Borrowing a page from Siskel and Ebert from back in the day, we here at Movie Dearest are presenting our own version of "If We Picked the Oscars". These aren't predictions, but what movies, actors, directors, et al that we would vote for if we were members of the Academy. We also chime in with our picks for the "egregiously overlooked" non-nominees as well as the "Worst Nominations of the Year".
So without further ado, the envelope please...
The nominees for
Best Picture are:
Call Me by Your Name,
Darkest Hour,
Dunkirk,
Get Out,
Lady Bird,
Phantom Thread,
The Post,
The Shape of Water and
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
And our winners would be:
CC: It was a very strong year at the movies, and this is one of the rare
lists of nominees where they are almost all equally worthy of the gold.
True, I consider
Call Me By Your Name a tad overrated but its
heart is certainly in the right place. Most of the other nominees made
my top 10 of 2017. All that being said, I would vote for my #1 pick,
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Martin McDonagh's exceptional drama with darkly comic touches
surprised, impressed and moved me the most when compared with its fellow
competitors.
KH: Since it topped both the
Dearie Awards and my own personal
top 10, it should be no surprise that my choice for Best Picture would be
The Shape of Water (or that it will be mentioned by me many more times by the end of this piece).
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC:
Wonder Woman was one of the best comic book-inspired movies of
the last 40 years. Including it here, especially in light of the 2017
birth of the #MeToo movement, would have been most appropriate.
KH: And since it came at number 2 on my top 10, it should also be no surprise that my choice here would be for
Wonderstruck, Todd Haynes' marvelous mini-masterpiece that unfortunately got lost in all the shuffle this awards season.
For their final voting, Academy members are asked to rank the
Best Picture nominees from #1 to #9, so here are our rankings:
CC: 1.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, 2.
Dunkirk,
3.
The Shape of Water, 4.
Darkest Hour, 5.
Get Out, 6.
Lady Bird, 7.
Phantom Thread, 8.
The Post and 9.
Call Me By Your Name.
KH: 1.
The Shape of Water, 2.
Darkest Hour, 3.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, 4.
Phantom Thread, 5.
Get Out, 6.
Lady Bird, 7.
Dunkirk, 8.
The Post and 9.
Call Me by Your Name.
The nominees for
Best Actor are: Timothée Chalamet in
Call Me by Your Name, Daniel Day-Lewis in
Phantom Thread, Daniel Kaluuya in
Get Out, Gary Oldman in
Darkest Hour and Denzel Washington in
Roman J. Israel, Esq.
And our winners would be:
CC:
Gary Oldman, hands down. One of our generation's best actors, he has
received surprisingly few nominations over the years and has never won.
This is his time but, most critically, I forgot I was watching Oldman
midway through
Darkest Hour and was convinced it was Winston Churchill himself. Now that's acting!
KH: Yes, he's been the presumed front-runner for months now and long overdue for his years of brilliant work, but
Gary Oldman deserves the gold for his wholly-immersed, deeply fascinating performance of Winston Churchill.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC:
Tom Hanks gave one of his best, least hammy performances in years as
The Post's Ben Bradlee. Hanks and Streep also had great chemistry. She was nominated (again) but he wasn't. What gives?
KH: First
Nightcrawler, now
Stronger... what does
Jake Gyllenhaal have to do to get his second Oscar nomination?
The nominees for
Best Actress are: Sally Hawkins in
The Shape of Water, Frances McDormand in
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Margot Robbie in
I, Tonya, Saoirse Ronan in
Lady Bird and Meryl Streep in
The Post
And our winners would be:
CC: This is a very strong group of contenders. As much as I loved all their
performances, I would vote for the delightful
Sally Hawkins. She was
the virtually silent heart and soul of Guillermo del Toro's lovably odd
romantic-fantasy.
KH:
Sally Hawkins made her Elisa inspired, passionate, intelligent, empathetic, determined, loyal and even a little feisty... all without saying a word.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC:
Gal Gadot's star-making turn as
Wonder Woman/Diana Prince in three
movies now should have received more respect from the Academy's acting
branch.
