Oscar Predictions 2021

Time once again for me to guess wildly at who will win the Oscars this year in ten selected categories, and hopefully improve on my woeful 6 or 10 performance from last year (thanks to my over-thinking the screenplay awards and missing on Parasite, like a large number of people).

The good news for this year is that with streaming in place I've watched more movies in the past year than usual. The bad news is that almost none of them were nominated. The two that were are both animated, which is par for the course for me. Also par for the course, using my picks as the basis for your own is highly contraindicated.

Before the picks, thoughts on other nominations:

* I thought Tenet might get more nominations than it did, but I may have been over-estimating how well it would do based on all the attention it got for being released in theaters in the middle of the pandemic.

* I also thought One Night in Miami would get more nominations, and was sad to see Regina King shut out. Once again, I wonder why there are ten Best Picture spots if the Academy isn't going to use them (I'm sure Spike Lee may be wondering the same thing about Da 5 Bloods, which was actually shut out completely). I was happy to see that two of One Night in Miami's nominations involved Leslie Odom, Jr. (Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Song).

* Speaking of Odom, I was saddened that the Hamilton film wasn't eligible. This apparently has something to do with it being a recording of a stage performance - I may have this wrong, the articles I read weren't particularly clear and the references to the Academy's rules didn't help - even though it's a mix of live performance and scenes filmed specifically for the movie. I don't feel as strongly about its exclusion as some do, but I would have been curious to see how it would have fared.

* Also happy to see Emerald Fennel pick up nods for directing and screenplay. She was great on Call the Midwife and have similar hopes for her on The Crown (just getting to the end of season 3 now).

* While I originally made these picks cold, the Producer Guild of America Awards and the SAG Awards have been handed out since then, so I've incorporated them into my prognostication, with notes where I changed my mind from my original selection.

On to the picks!

Best International Feature Film - it's sooooo much easier to pick this category when there's a film that's also up for Best Picture. I usually go with the film that involves the most obscure language (which would be Quo Vadis, Aida?, which is in Bosnian), but in this case I'll go with the film that allows the Academy to make a political statement, Hong Kong's Better Days. 

Best Animated Feature - the two nominated films I've seen are in this category - Soul and Wolfwalkers - though I could have seen as many as four (I did not watch Onward when other members of the family did, and we somehow missed A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, which I say in all seriousness as the younger boy is a big fan).  I'll admit to being biased for Wolfwalkers given its Irish roots, but I do think it was the more visually interesting of the two films I saw.

That being said, a Pixar movie is in the field, so I'm picking Soul. Though if Onward pulls away some votes...

Best Adapted Screenplay - My usualy theory of this award going to a film that got snubbed for Best Picture would lead me to pick One Night in Miami. And at this point I don't have a good reason to move on from this, so One Night in Miami it is.

Best Original Screenplay - Similar theory, but harder to pull off given that there are multiple films here that could qualify. I think I'll go with Mank as I feel like it's not going to convert on many of its 10 nominations.

Acting awards, in rapid-fire style as usual:

Best Supporting Actor - Daniel Kaluuya for Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Supporting Actress - Youn Yuh-jung for Minari

Best Actor - Chadwick Boseman in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Best Actress - Frances McDormand in Nomadland

My original choice for Supporting Actress was Glenn Close, more or less as a lifetime achievement award, but given how often the SAG Award winner in this category goes on to win the Oscar I made the change. The Best Actress SAG Award is only slightly less predictive, but enough so that I'm sticking with my original choice. Probably to my detriment.

Best Director - No attempts at analysis, just riding the early returns and going with Chloe Zhao for Nomadland.

Best Film - And for the same reason, Nomadland. The Best Ensemble win at the SAG Awards for The Trial of the Chicago 7 isn't changing my mind, as of late it's not been particularly predictive (six of the ten SAG Award winners in the 2010s went on to win the Best Picture Oscar). Nomadland also wasn't nominated in the ensemble category, which complicates things, but I'm going to stick with it.