With the Oscars being held on Sunday, March 10, I predict Oppenheimer to be the big movie to win. I’ve been watching the Oscars since the late 1980s and you begin to notice a few things. A lot of times, it’s a combination of excellence, critical favorites, popularity, a touch of how movies performed at the box office and who deserves to win.
Sometimes, there are some surprises, such as when Shakespeare in Love won over Saving Private Ryan, even though you can hear the audience cringe or every time Glenn Close hasn’t won. (However, let’s be glad she didn’t win for Hillbilly Elegy.) The politics of the Oscars have been controversial as #OscarsSoWhite has urged voters to be more diverse. And there’s criticism that by wanting to be too diverse, they’re still making some movies ineligible.
But 2023 was the year of the Barbenheimer phenomenon. While Barbie was a surprise hit even though I was almost certain, it would’ve been this decade’s Jem and the Holograms, Oppenheimer‘s success proves some people want intelligent movies, even though its portrayal of women was what Barbie was criticizing. You can’t blame Christopher Nolan for it. It was the era where most of the women who worked at Los Alamos typed memos, made coffee or handled phone calls.
Oppenheimer should win Best Picture and Best Director. Nolan has come a long way in the last 25 years and he’s due to win. Killers of the Flower Moon touches on a big subject but watching it, you can see Martin Scorsese styling it like his other movies (Goodfellas, Casino, The Irishman). For a movie that is mostly three hours of people talking, Oppenheimer manages to thrill in the way it’s structured and presented. As for Barbie, it was a hit. But the controversy surrounding the movie hurts its chances. I also think it falls apart in the second half and I think Oscar voters did too. Every year, there’s the nominee that seems to be thrown in to satisfy the mass audiences and this is the one.
The rest of the movies all seem to be longshots. I liked The Holdovers but I serious doubt it’s a Best Picture movie. Past Lives is a great movie but it won’t win. Maestro is the obligatory biopic that has been almost forgotten following the controversy over Bradley Cooper using prosthetics on his face. Anatomy of a Fall is a French legal crime thriller that a lot of people haven’t heard of. And then there’s American Fiction, with its predominantly black cast. I’m sure both movies are good. As well as Poor Things and The Zone of Interest, but most of the movies almost seem like they were nominated just to appease the snooty critics who included these movies in their Year-End Best Lists.
Poor Things is too weird to win an Oscar for Best Picture. And it didn’t reach multiple people like last year’s Everything Everyone All at One. The Zone of Interest is about Auschwitz and Rudolf Hess, the commandant. I don’t think so. Not only no, but hell no. Maybe if Steven Spielberg or a big-time director had made it but it’s in German, Polish and Yiddish.
So, Nolan will most likely win, even though so many people were upset Greta Gerwig didn’t get nominated. However, all the outcry has died down within a week of the nominees being announced. Scorsese probably got Killers made but it’s not his best work. I don’t event think The Departed is his best work. Yorgos Lanthimos is too avant-garde. If David Lynch nor Robert Altman never won outside an honorary award, why should Lanthimos. Justine Triet and Jonathan Glazer are the just happy to be nominated for Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest.
Best Actor is a huge toss up between Cillian Murphy and Paul Giamatti. Murphy seems to be a favorite. But after watching Oppenheimer twice, he didn’t really command the movie as Giamatti did for The Holdovers. Also, this is payback for almost 20 years ago where he didn’t even get nominated for Sideways. But it could go to Murphy. Cooper has been nominated so many times he’s basically turning into a younger male version of Glenn Close. He’s good. But the problem with Maestro is it’s a vanity project and those are never really big winners for said actor when they’ve also wrote and/or directed them.
Jeffrey Wright is a fine actor and a very talented man. And I haven’t seen American Fiction but it seems like a great movie. Yet, he and Colman Domingo for Rustin have flown under the radar. It’s great that two black actors have been nominated for this category but it’s unlikely either will win.