KH: Once again, Meryl Streep's mannered flouncing has caused the unjust omission of a superior performance. This year's casualty:
Jessica Chastain's firecracker "Poker Princess" in
Molly's Game.
The nominees for
Best Supporting Actor are: Willem Dafoe in
The Florida Project, Woody Harrelson in
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Richard Jenkins in
The Shape of Water, Christopher Plummer in
All the Money in the World and Sam Rockwell in
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
And our winners would be:
CC: I haven't seen
All the Money in the World but loved all the other
nominees' performances. Harrelson and Rockwell kind of split my vote,
leaving Dafoe and Jenkins. Both are terrific in their respective movies
but I can't help but feel Dafoe is more overdue.
Willem Dafoe gets my vote.
KH: As the gay artist Giles,
Richard Jenkins deftly created a world-weary man ready to give up until his life brushes up against the fantastic.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC:
Michael Stuhlbarg's deeply moving turn as the unconditionally loving father of a gay teen in
Call Me By Your Name.
KH: In
Logan,
Patrick Stewart was stunning, heartbreaking as fallen hero Charles Xavier.
The nominees for
Best Supporting Actress are: Mary J. Blige in
Mudbound, Allison Janney in
I, Tonya, Lesley Manville in
Phantom Thread, Laurie Metcalf in
Lady Bird and Octavia Spencer in
The Shape of Water
And our winners would be:
CC: Lesley Manville's delicious performance was a late season surprise and
it is tempting to vote for her out of all these strong women. However,
Laurie Metcalf would get my vote not only on the strength of her
performance but because it would get her that much closer to
EGOT
status.
KH: I love me some Allison Janney, but her mommie dearest turn in
I, Tonya felt too much like her
Mom character cranked up to an R rating. I'll go for the other mother,
Lady Bird's quietly imploding one, 'cause I also love me some
Laurie Metcalf.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC:
Catherine Keener's memorably creepy, tea-stirring psycho mom in
Get Out.
KH: Too bad that there wasn't enough room for another mother or two, such as
The Big Sick's
Holly Hunter and/or
mother!'s
Michelle Pfeiffer.
The nominees for
Best Director are: Paul Thomas Anderson for
Phantom Thread, Guillermo del Toro for
The Shape of Water, Greta Gerwig for
Lady Bird, Christopher Nolan for
Dunkirk and Jordan Peele for
Get Out
And our winners would be:
CC: The never-nominated Nolan did a spectacular, masterful job with
Dunkirk.
No other movie last year made me feel I was in the midst of the action
as it did. Despite my deep admiration of del Toro and
The Shape of Water,
Christopher Nolan would get my vote.
KH: Only
Guillermo del Toro could have made a love story about a deaf and mute woman and the Creature of the Black Lagoon not only work, but soar.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC: I'm glad they nominated at least one woman in this category, but
Patty
Jenkins would have been another welcome nominee for her great work
finally getting
Wonder Woman's solo movie to the big screen.
KH: You can't go wrong with a
Wright: either
Joe (
Darkest Hour) or
Edgar (
Baby Driver).
The nominees for
Best Adapted Screenplay are:
Call Me By Your Name,
The Disaster Artist,
Logan,
Molly's Game and
Mudbound
And our winners would be:
CC: Although it isn't his fault, even likely Oscar winner James Ivory has
complained about how his more sexually graphic adaptation of
Call Me By Your Name was compromised during production. That tips me in the direction of Aaron Sorkin's crackling good script for
Molly's Game.
KH: OK, I don't know how to play poker and I don't get gambling, but that didn't make
Molly's Game (written for the screen by Aaron Sorkin from the Molly Bloom memoir) any less thrillingly entertaining.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC:
Wonderstruck, Brian Selznick's elegant adaptation of his time-tripping novel.
