Oscars 2016: The Predictions

It's late January, so it's time for another round of predicting who will and won't go home with one (or more) of them little gold statuettes. Based on uncanny prior experience deducting winners, in-depth knowledge of the Academy's politics and personal acquantaince with all its members, I should get a lot of these right. Too bad I have little of the above, I'm just a guy with a gut feeling and an opinion, coupled with above average knowledge of movies and stuff. So there's bound to be a few misses here, but then, the Academy sadly never asks what I think. 


Best Film:
First Choice: I wanna say Mad Max: Fury Road, since that's the film I thought best of all the movies nominated I've seen. Which is less than half of them, admittedly. Gimme a break, the other half hasn't even been released here yet! I plan on seeing the rest ASAP. That being the case, I have a hunch it's gonna be The Revenant.
Second choice: The Big Short. Because Inarritu already won Best Picture only last year, so it wouldn't be fair to the others. Mind you, a lot of black people will remind you fairness is not something the Academy takes into account...

Best Actor:
First Choice: Leonardo DiCaprio. Nominated six times before. So don't you think it's about time as much as 'about time' can get?
Second choice: Michael Fassbender. Even though he didn't look much like Steve Jobs physically, he certainly got the rest right to make for a memorable performance.
 
Best Actress:
First Choice: Cate Blanchett. Because, you know... Cate Blanchett!
Second choice: Brie Larson. For getting stuck in a room and acting her way out.

Best Supporting Actor: 
First Choice: Christian Bale. Another hunch, but I'm not that impressed by this batch of candidates.
Second choice: Mark Rylance. Such a sweet, mild mannered performance. For a spy hellbent on destroying the US of A and the assorted freedom that goes with it. But still we like him.

Best Supporting Actress:
First Choice: Rooney Mara. Because I like to think Cate Blanchett's talent is highly inspirational. Getting intimate with her increases the acting capabilities of others, perhaps? Not to say Mara was no good prior to meeting Cate. Far from it in fact.
Second choice: Rachel McAdams. Because I've seen the other options on the big screen and I can't pick.


Best Director:
First Choice: George Miller. Because I want him to win, not because I think he actually will. Anybody capable of crafting such an insanely fantastic world at his advanced age and getting embraced by audiences and critics alike deserves to win.
Second choice: Adam McKay. A more likely scenario.

Best Screenplay:
First Choice: Spotlight. Seems the least unlikely candidate.
Second choice: Inside Out. It's gonna win Best Animated Feature for sure, but it quite deserves this one as well.

Best Adapted Screenplay:
First Choice: The Big Short. Because it's so highly intelligent and complicated. Oh no, it isn't, that's just what Wall Street wants you to think so nobody asks them the hard questions and they keep getting away with the shit they pull. And that's exactly what this script makes painfully clear.
Second choice: The Martian. A hunch. And because science is fun again.

Best Animated Film:
First Choice: Inside Out. Duh.
Second choice: I wanna say Shaun the Sheep, because I almost cried, but reason makes me say Anomalisa. Because it's unlike most animated features getting this nomination. It's not for kids, for one thing. So that makes it a different thing which deserves a chance to shine. But Inside Out is gonna take its glory, make no mistake.

Best Foreign Film:
First Choice: Son of Saul (Saul Fia). No competition.
Second choice: El Abrazo de la Serpiente. Still, no competition though.

Best Cinematography:
First Choice: This one is really hard. All contenders have very bold, innovative cinematography.  Sicario and Mad Max: Fury Road sure impressed me, but I think it's gonna be The Hateful Eight.
Second choice: Sicario. Because it's kinda the underdog here, and everybody loves an underdog.
EDIT: Fuck that, it's gonna be The Revenant, too!

Best Editing: 
First Choice: Competition is not as strong here. The Revenant.
Second choice: Mad Max: Fury Road.

Best Production Design:
First Choice: Mad Max: Fury Road. If you've seen it, you know full well why. Crazy production design for an insane world.
Second choice: The Martian.

Best Costume Design:
First Choice: Cinderella. Lavish got a new dimension. In 3D.
Second choice: Mad Max: Fury Road. Again, crazy.

Best Hair and Make-up:
First Choice: Mad Max: Fury Road. It's becoming my mantra in the technical department, but I just have strong faith in it.
Second choice: The Revenant. That's that handsome Leonardo DiCaprio fella under all that mud and blood, you know?

Best Score:
First Choice: The Hateful Eight. Same reason as Leo: it's high time after six snubs. Plus, he has been a master at his work for decades and this score was just totally brilliant. More so than the movie itself in fact.
Second choice: Sicario. Because it scared me, which it was supposed to.

