2021 OSCARS POST-MORTEM: "NOMADLAND" holds serves even if the show itself fall off hard at the end.

 

Well, that started off well.... It didn't end that way.

It always funny how the buildup to the Oscars is always about are predictions and who's gonna win, and then the aftereffects always end up being a discussion of the broadcast itself. Steven Soderbergh promised a more cinematic production and it was. It opened with a Godard-esque long tracking shot of Regina King bringing the Oscar from the Red Carpet, through the Union Station all the way to the Academy podium with some more cinematic opening credits and frame rate. That was cool. 

In fact, most of the show, seemed like it was done in an unusual but cool way. It wasn't great, but for an alternative pandemic Oscars, it was reasonable. We had presenters in the audience so the winners walked up to the podium to get their Oscar waiting for them, that was cool. I liked the production design of the show, I liked the more intimate setting with the tables and chairs in the main room, with the on-location cameras for the other nominees who couldn't make it. It's not ideal obviously, but for a pandemic, I thought it was nice. It both formal in presentation but informal in its approach, all that stuff is great. 

And then, the last hour or so, was not. There were some strange errors and choices. The fact that the "In Memoriam" was way too fast. Like, I know there were a lot of deaths, but boy did it not leave room to grieve. I'm glad that they didn't bring in a performer this year, which I've never liked btw, but yeah, especially in a pandemic year where there were a bunch of deaths.... Yikes. 

Then there was that weird Lil Rel Howery section where he tried to play a music trivia game with movie songs that had both Andra Day and Daniel Kaluuya getting bleeped and poor Glenn Close...- Like I know, "Poor Gleen Close" is an exaggeration as all hell, she went along with it, she seemed very happy to play along, but she had just lost her eighth Oscar this year earlier in the night and while Yuh-Jung YOUN, lovingly got to fawn over Brad Pitt, Glenn got to do dance "Da Butt" dance to "Da Butt", which isn't even the best song from "School Daze", btw, "Be Alone Tonight" and "Straight and Nappy" are ways better songs from that movie, and if you don't want to see Glenn Close being apart of a musical performance troupe doing a production "Straight and Nappy" then I don't need you in my life. 

Yuh-Jung YOUNG's win marked the first time a Korean actress won an acting award and she's only the second Asian actress to win Supporting Actress btw, the first since Miyoshi Umeki won in 1959 for "Sayonara". It was "Minari"'s only win of the night which put it one ahead of "The Trial of the Chicago 7", the only Best Picture nominee that went home empty-handed.

Speaking of Best Picture, that came up next for some reason... Yeah, Best Picture was announced before Best Actor and Best Actress, which we're presuming Soderbergh decided figuring that Chadwick Boseman's victory was a foregone conclusion and wanted to end on a note for him... That was a bad idea in my mind, if it would've worked, but boy did it not work as both Lead Acting prizes went to upset wins. After "Nomadland" won Best Picture, and Frances McDormand gave a slight speech about seeing the film on the biggest screen possible, while showing an over-the-shoulder shot of somebody recording her speech on a camera phone.... Seriously, theaters and irony are now dead, I presume..., Frances McDormand then made history with her upset win for Best Actress. This makes her the 2nd woman ever to win Best Actress three times, with only Katharine Hepburn's four wins ahead of her. So much for BAFTA not mattering. 

Speaking of BAFTA being more of a foreshadowing then we thought, Chadwick Boseman lost to Anthony Hopkins, so the night ended on Joaquin Phoenix presenting a Best Actor Oscar to somebody who wasn't even there, literally or digitally, and it wasn't Chadwick Boseman.

(Deep Breath)

BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGG OOOOOOOOOOOOPS!

Soderbergh, I love ya, I liked a lot of what you did with this show, but this isn't pro wrestling, you don't know how it's gonna end. No, don't bu-bu-bu-but me, you don't know and you didn't know. Don't assume you know, don't assume you know. There's some variant in the format that you're reasonably allowed to play, but don't play with it, based on who you think is going to win. I know I predicted him too, even after he lost at BAFTA, and apparently Riz Ahmed after Riz Ahmed won at the Spirits, what the hell?! (Damn, I forgot the Spirt Awards this year; I knew I forgot something.) But still, this one's totally on you, and this isn't a pandemic issue so you had to adjust, this is a "You fucked up," issue. Remember, don't assume, 'cause when you assume, you make an Ass, out of u and me. 

(Also, sidenote: Spirit Awards, I don't when you got into television awards now, but get out of it. You didn't give "Small Axe" best Scripted Series??? Like, just stay out of it. I know independent television's a thing, but it really isn't, just stay out. Stay with what you know, or create a second award show to put these weird TV picks of yours on.)

Anyway, onto the awards proper, "Nomadland" won three Oscars, Picture, Actress and Director, Chloe Zhao becoming only the 2nd woman and first person of color to win the Oscar; I'm a little frightened that she thinks when things go wrong on a film set that she thinks about Werner Herzog in "Burden of Dreams" and imagining what he'd do is good advice.... That was-um, not my interpretation of that movie at all.... Quite the opposite actually. I mean, I love "Burden of Dreams" and I love Herzog but-um, I think that movie's a lot more of what not to do, but oh well.... Also McDormand became the first woman to win the Oscar for Producing and Starring in the same film, and Zhao is the first female director to win for a movie with a female lead character. Honestly, there aren't enough movie that have Best Picture with a main female singularly lead, in general, directed by women or men, so there you go. 

"The Father" took Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay, Florian Zeller winning for adapted his own play and Christopher Hampton winning his first Writing Oscar since "Dangerous Liasions", been a long time for a well-established writing. 

It is a bit unfortunate that the two lead went to white people in this year with nine POC nominated in acting, but they did both win in the Supporting races. "Judas and the Black Messiah" overachieve by winning both for Daniel Kaluuya's Supporting Actor win and a surprise win for Best Original Song for "Fight for You" lead by H.E.R. I did get to see her performance of the song, and it's good song when performed. Also, while I did sleep through most of the Red carpet, sorry, but I do like that idea of having the songs performed before the show; that's something else that we can keep. 

Best Original Screenplay went to "Promising Young Woman", Emerald Fennell tried to talk about how she always thought if she ever won she's thank her husband Zach Morris... It didn't entirely work but I admired the attempt.

"Mank" despite having the most nominations won only two technical awards for Production Design and a bit of a surprise with for Erik Messerschmidt's Cinematography, even though Halle Berry with that eh, curious choice of hairstyle, mispronounced his name three or four times. Not sure...- I'm not why that bob of hers didn't work on her, but it didn't work on her. 

BTW, the best dressed of the night, although there was competition, was Viola Davis, loved that white and that all out hairstyle on her. (Also Leslie Odom, Jr., the best male dressed, the gold tuxedo was Muah, tres magnifique!)"Ma Rainey..." underperformed all award season, but despite the acting losses it did win for Costume Designer Ann Roth, who at 89 years old has become the oldest person to ever win an Oscar and also the oldest to win her first Oscar, which is hindsight is a bit ridiculous; I probably should've predicted her for that alone. The film also won is Makeup and Hairstyling, which made Mia Neal and Jameika Wilson the first African-American to ever be nominated and now win Oscars in Makeup and Sergio Lopez-Rivera, the first Hispanic nominee and winner in the category, he's a Spanish-born makeup artist.

"Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" wasn't up for Best Picture but "Sound of Metal" was and it earned wins, predictably in Best Sound, which was presented to them by Riz Ahmed, the star of the movie, and I gotta agree that that's almost always cringy a little, and it won for Best Film Editing.

"Soul" took home Best Animated Feature, no surprise there, and a second one for Best Original Score, again no surprise, the second Oscars for Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, putting them on a very short list of Rock & Roll Hall of Famers with two Oscars, along with Elton John and Randy Newman. And Jon Batiste, becomes only the third African American to win for Original Score, only the second in this category 'cause Prince won for Best Original Song Score, which is the Best Musical category that's technically still on the books, but there hasn't been enough eligible musicals for since Prince won it, so he's the only the second since Herbie Hancock won for "'Round Midnight" back in '86. And Terence Blanchard barely got a nomination this year, wth Academy. I would've sworn that at least Quincy Jones would've won in this category at some point, but I guess not.

"Another Round" won for Best International Film, and Thomas Vinterberg gave a long, but wonderful speech I might add, one of the best of the night, and "Tenet" won Best Visual Effects, they were the only feature films to win a singular award this year. This year, if they could give you a couple Oscars, they tried their damnedest to it seems. 

The documentary categories went to "My Octopus Teacher" a lovely nature documentary that should really be seen on the IMAX big screen for its full impact won. They've been picking the most cinematic documentaries in recent years, that's a new trend, that, I don't hate, but I don't know if I entirely like it all the time. I still seem to be the only one, for interest who thought "Free Solo" was only interesting if you liked mountain climbing and great cinematography, although I did like "My Octopus Teacher". (Maybe I like diving into the ocean and staring at wildlife better that climbing mountains) The Short Subject went to "Colette", so that trend of the documentary shorts going to the most Holocaust-related nominee continues.  

Animated Short film went to "If Anything Happens, I Love You", the Netflix animated short that's- I won't give it away other then it's depressing as fucking hell..., but it was a good year for Netflix again. None of their films broke into the major categories curiously enough for wins, but with four wins for "Ma Rainey..." and "Mank" combined and two in the short categories, they ended up with a pretty good haul as expected in this year of no movie theaters. They also won Live Action Short Film for "Two Different Strangers" the Groundhog Day-esque thriller about a black man trying not to get killed by a cop on his way home to feed his dog. I liked that one the best of the three short winners myself and writer/director Travon Free gave a good, powerful, political speech there. 

