If you are a nominee tonight who isn’t making history, shame on you.

Oscar Winners 2018

As predicted, the most predictable thing about this year’s Oscars, aside from the de rigueur virtue signalling, was the predictability of the votes. Meaning, I figured a stunning 16 out of 24 of them right. That’s good… for me. The only way to give the ceremony a kick in the ass is to make it less pompous (virtually impossible) get in someone to host who really doesn’t give a shit (the organisers are too frightened to do that, as memories of Letterman still cause some to wake up in cold sweats) or move the whole shebang forward, such that it isn’t a fait accompli at the end of an exhausted season. That one’s probably more likely, certainly given that viewing figures have hit an all-time low (the reasons for which are doubtless varied, including reflecting TV trends generally, but probably include the starchy nature of the event, disenchantment with star power itself, and a basic disinterest in a ceremony increasingly seen to shun populist fare).

Jimmy Kimmel went down agreeably (as in, inoffensively to those who counted, and with just enough pith directed at those who didn’t) and included a decent jet ski running gag (going to the winner with the shortest acceptance speech) while Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway didn’t cock up the Best Picture announcement (I know, I know, it wasn’t their fault). They failed to muster even a glimmer of interest in their presence either, however. But if Kimmel was hoping for unpredictability, it was in short supply.

Best Picture

Winner: The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro, J Miles Dale)

I guessed: The Shape of Water

It’s been the most-likely for a while. One wonders how it will affect del Toro’s cachet and clout. Will he finally get At the Mountains of Madness made? But then, there’s that nagging concern that, the bigger his movies are, the less distinctive, idiosyncratic and just plain good the results. Some are calling this a first as a science fiction movie Best Picture winner, but of all the genre medleys in this one’s fish soup, I’d say that’s the least of them.

Best Director

Winner: Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water)

I guessed: Guillermo del Toro

Definitely deserved, and the dual Picture/Director win has become an increasing rarity in recent years; since there was a run of double-duty years pre-2012, only Birdman in 2015 has done the same. It’s become easy to forget it was once a relative rarity.

Best Actor

Winner: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)

I guessed: Gary Oldman

“Obviously, I’m not going to win the ski.” Well done, Gaz’s PR team.

Best Actress

Winner: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri)

I guessed: Frances McDormand

No complaints here. Although, I was rooting for Sally Hawkins. It’s always nice to have a repeat winner you actually rate, even if McDormand’s rallying cry to sister actors everywhere (and those who were her fellow nominees) is exactly the kind of empowerment posturing Hollywood wishes they could have on tap (ie, faintly nauseating).

Best Supporting Actor

Winner: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri)

I guessed: Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project)

They went for the field-leader throughout the entire season, which is fair enough. Rather earmarks Martin McDonagh as an actors’ director, not that thesps weren’t queueing up for him anyway; anyone with a vaguely Coens-esque facility with dialogue is in great demand.

Best Supporting Actress

Winner: Allison Janney (I, Tonya)

I guessed: Allison Janney

No surprises there. But it’s not all going Janney’s way; she doesn’t have a new season of Roseanne coming out.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Winner: James Ivory (Call Me By Your Name)

I guessed: Call Me By Your Name

No surprises there, although at 89 you might be forgiven for thinking Ivory has few creative innings left in him; he actually has a directing gig of Richard II lined up. Eat that, Clint.

Best Original Screenplay

Winner: Jordan Peele (Get Out)

I guessed: Get Out

The closest to a surprise in the major categories, except that Get Out eclipsing the early favourite Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri had been on the cards for some time. There’s always a danger that first-time feting can lead to sophomore blues – well, if you ignore Keanu – but I doubt that will be the case for Peele.

Best Animated Feature

Winner: Coco (Lee Unkrich and Daria K Anderson)

I guessed: Coco

Not the most outrageous win by Coco…

Best Cinematography

Winner: Roger Deakins (Blade Runner 2049)

I guessed: Blade Runner 2049

Genuine, bona fide science fiction winner! And Roger Deakins finally gets his Oscar! A result all round. As has been noted, the first non-Best Picture nominee to win since Memoirs of a Geisha (Road to Perdition, Legends of the Fall, A River Runs Through It, Glory, Days of Heaven, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Ryan’s Daughter are the others in the last fifty years).

Best Production Design

Winner: Paul Denham Austerberry, Shane Vieau & Jeff Melvin (The Shape of Water)

I guessed: The Shape of Water

Like Titanic, or rather, not like Titanic much at all, del Toro had to make do with tech categories for the rest of his minor haul.

Best Costume Design

Winner: Mark Bridges (Phantom Thread)

I guessed: Phantom Thread

Winner of the jet ski.

Best Make Up and Hairstyling

Winner: Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski & Lucy Sibbick (Darkest Hour)

I guessed: Darkest Hour

No surprises there. Fat suits rock with voters.

