BEST PICTURE
The Nominees
CALL ME BY YOUR NAME
(ROMANCE/DRAMA)
Produced by Peter Spears, Luca Guadagnino, Emilie Georges, and Marco Morabito
Directed by Luca Guadagnino
Screenplay by James Ivory
Based on the novel by Andre Aciman
Starring: Timothee Chalamet, Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar, Esthel Garrel, Victoire Du Bois, Vanda Capriolo, Antonio Rimoldi
Rated R for sexual content, nudity and some language.
132 minutes
I haven't seen this movie.
DARKEST HOUR
(DRAMA)
Produced by Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce, Anthony McCarten, and Douglas Urbanski
Directed by Joe Wright
Screenplay by Anthony McCarten
Starring: Gary Oldman, Kristen Scott Thomas, Lily James, Ben Mendelsohn, Stephen Dillane, Ronald Pickup, Nicholas Jones, Samuel West, David Schofield, Richard Lumsden
Rated PG-13 for some thematic material.
125 minutes
I haven't seen this movie.
DUNKIRK
(WAR/THRILLER)
Produced by Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Screenplay by Christopher Nolan
Starring: Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Aneurnin Barnard, James D'Arcy, Barry Keoghan, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy
Rated PG-13 for intense war experience and some language.
116 minutes
One of my favorite movies of last year, DUNKIRK is director Christopher Nolan's best since INCEPTION, bringing an experimental edge to a $100 million WWII film. Essentially jumping to the third act of the story and diving into the situation of Allied soldiers cornered by German forces on the beaches of Dunkirk while civilian boats race against time to cross the English Channel and English planes overhead fight the German planes attacking the soldiers on the beach, it's an experiential thriller where dialogue is mostly inconsequential, sounds are aggressive and startling, and survival to fight another day is the victory.
GET OUT
(HORROR-THRILLER)
Produced by Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Edward H. Hamm Jr., and Jordan Peele
Directed by Jordan Peele
Screenplay by Jordan Peele
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Stephen Root, Lakeith Stanfield, Lil Rey Howery, Erika Alexander, Marcus Henderson, Betty Gabriel
Rated R for violence, bloody images, and language including sexual references.
104 minutes
Made on a minimalist budget, GET OUT is an uncommonly well-manicured horror-thriller that riffs on THE STEPFORD WIVES formula, swapping out gender for race, while finding its own ways to surprise and building clever twists. The performances are all top-notch, and while I'm not sure how particularly "revolutionary" or "brilliant" it is (at least in terms of ideas, but its acclaim and $255 million box office against a $5 million budget as a racially charged horror movie could be considered revolutionary in terms of the industry), it's directed with precision.
LADY BIRD
(COMEDY-DRAMA)
Produced by Scott Rudin, Eli Bush, and Evelyn O'Neill
Directed by Greta Gerwig
Screenplay by Greta Gerwig
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothee Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein, Lois Smith, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Odeya Rush, Jorden Rodrigues, Marielle Scott
Rated R for language, sexual content, brief graphic nudity and teen partying.
94 minutes
Another one of my favorite movies from last year, a lot of movies in 2017 nobly strove to impart ideas about empathy, but most were not as successful as LADY BIRD, Greta Gerwig's humanistic comedy-drama about coming of age in the early 2000s and a caring but fraught mother-daughter relationship. Anchored by excellent lead performances, it carefully and realistically carves out multiple major and minor characters, and their relationships, with sympathy and humor.
PHANTOM THREAD
(DRAMA)
Produced by JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson, Megan Ellison, and Daniel Lupi
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Screenplay by Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, Lesley Manville, Camilla Rutherford, Gina McKee, Brian Gleeson, Harriet Samson Harris, Lujza Richter, Julia Davis, Nicholas Mander
Rated R for language.
