Movie Preview: June 2023

We are well underway with summer 2023 at the box office as May kicked off what was a fairly healthy start to the summer. Sure, in comparing calendar grosses, we still haven’t quite hit the levels of the pre-COVID summer box office that saw eight Mays cross over $1 billion total at the domestic box office between 2009 and 2019. In comparison, May 2023 settled in with $773.9 million, just below May 2022’s $785.9 million total. Although in fairness, much of that was Hollywood staying mostly clear of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” before finishing with the one-two punch of “Fast X” and “The Little Mermaid” in the last two weekends. But all things considered, not bad at all. “Guardians 3” did great business, especially when looking at weekend holds that showed very positive word of mouth, while “Fast X” and “The Little Mermaid” got off to perfectly fine starts.

Enter June 2023. While I still don’t know if we’re at a point where we’ll hit pre-COVID box office numbers, if May was the primer for the summer, then June is where things will start firing on all cylinders in terms of big releases almost every single weekend. Will all of them land as expected? To be determined, of course. Oftentimes with too many releases, at least one or two movies will end up lost in the shuffle. But at least on paper this is looking like a very strong month, so let’s dive in and see what’s on the table for moviegoers!

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are subject to change.

June 2 – 4

Sony Animation’s "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse"

We’ll start the month off with a movie that’s not only one of the most anticipated movies of the summer, but also of the entire year as a whole. And that’s Sony Animation’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. This is, of course, the sequel to the 2018 movie “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” which introduced the world to Miles Morales, another young kid who gets bitten by a radioactive spider and takes over the mantle of Spider-Man after his world’s Peter Parker gets killed. It also introduced the world to lots of other versions of Spider-People as issues with the multiverse sent a lot of the Spider-People into Miles’ universe. After a very well received origin to these characters and this universe, with a very unique animation style, the world is now very ready to dive in and explore Miles’ next adventures in the Spider-Verse, which promises more multiverse chaos and reviews that suggest fans of the first will be very pleased with the product that the sequel has in store.

The box office story of “Into the Spider-Verse” is a very intriguing one. In an era flooded with comic book films, “Into the Spider-Verse” could be seen as a disappointment with an opening of just $35.4 million and a final total of $190.2 million domestically, if compared to other comic book films. However, in context of Sony Animation, that type of opening was par for the course, about in the range of the Hotel Transylvania movies. And the $190.2 million domestic total is actually their highest, besting the $169.7 million of “Hotel Transylvania 2.” So in that context, it did very well. But that said, “Across the Spider-Verse” is about to blow the roof off of their studio. Not only did “Into the Spider-Verse” hold well in theaters, as seen by those numbers, but it steamrolled to an Oscar win for best animated feature, beating Disney behemoths “Incredibles 2” and “Ralph Breaks the Internet." It’s also had a very long life post-theatrical release, spending the last five years gaining a very large following. And now that looks to translate to your traditional comic book opening, with projections pegging it for a debut north of $115 million. With audience reaction resembling critical reaction, both of which are in the 90 percent range on Rotten Tomatoes, this could be looking at a very healthy run throughout the summer.

“Across the Spider-Verse” isn’t the only wide release of this weekend. Looking to counterprogram some of the blockbuster affair is the Stephen King horror film The Boogeyman, which is directed by Rob Savage from a screenplay by Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, and Mark Heyman, and is an adaptation of the 1973 short story of the same name by Stephen King. This is a movie distributed by 20th Century Studios, which of course means it’s technically a Disney property. Reportedly, Disney was initially planning to send it straight to Hulu, but opted for a theatrical release upon positive test screenings. As such, any sort of theatrical revenue will simply be a bonus, especially considering it’s moderately budgeted at $35 million. The premise involves a young family suffering from the recent death of the mother. The father, a therapist, then has a patient show up to the house that brings a terrifying entity that preys on the family’s grief and suffering. While obviously not a Stephen King adaptation on the level of the “IT” films, this is nevertheless tracking for an opening around $10-15 million, which would put it in the range of other recent Stephen King films, such as “Doctor Sleep,” “Pet Sematary,” and “The Dark Tower,” all of which finished between $30-60 million total domestically.

June 9 – 11

Paramount's "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts"

The second weekend of June is one that has only a single wide release, that movie being in a tad bit of an awkward spot, sandwiched between two highly anticipated comic book films. That movie is Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Quality aside, the Transformers movies used to be huge box office draws. Adapted from the toys and the popular TV show, the six more recent Transformers movies beginning in 2007 have totaled nearly $5 billion at the worldwide box office, the third and fourth movies both earning over $1.1 billion worldwide. But now bringing quality back to the table, eventually making movies that audiences don’t enjoy will come back to haunt you. The fifth movie only made $602 million while the spin-off “Bumblebee” did only $465 million. Still solid numbers, but far less than the $1.1 billion the previous movies made. Franchise fatigue definitely kicked in. Five years after the release of “Bumblebee,” do audiences care? Even though “Bumblebee” was more well received, and essentially a reboot and the first not directed by Michael Bay, there still is a lot of good will that needs to be built before audiences return in numbers like they used to.

To that point, early tracking from Box Office Pro has the movie opening in the $37-46 million range, finishing with $75-103 million domestically. Of course domestic numbers are slightly less relevant with a franchise that has been historically huge worldwide, but still, movies 2 through 4 opened between $97-108 million, before movie 5 fell to $44.6 million and movie 6 (“Bumblebee”) opened to just $21.7 movie. Even if movie 7 increases and sees numbers closer to movie 5, finishing with less than what movies 2-4 opened to might not be what Paramount was hoping for. In the movie’s defense, though, it’s also not a Michael Bay directed film. Even though the review embargo has not dropped as of me typing this post, Twitter buzz seems positive. If it ends up being a liked movie, that would obviously help. But it still faces the challenge of releasing directly in between “Across the Spider-Verse” and “The Flash.”

June 16 – 18

Warner Bros.' "The Flash"

After strong reviews out of “Across the Spider-Verse” indicate that comic book fans will be very pleased with that movie’s final product, just two weeks later another big comic book movie gets released that early buzz suggests comic book fans will be very pleased with. That, of course, is The Flash. This is a movie from DC that has been a long time in the works with a very troubled production that saw a carousel of directors attached and many delays. The director they finally landed on is Andy Muschietti, which, speaking of Stephen King earlier in this post, is the director of both “IT” films. Despite what seemed like a disaster in the works, the movie could wind up sticking the landing. James Gunn kicked off the positive buzz when, after taking over for DC a few months back, in talking about the upcoming DC slate mentioned that he had seen “The Flash” and considered it one of the best DC movies ever made. Building off that, Warner Bros. screened the full movie to attendees of CinemaCon this April, which certainly had Twitter buzzing as many wound up agreeing with James Gunn’s claims of it being a great film. How that translates to regular audiences and critics is yet to be seen, but it at least shows the potential of it being a well-liked film that will also, according to James Gunn, be an important turn in the DC Universe as it will reset the DC timeline with its Flashpoint premise.

In regards to timing, while it could’ve initially come out several years ago if things had gone right, it winds up getting released after the conclusion of The CW’s TV series “The Flash,” which began in 2014 and ran for nine seasons and 184 episodes, before concluding on May 24 of last month. With fan reaction being quite negative towards the series’ finale, that could stand to benefit this new movie. The movie also introduces Sasha Calle as this universe’s Supergirl, which also comes after CW’s “Supergirl” series concluded its six seasons at the end of 2021. While Grant Gustin and Melissa Benoist are still popular with fans, this will nevertheless stand as more of a passing of the torch, per se, rather than running at the same time. Not to be ignored, though, is Ezra Miller’s off-camera legal issues, which may turn many off of this film, regardless of quality. That puts Warner Bros. in an awkward positive that they’re so far choosing to ignore, perhaps counteracting with putting Michael Keaton’s Batman front and center in the marketing. And any film with Batman front and center usually does well, especially with the return of Michael Keaton. All this combines for a multitude of variables and moving parts that could send this in a variety of directions. But another $100 million opener is very much in the cards.

Opening alongside “The Flash” is not simply just a movie with hopes of providing counterprogramming, but rather aims to be an event of its own and that is Pixar’s Elemental. Pixar, of course, has a very strong track record with providing quality films to family audiences and with advertising in “Elemental” that has some being reminded of “Inside Out,” there’s definitely strong potential, especially if reviews wind up positive. Combine “Inside Out” with “Avatar,” the popular animated series, not the blue people movies, and you’ve got “Elemental”? There are fire, water, earth, and air people, or anthropomorphic element people that all live in their separate communities, when it appears that, in a Romeo and Juliet sort of way, a man from the water city begins a relationship with a girl from the fire city in a Pixar film that might wind up being a romantic comedy? The real issue, in terms of box office, might come more with Mother Disney rather than Pixar themselves. After COVID hit, Disney sent the next three Pixar films straight to Disney+, even when at least two of those could’ve been theatrical releases. And now instead of being almost a guaranteed box office draw, some might be conditioned that they will be able to wait for Disney+ for the new Pixar films, even if the reviews come out positive.

There is a third movie scheduled for wide release this weekend and that is the horror comedy The Blackening. While horror comedy is certainly accurate, perhaps an even better label is horror parody. With the tagline, “We can’t all die first,” this is a movie about a group of black friends who go to a cabin in the woods and get hunted by a mysterious villain who captures one of their friends and forces the others to play a violent game in order to get her back. This is, of course, poking fun at a lot of different horror tropes while examining racism in America. The movie actually premiered last year at the Toronto International film Festival and early word doesn’t seem too terribly positive. However, comedy is certainly subjective and there’s potentially a world that can exist where this movie connects well with its target audience and becomes a sleeper hit. Director Tim Story has plenty of experience there with movies like “Ride Along” and “Think Like a Man” that did quite well despite less than stellar reviews.

