[Zooey the Dreamer Joined: Jan 12th, 2012 Topics: 1 Posts: 123 View Predictions]

#1204982820

I liked Ariana but unlike most of you here, I found the opening rather lackluster. It felt like a glorified karaoke with no real connective tissue.

On the winners: I’m terribly disappointed by the fact that A Strange Loop only got two wins. No disrespect to Myles Frost, but I was hoping Jaquel Spivey would win.

And all the wins for the well made but dull and underwhelming The Lehman Trilogy were too much.

Happy with the female acting winners, especially Deirdre O’Connell.

X

Reply

[Zooey the Dreamer Joined: Jan 12th, 2012 Topics: 1 Posts: 123 View Predictions]

#1204978617

It’s out but it won’t help much. Many categories are all over the place.

X

Reply

[Zooey the Dreamer Joined: Jan 12th, 2012 Topics: 1 Posts: 123 View Predictions]

#1204973910

Jeffrey Kare wrote:

Here are my responses to those:

1. Like The Inheritance last year, The Lehman Trilogy didn’t receive as much acclaim on Broadway as it did in the West End. Both of those shows fit the mold of a lot of the Best Play winners from this past decade. What would especially make Hangmen winning a shocker is the fact that it doesn’t have a directing nomination. The last Best Play winner that didn’t have a directing bid was All the Way back in 2014 (though the Best Direction of a Play category that year consisted of all revivals). Prior to that, you have to go all the way back to 2002 when The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? won up against Metamorphoses, which had a directing nomination (and win). That doesn’t mean Hangmen can’t prevail in Best Play, it just means that it has a very big hurdle to overcome.
2. I too am currently predicting Stephen Brackett to win Best Direction of a Musical. Being at the helm of a brand new musical is much harder to pull off than reimagining a classic. Tony voters have gone for that more in recent years. Plus, it helps that Brackett is the only American in his category.
3. L Morgan Lee winning would be reminiscent of Ari’el Stachel winning for The Band’s Visit back in 2018. Back then, a lot of us thought Best Featured Actor in a Musical was between Norbert Leo Butz for My Fair Lady and Gavin Lee for SpongeBob SquarePants. Though when Stachel won, that was pretty much the signal that The Band’s Visit was in for a really big night.
4. What’s your reasoning for why you don’t think Take Me Out will win Best Revival of a Play and what do you think is winning there instead?

I am predicting or colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf. I think it would make a truly interesting winner, and the time is right for such a winner.

Take Me Out feels under-nominated in a way. It had three nods in the same category and a revival nod. Two of the other nominees overperformed in nominations.

X

Reply

[Zooey the Dreamer Joined: Jan 12th, 2012 Topics: 1 Posts: 123 View Predictions]

#1204972477

I will predict some upsets, I always do. This is how I predicted Andrew Burnap last year. I simply knew he would prevail in the end (even though I’m pretty sure that Burnap being a virtual unknown helped him, as many voters thought they were voting for Solle).

This year, I’m toying with the idea of going with:
1. Hangmen for Best Play. I know this would be a shocker, but Tony voters owe Martin McDonagh, and The Lehman Trilogy is a dull show. (Full disclosure: I’ve seen the show in the UK but I doubt much has been changed.)

2. I think A Strange Loop will take Direction of a Musical, as Tony voters have shown time and again that they prefer honoring original work in the directing categories. A Strange Loop isn’t as showy as Company, but I still expect the general enthusiasm to make it the winner here.

3. I’m predicting L Morgan Lee in Featured Actress in a Musical. I believe Broadway will be the first community to honor the trans community. And … well, Patti rubs many people the wrong way.

4. And I’m not going with Take Me Out in Revival of a Play.

X

Reply

[Zooey the Dreamer Joined: Jan 12th, 2012 Topics: 1 Posts: 123 View Predictions]

#1204966098

Elsa Korr wrote:

We’re in 2022 and still hating Hayden’s acting? Is this 2005?

Elsa Korr wrote:

We’re in 2022 and still hating Hayden’s acting? Is this 2005?

I only watched all Star Wars movies a couple of years ago. Hayden’s acting is truly bad, but he’s so handsome. And he’s turned into one hot daddy. I don’t care about his acting, I wanna give birth to his babies.

X

Reply

[Zooey the Dreamer Joined: Jan 12th, 2012 Topics: 1 Posts: 123 View Predictions]

#1204937688

Neil Patrick Harris, who’s arguable the best of (relatively) recent hosts, has not hosted in ages. I can see him back as well. I think they’d want a really big opening this year, like the one he did in 2013.

X

Reply

[Zooey the Dreamer Joined: Jan 12th, 2012 Topics: 1 Posts: 123 View Predictions]

#1204885912

wrote:

The movie is slow and even if you like it you don’t end up loving it. That was what happened.

Please don’t speak for others. I loved it. I watched it several times, and every time there was something new I discovered. Nuances, some hints for various interpretations of motivations, etc. It’s a film I truly love and will be rewatching.

But my take is that voters, like most people, don’t thrive on ambiguity. They want easy sentiment, and cheap, horrible CODA was there to give them that.

X

Reply

[Zooey the Dreamer Joined: Jan 12th, 2012 Topics: 1 Posts: 123 View Predictions]

#1204884924

BigJay2012 wrote:

It was too similar in tone to Nomadland (which was a better film)

Oscar wanted something heart tugging this year.

