The Final Predictions Begin!

I've updated the Picture, Director, Screenplays, Actor and Supporting Actress charts with final predictions. Though many questions remain we must make the hard calls with nominations only a week away!

Best Picture & Best Director
The Best Picture race will literally never be "locked up" again so long as Oscar sticks with its "5 to 10" balloting math. That shifting number of Best Pictures means that you just never know. I want to say 8 again this year but what if its 5,6,7,9, or gulp 10. The big question mark, at least for this pundit, is Nocturnal Animals. Given that it's the movie that won't go away in precursor season with great showings at the Globes and BAFTA and significant buzz in Los Angeles despite its polarizing nature and its relatively low box office take (lower than ALL the other still buzzing pictures with the exception of Loving). The thing is you can't vote AGAINST something. You can only vote for it, so we're predicting Tom Ford in Best Director. 

Leading Actor
Arguable the most settled of the Oscar acting races with Casey Affleck, Denzel Washington, Andrew Garfield, Viggo Mortensen, and Ryan Gosling all steady players for months. At this point it would be a minor surprise to see one of the ousted. Support for their rivals seems to be far too diffuse.

Supporting Actress
The other "settled" acting race though you can definitely make arguments about one of two women spoiling the party:  Greta Gerwig who is brilliant in 20th Century Women and who has definitely earned her place at Hollywood's most prestigious tables after years of fine work, or Janelle Monae, who proves herself a total natural in Hidden Figures with a bright film career ahead of her. Supporting Actress is a friendly category to double nominees which means if there's a major shake-up it could be both Octavia and Janelle in the mix.

With Captain Fantastic holding strong for Viggo and with its SAG nomination, we're betting the Screenplay shows up, too.

Original Screenplay & Adapted Screenplay
The big question in Adapted might be whether Fences has enough goodwill to earn August Wilson a posthumous nomination, or if naysayers who believe its too "stagey" have made it a Viola & Denzel only party. My guess is that if Tom Ford doesn't show up in Director he shows up here instead and steals that slot away from the late theatrical giant.

In Original Screenplay with three films looking unstoppable for nominations (Manchester, Hell or, La La), one looking like a very typical "of course it nabbed #1 votes!" critical darling style nominee (The Lobster), there's presumably only one spot left and SO many strong screenplays fighting for it: Captain Fantastic, 20th Century Women, Zootopia, Toni Erdmann, Jackie. 

Is Viola in "Fences" a lead? Or is her "Rose" a supporting player by choice?

Scarlett & Viola won the supporting & lead actress Tonys in 2010. Now Viola is headed for a supporting trophy (for the same role) by Lynn Lee

If it’s Oscar season, there must be category fraud lurking somewhere.  This year most of the debate has centered around Viola Davis, whose barn-burner of a performance opposite Denzel Washington in Fences is a virtual lock ...for supporting actress gold.  There’s little doubt the decision to go supporting was driven by the perception that lead actress would be a much tougher road in an especially competitive year.  Still, it’s such a powerhouse turn that many Viola fans are justifiably frustrated by what looks like a cynical lack of faith in both her and the Academy.

And yet, having previously read the play and seen it performed on stage – though not the production that starred Viola and Denzel – I can’t help wondering if this is as open-and-shut a case of category fraud as it appears.  In terms of the weight and magnetism of Viola’s performance, it feels like a lead role.  But the way the role is written, as August Wilson conceived it, I think is a closer call...

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Link Street

Do you know what live streaming is? 

Vanity Fair celebrities react to Fathom Events Woody Harrelson Lost in London Live streaming experiment (which happens this week)
Interview Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) one of the "Faces of 2017" portfolio
TFE Happy birthday to Betty White and James Earl Jones both among the oldest living screen stars
Vulture in-depth interview with smart funny one of a kind Billy Eichner
This is Not Porn Jim Carrey impersonating celebrities in 1992 
Coming Soon new images from Netflix superhero team series The Defenders
In Contention Thelma Schoonmaker and Janet Ashikaga to be honored by the Editors Guild this year
Mind of a Suspicious Kind a reminder of the amazing cinematography of Wings (1927) with a funny anecdote 
Mike's Movie Projector two movie premieres of 1954: A Star is Born and East of Eden 

ICYMI
If you were away for the weekend... 
Team Experience Awards Moonlight, Arrival, Jackie, The Handmaiden, and more...
Nathaniel's Top 20 Sing Street thru La La
Pfandom Episode 2 Pfeiffer in 1979
Pablo Larraín we spoke with the director of the incredible Jackie about "curiousity, love, and rage"
Podcast in the two most recent conversations we covered Silence, 20th Century Women, Hidden Figures
Toni Erdmann's screenplay. Have you seen it yet? 

The Costumes are Coming

New Series!

T H R E E    F I T T I N G S
Thursdays • TFE •  Jan 26th

Consider it a companion series to "The Furniture" if you will. While Daniel continues to bring us Production Design pieces on Mondays, Nathaniel will be looking at the art of costume design each Thursday.

Doc Corner: The Timely Reminder of 'Antarctica: Ice and Sky'

Director Luc Jacquet ventures into the past to show us our future in Antarctica: Ice and Sky, one of the best enviro-docs that I have seen in recent times. A film about climate change that revels in the captivating splendour of its natural subject as much as it does science and the ravages of humanity. It’s an appropriate film to watch right on the outset of what could very well be four of the most environmentally disastrous years on record. A timely reminder that even in the depths of the Cold War, the USA, France and Russia worked together for the greater good of the planet.

Like he did with Oscar-winning March of the Penguins, Jacquet shows a distinct knack for taking the potentially dry blueprint of a nature documentary and manipulate it into something more broadly cinematic. With the particularly impressive work of editor of Stéphane Mazalaigue, Jacquet has taken the 16mm archival footage of French glaciologist Claude Lorius’s expeditions to Antarctica and turned them into a compelling, thrilling story of scientific breakthroughs.

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