130 minutes
PHANTOM THREAD is kind of fun, but it's weird that Oscar noticed it for six nominations including Best Picture and Best Director. It's not that it's a bad thing, but it's unusual. Looking from the outside, it seems like a pretty standard Oscar drama with a period setting, lots of beautiful costumes, sharp and witty dialogue and Daniel Day-Lewis himself in what's reportedly his final performance. From the inside, without spoiling anything, it's more like PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE than THERE WILL BE BLOOD within Paul Thomas Anderson's filmography, about absurdly obsessive artists, how they try to dominate their environments and the people around them, the people who love artists and support them, and in particular, a very weird, bitingly funny romance.
THE POST
(DRAMA)
Produced by Amy Pascal, Steven Spielberg, and Kristie Macosko Krieger
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Screenplay by Liz Hannah & Josh Singer
Starring: Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, Jesse Plemons, David Cross, Zach Woods
Rated PG-13 for language and brief war violence.
116 minutes
Not too subtly pitching itself as a movie for our times and drawing from ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN but with a juicier Spielberg flavor (for better or worse), THE POST is more performance-driven than most of Steven Spielberg's films, but his seemingly effortless direction is what milks the tension and brings the weight to the decisions being made in the film.
THE SHAPE OF WATER
(FANTASY/ROMANCE)
Produced by Guillermo del Toro and J. Miles Dale
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Screenplay by Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor
Story by Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Stuhlbarg, Doug Jones, David Hewlett, Nick Searcy, Stewart Arnott, Nigel Bennett, Lauren Lee Smith, Martin Roach, Morgan Kelly
Rated R for sexual content, graphic nudity, violence and language.
123 minutes
I've been a big fan of Guillermo del Toro since HELLBOY in 2004, particularly the emotionality and weirdness of his films, but before SHAPE OF WATER, his previous two films, while enjoyable, were a little sterile (CRIMSON PEAK has grown on me, but PACIFIC RIM still feels lacking). SHAPE OF WATER is a step up from those two and is unmistakably a del Toro work of art, boldly weird, romantic, funny, shockingly violent, and visually beautiful. It's performances, Sally Hawkins and Michael Shannon, in particular, are excellent. In many ways, it feels closely related to del Toro's last Oscar darling, PAN'S LABYRINTH. However, I'm not positive I would say it's one of his best films overall. Maybe with time, its greatness will become more apparent, but right now, it feels more 'really good' than 'great.'
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
(DRAMA)
Produced by Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, and Martin McDonagh
Directed by Martin McDonagh
Screenplay by Martin McDonagh
Starring: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, John Hawkes, Peter Dinklage, Caleb Landry Jones, Lucas Hedges, Kerry Condon, Abbie Cornish, Darrell Britt-Gibson, Zeljko Ivanek, Clarke Peters
Rated R for violence, language throughout, and some sexual references.
115 minutes
There are a lot of things to like and admire about THREE BILLBOARDS, a multi-faceted story of anger, justified or not, and how it consumes people, how it can burn and destroy but never heal. It's also about how that anger can be used to attack people, launching an offensive out of anger on the internet, like a billboard, perhaps for things that are true, but without the full picture of those people. It's a lot of what I've personally been feeling over the past year, and for that, it's a movie that I would really like to like. In the execution of that all, however, it fails, veering wildly between tones and failing to present even an internal logic to its own depiction of a small American town, where increasingly extreme acts of violence occur as chapters in a sequence without repercussions. It's a weird, harsh, goofy film that sputters around in extreme fits and starts.
