2021 Oscar Predictions
Obviously this was a year unlike any other, and movies were no exception. Countless films were pulled from the release calendar, saved until they can be promised an engrossed theater audience, rather than premiere on a laptop or -heaven forbid- a phone. The films that were released were quiet, without much attention. Even the Oscars, pushed back nearly three months later than they would normally occur, seem like they're going to pass without much notice. However, we all have to keep face in these trying times, and so I will present my traditional Oscar predictions so that everyone may see how smart I am when I am right.
Best Picture
Who Will Win: Nomadland
Who Should Win: Judas and the Black Messiah
Nomadland is a beautiful critique of capitalism without the blood pumping promise of revolution that those movies usually entail. It is empathetic and lovely, with direction that asks so much vulnerability of its actors that the viewer would feel uncomfortable if they didn't offer at least a bit of their own. It's an experience so physically sad to view, but also incredibly affirming. It's the perfect film to demonstrate our collective languish (a word I learned from the New York Times), and couldn't fit better in any other year. It's a self-aware shoo-in.
That being said, my favorite, barely edging out Minari, is Shaka King's thrilling odyssey of Fred Hampton and the Illinois Black Panther Party, told through the lens of his Judas Bill O'Neal. This is the kind of film that wills you to get so involved, to feel so physically exhausted after, all because of the energy that Daniel Kaluuya brings to the screen. It's intense, with just enough calm to not get lost but never too much to forget the fight. It's a film that will last.
Best Director
Who Will Win: Chloe Zhao
Who Should Win: Chloe Zhao
There exists three happy realities that may unfold on Oscar Sunday. Lee Isaac Chung swoops in for best director for his personal, heartwarming, and tentative picture of the American Dream in 1980s Arkansas. Emerald Fennell gets awarded the trophy for sheer guts alone. Or Chloe Zhao predictably wins for her achievement on Nomadland. In Nomadland, Zhao untaps a part of directing that is often overlooked: getting actors to tell the truth. Their actors, of course, they're all lying all the time, and that's what defines the best performances: the best liars. But Zhao demands full ownership and honestly on behalf of her actors, an innovation in directing which cannot, and likely will not, go unrecognized.
Actor in a Leading Role
Who Will Win: Chadwick Boseman
Who Should Win: Riz Ahmed
Chadwick Boseman had a long, exciting career ahead of him and he likely will have won handfuls of Oscars throughout his lifetime, with Ma Rainey being just the first of many nominations. Sadly, Boseman died last summer, and the world will never get to see that career. We were lucky to have gotten what we got, and thus it is only right to award him while we still have new releases while we can. However, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is not his strongest performance, not even his strongest this year (Da 5 Bloods). This is a career Oscar, not towards the accredited performance, but still well-deserved.
Actress in a Leading Role
Who Will Win: Viola Davis
Who Should Win: Literally Anyone
Viola Davis is a powerhouse performer and anyone who has ever seen her act knows it. She only needs a couple seconds of screen-time for the audience to know that she is a star, and so imagine what may happen when she's given the leading role. Even her winning speech would likely be nominated if it were eligible. That being said, the best actress category is incredibly exciting this year, and it would be well-deserved for any of the nominees.
Actor in a Supporting Role
Who Will Win: Daniel Kaluuya
Who Should Win: Daniel Kaluuya
This is the one I feel strongest about. Judas is my favorite Oscar movie this year, and the entire film is made by Kaluuya's performance. He has a pretty signature face, but he literally becomes unrecognizable in this film. He bleeds all the energy into the movie, and made my jaw drop multiple times when I watched this in the middle of the night. This was a performance for the ages, and will likely be the most deserved Oscar of the night.
Actress in a Supporting Role
Who Will Win: Amanda Seyfried
Who Should Win: Yuh-Jung Youn
Amanda Seyfried doesn't really do anything in Mank except pretend to be interested in Gary Oldman's endless rambling, which I guess is a performance in itself. However, it would be an abandonment of the Academy on the part of itself if Mank walked away without a single trophy. Thus, they're going to hand it to the reliable Hollywood darling. Unfortunately, this will win over Yuh-Jung Youn's incredibly sweet and tender performance as the grandma in Minari. Like Lady Bird made people run to call their moms, Yuon's performance made audiences re-evaluate their relationship with their grandmothers.
Animated Feature
Who Will Win: Soul
Who Should Win: Soul
Soul is a Pixar movie with all the heart we've come to expect from the studio, all the humor of Tina Fey, all the existentialism of The Good Place, and all the jazz that La La Land couldn't fit in. The animation is somehow as beautiful as real life with a dreamy tint, and the script is simultaneously devastating and affirming. The movie would win even if it wasn't all these things and just had the Pixar name branded upon it, but it sure is lucky that it has got it all.