Well, the ten years that encompassed the 2020 Oscar Season is finally done with. It tried its best to end with a bang or a tear, and instead ended with a protruded fart, which unfortunately was probably appropriate for 2020 but we'll see what happens when a new and hopefully better normal comes approaching for next year's Oscars. One where as Regina King so elegantly put it, we again come in high heels and not in marching boots. Some things, we'll hopefully take away from this Pandemic-riddled Oscar season and incorporate more of in the next few years. Others, we hopefully will not and never will again, Soderbergh movie BP to before the Lead Acting Awards, let's not ever do that again, I hope we learn.... And already this next movie year looks promising from the "West Side Story" and "In the Heights" trailer previews we got during the broadcast, so that's a good sign so far. So here's not to the films that we've seen, ranked and awarded, argued and debated about from last year, here's to the great images of cinema that lay ahead for us to see, rank and award, and then argue and debate about and then criticized how bad the show was, for this upcoming year! 

MY OFFICIAL 2021 OSCAR PREDICTIONS: Hopefully we'll never have another Oscars like this again....

So, Bill Maher did this little piece on his show recently about the Oscar nominees....

Now, I am a Bill Maher guy, but normally I kinda do dismiss most of his relative takes on entertainment. I think a lot of his criticisms in this regard often bleed subjectivity on art into media criticism as a whole. It's not that I totally disagree with him, but I just don't normally take them seriously. I've seen recent takes on this monologue of his as well that essentially dismiss this as nonsense. And I essentially agree..., except I don't fully. Actually, I kinda think he's right. He's right for the wrong reason; I don't blame the Academy or the movie-making industry for this collection of nominated films this year. 2020 is an extended, strange Oscar year, where the films that made the cut were the ones that managed to show up. Low budget indies that managed to circumvent the pandemic, as well as a random collection of Hollywood fare that managed to sneak in given the extended season, along with the addition and acceptance of streaming releases being eligible, for now. This combination leads to more independent and non-traditional voices, stuff that isn't made for the widest appeals out there. These films aren't necessarily, for the whole family. 

So yeah, you're gonna end up with some unconventional nominees and films in this most unique and unusual Oscar year. That said, yeah I'm gonna call it, Maher is basically right in this respect, this is not a good batch of nominees.  

I've been bobbling around similar inner thoughts like this too this Oscar season, and yeah, while I think he's wrong to blame Hollywood for not making more traditional entertaining or escapist fare when I don't think the literal situation of the pandemic, or the cultural situation of, literally everything else, called for it, but yeah, he's right. We needed escapism and we got depressed. I don't think these are bad films, but no, this is a very underwhelming bunch overall. And it is a depressing bunch of films, even the very good ones, and I'd be hard-pressed to say that it's even a good depressing feeling one could get from these films. 

I don't know how many of these films we're gonna keep returning to, even two years from now; you can hypothesize that about every Oscars, sure, but this year in particular, this is a year you can basically strike from the record books, not literally, but metaphorically. We're hopefully never gonna have another Oscars year like this, and I don't see any of these films or winners ultimately setting any kind of new precedent or standards; this is a one-off anomaly Oscars with a bunch of mostly good but underwhelming and forgettable nominees, that got into these positions by squeaking in and being the best out there in an understandably but unfortunately weak and diluted field.

Yet, somebody has to win. That's how these things work of course. So, I go through this traditional prognostication exercise. I put on my Carnac the Magnificent hat and try to figure out/guess who will inevitably win the gold statuettes this year. Why? (Shrugs) Cause we gotta get back to some resemblance of normal somehow, I guess. Let's go.

2021 OSCAR PREDICTIONS

BEST PICTURE
The Father - Pro.: David Parfitt, Jean-Louis Livi and Phillippe Carcassone

Judas and the Black Messiah - Pro: Shaka King, Charles D. King and Ryan Coogler

Mank - Pro.: Cean Chaffin, Eric Roth and Douglas Urbanski

Minari - Pro.: Christina Oh

Nomadland - Pro.: Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, Mollye Asher, Dan Jarvey and Chloe Zhao

Promising Young Woman - Pro.: Ben Browning, Ashley Fox, Emerald Fennell and Josey McNamara

Sound of Metal - Pro.: Bert Hamelinck and Sacha Ben Harroche

The Trial of the Chicago 7 - Pro.: Marc Platt and Stuart Besser

Quick reminder, these are predictions, not preferences. If I had a preference here, eh... I guess "Minari" would get my vote, and it's shown up everywhere, but it hasn't won much. Does that matter though, the Oscar ranked voting system has made this category a little less predictable over the recent years. Traditionally, a SAG win, or at least an Ensemble nomination was the biggest clue, with only "The Shape of Water"'s win a few years being the lone outlier in that. Only "Minari" and "The Trial of the Chicago 7" were nominated for SAG ensemble with the latter winning. Meanwhile, "Nomadland" has won pretty much everything else. It won the Globe, it won DGA, PGA, Critics Choice and BAFTA this year. Plus, "Nomadland" is one of those weird movies where it probably wouldn't do well at SAG, since it had mostly a cast of non-actors. Even still McDormand has been the most consistent Actress nominee everywhere, including at SAG. Neither of these films feel like traditional Oscar winners, which is what's throwing this off. Technically, "Minari" is currently in third place on the Gold Derby rankings, although in a statistical tie with "...Chicago 7" for second, and recently, whoever's been in second on those odds in these category has come out on top recently. Maybe if one of them went to 5/1 I'd take a shot at the upset here. There is a growing backlash to "Nomadland" out there, but I don't know how strong that whisper campaign is, and there is that campaign, what's going ahead of it? Like "The Trial of the Chicago 7" would make the most sense just based on what film seems the most universal, but I think if that was the case, it should've then been able to beat "Nomadland" at PGA. Still, the actors like it, but they also liked "Minari". The only place "Minari" didn't show up at all was BAFTA, but I'm gonna just throw BAFTA out almost entirely this year, since they completely changed their nomination voting structure this year, and probably for the worst in the grand scheme of things, but I'll get to that later. So, I guess there's only the other nominations to sort out. "Minari", "Nomadland" and "...Chicago 7" got six nominations, but "Chicago 7..." missed director. That's probably a key one, but "Minari" missed editing. They get the second acting nomination though, they all got into writing, "Nomadland" and "...Chicago 7" got into Cinematography, "Minari" and "Chicago 7" both got into Music though. Eh, I think "Nomadland" looks the strongest. 

PREDICTION: "Nomadland"

DIRECTING

Lee Isaac Chung - "Minari"

Emerald Fennell - "Promising Young Woman"

David Fincher - "Mank"

Thomas Vinterberg - "Another Round"

Chloe Zhao - "Nomadland"

Congratulation Academy, you officially doubled the amount of women that's ever been nominated in this category in a year before, by going from 1 to 2.Although, two people-of-color. (Is that the term we're using now? I guess so.) Zhao and Fennell are the women, Chung and Zhao are the POC, both of whom are of Asian descent interestingly enough. Chloe Zhao has pretty much swept every important award coming into this, and there doesn't seem to be a groundswell for anybody else. Fincher's "Mank" is the most nominated film by a mile this year, but honestly I was somewhat shocked he even got in and I don't get the sense that "Mank" is that beloved outside of the craft categories. And I should've known that the Directors' Branch always through one completely outside the box curveball and they went with the Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg for "Another Round" the heavy favorite to win Foreign Language Feature. It didn't get nominated anywhere else, so that's just an anomaly nomination. It's still not as eclectic a group as it potentially could've been, and yes, the Academy does deserve heavy criticism there. There was potential for a lot more women and a lot more POC to get in here, and I might argue that more then a few of them deserved it over some of these nominees. That said, there's no real contest here. I can't see the scenario where anybody other then Zhao wins; she'll only be the first Chinese-born director to win and only the second woman behind Kathryn Bigelow. 

PREDICTION: Chloe Zhao-"Nomadland"

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Riz Ahmed - "Sound of Metal"

Chadwick Boseman - "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"

Anthony Hopkins - "The Father"

Gary Oldman - "Mank"

Steven Yeun - "Minari"

The Late Chadwick Boseman is the current favorite. He won Critics and SAG, although he was upset at BAFTA by Anthony Hopkins, so there's one possible outsider who hypothetically could beat him. The Academy never been known for sentimentality, but they have been more known for it lately and Chadwick Boseman's passing really seems to have hit the community harder then most. It's also a great performance for the record, however it's also nominated against four performances each of which are in Best Picture nominated films, and "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" was surprisingly snubbed for Picture. This is important; it's been a long time, since 2009 when Jeff Bridges won for "Crazy Heart" that a BP nominee didn't win in this category, but a male actor winning against 4 BP nominees without having a BP nod for the film the actor's in.... it's happened, but not recently. You gotta go back to 1956, when William Holden won for "Stalag 17" over Marlon Brando for "Julius Caesar", Richard Burton for "The Robe" and both Montgomery Clift and Burt Lancaster for "From Here to Eternity". (And in hindsight, how did "Stalag 17" not get into Best Picture that year? Like seriously, "The Robe" over "Stalag 17"? I know they like their epics but really?) Anyway, it's a tall order, but I think he's gonna pull this off. It's the only opportunity they're gonna get to honor him; they've honored Oldman and Hopkins already, Ahmed will get his chances later, as will Yeun. He'll be only the second posthumous Oscar winner in this category after Peter Finch for "Network" back in '76. 