WHAT WILL WIN:
SHAPE OF WATER
This is one of the few years without even a couple of frontrunners in the Best Picture category. It's essentially an open game. Many prognosticators are predicting a win for THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI, largely based on its win of the Best Ensemble award from the Screen Actors Guild (the closest thing SAG has to a Best Picture, and SAG makes up the largest proportion of the Academy voters), as well as winning Best Picture at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival (usually a good indicator a movie will be nominated at the Oscars for Best Picture as this already has, but not necessarily indicative of a win). While, overall, THREE BILLBOARDS is favored by a possible majority or plurality of Oscar voters, the award for Best Picture is voted for on a preferential ballot (number one pick, number two pick, and so on, with the average highest-voted nominee wins), and that movie also has many detractors who will put it very low on the ballot, ultimately cancelling it out and giving the award to a more neutral option. Furthermore, it's pretty rare for a movie to win Best Picture without at least having been nominated for both Best Director and Best Film Editing as well, and THREE BILLBOARDS missed the Best Director nomination (the last movie to win Best Picture without a Best Director nomination was ARGO five years ago, and prior to that, 23 years before was DRIVING MISS DAISY). SHAPE OF WATER has managed to snatch up the Producers Guild Award and the Directors Guild Award, and has the most nominations overall by far with 13 (the next runner-up being DUNKIRK with 8), indicating a clear admiration by the Academy overall.
WHAT SHOULD WIN:
DUNKIRK or LADY BIRD. Neither are particularly outrageous, but they're both exceptional, regardless. Other than THREE BILLBOARDS, however, there's really nothing that I think clearly doesn't deserve to win out of this lot.
BEST DIRECTOR
- Christopher Nolan for DUNKIRK
- Jordan Peele for GET OUT
- Greta Gerwig for LADY BIRD
- Paul Thomas Anderson for PHANTOM THREAD
- Guillermo del Toro for THE SHAPE OF WATER
Guillermo del Toro for THE SHAPE OF WATER. Del Toro has been a rising favorite of the film industry for years now, and THE SHAPE OF WATER is their first chance to big chance to legitimately honor him in a while. What's more, del Toro already won the Director's Guild Award for Outstanding Achievement in a Feature Film, and the last time the DGA winner didn't win the Oscar was Ben Affleck for ARGO 5 years ago (when he wasn't nominated for the Oscar), and before that was Rob Marshall for CHICAGO ten years earlier. It's one of the most reliable predictors of any Academy Award category.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
I really like Greta Gerwig for her directorial debut on LADY BIRD or Christopher Nolan for DUNKIRK, but I'd be just as happy to see del Toro finally get his due, plus he's just so damn likable.
BEST ACTOR
- Timothee Chalamet for CALL ME BY YOUR NAME
- Daniel Day-Lewis for PHANTOM THREAD
- Daniel Kaluuya for GET OUT
- Gary Oldman for THE DARKEST HOUR
- Denzel Washington for ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ.
Gary Oldman for THE DARKEST HOUR. This is another category with an already existing strong predictor in the form of the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role. Last year, Denzel Washington won the SAG Award for FENCES, but Casey Affleck won the Oscar. Before that, the last time the SAG Awards differed from the Oscars for Best Actor was for the 2003 film PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL, when Johnny Depp won the award (and personally, I believe they got it right that time). I haven't seen THE DARKEST HOUR, but rendered unrecognizable beneath makeup as a widely-recognized historical figure, it's a typical choice for the Oscars, and Oldman's got a lot of acclaimed performances under his belt that failed to garner a win. This will be a career win as much or more than a win for a particular performance.
WHO SHOULD WIN: I've actually only seen two of the nominees in this category, Daniel Kaluuya for GET OUT and Daniel Day-Lewis for PHANTOM THREAD, and both were great.
