Which of these animated films take the fifth spot in the Oscar race?

by Nathaniel R

Our final Oscar predictions continue with Animated Feature. Though we've learned never to wholly trust consensus in this race (that shocking omission of The Lego Movie!) we're assuming that Spider-Verse, Incredibles 2, Isle of Dogs and Ralph Breaks the Internet will be nominated. One spot is free. 

In Ye Olden Times (i.e. a couple of years ago before Oscar opened this category up to all voters, instead of just animators) we'd assume that that would be it for the mainstream titles and we'd also get Early Man (animators love Aardman films) or Japan's Mirai in there. But under the new rules we have to assume that The Grinch is a strong possibility since it's a massive hit (#7 of the whole year). But will anyone really put it at #1 on their ballots with Incredibles 2 (even more successful and more beloved) right there for the taking? Ruben Brandt Collector is memorable and stands out from the foreign pack in aesthetics but a qualifying release only was a bad move on Sony Pictures Classics part and it likely won't have been widely seen enough to garner many votes. Early Man didn't have the impact that Aardman films usually have (it's the lowest grossing of their features) so we're going with Mirai since it hails from a respected filmmaker, it honors Japan's robust industry, and it was boosted by that Golden Globe nod.

Related:
Animated Oscar chart | Reviews of Other Longshot Contenders Not Listed Above: MFKZ, Tito and the Birds, On Happiness Road, The Night is Short Walk on Girl, and Lu Over the Wall

Doc Corner: Final Oscar Predictions – A Big Year For Box Office Hits?

Editor's Note: We're turning over the final nomination predictions in Documentary to our resident doc expert. Take it away, Glenn -- Nathaniel R

By Glenn Dunks

It’s always somewhat impossible to gauge just what direction the documentary branch will go in. In the past, they have often been criticized for ignoring big non-fiction hits while the next year they're equally criticized for just nominating the documentaries that people have heard of and ignoring the smaller titles that haven’t the benefit of famous subjects or popular themes (WWII, for instance).

2019 was an unusually spectacular year at the box office for documentaries with four titles all reaching seven figures at the cash registers of cinemas in the US. It has been great to see documentaries enter the zeitgeist in such a way. Unfortunately that has meant that most awards organizations have defaulted to a standard list of those top four box office champs: Won’t You Be My Neighbor, Free Solo, RBG and Three Identical Strangers. Maybe with Netflix’s Shirkers or Hulu’s Minding the Gap thrown in for good measure. Will Oscar follow suit?

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FYC: "A Simple Favor" for Best Costume Design

Please welcome new contributor Mark Brinkerhoff

A simple favor to ask members of the Academy (its costume branch, in particular): don’t miss your opportunity to nominate A Simple Favor, simply one of the finest showcases of contemporary costuming in years. How so? Let’s examine.

First off, it’s only natural to zero in on Blake Lively’s character’s frankly stunning series of sharply-tailored suits with vertiginous stilettos. But while my own love of ladies in menswear knows no limits there is much more happening front and center (Anna Kendrick) and around the margins (Linda Cardellini, Jean Smart, Lively’s other character) to pique the interest of sartorially-minded viewers...

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Podcast: Sorry to Bother You about Oscar's fifth spots!

Nathaniel R and Murtada Elfadl and Nick Davis talk Oscar races

Hello! No new movies to review but plenty to talk about.

Index (56 minutes)
00:01 Glenn, Regina, Olivia, and Patty saved the Globes
05:16 What we've been watching lately: Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother, plus Support the Girls, Minding the Gap, Eighth Grade and A Star is Born (again).
18:00 Supporting Actress / Actor: Foy or Robbie, and King? Sam, Sam, or Timothée?
29:22 Actor & Actress: Hawke or Washington? Blunt, Aparacio, or Kidman?
35:45 Screenplay confusions / Score weirdness
42:30 Foreign Film: Never Look Away or Burning?
45:50 Nick is thumbs down At Eternity's Gate
47:20 Director / Picture and Pawel Pawlikowski and Spike Lee
55:00 Wrap-up

Further Reading / References
• Oscar Charts
• Golden Globe Speeches
• KCRW's "The Business" interview with Spike Lee
• Nathaniel's Ben Foster interview

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Sorry to Bother You about Oscar's fifth spots

Interview: Toni Colette on horror, grief, and her prismatic performances

by Nathaniel R

Toni Collette gives one of the year's great performances staring into the abyss of her own life in "Hereditary"Toni Collette doesn't like horror movies. We relate but there are exceptions: horror films starring Toni Collette are events. Her resistance to the genre,  she refers to both of her biggest horror hits as "classic dramas", may be the strange key to why she's so superb in them, grounding them in emotional truths while simultaneously having the kind of stylistic range as an actor that can lift right off with them into otherworldly places. 

We recently sat down after an encore screening and lively Q&A of Hereditary. Her sole Oscar nomination came early in her career as the grieving mother of little Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense (1999) and in a way, twenty years later, she's bookended that great early success with another very different grieving mother. This one's much harder to love but the performance is even better. Even if you don't love horror movies, it's impossible to miss the fact that her Annie, a self-indulgent artist and resentful mother, is a tour de force performance from an actress at the top of her game. Annie's life is traumas stacking up on traumas but Toni's performance keeps stacking brilliance upon brilliance.

Though she's played her share of narcissists or flighty women, the actress herself comes across as generous and grounded, thrilled by the collaboration of filmmaking. She rolls her eyes about herself and other actors if anyone gets too precious or self-involved about the craft. Though she loves acting dearly, she hilariously refers to it as her "day job" as we're making small talk before the interview.

In a rare turnabout, as we sat down, Toni asked the first question. So we'll begin right there....

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