June 23 – 25

Sony Pictures' "No Hard Feelings"

After three weeks in June full of potential summer blockbusters, the fourth weekend of June might be a cooling off week before we get to another blockbuster in the final weekend, but there’s still a couple of wide releases to talk about, the first being the Jennifer Lawrence led comedy No Hard Feelings. After a blistering hot start to her career that saw four Oscar nominations between 2010 and 2015, including a win for “Silver Linings Playbook,” as well as a major blockbuster lead role as Katniss in “The Hunger Games,” Jennifer Lawrence has seemingly taken it easy recently. Which, all power to her. And perhaps now she’s having a bit of fun with this more edgy comedy that sees her star as a woman who takes a job listing from two parents looking for someone to help bring their introverted, socially awkward 19-year-old son out of his shell before he heads off to college, which seemingly leads to quite the chaotic adventure with Lawrence, now in her early 30s, and this older teenage boy. This comes from director Gene Stupnitsky, director of “Good Boys,” which was another edgy comedy that became a sleeper late summer 2019, opening to $21.4 million and finishing with $83.1 million domestically, numbers that early tracking suggests “No Hard Feelings” could potentially hit.

From the director Nick Cassavetes, director of “The Notebook” and “The Other Woman” comes the other wide release of the weekend, God is a Bullet, a dark and gritty crime thriller that looks to be the exact opposite type of movie as those other two. In fact, this is Cassavetes’ first directed film since “The Other Woman,” which was released in 2014. The movie is based on the novel of the same name from Boston Teran, and according the trailer, is inspired by true events, which could mean a whole host of things. Anyways, the film follows a detective played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau who finds his ex-wife murdered and his daughter kidnapped by an insidious cult and decides to take matters in his own hands to save his daughter, and is helped by the cult’s only female escapee. Co-starring in the film is Jamie Foxx, January Jones, and Maika Monroe. The distribution rights to the film were acquired in April of this year by Wayward Entertainment and will be their first theatrically released film. A digital rollout will also reportedly begin in early July, so all of that means this is probably not expected to be a huge release.

No other new wide releases, but a couple of quick notable expansions to mention. The movie Past Lives was released in Sundance this year to strong reviews and has since been picked up by A24, who released it in limited release on June 2 and has remained quite buzzy in said limited release. The movie currently holds a 96 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s the debut film for director Celine Song and tells the story of two childhood friends who were torn apart when and reunited 20 years later for a week.

The other expansion scheduled for this week is Asteroid City, the latest from acclaimed director Wes Anderson, which is currently scheduled for a limited release on June 16 before its scheduled before its wide expansion. Wes Anderson definitely has a unique style that has helped him grow a devoted group of niche followers with movies like “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Moonrise Kingdom,” and “The Royal Tenenbaums,” as well as the animated movies “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “Isle of Dogs.” This movie is set in 1955 around a Junior Stargazing event in a desert city, with romance, coming-of-age drama, and perhaps world-changing events disrupting the convention. And whatever else Wes Anderson decided to throw in there, which could be quite a bit. As is typical for his films, the movie is an acting party with a long list of stars, many of whom are probably cameos. But the top-billed names include Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, and Tilda Swinton.

June 30 – July 2

Walt Disney's "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"

The final weekend of June only has one day in June and two days in July. And actually, with July 4th the following Tuesday, this could end up as more of a 5-day opening weekend sort of thing. But anyways, after two superhero films with a Transformers movie sandwiched in between, we finish the month with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Despite the extremely poor reputation of the fourth film in the franchise, 2008’s “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” fans have nevertheless been highly anticipating this fifth and what could be the final film in the franchise, or at least the final film for Harrison Ford as the titular star of Indiana Jones. This adventure, split between two timelines in 1944 and 1969, centers around a mysterious dial known as the Antikythera that they’re trying to keep away from the Nazis, while Indy has a whole host of personal matters that are making life difficult for him on top of all that. While there are some returning characters, like John Rhys-Davies as Sallah, there’s also a whole host of new actors joining, such as Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelson, Boyd Holbrook, and Antonio Banderas. The obvious missing party is director Steven Spielberg, his first time not directing an Indiana Jones film. Taking the torch from Spielberg is James Mangold, director of “Logan.”

Given the high anticipation of the return of a beloved franchise, this is a movie that has the potential to play out like last year’s “Top Gun: Maverick,” using 80s nostalgia to boost a 2020s sequel, if reaction is positive. Unfortunately, though, Disney made the bold choice to release the movie at Cannes Film Festival and it was not received very well as it’s currently hovering around the 50 percent mark on Rotten Tomatoes. Instead of boosting the momentum of the film leading up to the release, that type of mixed reaction might be the type of thing that stalls the movie instead, especially since many fans probably still feel a bit betrayed with “Crystal Skull.” If word on the street is that “Dial of Destiny” is not much better, that might cause people to stay home. That said, despite all the hate the “Crystal Skull” received, it still managed a $100.1 million opening weekend and a domestic total of $317.1 million. Adjust those numbers for ticket price inflation and the-numbers.com says that’s a 2023 equivalent of a $145.7 million opening and a $461.3 million domestic total. Not bad for a movie everyone seems to hate. Might the goodwill of the original trilogy still cause fans to show up for “Dial of Destiny,” even if they’re aware this could be another disappointment?

The other movie opening this weekend, and the final movie of the month discussed in this post, is the latest from DreamWorks Animation, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken. One could potentially say that this is a fairly well timed movie, considering the recent release of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” as this is a movie that takes that mermaid premise and flips it on its heels. The mermaids are still the creatures people in this movie’s universe loves, with the kraken seen as the evil counterparts. However, this universe’s “truth” is the exact opposite as the mermaids are actually evil and the kraken are good. Ruby Gillman is a teenage girl who really wants to just live a normal teenage life, but discovers she is actually a kraken, and part of a royal line of kraken destined to help protect the seas from the evil mermaids, one of whom is the new popular girl in the school. So Ruby has some choices to make to embrace who she is and help protect the ones she loves. DreamWorks has been trying to push this one pretty hard, but the ultimate big obstacle here is the presence of “Across the Spider-Verse” and “Elemental” all fighting for the family audiences this month with “Ruby Gillman.” And the former two might be the ones more poised to steal the attention, which means “Ruby Gillman” will likely need positive reviews and good word of mouth to be recognized in a competitive summer market.

Movie Preview: May 2023

The summer movie season at the box office is officially upon us and it’s time to take a look at month one of four. Sure, actual summer doesn’t start until June 21 if you’re following the summer solstice via the Astronomical seasons or simply the beginning of June if you’re following the Meteorological seasons, but the Hollywood tradition is to begin a month early in May and we’re already underway with Marvel kicking it off with their latest superhero film, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” so we’ll take a look at that and the other May releases. At initial glance, June is looking like the most crowded month of the summer, but May still has some huge titles to talk about.

Although if you look at it from a financial prospective, it would almost look like summer has already begun at the box office as “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has completely dominated the box office, crushing all sorts of animated movie records on its way to already earning over $1 billion worldwide and over $500 million domestically in just the month of April, making for the highest grossing April on record outside the two Aprils that had “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame” on the calendar, starting the summer season a week early. So these blockbusters on schedule for this summer will hopefully look to continue the momentum of “Mario” and add to the continued success and theatrical recovery of the box office.

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are subject to change.

May 5 – 7

Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3"

As previously mentioned, it is tradition to start the summer movie season off with the next big Marvel movie. This has been the case with very few exceptions for as long as the Marvel Cinematic Universe has existed, dating back, of course, to May 2008 with “Iron Man.” This year it’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 that kicks the summer off. It’s been six years since “Guardians 2” kicked off summer season of 2017 with $146.5 million. However, with how the MCU is structured, the characters have remained relevant in this six years between films, showing up in several places, specifically having major roles in “Infinity War” and “Endgame.” In their first adventure together following “Endgame,” the plot centers around Rocket Raccoon and his past history with the villainous presence of The High Evolutionary, as played by Chuckwudi Iwuji. The rest of the Guardians are trying to save Rocket and get caught up in the web of The High Evolutionary’s current schemes.

While the characters in the film have the ability to continue to show up in future Marvel projects, including whatever “Avengers” film is on the docket, James Gunn will not be returning for a “Guardians 4” as he is off to lead the future of DC. The likelihood of Marvel attempting a fourth movie with a different director seems slim, so this is essentially written as the swan song or final ride for this sub-franchise in the MCU, which should help boost interest.

Financially speaking, prior to the current estimates from the weekend being released, I would’ve looked at the previous Marvel films to gauge where “Guardians 3” might open to. Outside looking at that $146.5 million opening of “Guardians 2,” the previous four films opened with the following: “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” with $187.4 million, “Thor: Love and Thunder” with $144.2 million, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” with $181.3 million, and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” with $106.1 million. So despite grumblings from fans that have made Marvel seem more vulnerable than in the past, people have still showed up and thus I would’ve said that a $150 million opening would be in the cards. However, as I type this on Saturday, Thursday night preview and Friday opening day totals have been more in line with “Quantumania.” So maybe this is a tad bit lower than expected, but it still continues the trend of $100 million openings for the MCU, which if you add in “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” is at five in a row, looking to be six with “Guardians 3.”