PREDICTION: Chadwick Boseman-"Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE 

Viola Davis - "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"

Andra Day - "The United States vs. Billie Holiday"

Vanessa Kirby - "Pieces of a Woman"

Frances McDormand - "Nomadland"

Carey Mulligan - "Promising Young Woman"

Oh boy, welcome to what's most likely the most difficult category to predict. I feel sorry for Vanessa Kirby; she's probably the only one who doesn't really have much of a shot here, barring something really unusual and weird happening. The Critics went with Carey Mulligan, who didn't even get nominated for BAFTA, which was particularly weird since they seem to like "Promising Young Woman" the most of everyone else. That could just be an anomaly though. You see, BAFTA in particular change their voting procedure, and instead of a wider ballot for the nominees, they had a committee of about twelve people decide all the nominees, as they picked the Top five or six instead. Honestly..., like I get why you would might do that for say, the Emmys; I've been advocating a similar change to the Emmy voting structure for some time, (Although not entirely basing the nominees/winners on a selected board vote, 'cause that can also lead to some issues as well...) but for movies, I-, I don't really get this procedure. This doesn't feel like one of the major Oscar precursors, hell, the literal Oscar-equivalent in the UK, as much as it does, the Jury of a film festival. Honestly, it sounds like a downgrade, and more importantly to our focus, it makes the BAFTA, completely unreliable across many branches as an Oscar prognosticator. For the record though, the BAFTA went to Frances McDormand, who could win this. She's be only the 2nd woman to win this category three times, after Katharine Hepburn's legendary four Best Actress wins, and would tie her with Meryl Streep among living actresses with three Oscar acting wins. However, she's also a producer on the film, and she's won fairly recently in this category. That said, she is good in the film. The Golden Globes went with Andra Day for "The United States vs. Billie Holiday" which along with "Pieces of a Woman" have their only Oscar nominations in this category.  Andra Day is a bit of a wild card in particular. She won the Golden Globe in a shocking upset, against this exact lineup of nominees. She hasn't won a lot else though, she didn't get into BAFTA or SAG either, but the movie also kinda broke late; it easily could've missed both the eyes of SAG and BAFTA. That said, the movie also isn't getting particularly beloved reviews.... Everybody kinda thought this would be cleared up by SAG, but they pulled an upset and went with Viola Davis, and leads to another weird possibility. If Boseman's suspected lead on Best Actor holds, and Davis can pull off the win here, it would make "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" only the eighth movie to win Best Actor and Best Actress, and the only one of those films to not even get nominated for Best Picture! And btw, it hasn't happened at all since '97 when Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt won for "As Good As It Gets". It'd also be amazing to have the two Lead acting roles go to two African-American actors from the same movie. It's only gone to two African-Americans in the same year once, back in 2001 when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry won for "Training Day" and "Monster's Ball" respectively. Halle btw is still the only African-American to win this award. If anything, this is why Viola might have a slight edge here, she has won an Oscar recently for "Fences" in Supporting Actress, but the Acting Branch loves her and I don't think it'd be that ridiculous for them to think now's the time to give Viola the lead. The damnedest thing though is that Viola and Andra have fairly similar performances, both are playing old blues pioneers in period pieces, but Andra's got a lot more work and screentime in her film that most people are ambivalent about at best, but against what could arguably be a supporting role mischaracterized as a Lead in a much more acclaimed movie. And then, I don't know how the hell the Academy is gonna react to Carey Mulligan's work here. It's a polarizing film and performance, but she's nominated and that movie did get Best Picture and Director nominations.... I honestly can't remember being this baffled by an acting category since the 2002 Best Actor race where Adrian Brody upset four past winners and everybody had a pretty strong argument that they could've won it based on the precursors and typical voting patterns of the Academy. I think I'm gonna just trust SAG here. 

PREDICTION: Viola Davis-"Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Sacha Baron Cohen - "The Trial of the Chicago 7"

Daniel Kaluuya - "Judas and the Black Messiah"

Leslie Odom, Jr. - "One Night in Miami..."

Paul Raci - "Sound of Metal"

LaKeith Stanfield - "Judas and the Black Messiah"

Curiously, Leslie Odom, Jr. has fallen into third on Gold Derby's rankings. If you had asked me a few months ago, I would've thought for sure that he was the easy favorite to win this. Instead Sacha Baron Cohen has popped up as the second choice. Part of me thinks that's due partially due to "Borat..." as well as "The Trial of the Chicago 7". Anyway, things have changed. Daniel Kaluuya's only real misstep is not even his fault, it's the weird fact that the Academy decided to put him and LaKeith Stanfield both in Supporting Actor, even though Stanfield's role is clearly the lead (Although Kaluuya should've also been in Lead, but whatever...) and they're both the titular main characters of "Judas and the Black Messiah". Academy, I don't know what the hell happened here; I mean, LaKeith was campaigning in Lead; I know occasionally you've done this when you've appropriately thought the actor was in the wrong category, Kate Winslet for "The Reader" and Keisha Castle-Hughes for "Whale Rider" come to mind among others, but I'm sorry, I flat out think they just absolutely screwed this category up this year with this. If both of these actors are Supporting in the film, then I want to know who exactly is the Lead in the film. Anyway, assuming Stanfield doesn't take up too much of Kaluuya's vote, which it doesn't seem like he will, Kaluuya is probably the favorite. I don't really see Baron Cohen having that much of a shot honestly; if there's a spoiler here, I think Paul Raci would make the most sense, especially if the Academy voters want to pick a definitive great Supporting performance, but I think Kaluuya's safe here. 

PREDICTION: Daniel Kaluuya-"Judas and the Black Messiah"

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Maria Bakalova - "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit of Once Glorious Nation of Kazahkstan"

Glenn Close - "Hillbilly Elegy"

Olivia Colman - "The Father"

Amanda Seyfried - "Mank"

Yuh-Jung YOUN - "Minari"

This acting category has also been confusing the entire way. Pretty much the only constant name that's repeatedly shown up at all the major award shows, is strangely, Maria Bakalova. She won the Critics Choice award, and "Borat" overall has been overperforming more and more as of late, and honestly, part of me wants to predict her; and I think she could win this, especially with the younger Academy demographic vote, I think she's the closest to winning this category for a comedy since Marisa Tomei won for "My Cousin Vinny", and yeah, she's shown up everyone. The only reason I'm honestly not predicting her is that, she hasn't won anything. Instead, the big favorite seems to be Yuh-jung YOUN for "Minari", which makes sense. I think it's the second choice for feature behind "Nomadland" right now, and if it doesn't pull off the Best Picture upset, there's not too many spots where it's likely to win much else. Also, to me these were the two performances where I think other actors would look at with the most amazement, in that I don't think they can imagine too many of themselves pulling off so well. I guess there's the possibility of a spoiler here, Olivia Colman's work in "The Father" is exemplary, but she won in Lead Actress just very recently, and is probably on track for an Emmy win soon enough. Amanda Seyfried's first long overdue nomination is for a good performance, but in a polarizing film, that I don't think is winning outside of the craft categories and speaking of polarizing, while Glenn Close has won a Critics Prize or two here and there, I doubt the Academy's gonna give the Oscar to a Razzie-nominated performance. Sorry Glenn; I really didn't want you to go 0 for 8. I also wish Bakalova had won at least one thing more then the Critics Choice though, but it's been YOUN who's swept SAG and BAFTA. 

PREDICTION: Yuh-Jung YOUN-"Minari"

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit the Once Glorious Nation of Kazahkstan - Sacha Baron Cohen & Anthony Hines & Dan Swimer & Peter Baynham & Erica Rivinoja & Jena Friedman & Lee Kern; Story by Sacha Baron Cohen & Anthony HInes & Dan Swimer & Nina Pedrad

The Father - Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller

Nomadland - Chloe Zhao

One Night in Miami... - Kemp Powers

The White Tiger - Ramin Bahrani

WGA's not always the most reliable prognosticator in the Writing categories, they did however choose, "Borat..." over "The Father" and "One Night in Miami...". Definitely a curious choice, although maybe it shouldn't have been that surprising. The original "Borat" film got an Oscar nomination for Writing, and this film is arguably better and it doubled their total amount of Oscar nominations from the first one. Also, it's a great script. However, it's mostly improvised, which, I think the Writers Branch isn't particularly fond of... It's actually kinda unclear on this point actually. Everybody thinks they're not big on these non-traditional improvisational techniques, but they're actually more nuanced then that. On top of the "Borat..." nominations, they also seem to love Mike Leigh's films which also take a different kind of improvisational approach to writing. I wouldn't mind actually predicting "Borat..." if one of these had won before. The style's liked enough to keep getting nominated, but it's never beloved enough to win. So, what else do we have here? We've got "Nomadland" which won the Critics and the Scripter Award. "The Father" won at BAFTA, but that's a British film, so I don't know how seriously we can take that. "The White Tiger" has the annual "Cool-Movie-With-A-Single-Writing-Nomination" prize this year, although it's nice to see Ramin Bahrani get recognition from the Academy for something finally. "One Night in Miami..." really underperformed and Kemp Powers did adapt his own play and there hasn't been too many winners in this category who've done that recently. Well, okay "Moonlight", but Tarell Alvin McCraney only had a Story By co-credit on that, and before that, eh, John Irving winning for "The Cider House Rules" in '99, and "Moonlight" was also not nearly as stage-y in appearance as "One Night in Miami..." is. So, presuming, they're out of it,... um, you know here's the thing too, "Nomadland" was kinda improvisational as well, in a different way, had a lot of non-actors who riffed occasionally, but I still think that was a better adaptation. That said, "The Father" is also very stage and based on a stage play that's also co-written by one of the play's original writers, but it does it in a more clever way then other films do.... You know, the more I look at this, the more I'm talking myself into "Borat...". However, "Borat" didn't beat "The Father" or "Nomadland" at WGA as both were ineligible, and those two have split every award up 'til now. (Conflicted sigh) Maybe this is a year where the winner is adapting their own work...?

