April Foolish Predix Pt 3: Directors and Screenplays

The even more foolish (in light of the current pandemic) annual tradition of "April Foolish Predictions" continues. As ever we're trying to suss out the Oscar race a year in advance. Well, 10 months in advance if you're getting nitpicky. We've previously covered Animated Features, Visual Categories, Music and Sound. Here's the index of predictions.

SCREENPLAYS
Depending on what happens with the calendar in terms of movie theaters reopening and distributor confidence Original Screenplay will be slimmer than usual. But how slim...?

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April Foolish Predix Pt 2: Visuals & Sound

Hello brave readers willing to fantasize about the 93rd annual Academy Awards while the bulk of the internet (but not us!) is convinced they won't exist! We've previously covered potential options for Best Animated Feature so now let's talk all the craft categories before we get to the 'big eight' (Screenplays, Director, Acting, and Picture). It's a wild wild world out there in terms of possibility. We only know:

a) which movies are "definitely*" still planning to open this year
b) the kinds of things Oscar tends to like in a normal year
c) a vague idea and plentiful hunches about which movies are closest to being finished in post-production and will risk opening. 

So please take all of these predictions in the way they are intended: a bit of fantasy escapism based on past punditry experience mixed with vague ideas about what might happen in the future of this tumultuous year. 

VISUAL CATEGORIES
Our favourite film categories to think about apart from Actressing & International Film. Come look at what we think might happen in Costume Design, Cinematography, and more. 

SOUND CATEGORIES
These are much less fact-based. Composers are often the last part of a creative team hired so a lot of upcoming pictures dont have composers announced yet. Especially since Hollywood isn't at work at the moment. So this is wild guesswork. We also dont know which movies will have original songs. So we are blindfolded while looking at these crystal balls. It's quite odd, punditry, in this pandemic world.

Five Reasons the Oscars Won't Be Cancelled. (Relax)

by Nathaniel R

Regular readers know that we put our Punditry hat on and whip out the foggy crystal ball each year about this time. The reason is an attempt to predict the Oscar nominations nearly a full year in advance each season. We tend to do alright at this admittedly silly endeavour (silly because 90% of the films haven't yet been seen.) But 2020 is different. Perhaps you've noticed that movies haven't been opening for a full month now and all filming stopped in Hollywood. Some pre and post-production business is still happening in Hollywood but in very limited work-from-home capacity. In the twenty years of running The Film Experience we've truly never seen anything like this!

However, we wish to sound a note of optimism that you generally won't get elsewhere on the web due to the click-bait happy tone and echo chamber hysteria so many sites opt for. We don't feel there's any reason to assume that the Oscars will be cancelled. Here's why in five reasons...

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First glimpse of "Dune"

by Nathaniel R

If we're already getting the first promotional image of Denis Villeneuve's take on sci-fi literary classic Dune than the movie must still be aiming for its December 18th release date. We find that highly plausible since the movie wrapped its filming in 2019 and movie theaters are going to need some big ticket items when they reopen.  Our friend Boyd Van Hoeij describes Timothée Chalamet's costume like so...

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Congrats to La Pfeiffer and "Henry Rose"

Michelle Pfeiffer's personal passion project, her unisex fragrances named after her son and daughter, have received terrific press since premiering about a year ago. They're far out of our price range but we wanted to say congratulations as they've recently received the Glamour 2020 Beauty Award for Best Fragrance and have also been doing well with men's magazines, too, logging strong sales for men's fragrances.

Filming French ExitWe didn't suspect that the reclusive goddess would stick around social media after launching her Instagram to support the fragrances but something about it suited her whims (yay!) and she has been fairly consistent since. She's not an oversharer, obviously, but it's a steady trickle. After years and years of scarcity for pfans it's nice to have her become something of a regular celebrity presence again. Plus her cat is soooo fluffy. We love.

Months before the novel coronavirus shut down Hollywood she completed work on her next leading lady role in French Exit. While the movie was expected to be released this fall in time for Oscar season we suspect that no films will have anything like secure release dates given how many have now been delayed. We'll just have to wait and see if and when Pfeiffer returns to the Oscar race at last.