Tag Archives: oscars

Nerdy Girl Predicts: The 2022 Oscars

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Oscars

Source: MentalFloss.com

Hey there, movie fans! (Please tell me someone gets this reference to the best Oscar pundits on the internet.)

It’s finally Oscar Sunday! After another longer-than-average awards season, it’s finally time to sit in our sweatpants, open our $10 Prosecco, and toast to the movies that made another weird year just a little more bearable.

And there were some truly magical movies in that regard this year.

Whether it was the stunning escapism of Dune, the catchy catharsis of Encanto, the sweeping old-school grandeur of West Side Story, or the sincerity and warmth that filled every frame of CODA, movies once again gave me exactly what I needed this year. From the rare breaks in the anxiety when I got myself to my beloved movie theater or Saturdays spent on my couch with the latest streaming story, movies transported me, comforted me, and allowed me to get out of my own brain in a year where that seemed more claustrophobic than ever before.

Every Oscar Sunday, I feel like I do more than just celebrate the best movies of the year. I celebrate the gifts that movies as a whole gave me. And this year, more than any other, movies reminded me that I can still feel. I love my fluffy romance books, but they’re more passing diversions than fangirl love affairs. My adoration of BTS is well-documented around these parts, but it’s not quite the same as sitting down to watch something and feel your whole world open up in one moment. And TV just has not been resonating with me in the way it used to—on that visceral, emotional level that unlocks something in your soul and makes you feel glad to be alive at the same time as this exact piece of media.

Movies gave me that.

One movie more than any other this year gave me that.

CODA gave me that.

So tonight, that’s where my heart lies. With this little film that came into my life and reminded me what great movies do. They make us feel. They make us happy to be alive. They make us appreciate our collective humanity and see the world as just a little bigger and more beautiful than it was before we walked into the theater or pressed play at home.

In a year that still felt isolated and isolating and a time when I was feeling disconnected from my own humanity more often than not, that’s a gift I want to celebrate with everything in me tonight.

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The Best Thing I Saw on TV This Week: Chloe Zhao and the Triumph of Goodness

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Chloe Zhao is everything I want to be—and not just because she’s a fanfic writer who’s become an Oscar winner.

She’s unapologetically herself. Her words, her work, and her style speak to a woman who knows who she is and shows that to the world without hesitation.

And who is she?

She’s a believer.

When she accepted her much-deserved Oscar for Best Director for Nomadland on Sunday night (making her only the second woman and first woman of color to earn this award—please let this pave the way for more female filmmakers!), she stood on that stage and gave us a glimpse into her soul. And in her vulnerability—her beautiful sharing of her truth—she gave voice to the very point of view that earned her this award, the thing that made Nomadland so unique in the sea of sadness that makes up most of the typical awards-season contenders.

Chloe Zhao believes in people.

She believes in the truth of the words she’s carried with her since she was a little girl memorizing poems with her father: “People at birth are inherently good.”

There’s something revolutionary about hearing those words in an Oscars acceptance speech, especially for Best Director. In so many cases, Oscar-winning movies are dark and depressing, focused on the worst in humanity and the awful things we can do to one another. And while the world needs those stories—we need to confront our darkness and we need the catharsis that comes with that kind of painful storytelling—the world needs the other kinds of stories too. The ones about healing rather than hurting. The ones that are warm and gentle instead of cold and brutal. The ones about light instead of darkness.

Sometimes we still want to believe there’s goodness left in humanity.

Sometimes we still need to believe that.

(And it’s often because we still need to believe there’s goodness left in ourselves.)

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Nerdy Girl Predicts: The 2021 Oscars

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Source: MentalFloss.com

It’s been a weird year for movies. We had to watch them on couches or in bed instead of in the transportive silence of a movie theater. The screens we saw them on were smaller, the popcorn we ate with them didn’t taste quite the same, and we often watched and processed them alone instead of being surrounded by cheering, gasping, and crying fans and talking about them with friends as we made our way through a darkened parking lot, forever changed by what we experienced inside that movie theater.

It’s been a weird year—but that doesn’t mean it was a lost one.

