Oscar Goldman

The Oscar nominations are getting announced today. Earlier I listed my favorite movies of 2017. This isn’t a list of Oscar predictions. I’m terrible at those. This is a list of who I think should win each of the categories.

Even though I did see about 80 movies this year, some categories are omitted because I didn’t see enough of the nominations to weigh in on them. For example, I really wish I had caught more of the animated films.

Best Costume Design – Wonder Woman

• No other costumes have been spoken and written about more this year. It’s serendipitous that a movie praised for it’s less revealing take on a character came out as Professor Marston and the Women, a movie about how the character was originally created as a fetish piece.

Best Visual Effects – Okja

• The end sequence. That’s all I want to say without spoiling anything. My heart melts and breaks for a giant mutant pig that’s ultimately just a series of ones and zeroes on a computer.

Best Sound Mixing – Matthew Wood (Star Wars: The Last Jedi)

Best Sound Editing – Matthew Wood (Star Wars: The Last Jedi)

• I’m putting these both together because honestly I don’t understand the category enough to know why they’re two separate categories. The moment of silence near the end was so unique that AMC theaters had to put up a sign to let viewers know it was intentional. Brilliant and daring!

Best Makeup/Hairstyling – The Shape of Water

• The fact that makeup was used instead of CG for the creature in The Shape of Water, and he looks simply amazing, makes this a no-brainer for me. Unless of course, this isn’t what qualifies as hair and makeup. If that’s the case, then I, Tonya did an excellent job of capturing an authentic 80s/90s look without being a parody. It looks genuine.

Best Supporting Actress – Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird)

• I already wrote about how captivating her performance is in this when I listed my favorite movies of 2017. She is electrifying.

Best Supporting Actor – Rob Morgan (Mudbound)

• There is so much emotion being communicated with his eyes every second he’s on screen. His performance is a master class in understated acting.

Best Actress – Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water)

• Hawkins’ wordless performance is simply brilliant. Like Morgan, on the surface it’s small, but there is just so much depth.

Best Actor – Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project)

• He’s the favorite to win Supporting Actor, but really Dafoe leads this movie. He disappears completely into his role without the aid of expensive prosthetics or anything other than sunglasses and a tan.

Best Original Screenplay – Get Out

• A perfect script. What more needs to be said? There are so many subtle jokes and hints throughout. There isn’t a wasted word on that page.

Best Adapted Screenplay – Mudbound

• This was a powerful story that I’ve never seen on screen before. Every single character is a fully fleshed out human being. It’s a shame Netflix didn’t put this in more theaters.

Best Director – Edgar Wright (Baby Driver)

• That opening sequence to get coffee alone is the most visually and technically amazing few minutes of cinema all year…no…this decade!

Best Foreign Language Film – Raw

• It’s the only foreign language film I’ve seen, but it’s the best changing of a protagonist into an antagonist since Breaking Bad. I still wanted to list it because I do think it’s a film people should see.

Best Original Song – This is Me (Greatest Showman)

• I listened to an episode of the Song Exploder podcast where the composers talked about how songs in musicals are “verb songs” because they move a story along and pop songs are traditionally “adjective songs” because they make you feel a certain way. Like their songs on La La Land, they manage to combine the two masterfully here.

Best Cinematography – Barry Ackroyd (Detroit)

• I don’t love Detroit. In fact, I really disliked it, but you can’t discount the cinematography that really trapped you in the hotel with those victims. Apparently he had small cameras hidden on the set so the actors weren’t even aware of them when doing takes. It was such a visceral experience for a middle class white guy to feel.

Best Editing – Lee Smith (Dunkirk)

• George Lucas talks about how hard it was to edit the Jabba’s Sail Barge scene because you had multiple action beats happening at the same time. Dunkirk does a great job of hopping between the multiple stories in a way that movies the movie along pretty quickly too.

Best Documentary – Casting Jon Benet

• I am endlessly fascinated by show business both large and small. This really reminded me of the delusional extras I’d encounter on many, many sets. Kingdom of Us is the best 2017 documentary I saw, but unfortunately it isn’t eligible for an Oscar because it went straight to Netflix.

Best Production Design – Blade Runner 2049

• Blade Runner 2049 really opened up the world from the original movie in a way that was both completely original and tonally true to the source material.

Best Score – A Ghost Story

• Baby Driver’s soundtrack was, for me, the best use of making the music of a film as important as any of the visual elements, but since that soundtrack was largely pop songs, I don’t think it qualifies. I just watched the mostly silent A Ghost Story and the score of that, by John Congleton, carries that film. It was beautiful.

Best Picture – Get Out

• This is a film I believe will be studied for years to come because it is absolutely perfect. It’s the movie that I think people will look back on to represent film in 2017.