PREDICTION: "The Father"-Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY 

Judas and the Black Messiah - Will Berson & Shaka King; Story by Will Berson, Shaka King and Kenny Lucas & Keith Lucas

Minari - Lee Isaac Chung

Promising Young Woman - Emerald Fennell

Sound of Metal - Darius Marder & Abraham Marder; Story by Darius Marder & Derek Cianfrance

The Trial of the Chicago 7 - Aaron Sorkin

Both writing categories I think are a little tricky to call this year. Basically, barring something unexpected here, I think the category's been narrowed to "Promising Young Woman" and "The Trial of the Chicago 7". All five of these are up for Best Picture, so that aspect's out. "...Chicago 7" won the Globe when both Original and Adapted were combined, but it's lost against "Promising Young Woman" most places where the Original Screenplay concept is brought out. It won WGA, Critics, BAFTA... and if the term, "Original" is what we're really gonna focus on, then yeah, "Promising Young Woman" probably has this in the bag. Sorkin's always tough to beat though. I could see, maybe "Sound of Metal" pulling off a mild upset, that script's also, fairly original, and possibly a more well-liked film... I don't know, I'm trying to build myself into an argument for somebody else, but it's not coming. I'm just playing this safe, the most interesting and unique script is the favorite, it's been winning, and it's probably gonna win here.

PREDICTION: "Promising Young Woman"-Emerald Fennell

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Onward - Dan Scanlon and Kori Rae

Over the Moon - Glen Keane, Gennie Rim and Peilin Chou

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon - Richard Phelan, Will Becher and Paul Kewley

Soul - Pete Doctor and Dana Murray

Wolfwalkers - Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart, Paul Young and Stephan Roelants

I think there's competition here between "Soul" and "Wolfwalkers". "Soul" I suspect might just get Score and "Wolfwalkers" could play the surprise upset here, that's if enough people have seen it. I wasn't even that big on the movie myself, but the Academy does seem to really like Tomm Moore and his trilogy of Irish folktale animated stories, way more then I do. And I don't know if "Soul" is that beloved compared to other Pixar projects, but I'm not predicting an upset either. 

PREDICTION: "Soul"

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Collective - Alexander Nanau and Bianca Oana

Crip Camp - Nicole Newnham, Jim LeBrecht and Sara Bolder

The Mole Agent - Maite Alberdi and Marcela Santibanez

My Octopus Teacher - Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed and Craig Foster

Time - Garrett Bradley, Lauren Domino and Kellen Quinn

Well, tangentially I think we can eliminate "The Mole Agent" since that didn't get into Foreign Language Feature and "Collective" did. I mean, there's no real correlation between the Documentary and Foreign Language branches, but that still would just be weird if "The Mole Agent" won. This is a category that's always known for a few surprises. In the beginning, I think most people leaned towards "Time", but from everything I've been hearing lately, the main race is between "Crip Camp..." and "My Octopus Teacher". Both are readily available on Netflix and that's typically a good sign for this category. Eh, I'm just gonna go with the trendiest pick at the moment. 

PREDICTION: "My Octopus Teacher"

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM

Another Round (Denmark)

Better Days (Hong Kong)

Collective (Romania)

The Man Who Sold His Skin (Tunisia)

Quo Vadis, Aida? (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

If anything could play spoiler here, it's probably "Quo Vadis, Aida?" which is gaining a little bit of a groundswell in recent weeks. It's definitely the one movie that feels like it could pull of the upset here, but I think it's a longshot. "Another Round" seems to be the consensus of the bunch, and it's won basically everywhere at this point. There could be a spoiler here but I'm not really seeing it. It's one thing if a Foreign Language film does well in tech categories like a "Pan's Labyrinth" but getting a directing nomination, even as strange as that singular other nomination is, yeah, like if it's eligible in this category and gets into Directing, it's winning. 

PREDICTION: "Another Round"

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Judas and the Black Messiah - Sean Bobbitt

Mank - Eric Messerschmidt

News of the World - Dariusz Wolski

Nomadland - Joshua James Richards

The Trial of the Chicago 7 - Phedon Papamichael

This is another tricky category this year. The Cinematographers' Guild is like, half-reliable as a predictor in this category. They went with an upset pick with "Mank" this year. They also nominated some odd films like "Cherry" of all things. BAFTA went with "Nomadland". Honestly, I can see, any of these nominees winning this year. The problem was that there wasn't anything really obvious as a standout groundbreaking work in cinematography to me; these are all just really well-photographed movies.  Oddly, I think if I were picking it, I'd be torn between "Judas..." and "News of the World" and I think I would go with the latter. I could also see "The Trial of the Chicago 7" winning this; Phedon Papamichael I suspect, and probably correctly so, that he probably deserved more credit directing the film then Aaron Sorkin does, and that might tip it towards "...Chicago 7". I think "News of the World" is out, because the only time in the last fifteen years the award hasn't gone to a BP nominee was Blade Runner 2049" and that was only because they were long overdue to giving it to Roger Deakins. Also, in years where it's just not blatantly obvious, there's also a slight trend where they will go with the movie among the nominees most likely to win Best Picture. Like, "La La Land" for instance won over "Moonlight" here, but as great as the cinematography for "Moonlight" is, yeah, "La La Land"'s was on another. The Academy also hasn't given a black and white movie this award in a long time, not since, "Schindler's List" in '93, which doesn't sound like a thing... "Like, no shit, most films are in color now," but actually, no, they've had opportunities. "The Man Who Wasn't There" was nominated, didn't win, "Good Night, and Good Luck.", nominated, didn't win, same with "The White Ribbon", "Nebraska" even "The Artist" lost to "Hugo", and most recently, "Cold War" and "The Lighthouse" lost. Maybe that means "Mank" might be due here, but I'm gonna play it safe. Until I see it happen, I don't think I should predict it. 
CORRECTION: "Roma" was B&W and won in Cinematography; can't believe I forgot that one. 

PREDICTION: "Nomadland"-Joshua James Richards

COSTUME DESIGN

Emma-Alexandra Byrne

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom-Ann Roth

Mank-Trish Summerville

Mulan-Bina Daigeler

Pinocchio-Massimo Cantini Parrini

Another category that feels like a trap to just go with the Guild winners to me, but one where I also have a difficult time figuring out where to go exactly. The Costume Designers Guild gives out a few awards, their big winners were "Mulan" in Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film, "Promising Young Woman" in Contemporary film and the BAFTA winner, "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" in Period film. Obviously, "Promising Young Woman's win is irrelevant, so presumably this is between "Ma Rainey..." and "Mulan", but eh, the Academy, they do occasionally go in different directions here. Last year for instance, "Little Women" won without even getting a CDG nomination, which really is mind-boggling if you think much about it. Now there's no possibility of something like that happening here, but there's also not necessarily an obvious pick here. Normally I'd then go to the film where the costume's are the most intimately involved in the film, but I- I don't really see an obvious one of those here either. I mean, they're all period of fantasy films so obviously the costumes matter but nothing like "Phantom Thread" for instance where the costumes are intimately apart of the film's narrative. Well, maybe 'Mulan".... Hmm, Ann Roth has had four previous nominations over her decades-long careers; her first nomination was for goddamn "Places in the Heart" of all things, so she's probably also sentimental vote, but how many in the Academy know that? Also, while the costumes are amazing in "Ma Rainey...", there's a lot more costumes in say "Mulan" or even "Emma". I'm tempted to go with "Mulan" here, just 'cause I feel like I need to take some upset, but eh, I'm gonna play it safe and go with the one that screams "Costume Design: The Movie"

PREDICTION: "Emma"-Alexandra Byrne

FILM EDITING

The Father-Yorgos Lamprinos

Nomadland-Chloe Zhao

Promising Young Woman-Frederic Thoraval

Sound of Metal-Mikkel E.G. Nielsen

The Trial of the Chicago 7-Alan Baumgarten

Eh, interesting category this year. Normally when it comes to the editing categories, my first instinct is to look for action or chase scenes in these movies, which any legitimate editor will tell you are by far the toughest things to edit. There's nothing obvious here, so what else do we have? Well, the next thing that can kinda be a sign of editing is music, and that would lead me to think "Sound of Metal" as the favorite. That's how Gold Derby has it, but I'm wondering if they might look another way since that movie's almost guaranteed to win Sound. The Eddies didn't pick it, they went with "The Trial of the Chicago 7" over "Sound of Metal" but BAFTA picked "Sound...". I'm eliminating "Promising Young Woman" since that didn't even win it's category at the Eddies, losing the Comedy film Eddie "Palm Springs". "The Father" has pretty good editing as well and didn't get into the Eddies, but that doesn't mean it's out of it; "Whiplash" has shown you can win the Oscar without a Guild nomination but it's still a longshot, and "Nomadland" probably is more of a cinematography film. So, "Sound of Metal" or "...Chicago 7".... Um... well, the Eddies aren't always the best predictor of the Editing Oscar. Eh, yeah, I gotta go with the movie with the most focus on the Editing. 

