Fanboys Anonymous

The nominees for the 92nd 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 2020.

A FEW NOTES BEFORE WE START:

As always, I haven't seen all the films nominated, nor do I plan on watching a lot of them, even if they win all their respective categories. I'm also nowhere near an expert in any category to be able to fully judge the technical aspects of a lot of these like Film Editing and Sound Mixing, so I'm guessing blindly in those. Still, I tend to do pretty decently with my predictions, so this is all in the name of fun and seeing if this is predictable based on previous years and whatever gut feelings I have.

CHECKLIST OF MOVIES BELOW:

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

* 1917 (10)
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (1)
A Sister (1)
* Ad Astra (1)
American Factory (1)
* Avengers: Endgame (1)
Bombshell (3)
Breakthrough (1)
Brotherhood (1)
Corpus Christi (1)
Dcera (Daughter) (1)
For Sama (1)
* Ford v Ferrari (4)
Frozen II (1)
Hair Love (1)
Harriet (2)
Honeyland (2)
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (1)
I Lost My Body (1)
In the Absence (1)
Jojo Rabbit (6)
* Joker (11)
Judy (2)
Kitbull (1)
Klaus (1)
* Knives Out (1)
Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone  (If You're a Girl) (1)
Les Misérables (1)
Life Overtakes Me (1)
Little Women (6)
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (1)
Marriage Story (6)
Memorable (1)
Missing Link (1)
Nefta Football Club (1)
* Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (10)
Pain and Glory (2)
* Parasite (6)
Richard Jewell (1)
Rocketman (1)
Saria (1)
Sister (1)
St. Louis Superman (1)
* Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (3)
The Cave (1)
The Edge of Democracy (1)
* The Irishman (10)
The Lighthouse (1)
* The Lion King (1)
The Neighbors' Window (1)
The Two Popes (3)
* Toy Story 4 (2)
Walk Run Cha-Cha (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: It's not going to be Little Women or Once Upon a Time. Ford v Ferrari, as much as I was surprised about how much I liked it, has no chance, either. The Irishman might have won if this were a few months ago, but I feel like the buzz went down. Joker's the sentimental favorite for me in some ways, but I think the real fight is between 1917 and Parasite. Marriage Story is still a Netflix film and there's a stigma to that. However, I haven't seen some of these films, like Jojo Rabbit, so I don't want to rank all of them in order. When push comes to shove, I'm going with 1917.

PREDICTION: 1917

BEST ACTOR

THOUGHTS: Joaquin Phoenix. End of story.

PREDICTION: Joaquin Phoenix for Joker

BEST ACTRESS

THOUGHTS: Lupita didn't get nominated for Us? Hm. To be honest, I have no idea about this one. I didn't see any of these movies yet, so it's impossible to judge fairly.

PREDICTION: Renee Zellwegger for Judy

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

THOUGHTS: I think Pacino and Pesci are going to cannibalize each other. Hanks is nominated cause he's Hanks and its tough not to nominate him at some point. Song Kang Ho did great, but he'll be overlooked. This is Brad Pitt's.

PREDICTION: Brad Pitt for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

THOUGHTS: It seems like the buzz is around Laura Dern for Marriage Story. I wouldn't know, having not seen any of the films, just like the Best Actress category. Weird that that happened.

PREDICTION: Laura Dern for Marriage Story

BEST DIRECTOR

THOUGHTS: Some years, I feel like there's a strong candidate for winning Best Director instead of winning Best Picture. Not this year. Everyone strikes me as befitting of that consolation idea this year, in that, for instance, Quentin Tarantino would get nominated for Best Picture and Best Director but not win either of them.

PREDICTION: Sam Mendes for 1917

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

THOUGHTS: I sure as hell hope it isn't Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I'll tell you that. The movie had no real story! Knives Out was a lot of fun, but even though I haven't seen Marriage Story or The Farewell, I'm going to go outside the box a bit and say if Marriage Story doesn't win, it'll be Parasite.

PREDICTION: Marriage Story

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

THOUGHTS: Currently, the odds seem to be in favor of The Irishman. I'll go against that. I think this is where we could see Jojo Rabbit steal some notoriety. Little Women seems like a waste, as the story's been done so many times before. Joker seems like they wouldn't want to praise it for the story so much as for the acting. The Two Popes...that has a shot. But screw it, I don't have any money on the line. Let's go with a bit of an underdog.

PREDICTION: Jojo Rabbit

BEST FILM EDITING

THOUGHTS: The odds right now are The Irishman. Really? I don't know...that doesn't strike me as a standout. I was more impressed with Ford v Ferrari in that regard with the races, even.

PREDICTION: 1917

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

THOUGHTS: No nomination for Godzilla: King of the Monsters?! Crazy. Absolutely crazy that The Irishman got nominated, too, as the deaging was rather bad.

PREDICTION: Avengers: Endgame? I could see any of these except Irishman winning.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

THOUGHTS: While I think a lot of recognition will be given to a lot of these films (and many others that weren't nominated, but arguably should have been), ultimately this is 1917 taking it home. It has more elements that people fall in love with. It's a war film, period piece, tells a visual story and has no controversy surrounding it.

PREDICTION: 1917

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

THOUGHTS: What's the most bombastic of the bunch? That's the one that wins.

PREDICTION: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

THOUGHTS: Again...same as Production Design...

PREDICTION: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

THOUGHTS: Part of me says Rocketman could take this, but I'm going to lean more toward Joker due to how its actually a big part of the presentation of the main character who is tied to who might likely win Best Actor.

PREDICTION: Joker

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

THOUGHTS: I haven't heard Little Women or Marriage Story's scores. Maybe they give this to John Williams for a retirement win? Maybe 1917...but I think a big enough buzz was created over Joker's score that I'll give that an edge.

PREDICTION: Joker

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

THOUGHTS: Thank God it won't be Speechless from Aladdin or Spirit from The Lion King. Woof, those were bad. The rest, I have no idea.

PREDICTION: Rocketman

BEST SOUND EDITING

THOUGHTS: I pretty much always pick the same movie for both of these, as I couldn't possibly tell you the difference between these awards.

PREDICTION: 1917

BEST SOUND MIXING

THOUGHTS: Look up.

PREDICTION: 1917

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

THOUGHTS: Toy Story 4, maybe? To be honest, I'm not feeling anything.

PREDICTION: Toy Story 4

THE REST OF THE CATEGORIES

Including:
Best Animated Short Film
Best Documentary Feature
Best Documentary Short Subject
Best International Feature Film = Parasite
Best Live Action Short Film

THOUGHTS: I pretty much never see these films to be able to judge them, so I tend not to bother trying to predict them. However, the one that HAS to be GUARANTEED is Parasite winning International Feature. That movie was really good and deserves at least that accolade, if not Best Picture for real.


This year is equal parts "oh hey, that was pretty good" and lots of "I'll never bother to watch that and I can't imagine anyone will remember this movie even by March, let alone next year, let alone forever." I have a feeling I'm going to do terribly on my predictions this time around. Don't use my guesses for your office pool!