Tag / Greg P. Russell

by admin

Predicting Those Non-Acting Oscars

side_oscarThe 89th Academy Awards are going down next Sunday night, so here’s my uneducated predictions for the non-acting awards. I likely have seen very few of these movies, so I will mostly be going on gut feel and word of mouth rather than personal experience.

Best Original Screenplay

Taylor Sheridan, Hell or High Water
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou, The Lobster
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester By The Sea
Mike Mills, 20th Century Women

I haven’t seen any of these films yet, but I do know that there is nothing Hollywood likes more than a love letter to Hollywood, which is pretty much what I’ve been led to believe La La Land is.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Eric Heisserer, Arrival
August Wilson, Fences
Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi, Hidden Figures
Luke Davies, Lion
Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney, Moonlight

Another category where I have not seen any of the nominated work. I’m guessing, based on very little, that Moonlight will win this one.

Best Animated Feature

Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life As A Zucchini
The Red Turtle
Zootopia

I’ve only heard of two of these, neither of which I can see taking home an Oscar.  So, I’m going out on a ledge here and going with The Red Turtle.

Best Cinematography

Bradford Young, Arrival
Linus Sandgren, La La Land
Greig Fraser, Lion
James Laxton, Moonlight
Rodrigo Prieto, Silence

Well, again I’ve seen none of these, so I will once again go with La La Land, though Arrival may be a strong contender.

Best Costume Design

Joanna Johnston, Allied
Colleen Atwood, Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them
Consolata Boyle, Florence Foster Jenkins
Madeline Fontaine, Jackie
Mary Zophres, La La Land

Another category where I’m at a loss, so I’ll stick with my theme so far and go with Mary Zophres for her work on La La Land.

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by jim

People Who Will Get Played Off Before Their Speech Ends

With the Academy Awards scheduled for Sunday night, here’s my predictions for the non-acting awards.  I likely have seen very few of these movies, so I will mostly be going on gut feel and word of mouth.

Best Original Screenplay

Amour, Michael Hanake

Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino

Flight, John Gatins

Moonrise Kingdom, Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola

Zero Dark Thirty, Mark Boal

I haven’t seen any of these films.  Personally, I would like to see Quentin Tarantino win, but I don’t see that as a possibility given the n-word backlash he saw after the movie came out.  Zero Dark Thirty has the upper hand, I think.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Argo, Chris Terrio

Beasts of the Southern Wild, Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin,

Life of Pi, David Magee

Lincoln, Tony Kushner

Silver Linings Playbook, David O. Russell

Silver Linings Playbook and Argo are the two films here that I really want to see, with Lincoln coming in a distant third.  I’m not sure if SLP will do as well in the “big” categories as people are expecting, but I think it will pick up some hardware here.

Best Animated Feature

Brave

Frankenweenie

ParaNorman

The Pirates! Band of Misfits

Wreck-It Ralph

Again, I haven’t seen any of these and I’m likely not going to.  That said, Wreck-It Ralph looks to be the most fun out of these entries.  Not to imply at all the Academy puts any consideration to fun.

Best Cinematography

Anna Karenina, Seamus McGarvey

Django Unchained, Robert Richardson

Life of Pi, Claudio Miranda

Lincoln, Janusz Kaminski

Skyfall, Roger Deakins

My feeling is that this comes down to either Django Unchained or Skyfall, and I think James Bond loses this battle.

Best Costume Design

Anna Karenina, Jacqueline Durran

Les Misérables, Paco Delgado

Lincoln, Joanna Johnston

Mirror Mirror, Eiko Ishioka

Snow White and the Huntsman, Colleen Atwood

I’ve actually seen 2 of these films.   My thought is that it will come down to Lincoln or Les Misérables, and who doesn’t like a musical?

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by admin

And The Oscar Went To

A few thoughts on the Oscar telecast before we get into my predictions from yesterday.

  • In the same week an ESPN writer is fired for using a headline that could be considered insensitive to Jeremy Lin, Billy Crystal dons black face for the Oscars.
  • There’s enough time for a special Cirque de Soleil performance, but not for the 2 nominees for Best Song?  Who says Hollywood is out of touch?
  • Emma Stone truly is lovely, isn’t she?
  • The Marty Scorsese drinking game would certainly get one drunk tonight.
  • Wait, Whitney Houston died?  Why wasn’t that in the news or something?

So, how did my predictions fare?  Out of 24 categories, I managed to get 9 correct.  Here are my predicted winners along with the actual winners. Continue reading →

by jim

And The Oscar Goes To

Tonight is the 84th annual Academy Awards.  Here are my predictions:

Best Motion Picture of the Year

The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse

Of the nominated films, Moneyball is the only one I’ve seen.  I think The Artist takes home the award.  It is definitely the type of film the Academy likes to reward.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Demián Bichir for A Better Life
George Clooney for The Descendants
Jean Dujardin for The Artist
Gary Oldman for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt for Moneyball

Again, Brad Pitt’s performance in Moneyball is the only one I’ve seen.  Clooney seems to have some momentum on his side.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

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