Approaching The Height of The Season: The 93rd Oscars Nominations
After spending the last few months keeping myself updated with the awards season's happenings and catching up with its most talked about films, the 93rd Academy Award nominations have finally been announced on Monday morning Pacific Time. I have to say this year's nomination pools are particularly exciting. Apart from the wider range of diversity among this class, the scales of excellence that each of them has delivered through their respective work make up for a categorically competitive race. As the most prestigious of cinematic honors, the Oscars is always the most invigorating for me to trail. All the other awards that come before are mostly my source of information and my objects of observation to culminating which films are actually going to end up in The Academy's final shortlist.
Because of the pandemic, films are easier to access since most of them are streaming. I used to only be able to view Oscar nominees only in the period leading up to the main event or worse, after. This year and by far, I have watched seven out of eight Best Picture nominees with the exception being The Father, which isn't yet made available online at this time. Looking at all its accomplishments up to this point, Nomadland seems to have the best odds at winning the top prize come Oscar night. Promising Young Woman, as my personal favourite of the bunch, comes second. This reminds me of last year when Parasite won, defeating my then-champion Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood, which I think should have instead. A few times in the years before, my personal picks had been the victor — Greenbook, The Shape of Water, Birdman, The Artist. So now, for two consecutive years, I might just have to settle for supporting the one that will probably not win.
I have proudly ticked all the boxes on my watchlist of the films made by the nominees in the Best Director category. Even Another Round, which I would guess was a surprise directing nomination for Thomas Vinterberg and the Danish feature. All five nominees have each carried out impressive work, but again my bet is on Chloé Zhao and Nomadland for the winner, although my support would be on Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman, followed by David Fincher for Mank.
In the Adapted Screenplay category, there are only four films nominated. Again, I haven't seen The Father so I cannot yet make a fully informed judgement but, again, Nomadland will likely win this one as well. However, I am quite surprised The Academy snubbed Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. I'm sure they can fit in five, so why not just include it? It's such a mystery. The White Tiger's nod is unexpected but still well-deserved with its script being one of two notable merits about the film, along with its lead Adarsh Gourav's performance that recently earned him a BAFTA Best Actor nom. Over in the other screenwriting category, five films are nominated for Best Original Screenplay. I am also here for Promising Young Woman, but it seems hard with Aaron Sorkin in the mix. The man is an exemplary writer and presumably unbeatable in that regard. This pool of nominees I find to be rather shocking since it includes Judas and The Black Messiah but excludes Mank.
Now on to the most fun part; the four categories for achievement in acting. I am almost certain Daniel Kaluuya will snatch the trophy for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Judas and The Black Messiah and Chadwick Boseman is surely to become Best Actor, winning the title posthumously. If it turns out he doesn't win, a possibility so remote but nonetheless existing because of the credibility of the other nominees, in his place would be either Riz Ahmed, who is astonishingly good in Sound of Metal, or Sir Anthony Hopkins, whom I haven't actually seen in The Father but yet am convinced is impeccable. And even with his exceptional portrayal of Herman J. Mankiewicz in Mank, Gary Oldman will not win this time around.
On the contrary, the competition for the actresses is tough to read. I cannot as of now say anything about Olivia Colman, but statistics seems to rule in her favour and should it go according to the statistics, she will have her second Oscar. I have watched neither Borat Subsequent Moviefilm nor Hillbilly Elegy (perhaps not going to since I have not seen any Borat movie anyway and Hillbilly Elegy is kind of a Razzie movie), so I won't actively predict this Best Supporting Actress category.
For Best Actress, it's a close race. If Promising Young Woman has any chance of winning in any category, its best one would be with Carey Mulligan. But then she's up against Frances McDormand, Vanessa Kirby, and Viola Davis — all very strong competitors. I am not familiar with Andra Day though I'm planning to see her work in The United States v. Billie Holiday soon. Of course, fingers crossed Carey Mulligan will win, but all in all, this is a difficult call to make.
To conclude and before I list my initial predictions, it's hard for Promising Young Woman specifically or for anything generally to beat Nomadland in any category. It's had a dominant and advantageous run during the season and its winning streak won't just suddenly stop on cinema's biggest night. Anyway, to commence this predicting game, I hereby succinctly log mine, not for all categories but those I feel I am sufficiently informed to. I will update it a few days before the Oscar ceremony should anything change after I catch up with all the nominated films I haven't watched.
BEST PICTURE — Nomadland
BEST DIRECTOR — Chloé Zhao
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY — Nomadland
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY — The Trial of The Chicago 7
BEST ACTOR — Chadwick Boseman
BEST ACTRESS — Carey Mulligan
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR — Daniel Kaluuya
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS — Youn Yuh-Jung
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY — Mank
BEST EDITING — Nomadland
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE — Soul
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE — Another Round (Denmark)
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN — Mank
BEST SOUND — Sound of Metal
*logged on April 21*
