Alright babies. Here it is. Your guide to this year's Oscars. Just a spoiler right off the top: Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are announcing the best picture winner AGAIN which means La La Land is going to "win" for the second year in a row. But other than that the night is bound to be chock full of surprises. Buckle up, buttercups. Here are some selected predictions about what we'll see during HOLLYWOOD'S BIGGEST NIGHT.
Best Short Film Animated
Dear Basketball, Garden Party, Lou, Negative Space, Revolting Rhymes
Who will win: Let's just get this one out of the way because obviously it's a low level award but gives me high level agita. What's the most galling vanity project you've ever witnessed? I'll give you a second to think about it but you don't need a second actually because you're probably thinking John Travolta's love letter to Scientology, Battlefield Earth. Well ladies and gents obviously your Thetan levels need to get checked because the worst vanity project of all time is actually Kobe Bryant's ode to Kobe Bryant, Dear Basketball.
Kobe bought himself a film studio and spent between 18-20 seconds writing some self-fellating script about how Kobe is going to miss Kobe when Kobe is no longer playing ball the way only Kobe can Kobe. Love, Kobe. Not to be too hyperbolic but if Dear Basketball ends up winning on Sunday I will jump out the window in the hopes of dying myself and someone else will have to go downstairs to get the pizza.
Who should win: Garden Party. Not since a Budweiser commercial have I more longed to party with a bunch of frogs. Also not gonna give anything away but this was the only animated short that qualifies as a hard R.
Best Visual Effects
Blade Runner 2049, Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2, Kong: Skull Island, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, War for the Planet of the Apes
Who will win: War for the Planet of the Apes. Don't get me wrong. This series also fucks. But take it from me, this particular movie actually looked like shit. First of all, the seat-back screen kept moving every time the flight attendants came to serve or alternatively take away the meal. Second of all, this seems like one of those situations where they have to award someone simply because they neglected them in the past. Like giving Jennifer Lawrence an award for Silver Linings Playbook rather than Winter's Bone. The Academy is shaking in their boots because they forgot to give the award for "most dick hardening movie scene" to the last Planet of the Apes' fight scene atop a skyscraper. You know, the one where Koba and Caesar fucking have it out and my face was like this the whole time?
In sum: if they don't give this award to 2014's Dawn of the Planet of the Apes then I'm officially ready to say something I never thought I'd have to say: the Oscars have gone the way of the BAFTAs.
Who should win: Blade Runner 2049. I. WANTED. TO. FUCK. EVERYTHING. IN. THIS. MOVIE. I wanted to fuck Ryan Gosling (duh), I wanted to fuck Harrison Ford (double duh). I wanted to fuck various billboards, streetlights, garbage cans, you name it, I fuck it.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Darkest Hour, Victoria & Abdul, Wonder
Who will win: Darkest Hour. Yeah yeah yeah. Gary Oldman spent 200 hours in the makeup chair, a process which involved surgically grafting and removing a cigar from his mouth each and every day. Give it to them I guess. Meh.
Who should win: Wonder. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway again fucked up the simple task of reading and led every press agency to believe that this movie stared Julia Roberts and Jacob Trembley as a kid with some sort of congenital face mishegoss:
But surprise, bitches. That's actually Eric Stoltz reprising his role as Rocky Dennis from the 1985 classic, Mask. And to his left? That's fucking Cher doing same! You'd have to look at the film stills of Mask next to Wonder side-by-side to really appreciate how seamless this is. Like... which is which? I legit don't know.
Best Production Design
Beauty and the Beast, Blade Runner 2049, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, The Shape of Water
Who will win: Shape of Water. And no. FUCKING NO. NO NOT OK. DON'T MAKE ME WATCH THIS GET EVEN ONE AWARD BUT ESPECIALLY NOT THIS AWARD. Production Design is about the creation of a corporeal, atmospheric world that sucks you into the special universe of a movie. For two hours you sit in a darkened theater and you get to forget about the Trump presidency or the Dawn of the Planet of the Apes snub. But SHAPE OF WATER CREATED A PRODUCTION THAT DOESN'T FULLY UNDERSTAND THE SHAPE OF WATER. Literally. Water doesn't do what I'm told it's supposed to do in this movie.
As a test, go into your bathroom. Close the door (put down no towels--- just close it). Turn on your faucet. And wait approximately like 15 minutes. Are you suddenly at your local YMCA enjoying a dip in the pool? Are you fucking a hard-bodied fish at the Y right now?!?! No. Your floor is wet and water is slowly dribbling out into your hallway forever. SHAPE OF WATER'S PRODUCTION DESIGN EXPECTS US TO BELIEVE THAT YOU CAN TURN YOUR BATHROOM INTO A FUCKING MIKVAH by closing the door and counting to ten. This premise is as absurd as the movie being greenlit in the first place.
