Oscars 2020 Predictions per Rolling Stone
by Cindi Sutter, Founder & Editor Spirited Table® I decided to see how Hollywood suggest we celebrate the Oscars, and here’s what I found…
Commentary By PETER TRAVERS - Rolling Stone Magazine
It’s Oscar night on Sunday — a.k.a. Hollywood’s annual orgy of self congratulation. For 2020, there are nine nominees up for Best Picture with Little Women trying not to wipe out in an avalanche of movies about white dudes in crisis (see: Joker, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Ford v Ferrari, 1917…basically, every other nominee except Parasite). Once again, it’s #OscarsSoWhite, with only one black actor in the mix. And also, there are no women in the running for Best Director. Does Oscar never learn?
Questions are abound: Can a streaming service finally grab the top trophy, or will 202Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, with 10 nominations, face a total shutout from Netflix haters and industry types who are still pissed at the director for slagging Marvel movies? How does Quentin Tarantino (Once Upon a Time …in Hollywood) compete with South Korea’s Bong Joon Ho (Parasite)? Despite the chaos inherent in predicting how more than 7,000 idiosyncratic Academy members will vote, here’s a cheat sheet to the major Oscar categories. Place your bets.
Best Picture
—Ford v Ferrari
—The Irishman
—Jojo Rabbit
—Joker
—Little Women
—Marriage Story
—1917
—Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood
—Parasite
Sorry Little Women — this is the year of white male rage, so you can sit out this category. The Irishman,with its cast of raging bulls, is the best of the year by any standard, but there’s no way the Academy is going to vote its top award to a Netflix movie that takes business away from theaters. Same goes for Marriage Story. Scratch Jojo Rabbit and Ford v Ferrari from the list, since their directors aren’t nominated; it’s not always a dealbreaker, but it’s not a good sign, either. Joker should be sitting pretty with 11 nominations (the most for any 2019 film) — but squeamish voters are mistaking its take on bullying culture as an incitement rather than an indictment. So here is what’s still in the mix.
Should Win: Parasite. South Korea’s slashingly comic, seriously unnerving take on class warfare is certainly good enough to become the first foreign-language film to win the big prize in the Academy’s 92-year-old history. But old habits die hard for voters who prefer to ghettoize subtitled art in the Best International Film category. Given the chance to make history, Oscar will probably (and predictably) give in to the comfort of playing it safe.
Could Win: Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. Unlike The Irishman, Quentin Tarantino’s love letter to movie-town USA is unburdened by the Netflix jinx. Plus, Tarantino claims his ninth film is his next-to-last, and the virtuoso behind Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained has still never won a Best Picture Oscar. Come on, Academy. It’s time.
Will Win: 1917. Critics and audiences are all in for this World War I drama about a British soldier risking life and limb to stop a battle. The whole film appears to move in one continuous take, a technical feat that some call a gimmick. If so, it’s a gimmick that works like gangbusters and makes Sam Mendes’ in-the-trenches thriller stand out in a crowd. Sometimes that all it takes.
Best Actor
—Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory
—Adam Driver, Marriage Story
—Joaquin Phoenix, Joker
—Jonathan Pryce, The Two Popes
—Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood
For those still smarting that Robert De Niro didn’t make the cut for anchoring The Irishman, sorry — there are no write-in votes. And the same goes for Adam Sandler (Uncut Gems) and Eddie Murphy (Dolemite Is My Name), proving again that the Academy had better do something about its animus against comics who act. DiCaprio and Pryce took those spots, but have little chance of pulling up from behind.
Should Win: Antonio Banderas. Playing his own version of Pedro Almodóvar, the Spanish director who gave him his breakthrough roles back in the day, Banderas captures the soul-sickness of a creative genius who finds the cure for his ills by reviving his love for cinema. Critics groups from New York to Los Angeles heaped awards on first-time nominee Banderas for giving the performance of his life.
Could Win: Adam Driver. In this devastating study of a marriage in tatters, Driver offered a jaw-dropping demonstration of his power, subtlety and range. For a while, his was the performance to beat. But the stampede for a man in a clown mask makes that scenario unlikely.
Will Win: Joaquin Phoenix. All the heat for Joker, which has amassed more than a billion bucks in worldwide ticket sales, is centered on the transcendent, transformative tour de force delivered by Phoenix. The actor puts a human face on an iconic scary comic-book villain, and you can bet the farm that this extraordinary talent will, after three previous nominations, finally win his first Oscar.