BEST ACTRESS
- Sally Hawkins for THE SHAPE OF WATER
- Frances McDormand for THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
- Margot Robbie for I, TONYA
- Saoirse Ronan for LADY BIRD
- Meryl Streep for THE POST
Frances McDormand for THREE BILLBOARDS. She's been the favorite since the movie came out last fall, and has already won both the Golden Globe and the SAG Award. It would be her second Best Actress Oscar, having previously won for FARGO.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
Sally Hawkins for THE SHAPE OF WATER, with whom much of that movie's heart lies and is infectiously sweet, charming and sensual, all unconventionally. Saoirse Ronan for LADY BIRD is also be deserving.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
- Willem Dafoe for THE FLORIDA PROJECT
- Woody Harrelson for THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
- Richard Jenkins for THE SHAPE OF WATER
- Christopher Plummer for ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD
- Sam Rockwell for THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
Sam Rockwell for THREE BILLBOARDS. The Screen Actors Guild portion of the Academy loves the actors in that movie, and between Harrelson and Rockwell, Rockwell was the one they awarded a Best Supporting Actor at the SAG Awards.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
I don't really have an opinion on this one. Richard Jenkins was good as usual in THE SHAPE OF WATER, but it's not exactly something I haven't seen him play before, and while I don't have any particular problems with the THREE BILLBOARDS performances, they're all part of the same messy movie. I haven't seen ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD or THE FLORIDA PROJECT.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
- Mary J. Blige for MUDBOUND
- Allison Janney for I, TONYA
- Lesley Manville for PHANTOM THREAD
- Laurie Metcalf for LADY BIRD
- Octavia Spencer for THE SHAPE OF WATER
Allison Janney for I, TONYA.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
Laurie Metcalf for LADY BIRD. I'd love to see Metcalf make the surprise win here, but Allison Janney seems like the safe bet, and if we're not playing it safe while making Oscar predictions, then what are we doing really? Janney's performance as the title character's mom is a caricature and not all that different from characters she's played before outside of the distinctive hair and makeup, and frankly, it's my least favorite of the bunch (although I haven't seen MUDBOUND). Metcalf's performance, also as the title character's mother in LADY BIRD, is more nuanced and thoughtful, without the gimmicks to back it up.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
- THE BIG SICK
- GET OUT
- LADY BIRD
- THE SHAPE OF WATER
- THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI. The screenplay categories are where weirder arthouse movies tend to get their due, which might indicate THE SHAPE OF WATER, however, I'm predicting that wins Best Picture based on the preferential ballot, but THREE BILLBOARDS will succeed in Best Screenplay.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
Again, no particularly strong feelings here. Best Screenplay is the one category in which I feel I'm actually on board with a win for THREE BILLBOARDS, because, in spite of all it's flaws that are still in the writing, I admire its conceit. On the other hand, LADY BIRD and THE BIG SICK, while neither are particularly outside the box, are both very fine versions of a kind of film. THE SHAPE OF WATER exists mostly outside the page in its visual form, and GET OUT's screenplay is one of it's less remarkable aspects.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
- CALL ME BY YOUR NAME
- THE DISASTER ARTIST
- LOGAN
- MOLLY'S GAME
- MUDBOUND
CALL ME BY YOUR NAME. Within this eclectic bunch, it's the nominee with the most Oscar love behind it overall and comes with the recognizable name of James Ivory, whose illustrious career has already included a number of acclaimed period dramas as a director.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
No opinion here. The only one of the nominees I've even seen was LOGAN, and it's cool that it was nominated, but come on.
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
- THE BOSS BABY
- THE BREADWINNER
- COCO
- FERDINAND
- LOVING VINCENT
COCO. The Oscars like to nominate two or three independent, usually hand-crafted-style animated foreign features each year to draw attention to them, but they almost always go with a mainstream pick, and neither THE BOSS BABY or FERDINAND seem to have a lot of support.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
COCO, I guess. It's not on the same level as Pixar's best movies, but it's quite lower-tier Pixar either. One point I'd like to make though is that while some publications have been calling out THE BOSS BABY as a particularly unlikely Oscar nominee, it's actually not so bad. It's not exactly a hidden gem, but it's fine and sort of funny. FERDINAND seems like the biggest turd of this bunch.
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
- A FANTASTIC WOMAN (Chile)
- THE INSULT (Lebanon)
- LOVELESS (Russia)
- ON BODY AND SOUL (Hungary)
- THE SQUARE (Sweden)
THE SQUARE. I know almost nothing about any of these nominees. I'm going with THE SQUARE because it won the 2017 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, which at least seems like something to go on.