While most audiences will be heading out to see “Guardians 3,” there is one other option in regards to new releases. Sony’s Love Again has hit about 2,700 theaters, although it opened in fourth place on Friday, behind the fifth weekend of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and the third weekend of “Evil Dead Rise.” With a debut at or below $3 million, “Love Again” is a rom-com about a woman who sends texts to the phone number of her fiancé who has passed away to help ease the pain and winds up forming a connection with the man who the number has been reassigned to. The movie stars Priyanka Chopra Jones and Sam Heughan in the lead roles, as well as Céline Dion as a fictional version of herself, as the man receiving the texts is a journalist who goes to Céline for advice after getting the assignment of writing a feature about her. Céline has written five new songs for the film while also having six of her current songs woven in as well. The movie is based on the 2016 German film “SMS für Dich,” which itself is based on the 2009 novel of the same name by Sofie Cramer.

May 12 – 14

Focus Features' "Book Club: The Next Chapter"

The second weekend of May will mostly dominated by the second weekend of “Guardians 3.” Before getting to the long list of smaller releases, allow me to state real quick that it’ll be curious to watch how much “Guardians 3” will fall. While Marvel is on a good stream of high openings, they’re also on a streak of extra sharp falls in their second weekends, most falling 60 percent or more. After opening to $106.1 million, “Quantumania” earlier this year fell nearly 70 percent in its second weekend with just $31.9 million. It’s worth pointing out, though, that “Guardians 3” currently has an audience score of 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, with an A on CinemaScore. That means word of mouth should be pretty strong with how opening weekend audiences have responded. Either way it’ll win the box office in its second weekend, but will positive word of mouth help it hold better than the other recent Marvel films?

Opening in a very distant second place will be Book Club: The Next Chapter. This movie is a sequel to the 2018 movie “Book Club,” which starred Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen as a group of older friends whose lives changed after reading “50 Shades of Grey.” You may or may not have heard or seen that movie, but it was actually quite the sleeper hit back in summer of 2018, providing counter-programming to “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Deadpool 2” that month. It only opened to $13.6 million, but it held remarkably well, finishing with over five times it’s opening weekend at $68.6 million domestically and crossing $100 million worldwide. So now all the ladies are back and they’re off on a European vacation together as one of the ladies is now engaged. Whether or not the movie is able to repeat the feat of its predecessor is yet to be seen, but it is at least looking to open in about the same range. Similarly themed and cast, while sharing Jane Fonda as a cast member, “80 for Brady” also opened to $12.7 million earlier this year.

Outside “Book Club: The Next Chapter,” there are four other smaller films scheduled for a wide release that are looking to fight for some sort of positioning in the top 10 in whatever various levels of wide release they’re actually being put in. I’m not sure exactly how they’re going to stack together, but the first one I’m bringing up is Knights of the Zodiac, titled in Japan as “Saint Seiya: The Beginning,” as this is a live-action adaptation of the Japanese manga series “Saint Seiya,” which was released between 1986 and 1990 and had 28 volumes. Released right along with that was a 114-episode anime TV series released in Japan from 1986 to 1989, with a handful of other smaller movies and shows since then. And while anime has grown in popularity recently, live-action adaptations of anime have mostly not been received well and this one appears to be no different. It got released in a handful of countries, Japan included, back in April and so far has a 4.7 score out of 10 on IMDb, which is not a good early sign.

Next up is the directorial debut of actor Charlie Day with Fool’s Paradise. Charlie Day is currently having success as a part of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” as the voice of Luigi, but he’s been around the block for a while, perhaps most known for playing the character Charlie Kelly in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” His first step into the directorial chair has been in the works since 2018 and stars himself in the lead role as a mute man just released from a mental health facility who gets found by a publicist due to him looking just like a method actor who won’t leave his trailer. With the help of a powerful producer, this publicist helps this mute man become quite the big celebrity, which leads him on quite the journey. Starring with Day is a huge party of actors that includes Ken Jeong, Kate Beckinsale, Adrien Brody, Jason Sudeikis, Edie Falco, Jason Bateman, Common, the late Ray Liotta, and John Malkovich.

The last two I was a bit unsure of due to the distributor, so I’m not sure how big of a release they are, but I can at least verify that the Ben Affleck sci-fi crime thriller Hypnotic at least exists. It was released at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March and is directed by Robert Rodriguez, with Affleck as the lead star. Based on the trailer, it looks like potentially quite the trip, initially seeming straightforward as a crime thriller with Affleck playing a police detective whose life has fallen apart following the abduction of his 7-year-old daughter. But then a mysterious man shows up and things start to get weirder and trippier. In an interview with Collider back in 2021, Rodriguez said that he started writing the movie way back in 2002 and said it’s like a Hitchcock thriller on steroids. The hang-up I speak of is that it’s distributed by Ketchup Entertainment, a distribution company I’ve never heard of. On their website, they claim to have been around since 2012, but looking through their filmography it appears that they’ve mostly released smaller European films. This is their first U.S. theatrical released, so exactly what they’re planning and how many theaters is something I guess we’ll find out.

Last and possibly least on the weekend is the smaller animated film Rally Road Racers. This is more of a smaller, independently made animated film rather than something coming from a big studio and is released by Viva Kids and helped produced by a few other production companies that are hard to get information on. The trailer, which was only released a few weeks ago, has just 10,000 views and looks like not a very high quality film. But nevertheless they did convince both J.K. Simmons and John Cleese to voice roles. And if it happens to be playing around you and your kids want to get their Fast and Furious kick in, without actually seeing the next movie we’ll be talking about this is a story about a slow moving mammal who wages a bet to be part of a big four-day race to save his grandmother’s house. It’s kind of a “Tortoise and the Hare” meets “Fast and Furious” sort of thing, but for really young kids.

May 19 – 21

Universal's "Fast X"

After a weekend of a bunch of smaller films that is basically Hollywood giving Marvel some space, Hollywood is back in the third weekend with their next big blockbuster, Fast X. And yeah, this is the only film currently scheduled for a wide release, so Vin Diesel and company will have theaters all to themselves. To the uninitiated it might seem a bit mind-blowing as to how a simple street racing movie has created a franchise that has now endured over 20 years and 11 movies – 10 in the main saga and one spin-off. But yeah, this franchise has been on quite the journey, adding just about every Hollywood actor along the way and even making it to space in the most recent one. But, believe it or not, they might be finally coming to end? At least that’s the tagline here. “The end of the road begins.” The plan for a while has been to make the 10th and 11th film a two-part finale, with the 11th film planned for a 2025 release. Although it seems a bit doubtful that they’ll let this franchise completely go. It seems likely that they’ll at least keep it going with various spin-offs, but we’ll see.

The main conflict involves the addition of Jason Momoa joining the fun as the villain of the film, playing the character of Dante Reyes, the son of drug lord Hernan Reyes from “Fast Five.” Dante is seeking revenge against Dom and crew for the death of his father Hernan. And by the looks of it, Jason Momoa seems like he’s relishing his opportunity to be the villain in this movie.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle of the movie is the budget, which is reported to be a massive $340 million, making this one of the most expensive movies ever made. Not helping is the diminishing returns of the franchise. “F9” opened to $70 million, making $173 million domestically, which is closer to the spin-off “Hobbs & Shaw” than “The Fate of the Furious,” which opened to $98 million and made $225 million domestically. But the domestic numbers are almost irrelevant as this is a worldwide franchise. The seventh and eighth films were both $1 billion films, while “Hobbs & Shaw” and “F9” both made over $700 million. Given the budget, Universal is probably hoping “Fast X” goes back to being a $1 billion film, in which case they can probably blame the pandemic for “F9” not doing quite as well. But either way, it’s probably fine. They just got a tad bit carried away with the money thing.

May 26 – 29

Disney's "The Little Mermaid"

The fourth and final weekend of May is the four-day Memorial Day weekend. And although this is another busy weekend with five films, there’s really only one main event and that’s Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Yep, laugh and roll your eyes all you want, but Disney seems to be basing their decisions with these constant live-action remakes on their bank account and box office receipts rather than social media reaction. And despite the whining and constant complaining, people keep showing up to see these movies, so Disney keeps to be putting them out. And although not all of them have been massive hits, and several recent ones have gone straight to Disney+, the three that have scored huge are the three Disney Renaissance films, “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin” and “The Lion King.” So it makes perfect sense for “The Little Mermaid” to be up next, again from a financial vantage point. And although they’ve maybe put less effort into a few of the Disney+ movies, it seems like they’ve realized that “The Little Mermaid” is their big money maker, so they went all out in at least attempting to make this a big, popular summer blockbuster.

No need to describe what “The Little Mermaid” is, especially since Disney doesn’t really stray from the idea of doing mostly carbon-copy remakes, but this is directed by Rob Marshall, director of the best picture winning musical “Chicago,” as well as two other big Disney musicals in “Into the Woods” and “Mary Poppins Returns.” Lin-Manuel Miranda is back with Disney getting his paycheck for making music for them. Singer and actress Halle Bailey, perhaps most known for being one half of the musical duo Chloe x Halle, is Ariel. Highlights from the rest of the cast include Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, Javier Bardem as King Triton, Jonah Hauer King as Prince Eric, and Daveed Diggs, Jacob Tremblay, and Awkwafina voicing some of the animal friends. Perhaps the best financial comparison is “Aladdin” also opening on Memorial Day weekend in 2019. It opened to $91.5 million over the 3-day and $116.8 million over the 4-day. It went onto make $355.6 million domestically and $1.046 billion worldwide.

