The Grandstander is going to forgo his usual tradition and NOT offer any predictions for the Motion Picture Academy Awards, which will be given out this coming Sunday evening. The reason is simple - I just haven't seen enough of the nominated films and performances to offer an informed opinion. I have seen three of the eight Best Picture nominees, two of the performances for Best Actor, Actress, and Supporting Actor, and none of the Best Supporting Actress nominees, so what in the hell do I know?
That doesn't mean that I don't have an opinion or three, so here goes.
Here are the eight Best Picture nominees:
- Black Panther
- BlackKKlansman
- Bohemian Rhapsody
- The Favorite
- Green Book
- Roma
- A Star Is Born
- Vice
I have seen Black Panther, Green Book, and A Star Is Born. I caught the last twenty minutes of Bohemian Rhapsody when I snuck into a theater after I saw another movie at the multi-plex. I want to see BlackKKlansman, and The Favourite (although I have heard that that one is really strange), have no desire to see Roma, and I am squeamish about seeing anything related to Dick Cheney, no matter how good the acting might be.
The darling of the critics and the film cognoscenti is Roma. It is a black and white movie filmed in Mexico with English subtitles and is a semi-autobiography of the filmmaker, Alfonso Cuaron (a previous Oscar winning director). It topped many critics' Ten Best lists for 2018, and has been snagging a lot of Best Picture awards for various other organizations. It may very well win the Best Picture Oscar. It will probably be seen by a couple of hundred movie goers, and will be quickly forgotten.
So how about this? How about the Motion Picture Academy give its top prize to a movie that people actually went to the theaters and paid their money to see, a movie that the audiences actually, you know, liked and enjoyed. Using that criterion, that should make Black Panther and A Star Is Born the front runners to take home the Oscar. I have no doubt that Roma is a wonderful movie from a technical standpoint. You know, beautifully filmed and exquisitely shot, but how many people have actually seen it? If it wins, it will not be a popular selection among the movie going public. What would be wrong with rewarding a popular movie with the Oscar?
For the record, of the three nominated movies that I have seen, here is how I would vote:
1. Green Book
2. A Star Is Born
3. Black Panther
I'd be happy if any of those three won. I'm also pulling for Glenn Close to win Best Actress for her role in The Wife.
As we await the 2018 winner, let's look back at the winners in the past years that ended in the numeral 8:
2008 - Slumdog Millionaire
1998 - Shakespeare In Love
1988 - Rain Man
1978 - Deer Hunter
1968 - Oliver!
1958 - Gigi
1948 - Hamlet
1938 - You Can't Take It With You
1928 - The Broadway Melody
My $.02 worth....One of the movies that Shakespeare In Love beat out in '98 was Saving Private Ryan, a much better movie....The Best Supporting Actor award in '88 went to Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda, an hilariously funny movie and Kline was soooo good in it ("say it, Ken, Cathcart Towers Hotel...")....one of the movies that Deer Hunter beat out in '78 was Coming Home; that was the year for grim Viet Nam aftermath flicks; Jon Voight and Jane Fonda won Oscars for Coming Home....one of the movies that Gigi beat out in '58 was Separate Tables, a good movie for which David Niven and Wendy Hiller won acting Oscars...Dan Bonk take note: the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1958 went to your main man Burl Ives for The Big Country.
Enjoy the show on Sunday!
No comments:
Post a Comment