It was different—but different doesn’t always have to be bad.

Even though I missed movie theaters more than most places during the last year, I still got to watch a lot of great movies. I still managed to watch all of this year’s Best Picture contenders, and I’m still excited for tonight’s Oscars ceremony.

The date may be different. The experience might not be the same. But the joy’s still there.

Today is still a day to celebrate movies. And movies still gave me a whole lot to celebrate in a long, hard, lonely year.

As I went through my Oscar ballot (with plenty of help from the wonderful folks at Collider FYC), I was struck by just how much movies—and a lot of these movies in particular—helped me work through the emotions that came along with this year. Whether it was the way Promising Young Woman helped me process my anger, the way Nomadland gave me language to talk about grief, the way Judas and the Black Messiah gave me the space to cry about injustice, the way Minari gave me a moment of peace and beauty while still acknowledging that life is hard, or the way Sound of Metal made me feel okay about grieving experiences and parts of myself, so many of these movies spoke to the common human experience of grief and how we work through it. And that was exactly what I needed to see this year—stories of heartbreak but also, in so many of these movies, stories of hope, of lights at the ends of long tunnels that we sometimes have to light ourselves.

So even though I picked my favorites below, I want this post to serve as a celebration of all the movies that made us feel exactly what we needed to feel in a year when we all needed catharsis perhaps more than ever.

Today is a good day. And no matter who wins any of these awards, tonight is going to be a good night.

It’s been a weird year—for movies and for everything else.

But there’s still joy to be found. There are still things to celebrate.

And today, I’m choosing joy.

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My Pick: Nomadland
My Thoughts: Some years, the Best Picture race is tight up until the very end. This is not one of those years. With critics’ groups wins, film festival accolades, and plenty of other precursors all lined up, it seems Nomadland is a pretty sure thing to take home the biggest award of the night. And I can’t think of a more deserving frontrunner. This film is beautiful—what could have been a gritty look at a difficult lifestyle is instead a tribute to the beauty of the open road and the possibility and freedom it symbolizes. But it’s also a tribute to the power of community. From the outside, this looks like a film about one woman, but it’s actually about the fact that this one woman is part of a family she has found and made for herself—and how no one could survive a nomadic life without the support, love, and care their community provides for them. It’s a film about contrasts—the splendor of America’s landscape versus the brutality of America’s economic system; the darkness of grief versus the soft light of hope; isolation versus community; families you’re born into versus families you choose. And the way this movie weaves seamlessly between all those contrasts with empathy and a uniquely gentle touch made it unlike anything else I watched this year—in the best possible way.

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Nerdy Girl Predicts: The 2020 Oscars

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Oscars

Source: MentalFloss.com

This is a special Academy Awards for me. For the first time since I was 17 years old—and the first time since they expanded the field of nominees beyond five—I watched all of the films nominated for Best Picture before the Oscars telecast. I feel more educated about the nominees and in a better position to share my opinions than ever before. But my knowledge of this year’s nominees is only part of the reason why I can’t wait to celebrate this year in film.

In a lot of ways, movies got me through this past year. This was a year of health scares, work woes, and high anxiety, and in the midst of it all, I turned to the movies. I laughed through Booksmart and Jojo Rabbit, I cried through Avengers: Endgame and The Rise of Skywalker, I hung on for every twist and turn in Parasite and Knives Out, and I was inspired by brilliant performances like Adam Driver’s in Marriage Story, Charlize Theron’s in Bombshell, and Robert De Niro’s in The Irishman. I saw movies with friends and family, and I also embraced the simple pleasure of seeing a movie by myself. I read more reviews, I talked more analytically with fellow movie fans, and I once again followed the ups and downs of award season with the good folks at Collider FYC. In a year when I needed moments of calm in the chaos of life, I returned to one of my oldest and most cherished happy places: the popcorn-scented, peacefully dark, transportive movie theater. And in doing so, I found the escapism that has always helped me walk away from the rolling credits of a movie a little lighter and a little less burdened by life’s trials than I was before the title card appeared.