PREDICTION: "Sound of Metal"-Mikkel E.G. Nielsen

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

Emma - Marese Langan, Laura Allen and Claudia Stolze

Hillbilly Elegy - Eryn Krueger Mekash, Matthew Mungle and Patricia Dehaney

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - Sergio Lopez-Rivera, Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson

Mank - Gigi Williams, Kimberley Spiteri and Colleen LaBaff

Pinocchio - Mark Coulier, Dalia Colli and Francesco Pegoretti

Normally I would just ignore the MUAHs, the Hollywood Makeup & Hairstyling Guild, but-eh, since the Oscars bumped this category up to five nominees, finally, I'm thinking that we're gonna get more correlation between them in the future. That said, I don't think that means that we can completely ignore the possibility of the Makeup & Hairstyiling just doing whatever the hell they want. They MUAHs gave two of their main prizes to "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" and BAFTA honored them as well. Two of the other three MUAHs went to "Birds of Prey..." which I'm still kinda surprised didn't sneak in, but the third one went to, "Pinocchio". It was the Special Makeup Effects award, so part of me is kinda thinking, maybe "Pinocchio" can pull this off. I mean, "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" makeup and hairstyling was really good, but I'm not sure how complex it was. There's nothing transformative in the makeup at least to my eye. You go back through the recent history, it's either the most makeup and/or the big transformative makeup job, and I don't see the transformative nominee, other then "Pinocchio" and "Ma Rainey..." is definitely not the most makeup, I don't think. I gotta imagine "Mank" or "Emma" had to have the most. Maybe "Hillbilly Elegy" has a little transformative in the work on Glenn Close, so maybe that one, but boy that looks like fairly nothing next to "Pinocchio" to me. Hmm... I'm picking too many favorites; I gotta take a gamble on something here, and I still remember not picking "Suicide Squad" even though I thought it deserved to win despite everybody talking about how offensively bad and preposterous the film even got a nomination, and it bit me when they won. WTH, I'm gonna take my gamble here.

PREDICTION: "Pinocchio"

ORIGINAL SCORE

Da 5 Bloods - Terence Blanchard

Mank - Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Minari - Emile Mosseri

News of the World - James Newton Howard

Soul - Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste

Um, I guess there's a bit of a possibility of a split vote between "Mank" and "Soul" possibly leading to somebody other then Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross winning, but I think that's a stretch. If there is somebody who could spoiler, it might be "Minari" even though it did lose in the independent film category at the SCLs, the Society of Composers and Lyricists, which is the closest thing to a Music Guild in the field industry that gives out award. James Newton Howard's a bit of a sentimental choice for "News of the World" as he hasn't won yet despite now, nine nominations, but "Soul"'s basically won everywhere it's shown up. Won the Guild, won BAFTA, won the Golden Globe. It's also the movie where the music is the most intimately woven into the narrative. It's got way too much going for it for anything else this year in my view. 

PREDICTION: "Soul"-Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste

ORIGINAL SONG

"Husavik" - Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga - Music & Lyrics: Savan Kotecha, Fat Maax Gsus and Rickard Goransson

"Fight for You" - Judas and the Black Messiah - Music: H.E.R. and Dernst Emile II; Lyric: H.E.R. and Tiara Thomas

"Io Si (Seen)" - The Life Ahead - Music: Diane Warren; Lyric: Diane Warren and Laura Pausini

"Speak Now" - One Night in Miami... - Music and Lyric: Leslie Odom, Jr. and Sam Ashworth

"Hear My Voice" - The Trial of the Chicago 7 - Music: Daniel Pemberton; Lyric: Daniel Pemberton and Celeste Waite

One of the criticisms that I've been hearing repeated is that, essentially all these songs nominees this year is that they're all too similar to each other, all except for "Husavik", the song from "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga". I think this criticism is actually really, really off, 'cause I think "Husavik (My Hometown)" sounds quite a bit like the other nominees as well. I'll concede that the song has the biggest role in regards to it's movie; it's the only song that's interwoven into the narrative and the rest of these nominees are all, essentially inspirational ending credits songs, with the same message, but yeah, "Husavik" is basically just a slightly comedic version of that as well, so I don't get that criticism. That said, it could still win. It won the SCL Award for Original song, so the musicians like it, plus it's definitely the closest to being an orange in a barrel of apples, but I don't know. Relistening to the songs again, I still kinda feel like it's the least impressive of the nominees. For the record, there's no bad song here this year, but yeah, "Husavik" it's a fairly innocuous song from a comedy film, which, eh, when's the last time one of those won? Probably "The Muppets"'s "Man or Muppet", that was a decade ago, partially a makeup Oscar for The Muppets never winning anything before and that was the year they only had two nominees and they finally decided to start revamping the category so that wouldn't happen again. (And I'd argue that wasn't even the best song from that movie; "Life is a Happy Song" is a much more memorable song) What was like the last one that wasn't from a kids/animated comedy? Eh, Stevie Wonder winning for "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from "The Woman in Red"? God that was decades ago and that's a less comedic song then "Husavik", and it was Stevie! Yeah, I'm just not feeling "Husavik", I think its this year's "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" and that song didn't win either. So, for me, I think it's between "Io Si (Seen)" and "Speak Now". "Io Si" marks Diane Warren's 12th nominations; she's yet to win, so she's the sentimental favorite, and it's a good song, but it's also in Italian and for a movie that didn't get any other nominations, but it won the Golden Globe. "Speak Now" was the favorite for that Globe and hasn't won anything, but I think it's still the best of the nominees. I also think they'd like to give Leslie Odom, Jr. something for having a helluva year. I'm fairly positive that he was the easy favorite to win Supporting Actor before "Judas and the Black Messiah" dropped late, so eh, Consulation Oscar for him? Eh, I'll be cheering for Diane Warren but if Randy Newman had to wait 'til his 15th nomination, I'm not sure why the Academy wouldn't tell Warren "No," for a 12th. 

PREDICTION: "Speak Now"-"One Night in Miami...", Leslie Odom, Jr. and Sam Ashworth

PRODUCTION DESIGN

The Father - Production Design: Peter Francis; Set Decoration: Cathy Featherstone

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - Production Design: Mark Ricker; Set Decoration: Karen O'Hara and Diana Stoughton

Mank - Production Design: Donald Graham Burt; Set Decoration: Jan Pascale

News of the World - Production Design: David Crank; Set Decoration: Elizabeth Keenan

Tenet - Production Design: Nathan Crowley; Set Decoration: Kathy Lucas

Okay, something kinda interesting with the ADG this year, which went to "Mank" and "Tenet" respectively among the nominees. Well, there's a second Guild. The Set Decorators Society of America also gave out Awards this year for the first time. That changes the game a bit, 'cause while they are categorized together, they are two different skills. Like, I wouldn't necessarily think "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" was a great nominee here just based on the art direction, even though the production design is good, but the set decoration is really good. There's a lot of old music props and instruments that add to the story as much as the production design. So that could make a huge difference, hypothetically? Except they also went with "Mank" and "Tenet" so not really. Although I could see "The Father" playing spoiler here; it didn't get into either Guilds awards, and also quietly has some really good production design and set decoration to it. It did lose to "Mank" at BAFTA though and if it was gonna win anywhere, it probably would've been there. This is also the spot where "Mank" is the most likely to win, and I highly suspect the Academy wants to give something to the film. They gave it ten nominations, and usually when a movie goes 0 for 10, there's at least one or two others films with at least ten nominations against them, and the nearest any other film has is 6; "Mank"'s winning something. 

PREDICTIONS: "Mank"- David Crank and Elizabeth Keenan

SOUND

Greyhound - Warren Shaw, Michael Minkler, Beau Borders and David Wyman

Mank - Ren Klyce, Jeremy Molod, David Parker, Nathan Nance and Dre Kunin

News of the World - Oliver Tarney, Mike Prestwood Smith, William Miller and John Pritchett

Soul - Ren Klyce, Coya Elliott and David Parker

Sound of Metal - Nicholas Baksht, Michellee Couttolenc, Carlos Cortes and Philip Bladh

 Another category with two Guilds to look through now. I'll be honest, I know nobody else gives a damn or thinks there's any real difference, but I don't like the combining of the Sound categories. I mean, it's not the worst idea, the Academy's had to adjust their awards, but they really two different skills, they really should have two Oscars.... But, this is what we got and you know, if hopefully this ends up in something like, I don't know a Casting Oscar to be granted at some point in the near future, then sure, let's go back to one Sound category. Anyway, the MPSE Golden Reel Awards , who are the Sound Editors, they kinda surprised some by going with "Greyhound" and "Soul" in their respective categories. The heavy favorite "Sound of Metal" did win at the CAS also along with "Soul" which won for both Guilds Animation categories. This, honestly makes sense. Sound Editors are the ones who create and record the sounds, so something like "Greyhound" might more appeal to them, while the Sound Mixers are the ones who focus on Mixing the sounds appropriately onto the film tracks, so "Sound of Metal", which deals in both music, but also is a movie about a character losing his ability to hear, would appeal more to the Mixers. "Sound of Metal" also won at BAFTA where they've had this one category for years. I guess "Soul" could play spoiler here; animation does a decent record in the Sound categories, although they haven't won in a while. The last one to get a nomination in any Sound category was "Toy Story 3" over a decade ago, and the last one to win was "The Incredibles" in '04, unless you count Peter Jackson's "King Kong" as animated film, which, you shouldn't. Ren Klyce is also a sentimental favorite, a now nine-time nominee who's never won; he's up for both "Soul" and "Mank", but I think it's hard to figure a scenario where "Sound of Metal" doesn't easily take this. If you think Sound in a movie this year, you think "Sound of Metal", as I think you should as well.

