Oscar Predictions: 89th Academy Awards

It's time. It's finally time. It's time for my 2nd favorite day of the year. Academy Awards day. And with that, comes my Oscar predictions. Many hours have gone into researching this. So hopefully, I don't make a complete fool out of my self with my predictions this year. I did get 23/24 on my ballot two years ago so you could say I kind of know what I'm talking about. I will give you predictions on all the awards but, I will not give analysis on all of them. Only the key ones. For much more in depth analysis, you can listen to my podcast. You can search iTunes for "The TMG Moviecast" or download the PODBEAN app and search for "The TMG Moviecast."

BEST PICTURE

La La Land

        It's La La Land's award to loose. With it's 14 nominations, it's very hard to see a world where La La Land doesn't win. Even though Moonlight has the slimmest chance of an upset. 

BEST DIRECTOR

Damien Chazelle-La La Land

          Damien will become the youngest person ever to win the directing Oscar at age 31. If you take into consideration Chazelle's BAFTA win and his DGA win (Directors Guild Award), he has become the for sure bet. It will be one of the biggest upsets of the night if Chazelle does not take home the trophy. 

BEST ACTOR

Casey Affleck-Manchester by the Sea

          This was the hardest category for me this year. It was either between Affleck or Denzel Washington for Fences. Affleck had all the Oscar buzz going for him since this movie premiered at Sundance back in 2016. It was just recently, when Washing won the SAG award (Screen Actors Guild) that momentum started to shift ways. The SAG award is the best indicator for the Oscar because 1/6 of the Academy are the members of the SAG. 18/22 SAG award winners for Best Actor went on to when the Oscar. I did like Manchester by the Sea a lot better than Fences so there is definitely personal bias in this selection. Affleck did when the BAFTA and numerous other critic's awards. So Affleck is my choice. Don't be surprised if Washington pulls away with the victory. You might even see Gosling win for La La Land due to the fact that the Academy seems to love that movie. However, that is a very, very, unlikely scenario. I keep on second guessing my choice. Affleck and Washington are both safe choices. 

BEST ACTRESS

Emma Stone-La La Land

          I like to call this category "Close, but not really." Earlier in the award season Natalie Portman got some early awards for her performance as Jackie Kennedy in Jackie. The closer, and closer we are getting to the Oscars, more buzz starts to form around Isabelle Huppert for her movie, Elle. But Stone did come away with a Golden Globe, a SAG Award, and a BAFTA (British Academy Awards.) So as far as momentum goes, Stone has got this. She showed so much versatility in this movie. Stone definitely deserves this award. Portman and Huppert could be the dark horse in this scenario, but that would be considered a rather big upset at this point. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Mahershala Ali-Moonlight

          Just like the other acting awards, the best indicator of this category is the SAG. Ali won that award, and gave a very emotional acceptance speech which could've influenced voters in his way. He did loose the Golden Globe to Aaron Taylor Johnson (who isn't even nominated for the Oscar) and he lost to Dev Patel at the BAFTAs. So this race is much closer than you think. More than the leading actor category, the winners at the SAG awards don't go on to win the Oscar as much. Most recently last year when Mark Rylance won for Bridge of Spies when Idris Elba won the SAG last year. I personally want Patel to win this award because I liked Lion a lot more than I enjoyed Moonlight. But Ali has the spot on my Oscar ballot. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Viola Davis-Fences

          This is the one category that is a 100% lock. She has won the overwhelming majority of awards that she can. If she doesn't win this, it might go down as one of the biggest upsets in Oscar history. 

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Manchester by the Sea

          This is a category that gets interesting. The winner of best original screenplay at the WGA (Writers Guild Awards) was Moonlight. However, at the Oscars it's under the best adapted screenplay category so you can't look at that for a prediction. La La Land took home the Golden Globe while Manchester by the Sea took home the BAFTA and other critic awards. Since I give a little more weight to the BAFTAs than I do the Golden Globes, i'm checking off Manchester by the Sea on my ballot. I also think it should win. La La Land is my number one movie of the year, but I have to admit that Manchester by the Sea is written much better. Perhaps the Academy wants to share the wealth and not give La La Land every award. Again, this could come from my personal love of Manchester by the Sea. La La Land  or Manchester by the Sea would both be safe bets. This is another category this year that I keep on second guessing my choice. 

