2023 OSCARS: The Winners!

The 2023 Oscars happened and the big winner was Everything Everywhere All At Once, which went home with Seven Oscars overall: Picture, Director, Actress, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay and Editing. Netflix's All Quiet on the Western Front was not far behind with 4: Score, International Feature, Production Design and Cinematography. The billion dollar sequels released last year, Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water did not go home emptyhanded, winning Sound and Visual Effects, respectively.

In my predictions post of the Top 8 categories at the 95th Academy Awards I only got 5 of 8 correct, missing Jamie Lee Curtis's upset win over Angela Basset, Brendan Fraser's Best Actor win over Colin Farrell and Austin Butler and The Daniels win for Original Screenplay over Tár and The Banshees of Inisherin.

Overall, this year  I ended up with only 15 of 21 Oscar wins correctly predicted. Anyway, here are the winners of this year's Oscars.

Best picture: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best actress: Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best actor: Brendan Fraser, “The Whale”

Best supporting actor: Ke Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best supporting actress: Jamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Original song: “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR”

Film editing: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best director: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best animated feature: “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”

International feature film: “All Quiet on the Western Front” (Germany)

Documentary feature: “Navalny”

Live action short: “An Irish Goodbye”

Cinematography: James Friend, “All Quiet on the Western Front”

Makeup and hairstyling: “The Whale”

Costume design: Ruth E. Carter, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”

Documentary short: “The Elephant Whisperers”

Animated short: “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse”

Production design: “All Quiet on the Western Front”

Music (original score): Volker Bertelmann, “All Quiet on the Western Front”

Visual Effects: “Avatar: The Way of Water”

Original screenplay: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Adapted screenplay: “Women Talking”

Sound: “Top Gun: Maverick”

2023 OSCARS: My Predictions for the Top 8 Categories

Here is my annual prediction post for the 2022 Oscars, i.e. the 95th Academy Awards. I really just consider the Top 8 categories on the blog but I often play the Oscar prediction game like lots of other people (on other websites) where I think about all 24 categories. I generally split my predictions into who I want to win versus (i.e. who I would vote for) as opposed to who I think will win (i.e. who the Academy voters will vote for).

In 2020 I predicted 6 of 8 correctly and last year I predicted 7 of  8 correctly. This year I have seen 6 of the (bolded) 10 Best Picture nominees (haven't seen The Fabelmans, Triangle of Sadness or Women Talking as of this writing but I do intend to watch The Fabelmans eventually). 

Best Picture:

• "All Quiet on the Western Front" 
• "Avatar: The Way of Water" 
• "The Banshees of Inisherin"
• "Elvis"
• "Everything Everywhere All at Once" 
• "The Fabelmans"
• "Tár"
  
• "Top Gun: Maverick"
• "Triangle of Sadness"
• "Women Talking"

SHOULD WIN: Avatar: The Way of Water.
WILL WIN: Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Director:

• Martin McDonagh (“The Banshees of Inisherin”)
• Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) 
• Steven Spielberg (“The Fabelmans”) 
• Todd Field (“Tár”) 
• Ruben Östlund (“Triangle of Sadness”)

SHOULD WIN: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once.

WILL WIN: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Lead Actor:

• Austin Butler (“Elvis”)  
• Colin Farrell (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) 
• Brendan Fraser (“The Whale”)
• Paul Mescal (“Aftersun”) 
• Bill Nighy (“Living”) 

SHOULD WIN: Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin.

WILL WIN: Austin Butler, Elvis.

Lead Actress:

• Cate Blanchett (“Tár”) 
• Ana de Armas (“Blonde”) 
• Andrea Riseborough (“To Leslie”)
• Michelle Williams (“The Fabelmans”) 
• Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”)

SHOULD WIN: Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once.

WILL WIN: Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Supporting Actor:

• Brendan Gleeson (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) 
• Brian Tyree Henry (“Causeway”) 
• Judd Hirsch (“The Fabelmans”)
• Barry Keoghan (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) 
• Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) 

SHOULD WIN: Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once

WILL WIN: Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Supporting Actress:

• Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) 
• Hong Chau (“The Whale”) 
• Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”)
• Jamie Lee Curtis (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) 
• Stephanie Hsu (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”)

SHOULD WIN: Angela Bassett, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

WILL WIN: Angela Bassett, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Adapted Screenplay:

• “All Quiet on the Western Front,” Screenplay by Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson & Ian Stokell
• “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” Written by Rian Johnson
• “Living,” Written by Kazuo Ishiguro
• “Top Gun: Maverick,” Screenplay by Ehren Kruger and Eric Warren Singer and Christopher McQuarrie; Story by Peter Craig and Justin Marks
• “Women Talking,” Screenplay by Sarah Polley

SHOULD WIN: All Quiet on the Western Front.