PREDICTION: "Sound of Metal" - Nicholas Baksht, Michellee Couttolenc, Carlos Cortes and Philip Bladh

VISUAL EFFECTS

Love and Monsters - Matt Sloan, Genevieve Camilleri, Matt Everitt and Brian Cox

The Midnight Sky - Matthew Kasmir, Christopher Lawrence, Max Solomon and David Watkins

Mulan - Sean Faden, Anders Langlands, Seth Maury and Steve Ingram

The One and Only Ivan - Nick Davis, Greg Fisher, Ben Jones and Santiago Colomo Martinez

Tenet - Andrew Jackson, David Lee, Andrew Lockley and Scott Fisher

This is another category where I think the Guild Awards are kinda useless. Actually it's somewhat debatable whether or not the Visual Effects Society is actually a Guild or Union at all.... Anyway, eh, they have quite a few awards, although the presumed big prize they gave out for Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature went to "The Midnight Sky". That said, last year the Oscar went to "1917" and that film didn't get a single VES nomination, so based on that logic, "Love and Monsters" should be the favorite. The actual favorite is "Tenet" which didn't win a single VES Award, although it was nominated in the main category there and it won the BAFTA. Basically, the Oscar winner usually goes to the film that's got the Best Picture nomination, or the Best Picture nomination with the most obvious use of special effects, or in this case, the movie that among the nominees seems the most likely of the bunch of have gotten a Best Picture nomination. Except for 2015 when "Ex Machina" won over three BP nominees and a "Star Wars" film; that was weird. Really weird, like seriously, you gotta go back to 1945 to see a BP nominee lose this category to a non-BP nominee when "Wonder Man" beat "Spellbound! It was a little more common back then when they usually had like 5-10 nominees a year in the category, but man, people don't realize how truly weird that "Ex Machina" win was. Anyway, I'm still a little tempted to go off the board here, just because of how weird this year is. I mean, "The Midnight Sky" has split enough critics vote to at least make you think about it, even if the movie was universally panned everywhere and "Mulan" and "The One and Only Ivan" did win some Guild prizes as well. I think the big question really is, did the Academy voters even get around to watching any of these, like outside of the Visual Effects Branch? You'd think this being a pandemic would help, but-eh, with some of these titles...?

PREDICTION: "Tenet"- Andrew Jackson, David Lee, Andrew Lockley and Scott Fisher

ANIMATED SHORT FILM

Burrow - Madeline Sharfian and Michael Capbarat

Genius Loci - Adrien Merigeau and Amaury Ovise

If Anything Happens I Love You - Will McCormack and Michael Govier

Opera - Erick Oh

Yes-People - Gisli Darri Halldorsson and Arnar Gunnarsson

I wasn't able to watch "Opera" before making this prediction, which is a shame 'cause I'm hearing a lot of people praising that one, it could play spoiler. Right now, the favorite in the category is "If Anything Happens I Love You", which, is really good and fucking depressing as Hell. Good lord, if that thing wins, then it won because it had the best name and not because people saw it; it's on Netflix if you haven't/want to see(n) it, but don't say I didn't warn you; I can't imagine something that depressing and horrofic winning in the animated short category. I'm just gonna take a shot and say that something else will win, but what...? Honestly I wasn't overly crazy about "Genius Loci" or "Yes-People" although they're both good little shorts. That leaves "Burrow" and "Opera". "Burrow"'s a Pixar entry, so I kinda think that has the edge, and I suspect the voters have seen it. That said, it's always the ones that you don't see that could pull the upset off, but eh, do I want to take a shot in this category on something I haven't seen.... With the short categories, I do think availability helps; sure the voters get the most ability to watch these, but if there's wide appeal, especially in this category where say their kids might've seen it, I think that helps. I gotta pick a couple upsets anyway. 

PREDICTION: "Burrow"

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

Feeling Through - Doug Roland and Susan Ruzenski

The Letter Room - Elvira Lind and Sofia Sandervan

The Present - Farah Nabulsi and Ossama Bawardi

Two Distant Strangers - Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe

White Eye - Tomer Shushan and Shira Hochman

I got around to watching all of these before I made this predictions; it's nice to see Netflix, HBO and eh, Topic...? What-the-...- what the hell is Topic?- Eh anyway, it's nice to see these streaming services giving these shorts an easy access to the greater public. My initial instinct is to go with "The Letter Room", because that's the one with the biggest and most recognizable stars, with Oscar Isaac and Alia Shawkat most notably. (It was written and directed by Isaac's wife, so...) but it's also a good film thankfully, so perhaps. The only one of these I thought was kinda hokey was "Feeling Through" about a young Black youth reluctantly helping a blind and death guy travel through the city. I think the two foreign films the Palestinean "The Present" and the Israeli film "White Eye", both of which are quite good emotional films that deal with important issues, but I think it's between the English-language ones and I'm gonna take "Two Distant Strangers". I think "The Letter Room" could take this, but I suspect if they saw "Two Distant Strangers" and I've heard that they have, it's the most timely, it's the most universal of the nominees, it's easily available.... It's probably the most of the zeitgeist of the films as well. I think it's gonna be close though.

PREDICTION: "Two Distant Strangers"  

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT

Colette - Anthony Giacchino and Alice Doyard

A Concerto is a Conversation - Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers

Do Not Split - Anders Hammer and Charlotte Cook

Hunger Ward - Skye Fitzgerald and Michael Scheueman

A Love Song for Latasha - Sophia Nahli Allison and Janice Duncan

Unlike the Live-Action Short category, where I'm still watching some of the films, Documentary Short Subject I've actually seen all these films, and all the other films on the shortlist before the nominations came out; they're surprisingly easy to find nowadays believe it or not. When I was doing my predictions, I sat down and watched all the films on the short list and just ranked them by preference, and usually I actually do fairly well when I can do something like that. This time, I really screwed the category up, so I gotta rethink. Right now, the main debate seems to be between "A Conversation is a Concerto", which is the lightest and most enjoyable of the film, and "A Love Song for Latasha" which is the probably the most personal to the Hollywood crowd, the most timely politically I'd argue the best of the bunch as a film and as a piece of filmmaking. The only one I can't see possibly winning is "Hunger Ward", which is too just depressing. "Colette" is the Holocaust entry, I forgot there's always one, and I can't eliminate that one entirely, and "Do Not Split" was probably my favorite of the group. That one's pretty political too, and timely, but I think "A Love Song for Latasha" just hits the most notes right now. 

PREDICTION: "A Love Song for Latasha"

Alright, that's all there is this year; we'll see how I do tomorrow night.  

MOVIE REVIEWS #181: "ANOTHER ROUND", "WAVES", "MONOS" and "THE GREAT HACK"!

I'm still sticking with this new format, and sometimes that means that I'm not reviewing as many movies as I've used, and that's kinda the idea. At least, I'm not reviewing them here; I might post some thoughts on random older films that I'm watching. I made a few notes on FB and Twitter about "Room 237," that documentary on "The Shining" that everyone's been telling me I should watch. I finally got around to it, I liked it, I didn't love it, and I still think the movie is mostly overrated, although some of the theories proposed in the movie did strike me as just, ridiculous. The idiot that wanted to talk about how the film was about how Kubrick faked the Moon Landing in particular, yeah, Kubrick's interesting enough, don't bring your conspiracy BS into it, even if he is trolling you. 

To recommend a couple other films I just got around to, "On the Seventh Day (aka "En El Septimo Dia)" is a delightful little movie about an illegal immigrant trying to get his family over to America while also trying to figure out how to run a delivery shift while also playing in his local neighborhood team's big soccer game. A few documentaries, the HBO docuseries "What's My Name: Muhammad Ali", was particularly good, "Voulez-vous Rire Avec Moi ce Soir", about the European stand-up scene was compelling;  "Running from Crazy" as well about the Hemingways from the perspective of Mariel, who we don't see nearly enough of in general. Oh, if you want to have your mind blown, I watched Allen Funt's documentary, "What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?" for some reason. It's so weird, it's basically like every X-rated prank you've ever seen on Youtube or some other old prank show, but like 50 years ago. "Candid Camera" must've been a lot weirder then I think we realize. 

Anyway, Oscar Predictions will be posted this weekend; I'm working on them now and I might do a Post-Mortem on them... we'll see though. Let's go to the few movies I've been watching and did manage to review, including the Oscar-nominated "Another Round"! 

