I’m always astonished by the amount of hate Innaritu gets in these forums. The man has a knack for getting great performances out of his actors and he clearly has a talented eye. Not sure what standards we are judging directors by, but it seems like people here just don’t love his movies as much as most and are making that the basis for their rat…[Read more]

It: Chapter 2 directed by Mike Flanagan

Cool to see all The Gentlemen notices. I know competition isn’t all that stiff (at all), but I enjoyed that movie a lot more than I thought I would. Suprinsingly a lot of fun.

I don’t follow. Will you explain this?

I’m so damn bored of these biopics about someone from the past’s “incredible true story”. This goes tenfold if the film is about a musician.

I want them to give us something original rather than rehashes of the same story set to music and nostalgia.

Love Fincher but Mank is a horrible title for a film. Hoping that changes as it gets closer.

What are your initial impressions of The French Dispatch? Do we have another Grand Budapest type contender or will this go the way of his other films?

Parasite by miles. This might be a hot take, but I think the problem with Roma is it’s foreign cinema made for the appreciation of white people. This is anecdotal, but my family is made up of immigrants and they couldn’t make it 5 minutes into Roma. I enjoyed Roma but I admit I would never recommend it to a casual movie lover. Parasite breaks dow…[Read more]

It would also help if the show was better. Results aside, it was a miserable watch. There were way too musical performances and most of them were terrible (save for Erivo and Eminem I guess). It ends up making the show overlong and this year it felt directionless too. Not a good combo.

I actually think people enjoy seeing the montages which…[Read more]

The closest race is Supporting Actress where Johansson (Jojo Rabbit) is probably second.

Having now seen the Live Action Shorts, I think its clear that Brotherhood’s odds are WAY overstated for being listed alphabetically. There is LITERALLY NO WAY that wins. It lacks an engaging title (which we know helps) and content wise it’s very slow and emotionally way less impactful than its competition.

Neighbours Window felt like the con…[Read more]

Production Design is an insanely difficult category to predict this year. I keep flip flopping. The people who think it’s locked and done for OUATIH are relying too much on the stats. I think it’s much closer than people think between the top 3 (hell, even top 4) contenders.

I’m actually seeing them this year which is exciting. The last few years, and I’ve had success with this, I just pick the ones which have the names which stick out to me/seem like they’d be important. For me, this year that’s:

Nefta Football Club
Saria
Hair Love
Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone
St. Louis Superman

I agree that this category is more difficult than it seems. The category also links up with costume design quite often which makes me lean towards OUATIH which has the most ground in both plus better precursor support. I’m hoping the 1917 in BAFTA production design is just a British thing, because I will feel bad for switching off 1917 after t…[Read more]

Traditionally the war film has a better shot at Mixing, but in this case I actually think if there was a split it would be 1917 in Editing and Ford in Mixing. That said I don’t trust that people can tell the difference enough and rather than predict the split and risk having it go the other way and you end up missing both I think it’s better to…[Read more]

I think VFX is one of the hardest categories this year. 1917 just doesn’t feel like a winner and the Irishman has its critics. At the same time, it’s unwise to bet against BP nominees except Ex Machina also happened over three other BP contenders so …

I’ve been wrestling with the switch myself but I’m sticking to Bombshell for a few reasons:

1. BAFTA (and they also LOVED Joker)
2. As you pointed out, and as a general rule of thumb, it’s always wise to bet on a BP nominee in any category. That said, as we most clearly see in the VFX category over time, voters pick things that feel like they…[Read more]

Other than the shorts (mostly guessing), I’m conflicted about the following:

Animated Feature- Klaus vs Toy Story 4. Klaus has emerged as the challenger and could widely have been seen by folks due to Netflix availability. However, with the whole Academy voting is it wise to bet against one of the most beloved franchises ever?

Documentary F…[Read more]

Both Screenplay categories. I’ve been harping it on for a long time, but I really do think Parasite and Jojo Rabbit make too much sense on paper. BAFTA confirmed what I was predicting.

2010: The Social Network
2011: 50/50
2012: Silver Linings Playbook
2013: The Wolf of Wall Street
2014: Birdman
2015: The Big Short
2016: La La Land
2017: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
2018: Hereditary
2019: Parasite