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Moonlight

          Lion won the BAFTA, Arrival won the WGA for adapted screenplay and Moonlight won for best original screenplay. This is a relatively close race since 3 different movies won significant awards. There is just a lot of buzz surrounding Moonlight. It's the other best picture favorite and it's also challenging Chazelle for director. Since Moonlight is not going to win in those categories, it has the slight advantage when it comes to adapted screenplay. 

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Zootopia

          Zootopia won the Golden Globe, the Annie Award (Animated film Awards) and the PGA (Produces Guild Awards.) So Zootopia is definitely building up a reputation. However, Kubo and the Two Strings won the BAFTA. Every single time a movie has won the BAFTA and has been nominated for the Oscar, it was won. 100% of the time. I might be over estimating the Academy's love for Disney movies, but I do believe Zootopia was the better movie. It very well just might break that BAFTA record. But once again, i'm second guessing my choice all the time. 

Now, are all of the other awards. Full disclosure, I don't research these as much as I did with the awards above. In fact, it is very hard to use previous awards to predict these. So I gave it my best shot. 

BEST FOREIGN FILM-Toni Erdmann. The Salesman is another good contender. 

BEST COSTUME DESIGN-LA LA Land. I just think that La La Land is going to sweep all of these technical type awards. Jackie is another good contender for this award. 

BEST ORIGINAL SONG-City of Stars. I really want How Far I'll Go to win so Lin-Manuel Miranda can join the EGOT club (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony.) But something from La La Land is going to win. 

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE-La La Land

BEST DOCUMENTARY-O.J.: Made in America

BEST DOCUMENTARY (SHORT)-Extremis

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING-Star Trek Beyond. The 2009 Star Trek won this award. That is really my only reason why I'm picking it. 

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN-La La Land

BEST FILM EDITING-La La Land

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY-La La Land

BEST SOUND EDITING-La La Land

BEST SOUND MIXING-La La Land

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS-The Jungle Book

BEST SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)-Piper

BEST SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)-ENNEMIS INTERIEURS

          Well there you go! My complete Oscar ballot. Will I go perfect this year? I highly doubt it. But I guess we will see!

          Again, if you want to get even more in depth analysis listen to my podcast. Download the PODBEAN app on your apple or android phone and search "The TMG Moviecast." Or you can search the podcast section on iTunes for "The TMG Moviecast." 

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The Lego Batman Move Review

          Everything was awesome with The Lego Movie. Everything was awesomer with The Lego Batman Movie. Out of my top 5 animated films of all time, Lego movies now occupy 2/5 of that list. 

          Sometimes movies just connect with you on a level that most movies don't. The Lego Batman Movie did that with me. One reason why I loved this movie so much is, this movie is the epitome of my humor. Humor that is sarcastic, with a sense of bluntness. Every time there was a joke I laughed. Not one joke fell flat. I was laughing from beginning to end. 

          One of the reasons I may have laughed so much is I got all the jokes. This movie makes fun of and takes jabs at previous Batman movies. If you haven't seen previous Batman movies, some of the jokes might fly right over your head. But there are still a lot of jokes that you will get, so don't worry. 

          The main reason as to why this movie worked so well is you could tell the writers and the director understood the character of Batman. This movie wouldn't have worked if the creators didn't have a clear and comprehensable understanding of Batman. They were well aware of how to make fun of him to create humor, and the were well aware of how to write this character to create original humor that worked. 

          Not only was this a good comedy, this movie had heart, and a very good message. I was actually surprised that it wasn't humor all the time. There were emotional moments that made me tear up. Those moments provided a good break from the humor. 

          And now for the negatives. There aren't any. There was never a single moment where I thought, this could've been done better. Everything was executed perfectly. This movie was flawless. It was hilarious, and it did exactly what it needed to do.  