So when I curl up on the couch with my favorite people and my favorite food to watch my favorite awards show, I won’t just be celebrating my favorite movies this year. I’ll be celebrating the version of myself that I am when I watch movies and the million ways both big and small that these stories helped me, healed me, and gave me hope. And while I might be sad when my favorites inevitably lose or when my predictions turn out wrong and while I’ll always be bitter that Greta Gerwig wasn’t nominated for Best Director and Jennifer Lopez was snubbed for one of the best performances of the year, Oscar Sunday is still one of the best days of the year. It’s a day to remember what movies mean to us, and this year, they meant everything to me.

Without further ado, let’s make some predictions! I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about most of the races this year, but I’ll try to keep my analysis brief—this is a big ballot to get through!

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My Pick: 1917
My Thoughts: I love when the last category of the night is still up in the air in the days, hours, and even minutes before it’s announced, and that’s certainly true this year. Throughout award season, it’s never felt like this category was any single movie’s to lose, and that’s still true, even though 1917 seems like the safest best and surest thing at this point. It has all the requisite precursors and positive industry buzz, it’s a war film (The Academy loves those.), and it’s a truly impressive technical achievement. It did something groundbreaking with its single-take technique in such a large-scale film, making this tale of World War I feel immediate, visceral, and inescapable. And despite some claims that it’s all style and no substance, I found the performances of the two leads to be utterly captivating and its unflinching look at a war that’s not often the subject of major movies (Wonder Woman notwithstanding) heartbreaking at times and surprisingly hopeful at others. While I wouldn’t rule out the Parasite victory it seems so many are hoping for or the Jojo Rabbit upset that would truly thrill me, I still think they both have too much working against them to dethrone 1917. (For Parasite, it’s the fact that it’s going to win Best International Feature, and I don’t know if voters will want to give it two “Best Picture” wins in one night. For Jojo Rabbit, I don’t think some people can get past the satirical treatment of the subject matter.) I enjoyed 1917, and while I’m still hoping for a surprise, I do think it’s a worthy winner should voters choose to play it safe.

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I’m Off the Deep End (Watch as I Obsessively Talk About Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga)

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“We’re far from the shallow now…”

There was nothing shallow about Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga’s performance of their Oscar-winning, Grammy-winning, and everything-else-winning hit from A Star Is Born. In fact, in an Oscar telecast filled with a surprising number of high points (Olivia Colman! Melissa McCarthy covered in rabbits! Women winning so many things! Spike Lee climbing Samuel L. Jackson like a tree!) their breathtaking take on the instant-classic “Shallow” might have been the moment with the most depth—or at least the moment people rewound the most to make sure they caught every last detail.

And there were some magical details to catch. From the way Gaga seemed to hold her breath as he sang and their ridiculously intense eye contact to his smile as she sang and that final intimate chorus that launched a thousand tweets, it seems people can’t get enough of them and their performance (myself included).

So what made this moment so special? Why can’t we stop talking and tweeting about it?

It felt real. Even if these are two actors who are both talented enough to be nominated for Oscars. Even if they’re just good friends (who like to look into each other’s eyes for so long it seems they’re trying to break some kind of record). The intimacy they created on that stage felt real, and sometimes what we feel matters more to us than the facts.

What I felt—more than anything else—was the best kind of vulnerability from both of them, and that’s where real intimacy comes from. Cooper has talked often about being unable to hide when you sing, and that was certainly true in this performance. From the minimal staging to the soft lighting and even the lack of introduction and stripped down arrangement, the moment was all about the two people sharing it and nothing else. Which isn’t an easy thing for an actor who didn’t sing before doing this movie and for a singer who’s used to hiding behind a persona when she takes the stage. All they had was each other and a piano, and that proved to be more than enough.

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Nerdy Girl Predicts: The 2019 Oscars

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Oscars

Source: MentalFloss.com

I love the Oscars. I know they don’t always award—or even nominate—the right people and films. I know they have plenty of problems with diversity and inclusion and accepting new visions of what filmmaking can be. I know this year’s race and ceremony in particular have been a hot mess of controversy, bad decisions, and backpedaling.

So why is Oscar Sunday still one of my favorite days of the year?