I disagree with that. In my opinion, Nomadland was what’s on the surface. The Power of the Dog has layer upon layer of meaning. Every rewatch has given me so much insight into these characters and new ways to look at the events in the film.

But people, even Oscar voters, don’t like ambiguity and complexity. They love sentiment.

X

Reply

[Zooey the Dreamer Joined: Jan 12th, 2012 Topics: 1 Posts: 123 View Predictions]

#1204884883

Unimaginative, dull, cheap, chaotic, this year’s Oscars are what can go wrong when the Academy hires a mediocre producer who doesn’t respect filmmakers. Turning the Oscars into a parade of vulgar dresses, entitled behavior, and second-rate starlets is never the answer. The best Oscar shows have been all about tradition and the love of movies. This has been about the power of Disney and the love of celebs – in so many superficial ways. It has been much closer to the Grammys (an award show with worse ratings than the Oscars, just like all the other award shows) and the Golden Globes.

What an awful ceremony – tasteless above all, unfocused, not even the design of presentations was good enough, clips and presentations were in an order that appeared random, they haven’t thought of so many tiny nuances. So many missed opportunities to turn the Oscars into an event, to turn a category into a memorable experience for both the people in the audience, the nominees, and the viewers. Allowing hosts to go on forever (with their mostly dull jokes we’d heard countless times already) and not presenting awards live is always a bad choice. You could have presented two categories instead of doing the stupid Bruno performance that was on the telecast just because of Disney and Wanda Sykes’s stupid Academy Museum skit that was all about her not recognising certain movie relics. So much fun in another universe but not here.

Random Movie Moment clips that were there for no real reason. If you wanted to honor the fans, you could have done it with some imagination, not just random clips over the telecast.

Of course, the Academy did not help with its dull, appallingly politically correct choices that had nothing to do with quality but were extremely predictable.

Usually the Oscars are a long celebration of cinema. This time around, they were a too long celebration of bad reality TV. With mostly third-rate presenters, so many unused opportunities (you have Coppola, DeNiro and Pacino wave at the audience and then leave?!), borderline ridiculous mood (which is the doing of this team).

Did they make the show shorter? NO. It was almost 4 hours. Did they make the show worse? YES, MUCH WORSE.

Bottom line: THE OSCARS SHOULD NEVER BE PRODUCED BY PEOPLE WHO LOVE CHEAP ENTERTAINMENT BUT DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE OSCARS ARE.

Worst Oscars ever. The Academy alienated core viewers and disrespected the community. For what? THIS?

X

Reply

[Zooey the Dreamer Joined: Jan 12th, 2012 Topics: 1 Posts: 123 View Predictions]

#1204879799

Do we have the order of awards?

[Zooey the Dreamer Joined: Jan 12th, 2012 Topics: 1 Posts: 123 View Predictions]

#1204877410

Eden wrote:

Not that anyone cares (nor should you), but I’ll be skipping the ceremony this year, which is rare for me. It’s not just one reason, but a bunch of them, like losing interest or most importantly, the Academy itself creating a mess of the event.

When the predictions centre opened, I put Drive My Car and The Worst Person in the World in Screenplay for the win and would love to see it happen, but I’m too big of a coward to actually predict them.

Still not sold on Best Picture. International voters could prove to have a strong support for The Power of the Dog. What’s interesting to me, and this is just my opinion, is that CODA voters are more likely to put The Power of the Dog way down on the ballot rather than the other way around.

I do hope for a lot of pleasant surprises and I hope everyone enjoys the night.

It doesn’t matter where TPOTD voters put CODA or where CODA voters put TPOTD. This would matter only if a third film emerges as a competitor and remains a top 2 possibility.

[Zooey the Dreamer Joined: Jan 12th, 2012 Topics: 1 Posts: 123 View Predictions]

#1204877404

I think that there are two options:

Picture – the cast of The Godfather!

Actor – either Venus and Serena, which would be cheap, or a better option that’s a real possibility. Liv Ullman received her first Oscar nod exactly 50 years ago, the same year as The Godfather. She’s in LA for the Governors Awards. I think that given the fact that Samuel L. Jackson is presenting, Liv might as well.

[Zooey the Dreamer Joined: Jan 12th, 2012 Topics: 1 Posts: 123 View Predictions]

#1204877400

RIDLEY SCOTT wrote:

Exactly. That was the rumor

I hope they don’t go there. Having a third-rate TV actress present Picture would be a shame.

[Zooey the Dreamer Joined: Jan 12th, 2012 Topics: 1 Posts: 123 View Predictions]

#1204876852

GrammyLoser wrote:

well, I took an informal poll of my pets: 4 dogs, 2 cats and one turtle and they are all watching this year. My 2 cats are rooting for CODA to beat TPOD.

Cats are smart and have good taste. I doubt they are rooting for CODA.

[Zooey the Dreamer Joined: Jan 12th, 2012 Topics: 1 Posts: 123 View Predictions]

#1204876847

RIDLEY SCOTT wrote:

5 of 36 is Very High. 0 of my 92 friends are watching this year. I think Crews are hating the Oscars this year. All of my 92 friends are Hollywood Crews: Movie Directors, Editors, Composers and Cinematographers

I usually do a ballot experiment with people from different classes of the Academy where I’m enrolled: actors, directors, playwrights, etc. I did it in 2020, right before the start of the pandemic, 102 people participating. Last year, more than 100 people participated. This year, only 30+ people participated.