Cinematography
Who Will Win: Nomadland
Who Should Win: Nomadland
If I were a good student, I'd give the award to Erik Messerschmidt of Mank because he went to my college, but I hate this school so I won't be doing that. Nomadland is the premier example of sky cinematography, what every middle school girl with a separate Photography Instagram claims to be an expert in. And it would be beautiful even if it wasn't paramount to the understanding of the film. But hand-in-hand with the film's thesis, it seeps in appreciation of the world, and the movie simply wouldn't work without it.
Editing
Who Will Win: Sound of Metal
Who Should Win: Promising Young Woman
When it comes to editing, Sound of Metal and Promising Young Woman are basically holding hands. They are both quick and exciting, with dotted long takes so as to not get lost. Honestly, they could be switched above and it would still make sense, just as long as they both get a shoutout.
Costume Design
Who Will Win: Emma
Who Should Win: Emma
It's a period piece, which the Academy loves, and it made me immediately want to buy a dress whose waist is barely below my boobs, which is quite the accomplishment.
Makeup and Hairstyling
Who Will Win: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Who Should Win: Emma
Documentary Feature
Who Will Win: My Octopus Teacher
Who Should Win: My Octopus Teacher
I actually have no idea who will or should win because My Octopus Teacher is the only one of the nominees that I've seen, but it is cute and sweet, and in a year that was incredibly not that, it seems fitting that the realest of categories goes to the most fantastical of nominees.
International Feature
Who Will Win: Another Round
I have not seen any of the nominees, but Another Round's director Thomas Vinterberg was nominated for Best Director, so it seems the obvious choice.
Music (Original Score)
Who Should Win: Soul
Soul is a movie about living for the love of music, something the composers have clearly felt (enough so to be nominated twice in the same category for two different films).
Music (Original Song)
Who Will Win: Speak Now, One Night in Miami
Who Should Win: Husavik, Eurovision
I know it's horrible, but I listened to all of the nominees while writing this, and Eurovision's anthem was the only one that held my attention the whole way through. That being said, because it'd be actually insane for this dumb throwaway Netflix movie to get to stamp Academy Award Winner on its banner, one of the more traditionally powerful ballads will take the prize.
Production Design
Who Will Win: Mank
Who Should Win: The Father
Mank lovingly recreates Citizen Kane - Golden Age era Hollywood in the manner that the Academy is known to award. The Father has likely the quietest production design of the bunch, simply recreating an apartment, but with such a specific vibe, truly furthering the goal of production design of creating an immersive environment.
Animated Short
Who Will Win: If Anything Happens I Love You
Who Should Win: If Anything Happens I Love You
With the triple threat of being relevant, accessible, and incredibly emotional, this 12 minute odyssey manages to capture a terrifying but real feeling and had me weeping by the four minute mark. It manages to be subtle where it could be on-the-nose, and kind where it could be preachy. It is also on Netflix and centers around an all-too-real part of American culture that everyone has at least some kind of association with, making the emotion ever more accessible.
Live Action Short
Who Will Win: Two Distant Strangers
Admittedly this is the only one of the category that I've seen, but it was frustrating, empathetic, horrifying, sweet, real, and aggravating all at once. It is about a black man and a cop and, produced just months after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police, we can already hazard a guess at how their relationship will go. Yet the leading performance by Joey Bada$$ allows us to hope for something better, over and over and over.
Sound
Who Will Win: Sound of Metal
Who Should Win: Sound of Metal
All of the other nominees only give Sound of Metal someone to sit with at the table, and they know this. Sound of Metal is basically an experimental film in what can be achieved with sound, and the entire movie revolves around the way that sound is mixed and engineered. And because we're on the subject, may we all marvel at the fact that sound mixing and sound editing are no longer two separate categories that no one actually knows the difference between, no matter how much they try to explain it.
Visual Effects
I have a feeling all the movies that would've been big contenders for this one were pulled from the release schedule until they could get a real theatrical release. After all, who wants to spend a year on photorealistic effects just for it to be viewed on an eleven inch screen. The only reason Tenet managed to slip through is because Chris Nolan thought that a big theatrical release was what he would be getting.
Writing (Adapted Screenplay):
Who Will Win: One Night in Miami
Who Should Win: First Cow (not nominated)
First Cow was my all-time favorite movie of last year, and there should be a special prize for the simple fact that the book it was based on didn't even have a cow in it. It's tender and gorgeous and so sweet and includes the pun that I quote every single day: "why are a baker and a peasant the same? They both need (knead) bread."
That being said, One Night in Miami is a talky movie that stays interesting throughout, which can only be accomplished by an investing script read by talented actors
Writing (Original Screenplay):
Who Should Win: Trial of the Chicago 7
I heard if you whisper 'talky movie that stays interesting throughout,' Aaron Sorkin appears in the mirror behind you. It seems to have worked. If I were fair, I'd give this one to literally any of the other nominees, but in watching this movie I was hypnotized by the speed and the manner in which they talk, the talent of Mr. Sorkin. I'm going to hazard a guess that Academy voters were equally hypnotized, an even if none of us came out of it retaining a single word, we felt smart while we watched.
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