As for Best Actress, it’s going to be Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon. Why? Because she’s a very talented actress. She also was wonderful alongside Robert DeNiro and Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie. She is also the first Indigenous Native American to be nominated ever. And considering she’s up against four white actresses, it will be just as cringe as when Sir Anthony Hopkins won over the late Chadwick Boseman. Yes, both actors were great in their respective roles. But the Academy has faced criticism over how it recategorized some roles to exclude black actresses. Really? Viola Davis wasn’t a “supporting” actress for Fences!
And that year, Emma Stone won for La La Land. Stone is a great actress. But I’m still scratching my head over this one. Did she suck so bad in Aloha that the Academy felt La La Land was an improvement worthy of an Oscar to beat Davis’ great role in the adaptation of the revered play. Stone is nominated for Poor Things but she’s still young and will be nominated again. And she will win again. As for Annette Bening, this is her fifth nomination and she isn’t getting any younger. Her role in Nyad is great and Bening isn’t willing to be everyone’s friend in her movies which makes her such a damn good actress. Yet the role is a turn off for some people because Diana Nyad is such an egomaniac and there’s controversy over whether her record swim is the real deal. Sandra Huller is the critics’ favorite which means she doesn’t have a chance of winning. And then there’s Carey Mulligan, the dark horse. Some people might say Margot Robbie should be there for Barbie instead of her. So, she’s the actress who squeaked by Robbie. Mulligan is also a great actress and the question may be why her role as Felicia Montealagre isn’t a “Supporting” role.
As for the Supporting Roles, it’s likely Robert Downey Jr. will win for his role as Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer. Downey has been nominated before and is the first actor to be nominated for playing an Oscar winner back in 1993 when he was nominated for his role as Charles Chaplin. His rowdy personal life in his teens, 20s and 30s were the type of tabloid fodder that people were expecting to find a story that he had overdosed and died or been in an fatal accident. He got clean and spent years clawing his way back on top through meager roles before hitting it big as Tony Stark/Ironman. And it’s his really first role in years where he hasn’t played that Marvel Comics character. (The least said about Dolittle the better.) Also, he made this movie following the death of his father, Robert Downey Sr. So, the Academy wants to honor him for finally getting his life together.
Ryan Gosling may be an upset for Barbie. But the former Mickey’s Clubhouse actor turned big-name star will get another chance. So will Mark Ruffalo for Poor Things. Sterling K. Brown is a wonderful actor but American Fiction has flown under the radar so it’s high unlikely he’ll win. DeNiro is nominated for his role as William King Hale and it’s one of his most sleazy, villainous roles. And following a string of really bad movies, it’s nice to see him on top form again especially after a lot of critics said he was the weakest thing of The Irishman. It’s likely his politics may cost him the role. The actor has spent most of his life remaining quiet even saying in the 1990s that he felt he didn’t know as much so he kept quiet. But not anymore. He despises Donald Trump so much, I think he channeled some of the former President’s persona into this role.
As for Best Supporting Actress, Da’Vine Joy Randolph will win for The Holdovers. Her character makes The Holdovers a whole lot better. As a grieving cook at New England boarding school, she manages to convey all the racism and prejudice of the era without hammering it in. The way she talks about how her son looked at being drafted into military service to be sent to Vietnam as a way he was going to college on his G.I. bill is heartbreaking. So many people were lied to from that era and treated as nothing more than meat for the meat grinder without any consideration of how it would affect their families. And she was still treated as a lower-class person despite what happened to her son.
Jodie Foster is good in Nyad and shows how she can still amaze us with her talents. But she’s won twice already for The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs. And it would be kind of a dick move for her to win while Bening doesn’t. Emily Blunt is a wonderful actress. And Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer was a complex person just like her husband. Yet there’s so much about her life and their marriage that seems almost irrelevant to the movie. Kitty does seem like she exists outside her role as wife and mother in the frame of the movie. America Ferrera’s nomination for Barbie has been called an extension of the “Magical Negro.” Her whole character seems to just exist to help Robbie’s Barbie. And Danielle Brooks is the only nomination for The Color Purple, a movie that lives in the shadows of its 1985 version. It’s highly unlikely she will win.
Who do you think is going to win? Please comment.
Zane Says 