Oscars 2019 Nominations and Predictions
If someone asks me what my favourite season is, I usually say autumn. But actually, that’s a lie – my favourite season is Awards Season.
As silly as it sounds I love watching award shows. Whether it’s the Oscars, Golden Globes, SAG Awards, Grammys, Brits, NTA’s – name an award show and I watch it, usually live. I also love looking at the nominations and guessing who will win.
The Academy Award nominations were announced this Tuesday (22nd of January) and as always had a few surprising nominations, as well as a few snubs.
Black Panther made history as the first comic book film ever to be nominated for Best Picture, and received six other nominations in Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Production Design, Original Score, Costume Design, as well as Original Song for Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “All The Stars”. This is a huge moment for African-American films and it would be amazing if it won, but Black Panther has some stiff competition. Also nominated for Best Picture are BlacKKKlansman, The Favourite, Green Book, A Star is Born, Roma, Vice, and Bohemian Rhapsody. Personally, I’m rooting for Bohemian Rhapsody, simply because I enjoyed the film so much. Realistically, however, I think if the Academy is going to go with a relatively “safe” option, Green Book or Vice might win. While I loved A Star Is Born and it’s traditionally pure Oscar bait, I don’t think it has the same depth and statement of the other films in its category. What would be interesting and a more political statement would be if the Academy awarded Best Picture to Roma. It’s a film that might traditionally have been confined to the Foreign Language Film category (which it is also nominated in, along with eight other categories), as it’s entirely in Spanish. In the USA’s current political climate, with anti-immigration tendencies especially towards Spanish speaking migrants, this film winning Best Picture would certainly make a statement. Even if it doesn’t win Best Picture, our fingers are crossed in hopes it can hold out against Capernaum, Cold War, Never Look Away, and Shoplifters in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
Rami Malek, Best Actor Nominee for Bohemian Rhapsody
As it does most years, the Best Actor Category has some strong contenders. Veteran nominee Christian Bale is up for his role as former Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as Willem Dafoe (At Eternity’s Gate), Bradley Cooper (A Star Is Born), Viggo Mortensen (Green Book), and first time nominee Rami Malek for his starring role as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. In a normal year, I’d have said Christian Bale is almost certain to win, but the Academy hasn’t gone for actors who wore a lot of prosthetics in recent years (a notable exception being last year’s winner Gary Oldman) and Christian Bale had to wear a lot of them! While I loved both Green Book and A Star Is Born, I’m not convinced that either Viggo Mortensen or Bradley Cooper encapsulated the same energy, magnetism, or were simply as convincing as Rami Malek whose performance almost made you look twice to see whether it was really him on stage or Freddie Mercury himself. While he might not have been a frontrunner for awards when the film first came out, him winning a Golden Globe has certainly confirmed his place among the other nominees in his category. The Supporting Actor category will be an equally tight race with acting behemoths Mahershala Ali, Adam Driver, Sam Elliott, Richard E. Grant, and Sam Rockwell all battling it out. Mahershala Ali notably won in this category two years ago and has already won the supporting actor Golden Globe for Green Book this month making him the one to beat, however, Sam Rockwell won the Oscar in this category only last year, and Sam Elliot – a veteran actor – is only just getting his first nomination. Maybe this year will be his year?
Best Actress and Actor nominees Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper in their film A Star Is Born
Some of the categories that interest us most here at HCAU are the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories, and this year the leading ladies are of very diverse ages, plus Yalitza Aparicio’s nomination for Roma, makes her the first indigenous woman and only the second Mexican woman ever nominated in this category. She’s nominated along with Glenn Close (The Wife), Olivia Coleman (The Favourite), Melissa McCarthy (Can You Ever Forgive Me) (all of whom are over the age of 40), and Lady Gaga who has made history as the second woman ever to be nominated for both Best Actress and Best Original Song for her work on A Star Is Born. While Gaga would absolutely deserve the win, she lost the Golden Globe equivalent to both Olivia Colman and Glenn Close earlier this month and Colman’s performance in The Favourite was both heart-breaking and hilarious.
Leading the charge for the Supporting Actresses is Golden Globe winner Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk) who is up against previous nominees and winners Amy Adams (Vice), Emma Stone (The Favourite), and Rachel Weisz (The Favourite) as well as Marina de Tavira (Roma). Since Adams, Stone, and Weisz have all been nominated for and – with the exception of Adams – won Academy Awards it would be nice to see a first-time nominee and woman of colour like King or de Tavira win.
The biggest Oscar snub this year is probably Bradley Cooper’s absence from the Best Director category for A Star Is Born. Instead, nominees this year include Spike Lee, Pawel Pawlikowski, Yorgos Lanthimos, Alfonso Cuarón, and Adam McKay and there are notably no women nominated. On the other hand, two of the nominees are non-white and should Spike Lee win for BlacKKKlansman he would become the first African-American man to do so. Breaking barriers as well, is Hannah Beachler who is the first black person to be nominated for Best Production Design for Black Panther.
So, after all that, what are our official predictions for the biggest categories?
For Best Actor. Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody)
For Best Actress: Olivia Colman (The Favourite)
Best Picture: Green Book or Roma
Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali (Green Book)
Best Supporting Actress: Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk)
Best Director: Alfonso Cuarón (Roma)
Best Original Song: Shallow (A Star Is Born)
Best Original Screenplay: Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara (The Favourite)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty (Can You Ever Forgive Me)
Best Foreign Language Film: Roma
Best Original Score: Ludwig Goransson (Black Panther)
Best Animated Feature: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman (Spiderman: Into The Spider-Verse)
So that’s it, check back to HCAU after the 24th of February and see if any of our predictions were right!
Sources:
https://variety.com/2019/film/news/oscar-nominations-2019-list-1203112405/
All images sourced from Google Images