this category out in protest of Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach not being nominated for "Mistress America." #principles

Best Adapted Screenplay: Drew Goddard, The Martian. Because I love how he sculpted a screenplay by finding drama without resorting to traditional stakes of Will He? or Won't He? and focused instead on How Will He? That's craft.

Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins, Sicario.

Best Film Editing: Margaret Sixel, Mad Max: Fury Road. Because maintaining coherence when your movie achieves the speed of sound is a fairly substantial accomplishment.

Best Foreign Language Film: Mustang. Along with Kate the Great and Deakins the Magnificent and Greta & Noah, this is my biggest rooting interest of the night.

Best Animated Film: Inside Out. Because Bing Bong.

Best Production Design: Lisa Thompson, Colin Gibson, Mad Max: Fury Road. Because the vehicles of "Mad Max" are paramount and Gibson described the vehicles to Deadline as "three-fifths of fuck-all posing as a Swiss Army Knife" which is the kind of punk rock constitution I want in my production design.


Best Costume Design: Sandy Powell, Carol. I mean, I can't pick against Rooney Mara's beret. And yet I'm really picking the impeccable Ms. Powell because it was Ms. Powell who upon winning this award for "The Young Victoria" in 2009 dedicated it "to the costume designers that don't do movies about dead monarchs or glittery musicals. The designers that do the contemporary films and the low-budget ones actually don’t get as recognized as they should, and they work as hard." {Slow Clap.} Which is why the Best Costume Design Oscar of my heart goes to Wendy Chuck for "Spotlight" who naturally was not nominated.

Best Feature Documentary: Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom won my heart.

Best Short Documentary: My girlfriend's dad, a considerable Oscar enthusiast, has been much more on top of it with the nominated shorts than me this year, and he liked A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness. So that's the one I'll pick.

Best Live Action Short: Shok. I try to ensure that I see the best live action shorts each year, but in 2015 that did not pan out, and I regret it. In any event, "Shok" is the first Oscar nominee from Kosovo and that alone would be reason to celebrate a victory.

Best Animated Short: World of Tomorrow. This one I've actually seen, and while it might be wrong to simply all-others-sight-unseen, so be it, because it's really, really good, imagining a spiritually empty future we seem very much to be tilting toward and trying to warn us about it only to realize we are nothing more really than chattering children to focused on our own random inner thoughts to pay much attention.


Best Makeup/Hairstyling: Damian Martin, Lesley Vanderwalt, and Elka Wardega, Mad Max: Fury Road. There were few details of any kind in any movie as distinct as Furiosa's oil grease as war paint.

Best Sound Mixing: Jon Taylor, Frank A. MontaƱo, Randy Thom, and Chris Duesterdiek, The Revenant. While I have issues with "The Revenant", the naturalism it so clearly wanted so desperately to convey does come through in the way that the musical score never counteracts or outdoes Earth's own sounds.

Best Sound Editing: Alan Robert Murray, Sicario. The menace of confusion that Emily Blunt's Kate Macer feels throughout is perfectly underscored by the constant low rumbles that appear in the lead-up to the film's myriad dramatic confrontations.

Best Original Score: Carter Burwell, Carol. The Coen Brothers' longtime cohort has never earned an Oscar and he's overdue, yes, but he's also deserving for his impeccable work for Todd Haynes and the way he allows the repressed feelings so central to this fine film to......rise.

Best Original Song: Til It Happens To You - The Hunting Ground. Like I would ever pick against Lady Gaga. This blog rides with Her Gaganess until the day it dies.

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