Fanboys Anonymous

The nominees for the 91st Academy Awards have been announced, so it's time for us to talk about some of the surprises, snubs and our predictions of which movies will take home an Oscar in 2019.

A FEW NOTES BEFORE WE START:

Every year, I feel the need to point out when the list of movies feels largely unappealing to me and this time around, the same thing has happened. Something like The Favourite just does not come off as interesting to me and I don't think I could justify sitting down and watching that unless it does win a ton of awards.

As such, my opinion is going to be heavily skewed by face value interpretations, my attempts to predict how other people will view things through politics and typical b.s. like that, and what other analysts are saying, for the vast majority of the categories below.

Yaaaay for not having more interesting topics to cover as nowadays, every movie that's worth something at the Oscars has to be a historical drama or about some kind of marginalized group seeking their place in the world. Yawn.

I'm sure most of these movies won't ever be brought up in a conversation beyond Academy Awards season unless you're a film snob and you think you're holier than thou because you don't like "mainstream" things and you want to prove to your friends how educated and cultured you are because you can get on a soapbox and rant about If Beale Street Could Talk or Isle of Dogs instead of being a more likable person at a party.

CHECKLIST OF MOVIES BELOW:

* = I've seen the film
(#) = number of total nominations

The Favourite (10)
Roma (10)
A Star is Born (8)
Vice (8)
* Black Panther (7)
BlacKkKlansman (6)
* Bohemian Rhapsody (5)
Green Book (5)
First Man (4)
Mary Poppins Returns (4)
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (3)
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (3)
Cold War (3)
If Beale Street Could Talk (3)
Isle of Dogs (2)
Mary Queen of Scots (2)
Never Look Away (2)
RBG (2)

* A Quiet Place (1)
At Eternity's Gate (1)
* Avengers: Infinity War (1)
Border (1)
Christopher Robin (1)
First Reformed (1)
* Incredibles 2 (1)
Mirai (1)
Ralph Breaks the Internet (1)
* Ready Player One (1)
* Solo: A Star Wars Story (1)
* Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (1)
The Wife (1)

+ giving myself a bonus point for having seen Bao (1)

THOUGHTS AND PREDICTIONS:

Now, onto my predictions, which I'll be updating as time goes on and I potentially watch any of these movies.

BEST PICTURE

THOUGHTS: Logic would dictate if The Favorite has the most nominations and is covered all over the place, it's probably going to win, right? However, Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book took home the Golden Globes. While it's not a guarantee or anything, I feel there's a strong chance Roma gets Best Foreign Language Film and NOT this because people won't want to vote for it twice and it'll have more competition and some people won't want to vote for a Netflix movie. I don't think Rhapsody has it. I think enough people are probably sick of the Lady Gaga stuff and A Star is Born fluff and no Best Director nomination hurts that. All in all, as much as I think it would be super rad if Black Panther were to win, I'm leaning toward Green Book to take it home.

PREDICTION: Green Book

BEST ACTOR

THOUGHTS: Something just feels right to me about Rami Malek winning. Maybe it's because he's playing a character who isn't a stereotypical "straight and white" guy and that can give him an edge. Maybe it's just because he won the Golden Globe. If not him, Viggo Mortensen feels like #2 to me.

PREDICTION: Rami Malek for Bohemian Rhapsody

BEST ACTRESS

THOUGHTS: Do they give it to Lady Gaga for the sake of giving it to Lady Gaga, or does she need another 99 people out of 100 in a room to give her the win? Glenn Close beat her out. Maybe she does again? The same for Olivia Colman? Or is Colman more of someone who lots of people put on their list, but would be their #2 or #3?

PREDICTION: Glenn Close for The Wife

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

THOUGHTS: I have no idea.

PREDICTION: Mahershala Ali for Green Book

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

THOUGHTS: Absolutely no idea. Amy Adams seems like a throwaway nomination for the sake of liking her? Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz cancel each other out? Then, it's either Regina King or Marina de Tavira and fuck it, let's just guess.

