Life as a movie-lover in Knoxville can be difficult, especially around this time of year. With this year’s Oscars Ceremony this Sunday — honoring the movies of 2018 — it’s easy to not only feel overwhelmed by the amount of nominees but disappointed in the amount of nominated movies that are actually accessible in our city. Most years, many of the “best movies of the year” are not even screening in Knoxville until the week before the ceremony and often they screen even after that. 2018 marks a unique occurrence in the world of film distribution, though, and likely illustrates a shifting tide. Films produced and distributed by online streaming platforms for the first time cracked the major categories and may signal an even greater shift for years to come.
All three streaming Goliaths—Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu—landed nominations in major categories for the first time ever. Most significantly, Netflix has made a dramatic campaign for Roma to be a serious Best Picture contender, and Amazon Prime managed to market the tragic-romance Cold War in such a way that bought it three nominations — a feat rarely achieved for immensely sad, black and white Polish films. With many of this year’s nominees widely available via streaming, and a number of others available for the time being on these same sites, this year marks one of the most widely accessible years in recent memory for markets as small as our own.
With that in mind, here’s what I think will win the major categories, and what I think should win instead.
Best Picture
What will win: A Star is Born
What should win: A Star is Born
By far my most controversial prediction, A Star is Born benefits from being everyone’s second or third favorite movie of the year. The Oscars are decided by a preferential ballot system which allows voters to list the nominees in order of their preference. Where Roma will receive the most first place votes, it won’t receive any love from voters who found it middling at best and will fare even worse with those who chose not to watch it at all. Green Book another likely winner will also not get the widespread support of the Academy and will rely on those who list it high. But nearly everyone saw and appreciated A Star is Born and will confidently put it high on their list, if not number one. For what it’s worth, it’s easily the best movie in the weakest Best Picture field we’ve seen in years.
Best Actor
Who will win: Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody
Who should win: Bradley Cooper, A Star is Born
Rami Malek’s robotic portrayal of Freddie Mercury will win. It is almost as certain as “Shallow” winning Best Original Song. The only chance at crashing his Oscar hopes is Christian Bale’s elaborate makeover as Dick Cheney in Vice. Perhaps, I’m partly biased because Cooper is the only one in the competition not playing a historical figure, which to me seems a more basically impressive feat. Why would we want an award to go to an unfortunately bad performance, mixed with lip-syncing, and unemotional dancing, when we could give it to Cooper who creates a character, sings his songs, plays his instruments, and supplies more emotion from his eyes than the other nominees combined? Also, just look at Bradley Cooper’s hair, please.
Best Actress
Who will win: Glenn Close, The Wife
Who should win: Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Destined never to be taken seriously, Melissa McCarthy’s delicate performance as the sordid, serial forger Lee Israel is one of the year’s most underrated. Every traditionally comedic moment has a sour aftertaste as Can You Ever Forgive Me? reveals more and more of Israel’s distasteful personality. In true McCarthy fashion though, she never lets us forget that Israel is merely a person searching for artistic success in her life. She should be judged not only by her crimes, but by the artistic quality of those crimes—and McCarthy supplies empathy every step of the way. Despite McCarthy, and a field stacked with incredible performances by Lady Gaga and Olivia Colman, and a heart wrenching debut performance by Yalitza Aparicio, Glenn Close is going to win an “legacy” Oscar this year for a movie few people saw.
Best Supporting Actor
Who will win: Mahershala Ali, Green Book
Who should win: Adam Driver, BlacKkKlansman
I love Mahershala Ali. I don’t care if he wins all of the awards; I’d rather him not win for Green Book, though. In possibly the year’s most evenly-matched race, my vote would go to Adam Driver in Spike Lee’s terrific BlacKkKlansman. As one-half of the team going undercover to infiltrate their local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in Colorado Springs, Driver matches John David Washington’s charisma and energy in the best buddy movie of the year. Equal parts funny and emotional, Washington and Driver grounded Spike Lee’s resurgence as a feasible Oscar nominee.
Best Supporting Actress
Who will win: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Who should win: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Assuming Rachel Weisz does not continue to pick up steam for this award with her wicked turn in Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite, Regina King will likely win. Her win would be a wonderful end to a disappointing season for Barry Jenkins’s luscious adaptation of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk. King’s turn as the loving mother of Tish, who recently found out she’s pregnant, is the stuff of ages. She embodies the fierce love Baldwin weaves into every word of her character. King brings us one of the greatest adaptations of a literary character of all time, and she deserves to win for that reason.
Best Director
Who will win: Alfonso Cuarón, Roma
Who should win: Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman
If Glenn Close can win a “legacy” Oscar, often known as an apology Oscar, then Spike Lee can do the same. The legendary filmmaker won an Honorary Academy Award before ever being nominated for Best Director. His tale of the two undercover cops taking down the local segment of the Ku Klux Klan is one of the few electrifying films among this year’s crop of major contenders. BlacKkKlansman may not be his best film, but its craft deserves recognition, and it would be a shame for the Academy to never award one of the greatest directors of the past half-century its Best Director prize.