Best Song:
First Choice: Spectre. Because the writing's on the wall. I didn't much care for it at first to be honest, but it really grew on me.
Second choice: whatever. Youth.

Best Sound Mixing:
First Choice: Mad Max: Fury Road, same as before.
Second choice: Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Best Sound Editing: 
First Choice: Star Wars: The Force Awakens actually. The soundscape of Star Wars is a universe on its own even now another has taken over, and at least one sound award should acknowledge that fact.
Second choice: Mad Max: Fury Road.

Best Visual Effects:
First Choice: Ex Machina. For being subtle and not drawing attention to itself, but still totally believable. For those who didn't know, Alicia Vikander doesn't actually look like that in real life, that's all VFX.
Second choice: Mad Max: Fury Road. Because of that whole Mad Max thing I got going here, in case you missed it.

Best Documentary: 
First Choice: The Look of Silence. Can't go wrong with Indonesian genocide. Part 2.
Second choice: Amy. Because it appeals to the masses more than Ukrain, Nina Simone or drug cartels.


Februay 28th will tell me how right, or rather, how wrong, I am. What a lovely day!

Today's News: Hateful Terminator captains

The end of the week witnessed news of a lesser magnitude:

Nieuwe foto's Tarantino's Hateful Eight

A colourful bunch of characters. A lot of guns. A batch of terrific actors. The prime ingredients of any Tarantino movie, and Hateful Eight proves no different, judging from these pictures. Though another Western, directly following Django Unchained (which may not wholly fit that moniker, it must be noted), this movie seems a whole different animal. It's got more principal characters, but less characters as a whole. It also seems limited in terms of setting, taking place for the most part in and around a stagecoach stopover during a heavy blizzard. Eight characters with divergent pasts, many haunted by their experiences in the recent American Civil War, get holed up together and soon tensions erupt with explosive results. And there you basically have the Western version of 12 Angry Men. As is usual for Tarantino, it's not a novel concept, but it's the way it's handled that makes it enjoyable and successful. And with such talent among the cast (and apparently Channing Tatum, too), it seems like little can go wrong in terms of quality. Same can't be said for these characters, most of them likely won't leave that cabin alive. Tarantino will put those guns to great use in making sure of that.

Meer Avengers in cast Captain America 3

Speaking of the Civil War, here's another conflict with the same name for you. Different time, different sides though. Should a masked man with a secret identity and an essentially dangerous set of superpowers take responsibility for his actions, or let the government do it for him? Iron Man says yay, Cap says nay. And thus the Marvel heroes are at each other's throats. Which heroes, you may ask? Well, from the looks of it, virtually all of them and then some. Basically all the Avengers from the previous film (that made it out alive at least) are returning, and a bunch of new names - like Ant-Man, Spider-Man and Black Panther - are thrown into the mix. You gotta have an ample batch of superheroes for a superhero war, after all. But why then, isn't this movie basically your Avengers 3? Isn't Cap A gonna get lost in his own film? There's two sides to the conflict and he's only representing one of them. I'm sure the powers-that-be take this into consideration and make the ideological questions at hand and the characters through which they are addressed the most, Cap and Iron Man, take centre stage. Which still means Iron Man is likely to assume a role at least as important as Cap's. Hey, that's what you get for not making an Iron Man 4. However, there's still a true bad guy to take out amidst all the superhero fisticuffs, and it's former Nazi Baron Zemo, one of the classic Cap villains. Surely that will tip the plot in Cap's favour, though not so much the stakes, if he has to fight both him and the government lackey Avengers. There's a reason Cap died at the end of the original Civil War storyline, you know...

Nieuwe posters Terminator Genisys

My first thought upon seeing these posters is they enlarged Emilia Clarke's breast size. That's gotta show how excited I am about seeing Ahnuld as the Terminator again. Sure, he made it into an iconic character back in the days, but in my mind Terminator Salvation showed you can have a decent Terminator flick without the Austrian Oak. Audience attendance for that movie disagreed with me. And now that Arnold's political career is over, he's back (yes, that line is impossible not to use in this context these days). The plot kinda helped him out in returning, crafting an alternate timeline to twist the old (and there's lots of that both in terms of characters and rehashed dialogue) into something new. Sarah Connor, Kyle Reese, T-800, T-1000, been there, done that. So now we get a T-3000 to provide the new action. I recognize an abandoned concept from Salvation in this character. A fiendishly sinister original ending shaped in a character, to be exact. Originally, Sam Worthington's character in the predecessor was gonna save the day and then unexpectedly kill off the good guys and take John Connor's place as resistance leader (basically with the intent to lead it to its doom). Too daring and dark, so they let it go for a more cheerful, positive resolution. Now the new model Terminator on the block assumes Connor's appearance, and possibly more than just that, as it's unclear from the trailers where its loyalties lie. Interesting to see this notion return in a different form. But thanks to the alternate timeline, basically every Terminator notion returns in a different form here. The oneliners stay the same though. We loved them then, why wouldn't we now, the studio likely assumes. Same thing as with Schwarzenegger.