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
- ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL
- FACES PLACES
- ICARUS
- LAST MEN IN ALEPPO
- STRONG ISLAND
FACES PLACES. I know almost nothing about these nominess, but FACES PLACES won the Peoples Choice Award for Best Documentary at the Toronto International Film Festival and has some artistic cred behind it with directors Agnes Varda and JR.
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
- EDITH+EDDIE
- HEAVEN IS A TRAFFIC JAM ON THE 405
- HEROIN(E)
- KNIFE SKILLS
- TRAFFIC STOP
HEROIN(E). I don't know anything about these nominees except the subject matter, and odds are, their not particularly at the forefront of the Oscar voters minds either. Usually, they go with the socially/politically relevant pick, but if possible, an upper rather than a downer. HEAVEN IS A TRAFFIC JAM ON THE 405 and KNIFE SKILLS sound a little too light, while TRAFFIC STOP and EDITH+EDDIE may be too heavy. HEROIN(E), dealing with the heroin epidemic is relevant but also deals with recovery, which I think might give it the leg up.
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
- DEKALB ELEMENTARY
- THE ELEVEN O'CLOCK
- MY NEPHEW EMMETT
- THE SILENT CHILD
- WATU WOTE/ALL OF US
DEKALB ELEMENTARY. I have no idea about any of these. Apparently DEKALB ELEMENTARY has to do with a would-be school shooter encountering a "compassionate employee," which seems hyper-relevant, so I'm going to guess that.
BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
- DEAR BASKETBALL
- GARDEN PARTY
- LOU
- NEGATIVE SPACE
- REVOLTING RHYMES
LOU. It's the only one in the category that I've seen, and I didn't think it was anything special, but what the hell else am I going to guess?
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
- DUNKIRK, composed by Hans Zimmer
- PHANTOM THREAD, composed by Johnny Greenwood
- THE SHAPE OF WATER, composed by Alexandre Desplat
- STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, composed by John Williams
- THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI, composed by Carter Burwell
THE SHAPE OF WATER. Hans Zimmer's DUNKIRK score created a lot of talk for its integral tension-raising score and experimental instrumentation, but it's the melodically showier Alexandre Desplat for THE SHAPE OF WATER that's most likely to catch the voters' attentions.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
While I'd most often go for the more melodic score, myself, Zimmer's DUNKIRK composition is interesting enough and complimentary enough to stand out above the crowd, and THE SHAPE OF WATER score is a bit too whimsical and unemotional.
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
- "Mighty River" from MUDBOUND
- "Mystery of Love" from CALL ME BY YOUR NAME
- "Remember Me" from COCO
- "Stand Up for Something" from MARSHALL
- "This Is Me" from THE GREATEST SHOWMAN
"This Is Me" from THE GREATEST SHOWMAN. THE GREATEST SHOWMAN is a painfully cheap "feel-good" manufactured family musical shamelessly purporting to be based on true story and a celebration of being different while taking a massive shit on everything to do with the true story and everything to do with being different, but my cynical side tells me its single nomination for a show-stopping, glitzy faux-"individuality" number seems to be where it could get noticed. It's such a piece of shit.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
There's nothing that jumps out as particularly great, but "Remember Me" is an alright sentimental number from the writers of "Let It Go". It's not amazing, but it's good.
BEST SOUND EDITING
- BABY DRIVER
- BLADE RUNNER 2049
- DUNKIRK
- THE SHAPE OF WATER
- STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
BABY DRIVER. Sound Editing, as opposed to Sound Mixing, refers to the sounds recorded outside of filming, that is, sounds designed in isolation like clapping coconuts together in a recording studio to sound like horse hooves. BABY DRIVER is a very sound-driven movie with a large part of what makes it work being the manipulation of sound. Then again, given that the nominees for Sound Editing and Sound Mixing are the same, it's possible the voters aren't placing a lot of difference between the categories.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
BABY DRIVER seems as good as any.