Best Actress
—Cynthia Erivo, Harriet
—Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story
—Saoirse Ronan, Little Women
—Renée Zellweger, Judy
—Charlize Theron, Bombshell
The hands-down winner in this category should be Lupita Nyong’o for making her dual role in Jordan Peele’s Us the equal (at least) of what Joaquin Phoenix achieves in Joker. But for some reason, the actress was consigned to the reject pile; ditto Alfre Woodard, who delivered a career-best performance as a conflicted prison warden in Clemency. The Academy presumably exhausted its recognition of diversity by choosing Erivo as the sole black actor among 20 to receive a nomination in the role of American abolitionist Harriet Tubman. There was early heat about Charlize Theron pushing ahead for morphing so convincingly into Fox broadcaster Megyn Kelly in Bombshell, but that portrayal owes much of its impact to makeup.
Should Win: Saoirse Ronan. At 25, she has earned her fourth nomination for playing Jo March, the headstrong rebel at the heart of Little Women. And she does so brilliantly. The only forces rallying against her success are male voters who seem to take film’s title literally.
Could Win: Scarlett Johansson. She stands toe-to-toe with Adam Driver in this story of a couple caught up in the hurricane of divorce. A victory for both is not out of the question.
Will Win: Renée Zellweger. Though critics groups threw their support elsewhere (Lupita Nyong’o, Mary Kay Place), Zellweger took home the major prizes from the higher-profile Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild. Her fully committed performance will score again on Oscar night. Playing Judy Garland on the skids will appeal to the Academy’s shame for denying the beloved performer a competitive Oscar (the loss for 1954’s A Star Is Born really hurt). In the mind of a lot of voters, a win for Zellweger is a win for Garland.
Best Supporting Actor
—Anthony Hopkins, The Two Popes
—Al Pacino, The Irishman
—Joe Pesci, The Irishman
—Brad Pitt, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood
—Tom Hanks, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
What a lineup. Except for Pitt, they’re all former Oscar winners — Hanks twice— looking to add to the gold. Still, you wouldn’t be wrong to call category fraud. Hopkins is one of the two popes; he’s not a supporting pope. And Hanks is playing Mr. Rogers and who are we kidding? It’s his neighborhood. As for Pitt, he is on screen just as much as his costar Leonardo DiCaprio, who’s nominated as Best Actor. What gives?
Should win: Joe Pesci. His Pennsylvania mob capo Russell Bufalino in The Irishman is truly a supporting role. And his quiet menace is in marked contrast to the volatile mafioso he played to Oscar glory in GoodFellas. Plus, his film comeback is cause for celebration.
Could Win: Al Pacino. As Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, he makes every scene count while finding the humor and unexpected pathos in a role he could have played strictly for hoo-ha bravado. Working for the first time with Martin Scorsese, Pacino fits into the ensemble like the pro he is.
Will Win: Brad Pitt. Whether you call bullshit on the whole lead-vs.-supporting categorization or not, it’s impossible not to root for Pitt, 56, to take home his first Oscar for playing a Hollywood stunt man who has his boss’s back and tangles with the threat of the Manson gang. Yes, the character has a shady past (what, exactly, went down on that yacht with his wife?), but damned if Pitt doesn’t make the him irresistible.
Best Supporting Actress
—Kathy Bates, Richard Jewel
—Laura Dern, Marriage Story
—Scarlett Johansson, Jojo Rabbit
—Florence Pugh, Little Women
—Margot Robbie, Bombshell
It’s supposed to be in the bag for Dern, whose role as a divorce lawyer with killer instincts in Marriage Story is also meant to serve as a career award for an actress who never disappoints (she’s also great in Little Women). But upsets in acting categories are a staple at Oscar ceremonies. Remember last year when Glenn Close was the safe bet as Best Actress for The Wife…until Olivia Colman was the name in the envelope for The Favourite? Who doesn’t love an Oscar shocker?
Should Win: Florence Pugh. The British actress is revelatory in Little Woman as Amy, the youngest March sister in the Louisa May Alcott story who everyone used to hate for burning her sister’s book and stealing her boyfriend. Pugh make us understand Amy as a struggling artist trying to make her way in an unforgiving man’s world.
Could Win: Scarlett Johansson. Nominated as Best Actress for Marriage Story, a win for Johansson in the supporting category for Jojo Rabbit could be a way to reward her for a great year. As the braveheart mother of a boy who imagines Hitler is his best friend, she nails a role that dexterously crosses the line from humor into heartbreak.
Will Win: Laura Dern. It would take a thunderbolt to deny Dern her first Oscar.
To read the rest of the Rolling Stone article and find more “Best & Predictions” click here.