Best Film Editing

Winner: Lee Smith (Dunkirk)

I guessed: Dunkirk

Smith’s first Oscar. He’s come a long way from inauspicious beginnings on Howling III (he’s now the go-to guy for both Nolan and Peter Weir, the latter when he actually makes a movie, that is).

Best Sound Mixing

Winner: Mark Weingarten, Gregg Landaker & Gary A Rizzo (Dunkirk)

I guessed: Baby Driver

Weingarten’s first win, but Landaker’s fourth (the others are, eclectically, The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Speed) and Rizzo’s second (Inception being the first).

Best Sound Editing

Winner: Richard King & Alex Gibson (Dunkirk)

I guessed: Dunkirk

Fourth win for King (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, The Dark Knight and Inception) and the first for Gibson.

Best Visual Effects

Winner: John Nelson, Gerd Nefzer, Paul Lambert and Richard R Hoover (Blade Runner 2049)

I guessed: War for the Planet of the Apes

I didn’t want those damn, pixelated apes to win, so I’m chuffed with this one. Nelson has one win (Gladiator). Nefzer, Lambert and Hoover their first.

Best Original Score

Winner: Alexandre Desplat (The Shape of Water)

I guessed: The Shape of Water

A second win for Desplat, for a score I liked but isn’t in the same league as his previous Oscar (The Grand Budapest Hotel).

Best Original Song

Winner: Kristin Anderson-Lopez & Robert Lopez – Remember Me (Coco)

I guessed: This Is Me (The Greatest Showman)

Mawkish Mouse House crud rulez.

Best Foreign Language

Winner: A Fantastic Woman (directed by Sebastiàn Lelio)

I guessed: The Square

I ignored the favourite to my peril; as Academy members have agreed, trans is so hot right now.

Best Documentary Feature

Winner: Icarus (by Bryan Fogel and Dan Cogen)

I guessed: Faces Places

These shorts and docs categories are the only ones where you could toss a coin these days. Socking it to Putin gives Netflix their first feature victory.

Best Animated Short

Winner: Dear Basketball (Glen Keane and Kobe Bryant)

I guessed: Lou

Basketball, shmasketball.

Best Documentary Short

Winner: Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 (Frank Stiefel)

I guessed: Edith + Eddie

I have nothing.

Best Live Action Short

Winner: The Silent Child (Chris Overton & Rachel Shenton)

I guessed: The Silent Child

Wow! I got one of these rights. I won’t let it go to my head.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

I’m smarter than a beaver.

Prey (2022) (SPOILERS) If nothing else, I have to respect Dan Trachtenberg’s cynical pragmatism. How do I not only get a project off the ground, but fast-tracked as well? I know, a woke Predator movie! Woke Disney won’t be able to resist! And so, it comes to pass. Luckily for Prey , it gets to bypass cinemas and so the same sorry fate of Lightyear . Less fortunately, it’s a patience-testing snook cocking at historicity (or at least, assumed historicity), in which a young, pint-sized Comanche girl who wishes to hunt and fish – and doubtless shoot to boot – with the big boys gets to take on a Predator and make mincemeat of him. Well, of course , she does. She’s a girl, innit?

This entire edifice you see around you, built on jute.

Jeeves and Wooster 3.3: Cyril and the Broadway Musical (aka Introduction on Broadway) Well, that’s a relief. After a couple of middling episodes, the third season bounces right back, and that's despite Bertie continuing his transatlantic trip. Clive Exton once again plunders Carry On, Jeeves but this time blends it with a tale from The Inimitable Jeeves for the brightest spots, as Cyril Basington-Basington (a sublimely drippy Nicholas Hewetson) pursues his stage career against Aunt Agatha's wishes.

I think it’s pretty clear whose side the Lord’s on, Barrington.

Monte Carlo or Bust aka Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969) (SPOILERS) Ken Annakin’s semi-sequel to Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines tends to be rather maligned, usually compared negatively to its more famous predecessor. Which makes me rather wonder if those expressing said opinion have ever taken the time to scrutinise them side by side. Or watch them back to back (which would be more sensible). Because Monte Carlo or Bust is by far the superior movie. Indeed, for all its imperfections and foibles (not least a performance from Tony Curtis requiring a taste for comic ham), I adore it. It’s probably the best wacky race movie there is, simply because each set of competitors, shamelessly exemplifying a different national stereotype (albeit there are two pairs of Brits, and a damsel in distress), are vibrant and cartoonish in the best sense. Albeit, it has to be admitted that, as far as said stereotypes go, Annakin’s home side win

Poetry in translation is like taking a shower with a raincoat on.