KH: Two young adult novels — R.J. Palacio's
Wonder and Brian Selznick's
Wonderstruck — were nicely transformed into fine films for all ages by (respectively) Jack Thorne, Steve Conrad & Stephen Chbosky and Selznick himself.
The nominees for
Best Original Screenplay are:
The Big Sick,
Get Out,
Lady Bird,
The Shape of Water and
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
And our winners would be:
CC: This is another strong group of almost equally-good contenders but Martin McDonagh's thoughtful, timely script for
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri gets my vote.
KH: The spectacular uniqueness of
The Shape of Water is in its mixture of fairy tale, horror story, Cold War thriller and cinematic homage, and that all originates in Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor's script.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC: A lot of critics including myself appreciated writer-director Kogonada's reflective indie
Columbus. Perhaps with a little more visibility it would have made this category.
KH: It's a shame that the late-in-the-game surge for Paul Thomas Anderson's
Phantom Thread didn't also include a nomination for his clever, darkly comic screenplay.
The nominees for
Best Cinematography are:
Blade Runner 2049,
Darkest Hour,
Dunkirk,
Mudbound and
The Shape of Water
And our winners would be:
CC: 14-time nominee bridesmaid Roger Deakins deserves to win for the frequently gorgeous
Blade Runner sequel, but I found
The Shape of Water a more organically beautiful movie.
KH: It's a crime that Roger Deakins doesn't have an Oscar (or three) already but his stellar work on
Blade Runner 2049 will hopefully, finally solve that problem.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC: Sayombhu Mukdeeprom's sexy, sun-dappled work on
Call Me By Your Name. 'Nuff said.
KH: Edward Lachman made the two distinct stories of
Wonderstruck look like they were filmed in their respective eras: a black and white silent movie and a gritty 70s film.
The nominees for
Best Production Design are:
Beauty and the Beast,
Blade Runner 2049,
Darkest Hour,
Dunkirk and
The Shape of Water
And our winners would be:
CC: The other nominees are great to look at but
The Shape of Water's art direction is uniquely, gorgeously evocative.
KH: From the bright green slices of Key lime pie to the shadowy secret lab to that dreamy musical fantasy in glorious black and white, the look of
The Shape of Water is one of a kind.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC: It's costumes understandably command the most attention but
Phantom Thread's sets are almost equally entrancing.
KH: The 19th century settings of
The Greatest Showman deserved to be celebrated.
The nominees for
Best Costume Design are:
Beauty and the Beast,
Darkest Hour,
Phantom Thread,
The Shape of Water and
Victoria & Abdul
And our winners would be:
CC:
Phantom Thread made me want to dress in drag for the first time ever, so it naturally gets my vote.
KH: Considering its fashion house locale and all those fabulous frocks continuously paraded before our eyes, how could it be anything but
Phantom Thread? It deserves to win for that pink lace number (pictured) alone.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC: While I was underwhelmed by
The Greatest Showman on the whole, Ellen Mirojnick's costumes are dazzling.
KH:
Wonder Woman was really three movies in one — superhero fantasy, period piece and war epic — each with their own unique costuming demands.
The nominees for
Best Original Score are:
Dunkirk,
Phantom Thread,
The Shape of Water,
Star Wars: The Last Jedi and
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
And our winners would be:
CC: Jonny Greenwood of the rock band Radiohead composed a surprisingly symphonic score for
Phantom Thread. As much as I enjoyed
The Shape of Water's more whimsical soundtrack, Greenwood gets my vote.
KH: Alexandre Desplat's lushly romantic, Old Hollywood-style score for
The Shape of Water made a great movie even better.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC: I loooove Mark Mothersbaugh's 80's-inflected yet suitably heroic work on
Thor: Ragnarok, complete with a Grandmaster Jam Session!
KH: You have to wonder how Carter Burwell was nominated this year for
Three Billboards and not
Wonderstruck.