          As you could've guessed I give The Lego Batman Movie a perfect 5/5. I know it's the very beginning of the year but, I find it really improbable to find a movie better than this one. Really the only one I see upsetting this one is Star Wars Ep.VIII: The Last Jedi. 

If I was in charge of putting a quote on this movie poster, it would be "The Best Animated Movie in the past 5 years."

          

          

Split Review

       

           Psychological thrillers is one of my, if not my favorite sub genre when it comes to films. Whether it be Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, The Shining, or even The Prestige,  this sub genre is one that always gets me excited. So when I heard about Split, I was really looking forward to seeing it. You have James McAvoy, an actor I really appreciated and one who was underrated. You have M.Night Shymalan directing it. Say what you want about him but, he has made two really good movies with The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. That potential is in him. I wanted Shymalan to make a triumphant return with Split after he has made a series of bad films (The Visit, Signs, The Happening, The Village, The Last Airbender, After Earth). So is Split the triumphant return we have wanted from Shymalan? No. No it is not.
          This film tries way to hard. It punches you in the face with the message of "Look at me! I'm one of the best thrillers of the past 10 years!" It focuses too much on being a psychological thriller, that it forgot to have any real substance to it. The best way I can describe it is like this.....
          Think of your dream car. Imagine that you get a chance to own that car. You see the car in the distance and you walk up to it knowing that it's going to be yours. The exterior is everything you dreamed of. The moment is finally here. You get to the car and, the is no interior. There is no engine. There is nothing but the car and it's fabulous exterior. This car tried so hard to be the car of your dreams, that it forgot to complete its self. That's how I feel about Split. It tried so hard to be the best psychological thriller of the decade that it forgot to have any real substance to it.
          The last thing you should be in a thriller is bored. You will be bored watching this movie. There just isn't enough there to grab your attention, or even keep your attention. The only thing that will somewhat keep your interest is James McAvoy's performance. I can only imagine how hard it is for an actor to portray multiple characters in a movie and be constantly switching from one, to another all throughout the film. As I said in my intro, McAvoy is an actor who was underrated. I believe, and I hope that this movie gives McAvoy the attention he deserves.
          To sum it up, Split is a movie that lacks any real substance. It focuses too much on being a return to form for Shymalan that it ends up being a real lackluster. If I was in charge of putting a quote on this movie poster it would be "The try-hard movie of the year!"
I am going to give Split a 2.5/5.

         

The Bye Bye Man Review

       

          If you think his name, he will come and screw up your life. If you say his name, he will come up and screw up your life. If you see this movie, it will screw up your life. So save yourself and don't go see this movie.

          I have never liked the premise of this movie. It's so stupid. You have this "spirit" that if you think or say his name, he will haunt you and make you do unthinkable things. If you say his name to other people, those people now have the potential to be effected by The Bye Bye Man. However you can stop him by not thinking/saying his name. 

           If you really think about it, The Bye Bye Man is basically just a virus. The only way it can flourish is by the faults of other people. When you introduce the name of The Bye Bye Man to other people, they can't think of it or else their life will get screwed up, then they can spread it to others. I don't want the villain of my movie to be a stupid virus. I want the villain to be someone/something that is actually intimidating. Not a dumb virus. 

          If you are clueless enough to see this movie (really, don't see this movie) you will see some of the worst acting you will ever see in a theatrical motion picture. They are just so bad. You will never be able to take them seriously. The main actress Cressida Bonas could not deliver one good line even if her life depended on it. You are not supposed to laugh unintentionally while watching a horror movie, but Bonas will make you life with the beyond horrendous performance she gives us. The other two leads Douglass Smith and Lucien Laviscount aren't as bad as Bonas, but they are still pretty terrible. 

          To sum it up, this movie seems like it was trying to hard. The acting was terrible. The premise is stupid. There are so many moments that make you think "This must be one of the stupidest movies I have ever seen."

 If I was in charge for putting one quote on the movie poster, that quote would be "This movie is full of stupid." 

