My forecast for the 90th Academy Awards
The nominations this year include many great movies and performances, but none so far above the others that it's easy to predict the winners. After last year's fiasco with Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty fumbling the Best Picture announcement, the show will be more buttoned-up, but no doubt there will be surprises. Plus the Academy's long over-due recognition of black performers, writers and directors will rightly affect the selections.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Should Win Lesley Manville gave a striking performance in Phantom Thread, as the driven, controlling older sister at a tony London fashion house.
Will Win In Mudbound Mary J. Blige was moving as the strong, suffering, sharecropper mother. The fact that politics may play a part in her win in no way diminishes the excellence of her performance.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Should Win For digging into the complexities of the crazed deputy sheriff in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, my vote goes to Sam Rockwell.
Will Win Stepping in for the disgraced Kevin Spacey and having to learn the part and shoot the replacement scenes for All the Money in the World in just six weeks, Christopher Plummer is the sentimental favorite.
BEST ACTRESS
Should and Will Win Frances McDormand! Angry, wry, sympathetic, in Three Billboards she hits every note perfectly. She even makes her character evolve with the plot. One for the ages.
BEST ACTOR
Should Win There have been a lot of Churchills on TV and in the movies recently, but Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour has been the best, capturing the British Prime Minister's aggressiveness and surprising self-doubt perfectly.
Will Win As the consummate method actor Daniel Day Lewis so inhabits his characters that you can hardly imagine him playing anyone else. His retirement announcement will get him enough sentimental votes to win the Oscar for his role in Phantom Thread.
BEST WRITING ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Should Win No film this year moved you along faster that Molly's Game and it was all due to writer and The West Wing alum Aaron Sorkin.
Will Win For dealing with a more serious and topical issue, James Ivory will take it for Call Me By Your Name.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Should Win Jordan Peele was dazzling in his debut as the writer and director of Get Out. Starting with an old idea - introducing the black boyfriend to the white parents - Peele then takes us on an array of twists and turns that has you laughing, thinking and sometimes just shaking your head at the brilliance.
Will Win The Shape of Water isn't a new story either - think of the many iterations of Beauty and the Beast. But this fairy tale by Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor has captured imaginations with its futuristic warning.
BEST DIRECTOR
Should Win Re-creating the spectacle of British troops evacuating Europe at the beginning of World War II in Dunkirk was a tour de force for Christopher Nolan.
Will Win Del Toros merges a credible world with an imaginary one in The Shape of Water and makes it all believable.
BEST PICTURE
The year we have a contest between the epic (Darkest Hour, Dunkirk and The Post) and the quirky (the other six). Look for the quirky to win out.
Should Win No film this year is more relevant than The Post. Its messages of freedom of the press and empowerment of women are front-of-mind issues today. But Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are supposed to make great films and will be overlooked.
Will Win It's going to come down to The Shape of Water and Three Billboards. I'm giving Billboards a slight edge. Let's hope they don't give the envelope to Dunaway and Beatty again!
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