The nominees for
Best Original Song are: "Mighty River" from
Mudbound, "Mystery of Love" from
Call Me By Your Name, "Remember Me" from
Coco, "Stand Up for Something" from
Marshall and "This Is Me" from
The Greatest Showman
And our winners would be:
CC: I didn't think the wonder duo Pasek & Paul deserved to win last year
for their too simplistic "City of Stars." This year, though, I would
vote for their rousing
"This Is Me" anthem over the similarly simplistic
"Remember Me."
KH: As much as I admire how well "Remember Me" is integrated into the story of
Coco, my vote goes to the more lyrically rich
"This Is Me"... and I can't wait to see Keala Settle kill it on Sunday night.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC: I'm partial to Sara Bareilles'
"If I Dare" end title tune from the otherwise neglected
Battle of the Sexes.
KH: The original
Beauty and the Beast scored three nominations here (a first), so perhaps a fourth for the big Beast ballad
"Evermore" from this year's live action remake was too much to ask for.
The nominees for
Best Film Editing are:
Baby Driver,
Dunkirk,
I, Tonya,
The Shape of Water and
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
And our winners would be:
CC:
Dunkirk's innovative time-hopping narrative was aided and abetted by the superb editing.
KH: The opening bank heist/car chase synced to The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's "Bellbottoms" alone
makes
Baby Driver more than deserving of the prize for Best Film Editing.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC:
Wonder Woman comes to mind first and foremost.
KH: Overall
Molly's Game should have got more love, especially in this category.
The nominees for
Best Sound Mixing are:
Baby Driver,
Blade Runner 2049,
Dunkirk,
The Shape of Water and
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
And our winners would be:
CC: Its kinda a toss up for me between
Dunkirk and
The Last Jedi but I would probably vote for the historical former.
KH: The opening bank heist/car chase synced to The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's "Bellbottoms" alone
makes
Baby Driver more than deserving of the prize for Best Sound Mixing as well.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC: I'm thinking
Wonder Woman is going to be my nominee in most of these technical categories.
KH: Pick a musical:
Beauty and the Beast,
Coco or
The Greatest Showman.
The nominees for
Best Sound Editing are:
Baby Driver,
Blade Runner 2049,
Dunkirk,
The Shape of Water and
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
And our winners would be:
CC:
Dunkirk, natch.
KH:
The Shape of Water sound editors gave our aquatic hero his voice.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC:
Wonder Woman, natch.
KH:
Wonder Woman, for all those bullets bouncing off her bracelets.
The nominees for
Best Visual Effects are:
Blade Runner 2049,
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,
Kong: Skull Island,
Star Wars: The Last Jedi and
War for the Planet of the Apes
And our winners would be:
CC:
War for the Planet of the Apes. Shockingly, none of the previous
films' brilliantly conceived CGI effects have won. This one should to
honor the entire trilogy (to date).
KH: Five nominees, five franchise films. Which one showed us the most of what we hadn't seen before?
Blade Runner 2049, easily.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC:
Thor: Ragnarok, if primarily for Cate Blanchett's fabulous CGI headdresses.
KH: The Visual Effects branch should be embarrassed and ashamed for the lack of a nomination in this category for
The Shape of Water.
The nominees for
Best Makeup and Hairstyling are:
Darkest Hour,
Victoria & Abdul and
Wonder
And our winners would be:
CC:
Darkest Hour for so completely and convincingly transforming Gary Oldman.
KH: With their transformation of Gary Oldman into Winston Churchill, the
Darkest Hour team created not just the best character makeup of the year but perhaps the best character makeup ever.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC:
The Shape of Water, duh.
KH: Perhaps the creature makeup was deemed too much of a special effect, but the lack of
The Shape of Water here sure looks odd.
The nominees for
Best Animated Feature are:
The Boss Baby,
The Breadwinner,
Coco,
Ferdinand and
Loving Vincent
And our winners would be:
CC:
The Boss Baby? Uh, no. The heart-tugging
Coco gets my vote.
