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.

Ziggy smokes a lot of weed.

Moonfall (2022) (SPOILERS) For a while there, it looked as if Moonfall , the latest and least-welcomed – so it seems – piece of apocalyptic programming from Roland Emmerich, might be sending mixed messages. Fortunately, we need not have feared, as it turns out to be the same pedigree of disaster porn we’ve come to expect from the director, one of the Elite’s most dutiful mass-entertainment stooges, even if his lustre has rather dimmed since the glory days of 2012.

The Illumi-what-i?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) (SPOILERS) In which Sam Raimi proves that he can stand proudly with the best – or worst – of them as a good little foot soldier of the woke apocalypse. You’d expect the wilfully anarchic – and Republican – Raimi to choke on the woke, but instead, he’s sucked it up, grinned and bore it. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is so slavishly a production-line Marvel movie, both in plotting and character, and in nu-Feige progressive sensibilities, there was no chance of Sam staggering out from beneath its suffocating demands with anything more than a few scraps of stylistic flourish intact.

What’s so bad about being small? You’re not going to be small forever.

Innerspace (1987) There’s no doubt that Innerspace is a flawed movie. Joe Dante finds himself pulling in different directions, his instincts for comic subversion tempered by the need to play the romance plot straight. He tacitly acknowledges this on the DVD commentary for the film, where he notes Pauline Kael’s criticism that he was attempting to make a mainstream movie; and he was. But, as ever with Dante, it never quite turns out that way. Whereas his kids’ movies treat their protagonists earnestly, this doesn’t come so naturally with adults. I’m a bona fide devotee of Innerspace , but I can’t help but be conscious of its problems. For the most part Dante papers over the cracks; the movie hits certain keynotes of standard Hollywood prescription scripting. But his sensibility inevitably suffuses it. That, and human cartoon Martin Short (an ideal “leading man” for the director) ensure what is, at first glance just another “ Steven Spielberg Presents ” sci-fi/fantas

All I saw was an old man with a funky hand, that’s all I saw.

The Blob (1988) (SPOILERS) The 1980s effects-laden remake of a ’50s B-movie that couldn’t. That is, couldn’t persuade an audience to see it and couldn’t muster critical acclaim. The Fly was a hit. The Thing wasn’t, but its reputation has since soared. Like Invaders from Mars , no such fate awaited The Blob , despite effects that, in many respects, are comparable in quality to the John Carpenter classic – and are certainly indebted to Rob Bottin for bodily grue – and surehanded direction from Chuck Russell. I suspect the reason is simply this: it lacks that extra layer that would ensure longevity.

Are you telling me that I should take my daughter to a witch doctor?

The Exorcist (1973) (SPOILERS) Vast swathes have been written on The Exorcist , duly reflective of its cultural impact. In a significant respect, it’s the first blockbuster – forget Jaws – and also the first of a new kind of special-effects movie. It provoked controversy across all levels of the socio-political spectrum, for explicit content and religious content, both hailed and denounced for the same. William Friedkin, director of William Peter Blatty’s screenplay based on Blatty’s 1971 novel, would have us believe The Exorcist is “ a film about the mystery of faith ”, but it’s evidently much more – and less – than that. There’s a strong argument to be made that movies having the kind of seismic shock on the landscape this one did aren’t simply designed to provoke rumination (or exultation); they’re there to profoundly influence society, even if largely by osmosis, and when one looks at this picture’s architects, such an assessment only gains in credibility.

I work for the guys that pay me to watch the guys that pay you. And then there are, I imagine, some guys that are paid to watch me.

The Day of the Dolphin (1973) (SPOILERS) Perhaps the most bizarre thing out of all the bizarre things about The Day of the Dolphin is that one of its posters scrupulously sets out its entire dastardly plot, something the movie itself doesn’t outline until fifteen minutes before the end. Mike Nichols reputedly made this – formerly earmarked for Roman Polanski, Jack Nicholson and Sharon Tate, although I’m dubious a specific link can be construed between its conspiracy content and the Manson murders - to fulfil a contract with The Graduate producer Joseph Levine. It would explain the, for him, atypical science-fiction element, something he seems as comfortable with as having a hairy Jack leaping about the place in Wolf .

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

2 Guns (2013) (SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight ; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

This risotto is shmackin’, dude.

Stranger Things Season 4: Part I (SPOILERS) I haven’t had cause, or the urge, to revisit earlier seasons of Stranger Things , but I’m fairly certain my (relatively) positive takes on the first two sequel seasons would adjust down somewhat if I did (a Soviet base under Hawkins? DUMB soft disclosure or not, it’s pretty dumb). In my Season Three review, I called the show “ Netflix’s best-packaged junk food. It knows not to outstay its welcome, doesn’t cause bloat and is disposable in mostly good ways ” I fairly certain the Duffer’s weren’t reading, but it’s as if they decided, as a rebuke, that bloat was the only way to go for Season Four. Hence episodes approaching (or exceeding) twice the standard length. So while the other points – that it wouldn’t stray from its cosy identity and seasons tend to merge in the memory – hold fast, you can feel the ambition of an expansive canvas faltering at the hurdle of Stranger Things ’ essential, curated, nostalgia-appeal inconsequentiality.

That, my lad, was a dragon.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) (SPOILERS) It’s alarming how quickly Peter Jackson sabotaged all the goodwill he amassed in the wake of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. A guy who started out directing deliciously deranged homemade horror movies ended up taking home the Oscar for a fantasy movie, of all genres. And then he blew it. He went from a filmmaker whose naysayers were the exception to one whose remaining cheerleaders are considered slightly maladjusted. The Desolation of Smaug recovers some of the territory Jackson has lost over the last decade, but he may be too far-gone to ever regain his crown. Perhaps in years to come The Lord of the Rings trilogy will be seen as an aberration in his filmography. There’s a cartoonishness to the gleeful, twisted anarchy on display in his earlierr work that may be more attuned to the less verimilitudinous aspects of King Kong and The Hobbit s. The exceptions are his female-centric character dramas, Heavenly Creat

Gizmo caca!

Gremlins (1984) I didn’t get to see Gremlins at the cinema. I wanted to, as I had worked myself into a state of great anticipation. There was a six-month gap between its (unseasonal) US release and arrival in the UK, so I had plenty of time to devour clips of cute Gizmo on Film ’84 (the only reason ever to catch Barry Norman was a tantalising glimpse of a much awaited movie, rather than his drab, colourless, reviews) and Gremlins trading cards that came with bubble gum attached (or was it the other way round?). But Gremlins ’ immediate fate for many an eager youngster in Britain was sealed when, after much deliberation, the BBFC granted it a 15 certificate. I had just turned 12, and at that time an attempt to sneak in to see it wouldn’t even have crossed my mind. I’d just have to wait for the video. I didn’t realise it then (because I didn’t know who he was as a filmmaker), but Joe Dante’s irrepressible anarchic wit would have a far stronger effect on me than the un

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