It’s simple: I love movies, and Oscar Sunday is a day people set aside to celebrate movies. It’s a day to unabashedly and unashamedly care about movies. It’s a day to proudly be passionate about film. And for me, it’s even more special this year because this year rekindled my passion for film in a way I wasn’t expecting and yet in a way I desperately needed.

With the end of many of the TV shows that had been part of my life for so long, I found myself lost as a fangirl without a home. But then movies came back into my life, and they helped me find a part of myself that I lost when my enthusiasm for film waned in my 20s. I saw so many movies this year—including all but one of the year’s Best Picture nominees. (Sorry, Vice.) And in those hours spent in darkened theaters and on my couch, I remembered what it feels like to become completely transported and transformed by a movie. It’s unlike any other media experience you can have, and it brought the purest kind of joy into my life when I needed it most.

So no matter how mad I may be that Bradley Cooper was snubbed for a Best Director nomination or how annoyed I may be with all the changes—and then weird retractions of changes—to the ceremony itself, I haven’t been this excited about the Oscars since I was 17 years old and still dreaming of being a film critic. I’m more educated about these races than I’ve ever been. (Thanks in no small part to Collider’s amazing For Your Consideration videos, which I have watched religiously for months and have come to see as true bright spots of movie nerd enthusiasm in my life.) And I can’t wait to share my predictions with you this year because they come from a place of deep analysis and also genuine fangirl love, which is what NGN is all about.

I hope you share your picks for the night’s winners in the comments because I’m ready to start talking more about film around here! And as always, I’ll be live tweeting all the night’s festivities starting with the red carpet at 6 p.m. EST, so follow along on Twitter if you want to see my emotional breakdown over Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga singing “Shallow” in real time.

Without further ado, here are my picks for the winners in every category tonight (I tried to keep my thoughts short since I also added analysis for every category this year—not just the big ones)!

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My Pick: Roma
My Thoughts: This is the most wide-open Best Picture race in years, and I think at least 5 of the 8 nominees have realistic chances to take home the win, especially with the preferential ballot system (which awards films that many people like rather than films that a smaller group love). Although my heart belongs to A Star Is Born, I’d love to see Black Panther break new ground with a win, and there’s plenty of support behind Green Book to make it possibly even the favorite at this point, I still think Roma is going to take home the night’s big prize. Roma is a gorgeous film that affirms the universality of themes like family, trauma, loss, and the strength of women while being stylistically in a class of its own. A win for Roma wouldn’t just be a win for a beautiful, unique movie, it would send a message about the stories we have in common being more important than the things that people want to use to divide us.

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Nerdy Girl Predicts: The 2018 Oscars

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Oscars

Source: MentalFloss.com

Oscar Sunday has been a special day for me since I was a little kid. I’ve always loved movies, so the Oscars and all their pomp and circumstance and glamour have always drawn me to my couch to marvel at the gorgeous gowns, cheer when my favorites finally win, and loudly complain when other favorites are snubbed.

Although the Oscars can sometimes be frustrating to watch and we all know the best movies and performances don’t always win, my desire to watch them from an educated perspective taught me so much about film—especially in my teens. I used to try to watch every Best Picture nominee in a given year (which was much easier when there were only five), and that broadened my understanding of what movies could be and how they could make me feel by introducing me to movies I might never have seen without Oscar nominations behind them. (I’m looking at you, Brokeback Mountain, The Social Network, Slumdog Millionaire, and Revolutionary Road.)

In recent years, I was lucky to see one or maybe two Oscar contenders, but this year, I made a point of seeing as many as I could, and in the process, I fell back in love with movies and how much life-affirming beauty can be found in the hours spent in a darkened theater. So I wanted to come back to these predictions after four years off because I have a stronger sense of the year’s biggest contenders than I’ve had in a while. I hope you’ll share your own predictions with me in the comments and join me on Twitter for all the fun starting with my annual live tweeting of the red carpet at 6 p.m. EST!

Without further ado, let the predicting begin!

