Oscar Predictions, 2025
Monday is for movies, and sometimes TV. Today, it’s Oscars time, let’s see how wrong I can be!
The 2025 edition of the Oscars is upon us. Well, I guess it’s the 2024 edition actually, movies from last year — I gave a tiny bit of ‘Oscar’ related chat earlier in the year:
The Weekend’s Watching and some Oscar chat…
I haven’t made my way through all of the nominees — but I’ve seen a few. I’m not mad that I haven’t seen Dune 2 because I loathed Dune. And I hear all of the stories around it being so much better, and I just don’t care.
I have not seen Wicked — because I won’t!
And I have not seen I’m Still Here — and I really am sad I missed that, but other things in life got in the way, and I will see that film one day for sure. I’m still cheering for it, based on the trailer alone. It’s not often you see a trailer and it really makes you want to see, most often it ruins it, or gives you the clue that it’s utterly shit. But I’m Still Here has an amazing trailer, and the recommendations I’ve had all come from people I trust; I don’t think I’ve heard a bad word about it.
The Dylan movie —
— I’m still trying to warn people that it isn’t that special; it’s fine to see, it isn’t exactly terrible, but it is not Oscar-material at all.
And I loved The Substance, and just to be sure I watched it again.
I didn’t love the movie Anora but I absolutely did not hate it. Lots of good things happening, but it just falls away. The more I’ve thought about it after, the more I think it’s a performance in search of a movie, it’s a good idea that trails off. I like that it was made though, and some of where it was going. And, as I said, an incredible lead performance —
— I think Mikey Madison absolutely deserves the Best Actress award, but I can also see this going to Demi Moore, and would like that too. So a tough category, particularly when you consider that Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here) is also absolutely worthy… But the story really is the young up and comer (Madison) against the industry legend that’s never won an award (Moore). That’s a Hollywood match-up.
The film I watched this week — and hated — is probably about to win Movie Of The Year; possibly some other big ones too.
The Brutalist is a movie I absolutely wanted to like, but just couldn’t. I do think Adrien Brody is likely to swipe the Best Actor Oscar, and it won’t be outrageous if he does. But the film itself (possibly likely to win Best Screenplay and Best Director) is one of those wannabe-epics that circles around Coppola and Scorsese and doesn’t have the audacity or grunt or grit of either.
And if that’s an absurd hot take, so be it. It’s mine. It’s just how I feel about that film.
I don’t want Wicked to win, I don’t want Conclave to win — but I’d understand it more than The Brutalist (a sentence I didn’t anticipate writing until last week) — I don’t want A Complete Unknown getting any more known, and whilst I don’t (quite) think The Substance deserves the Film of the Year, it should win Best Director, it could win Best Screenplay, and it would be nice if won Best Actress. (I wouldn’t be mad if it did win Best Film either).
Ralph Fiennes would be a better choice to win Best Actor than Brody, but I would love Sebastian Stan to win for his Trump portrayal in The Apprentice, even if him winning would be taken as some strange validation by the Orange Accordionist in Chief. I don’t think Timotei Champagne, or whatever his name is, should win. It wasn’t a bad performance, but it wasn’t outstanding, nor was the film good enough to hold that kind of boast.
I say all of this, and as I’ve said before, I don’t really care too much about the outcome of the Oscars. They don’t mean so much to me.
The Substance was unique, it was outrageous, it was strong, it was interesting, it was dynamic, it was a female story owned and run by females — and that’s sadly enough of a rarity in Hollywood; certainly it had more ‘substance’ than Barbie.
But The Brutalist is going to win. And it’s going to feel like the La La Land near-sweep of 2016. A bad film being elevated because people didn’t really know what to say about it, nor how to say it.
Anyway, that’s my Oscar rant over? Care to swing for the (Hollywood) hills with predictions before anything is announced?
Finally got to see A Complete Unknown the other day and what I saw was a routine biopic ticking through tropes. Like Walk the Line it seemed to reduce the complexity of its central character to a cypher, even though Chalamet did his level best to appear as “enigmatic” as possible. I have no idea whether “The Substance” is a good or bad movie by conventional standards but by Christ it WAS totally mental. There are worse sins.
Such a ridiculous parade of bait every year. Sure sometimes good movies get nominated and sometimes they win but the “working out” is all wrong. I wish there was a better system but there’s not.
Fortunately it doesn’t matter.