The Bye Bye Man rightfully deserves a 2/5 

      Probably the stupidest part of the movie came when the main character was browsing the computer in a library. He was researching The Bye Bye Man. He didn't go to google.com to do it. He didn't go to yahoo.com to do it. He didn't even go to bing.com to do it. He went to search.com. This movie couldn't even afford to put a name brand search engine in their movie for literally 2 seconds! 

Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them Review

          Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is the next adventure in the Harry Potter universe. This particular adventure takes place 70years before the first Harry Potter story and follows a wizard named Newt Scamander, a very introverted wizard who has a love for magical creatures. His mission is to document all those magical creatures and expand the knowledge of these "beasts" to the rest of the wizarding world. However on this quest of his, some of his beasts escape from his magical suitcase and cause havoc in 1920s New York.
          Right off the bat, there are several things that could've been fixed.
          The first thing that could've been improved are the actual beasts themselves. There were too many beasts in this film. There were too many to keep track of. The thing I appreciate the most about the creatures that have existed in this universe is they each have their own unique trait. Those traits that you want magical creatures to have, weren't so apparent in this film. The majority of the creatures didn't seem to have a real purpose and could've been easily written out for the benefit of the film. I don't want to say scenes became "crowded" when beasts were in them but they became rather messy. There was also an overuse of CGI in the movie. There needed to be less CGI, or better CGI.
          Eddie Redmayne did a really good job at bringing this somewhat unfamiliar character to life. His performance was really unique and convincing. The problem I had was Newt stayed his introverted self the whole movie. The reason I had a problem with that is, Redmayne has charisma and that charisma was dialed down, a lot. I wish there was just one scene where Newt went full-out wizard. Just once scene where he does something dramatically different compared to what he does in the rest of the film. He was a very one note character but still enjoyable nonetheless. The character I liked more was Colin Farrell's character, Graves. He wasn't in it for that long but when he was in it, he stole the show.
          The main female protagonist was played by Katherine Waterson, and her character was such a weak character. There was absolutely no substance to her character. There was nothing. It was like watching a blank piece of paper act. It was absolutely tortuous, and was a real struggle to watch. And when someone is that bad to watch and is on screen for the majority of the movie, it heavily dampens your enjoyment of the film. There was no set up to her character, and there was no pay off in the end.
          I was really excited to see the character of Kowalski. I really liked him in the trailers. I was interested in how they were going to treat this "no-maj" or "muggle." At the first of the movie I was enjoying his character. But then they introduced a love interest for Kowalski and that didn't fit in at all. It ruined the entire flow of the movie. The movie didn't seem to have any pacing issues until she came along.
          The great thing about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them is it's a return to the Harry Potter universe. Much like how the Force Awakens brought us back to the Star Wars world we loved, Fantastic Beasts brought us back the Harry Potter world we loved. I love this world so much. There were very subtle moments when a few notes of the John William's score were integrated into the overall score.  It was really nice to be in this world again. Even though I had quite a few problems, I loved how how we were introduced into this familiar world but with a new spin on it. I give Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them a 3/5.
       
       

Sully Review

         In 2009 a commercial airliner piloted by Captain Chelsey "Sully" Sullenberger hit a flock of birds that caused both engines to go down. The only thing Sully could do in this situation was to land the plane in the Hudson River. These 208-seconds will forever be known as "The Miracle on the Hudson."
          When I first heard about this movie I was wondering how they could turn 208-seconds into a full length-feature film. Then the trailers came out. I had no idea that there was controversy surrounding this event. After the landing, there were various investigations that said Sully could've flown the plane back to the airport rather than landing it in the river and causing danger to the 155 passengers on board. This movie is more about the investigations, rather than than the actual plane landing.
          That being said, the parts that do show the plane crash are really well done. Eastwood does a great job at directing these sequences to magnify your experience. The main issue with the sequences is, they are not shown in chronological order. The movie shows you parts of the plane crash, then goes to part of the investigation, then back to the plane crash. This movie would've benefited a lot more if it was done chronologically.
          Aaron Eckhart's performance as Harvey Dent/Two Face often gets overlooked in The Dark Knight. People always talk about Heath Ledger and seldom talk about Eckhart's wonderful performance. I was very happy to see another solid performance from Eckhart. He did a very good job at acting along with Hanks and holding his own ground. Not to mention that they had great chemistry.
          At this point it seems cliche to say "Hanks gave a fantastic performance." But the thing is, he always gives solid performances. He is constantly giving us Oscar worthy performances. I don't think he'll get nominated but, I wouldn't be mad if he does.
          These days it seems like the media tries to emphasize all the bad things that are going on in the world. So I got choked up when I was watching this movie because it was so nice to see something that emphasized the good that is in people. When disaster strikes, it brings out the best in people. Sully reminded me that within us, is the power and will to do something great. Sully is a movie about true, American heroes. We can rise up to the challenge. We can do extraordinary things.
          Sully is a movie you should rush out and see. You should see it because Hanks and Eckhart give great performances and for the overall message. I give Sully a 4/5.