PREDICTION: Regina King for If Beale Street Could Talk

BEST DIRECTOR

THOUGHTS: Total shot in the dark, they can give this to Roma to avoid giving it Best Picture, as this and Foreign Language Film is like a twofer in replacement for the big category.

PREDICTION: Alfonso Cuarón for Roma

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

THOUGHTS: I literally have no idea right now.

PREDICTION: The Favourite

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

THOUGHTS: I literally have no idea right now.

PREDICTION: BlacKkKlansman

BEST FILM EDITING

THOUGHTS: Until I see more, I'm not going to have a clue what the editing style is like, but I'll just take a shot in the dark at the moment.

PREDICTION: Vice

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

THOUGHTS: Very surprised Aquaman isn't on this list, as I thought it should have been a potential winner. Bumblebee...meh, we've seen it before five times. A bunch of others, whatever. To me, this is a race between Infinity War, Ready Player One and Mary Poppins Returns. It depends on if they want to go with spectacle, sheer amount, or nostalgia.

PREDICTION: Avengers: Infinity War

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

THOUGHTS: No idea.

PREDICTION: Roma

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

THOUGHTS: Oooo this is tough. They love their period pieces and The Favourite can certainly win that. But does that mean they go with that, or do they opt to go for the whole African culture angle with Black Panther instead?

PREDICTION: Black Panther

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

THOUGHTS: Again, period piece stuff with fancy dresses seems to be the bread and butter of this category, but Black Panther had tons of tribal material and could definitely snatch this away. I'm going to hedge my bets.

PREDICTION: Black Panther

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

THOUGHTS: Look at Christian Bale.

PREDICTION: Vice

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

THOUGHTS: Having not seen the other movies yet, I have to lean toward Black Panther because I liked some of the songs used in that.

PREDICTION: Ludwig Göransson for Black Panther

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

THOUGHTS: If not just to get Lady Gaga to perform...

PREDICTION: "Shallow" from A Star is Born

BEST SOUND EDITING

THOUGHTS: Four out of five films are nominated for both Editing and Mixing. This makes me think A Quiet Place could win this for standing out as special, but if not, and it goes to the other four, that makes sense due to being nominated so much.

PREDICTION: A Quiet Place

BEST SOUND MIXING

THOUGHTS: Basically, the same applicable thing as what I said for Editing, but swap A Quiet Place for A Star is Born. However, I'm going to hedge my bets again and not go with that switch, by picking one of the four other movies.

PREDICTION: First Man

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

THOUGHTS: Lots of people loved Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in ways that I don't even think are all that super duper amazing, but I did enjoy it, too. Let's go with that momentum. It's not going to be Incredibles 2 and I don't think it'll be Ralph Breaks the Internet, so I think the other two (Isle of Dogs and Mirai) are from people who think on a different spectrum for animation and we'll see Spider-Man take the cake in a more popular vote.

PREDICTION: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

THE REST OF THE CATEGORIES

Including:
Best Animated Short Film
Best Documentary Feature
Best Documentary Short Subject
Best Foreign Language Film
Best Live Action Short Film

THOUGHTS: No nomination for Won't You Be My Neighbor? in documentary feature? Bao better win animated short. I'm assuming Roma wins Best Foreign Language Film for sure. Largely, though, I know nothing about these categories and I never do, so if I do any predictions, they're just shots in the dark and you don't want to hear my pointless ramblings about things I'm not in the slightest bit knowledgable about. I have no idea which movies should have been nominated but weren't, which films should not have been nominated but were, or anything else like that. Essentially, I could put all of them up on a dart board and whatever I hit, those are my picks, and I'd probably do just as well as if I tried to guess blindly on my own merits. If you know anything about any of those films, feel free to enlighten me in the comments section so I can try to check them out if I can get access to any of them before the ceremony takes place.


This year is very unpredictable, which is a good thing, as it means it isn't likely that one movie will sweep and just destroy everything. That could happen, of course, but I don't think it will. The downside to that, though, is that this can go down as a year that people don't remember being a strong one for movies, as I don't think we'll be hearing too many people bringing up Roma and The Favourite and A Star is Born and Green Book and whatnot in many regular conversations about film.