KH: The old school artistry of
Loving Vincent is tempting, but the joyful
Coco is irresistible.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC: How did
Boss Baby get nominated over the smart and hilarious
Lego Batman Movie???
KH: Holy snub, Batman! Where's
The Lego Batman Movie?
The nominees for
Best Foreign Language Film are:
A Fantastic Woman (Chili),
The Insult (Lebanon),
Loveless (Russia),
On Body and Soul (Hungary) and
The Square (Sweden)
And our winners would be:
CC: I regret I haven't seen them all but, out of the three I have seen,
The Square rules.
KH: I haven't seen
Loveless, was underwhelmed with
A Fantastic Woman, repulsed by
On Body and Soul and, well, see below for my thoughts on
The Square. So I guess that leaves
The Insult...
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC: The omission of France's inspiring and moving AIDS drama
BPM (Beats Per Minute) borders on the criminal.
KH: Where is Golden Globe and Critics' Choice winner
In the Fade? Sorry, but this category really sucks this year.
The nominees for
Best Documentary Feature are:
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail,
Faces Places,
Icarus,
Last Men in Aleppo and
Strong Island
And our winners would be:
CC:
Strong Island tells a heart-rending story from a unique, trans perspective.
KH: I loved Agnès Varda's quirky
Faces Places, but it felt more like a travelogue than a documentary. My choice would be the intensely personal
Strong Island, which found new ways to tell an unfortunately familiar tale.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC: There are a lot of contenders here but
Jane is probably the most egregious.
KH:
Jane, the Most Egregiously Overlooked of the Year.
The nominees for
Best Documentary Short Subject are:
Edith+Eddie,
Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405,
Heroin(e),
Knife Skills and
Traffic Stop
And our winners would be:
CC: Sorry to say I haven't had time to see any of them, even though they're short.
KH: The heartbreaking
Edith+Eddie is unforgettable.
The nominees for
Best Animated Short Film are:
Dear Basketball,
Garden Party,
Lou,
Negative Space and
Revolting Rhymes
And our winners would be:
CC: The only one I've seen is
Dear Basketball but its a winner.
KH: Despite a somewhat gruesome ending, I got a kick out of the antics of the photo-realistic amphibians in
Garden Party.
Egregiously Overlooked:
CC: I'm apparently one of the few who enjoyed
Olaf's Frozen Adventure, probably enough to nominate it if I had the chance.
KH: Although it's a bit simplistic, I would have picked
In a Heartbeat over the Pixar dud
Lou in a, well, heartbeat.
The nominees for
Best Live Action Short Film are:
DeKalb Elementary,
The Eleven O'Clock,
My Nephew Emmett,
The Silent Child and
Watu Wote/All of Us
And our winners would be:
CC: Haven't seen any of them, regretfully.
KH: Even in this, the strongest batch of shorts this year, the bittersweet
The Silent Child stands out.
And now for our own special category of dishonorable mention, the
Worst Nomination of the Year:
CC: As I think I indicated loud and clear above,
The Boss Baby for Best Animated Feature.
KH: Maybe it's a European thing? How else to explain the wealth of accolades, from the Cannes
Palme d'Or to six European Film Awards, that have been showered on
The Square, the Best Foreign Language Film nominee from Sweden. Billed as a "satire of the art world", it isn't funny. At all. For all of its 151 minutes. In a year with so many good foreign films (
In the Fade,
BPM (Beats Per Minute),
Thelma, The Wound,
Tom of Finland), it is incredibly frustrating that such a coy, pretentious and insulting piece of Eurotrash as this made it to the Oscars.
And so the final march to Oscar glory begins. Tune in to the Big Show, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, on ABC this Sunday to see who wins, as well as which nominees are rocking the best (and worst) gowns, most attractive escorts and most heartfelt acceptance speeches.
By Rev. Chris Carpenter, resident film critic of Movie Dearest and Rage Monthly Magazine, and Kirby Holt, creator, editor and head writer of Movie Dearest.