BEST SOUND MIXING
- BABY DRIVER
- BLADE RUNNER 2049
- DUNKIRK
- THE SHAPE OF WATER
- STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
DUNKIRK. It might not make sense to split up Sound Mixing and Sound Editing, especially when the nominee lineup is the same, but assuming they're reading these categories differently, I think they'd go with DUNKIRK. Recording over loud IMAX cameras, at the ocean with lots of loud war machinery, guns, etc. they made it work, and war movies are stalwarts of the sound categories. Then again, the occasional inscrutability of the dialogue while I think it's cool, might be lost on some people.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
DUNKIRK.
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
- BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
- BLADE RUNNER 2049
- DARKEST HOUR
- DUNKIRK
- THE SHAPE OF WATER
THE SHAPE OF WATER. Production Design, being the overall sets, set decorations and props, tends to favor period settings and big style, and THE SHAPE OF WATER fits both those bills along with already being a Oscar favorite this year. It would be the second del Toro film to win in this category after PAN'S LABYRINTH 11 years ago.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
Either THE SHAPE OF WATER or BLADE RUNNER 2049 would be deserving, although maybe BLADE RUNNER 2049 is the bolder of the two.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
- BLADE RUNNER 2049
- DARKEST HOUR
- DUNKIRK
- MUDBOUND
- THE SHAPE OF WATER
BLADE RUNNER 2049. Even the joke about how cinematographer Roger Deakins always gets nominated and never wins has gotten old (this his is 14th nomination), but there's no other apparent frontrunner this year, and BLADE RUNNER 2049 is one some of his showier work, so this could very well be his year.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
BLADE RUNNER 2049. It's too damn long, but it's sure beautiful to look at.
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
- DARKEST HOUR
- VICTORIA & ABDUL
- WONDER
DARKEST HOUR. This category has been on life support for the last few years, especially with a lot of what used to be done with makeup now being done in the computer with motion-capture CGI. Weirdly though, with a memorable makeup creation like the Amphibian Man in THE SHAPE OF WATER this year, that one failed to get nominated.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
I don't really care. The only one of the three nominees I saw was WONDER, and nothing about that was special.
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
- BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
- DARKEST HOUR
- PHANTOM THREAD
- THE SHAPE OF WATER
- VICTORIA & ABDUL
PHANTOM THREAD. It's a movie about making beautiful period fashion, so it's hard to see the Academy passing that up. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is flashier, but it may have gilded the lily too much.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
I don't have any strong feelings here. I wouldn't want BEAUTY AND THE BEAST to win because it takes concepts that are great in their simplicity and overdesigns everything. As usual, the nominees are all period setting films, so BABY DRIVER wasn't nominated, but that had some pretty good, eclectic and evocative costuming.
BEST FILM EDITING
- BABY DRIVER
- DUNKIRK
- I, TONYA
- THE SHAPE OF WATER
- THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
DUNKIRK. For the last few years, this category has been going to the Best Picture category's dark horse candidate, and I'm thinking that's DUNKIRK this year, which also interweaves and times three separate threads together in a building tension that's impressive and fresh.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
BABY DRIVER's combination of sound, music and editing is a lot of fun, but I lean towards DUNKIRK as a more impressive feat.
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
- BLADE RUNNER 2049
- GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2
- KONG: SKULL ISLAND
- STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
- WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES
BLADE RUNNER 2049. The BLADE RUNNER 2049 effects and the way they're used are tie into the stunning visual style of that movie, plus it's one category where they can easily recognize the ambitious box office failure.
WHO SHOULD WIN:
Somehow, none of the Andy Serkis-starring Planet of the Apes series have managed to get a win for Best Visual Effects (RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES didn't have the budget to render its effects to their full potential, but it was criminal for DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES to lose out to INTERSTELLAR), and WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES visual effects are a flawless example of performance-capture potential.
