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: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson Is People's Sexiest Man Alive

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has been named the 2016 People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive. Johnson, 44, is 6-foot-5 and 245 pounds and is the largest person to receive this recognition. According to The New York Times, he is currently Hollywood's highest paid male actor. Interestingly, other people who have been named the Sexiest Man Alive are Bradley Cooper, Tom Cruise, Matt Damon and Denzel Washington.

FILM REVIEW: Mission Impossible Rogue Nation

The other half and I have been mostly M.I.A. regarding Hollywood's summer blockbusters (We have seen Inside Out and Jurassic World and that's about it). Actually, we haven't done a very good job of watching movies in the theater this year. This is primarily because we've grown increasingly picky about only seeing movies in the theater that have rottentomatoes ratings over 90%. However, one of the movies we did shlep out to the Edward's Renaissance 14 in Alhambra to see was Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation. It got such excellent reviews (90% from audience reviews and 93% from critics) that we felt we should definitely check it out. (It should be noted that just because a movie does got excellent reviews doesn't mean that we will go see it. After all, Mad Max: Fury Road had a 97% rating from critics and 88% from the audience but we received word-of-mouth reviews from friends who had seen the film that ultimately influenced us not to see it in the theater.)

Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation opens with an incredible sequence where apparently Tom Cruise did his own stunt while holding on to the outside of a huge cargo plane while it took off. It's quite an astonishing sight to see one of the most famous people in the world and the star of the film clearly risking his life to make the film even more compelling.

As usual for most of these films, the plot itself is basically irrelevant. The enjoyment of the film is in its clever execution of multiple "impossible" sequence one after the other, with some leavening of humor expertly applied by Simon Pegg (Star Trek Into Darkness, Shawn of the Dead). Other standouts in the cast are Rebecca Ferguson as the enigmatic Ilsa Faust, who aligns herself with Cruise's Evan Hunt and claims that she is a double agent, but is she possibly a triple agent?

Overall, the film is a fun diversion and well worth the time and money spent to enjoy it in the theaters.


Title: Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation.
Director: Christopher McQuarrie.
Running Time: 2 hours, 11 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for sequences of action and violence, and brief partial nudity.
Release Date: July 31, 2015.
Viewing Date: August 23, 2015.

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

Overall Grade: B (3.0/4.0).

MOVIE REVIEW: Edge of Tomorrow

This summer has been somewhat disappointing to me in the number of summer blockbusters I have been interested in seeing. Maybe I'm just getting older  but I really don't have much interest in seeing the any Transformers movie, or the new reboot of Spider-Man or the sequel to How To Train Your Dragon, even though these may be fine movie. Some of the movies I thought I would want to see ended up getting pretty mediocre reviews on rottentomatoes.com (like Godzilla: 74%, A Million Ways To Die in The West: 17%) since generally I won't see anything that is not above an 80% rating. I did enjoy X-Men: Days of Future Past (which has a 92% rating). Really the only other movie I've seen from this year is the interesting The Grand Budapest Hotel (91% rating).

I really did not expect to go see the new Tom Cruise flick Edge of Tomorrow but when I found out that it had a 90% rating on rottentomatoes.com I was intrigued. When I discovered that it was science fiction and Emily Blunt was in it, I decided to go with some of my friends on July 4th to see it. Apparently we were the exceptions to the rule because the Hollywood trades are full of stories bemoaning the pitiful box-office for this usually boffo weekend.

Edge of Tomorrow is an adaptation of the Japanese novella titled All You Need Is Kill published in 2009. Tom Cruise plays Major William Cage, an American public-relations officer who is sent over to England on the eve of a huge united assault by human forces against an alien invasion which has basically decimated most of western Europe. Emily Blunt plays Rita Vrataski, a soldier whose fighting exploits are near legendary and whose story Cage has used effectively in the media to encourage hundreds of thousands of people to sign up to fight the alien invaders, known as "Mimics." Blunt is known as "The Angel of Verdun" for basically singlehandedly saving dozens of lives against overwhelming odds and as "Full Metal Bitch" by others. Her image is on recruitment posters seen throughout the film.

The story proceeds with Maj. Cage waking up on a helicopter on his way to London to meet  General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson), the commander of International United Defense Forces (IUDF). Cage is told at that meeting (much to his surprise and dismay since he has no combat training whatsoever) that he being sent to the front lines of tomorrow's surprise attack on the enemy in France. Cage's deployment to the front goes wrong within seconds and he is killed within minutes of anding on the shore when the enemy responds with surprisingly vicious (and effective) force to the IUDF sneak attack. Amazingly, Cage wakes up and proceeds to relive the 24 hours from the time he regains consciousness before the surprise attack over and over again. It's like a mash-up of Groundhog Day with Full Metal Jacket. Eventually he finds Vrataski and the discovers that she had previously experienced the same time loop phenomenon and they try to figure out how to exploit this fact to defeat the Mimics.

The time loop is depicted in a nice way, with minimal exposition (although of course it doesn't make much actual sense) but the best part of this aspect of the movie is that Cage's deaths (time line resets) are depicted in a humorous fashion where basically at the drop of a hat Vrataski will threaten Cage with a bullet to the head in order to reset the time line.

There is a nice bit of misdirection in the third act which I was surprised by and then the film ends with some exciting set action pieces. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by the high quality of Edge of Tomorrow.

Title: Edge of Tomorrow.
Director: Doug Liman.
Running Time: 1 hour, 53 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, language and brief suggestive material.
Release Date: June 6, 2014.
Viewing Date: July 4, 2014.

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

Overall Grade: B+/B (3.25/4.0).

Queer Quote: Margaret Cho Totally Outs JohnTravolta

Not like it hasn't happened before, but John Travolta has been outed again, apparently this time by comedian Margaret Cho. While on tour in Australia, Cho is quoted as having said this:

"I’m going to get in trouble, but I’ll just tell you. He is so gay. John Travolta is so gay. He’s not just gay. He doesn’t just like men. He is like Oscar Wilde gay. Like Lord Byron gay. That kind of crazy, incredibly flamboyant gay. I know him well because I did a movie with him and worked with him for a year. I feel bad for him; because I know he would be much happier if he could just come out. But he can’t."

Rumors about Travolta have circulated for literally decades. However, he is a prominent member of the Church of Scientology and they are well-known for controlling the public and private lives of their celebrity members.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God