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Mike Uncorked: OSCAR GOLD PICKS 2019
By Mike Butler
Hi Everyone! Is it Academy Awards time already? It seems like just yesterday that I wrote my 2018 Oscar Fever Uncorked article and predicted my Oscar picks. Last year, my picks did very well, and this year I have seen practically all the films in the running so I’m excited to see how I perform.
The Academy Awards ceremony airs on Sunday February 24.
Here are my predictions for this year’s Oscars.
Best Supporting Actress: What a wonderful year for strong female roles. This category is always one of the most interesting because actresses here can range from comedic to dramatic and Oscar usually throws a curve ball here to surprise the audience. However, with her beautiful performance, harbouring both humour and emotional depth, Regina King will be the well-deserved winner here for her role in If Beale Street Could Talk!
Best Supporting Actor: A few years ago, a little film called Moonlight walked away with the Academy Award for Best Picture and one of its actors, Mahershala Ali, took home a Best Supporting Actor award. From that film, Ali’s career has blossomed with consistently great work and this year he blew audiences away with his turn in the dramedy Greenbook, stealing every scene and leaving his mark on people’s minds and hearts. He has won almost every major award for this role and he will walk away with his second Oscar this Sunday night.
Best Actress: Each year I pick a WOOHOO moment at the Academy Awards: that one name that, when it’s announced, I scream and shout louder than the others and this year it will be when Glenn Close is proclaimed the winner for her brilliant work in The Wife! After a stellar career on stage, television, and film, which has included Tony, Grammy, Golden Globe, and Emmy awards, Glenn Close is long overdue for her Oscar and this will be for the work, and not just a lifetime achievement pity Oscar. Glenn is the real deal and this is her year to shine!
Best Actor: Throughout Oscar history, streams of actors have been awarded the Best Actor Oscar for playing real people, men with disabilities, singers, those with addictions, and those roles that cause actors to go through lots of physical changes. You are pretty much a shoo-in for a nomination if you do one or more of these things (think winner Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot) and this year is no exception. In a perfect world, Wilem Dafoe would win this award for his turn as tortured artist Vincent Van Gogh in At Eternity’s Gate, but the race is between Christian Bale in Vice and Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody, and Rami Malek will be taking the award in the end. They’ve both been awards darlings this year but Malek is the crowd favourite for his turn as Freddie Mercury. He will be the champion on Oscar night!
Best Director: Directors go on a journey when creating a film. They pour heart and soul into the work and the journey becomes a personal and fulfilling experience for them. Audiences react to this work and there’s many times when you forget a director’s vision was just laid before you. Alfonso Cuarón, the director of Roma, took his real-life experiences growing up in Mexico in the 1970s to create one of the most wonderful, heart-wrenching, beautifully-constructed films I’ve seen, well, since he won the Oscar for directing Gravity a few years ago. Roma, his black and white masterpiece, will have a great night at the Oscars with Alfonso getting the Best Director Oscar for his visionary work. Bravo!
Best Picture: I saw an incredible batch of films this year. From all over the world, movies came flying at us with strong characters, unique camera work, and lasting impressions. Some of my favourites ended up in this category, including The Favourite and Greenbook, as well as my choice for the Best Picture of the year: Roma. I predict, as you can see below, that Roma will win BOTH Best Picture and Best Foreign Language film, an Academy Awards first, but there has never been a more deserving film. Fingers crossed|!
Other categories:
Adapted Screenplay: Blackkklansman
Original Screenplay: The Favourite
Film Editing: Vice
Cinematography: Roma
Production Design: The Favourite
Animated Feature: Spider-man: into the Spiderverse
Costume Design: The Favourite
Makeup and Hair: Vice
Visual Effects: Avengers: Infinity War
Sound Mixing: First Man
Sound Editing: First Man
Song: Shallow (A Star is Born)
Score: If Beale Street Could Talk
Foreign Language Film: Roma
Documentary Feature: RBG
Documentary Short: Black Sheep
Animated Short: Bao
Live Action Short: Marguerite
Tune in to the Oscars and see how I did with my picks. Create your own ballot, invite friends over, have loads of fun snacks and admire the best dressed or poke fun at the worst dressed as Hollywood celebrates the best in film for 2018. Thanks Everyone!