WILL WIN: Women Talking.

Original Screenplay:

• “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Written by Martin McDonagh
• “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Written by Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert
• “The Fabelmans,” Written by Steven Spielberg & Tony Kushner
• “Tár,” Written by Todd Field
• “Triangle of Sadness,” Written by Ruben Östlund

SHOULD WIN: Tár.

WILL WIN: The Banshees of Inisherin.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Lifetime Movie Includes Whitney Houston's Lesbian Lover Storyline

The Lifetime movie on the life of Whitney Houston directed by Angela Bassett and starring YYa Dacosta will apparently include a storyline about the long lesbian rumored relationship between Whitney and Robyn Crawford that was "more than just friendship."

The Daily Beast has an interview with the actress Yolonda Ross who plays Robyn in the film:

I have to confess, I had no idea that Whitney had a rumored gay lover before reading about your role in this movie. No clue!Really?! That’s funny. I was here in New York before she was with Bobby. So I knew of Robyn. It’s funny how many people don’t know of her because they’re younger or people who didn’t get on to Whitney until she was already with Bobby. But I already knew of her and of the whole situation. When you look back at it, it’s interesting how that part, which was a thing that was actually written in the press at one time, was squashed and brushed away when all the other stuff happened in her life later.[...]But because this movie doesn’t actually go out and say “they were lovers!”, how do you portray their relationship? Were you playing up or, on the flip side, shying away from portraying a romantic attraction?No, I wasn’t shying away from it. She’s a beautiful woman. And from what I knew of Robyn then, I don’t think she was in the closet. It’s a love and it’s an admiration. So that was played there. How much of it is a love that’s between two lovers is a different story, because that, then, would have called for there to be different kinds of scenes in the movie. I played it as love and longing. Ultimately, what’s happening with them is that the person who Robyn loves is leaving. No matter if you’re lovers or a best friend, when someone you love leaves to get married, your relationship is going to change. That’s what I played. And that’s what it was.

The movie debuts on the Lifetime network on January 17, 2015.

MOVIE REVIEW: Olympus Has Fallen

Sometimes you just want to go have some mindless fun at the movies. A group of co-workers decided a couple hours before to go check out the latest "patriotic disaster porn" movie by Antoine Fuqua, the director of Training Day. Olympus Has Fallen has a pretty ridiculous premise, as expressed in the rottentomatoes.com blurb:

When the White House (Secret Service Code: "Olympus") is captured by a terrorist mastermind and the President is kidnapped, disgraced former Presidential guard Mike Banning finds himself trapped within the building. As our national security team scrambles to respond, they are forced to rely on Banning's inside knowledge to help retake the White House, save the President and avert an even bigger crisis.

However the film does have a stellar cast: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Angela Bassett, Rick Yune and Oscar winners Morgan Freeman and Melissa Leo. Butler stars as the heroic ex-Secret Service Mike Banning who tries to save the President (Eckhart), his young son and the Secretary of Defense (Leo). Basset plays the female head of the Secret Service (truth mimicking fiction!) who inexplicably is deeply involved in the decisions in the situation room at the Pentagon when the Speaker of the House (played by Freeman) becomes the acting President.

The movie chock-ful of action, and is incredibly violent. There are many, many scenes of bullets entering human bodies as terrorists successfully execute a mission which enables them to completely over-run the White House and kidnap the President of the United States in a jaw-dropping 13 minutes. This is quite an impressive and disheartening sequence. While watching how the terrorists outgun and overrun the brave men and women defending the White House as an American one is horrified at the visions of the desecration of "the nation's house."

Olympus Has Fallen is just the first (but not the last!) of the "disaster porn" movies to depict a terrorist attack on Washington, D.C. that results in imminent danger to the president and the destruction of numerous national landmarks like the White House. The producers of disaster porn are exploiting the audience's strong feelings towards national symbols to enhance the emotional resonance and entertainment impact of the film.

Regardless of the excessive violence and the relentless emotional manipulation the movie is still an entertaining experience and good mindless fun.

Title: Olympus Has Fallen.
Director: Antoine Fuqua.
Running Time: 1 hour, 59 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong language and violence throughout.
Release Date: March 22, 2013.
Viewing Date: March 26, 2013.

Writing: C+.
Acting: B.
Visuals: A-.
Impact: B.

Overall Grade: B (3.0/4.0).