Since this year’s awards season was so compressed and the month of January was a flaming garbage pile of shenanigans and drama, I didn’t get to write up a “Oscar nominations predictions” post. Also, at the time, I had no idea what to predict – while I was fairly certain which awards were going to various actors, the other nominations were in the air. I mean, who could have predicted that Jennifer Lopez would be snubbed and Scarlett Johansson would somehow tree her way to TWO Oscar nominations in the same year? Mess. So let’s try something else: an Oscar preview, with my thoughts on who will win, plus some additional thoughts on performances or films you might have missed.

Best Supporting Actor: Brad Pitt is a sure thing.
Pitt is a sure thing. The biggest sure thing of the night, probably. If there’s any disruption in any category, it won’t be here. At the start of the season, I thought Joe Pesci would pull some upsets, but the feeling I get is that Pesci has already won an Oscar (years ago) and that his big return to acting isn’t worthy of an Oscar. CB loved Tom Hanks in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which I still haven’t seen (I loved the Mr. Rogers documentary though).

Best Supporting Actress: Laura Dern is mostly a sure thing.
Dern has been winning every major award – the Globe, the SAG, the BAFTA. She missed out on some critics awards though, and I do wonder if people might end up voting for Margot Robbie or Scarlett Johansson here. Still, all of the predictors are there: Dern will likely win. And it upsets me, because Dern sucks.

Best Actor: Joaquin Phoenix is a sure thing.
Yes, I thought Joker was absolute indulgent garbage. I also thought Joaquin did a good job within a garbage movie. If I was an Oscar voter, I wouldn’t vote for him, but I would be open to the argument of “Joaquin deserves this for his body of work,” because his body of work is legitimately great. I would have loved for Antonio Banderas to get more hype for Pain and Glory, because his work was so beautiful and still and subtle. I also thought Leo DiCaprio was GREAT in OUATIH and I would have preferred to see Leo get more hype & awards than Brad. Also: after seeing Ford v. Ferrari, I do find it odd that neither Christian Bale or Matt Damon got nominated from that. Both did good work, quite honestly.

Best Actress: Renee Zellweger is mostly a sure thing.
Much like Laura Dern, Renee has picked up all of the big awards, and Hollywood seems to want to shower her with love for her big “comeback” role, even though she’s been coming back for a few years now, toiling in bad movies no one watched. What’s slightly funny to me is that two months ago, I would have said that Scarlett Johansson is the sure thing for Marriage Story. But she screwed up her Oscar campaign, and I guess people like Renee better. Charlize Theron is probably a non-starter, as is Saoirse Ronan for Little Women. I would be so disappointed if Ronan won for LW anyway – she deserved it for Brooklyn or Lady Bird. I feel like Cynthia Erivo didn’t have much of a chance, or much of a campaign.

Best Director/Best Picture: ?????
The acting categories are all pretty much guaranteed. I’m 99.99% sure that Pitt, Phoenix, Zellweger and Dern will walk away with trophies. But all the drama will be with Best Director and Best Picture, and I truly don’t know who will win what. Part of me thinks that there will be a Parasite split somewhere, just because it’s made such a huge late surge into the awards season. Does that mean a Director win for Bong Joon-ho, and then Best Picture going to OUATIH or 1917? Perhaps. Or it could go the other way – Parasite wins Picture, then they give Director to Sam Mendes (who has won before) or Todd Phillips (for Garbage Joker) or Quentin Tarantino, who has NEVER won a Director Oscar. He’s only ever won for screenplay. Those are the big Picture contenders, I think: Joker, OUATIH, 1917 or Parasite. I don’t see Picture going to Little Women, Ford v. Ferrari, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit or Marriage Story.

Photos courtesy of IMDB.