It's Oscar Time!!

I needn't tell you that this coming Sunday night is that annual night when Hollywood congratulates and pats itself on the back - Academy Awards Night.  For all the self-congratulatory b.s. that takes place on that night, it is still the "Granddaddy of All Awards Shows", and it is the one such show that I will watch from beginning to end.

As I have done in past years, I will offer you my predictions for the winners in eight categories. The number in the parenthesis is the number of the nominees in the category that I have actually seen.  Actually, all of the various awards shows leading up to the Oscars (Golden Globes, SAG, PGA, DGA) serve as indicators of how the Academy will vote.  It makes predicting these rather simple (sometimes), and it often leads to a dull and predictable Oscar show, but what the hell. You never know when a Jack Palance will do one armed push-ups on stage, or whether or not Warren Beatty will open the wrong envelope, so you gotta watch anyway.

Here goes....

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY (2) - I'm calling this for Quentin Tarantino for Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood, as this will be a way to honor him if they don't award him the Director Oscar (as has happened to him twice in the past).  Dark horses in this one: Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns for 1917 and Rain Johnson for Knives Out.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY (4) - Greta Gerwig for Little Women.  A way to make up for snubbing her for a Best Director nomination.

DIRECTOR (4) - I think this comes down to either Tarantino or Sam Mendes for 1917.  Mendes has won all the significant awards leading up to this point, but I think that Hollywood will honor a movie that is, essentially, about Hollywood itself and give one of their favorites his first Oscar in this category, so I'm calling this one for Quentin Tarantino.

SUPPORTING ACTOR (5) - In a category that is loaded with Oscar winners (Hanks, Hopkins, Pacino, and Pesci), Brad Pitt, who has won as a Producer, gets his first Acting Oscar for Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS (1) - Thus is the category that I am least qualified to judge, so I am only going by what the previous awards' tea leaves spell out: Laura Dern wins for Marriage Story.

ACTOR (3) - This one seems to be a slam dunk for Joaquin Phoenix for Joker.  He played a loathsome character in a loathsome movie (at least to me), but he played it extremely well, so his victory seems inexorable.

ACTRESS (2) - I have to say that I would love to see my favorite young actress Saoirse Ronan win for Little Women, but I cannot deny that Renee Zellweger's portrayal of Judy Garland in Judy is fully deserving of the Oscar that she will win on Sunday night.

PICTURE (6 of the nine nominees) - The movie Joker received the most overall nominations this year with eleven, and I have to say that I just can't see it.  I found it to be an ugly and grim movie, but, as my pal Bill Montrose used to say, what the hell do I know?  My Number One and Two favorite movies of the year were Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood and Little Women, and I would be delighted if either of those movies took home the Best Picture Award.  However, every indicator seems to say that 1917 will take home the grand prize this year, so that is my prediction as well.  It's not my choice, but it will not be an undeserving winner, either.

So there you go.  As always, watch, but don't bet.

Oh, and I have also done in event years, let me stir up some memories by looking back at past Oscar winners in ten year intervals (Best Picture, Actor, Actress)

2009

The Hurt Locker

Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

1999

American Beauty

Kevin Spacey, American Beauty

Hillary Swank, Boys Don't Cry

1989

Driving Miss Daisy

Daniel Day-Lewis, My Left Foot

Jessica Tandy, Driving Miss Daisy

1979

Kramer vs. Kramer

Dustin Hoffman, Kramer v. Kramer

Sally Field, Norma Rae

1969

Midnight Cowboy

John Wayne, True Grit

Maggie Smith, The Prime of Miss Jean Brody

1959

Ben-Hur

Charlton Heston, Ben-Hur

Simone Signoret, Room At The Top

1949

All the King's Men

Broderick Crawford, All The King's Men

Olivia de Havilland, The Heiress

1939

Gone With the Wind

Robert Donat, Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Vivian Leigh, Gone With the Wind

1929

The Broadway Melody

Warner Baxter, The Cisco Kid

Mary Pickford, Coquette

The Oscar Nominations

Some personal observations in the wake of the announcement of the Academy Award nominations earlier this week.