As far as the other four releases from this weekend, Kandahar is another Gerard Butler action film. This time Butler plays an undercover CIA operative stuck deep in Afghanistan and has to fight his way out with his Afghan translator when his identity is leaked. The easy box office comparison here is “Plane” from this year, another Gerard Butler action film that opened to $10.3 million.

About My Father is a comedy that stars Sebastian Maniscalco as himself in a movie loosely based on his actual life, where he tells his his immigrant father Salvo, played by Robert De Niro, that he plans on proposing to his girlfriend. After which, Salvo insists on joining them for a weekend with her parents. The movie is directed by Laura Terruso from a screenplay written by Maniscalco and Austen Earl.

Also starring in a movie based on his own life experiences is Bert Kreischer playing himself in The Machine. The premise is Kreischer and his father are kidnapped by those Bert wronged 20 years ago while drunk on a college semester abroad in Russia. The story revolves around how he inadvertently helped the Russian mafia rob a train while on this college trip, which earned him the nickname “The Machine.” Kreischer is a stand-up comedian and podcaster and this movie is based on a 2016 comedy routine that he told about this story. Starring along with Kreischer is Mark Hamill playing his father.

And finally, A24 will be releasing the Sundance film You Hurt My Feelings. This is written and directed by Nicole Holofcener and is comedy-drama starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as an author named Beth who overhears her husband giving his honest reaction to her latest novel when he told her that he thought it was great. A couple of pull quote the trailer uses from Sundance reviews is that the movie is “a hilarious look at the little white lies we tell our loved ones” (Consequence Film) and “a story about how love means always having to say you’re sorry” (Slate).

So yeah, as mentioned, “The Little Mermaid” is the biggest attraction of the weekend, but these other four films will at least provide options to those who maybe are less enthused about seeing another carbon copy remake of a Disney animated film.

Movie Preview: April 2023

It was a very successful March for the box office, so long as you’re not DC. But the other major franchise films that opened – “Creed III,” “Scream VI,” and “John Wick: Chapter 4” – all had franchise high openings. The jury is still out on the new attempted franchise in “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” but it at least opened higher than was expected after getting positive reviews across the board. This definitely made things feel like an early summer month at the box office, which has often been the case for March.

Normally April ends up being the calm before the storm. The quiet month in between two blockbuster filled months via March and May. But Mario said we’re having none of that and might singlehandedly push the month to being as big as its two neighboring months. More on that in a second. The rest of the month’s releases will make this about par for the course, though. So not a ton of help for Mario in terms of big releases. But as also the case with April, there’s a lot to talk about in terms of quantity. Whether or not many humans will be particularly interested in comparison is yet to be seen. But nevertheless we will discuss the options.

Noting that the weekend of March 31 – April 2 was covered in my March preview a month ago, we’re only one weekend behind here. So we’ll recap what just happened this past week, while previewing the upcoming three. As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of boxofficepro.com and the-numbers.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are subject to change.

April 7 – 9

Illumination's "The Super Mario Bros. Movie "

We live in an era where studios are looking frantically for the next big movie franchise to cash in on. And while many of these mines of content have been explored quite a bit, multiple times over in certain cases, there is one mine that had almost not been touched. Nintendo. For the record, this was not out of a lack of desire from studios, but rather came from a stingy stance on the side of Nintendo themselves. But the gate has now been opened and Universal and Illumination may have struck absolute gold. We’re of course talking about The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which, if you haven’t heard the news, just experienced what one might call cinema-changing box office revenue. I don’t need to inform you that this movie exists or tell you anything about what it’s about. The numbers say you were well aware and probably have already seen it at this point. But nevertheless, the staggering opening definitely deserves a bit more reflection on what it means than I might normally give.

Here’s the numbers. After opening on Wednesday, April 5, “Super Mario Bros.” opened with a 5-day total of $204.6 million, with $146.4 million of that coming on the traditional 3-day opening.

In regards to expectations, or at the least what I was expecting heading in, I knew very well that this had a lot of buzz going into it and would do very well, especially given that Illumination has an excellent track record, combined with the fact that they were adapting one of the most popular fictional characters ever. I was looking at the highest opening weekend ever for Illumination, which was “Minions” in 2015 with $115.7 million. There were two other instances where Illumination also opened an animated movie above $100 million and that was “Minions: The Rise of Gru” last year with $107.0 million and “The Secret Life of Pets” in 2016 with $104.4 million. So conceivably it would make perfect sense for “Mario” to hit somewhere in that range. But the fact that it opened on a Wednesday made me wonder if its box office would be a bit more spread out, which often happens for movies getting a 5-day weekend. Thus I had my eye on “Despicable Me 2,” which also opened on a Wednesday, making $84.2 over the traditional 3-day weekend, but $143.1 million over the 5-day weekend. And a tad bit for inflation since 2013 and somewhere around $100 million for the 3-day made sense.

Box Office Pro’s official projection leading into Wednesday of last week was $112 million for the 3-day and $164 million for the 5-day. So you can imagine the shock that was experienced as numbers started to roll in and they were blowing everything out of the water, even the most generous of expectations.

Obviously looking at numbers, this was the highest opening weekend for Illumination with just that 3-day total. But on a broader spectrum, $146.4 million is the second highest opening weekend for any animated film, behind only the $182.7 million of “Incredibles 2.” It would be third if you counted the 2019 “Lion King” remake as animated, but I personally do not. It’s not perfectly fair to compare worldwide openings, in my opinion, because not all movies open in the same set of countries, but nevertheless it’s definitely worth noting that “Mario” opened with a worldwide total of $377.6 million, which is the biggest opening ever for an animated movie, besting “Frozen II,” which opened to $358.5 million. And, the final notable number before I move on, “Mario” is now the highest grossing video game adaptation at the domestic box office. That’s not a comparison of opening weekends, but final domestic totals. Yes, the $204.6 million in five days is more than “Sonic the Hedgehog 2,” the previous record holder, did in its entire run - $190.8 million.

And the crazy thing is, animated movies directed at family audiences often have great holds as parents with kids don’t always rush out opening weekend. Maybe they did in this instance, but this has a chance to wind up as the highest grossing movie of 2023, or at least close to it. The final domestic total of “Incredibles 2” was $608.6 million. And given that “Mario” got an A on CinemaScore and a 96 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes means that fans are loving it. And that bodes well for its box office prospects, especially since it has no direct competition all month. The closest competition is a month away with “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” on May 5. And even that is not the exact same target audience.

All of this also means that you’ll be seeing a lot more of Nintendo in the future, whether that be all from Illumination or if Nintendo decides to spread the love more is yet to be seen. But it’ll happen. And other studios that don’t get Nintendo directly will try their hardest to replicate this in any way they can. Yes, video game adaptations happen a lot, but like “The Avengers” in 2012 sparked a new wave of superhero films across the board, “Mario” is certain to do the same with video game adaptations.

Amazon's "AIR"

Oh? There were two other movies that were given a wide release this past weekend?

We’ll definitely be more “normal” in my analysis and projections for the rest of this post, but nevertheless on its own scale, the Ben Afflect directed AIR also had a solid showing. Sure, “Mario” probably made more in a few hours than “AIR” did in its entire weekend, but the $14.5 million debut in third place was above the $10-12 million it was expected to do. It also opened on Wednesday April 5, making $20.2 million over the 5-day. Since you may be less familiar with this than with “Mario,” the story here follows Matt Damon as Sonny Vaccaro and Ben Affleck as Phil Knight as the two Nike businessmen push hard to sign Michael Jordan to a shoe deal prior to his rookie year in 1984. Spoiler alert, it worked. Air Jordans are a shoe that exist. And the gamble paid off Jordan being considered the greatest to ever play. But this is all about the journey of how they got there.

The response here has been positive enough that this would definitely feel like an Oscar contender had it come out at the end of the year. But given that our most recent two best picture winners were both from the first part of the year, maybe there’s a new trend brewing that may give Affleck and co. a chance with “AIR”?

The third movie of the weekend wasn’t as lucky as the previous two. Opening down in 10th place from 819 theaters, with $570,512 was Paint. Sure, less theaters obviously makes for less box office, but a per theater average of $697 is not good when you at least want that to be in the couple thousand range. The movie is… NOT a Bob Ross biopic, but is at least aimed to be a parody of sorts of one. Owen Wilson stars as a fictional painter named Carl Nargle with a giant afro and a very popular painting show. He seemingly has it all going for him until a younger painter starts to steal his spotlight. Outside of being largely ignored by audiences in the theaters it was playing in, its 32 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and 56 percent from audiences seems to say those who saw won’t help its word of mouth. This might be gone in record time and possibly on streaming somewhere soon.

April 14 – 16

Universal's "Renfield"

While the second weekend of “Mario” may be positioned to earn as much in weekend No. 2 as some predicted it would in its opening weekend, there are a large handful of films that will be fighting for positioning somewhere in the top five or top 10. Leading the way will likely by Renfield, the latest vehicle in the more recent Nicolas Cage renaissance. Cage has been acting since the 80s and even got an Oscar win under his belt in the mid-90s from “Leaving Las Vegas,” so he’s always been popular to a degree, but after the well-received dramatic role in “Pig” in 2021, followed by the super Nic Cage meta comedy “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” he’s definitely on the upper swing once again. And “Nicolas Cage plays Dracula in a movie” might be the only sentence needed to get his fans out once again. Perhaps the most genius play following “Massive Talent.” Despite the positive reaction from fans, “Massive Talent” opened to just $7.1 million, finishing with $20.3 million. So “Renfield” might not blow the doors off the gates, but positive buzz around Cage and solid early reviews that are just now coming out as I type this should help this to be a decent moderate hit.

