{"id":45863,"date":"2020-01-31T11:44:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T16:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=45863"},"modified":"2020-01-24T11:50:05","modified_gmt":"2020-01-24T16:50:05","slug":"thoughts-on-the-oscar-nominations-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2020\/01\/thoughts-on-the-oscar-nominations-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on the Oscar Nominations (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

            Last\nweek I looked at the nominees in the Acting categories for the upcoming 92nd<\/sup>\nAcademy Awards. This week I\u2019ll look at four more categories, even though I know\nwe\u2019re all here for Best Picture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adapted Screenplay<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Irishman\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJojo Rabbit\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJoker\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLittle Women\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Two Popes\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLittle Women\u201d is easily the most\nrecognized source material here (at least in terms of story, not character). I\nsee voters trying to mitigate complaints about the all-male Best Director\ncategory by giving Greta Gerwig a win here for making empowering additions to\nthe overly-familiar text. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Original Screenplay<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKnives Out\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMarriage Story\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c1917\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce Upon a Time\u2026 in Hollywood\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cParasite\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tough choice here, at least among\nthe Best Picture nominees (sorry, \u201cKnives Out\u201d). I\u2019ll go with \u201cParasite\u201d\nbecause voters like to give Screenplay awards to plucky underdogs that can\u2019t\ncut it in major categories (as with previous winners \u201cBlacKKKlansman\u201d and \u201cGet\nOut,\u201d along with my own prediction for Adapted Screenplay). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin Scorsese for \u201cThe Irishman\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Todd Phillips for \u201cJoker\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sam Mendes for \u201c1917\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quentin Tarantino for \u201cOnce Upon a\nTime\u2026 in Hollywood\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bong Joon Ho for \u201cParasite\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To me, this category is\nintrinsically linked with Best Picture. I never pick a director to win this\ncategory if their film isn\u2019t my pick for Best Picture, and vice versa. So in\nthe interest of not spoiling my pick in the main event, I\u2019m not going to give\naway my pick here, just know that it corresponds to Best Picture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Best Picture<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFord v Ferrari\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Irishman\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJojo Rabbit\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJoker\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLittle Women\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMarriage Story\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c1917\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce Upon a Time\u2026 in Hollywood\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cParasite\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of all, scratch \u201cFord v\nFerrari,\u201d \u201cJojo Rabbit,\u201d Little Women,\u201d and \u201cMarriage Story.\u201d No nomination for\nthe director means that there isn\u2019t a lot of confidence for the film (though\nadmittedly \u201cGreen Book\u201d did pull off Best Picture without a nomination for\nPeter Farrelly last year). There\u2019s a case to be made for all of the remaining\nfilms. \u201cThe Irishman\u201d has prestige on its side with the reputations of Scorsese\nand the cast reuniting for familiar subject matter. \u201cJoker\u201d has popularity on\nits side, both in terms of box office ($335 million domestically) and total\nnominations (11). \u201c1917\u201d has momentum on its side, it\u2019s most likely the film\nvoters have seen most recently and will be the biggest player at the box office\nin the weeks leading up to the show. \u201cOnce Upon a Time\u2026 in Hollywood\u201d has the\nindustry on its side, Hollywood loves a movie about Hollywood (as with previous\nwinners \u201cArgo\u201d and \u201cThe Artist\u201d just in the last decade). \u201cParasite\u201d has\ncritics on its side, with the highest score on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic\namong other accolades. So I have to look for reasons why the five front-runners\nshould lose. \u201cThe Irishman\u201d is on Netflix, something of a crime against the\nstill-theater-based industry. \u201cJoker\u201d earned some scathing reviews and comic\nbook movies are a notoriously tough sell to Oscar voters. \u201c1917\u201d didn\u2019t get any\nnominations for its cast and voters already named a one-shot movie Best Picture\nfive years ago with \u201cBirdman.\u201d \u201cOnce Upon a Time\u2026 in Hollywood\u201d came out over\nsix months before the ceremony and I didn\u2019t like it, which ought to count for\nsomething. \u201cParasite\u201d also didn\u2019t get any nominations for its cast, and it\u2019s in\nKorean, which will turn off voters averse to subtitles. It\u2019s tight race, as it\nshould be, but I\u2019m going to go with \u201c1917.\u201d World War I is grand-scale subject\nmatter and the Oscars deserve a grand-scale winner. Congratulations, \u201c1917\u201d and\nSam Mendes, you\u2019re my picks for Best Picture and Director, respectively. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver             Last week I looked at the nominees in the Acting categories for the upcoming 92nd Academy Awards. This week I\u2019ll look at four more categories, even… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":45861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45863"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}