Ahead of Sunday’s 91st Academy Awards, Associated Press Film Writers Lindsey Bahr and Jake Coyle share their predictions for a ceremony that has few sure things.
Ahead of Sunday’s 91st Academy Awards, Associated Press Film Writers Lindsey Bahr and Jake Coyle share their predictions for a ceremony that has few sure things.
BEST PICTURE
The Nominees: “Black Panther,” ”BlacKkKlansman,” ”Bohemian Rhapsody,” ”The Favourite,” ”Green Book,” ”Roma,” ”A Star Is Born,” ”Vice”
BAHR:
Will Win: “Roma”
Should Win: “A Star Is Born”
Not to go all Sean Penn here, but “A Star Is Born” really should win best picture, even though it probably won’t. “Roma” is wonderful, but I fear it’s one of those films that won’t be re-watched or even talked about much 5 or 10 years from now, whereas “A Star Is Born” is not only great, but feels like a classic already. And that’s something special.
COYLE:
Will Win: “Roma”
Should Win: “Black Panther”
The guild wins, which usually point the way, have been all over the map making this a hard one to call. The momentum is with “Roma” thanks, in part, to an all-out blitz of a campaign from Netflix (which has eyes for an Oscar the way Jackson Maine wants another look at Ally) and because of, well, it’s a fairly astonishing movie. But “Black Panther” and the response it provoked epitomized the cultural height of movies, something some doubted was still possible. Wakanda for February 24.
BEST ACTRESS
The Nominees: Yalitza Aparicio, “Roma”; Glenn Close, “The Wife”; Olivia Colman, “The Favourite”; Lady Gaga, “A Star Is Born”; Melissa McCarthy, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
BAHR:
Will Win: Glenn Close, “The Wife”
Should Win: Olivia Colman, “The Favourite”
The conventional wisdom is that Glenn Close is overdue for an Oscar. Thankfully, she’s really wonderful in “The Wife,” as the dutifully supportive spouse of a newly-minted Nobel-winning writer. A “career Oscar” isn’t a bad sentiment and definitely not a “pity Oscar.” But love definitely has no limits when it comes to my own appreciation of Olivia Colman’s performance as Queen Anne in “The Favourite,” which could get passed over because Colman hasn’t been a fixture on the schmooze circuit (she was busy shooting “The Crown”! which is a totally reasonable excuse).
COYLE:
Will Win: Glenn Close, “The Wife”
Should Win: Glenn Close, “The Wife”
There’s not a bad choice in the bunch and many more, too, that didn’t make the cut. There may be room here for an upset from Colman, whose Queen Anne was a delirious heap of emotions. Surely there will be some voters who’d like to see Colman thank “my bitches” again at the Oscars. But it feels like this belongs to Close whose subtle performance in “The Wife” overflows with the kind of intricacy that can go (and, in Close’s case, often has gone) overlooked at the Academy Awards.
BEST ACTOR
The Nominees: Christian Bale, “Vice”; Bradley Cooper, “A Star Is Born”; Willem Dafoe, “At Eternity’s Gate”; Rami Malek, “Bohemian Rhapsody”; Viggo Mortensen, “Green Book”
BAHR:
Will Win: Rami Malek, “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Should Win: Bradley Cooper, “A Star Is Born”
That Rami Malek somehow became the consensus choice here still kind of baffles me, especially when there’s Bradley Cooper giving the performance of a lifetime as sad, sweet, awful and tragic Jackson Maine. He felt realer than the sanitized Freddie Mercury of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” that’s for sure.
COYLE
Will Win: Rami Malek, “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Should Win: Willem Dafoe, “At Eternity’s Gate”
In an Oscars full of question marks, Malek’s win seems the most assured. His performance is the kind of showstopper that Oscar voters love. (Malek chews so much scenery they gave him extra teeth.) But another biopic, Julian Schnabel’s “At Eternity’s Gate,” featured a far more searching and deeply felt performance in Dafoe’s Vincent Van Gogh. For the second year straight, Dafoe (a nominee in 2018 for “The Florida Project”) won’t win an Oscar he deserves.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Nominees: Amy Adams, “Vice”; Marina de Tavira, “Roma”; Regina King, “If Beale Street Could Talk”; Emma Stone, “The Favourite”; Rachel Weisz, “The Favourite”
BAHR:
Will Win: Regina King, “If Beale Street Could Talk”
Should Win: Regina King, “If Beale Street Could Talk”
Sometimes will and should match up, and it definitely does for Regina King’s heart-wrenching turn as Sharon Rivers, protective and supportive mother and almost grandmother who will do whatever it takes to keep her daughter’s family intact.
