About a month ago, the nominees for this year’s Academy Awards were announced, and tonight the ceremony will take place. On the eve of the famous Oscars event, let’s take a look at which nominees in each of the categories should take home the gold.
Let’s start with Best Picture
Beginning with the most important Oscar award, the Best Picture, “La La Land” seems the most obvious candidate, not just because it tied the record for most nominations at fourteen, but simply because that was the best Film of the year. “Arrival” and “Hell or High Water” were shamefully overrated.
“Hidden Figures” is just a desperate ploy to appeal to the Academy voters with vain diversity, and no doubt they can see right through it. The rest of the nominees, from “Hacksaw Ridge” to “Moonlight,” come very close, but “La La Land” just succeeds across the board, whereas the acting in “Fences” supersedes its technical aspects, for example. “La La Land” just is the best picture.
Now, Best Director and the writing awards
The Oscar for Best Director should go to Damien Chazelle, because every single frame of “La La Land” oozes vision and intricacy and meticulous preparation. Mel Gibson handled his actors really well, but he overused close-ups so everything feels too intense and in your face, and the style slowly fades as the film goes on.
Denis Villeneuve screwed up the lighting of “Arrival,” so he’d better not screw up his upcoming “Blade Runner” sequel.
As for the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, this might be one category where “La La Land” falters. The truly worthy winner would be the weird and wonderful “The Lobster,” for building an entirely new world to reflect a small part of ours.
That script was so beautifully written, with its accurately mundane dialogue set against an absurdist backdrop with some seriously black comedy. Beautiful. “Hell or High Water” by Taylor Sheridan should definitely not win, since it’s a script that ideally would never have been written, since it’s just pages of exposition about a pointless story.
And the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay should go to “Fences,” which would be a touching posthumous tribute to the great playwright August Wilson, who spent his career tackling issues of race, and a lovely footnote on his legacy. It should definitely not go to the boring script for “Arrival,” which admittedly, ends with a heartfelt twist, but until it reaches that point trudges along aimlessly.
And finally, the acting awards
This year’s Oscar nominees for Best Actor are a rare case where it could go to literally anyone. Ryan Gosling, Casey Affleck, Andrew Garfield, Denzel Washington, and Viggo Mortensen all gave powerhouse performances, so who deserves to win? All of them. So, it’ll be interesting to see who does.
Best Actress is more clear-cut, as none of the nominees deserve it more than Emma Stone. Sure, she’s white, but her performance in “La La Land” showed serious range.
The Oscar for Best Supporting Actor is between Mahershala Ali and Dev Patel, not just for racial diversity but because their acting in “Moonlight” and “Lion,” respectively, were excellent, while Best Supporting Actress is promised to Viola Davis for “Fences” for her striking, emotionally driven turn as Rose Maxson.
All the others
With regards to the less important Oscars, “Zootopia” deserves Best Animated Feature Film, “Toni Erdmann” deserves Best Foreign Language Film, “13th” should win Best Documentary Feature, “La La Land” should obviously win Best Original Score and its song “City of Stars” should obviously win Best Original Song, and “The Jungle Book” should win Best Visual Effects because it’s photorealistic and it’s jaw-dropping.