The other film making the most buzz of the new releases, at least in terms of an actual advertising push, is the horror film The Pope’s Exorcist. The bigger horror film of the month will come out next weekend, but nevertheless what makes this particular one slightly more than just your traditional throwaway horror film is that it stars Russell Crowe in the lead role. Crowe plays Father Gabriele Amorth, an actual Italian Catholic priest, ordained in 1954 and appointed an exorcist in 1986. In 1990 he founded the International Association of Exorcists along with five others and by 2013 he made the claim of having performed 160,000 exorcisms in his career, counted by each individual prayer or ritual, not the number of victims. The movie is based on his two memoirs he wrote and specifically follows his investigation of the possession of a young boy that results in him uncovering an old conspiracy that the Vatican has apparently tried to cover up. Again, this is not the horror film of the month that is likely to make much of a dent, but these low budget horror films often don’t need much, anyways.

Hoping to play spoiler on the weekend is the anime Suzume. This comes from director Makoto Shinkai, who is notable for directing the films “Your Name.” and “Weathering with You,” the former of which became quite the buzzy phenomenon in 2016, at least on the international scale where it earned $349.7 million worldwide, only about $5 million of which came from the domestic box office. “Weathering with You” followed that up with $189 million worldwide and $8 million domestically in 2019. Following suit, “Suzume” has already earned $132.2 million worldwide after beginning its worldwide rollout back in November 2022. So yeah, this director’s movies haven’t done much on the domestic side of things, but it’s definitely put his name on the map and fans of anime will certainly be curious about his next outing, which is a bit of a fantasy/action adventure following a girl named Suzume who meets a mysterious young man who is opening and closing that are causing disasters all over Japan.

Yes, there are three other films also scheduled for some sort of wide release, although how big of a wide release they are is something we’ll find out in a few days. They might be smaller releases of a few hundred or close to a thousand. Nevertheless, Sweetwater sees lesser known actor Everett Osborne star as Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton, who was the first African American to sign an NBA contract. Cary Elwes and Richard Dreyfuss are in supporting roles. Mafia Mamma is an action/comedy starring Toni Collette as an American mom who inherits her grandfather’s mafia empire in Italy. And finally, Nefarious is horror/thriller about a serial killer who, on the day of his scheduled execution, gets a psychiatric evaluation where he claims he is a demon and also claims that the psychiatrist will commit three murders of his own. Six smaller movies opening on one weekend means that some of these will be left in the dust in hopes to maybe gain a new life on streaming in the future.

April 21 – 23

Warner Bros.' "Evil Dead Rise" 

The horror film in late April that looks like it actually might have a strong life to it is Evil Dead Rise. This is the return of the Evil Dead franchise, which began in 1981 with “The Evil Dead,” which actually only grossed $2.4 million in the United States, but has since become one of the biggest cult classics and is often thought of as one of the best horror films ever made. The movie was directed by Sam Raimi, long before his Spider-Man fame. Raimi also directed both of the original sequels, “The Evil Dead II” in 1987 and “Army of Darkness” in 1992. Fast forward 20 years and in 2013 there was a reboot titled “Evil Dead” and a TV series that ran from 2015 to 2018 called “Ash vs Evil Dead.” So this month’s “Evil Dead Rise” will be the fifth film in the franchise and is directed by Lee Cronin, who was reportedly hand-picked by Raimi to write and direct this film, which is about the reunion of two sisters that is cut short when they find a strange book in one of their apartments that unleashes flesh-possessing demons. So far so good with this sequel as it debuted to positive reaction the South by Southwest film festival in March and currently holds a 96 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes.

A second Guy Ritchie film in two months will hit theaters and yes, this one has his name in the title to remind people it’s his movie. That is Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant, which I will refer to simply as “The Covenant” from here on out. In March, “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre” was released after quite the wild journey to finally hitting theaters, which resulted in a big flat dud, opening to just $3.1 million and currently standing at $6.5 million. Obviously Ritchie will be hoping “The Covenant” will at least do a little better than that. And even though it has his name in the title, some have pointed out that it almost looks like the least Guy Ritchie film, who is known for movies such as “Snatch” and “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” before directing the Robert Downey Jr. “Sherlock Holmes” films. “The Covenant” is, rather, a straight up war film starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a U.S. Army sergeant who was saved by an Afghan interpreter following an ambush. After learning that said interpreter was not given safe passage to America, he is headed back to the war zone to repay the debt and retrieve him and his family.

Rounding out the weekend are two other smaller films. First up is Chevalier, a festival film that began at the Toronto International Film Festival last September and has bounced around to other various festivals before landing in traditional release here in April. This is based on the life of composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, who lived in France in the late 1700s, around the time of the French Revolution, and was the illegitimate son of an African slave and a French plantation owner. He rose to improbable heights as a composer before then falling out of favor due to an ill-fated love affair. The other film is Beau is Afraid, which might actually be in more of a limited release at this time – reporting is mixed on how big of a release it will have this weekend. But this is the third feature-length film for director Ari Aster, whose previous two films are “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” two wildly divisive and intense horror films. “Beau is Afraid” follows Joaquin Phoenix as an anxiety-ridden man named Beau who embarks on a journey home after his mother dies. Early reviews just coming out seem to reflect this being another crazy journey of a film for Ari Aster, which at the very least might spark curiosity from those who checked out his previous two films.

April 28 – 30

Sony Pictures' "Big George Foreman"

We finish the month off on perhaps one of the more precarious weekends of the year, the weekend before the beginning of Hollywood’s summer movie season, which will this time around be kicked off with Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.” Opening in the shadow of that might not be the greatest idea, but nevertheless a movie with perhaps the largest subtitle I’ve seen will be giving it a go and that’s Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and a Future Heavyweight Champion of the World. And with that subtitle as more of a movie description, I almost want to call that good. “Future” heavyweight champion is a curious word choice, but this is nevertheless a biopic of the famous boxer George Foreman, who was also an entrepreneur, minister, and author. The entrepreneurial side obviously saw him find great success with the George Foreman grill, which very well could be the main reason some know his name. Foreman is played in the movie by actor Khris Davis and sees Forest Whitaker as a supporting character. Coming the month after “Creed III” found great success, this has a chance of being a decently timed movie if that genre success spills over.

Battling “George Foreman” on this weekend is a movie that is actually primed to come out on top based on presales and that is Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. This is based on a popular novel published in 1970 by Judy Blume. The protagonist is a sixth grader named Margaret who goes on her own journey of faith in a coming-of-age drama as one of her parents is Christian and the other is Jewish. Young Margaret is played by Abby Ryder Forston, while her parents are played by Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie, with Kathy Bates playing the grandma. Author Judy Blume has apparently had several offers for her book to be adapted that she has rejected. Finally winning the sweepstakes to write and direct was Kelly Fremon Craig, whose other directed movie was “Edge of Seventeen,” another highly praised coming-of-age drama. According to Box Office Pro, current presales reflect similarly to “Where the Crawdads Sing,” which opened to $17.3 million last summer.

Rounding out the month will be the war film Sisu. This is a Finnish film that is another film that debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in September of last year, then debuted in its home country in January 2023. So its domestic release is a later than other countries and maybe not the highest priority for Lionsgate, the studio that purchased its domestic distribution rights. But nevertheless, the movie is set in Finnish Lapland during World War II and follows a gold prospector living on his own trying to find gold. When he is successful, he attempts to bring it to the nearest town, but is instead met by a Nazi platoon who attempt to attack him and take it for themselves, not knowing that the prospector was also a skilled fighter during a previous war, which leads to some brutal clashes.

The 95th Academy Awards: Predictions

The 95th Academy Awards are… tonight. And I’ve finally got all of my predictions ready to go. Yeah, I meant to get this out earlier. But in addition to having a busy week, I kept binging more and more last minute things instead of typing up my post. But the deadline has past and this post must get out before the ceremony actually begins, so here we go.

This post is pretty straight forward. I will go through all 23 categories at the Oscars, giving three things each. First, the list of nominees. And if there are any typos or mistakes, I apologize. That was a lot of names to type up. Second, I give my prediction on who I think will win. Third, I give my pick on who I think should win, in other words my personal pick if I were to have an Oscar ballot. Then of course I’ll finish each category with whatever thoughts I have before moving on. If I’m wrong with these, then so be it. It’s just for fun. I feel like I have a decent grasp on what’s going to happen tonight, but there’s enough doubt in a lot of the categories that I don’t think I’m going to score as well as I have in the past, but we’ll see. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or random emotional outbursts about any of this, then please let me know!

Documentary Short Film

 

Nominations

- “The Elephant Whisperers” – Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga

- “Haulout” – Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxin Arbugaev

- “How Do You Measure a Year?” – Jay Rosenblatt

- “The Martha Mitchell Effect” – Anne Alvergue and Beth Levison

- “Stranger at the Gate” – Joshua Seftel and Conall Jones

Will Win

- “The Martha Mitchell Effect” – Anne Alvergue and Beth Levison

Should Win

- “Stranger at the Gate” – Joshua Seftel and Conall Jones

 

If you want to know exactly why I have this posted today instead of last night, the direct reason is that I made a last minute decision to watch the shorts. And it took longer than I was expecting. These are categories that many don’t seem to ever care for, but I enjoy checking these out every year. Picking them correctly is almost an impossible task. I decided to go with “The Martha Mitchell Effect” because it tackles the Watergate scandal with Richard Nixon, specifically with how the wife of Nixon’s attorney general called him long before anyone else did, but wasn’t taken seriously. Perhaps that political angle will connect with enough voters to give it a win? Personally I watched four of these five. “How Do You Measure a Year?” seemed like the most intriguing subject matter, but is the one that’s not available. It’s apparently scheduled for HBO in June. But of the other four, while they were all solid, “Stranger at the Gate” gave me the most emotional response. I was fuming at the beginning, but it came full circle in a way that was quite satisfying. Although I am a big animal fan, so “The Elephant Whisperers” was the other choice I considered for my personal pick.

