My 2020 Academy Award Predictions (for movies released in 2019)
Oh great, now they’re changing the rules on us. Wasn’t the whole point of the Best Foreign Film category (lately re-christened Best International Feature Film) was so that you didn’t have to give the Best Picture Oscar to some movie most people never heard of and won’t watch anyway because it has subtitles? I suppose we should have seen the writing on the wall last year when Alfonso Cuarón collected statuettes for both Best Foreign Language Film (as it was then called) and Best Director. I suppose it was only a matter of time (specifically one year) until the same movie won both Best International Feature Film (as it is now called) and Best Picture. Come to think of it, what was the reason for having a non-English-language category in the first place anyway? Was it intended to be a way of acknowledging movies from other countries while Hollywood was in the midst of otherwise congratulating itself and promoting its own product to consumers? Or to put it a bit more cynically, was it a way to ghetto-ize (and avoid having to compete with) movies that people might have heard of because they consume snobby media out of New York and might wonder why those cool movies from France and Italy don’t get something too?
Regardless of what the original rationale was, though, the point is that the world is a lot smaller than it used to be and clearly the Academy Awards have long since gotten away from any idea that their raison d’être (see how that foreign language stuff just slips itself in?) was strictly or mainly to produce indigenous California-produced product. Shouldn’t all categories be international? Well, that’s probably not going to happen—at least anytime soon. Instead, let’s have fun watching as the awards categories become increasingly strained by their inherent contradictions. And just to make trouble: can anyone remind me again exactly why acting categories (but no others) are segregated by gender?
Anyway, thank goodness for Bong Joon Ho for humbly, appreciatively and graciously shaking things up. It kept things interesting and actually stirred emotions in a cynic’s heart. When it comes to the acting categories, by now we have seen that quartet of Brad Pitt, Laura Dern, Joaquin Phoenix and Renee Zellweger go to the podium so many times in other awards ceremonies (Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTAs), we nearly know their speeches by heart. Yawn.
Okay, so once again I didn’t do a great job with the predictions—except for the list of the ones that deserved to win. I always get that one 100-percent correct, even if they aren’t particularly predictive. But in a way, isn’t the point of wasting, I mean spending, a long evening watching this thing to actually hope that at least some of your predictions are wrong? After all, it’s what keeps me (mostly) awake.
|
Category |
Most Likely to Win |
Most Deserving to Win |
Most Actually Did Win |
|
Best Picture |
|||
|
Lead Actor |
Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) |
Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory) |
|
|
Lead Actress |
Renee Zellweger (Judy) |
Renee Zellweger (Judy) |
|
|
Supporting Actor |
Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood) |
Joe Pesci (The Irishman) |
|
|
Supporting Actress |
Laura Dern (Marriage Story) |
Florence Pugh (Little Women) |
|
|
Director |
Martin Scorsese (The Irishman) |
Sam Mendes (1917) |
Bong Joon Ho (Parasite) |
|
Original Screenplay |
Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story) |
Rian Johnson (Knives Out) |
Bong Joon Ho and Jin Won Han(Parasite) |
|
Adapted Screenplay |
Steven Zaillian (The Irishman) |
Greta Gerwig (Little Women) |
Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit) |
|
Animated Feature |
Toy Story 4 |
I Lost My Body |
|
|
Best International Feature Film |
Parasite (South Korea) |
Parasite (South Korea) |
|
|
Total Scores |
6 |
2 |
4 |
Color Key to Actual Results:
Actual Winners
The real winners are “sharing” their Oscar with you