The big question hovering over this year's Academy Awards involves Netflix. Yes, that's right, the online streaming service has engineered a major push to win a best-picture Oscar for Roma, director Alfonso Cuaron's memory movie about the maid who cared for him and his siblings during the early 1970s in Mexico City. If the Academy can bring itself to honor a Netflix production -- as opposed to a film from a traditional studio -- Roma will receive a well-deserved best-picture Oscar and Netflix will have reason to crow.
If the Academy flinches or is somehow put off by the massive PR campaign Netflix has mounted for the movie, the next best bet would be Green Book, a feel-good movie that doesn't even belong on the list of nominees, but which proved popular with audiences and had enough critical support to keep from being an Oscar embarrassment.
This year's telecast also will give us an opportunity to see how an Oscar broadcast unfolds without a host, the first time in 30 years that's happened. For all we know, it might make for a better evening.
If nothing else, the weeks leading up to the Oscar telecast have revealed tremors of insecurity at the Academy. Fretting about the show's length and declining viewership, the Academy decided (and then changed its mind) to award some of its highest honors during commercial breaks. Now, all 24 awards will be seen live.
Maybe you remember the best-popular-picture fiasco? That was going to be a new category until the Academy was deluged with criticism and changed its mind. And, yes, the Academy seems to be nervous about the possibility of selecting another best-picture that played only to a limited audience.
Well, enough about an Academy that can't seem to stop stepping on its own toes no matter what it does.
I'm not going to belabor my predictions, and as always, I'm hoping for surprises, upsets and at least one or two memorable acceptance speeches:
My Oscar predictions for major categories:
Best Picture
Will Win: Roma
Should Win: Roma
Possible Upset: Either Green Book or BlacKkKlansman
Oscar voters may surprise everyone and give a Spike Lee movie its first Oscar. Lee's BlacKkKlansman, a movie about a black Colorado Springs cop who infiltrated the KKK, could take home Oscar gold, but I'm not ready to bet on it.
Best Actress
Will win: Glenn Close, The Wife
Should win: Olivia Colman, The Favourite
Look, Close was very good in The Wife, a small movie about a woman who ghostwrote her novelist husband's prize-winning books, but Olivia Colman shattered me in The Favourite, as a needy, imperious Queen Anne, a woman ultimately forced to face her soul-crushing inadequacies.
Best Actor
Will Win: Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
Should Win: Christian Bale, Vice
For me, this is a tainted category. Ethan Hawke should have been on the list of nominees for his gripping performance as a tormented pastor in director Paul Schrader's First Reformed. He was snubbed.
Best Supporting Actress
Will Win: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Should Win: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Could Win: Amy Adams
Too bad Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone will cancel each other out in this category. Both were fine in The Favourite. But King deserves recognition.
Best Supporting Actor
Will Win: Mahershala Ali, Green Book
Should Win: Mahershala Ali
It will be Ali's second win in this category. He took home the best-supporting-actor Oscar for his performance in 2016's Moonlight. We're in an Ali moment. Too bad for Richard Grant who nailed his role as a dissolute gay man who helped an aspiring offer carry on a money-making ruse in Can You Ever Forgive Me? If anyone can upset Ali, I'd my money on Grant.
Best Director:
Will win: Alfonso Cuaron, Roma
Should win: Alfonso Cuaron, Roma
Could win: Spike Lee. Academy voters may feel that Cuaron, who will win best picture, best cinematographer and best foreign-language film will have earned enough honors for one night. Moreover, Lee is overdue.
Best Original Screenplay
Will win: The Favourite
Should win: First Reformed
Best Adapted Screenplay
Will win: BlacKkKlansman
Should win: Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Best Animated Feature
Will win: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Should Win: Isle of Dogs
Best Documentary
Will win: Free Solo
Should win: Free Solo
Could win: RBG
Best Foreign Language Film
Will Win: Roma
Should Win: Roma
Could win: Capernaum
Check Monday for post-Oscar reaction, presuming I have any. I always look forward to the end of what has become a marathon awards season and a return to something approximating "normal" movie going.
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