 

 

Short Film (Animated)

 

Nominations

- “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse” – Charlie Mackesy and Matthew Freud

- “The Flying Sailor” – Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby

- “Ice Merchants” – João Gonzalez and Bruno Caetano

- “My year of Dicks” – Sara Gunnarsdóttir and Pamela Ribon

- “An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It” – Lachlan Pendragon

Will Win

- “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse” – Charlie Mackesy and Matthew Freud

Should Win

- “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse” – Charlie Mackesy and Matthew Freud

 

This was a funny category. The best part of it was listening to Riz Ahmed announce those last two nominees on nomination morning. Speaking of which, “My Year of Dicks” is on Hulu and I currently don’t have Hulu, so I wasn’t able to watch that. But in an attempt to feel the room, it feels like there’s been a much stronger reaction to “- “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse” and after watching it… this morning… I can see why. It’s a beautiful little animated short, currently on Apple TV+, with lots of nuggets of wisdom packed in. It’s a very good watch if you have 40 minutes to spare.

 

Short Film (Live Action)

 

Nominations

- “An Irish Goodbye” – Tom Berkeley and Ross White

- “Ivalu” – Anders Walter and Rebecca Pruzan

- “Le pupille” – Alice Rohrwacher and Aflonso Cuarón

- “Night Ride (Nattrickken)” – Eirik Tveiten and Gaute Lid Larssen

- “The Red Suitcase” – Cyrus Neshvad

Will Win

- “Le pupille” – Alice Rohrwacher and Aflonso Cuarón

Should Win

- n/a

I’m not making a personal pick on this one because only two are available to be watched online. If I miss one or two, then fine. But if I wasn’t able to watch most of them, then that doesn’t feel fair. But I’m still making a prediction on who is going to win. And maybe it’s because it’s the low-hanging fruit in terms of what feels like a safe pick, but it feels reasonable to suggest that the Academy will use this as another opportunity to give an Oscar to Aflonso Cuarón. Plus, it’s on Disney+, so it’s the most accessible. Not that accessibility matters to Oscar voters because they get special access to all of these, but still.

 

International Feature Film

 

Nominations

- “All Quiet on the Western Front” – Germany

- “Argentina, 1985” – Argentina

- “Close” – Belgium

- “EO” – Poland

- “The Quiet Girl” – Ireland

Will Win

- “All Quiet on the Western Front” – Germany

Should Win

- n/a

 

If you’re tired of the traditional Hollywood affair that you get fed constantly by movie studios, something I would highly recommend is diving into categories like this. There are so many various foreign films that are incredible. And if you’re willing to read subtitles, you’re opening the door wide open to a lot of new and exciting avenues to experience with film. You just might have to start with years past rather than the current year because these movies are almost never available right at Oscar time, which is annoying. Except for the first two. “All Quiet on the Western Front” is on Netflix and “Argentina, 1985” is on Amazon Prime. Hence is why I’m again not making a personal pick. But the prediction is the easiest of the night. You don’t get nominated for nine Oscars and lose international feature. Maybe if “RRR” or “Decision to Leave” were included, that would be a different story. But they’re not. And if you’re curious, “RRR” is not the Academy’s fault for getting left out. Each country makes a submission and India did not choose “RRR,” which is a baffling choice by them.

 

Documentary Feature Film

Nominations

- “All That Breathes” – Shaunak Sen, Aman Mann and Teddy Leifer

- “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” – Laura Poitras, Howard Gertler, John Lyons, Nan Goldin and Yoni Golijov

- “Fire of Love” – Sara Dorsa, Shane Boris and Ina Fichman

- “A House Made of Splinters” – Simon Lereng Wilmont and Monica Hellström

- “Navalny” – Daniel Roher, Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, Melanie Miller and Shane Boris

Will Win

- “Navalny” – Daniel Roher, Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, Melanie Miller and Shane Boris

Should Win

- n/a

 

This is the last category where I’m in trouble. And it makes me sad that I only got around to watching “Fire of Love,” but you can’t do a last minute binge of full-length documentaries. You need to set aside more time and that is a thing that I did not do. But at the very least I will be watching “Navalny” and “All That Breathes” very soon because both of those are on HBO Max. And if you haven’t seen “Fire of Love,” it’s on Disney+. I didn’t love it quite as much as some, but it’s still solid. And given the constant buzz I’ve heard about it throughout the year, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did win, but “Navalny” follows the assassination attempt on former Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in August 2020, as well as the events surrounding that. That just seems like the type of relevant documentary that the Academy will go for. But at the same time this is a category where weird things happen all the time, so I might have just as easy of a time picking one of these out of a hat.

 

Music (Original Song)

 

Nominations

- “Applause” – Sofia Carson (From “Tell It Like a Woman”; Music and Lyrics by Diane Warren)

- “Hold My Hand” – Lady Gaga (From “Top Gun: Maverick”; Music and Lyrics by Lady Gaga and BloodPop)

- “Lift Me Up” – Rihanna (From “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”; Music by Tems, Rihanna, Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Goransson; Lyrics by Tems and Ryan Coogler)

- “Naatu Naatu” – Rahul Sipligunj, Kaala Bhairava and M.M. Keeravani (From “RRR”; Music by M.M. Keeravani; Lyrics by Chandrabose)

- “This is a Life” – Son Lux ft. Mitski and David Byrne (from “Everything Everywhere All at Once”; Music by Ryan Lott, David Byrne and Mitski; Lyrics by Ryan Lott and David Byrne)

Will Win

- “Naatu Naatu” – Rahul Sipligunj, Kaala Bhairava and M.M. Keeravani (From “RRR”; Music by M.M. Keeravani; Lyrics by Chandrabose)

Should Win

- “Naatu Naatu” – Rahul Sipligunj, Kaala Bhairava and M.M. Keeravani (From “RRR”; Music by M.M. Keeravani; Lyrics by Chandrabose)

 

I’m not even going to entertain the idea that some other song wins this award that’s not “Naatu Naatu.” And maybe that’s not being as objective as I should be, but it has been winning in most of the precursors it was up for and it just seems to have all the momentum behind it. I’ve listened to the song and watched the scene from “RRR” more times than I care to admit in the last month and if you don’t absolutely love it as well, I might think something is wrong with you. I mean, who wouldn’t love a big giant, absurd musical number taking place randomly in the middle of an absurdly insane Indian action film? Also, I do think the Grinches who aren’t on board in the Academy will have their vote split between Rihanna and Lady Gaga. I almost think “This is Life” has the better chance of pulling the upset in the event it rides the train of an “Everything Everywhere” sweep.

 

Music (Original Score)

Nominations

- “All Quiet on the Western Front” – Volker Bertelmann

- “Babylon” – Justin Hurwitz

- “The Banshees of Inisherin” – Carter Burwell

- “Everything Everywhere All at Once” – Son Lux

- “The Fabelmans” – John Williams

Will Win

- “Babylon” – Justin Hurwitz

Should Win

- “Babylon” – Justin Hurwitz

 

This category is tough because there are five solid scores here and I can envision just about everything taking this. You can’t count out John Williams. Carter Burwell seems due after two other losses in the last decade (“Carol” and “Three Billboards”). The big war movie could sweep all the technical categories and “Everything Everywhere” might sweep everything, but that hook in the “Babylon” score is one of the most infectious hooks from a score that I’ve heard in a long time. It made for possibly the best trailer of last year and I’m so happy that it was a big part of the movie rather than it just being a trailer hook. It’s easily the score I’ve gone back to, thus making it the easy pick for my personal vote, but I think the thing that also makes me lean to predicting it to win is that it’s also the hook on the commercial for the Oscars tonight, which seems to mean that it’s caught on beyond just the film it’s in. And Justin Hurwitz does have two Oscar trophies thanks to “La La Land,” so he’s not an unfamiliar name to them.

 

Visual Effects

 

Nominations

- “All Quiet on the Western Front” – Frank Petzold, Viktor Müller, Markus Frank and Kamil Jafar

- “Avatar: The Way of Water” – Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon and Daniel Barrett

- “The Batman” – Dan Lemmon, Russell Earl, Anders Langlands and Dominic Tuohy

- “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” – Geoffrey Baumann, Craig Hammack, R. Christopher White and Dan Sudick

- “Top Gun: Maverick” – Ryan Tudhope, Seth Hill, Bryan Litson and Scott R. Fisher

Will Win

- “Avatar: The Way of Water” – Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon and Daniel Barrett

Should Win

- “Avatar: The Way of Water” – Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon and Daniel Barrett

 

Sure. Take your visual effects trophy, “Avatar.” I’m not going to be an idiot and say it doesn’t deserve it in this category, either, because it totally does. I just wish there was a movie to go along with its visual effects. And at the least I can be happy that the movie is fairly quiet in the other categories. I’m thinking that this is the only trophy it wins.