Paterson (2016) (SPOILERS) Spoiling a movie where nothing much happens is difficult, but I tend to put the tag on in a cautionary sense much of the time. Paterson is Jim Jarmusch at his most inert and ambient but also his most rewardingly meditative. Paterson (Adam Driver), a bus driver and modest poet living in Paterson, New Jersey, is a stoic in a fundamental sense, and if he has a character arc of any description, which he doesn’t really, it’s the realisation that is what he is. Jarmusch’s picture is absent major conflict or drama; the most significant episodes feature Paterson’s bus breaking down, the English bull terrier Marvin – whom Paterson doesn’t care for but girlfriend Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) dotes on – destroying his book of poetry, and an altercation at the local bar involving a gun that turns out to be a water pistol. And Paterson takes it all in his stride, genial to the last, even the ruination of his most earnest, devoted work (the only disappoint

Just because you are a character doesn't mean that you have character.

Pulp Fiction (1994) (SPOILERS) From a UK perspective, Pulp Fiction ’s success seemed like a fait accompli; Reservoir Dogs had gone beyond the mere cult item it was Stateside and impacted mainstream culture itself (hard to believe now that it was once banned on home video); it was a case of Tarantino filling a gap in the market no one knew was there until he drew attention to it (and which quickly became over-saturated with pale imitators subsequently). Where his debut was a grower, Pulp Fiction hit the ground running, an instant critical and commercial success (it won the Palme d’Or four months before its release), only made cooler by being robbed of the Best Picture Oscar by Forrest Gump . And unlike some famously-cited should-have-beens, Tarantino’s masterpiece really did deserve it.

Death to Bill and Ted!

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) (SPOILERS) The game of how few sequels are actually better than the original is so well worn, it was old when Scream 2 made a major meta thing out of it (and it wasn’t). Bill & Ted Go to Hell , as Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey was originally called, is one such, not that Excellent Adventure is anything to be sneezed at, but this one’s more confident, even more playful, more assured and more smartly stupid. And in Peter Hewitt it has a director with a much more overt and fittingly cartoonish style than the amiably pedestrian Stephen Herrick. Evil Bill : First, we totally kill Bill and Ted. Evil Ted : Then we take over their lives. My recollection of the picture’s general consensus was that it surpassed the sleeper hit original, but Rotten Tomatoes’ review aggregator suggests a less universal response. And, while it didn’t rock any oceans at the box office, Bogus Journey and Point Break did quite nicely for Keanu Reev

I’m the famous comedian, Arnold Braunschweiger.

Last Action Hero (1993) (SPOILERS) Make no mistake, Last Action Hero is a mess. But even as a mess, it might be more interesting than any other movie Arnie made during that decade, perhaps even in his entire career. Hellzapoppin’ (after the 1941 picture, itself based on a Broadway revue) has virtually become an adjective to describe films that comment upon their own artifice, break the fourth wall, and generally disrespect the convention of suspending disbelief in the fictions we see parading across the screen. It was fairly audacious, some would say foolish, of Arnie to attempt something of that nature at this point in his career, which was at its peak, rather than playing it safe. That he stumbled profoundly, emphatically so since he went up against the behemoth that is Jurassic Park (slotted in after the fact to open first), should not blind one to the considerable merits of his ultimate, and final, really, attempt to experiment with the limits of his screen persona.

If you ride like lightning, you're going to crash like thunder.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) (SPOILERS) There’s something daringly perverse about the attempt to weave a serious-minded, generation-spanning saga from the hare-brained premise of The Place Beyond the Pines . When he learns he is a daddy, a fairground stunt biker turns bank robber in order to provide for his family. It’s the kind of “only-in-Hollywood” fantasy premise you might expect from a system that unleashed Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man and Point Break on the world. But this is an indie-minded movie from the director of the acclaimed Blue Valentine ; it demands respect and earnest appraisal. Unfortunately it never recovers from the abject silliness of the set-up. The picture is littered with piecemeal characters and scenarios. There’s a hope that maybe the big themes will even out the rocky terrain but in the end it’s because of this overreaching ambition that the film ends up so undernourished. The inspiration for the movie

Everyone creates the thing they dread.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) (SPOILERS) Avengers: Age of Ultron ’s problem isn’t one of lack. It benefits from a solid central plot. It features a host of standout scenes and set pieces. It hands (most of) its characters strong defining moments. It doesn’t even suffer now the “wow” factor of seeing the team together for the first time has subsided. Its problem is that it’s too encumbered. Maybe its asking to much of a director to effectively martial the many different elements required by an ensemble superhero movie such as this, yet Joss Whedon’s predecessor feels positively lean in comparison. Part of this is simply down to the demands of the vaster Marvel franchise machine. Seeds are laid for Captain America: Civil War , Infinity Wars I & II , Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok . It feels like several spinning plates too many. Such activity occasionally became over-intrusive on previous occasions ( Iron Man II ), but there are points in Age of Ultron whe

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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