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My Pick: The Shape of Water
My Thoughts: This is such a wide-open category this year, but I can’t pick against the magic of this movie. Some movies are simply works of art—like paintings come to life—and The Shape of Water is one of those movies. I can’t stop thinking about this movie as a whole, but what’s so special and unique about it is the way certain shots have gotten under my skin and become unforgettable to me not because they were disturbing or shocking or upsetting, but because they were so beautiful. Everything about this film was beautiful—its score, its cinematography, its color palette, its performances (I will sing the praises of Richard Jenkins in this film until the end of time.), and its message that love (even the strangest, most unexpected kind of love) can conquer all. This is a movie about a group of outcasts and outsiders coming together, and it’s also a movie that speaks to the power of cinema to inspire, which we all know Oscar voters love. It’s a love letter to movies, and it’s a creative love story unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. While I wouldn’t mind seeing Lady Bird or Get Out pull a shocking upset, I think this will be a case where the film with the most nominations takes home the big prize.

Director
My Pick: Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water)
My Thoughts: The creativity, care, and unique perspective del Toro brought to this film took my breath away. Every part of the film was touched by del Toro’s ability to balance the gritty and dark realities of life in the real world with the magic of the movies. This is his masterpiece, and I hope it earns this visionary a well-deserved Oscar.

Actress
My Pick: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)
My Thoughts: Although I feel like you can never count out Meryl Streep and Saoirse Ronan gave my favorite performance among the nominees this year, McDormand’s fierce and fearless work makes her one of the night’s few sure bets. Her ability to use seething silences to portray the overwhelming anger of grief in a way few actors are brave enough to touch made Three Billboards work, and I can’t see anyone else upsetting what’s essentially been a one-horse race since early on in awards season.

Actor
My Pick: Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour)
My Thoughts: The Oscars love a good makeover, and no one changed their appearance for a role more than Oldman did this year. Although I didn’t see Darkest Hour so I can’t offer a truly informed opinion, I think picking with crowd is the way to go on this one. However, part of me is really hoping for a Daniel Kaluuya upset.

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Hold on to Happiness

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There are times it feels like you really have to reach to find happiness. There are times it feels like everything around you is angry, dark, and heavy. There are times when it seems like the entire media landscape—from the news to the fiction you turn to when you need to escape the news—is conspiring against your valiant attempt to find reasons to smile and laugh every day.

This seems like one of those times, doesn’t it?

Looking back on posts from previous years, it seems that around this time every year, television decides to get really dark, and this year is certainly no exception. From Jane the Virgin and Nashville to This Is Us, there’s been no shortage of tears shed over fictional characters lately. And even in the world of cinema, this has been a rough patch if you’re looking for some escapist fun and unabashed joy; Oscar season isn’t known for its happy films, but this was a particularly heavy year, where even the film being praised most ardently for its joyful spirit (La La Land) ended on a bittersweet note.

What are we to do when things look dark? We celebrate the light. We appreciate moments of pure good where we find them. And we hold on to happiness like the precious treasure it is.

I watched a lot of Fuller House in the days around the presidential inauguration this year. It’s a show that exists for no other reason than to make people happy, and it does its job well. It’s not Breaking Bad or Orange Is the New Black, and not every show needs to be or should be. Sometimes you just want to watch a silly, simple show where storylines are wrapped up in 30 minutes with a group hug. It’s a throwback to a more innocent, less cynical time, and if you’re looking for some warm, fluffy feelings in your media-consuming life, I highly recommend it.

Another show that has become my antidote to all the death and cynicism on television in recent weeks is Timeless. It’s certainly not on the same level of fluffiness as Fuller House, but it’s about three fundamentally good people working together and becoming a family through trust, respect, and empathy, which is even better than fluff. Plus, it’s a time-traveling adventure with great costumes, impeccable guest stars (Fellow Once Upon a Time fans should check it out if only for Sean Maguire’s almost inhumanly charming turn as James Bond creator Ian Fleming.), and characters you feel good about rooting for—characters who have grown more in one season than some shows allow their characters to grow during an entire run, characters who fight for each other, characters who have big hearts and are big nerds. It also has my favorite developing romance on television right now between Wyatt Logan and Lucy Preston, and there is no happier feeling than watching a fictional relationship progress from initial skepticism to respect to fake engagements to real hugs to “I cannot lose you again!” to opening hearts and taking chances—all in the course of one season.