 

Sound

 

Nominations

- “All Quiet on the Western Front” – Viktor Prášil, Frank Kruse, Markus Stemler, Lars Ginzel and Stefan Korte

- “Avatar: The Way of Water” – Julian Horwarth, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Dick Bernstein, Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers and Michael Hedges

- “The Batman” – Stuart Wilson, William Files, Douglas Murray and Andy Nelson

- “Elvis” – David Lee, Wayne Pashley, Andy Nelson and Michael Keller

- “Top Gun: Maverick” – Mark Weingarten, James H. Mather, Al Nelson, Chris Burdon and Mark Taylor

Will Win

- “Top Gun: Maverick” – Mark Weingarten, James H. Mather, Al Nelson, Chris Burdon and Mark Taylor

Should Win

- “Top Gun: Maverick” – Mark Weingarten, James H. Mather, Al Nelson, Chris Burdon and Mark Taylor

 

“Top Gun: Maverick” is undoubtedly a movie that everyone loves. And even though it’s kinda getting overshadowed in this awards race due to momentum of “Everything Everywhere” and “All Quiet on the Western Front,” I don’t think it’s going home empty. And if there’s one trophy that it deserves to win, isn’t it the category the sound was so awe-inspiring that you can feel it? This was the best IMAX experience I’ve ever had and it’s the sound design that’s the reason for that. That said, I’m not confident in this pick because there’s a war movie in this category. Don’t underestimate the power of a well-loved war film when it comes to these technical categories.

 

Makeup and Hairstyling

 

Nominations

- “All Quiet on the Western Front” – Heike Merker and Linda Eisenhamerová

- “The Batman” – Naomi Donne, Mike Marino and Mike Fontaine

- “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” – Camille Friend and Joel Harlow

- “Elvis” – Mark Coulier, Jason Baird and Aldo Signoretti

- “The Whale” – Adrien Morot, Judy Chin and Annemarie Bradley

Will Win

- “Elvis” – Mark Coulier, Jason Baird and Aldo Signoretti

Should Win

- “The Whale” – Adrien Morot, Judy Chin and Annemarie Bradley

 

This feels like a race between “Elvis” and “The Whale.” It seems like it should be obvious because the makeup on Brendan Fraser was half the reason why that performance worked so well. Unfortunately it feels like “Elvis” has enough steam to take away a few awards that I’m not so sure it really deserves? But I suppose I can’t get too mad at it for this one because they did a great job of transforming Austin Butler into Elvis. So sure. But again, watch out for the war movie. That was some great makeup work in that movie and in a split between “Elvis” and “The Whale,” this would be one surprise win that I personally wouldn’t be too terribly shocked at that not many seem to be expecting.

 

 

Film Editing

 

Nominations

- “The Banshees of Inisherin” – Mikkel E.G. Nielsen

- “Elvis” – Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond

- “Everything Everywhere All at Once” – Paul Rogers

- “Tár” – Monkia Willi

- “Top Gun: Maverick” – Eddie Hamilton

 

Will Win

- “Everything Everywhere All at Once” – Paul Rogers

 

Should Win

- “Everything Everywhere All at Once” – Paul Rogers

 

And it begins. I think it’s going to be a great night for “Everything Everywhere” and although this would be another category that makes sense for “Top Gun: Maverick” given how much reported aerial footage they went through to make the movie work. But I think that’s less apparent when you sit down and watch the movie. And if the Academy loves “Everything Everywhere” as much as I think they do, this seems like an obvious win that they’ll give it given that the bonkers multiverse stuff that happens in the movie has a lot of crazy editing work to give it the proper effect. And that is something you can see without having to know any behind the scenes work.

 

Costume Design

 

Nominations

- “Babylon” – Mary Zophres

- “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” – Ruth Carter

- “Elvis” – Catherine Martin

- “Everything Everywhere All at Once” – Shirley Kurata

- “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” – Jenny Beavan

Will Win

- “Elvis” – Catherine Martin

Should Win

- “Everything Everywhere All at Once” – Shirley Kurata

 

Again, I can’t be too angry at the idea of “Elvis” winning costume design. Making Austin Butler look like Elvis is one part makeup and hairstyling and the other part costume design. And I’m not getting a strong vibe on anything else in this category. But my personal pick is trickier. Obviously “Wakanda Forever” had some great costume work. But there was also a few outfits for some of our heroes that looked like Power Rangers or other cringy outfits, so I can’t go there. “Babylon” is tempting because there are a lot of great 20s outfits that make those scenes wild and fun, but one potentially overlooked part of “Everything Everywhere” is in the giant multiverse of it all, there’s a lot of different costumes that had to be figured out and tried on to give each of the variants of these characters their own look and feel, so that’s where I’m leaning towards personally.

 

Cinematography

 

Nominations

- “All Quiet on the Western Front” – James Friend

- “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths” – Darius Khondji

- “Elvis” – Mandy Walker

- “Empire of Light” – Roger Deakins

- “Tár” – Florian Hoffmeister

Will Win

- “All Quiet on the Western Front” – James Friend

Should Win

- “All Quiet on the Western Front” – James Friend

 

Why is “Top Gun: Maverick” not in this category? That was another one of the more odd choices for nominations this year. And it would be the obvious winner, too. Given that it’s not, I think it’s a somewhat easy prediction to give this to “All Quiet,” which, as you’ve noted, I think has potential to win a lot of these technical categories. Not to be lost in the shuffle, though, is the fact that a Mandy Walker win would make for the first female cinematography win in this category. I’m not sure of the cinematography in “Elvis” stands out as much as some of the other choices, but that would be a cool thing that happens. And Roger Deakins could theoretically snag a second win if you want a surprise choice. But the war movie just seems too strong to ignore, both in my prediction and my personal take.

 

Production Design

 

Nominations

- “All Quiet on the Western Front” – Production Design: Christian M. Goldbeck; Set Decoration: Ernestine Hipper

- “Avatar: The Way of Water” – Production Design: Dylan Cole and Ben Procter; Set Decoration: Vanessa Cole

- “Babylon” – Production Design: Florencia Martin; Set Decoration: Anthony Carlino

- “Elvis” – Production Design: Catherine Martin and Karen Murphy; Set Decoration: Bev Dunn

- “The Fabelmans” – Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Karen O'Hara

Will Win

- “Babylon” – Production Design: Florencia Martin; Set Decoration: Anthony Carlino

Should Win

- “All Quiet on the Western Front” – Production Design: Christian M. Goldbeck; Set Decoration: Ernestine Hipper

 

This is a tough category to consider. I think “Babylon” has been the front runner in this category and it makes sense given that the Academy often loves movies about movies. And even if “Babylon” was more divisive this year, making the movie look like old-time Hollywood is a solid trick to getting yourself a trophy, so that’s what I’m going to predict will happen. But again, the war movie. And in thinking of the war movie, that seems like the mildly more impressive feat in recreating World War I as opposed to the umpteenth time we’ve gone back to old Hollywood. I guess we’ve had plenty of war movies, too. But it still seems to be a tad bit more impressive to me. It’s a lot of work to put World War I on the screen. I’ve also heard mild buzz that this is a category that “Avatar” could sneak in a second win. I’m not sure I’d be on board with that. Sure, there are actual sets in that movie, but it seems more heavily weighted on the visual effects in that movie in compared to these other two.

 

Animated Feature Film

 

Nominations

- “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” – Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson, Gary Ungar and Alex Bulkley (Netflix Animation)

- “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” – Dean Fleischer Camp, Elisabeth Holm, Andrew Goldman, Caroline Kaplan and Paul Mezey (Cinereach)

- “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” – Joel Crawford and Mark Swift (DreamWorks Animation)

- “The Sea Beast” – Chris Williams and Jed Schlanger (Netflix Animation)

- “Turning Red” – Domee Shi and Lindsey Collins (Pixar)

Will Win

- “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” – Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson, Gary Ungar and Alex Bulkley (Netflix Animation)

Should Win

- “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” – Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson, Gary Ungar and Alex Bulkley (Netflix Animation)

 

Another easy category to predict. There’s a few categories that seem like they’re set in stone and this is one of them. Guillermo has been sweeping everything he’s up for without much of a conversation as to a potential contender. And for good reason. This was one of my top movies of the year. A movie that should’ve been in even more than just the animated category. At least give it a song nomination that it was getting elsewhere. Now “Puss in Boots” has been gaining a lot of momentum in a very natural way, being a movie that is also genuinely really good that perhaps no one was expecting to be. But I don’t think Guillermo is just way too far ahead for it to overtake it. In other years, maybe. But not when we have an animated classic up for the award.

 

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

 

Nominations

- “All Quiet on the Western Front” – Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell

- “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” – Rian Johnson

- “Living” – Kazuo Ishiguro

- “Top Gun: Maverick” – Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Snger, Christopher McQuarrie, Peter Craig and Justin Marks

- “Women Talking” – Sarah Polley

Will Win

- “All Quiet on the Western Front” – Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell

Should Win

- “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” – Rian Johnson

 

And now we get into the bigger categories. Adapted screenplay is very interesting because, of the two writing categories, I feel it’s the weaker of the two this year. Also as I’ve referenced, I think it’s possible for “All Quiet” to sneak in and win a lot of these categories it’s up for. And if it happens, people might think we’re in for a potential upset in best picture. While I don’t think the latter is going to happen, I am going to make an official call here and predict it to win adapted screenplay instead of continuing to say it could happen, but not pulling the trigger. And I think the reasoning is that “Women Talking” feels pretty weak. Yes, the writing is fantastic. But the reaction to the movie was more middling than I was expecting and the box office was nearly non-existent. It snuck into picture, but it also got no acting nods, which seemed like it should’ve had at least two. So I’m not sure how much the Academy loves this movie. For my personal take, I was close to picking it. I’m not sure the screenplay of “All Quiet” was its best quality. Same thing for “Top Gun: Maverick,” although the story was really good. But Rian Johnson’s sequel to “Knives Out” was just as sharp as the first, pun intended. So that’s what I’d go for if I had a vote.