Who should win: I know I said above that I wanted to fuck every nook and cranny of Bladerunner but let's talk Dunkirk for a second. Christopher Nolan amassed the largest army of producers' nephews ever assembled to singlehandedly build a beach from scratch on the Warner Brother's lot. For close to two years, every Carson, Brayson, and Hunter in town carried grain after grain of sand from the beach to Burbank. The labor was basically non-stop except for SAG-AFTRA-mandated breaks every 20 minutes. It really is such a feat and so while I love the idea of fucking Ryan Gosling, I have to give this one to Dunkirk.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Call Me by Your Name, The Disaster Artist, Logan, Molly’s Game, Mudbound
Who will win: Call Me By Your Name. Solid choice although-- don't kill me, dear reader --I have some issues about the pretentiousness of the dialogue in this movie. Like that scene where Elio is playing the piano:
ELIO plays the piece on the piano. OLIVER leans on the door looking in. The music sounds very different from when he played it on his guitar.
OLIVER You changed it. What did you do to it? Is it Bach?
ELIO I just played it the way noted Frankish composer Notker Balbulus would have played it if he’d interpreted it in the 8th rather than the 9th century and had he been located in the Lower Rhine rather than the Middle Rhine.
ELIO begins playing the piece again. OLIVER listens, then speaks:
OLIVER (CONT’D) I can’t believe you changed it again.
ELIO Not by much. That's how Demetrius I of Georgia would have played it had he not ceded Armenia to a Seljuk ruler under terms of vassalage.
OLIVER Can’t you just play the Bach the way Bach wrote it?
ELIO Okay, okay. No need to get so worked up.
[End Scene]
Like... I consider myself to be educated but I found this kinda difficult to wade through. And tonally it's kinda different from all the peach fucking in the movie.
Who should win: Duh. Aaron Sorkin the Viceroy of Verite. Tell me you haven't had this exact conversation with your dad:
also SUPER LOL at the idea that Sorkin felt the need to watermark his script as if anyone would try to pass off this shit as their own. Not even a producer's nephew would touch this one. Don't worry Sorkin. You're the only one who thinks your writing passes the Turing Test.
Best Supporting Actor
Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project, Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water, Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World, Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Who will win/who should win: Look I love Sam Rockwell but this hammy ass performance is not his best work by a longshot. Like, he should have won for Moon but the Academy is prejudiced against space travelers which is why E.T. famously lost best picture to Gandhi. But hands down the winner here is Willem Dafoe who elevated the already brilliant Florida Project to stratospheric heights. But this year is all about celebrating mediocrity. See: Dear Basketball.
Best Supporting Actress
Mary J. Blige, Mudbound, Allison Janney, I, Tonya, Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread, Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird, Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water
Who will win: Allison Janney for her advanced Bird Kraft:
Word on the street is that bird turned in the most wooden performance since the literal doll playing a baby in American Sniper:
Who should win: Laurie. Fucking. I've. Been. In. The. Business. Since. 1978. You. Ungrateful. Little. Shits. Metcalfe. She has the range. What more does she have to do for you people?! She's given too much to this country. And we just take and take and take.
Best Director
Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk, Jordan Peele, Get Out, Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird, Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread, Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water
Who will win: Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water. I don't even wanna talk about it. I just... what have we become...
Who should win: Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread. Can you imagine directing Daniel Day Lewis in what he is widely advertising is his last acting role? Can you imagine wading around the sheer ego on a set, day-in-and-day out, of a man who feels so self-assured that he is the best actor of his generation and who is presenting his final work? A man who represents the most unstable archetype of any type of film actor: British + Method. Actually give this award to the Assistant Director. Can you imagine directing the dick-waving contest that is Paul Thomas Anderson directing Daniel Day Lewis? Yeah give it to the AD.
Best Actor
Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name, Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread, Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out, Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour, Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.
Who will win: Gary Oldman because he's the ol' workhorse who hasn't gotten his yet. See: Sandra Bullock; The Blind Side.
Who should win: We're all rooting for Chalamet, right? Like 7 billion people minus Daniel Day-Lewis would be into that, yeah?
Best Actress
Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water, Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Margot Robbie, I, Tonya, Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird, Meryl Streep, The Post
Who will win/ should win: I obviously love Frances McDormand but she already has an Oscar for Fargo. I'm just gonna put this one out there: Saoirse Ronan should win. Like she should have won for Atonement when she was 13. She is a tremendous actress. She is 23 and she has been nominated for 93 awards. That's true. I'm not making that number up. What a go-getter. What have you tried to do today besides flood your bathroom?
Best Picture
Call Me by Your Name, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Who will win: The Shape of Water. I liked not a single thing about this movie. It even made me not like Michael Shannon for a brief moment. It was gross and I'm not even talking the fish fucking. I'm talking like... people smelling fingers. Ick. I don't need to see that in a movie. And also... the fish man shows no mastery over sign language so where's the love story? And why were there no characters or motivations? Why was this nothing? Why was this so much like looking at a glass of water? I guess... I guess I was wrong all along. I guess the movie does capture the shape of water.
Who should win: Among these choices of course Get Out. It was a cultural moment. It was a marvel in concise, tonally balanced storytelling.
But the best movie of the year was Florida Project. And it wasn't even nominated. And these Oscars are a farce. And Dear Basketball sucked so much ass. And I can't even talk about Three Billboards. And there's no special In Memorium for Koba and Caesar. What a joke.
THE 90TH ANNUAL OSCARS!!
AT MY HOUSE.
7:00PM PRE-SHOW. 8:00PM START TIME.
PIZZA
BEER
MAYBE A DOG-- I'M WORKING SOMETHING OUT NO PROMISES