Suicide Squad Review

          Without a doubt, Will Smith and Margot Robbie are the best parts about this movie.They played the best characters in this movie, Deadshot and Harley Quinn. I would be more than thrilled to see these two characters in another movie. In fact, I want to see a Harley Quinn movie now. I want to see a Deadshot movie now. They are too likable to not want to see them again. Viola Davis was really good as Amanda Waller. I wish that she will come back. Diablo played by Jay Hernandez is the only other character that you will appreciate.

          I don't think this movie is a disaster all the time. I just think it's a disaster eighty-five to ninety percent of the time. When this movie misses the spot, it misses the spot hard.
          I don't know why comic book movies have a tough time (for the most part) at making a good villain. More often than not they are really lack luster and really forgettable. This movie is no exception. You never have time to get to know this character. Unfortunately they decide to dedicate quite a bit of time to this character during the third act. And it just doesn't work. I couldn't care less about the final action scene because I didn't care for the character. I didn't even know what they were trying to do. Were they trying to destroy the world? They never made that clear. I don't know why they made the conflict on this big of a spectacle. It just didn't feel like it fit in with this movie. In fact it reminded me a lot of last years Fantastic 4 at some points. The finale just came off as some generic action piece. It was really cartoony and frankly, it didn't make very much sense. Then the villain had a random brother that possessed a random citizen guy. What I just said made no sense because it made no sense in the movie. The CGI they used on the brother was pre-2005 CGI. It was awful. There are so many other problems with this movie.
          Let's talk about the Joker. During the marketing campaign, he was used as a focus point for this movie. This movie basically has nothing to do with the Joker at all. He is hardly in this movie. You could cut out every scene with the Joker and the movie would still make sense. I bet you anything, that the only reason they included Joker was because the studio knows the Joker is very popular. The Joker has no purpose in this movie besides being a marketing tool. They wanted to fit him into the movie. They wanted to give him purpose and by doing so, they decided to cram in one of the best comic story lines, MAD LOVE (The origin story of Harley Quinn) into just 3-4 minutes of screen time by using really disjointed flashbacks that don't belong in this movie anyway. It also doesn't help that I hated this portrayal of the Joker. Jared Leto seemed like he was doing a terrible impression of Heath Ledger's Joker. I hope we never get to see this Joker again. He was a terrible addition to this movie.
          Tone was a big problem in this movie.  It felt like there were two movies jammed into one. One movie had a darker tone, the other movie had a lighter tone. The thing that pained me the most is, you can tell that there is a much darker version of this movie out there. I wish the stuck with that tone.
          This movie was a movie with no real structure to it. There are a whole bunch of flashbacks. Flashbacks that happen all throughout the movie. All of these flashbacks just don't make sense. It seemed like they filmed each scene in this movie, than inserted those scenes at random. They just didn't make a cohesive story.
           Suicide Squad is a movie that doesn't have good grasp of what it is. Even though it has standouts like Deadshot and Harley Quinn, it doesn't have enough to call it an enjoyable movie. With missteps that have to do with tone and pacing, Suicide Squad turns out to be a movie that will be forgetful and boring. I give Suicide Squad a 2/5.