ANOTHER ROUND (2020) Director: Thomas Vinterberg

⭐⭐1/2

Okay, so I-eh, I don't drink much, at all. Except for the fact that I'm a writer, this is otherwise not a shocking revelation to most. It's not that I'm straight-edged, in fact I've spent much of my life around people who drink, and other mood-altering substances, let's say. Some of it I was aware, most of it, I was probably blissfully unaware of, 'til much later in life. (Hell, there are friends of mine, to this day, who are trying to configure ways into getting me to-eh, [finger quotes] "loosen myself up", if you will....) Honestly, I don't have a particular issue with it on paper, but I generally have not had great experiences hanging around too many chemically-altered people. (At least, none when I'm aware that they're altered.) I've often been the one in the room who's not drinking, and let me just say, it's not a terribly fun place to be, but I still think I prefer it to joining the crowd and drinking alongside them. Frankly, I would hate to act like the way I've seen some do when they're under the influence, and I genuinely feel a lot of concern for those who do partake. 

I'm not trying to be a buzzkill here btw, if you're fine with it, then fine have a drink, have some fun, be safe, don't break any laws, have a designated driver, etc. etc. etc., but I just- it's just not for me. So-eh, those feelings though, that I've gotten when I'm the only one who's not drinking; that's a lot of what I felt while watching "Another Round", a strange, supposedly uplifting dark comedy from Dogme 95 director Thomas Vinterberg. Now, I'll confess that I'm not overly proficient in Vinterberg; I liked a couple movies of his I've seen, 'The Hunt" and "Submarino", but I can't say I was hugely effected by them. I know "The Celebration" is generally considered his best film; I haven't gotten to that one yet. There's a lot of Dogme 95 that I haven't gotten to, but this movie feels a bit like how that movement was probably created. A couple friends had a few drinks, and instead of deciding to artificially rediscover neorealism, they, decide to keep drinking. 

Okay, it's a little more complex then that, but not much honestly. Basically, there's four high school teachers, that basically decide to concoct a social experiment on themselves. Over a dinner, they decide that, they've struggle a bit with their midlife crises lately, and hypothesized that it's because they're not drinking enough. Specifically, they're testing the Skarderud Theory that the human mind and body is better at a blood-alcohol or BAC level of 0.05%, is the ideal BAC to have while going through life; I suppose? Honestly, it just feels like alcoholics searching for an excuse to keep drinking. Strangely though, it actually works. The character Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) a bored history teacher actually has some inspired teaching moments and even has things pick up with his wife Annika (Marie Bonnevie). Eventually the other friends join in and they also have good moments at their respective teaching jobs and life. Tommy (Thomas Bo Larson) has a decent job coaching kids soccer, although he has to maneuver his way through an awkward encounter involving a water bottle that actually got a slight chuckle out of me. Lars Ranthe as Peter and Magnus Milang as Nikolaj also have some good scenes here as well. In fact, the acting in this movie is really amazing all the way through. 

This actually makes the movie a little difficult for me to judge; 'cause I don't really want to pan this film too much. The premise is disturbing and hokey, and really feels like Vinterberg is trying to show what his nights out with Lars Von Trier probably were when they wrote up those stupid rules in the mid-'90s. And ultimately, the movie does show that drinking and staying a little drunk all the time, is ultimately not good, although I'm certain some idiot's biggest takeaway from the film is to don't drink anything with absinthe in it. (Which, should've just been a given, but oh well...) And I'm not really against movies about a bunch of guys drinking; in my mind I kept thinking back to Claire Denis's "35 Shots of Rum", and that movie has basically a half-hour scenes where four characters are just getting drunk and having a good time at a bar, and I don't remember much else about it, but I loved that movie. It's arguably Denis's best, so why does that work there, but the drinking in this movie, is just disturbing. Well, drinking on a night out and getting to know each other is a lot more intoxicating an experience then a bunch of middle-age longtime friends trying to recapture a bit of their past spark for one. That's probably a reason why I didn't like "At World's End" either  Still, though, all the arguments I can make for why these characters are essentially drunk pricks, I can probably make for Alexander Payne's masterpiece "Sideways", and that's one of my all-time favorite films, and that's just two friends drinking. They're also experiencing life and they're on a pre-wedding trip... I think that's what ultimately annoying me about "Another Round"; it's just four old men using this scientific theory as an excuse to try to drink their way through life, and they're not even like doing anything with it. They're not changing much, they don't want things to change, they just want to find something better, and they're searching for it in the bottom of a flask hidden in the school gym's utility room. Like, even if this was realistic, I still don't want to hang around these people who are trying to become functioning alcoholics. 

I'm told the movie is supposed to be life-affirming but honestly, I don't see how, and hell it ends up destroying and ending one character's life, so even that thing is tainted ultimately. There's a little bit about the differences between binge drinking when you're in high school and when you're an adult, the movie even opens with teenagers performing in an organized traditional drinking challenge ritual that, is incredibly stupid. I guess the contrast is that the teenagers are stupidly trying to have fun and be drunk while the adults are taking a more thoughtful, scientific approach to it, and therefore are smarter?! I don't get this movie. Maybe I had to have drank a lot more in my youth, or now to fully understand it, and you know, there is probably something to be said about the fact that I made a choice to bypass the traditional sewing of my youthful oats, but in most aspects, I also don't feel any regret for that decision, and you know what, I can definitely think of movies that have made me wish I had more life experiences as a youth, or at least enjoyed the ones I had more then I did. This can be done romantically and well, not even that, just something more compelling somehow...; there's a good movie in here, somewhere, but ultimately, I didn't see it, and in my mind, I shouldn't have to be chemically-altered to enjoy or understand a piece of art.  

WAVES (2019) Director: Trey Edward Shults

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Richard Roeper review of Trey Edward Shults's latest film "Waves" begins with an observation that the movie constantly ends up in the water. Honestly, I didn't catch that observation strangely, the "Waves" that I noticed most prevalently in the movie were, well, soundwaves. More specifically, the kind of soundwaves we catch while walls through and around walls. Maybe because it hit me more, the notion of listening in on loved ones, usually a parent, as they talk and fight and you know, it's partially around/about you, and you can hear them. Walls can do a lot of things; they can build up a foundation, give you a home, they can separate out some privacy for you, get you your own personal space, but they can cut you off from the outside world, but they don't really protect you against sound; they're not entirely thick enough for that. They seem to block us off from the outside influence and stimuli, but those soundwaves do indeed sneak in. 

Roeper's not wrong though, there are other kinds of "Waves" that the movie focus on. There is water, but the movie has several "Waves". I don't entirely know what they're going for with it, but I caught some; I just wonder if that's enough for the whole. 

"Waves" is a family drama that sets up two narratives, each based around the two siblings; the first one involves the older brother Tyler (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) a high school wrestler who's under an immense amount of pressure from an intense father, Ronald (Sterling K. Brown). Ronald's world, literally (The director plays with the aspect ratios through this movie) and figuratively slowly collapses in upon himself. First, his father's intensity and drive leads him to not inform him of the severity of a shoulder injury. His father it's informed by their stepmother Catherine (Renee Elise Goldsberry) also has this habit, as he's got pain pills now for apparently a knee injury that he fights with. He also has a seemingly good relationship with his girlfriend Alexis (Alexa Demie). 

Without explaining exactly what happens with Tyler, the second part of the movie focuses on Tyler's younger sister Emily (Taylor Russell) who's life start to finally, start to come into focus after she starts dating Luke (Lucas Hedges) a nice young man she meets at one of her extracurricular meets. (Apparently she's on a lip-syncing team, I think.... That was weird honestly....) Anyway, around this time, she's mostly solitary and left to her own devices by both parents whose relationship is starting to increasingly deteriorate. She finds new inspiration in her boyfriend, who's got an estranged relationship with his father, who's a drug addict that's dying of cancer. Emily's biological mother, we learn died of an overdose when she was a kid, and after some reflection she helps him try to reconnect with his dying father at around the same time it seems like her father is starting to drift further away from her, and to be honest, he mostly focused on Tyler anyway. 

So, there's power in this slice of life double-story. I like how the movie is subtle in it's emotional narrative and how it's focus is mainly on the kids as they react to their surroundings and how it's often at odd angles that they find out the struggles of their parents, that they try to keep away from them. I thought the performances were great all around. I'm really amazed more focus wasn't on how great the actors were. As to the story, it's told in a fairly meditative approach, and I don't hate it, but I feel it's parts are probably better then the whole. It actually reminds me a lot structurally of a story that I remember one of my old classmates pitched in an old screenplay class about two stories of two people and how one kid's life get good and the other's gets bad; I think he called it "Seesaw"...? I might be getting that wrong, but eh, it's one of those things where, this works with three, not two. I mean, it kinda does work here anyway despite breaking that rule of three, but I'm not sure I love the narrative. And I don't love the "Waves" metaphor itself; it's another thing that kinda works here, but I don't really know what it means in this context. Maybe it has something to do with the South Florida location, maybe it has to do with the tone.... I don't quite get all of the intent here, but I like the story and the performances. "Waves" is an ambition film that probably doesn't fully work, but it's way too powerful to completely ignore. It might have too many ideas for me, but at least it's got stuff to say and does it in a different way. 

MONOS (2019) Director: Alejandro Landes

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Soldiers are, young. 