• The hue and cry from the general movie going public was the "snub" of Greta Gerwig, who did not receive a nomination for Best Director for "Little Women."  Personally, I am not remotely qualified to judge all of the movies and directors out there, but "Little Women" was one of the best movies that I saw last year, and I would have loved to see Ms. Gerwig snag a nomination, if not the Oscar itself.  Whether sexual politics were involved in the nominations is an argument that I will let others fight.
• I have seen four of the nine Best Picture nominees: "Ford v Ferrari", "The Irishman", "Little Women", and "Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood."  All are worthy nominees.  Of these four, my personal favorite was "Once....", and it would get my vote, although I would be delighted if "Little Women" grabbed the top prize.
• My thoughts on the five Best Picture noms I have not seen:
• "Jojo Rabbit" - A story where Hitler is played as comic imaginary friend, does not appeal to me, although enough people whose opinions I respect say don't let that turn me away from this one.  I may need to see this one.
• "Joker" - Everything that I have heard about this one tells me that it is just not my kind of movie.  Doubt that I will see this.
• "Marriage Story" - The story of a marriage falling apart.  A custody battle for the kid.  Oh, yeah, THAT'S something I want to see.  I am also told that it is writer/director Noah Baumbach's own personal story, so I want pay to see his self-therapy?  Mrs. Grandstander watched this and she said it was "okay", but she also said that she knows that I wouldn't like it.  I don't care how good the acting is, and I am sure that it is, I don't want to sit through her people's misery.
• "1917" - I am not drawn to this one, although I am intrigued by the idea of how it was shot in a series of long continuous takes.   I will probably check this out at some point.
• "Parasite" -  I am also not drawn to a foreign language film with subtitles, but, again, enough folks whose opinions I value say that this is really a good one, so I may try to catch the one.
• A big surprise was the lack of love shown by the Academy for "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood."  Its only nomination was for Tom Hanks for Best Supporting Actor.
• Speaking of Best Supporting Actor, that is the category that can best  be described as a true All-Star Ballot: Tom Hanks, Anthony Hopkins, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and Brad Pitt.  All have Oscars on their resumes (although's Pitt's is as a producer, not an actor).  The front runner for this one appears to be Pitt, and I hope that he does get the win.  
• No love for Robert De Niro for "The Irishman"????
• Scarlett Johansson get nominated for both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress.  When this has happened in the past, the actor usually snares the Supporting award.
• "The Irishman" garnered ten nominations, and it will be interesting how the Academy will treat this one since it is a Netflix production.  Will be there anti-Netflix, anti-Movies-made-primarily-for-streaming-services bias?  That will be an interesting storyline to follow.  (This applies to "Marriage Story"  and "The Two Popes" as well.)
• My guess is that the Best Director winner will be between two of Hollywood's darlings, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino.  Two factors will tilt it towards Tarantino, I think.  One, the anti-Netfix factor against Scorsese, and two, Tarantino's movie as almost a love letter toward Hollywood, and Hollywood loves to honor itself, so QT finally gets his Best Director Oscar.
• The Best Actor/Actress categories seem to be fait accomplis  for Joaquin Phoenix ("Joker") and Renee Zellweger ("Judy").   Nominated for a fourth time, I would love to see Saoirse Ronan win her first Oscar, but it will be hard to top Zellweger's performance.
• The Academy could make up for Gerwig's Best Director snub by awarding her the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, although Steven Zallian could get this one as a way to honor "The Irishman".
• The Original Screenplay award could go to Tarantino if he doesn't get the Director Oscar for "Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood."  That has happened for him in the past ("Pulp Fiction" and "Django Unchained").
• Every year there is a movie that gets a ton of nominations in different categories but ends up getting shut out on Oscar night.  What will be that movie this year?  I fear that it could be "Little Women."

The Grandstander will put forth some official predictions as the night of the awards draws nearer.  In the meantime, a couple of plugs for my favorite movies of the year....

"Once Upon a Time....In Hollywood"

One of the most highly anticipated movies of the Summer Movie Season has been Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood".  The movie takes place in 1969, and while it is hard to come to terms that a movie that takes place during a time in which you yourself lived can be considered a "period piece", that is what Tarantino has given us.  He lovingly creates Los Angeles and Hollywood during the winter and summer of 1969, right down to the fashions, hairstyles, the movie marquees, and the songs being played on the AM radios in the cars that everyone is driving.  That's one thing to love about this movie.

Another is the story.  It centers around Rick Dalton, an aging, just about over-the-hill actor played by Leonardo DiCaprio.  His hit TV western series, "Bounty Hunter", has been long canceled, and he is reduced to playing bad guys on various TV series like "Mannix" and "The FBI".  The only hope to salvage his career, says hot shot producer Al Pacino, is to move to Italy and make spaghetti westerns, something he doesn't really want to do.  His long time buddy and stunt double, Cliff Booth, played by Brad Pitt, really has become a has been, begging for work and being reduced to a driver and go-fer for DiCaprio's Dalton.  Dalton lives in a home in the Hollywood Hills, right next door to the home of hotshot director Roman Polanski and has movie starlet wife, Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie).  Rick is hoping that maybe he can get to know him and maybe land a part in the next big Polanski movie.

The acting is superb.  I have never seen DiCaprio be bad in a movie, and he is great in this.  There is a scene where he converses with a young female child actress while on a movie lunch break that is wrenching.  Same for Pitt.  He just might be the key figure in the whole story, as he comes to terms with the decline in his career, as well as the discovery he makes when he picks up a young hippie teenager and drives her to her commune at the Spahn Movie Ranch.  Pitt is now 55 years old, believe it or not, and he shows every one of those years in this movie, and to good effect.  

Finally, there is Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate.  Young and beautiful, she plays Tate as a woman who can't believe that she has "made it" in the movie biz.  She is positively charming in a scene where she goes into a movie theater and watches herself on screen in a Dean Martin movie.  It is a wonderful scene.

Then there is the story itself.  You know all along that this story will end with that hot August night when Charles Manson sends his minions into the Hollywood Hills to do his evil will.  The tension in the build up to the event is palpable, and then.....well, I won't tell you what Tarantino does next, but remember, the name of the movie begins with "Once upon a time...."

I had a couple of concerns going into this one.  One, would it be a typical Tarantino bloodbath of gore and violence?  Also, at 2 hours and 40 minutes in length, would it be too long to sit through?

The answer to the first question is No, not a lot of gore and violence, although, given the subject matter, there is some of that.  As to the second question, the answer is also No.  Never looked at my watch once as the movie unfolded.

And as an added bonus, you also get a good look into the movie business.  How they get made, the schmoozing and politics that go into it, much of it often cutthroat, and how actors really "act" when they are being filmed.

I kind of knew that I would like this movie going into it, but it turned out better than I thought, and I ended up loving it, and I am not a Tarantino acolyte as so many people are.

This one get the full Four Stars from The Grandstander.