 

Writing (Original Screenplay)

 

Nominations

- “The Banshees of Inisherin” – Martin McDonagh

- “Everything Everywhere All at Once” – Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

- “The Fabelmans” – Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner

- “Tár” – Tod Field

- “Triangle of Sadness” – Ruben Östlund

Will Win

- “Everything Everywhere All at Once” – Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

Should Win

- “Everything Everywhere All at Once” – Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert

 

I’ll spare you my soap box of how great “Everything Everywhere” is. But it was my easy top movie of the year and the writing is probably the best reason for that. The fact that such a crazy, bonkers multiverse movie works so well is an absolute miracle. Every little detail that you see all comes together and that’s a lot of brilliant work of writing to go along with the editing and the acting. If the screenplay doesn’t work, neither does the movie. And although there’s a lot of solid competition here with a lot of beloved movies, the “Everything Everywhere” train seems like it’s leaving Martin McDonagh, Steven Spielberg, and Tod Field completely in the dust, which is an incredible feat. It’s not taking advantage of a weak year. It’s steamrolling through a very competitive year.

 

Actress in a Supporting Role

 

Nominations

- Angela Bassett – “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”

- Hong Chau – “The Whale”

- Kerry Condon – “The Banshees of Inisherin”

- Jamie Lee Curtis – “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

- Stephanie Hsu – “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Will Win

- Jamie Lee Curtis – “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Should Win

- Stephanie Hsu – “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

 

This race has been very interesting to watch. It seemed like Angela Bassett was primed to run away with this early in the season. But when you look at everything she won, none of it was directly connected to Oscar voters. When Oscar voters chimed in via BAFTA and SAG, she lost. To two different competitors. But she still lost. And I think Angela Bassett is No. 3 in this category behind Jamie Lee Curtis and Kerry Condon. And I think the fact that Jamie Lee Curtis won SAG, the final big category before Oscar voting actually happened, might be what puts her over the top. I also remember being impressed on nomination morning at how much “Everything Everywhere” showed up, which included twice in this category. So that’s what makes me feel like taking Curtis for the win and following SAG. But the vote between Curtis, Condon, and Bassett is likely very close and I wouldn’t be surprised to see any of the three ladies take it. Me personally, I would go the other lady in “Everything Everywhere.” If Stephanie Hsu’s name were to be called, I might jump up and scream in joy.

 

Actor in a Supporting Role

 

Nominations

- Brendan Gleeson – “The Banshees of Inisherin”

- Brian Tyree Henry – “Causeway”

- Judd Hirsch – “The Fabelmans”

- Barry Keoghan – “The Banshees of Inisherin”

- Ke Huy Quan – “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Will Win

- Ke Huy Quan – “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Should Win

- Ke Huy Quan – “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

 

Unlike the other three acting categories, there’s no drama here. The one hiccup in the season was Barry Keoghan winning at BAFTA, but Ke Huy Quan has won just about everything else, Oscar related or not, in this awards season. And I think the energy he exudes with each ensuing speech just makes him more likeable. I don’t see him losing this award. And that makes me happy because it’s the most deserving. Don’t you dare screw this up, Academy.

 

Actress in a Leading Role

 

Nominations

- Cate Blanchett – “Tár”

- Ana de Armas – “Blonde”

- Andrea Riseborough – “To Leslie”

- Michelle Williams – “The Fabelmans”

- Michelle Yeoh – “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Will Win

- Michelle Yeoh – “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Should Win

- Michelle Yeoh – “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

 

Like the supporting actress category, the lead actress category also has had an interesting turn this awards season. Although it’s not a three-way race like in supporting, Cate Blanchett seemed like she was running away with this one early. And she did win in plenty of key races. Until the momentum seemed to shift to Michelle Yeoh. And the kicker here is that it seems like the biggest supporter of Michelle Yeoh is… Cate Blanchett. I personally wouldn’t be upset at either. Two great performances. But I would love to see Michelle Yeoh take this home. It would be another beautiful moment. And if Cate Blanchett also seems to want that to happen, I could see that being the deciding vote for Oscar voters who are a bit torn.

 

Actor in a Leading Role

 

Nominations

- Austin Butler – “Elvis”

- Colin Farrell – “The Banshees of Inisherin”

- Brendan Fraser – “The Whale”

- Paul Mescal – “Aftersun”

- Bill Nighy – “Living”

Will Win

- Brendan Fraser – “The Whale”

Should Win

- Brendan Fraser – “The Whale”

 

I’m excited for all the acting categories this year. Because supporting actor seems like the only one that’s locked up. Lead actor is another three horse race that seems to have narrowed down to a two horse race, with Collin Farrell being the one that seems to have been left out. And that’s a bit of a shame because he had such a great year. But I suppose we don’t give awards for the entire body of work, so it’s fair. The Brendan Fraser comeback story is what led things early on. That got a little bit murky when his actual film got mixed reaction, which led Colin Farrell and Austin Butler into the race. But people still liked Fraser’s performance, even if they didn’t like the film. And they REALLY liked his speeches when he did win, which has helped him stay in it. But when it comes to the most important precursors, Colin Farrell didn’t get any wins where he needed, so I think he fell out. Austin Butler won BAFTA, which is also what Anthony Hopkins won in his lead up to upsetting the late Chadwick Boseman two years ago, so BAFTA can’t be ignored. And Butler seems like the current favorite? And although I didn’t like “Elvis,” his performance was great, so I’m fine with that. It makes me feel like I’m going out on a bit of an edge in saying that it’ll come full circle to Fraser, but Fraser did win the SAG, thus making him the last one to give a speech before Oscar voting. And I do think the likeability factor will come into play and give him the win. And that’s where my personal pick is coming in as well. The performance is great. But I also really want to see him win because of his passion and humility.

 

Directing

 

Nominations

- Martin McDonagh – “The Banshees of Inisherin”

- Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert – “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

- Steven Spielberg – “The Fabelmans”

- Todd Field – “Tár”

- Ruben Östlund – “Triangle of Sadness

Will Win

- Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert – “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Should Win

- Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert – “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

 

Unlike many of the other categories, this is a major category that seems like it’s wrapped. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, aka The Daniels, are coming in and raining on Spielberg’s parade. It seemed like Spielberg’s year. And Spielberg won at the Globes, which definitely don’t matter. But his speech there showed how much he cared about this project and this story of his life that he finally told. And that made me like “The Fabelmans” even more. Part of me does want to see Spielberg give his Oscar speech. I’d be fine with a director/picture split in that way. But The Daniels have left him in the dust. They’ve won everything they’ve needed to, while Spielberg seems to have been forgotten. And the movie didn’t perform that well, either, which was surprising. So while the Spielberg speech would be really neat to hear, with my favorite movie of the year being “Everything Everywhere,” I do think this will be a deserved win because there was so much to juggle with “Everything Everywhere” and they made it all work perfectly. Editing. Acting. Writing. All of it. It all comes down to the guys steering the ship and they were the perfect captains and have elevated themselves to legendary status. The real challenge will be to follow this up. What do they have up their sleeves next? The who world is excited to see.

 

Best Picture

 

Nominations

- “All Quiet on the Western Front” – Malte Grunert, Producer (Netflix)

- “Avatar: The Way of Water” – James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers (20th Century Studios)

- “The Banshees of Inisherin” – Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin and Martin McDonagh, Producers (Searchlight Pictures)

- “Elvis” – Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Gail Berman, Patrick McCormick and Schuyler Weiss, Producers (Warner Bros.)

- “Everything Everywhere All at Once” – Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert and Jonathan Wang, Producers (A24)

- “The Fabelmans” – Kristie Macosko Krieger, Steven Speilberg and Tony Kushner, Producers (Universal)

- “Tár” – Todd Field, Alexandra Milchan and Scott Lambert, Producers (Focus Features)

- “Top Gun: Maverick” – Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie, David Ellison and Jerry Bruckhemer, Producers (Paramount)

- “Triangle of Sadness” – Erik Hemmendorff and Philippe Bober, Producers (NEON)

- “Women Talking” – Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Frances McDormand, Producers (United Artists Releasing)

 

Will Win

- “Everything Everywhere All at Once” – Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert and Jonathan Wang, Producers (A24)

Should Win

- “Everything Everywhere All at Once” – Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert and Jonathan Wang, Producers (A24)

 

Of course I want “Everything Everywhere” to win. If you didn’t know that by now, this post has definitely made that clear. It’s my top movie of 2022. In years past I talk about my curse with my favorite movie not winning best picture in the years I’ve been following the Oscars. And while the superstition in me wants to go out on a limb and pick something else so as to not curse myself, the crazy thing is that there’s not a good option. Almost every year it ends up boiling down to a two movie race that becomes hard to predict with the preferential ballot, but there is no contender. “Everything Everywhere” has steamrolled through the entire season, especially in key precursors that actually matter. So instead of trying to debate on how it’s possible for another movie to take the win, let me just reflect on this crazy journey that we’ve had. This movie premiered a year ago. And not in my wildest dreams did I think a movie this weird and this different would actually break through. Best case scenario, maybe it sneaks in and gets a screenplay nod and perhaps one acting nod. But now not only has it successfully broken through, it’s looking like perhaps the biggest Oscar juggernaut since “Return of the King.” And that feels me with so much joy. If you haven’t seen it for some reason, believe the hype and jump on the train. This movie is special and it deserves to have the special night that it’s about to have.