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The Best of the 2014 Oscars

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The 2014 Oscars were a little long and a little predictable, but they were also a lot of fun. There wasn’t a lot of surprise to be found in the night’s winners, but my Oscar-predicting credibility is thankful for that fact. There also weren’t a lot of surprising or shocking moments within the ceremony itself, but sometimes even a relatively tame award show can still be a thoroughly entertaining one.

It may have been the fact that the Oscars gave me a wonderful evening of laughing and talking about movies with my sister and my best friend, or maybe it’s the lack of sleep (or high amounts of caffeine in my bloodstream) talking, but I think these were my favorite Oscars in terms of entertainment value in quite some time. It probably helps that I really love Ellen DeGeneres and her particular brand of comedy—and I also really love pizza.

Today I want to focus on some of the evening’s best moments—from the speeches that moved me to the fashions that made me green with envy.

Best Performance By an Ensemble in a Selfie:

oscar selfie

Where else but the Oscars would you be able to take a photograph featuring three of Hollywood’s biggest heartthrobs, multiple living acting legends, and two of the biggest ingénues in the business? My favorite thing about the whole “selfie” bit was that it felt like everyone involved was having so much fun with it (my personal favorite being Jared Leto sprinting across the theater to be a part of it). I like seeing celebrities who genuinely seem to be enjoying themselves at big events and in each other’s company, so kudos to Ellen for taking that sense of enthusiasm and turning it into millions of re-tweets.

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Nerdy Girl Predicts: The 2014 Oscars

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Gravity will probably walk away with the most Oscars tonight, but I don't think Best Picture will be one of them.

Gravity will probably walk away with the most Oscars tonight, but I don’t think Best Picture will be one of them.

After months spent sitting in darkened theaters and on comfortable couches watching movie after movie, the film fanatics’ Super Bowl has arrived—it’s Oscar Sunday! More than any Oscars in recent memory, this one has a number of important categories that might still be too close for anyone to call ahead of time. From a Best Supporting Actress race for the ages to a Best Picture group without a clear favorite, this year’s ceremony is more difficult to predict than usual, but I think that’s going to make it even more fun to watch.

Below are my picks for all 24 categories, with analysis (and my sentimental favorites) for each of tonight’s major awards. Let me know in the comments what your ballot looks like, and don’t forget to join me on Twitter, where I’ll be dissecting everything from the red carpet fashions and Ellen’s sure-to-be-fabulous hosting skills to the night’s big winners and losers.

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My Pick: 12 Years a Slave
My Wish: Her
My Thoughts: No movie I saw in this past year made me think or feel as deeply as Her, but I know it doesn’t stand a chance against the big boys in this category, despite its originality. In the three-horse race between 12 Years a Slave, Gravity, and American Hustle, I expect the Academy to choose the emotionally potent historical drama (a favorite genre of theirs over the years), and the choice is not without merit—12 Years a Slave was fearless and filled with strong performances.

Actor
My Pick: Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)
My Wish: Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street)
My Thoughts: As much as I would love to see DiCaprio (my favorite actor since the age of 10) finally take home an Oscar for what many are calling his best work to date, I don’t think anyone is taking this Oscar from McConaughey. His physical transformation was astounding, but it was the emotional commitment he gave to this role that floored me. Also, his trademark charm helped make Dallas Buyers Club not just an emotionally compelling film but also a surprisingly warm and entertaining one.

Actress
My Pick: Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)
My Wish: Amy Adams (American Hustle)
My Thoughts: I still haven’t seen Blue Jasmine, but I’m not sure there’s been a performance more universally accepted as the best in its category this year. This award has been Blanchett’s since the film was released. As much as I’d love for Adams to finally get Oscar recognition in a year in which she served as the sexy but surprisingly vulnerable heart and soul of my favorite ensemble of the year (and turned in another excellent performance in Her), I’m sad to say it’s just not going to happen this year.

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