That's-, that's definitely not a fact that we really think much about, really, but, it's pretty much a fact that, in whatever form of an army takes around the world, legit-or-not, they're all full of, for lack of a better term, soldiers, who are really young. They're teenagers most of them, if that. Young, dumb, hormonal, kids. And yet, they join up in militias, military, commandos, freedom fighters, terrorists groups, all over the world, they're joining armies and we're handing them guns and other destructive weapons and putting them into potential deadly, life-threatening situations. Literal warzones. Hell, arguably their presence alone is what makes them warzones. 

So, "Monos" is a movie by Alejandro Landes. I've only seen one film of his, his debut documentary "Cocalero", but that was a long time ago, and he hadn't made a movie in eight years before "Monos", so I'm basically coming in blind to his work. The fact that we're following a young Columbian guerrilla army is the real clue. There's no name given to this, I guess it would technically be a platoon, maybe...  or a squad, I guess; I don't know how normal armies differentiate sizes of units honestly, much less guerrillas ones, but most likely based on location and their activities, this is a FARC army that's being represented here. They were/are still, kinda, an insurgent military group in the country known for being a major figure in the Columbian Conflict, starting from the mid-'60s all the way 'til, only a couple years ago. This is kinda the group, or one of the ones that we think about when we think of why South America is generally so dangerous for tourist. They were naturally apart of the legal drug trade, which is how they funded their military which at it's peaked had around, 25,000 members, and they also known for kidnapping foreigners for ransom, often in the millions of dollars range, presuming they get the money before they kill who they've kidnapped. 

When we meet this group, they're at attention and talking to somebody called "The Messenger" (Wilson Salazar) who's giving them instructions and approving their assignments and even their relationships. They're supposed to watch over their most recent kidnappee, who they call Doctora (Julianne Nicholson) and they are to take care of and watch over, their cow, Shakira. Which, makes sense, they're a bunch of kids in the remote mountains of Columbia, they're watching over this American who they've got imprisoned essentially, they need some food to survive while they waste their time shooting off guns, experimenting with sex and mushrooms, and just letting their regular old rage out, so yeah, a cow makes sense. 

Also, they end up accidentally killing the cow. They're conflicting on what to do about it. Dog (Paul Cubides) is the one that killed him, but it's Wolf (Julian Giraldo), the leader of the squad, ends up taking his own life. In the chaos afterwards, over the meat of the dead cow they're eating, they decide to put the blame on Wolf, fearing what would happen if they told The Messenger. Not all agree, but after there's an apparent attack on the compound, this thread mostly gets dropped until they have to change locations. They end traveling on some, what I guess is an island somewhere, it's definitely a coast, where things really start to fall apart. They're still idiot kids having fun mostly, but in-between, they temporarily lose track of Doctora, and that's when things start to get out of hand. First, they don't contact the Messenger after Bigfoot (Moises Arias) breaks the radio and also begins a relationship with Leidi (Karen Quintero) that wasn't approved. Eventually, after The Messenger comes to check on him, Bigfoot eventually turns on The Messenger and the group really does end up on their own at that point as a runaway splinter group from whomever the larger group was. 

The movie has a cast of mostly unknown kids who had little-to-no acting experience before this film, and they do a pretty good job. I'm told that the movie has a lot of parables representing the recent history of Columbia itself, that's something that I don't doubt, but like say, the historical symbolism of recent Mexico in Alfonso Cuaron's masterpiece "Y Tu Mama Tambien", I probably missed a lot of that subtext, but I certainly buy it. "Monos" in Spanish means monkeys, and which is also an animal known for being heavily populated, alone and adrift in the South American jungle. I love the sense of claustrophobia that we're constantly feeling. These kids are essentially separated from normal society and off on their own devices, but they're in their own world. There's no talk of any political stances or even much talk about the crimes and trades they're in; they're barely pawns enough to matter, and you end up wondering exactly how they ended up here. We don't get any backstory of that, almost like it doesn't matter; it just is the case. "Monos" essentially is about any group of kids who end up in any renegade faction militia group or rogue terrorist army. They're cursed by geography, economic circumstances, probably some kind of propaganda they're not fully aware of and other variables that we'd look on as horrifying, and they're caught not only in that warzone but they're also straddling that troubling age between childhood and adulthood. 

THE GREAT HACK (2019) Directors: Karim Amir & Jehane Noujaim

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I have a theory that so often in life, in particular, those most desperate moments of despair, heartbreak and perhaps disillusionment, we often ask ourselves, the wrong question, when trying to analyze or comprehend just how everything went so wrong. We get a slight example of this in "The Great Hack" when it's most compelling character, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Brittany Kaiser quietly reflects on Alexander Nix, the infamous data-collecting company's CEO, that frankly, he always seemed like a nice guy despite everything. Somebody off-camera then reflects back to her, something along the lines of "Well, yeah, he was being nice to you because you had the skills and talents that he needed...". You can kinda see that realization in her eyes as she takes a slight breath to recalibrate a lot. 'Cause that's the right question to ask, and it's not always obvious that that's the question to oneself when you're in the middle of it all. 

Brittany Kaiser is the most fascinating and enigmatic character caught in this whole scandal, one that "The Great Hack" only kinda scratches the surface at, but I'm okay with that, 'cause I'm not entirely sure I'd be able to fully understand it entirely if they did go through it. Basically, I get it though, Cambridge Analytica was a right-wing data collecting group that literally stole from Facebook the info and used it to manipulate the voters. This is not subjective, this is what they did. I know, most of us essentially think we're above being caught up in propaganda, but that's simply not and they did more then that, they were specifically targeting what they called the "Persuadeables". Not exactly what you would call "Swing voters" but people who are more susceptible to believing things that simply aren't true, and they would use these tactics, along with collecting all our data points that get picked up and collected every time we make a purchase with a debit card or like something on Facebook. Kaiser was one of the orchestrators of a lot of these tactics that eventually led to both Trump's election win and the Leave.EU's successful Brexit campaign. Among others; I didn't even know about what they apparently did in Trinidad & Tobago. 

We meet a few people who we're fighting the charge, first David Carroll a media design professor who began investigating after Trump's election and then decided to sue in a British court since that's where their base was, by simply requesting that the company provide all the information they have, on him. Yeah, he wants his own information; he's not even asking them to stop recording his data, just to let him know what they have on him, but it jumped start some investigations that were already going on, and put eyes on the company. Also, we have the reporters, most notably, Carole Cadwalldr, an investigative journalist for the Guardian who was on Cambridge Analytica even before Carroll was. It was her story, and her work with the original member of the third group, the whistleblowers. First there was one of their hackers, Christopher Wylie, but later Kaiser comes out, and she's the big fish. The hard-to-find one, hell, when we find her she had escape to Thailand somewhere just to stay off the grid. (Although in the credits there's a shot of her, I think at Burning Man of all things... Some kind of get-together of that sort) 

She is by far the most compelling character in this story. She started actually as apart of Obama's campaign team, first as an idealistic intern, and later she basically became one of his key members of his social media outreach team. It's that job that eventually got her to Cambridge Analytica. You can see the change over the years on her Facebook page as she went about as far to the left to as far to the right as she could. She joined the NRA, she spoke at CPAC, she was, always around. There's plenty of video of the other big names at Cambridge Analytica and she's always there with them. She doesn't talk much about the shift, she was good for Obama's team and she needed the money and got the job offer. It seems like she has essentially followed the Edward Snowden disillusionment with both American parties and politics in general, and although she's still getting some off-the-grid work in technology and politics, and otherwise all seems to look overwhelmed in her facial expressions. We're catching her in "The Great Hack" at her most vulnerable and it shows. 

The big takeaway from all these movies is that, essentially it's not so much a recap or an explanation or even a thrilling depiction and documenting of the crime, it's more-or-less a warning about just how technology has gotten out of control and how disingenuous players with loads of capitol and power are using it to control us and how they're going to continue to do that. Honestly, it's something I've been thinking about every time I wonder exactly how can we prevent something like Trump's election happening again. We know information is key, but as long as disinformation is allowed to thrive, the people who are most susceptible to it, are gonna be flooded and corrupted with it, and I don't know what the answer is. At least not in this country where freedom of the press and freedom of speech is the top line of our rulebook. (Well, top line of our amendments to our rule book anyway). Trump won in 2016 because he was able to get his message out to the few susceptible people who he needed to win over the most, and right now, that seems to be all that it takes. 

I have some hacker friends who can understand the greater horrors of what all this means in greater detail then I ever will and they all have this look like "Mr. Robot" does all the time as they seem to realize just how much more fucked we are then everyone else realizes. "The Great Hack" is from the documentary team of Karim Amir, a great producer who works in both documentary and regular media; he's a producer on "Ramy" at the moment and he was a producer on his co-director Jehane Noujaim's previous feature film "The Square", the documentary which depicted the fall of Mubarak regime and the Egyptian Revolution of 2014, which was apart of the Arab Spring that year that originated in Tunisia. She's also has had a knack for focusing on the media and the rise of technology as her big breakthrough docs were "Startup.com" and one of my favorite documentaries "Control Room". "The Great Hack" seems like it's trying to get some answers, but ultimately it's about realizing that we're all apart of this Frankenstein's monster of our own creation that is modern technology, and the bad actors who will use it to take over and control our minds in ways that we, the less technologically-inclined may never fully understand. Cause it's not like Cambridge Analytica are the only bad actors, as the former CFO Julian Wheatland explains, paraphrasing here, it's just that they were the company that ultimately went down with this revelation first. 

And I'm still gonna post this blog on Facebook when it's all completed still.... Putting out more data points for them....