{"id":46519,"date":"2017-02-23T09:13:39","date_gmt":"2017-02-23T16:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=46519"},"modified":"2017-02-23T09:13:39","modified_gmt":"2017-02-23T16:13:39","slug":"oscar-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/oscar-predictions\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Oscar picks? NAU film instructor opines on likely winners"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: Film instructor Paul Helford opined on who likely will take home the coveted golden statues at the Academy Awards on Sunday and what surprises Oscar may have in store for viewers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Best Picture<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cLa La Land\u201d is all but a lock. With 14 nominations, it ties the record set by \u201cAll About Eve,\u201d which won six in 1951, and \u201cTitanic\u201d which won 11 in 1998. Eleven Oscars is the record, also achieved by \u201cBen Hur\u201d in 1959 and \u201cLord of the Rings: Return of the King\u201d in 2003. The Academy loves movies about L.A. and the movie biz and has always had a soft spot for musicals. But if there is a major upset this is where it will be. \u201cMoonlight,\u201d a beautiful mini-budgeted independent film about a sexually uncertain young black man at three defining moments in his life\u2014young boy, adolescent and young man\u2014could be an underdog upset.<\/p>\n

Best Actor<\/strong><\/p>\n

This category looked like a sure win for Casey Affleck for \u201cManchester by the Sea\u201d back in December. His beautiful, heart-breaking performance has won dozens of Best Actor critics and other awards, including a Golden Globe. He deserves an Oscar. However, when I saw \u201cFences,\u201d I thought Denzel Washington, who also directed, gave the performance of the year; then he won the Screen Actors Guild award. A six-time nominee and two-time winner, Best Supporting Actor for \u201cGlory\u201d and Best Actor for \u201cTraining Day,\u201d I think he\u2019s going to take home a third Oscar.<\/p>\n

Best Actress<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, they might as well reduce this category to four nominations each year plus Meryl Streep, who was nominated for a record 20th<\/sup> time; she\u2019s won three. Jack Nicholson and Katherine Hepburn are tied for second with a dozen Oscar nominations each. Streep won\u2019t win this year for \u201cFlorence Foster Jenkins.\u201d If \u201cLa La Land\u201d gets on a winning streak, Emma Stone will certainly get it. But both Natalie Portman, (who won for \u201cBlack Swan\u201d in 2011) nominated for her role as Jackie Kennedy in \u201cJackie,\u201d and Isabelle Hubert, who at 63 has made more than 100 films before her first nomination for \u201cElle\u201d and had an unexpected win at the Golden Globes, could surprise. Still, I\u2019m going with Stone.<\/p>\n

Best Supporting Actor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jeff Bridges was great as a grizzled Texas Ranger being forced into retirement in \u201cHell or High Water.\u201d Michael Shannon was terrific in \u201cNocturnal Animals,\u201d and both Dev Patel in \u201cLion\u201d and Lucas Hedges in \u201cManchester by the Sea\u201d earned their nominations, but this one goes to Mahershala Ali as the drug-dealing father figure in \u201cMoonlight.\u201d Ali has been doing television since 2001 and movies since 2003. I\u2019ve loved his work in two Netflix series as the upright but conflicted Remy Danton in \u201cHouse of Cards\u201d and the deplorable villain Cottonmouth in \u201cLuke Cage.\u201d I\u2019ll cheer him for this Oscar win.<\/p>\n

Best Supporting Actress<\/strong><\/p>\n

If there is a lock on an award, it is Viola Davis in \u201cFences.\u201d Nominated for a third time, both she and Denzel Washington won Tony awards for their 2010 revival of \u201cFences\u201d on Broadway. Not to diminish Naomie Harris slipping into addiction in \u201cMoonlight,\u201d Michelle Williams breaking your heart in \u201cManchester by the Sea,\u201d Nicole Kidman adopting a lost boy in \u201cLion\u201d or Octavia Spencer immersing herself in the NASA crowd pleaser \u201cHidden Figures,\u201d Davis will take home the Oscar.<\/p>\n

Best Documentary<\/strong><\/p>\n

Always a strong category, three of the nominees deal with race relations in America: \u201cO.J.: Made in America,\u201d the James Baldwin-inspired \u201cI Am Not Your Negro\u201d and \u201c13th<\/sup>\u201d, a deep and disturbing look into the gross racial inequalities of the American prison system beginning in 1865 with the 13th<\/sup> Amendment abolishing slavery. \u201c13th\u201d<\/sup> producer-director Ava DuVernay, who deserved to become the first black woman nominated as Best Director for Best Picture nominee \u201cSelma\u201d in 2014, will take home an Oscar this year.<\/p>\n

Best Director<\/strong><\/p>\n

Again if \u201cLa La Land\u201d gets on a roll, 32-year old Damien Chazelle, nominated in the Best Writer category for \u201cWhiplash\u201d in 2015 and who looks younger than my students, will take home the Oscar as he has taken home scores of other best director awards this year, including Directors Guild. The upset here could be Barry Jenkins for \u201cMoonlight.\u201d Don\u2019t be surprised if we see a relatively rare split between Best Director and Best Film as happened, for example, in 1972 when Bob Fosse won for \u201cCabaret\u201d and the Best Picture was \u201cThe Godfather,\u201d or 1998 when Steven Spielberg won Best Director for \u201cSaving Private Ryan\u201d and, somehow \u201cShakespeare in Love\u201d was Best Picture. That said, I\u2019m sticking with Chazelle.<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s the big winner of the night?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cLa La Land\u201d with \u201cMoonlight\u201d second.<\/p>\n

Can you predict any drama?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There will be no shortage of anti-Trump jokes and speeches. I\u2019d be surprised if we see any of the award show divisiveness we saw back in the Nixon Vietnam era or when Elia Kazan, who named names during the Hollywood Blacklist era, won an honorary Oscar in 1999, or when Michael Moore gave an anti-Bush speech with his Oscar acceptance in 2003 for \u201cBowling for Columbine.\u201d These folks don\u2019t like Trump, and they won\u2019t be shy about letting the world know.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the biggest likely upset?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If, like \u201cThe Godfather\u201d in 1972, with 10 nominations and only three wins, \u201cLa La Land\u201d does not clean up with at least four or five Oscars, including Best Picture, it will be an Oscar upset for the ages.<\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/a>Paul Helford has taught in the School of Communication<\/a> since 1990. He is the adviser for the student-run TV station on campus, UTV62, executive producer for an annual video production workshop that brings more than 100 students from the Netherlands to NAU each summer and is co-director of the long-running NAU Tuesday Night Film Series, which takes place at 7 p.m. in the Cline Library Assembly Hall. A list of movies playing in the Tuesday Night Film Series, which is free and open to the public, can be viewed online<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: Film instructor Paul Helford opined on who likely will take home the coveted golden statues at the Academy Awards on Sunday and what surprises Oscar may have in store for viewers. Best Picture \u201cLa La Land\u201d is all but a lock. With 14 nominations, it ties the record set by \u201cAll About Eve,\u201d…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":46520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1639,1640,1638,669,1641],"class_list":["post-46519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-staff","tag-academy-awards","tag-film","tag-oscars","tag-school-of-communication","tag-tuesday-night-film-series"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}