Oscars Archives - Page 16 of 39

Oscars 2016: Nomination Prediction Results

January 25, 2017July 28, 2023 Jeremy BeckOscars

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in "La La Land", which tied a record with 14 Oscar nominations

After two straight years of hitting on 80% of our Oscar nomination predictions, the Manifesto improved dramatically this year, rocketing all the way up to… 81% (56 out of 69). The Academy’s choices proved relatively middle-of-the-road, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing—sure, I could (and, in this very post, will) quibble about a few candidates that were unjustly omitted, but for the most part, this year’s nominees constitute a respectable and enjoyable slate of movies. Just keep that in mind when you’re reading a bunch of “The Oscars are out of touch!” hot takes over the next month.

Here’s a quick look at the major categories in light of this morning’s announcement.

BEST PICTURE
Arrival
Fences
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight
Hacksaw Ridge

Analysis: I went low, they went high. Go figure. Still, although I incorrectly surmised that Hacksaw Ridge would fail to make the cut, I hit on my remaining eight guesses. With the caveat that I’ve yet to see Lion (this weekend!), it’s a strong Best Picture contingent overall; at least four of these nominees are likely to end up on my top 10 list, and the remaining are diverting at worst.

Current favorite: La La Land. The only potential challenger I see is Moonlight, but for it to make headway, the frontrunner is going to have to experience significant backlash. And by “backlash”, I mean something more potent than the current deluge of insufferable “think-pieces” that are popping up online like faux-insightful whack-a-moles. Read More

Oscars 2016: Nomination Predictions

January 23, 2017April 28, 2021 Jeremy BeckOscars

With the nominations for the 2016* Academy Awards being released tomorrow morning, it’s time for the Manifesto to unveil its official predictions. I’ve hit on a mediocre 80% of my predictions each of the last two years, so we’ll see if I can improve on that mark this year (I don’t have high hopes). Per usual, we’re only predicting nominations for 13 categories; we’ll have predictions for the winners in all 21 feature fields prior to the big show on February 26.

(* Although most websites refer to these as the 2017 Academy Awards, all of the movies were released in 2016, so I prefer that nomenclature.) Read More

Oscars 2015 Recap: Spotlight Stuns in a Weird, Wacky Night

February 29, 2016June 25, 2021 Jeremy BeckOscars

A scene from "Spotlight", the surprise winner of the 2015 Best Picture

When I recap the Oscars every year, I always remind readers that I’m a movie critic, not a fashion/gala/whatever-the-hell-the-Oscars-are critic. So I can’t pretend that I’m qualified to analyze the 88th Academy Awards, or Chris Rock’s performance in hosting it. I’ll just say that hosting the Oscars is an awkward job in general, but this year it was an especially tricky task, given that controversy swirling around the white-washing of the nominations. Rock had to chastise the Academy for its biases while simultaneously ensuring that he didn’t lose the audience’s goodwill.

It’s a tightrope that he walked reasonably well, even if it resulted in a performance that featured more barbs than laughs. Rock made it clear that he wasn’t especially happy to be there, which gave his opening monologue—so typically a rote exercise in congratulatory back-slapping—some unpredictable juice. (His most caustic zinger: his promise that the annual “In Memoriam” montage would exclusively comprise black people murdered by police on their way to the movies.) Yet as the show went on, Rock’s act wore somewhat thin, and his obligatory attempts to rub elbows with the celebrities—as in the limp extended bit involving Girl Scout cookies—fell flat. (I also wonder if Rock will receive flak from other minority groups for focusing his ire exclusively toward the lack of representation for black actors, which would be quite the irony.) But again, hosting the Oscars is hard, and if Rock lacked the charm and improvisational gifts required of a great host, he was at least appropriately transgressive.

On to the movies. This year, the Manifesto went just 16-for-21 (76%), a step down from last year’s 17-for-21 performance. That brands me a poor prognosticator, which is just fine with me; I’ll happily trade some predictive cachet in exchange for some legitimate surprises.

On to a quick recap of the show, with the awards listed in order of their presentation: Read More

Oscars 2015: Full Prediction Roundup

February 27, 2016June 25, 2021 Jeremy BeckOscars

Last year, the Manifesto did a respectable if unextraordinary job predicting the Oscars, hitting on 17 of 21 feature categories. (I never pick the shorts. Deal with it.) We’re hoping to improve this year, though with an unpredictable Best Picture race and multiple heavy hitters competing in the technical fields, things could get dicey.

So be it. Here are the Manifesto’s official Oscar predictions; they’re sorted alphabetically for ease of access, but I’m also including confidence points, just so you can see where I’m shaky and, well, less shaky. Read More

Oscars 2015: Best Director and Best Picture

February 27, 2016June 25, 2021 Jeremy BeckOscars

And we’ve come to the end. So far in our Oscars analysis, the Manifesto has analyzed the technical categories (both big and small), the screenplays, the supporting actors, and the lead actors. Now, to wrap things up, we look at the two biggest awards of the night. Read More