The Hollywood Reporter – 28.02.2018

Poised to become the oldest-ever Oscar winner,

James Ivory already has picked up WGA, Critics’ Choice

and BAFTA prizes as well as the USC Scripter,

which has predicted this winner seven years in a row. One

should never totally count out Aaron Sorkin (Molly’s

Game), but Call Me by Your Name is the only best picture

nominee represented in this category.

WILL WIN: Call Me by Your Name

The doc community favors Agnes Varda’s Faces Places

and Strong Island, a trans filmmaker’s story about his

brother’s murder. Last Men in Aleppo got a sympathy

boost when its Syrian producer and subject couldn’t get

visas for the Oscars. But Icarus benefits from its

Netflix backing, subject matter (sports play well) and

timing (the Olympics, sans Russia, are happening now).

WILL WIN: Icarus

It’s a crap shoot, as many vote without watching every nom-

inee. All did well at international fests, including Sweden’s

The Square (Cannes’ Palme d’Or), Hungary’s On Body

and Soul (Berlin’s Golden Bear), Russia’s Loveless (Cannes’

Jury Prize) and Chile’s A Fantastic Woman (Berlin’s Silver

Bear for script). But Lebanon’s timely first-ever nominee

puts Mideast factions on trial in a courtroom drama.

WILL WIN: The Insult

The last time a Disney/Pixar film lost in this category

was more than a decade ago. Few voters see all five

nominees, but more — particularly those with kids —

have seen Coco than any other. It got better reviews

and grossed more money than any of its competitors

and won the top Annie Award, which has differed from

this category’s winner only five times since 2001.

WILL WIN: Coco

One achievement — James Ivory’s perceptive

and lucid adaptation of Andre Aciman’s novel Call Me by

Your Name — stands tall over the other four nominees.

Like so many of the literary adaptations the 89-year-old

directed during his heyday, this is a deeply intelligent

and nuanced account of the intimate lives of cultivated

people navigating choppy emotional waters.

SHOULD WIN: Call Me by Your Name

Sometimes there are multiple excellent docs covering

the same subjects in the same year. But my choice

in this category cannot possibly have a twin because

it’s the result of a unique collaboration between

the indefatigable French New Wave icon Agnes Varda

and young visual artist JR — a work that provides

a glimpse of backwater France seldom seen in cinema.

SHOULD WIN: Faces Places

This category is loaded with heavy, sociopolitically

charged dramas. Chile’s A Fantastic Woman centers on

trans issues; Loveless stews in the moral rot of Russia;

The Square lifts the lid off Sweden’s vaunted liberalism.

Hungarian romantic dramedy On Body and Soul is the

exception to the rule, but the most potent of the bunch

is Ziad Doueiri's Lebanese legal firecracker The Insult.

SHOULD WIN: The Insult

I haven’t seen any of the nominees except Coco,

so I can’t state with authority that one of the

four others isn’t more deserving. But Pixar’s latest

introduces new flavors and perspectives into the

company’s portfolio and also represents only the second

first-rate film the animation pace-setter has made

since Toy Story 3 in 2010 (the other being Inside Out).

SHOULD WIN: Coco

Documentary

Feature

It’s been 13 years since this prize went to a film not

nominated for best pic, which is bad news for The Big Sick.

Lady Bird is a possibility (and would give Greta Gerwig’s

film some recognition) but likelier winners are Three

Billboards, which won the Globe and BAFTA, and Get Out,

which took Critics’ Choice and WGA. And nothing screams

“original” more than Peele’s take on “post-racial” America.

WILL WIN: Get Out

The Shape of Water is imaginative, and Get Out and The

Big Sick bring sharp, subversive humor to racially charged

situations. It’s impossible to deny the often scathingly

brilliant way with words Martin McDonagh brings to

Three Billboards, but I admire even more Greta Gerwig’s

accomplishment: elevating scenes of quotidian life with

dialogue that both sparkles and speaks the truth.

SHOULD WIN: Lady Bird

Original

Screenplay

AND FEINBERG FORECASTS THE REST ...

Cinematography

Blade Runner

2049

Costume

Design

Phantom

Thread

Editing

Dunkirk

Production

Design

Blade Runner

2049

Sound

Editing

Dunkirk

Sound Mixing

Dunkirk

Makeup

& Hairstyling

Darkest Hour

Original Score

The Shape

of Water

Original Song

“Remember Me”

Coco

Visual

Effects

Blade Runner

2049

Animated

Short

Dear

Basketball

Documentary

Short

Heaven

Is a Traffic

Jam on

the 405

Live-Action

Short

The Eleven

O’Clock

Adapted

Screenplay

AGREED!

Foreign-

Language

Film

AGREED!

Animated

Feature

AGREED!