It's raining news, hallelujah!

Comic-Con made sure there was plenty of news to post this last week. Here's some of my more recent contributions to MovieScene's ever growing archives:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/156694/comic-con_laatste_concept_art_posters_avengers_2_

I already commented on these Avengers: Age of Ultron concept art posters before, so I'll skip that for these latest one-sheet releases, which finally complete the whole picture (see above). There's not much to say about these Hulk and Thor posters, as they add little of novelty value to the project as a whole. Save for the colour of the Hulk's pants maybe, which has finally traded in the dark blue of the previous movie for the iconic pink everybody associates with the character.

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/156693/comic-con_gunn_terug_voor_regie_guardians_of_the_galaxy_2

This too comes as little of a surprise considering the overwhelmingly positive feedback in prerelease and press showings for the Guardians' first adventure, set to debut worldwide in two weeks. Of course it will remain to be seen whether enough audiences will connect with this oddball intergalactic team of rogues to make Marvel the big bucks as the studio is now preparing for. However, since there's little else of consequence released in theaters this upcoming month, I think it's guaranteed this next entry in Marvel's Phase 2 will do tremendously well at the box office. Which only works in director James Gunn's favour. At this moment, Marvel will stick to directors who have proven their worth and can smoothly work with the studio without creative issues, considering the woes which have befallen Ant-Man's production of late after its director resigned, which continues to have serious ramifications for the project. Stability is now Marvel's prime concern, and when that aspect is paired with profit there's no reason why a capable director shouldn't be rehired to make the second installment turn out as good, if not better, than its predecessor. So go, Gunn!

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/156718/comic-con_toekomstige_tegenstanders_godzilla_bekend

It seems Gareth Edwards also aims for stability when it comes to his blockbuster success, the rebooted Godzilla. Fans praised the first film's take on the titular character, but proved less enthusiastic when it came to his antagonists, a pair of mutated prehistoric giant bugs invented solely for this film. They did their job serving as cannon fodder for the King of Monsters though, but now it's time to raise the bar. And what better way to do so than by also rebooting his classic gallery of adversaries? General audiences won't mind whatever creature gets hammered by the Big G (or the occasional vice versa), as long as they get enough bang for their bucks. If there's one thing Edwards showed with his first Godzilla feature, it's that he too is an avid fan of the original Japanese films. So it comes as little surprise that he opts to reintroduce everybody's favorite Godzilla enemies: the mythical giant bug Mothra, the humongous Pterodactyl Rodan (both characters got their own movies too back in the days) and last but not least, Gojira's prima nemesis, the three headed armoured space dragon King Ghidorah. Hopefully Edwards won't play all his cards all at once, but distributes the dose of retro monsters a bit evenly for the already announced pair of sequels, so as to prevent Kaiju overkill in Godzilla 2. As superhero movies have showed of late, there's such a thing as too many cool characters in a single film making a mess of the story. Of course, the Godzilla movies are all about characters making a mess of things while the story is subservient to such rampage, but it can't hurt to save your strongest assets for later.

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/156717/comic-con_kong_wederom_king

And with the renewed interest in giant monsters comes word that Hollywood doesn't mean to keep that other royal creature dead for long. King Kong too will soon be seen again on the big screen where he belongs, but not in another remake. Which is a good thing, as the last one was produced less than a decade ago and proved to be quite a memorable rehash compared to most of them, so there wouldn't be a need to retell that classic Beauty and the Beast tale just yet. So it seems a prequel is the route the studio chooses, which is also not the most exciting notion to my mind. Do we need to know how Kong became King of Skull Island? It kinda seems a given: it's survival of the fittest and Kong fits that description best, killing every sinister subject that defies his will. There doesn't seem to be much more to it. Of course you can introduce another group of people stumbling on the island and exploring its monster infested interior, getting into conflict with the giant gorilla. Heck, you could even throw another pretty girl into the mix. The result would be predictable though, as we all know how Kong came to his eventual demise, and we never cared as much about the human characters' plight as we did about the ape's. Even though I loved the various incarnations of Skull Island (as I'm a big sucker for monster movies), this project makes me hesitant. That said, it's produced by the same studio - not Peter Jackson's - as the current Godzilla franchise is. Do I smell a potential crossover here?

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/156733/comic-con_trailer_the_hobbit_the_battle_of_the_five_armies

Speaking of Peter Jackson, he too has a little franchise in the works, and it is coming to an end. A dramatic and emotionally charged end, the new trailer would seem to indicate. Not to mention epic. Needless to say this trailer got me super stoked for the final Hobbit film, which I already was to begin with (yay, Hollywood hype effectively working its magic for five more months!). Parallells with that other closing chapter of a Middle-Earth movie trilogy were bound to be drawn, and the trailer capitalizes on that sentiment by adding just another link with PJ's Lord of the Rings films in the shape of Pippin's tearjerking Home is Behind song playing over the imagery. It's a nice touch, though it hammers the point home harder than might be wise. Nevertheless, what's to dislike in this trailer? Big battles, a giant dragon (bound to be killed off in the first 20 minutes of the film due to the way the book is adapted, but still), all kinds of intriguing cultures and creatures clashing and a top cast bringing it all to life. As I'm not a Tolkien purist, I won't complain about some of the additions the writers made to the story, like that car chase over ice. Keeps some surprises to the whole if you already read the book. But what do we have to look forward to when it's all over? When Lord of the Rings ended, we had The Hobbit still to come (though that took nine effing years!). But could this truly be the end of our cinematic adventures in Middle-Earth? What do we do with ourselves then?

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/156732/comic-con_tarantino_bevestigt_tweede_poging_hateful_eight

I knew it! You don't brisquely cancel a whole movie, pre-production already in progress, just because someone leaks a script. Screenplays get leaked online all the time. When any movie hits theaters, few people lack the chance to get to look the whole story up on the Internet if they so choose. Which most folks don't, because they want to see it in theaters anyway. When Tarantino first scrapped the project, he stated he might publish it in book form. That would have been the true waste, as we already have a downloadable written version of this story online thanks to that leak. But in Tarantino's case, it's the filmed version we want. Why read that book if the alternative is another one of his expertly written motion pictures starring a great cast determined to make it work? So it was a given Tarantino would decide to make that film sooner rather than later after all. Which makes me wonder whether his whole tantrum about the affair, or even the affair itself, wasn't just some big publicity stunt to create public awareness and interest for The Hateful Eight. Maybe it was just a hateful Tarantino getting in the right mood to direct the project.

Today's Double News: can't hate this behind the scenes video

Two more bits of news I posted on MS yesterday:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/153580/tarantino_maakt_mogelijk_alsnog_hateful_eight

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/153579/nieuwe_blik_achter_de_schermen_game_of_thrones

So Game of Thrones has a new production designer. Considering the stunning design of the sets of the first three seasons, that's a tough act to follow. From the looks of it, Debbie Riley seems up to the task, as the new sets (as well as new versions of several locations used prior, including the Eyrie) look equally grand as those that came before. At least, so it appears from this short puff piece video. Of course, the grandeur and beauty of the sets not withstanding, it's the actors which make them come alive, and what we want to see most is which of our beloved characters - the ones that yet live, that is - will return next season. Apart from that, first glimpses of new characters are also most welcome. The preview this little behind-the-scenes clip offers introduces another new character, namely Tycho Nestoris of the Iron Bank of Braavos, played by Mark Gatiss. That's one more down. No other new faces here, but fan favourites including Daenerys, Brienne, the Hound, Arya and Cersei Lannister still appear very much alive. For a moment longer at least, you know how this show works... characters come and go, but at least we'll always have fabulous production design.

And surprise, surprise: Tarantino may be reconsidering dropping The Hateful Eight. I was sorta expecting him to. You don't shelve a project that fast just because someone leaked a script. Scripts get leaked all the time. You do some damage control, but you don't throw out the project completely. How many members in the audience actually bother to read scripts? Even if some people know the story and post it online, the vast majority will still be surprised by the finished movie. Better yet, you can slip in some sneaky rewrites to catch those who spoiled themselves off-guard. Folks in the industry will know better than to leak Tarantino again now, since even though The Hateful Eight might still end up on the big screen despite what we first heard, I bet the lawsuits (all-American style sueing!) this hateful Tarantino is preparing will not be abandoned so easily. Let that be a lesson for those who spoil things for others!