2024 Academy Awards Predictions

Fifteen (!) years ago, I wrote an Oscars preview for The Perry County News around the same time I started this site. Back then, the Oscars meant a lot to me. I was very passionate when movies and performances I loved not only lost, but weren’t even nominated. Over the years, I’ve made my peace with the fact that my tastes and the Academy’s rarely align. But after years of catching crap for not being diverse enough, the Academy has expanded its membership, and because of this, more deserving and interesting nominations have been made. There will always be snubs and undeserving nominations thanks to the campaigning individuals and studios do, but overall, it seems like the Oscars are moving in a better direction. For instance, this year six of the Best Picture nominees made my personal top ten list, which I don’t think has ever happened.

As usual, the bulk of this will just be a listing of my prediction for the winner, my favorite of the nominees, and my favorite overall (which includes actors and movies that weren’t nominated). I’m too lazy to list all the nominees here, so just Google it, or click here for that. 

Also, as usual: Hi, Mom! She’s the only person I’m certain will read this, so that’s why I still do it each year even though I’m typically terrible at predicting these.

Best Cinematography

Prediction: Oppenheimer

My Pick and Overall Favorite: Poor Things

Best Original Score

Prediction, Pick, and Overall Favorite: Oppenheimer

Best Original Song

Prediction: “What Was I Made For? - Barbie

My Pick and Overall Favorite: “I’m Just Ken” - Barbie

Best Visual Effects

Prediction, Pick, and Overall Favorite: Godzilla Minus One (Full disclosure: I still haven’t seen this one, but I’m in the middle of watching every single Godzilla movie right now, and I feel safe saying I’m going to be blown away by Minus One.)

Best Original Screenplay

Prediction: Anatomy of a Fall

My Pick and Overall Favorite: The Holdovers

Best Adapted Screenplay

Prediction: Oppenheimer

My Pick and Overall Favorite: Poor Things

Best Documentary

Prediction, Pick, and Overall Favorite: 20 Days in Mariupol

Best Animated Feature

Prediction: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

My Pick and Overall Favorite: Robot Dreams

Best International Feature

Prediction, Pick, and Overall Favorite: The Zone of Interest

Best Supporting Actor

Prediction: Robert Downey, Jr.

My Pick and Overall Favorite: Mark Ruffalo

Best Supporting Actress

Prediction: Da’Vine Joy Randolph

My Pick and Overall Favorite: Emily Blunt

Best Actor

Prediction, Pick, and Overall Favorite: Cillian Murphy

Best Actress

Prediction, Pick, and Overall Favorite: Emma Stone

Best Director

Prediction, Pick, and Overall Favorite: Christopher Nolan

Best Picture

Prediction: Oppenheimer

My Pick and Overall Favorite: Poor Things

As always, I have no confidence in my predictions, but for the first year in a long time, I don’t think any winner will be undeserving. I was equally split with my top two movies this year with Poor Things and Oppenheimer, so anything they win will make me happy. But I also loved Barbie and The Holdovers, and damn near every nominee. Usually, there’s one or two nominations that straight up piss me off, but nothing fired me up too much this year because snubs don’t matter to me when they had no chance of winning, anyway. For instance, people got big mad about Greta Gerwig not being nominated for Director. I get it, and I think she deserved a nomination, but I can’t pick one of the five to toss out for her, and it doesn’t matter anyway since Nolan is one of the only locks I can think of this year. While I’m thinking about it, though, I wish the Academy would just expand the directing category and just automatically nominate the director of each Best Picture nominee. 

So that finally ends the 2023 movie season (in March of 2024, for some reason). A lot of people like to casually shit on the movies these days, but I thought 2023 was an awesome year for movies, and surprisingly, the Oscar nominations reflect that. So check the Oscars out this Sunday and see how terrible I am about picking the winners!

"Milk" / "Friday the 13th" / Oscar rant

My name is Eric Harris and I'm here to recruit you to the idea that the Academy went political (California recently voted against gay marriage) and gave Sean Penn a slightly undeserved Oscar. More on that later, first the actual movie: Milk.



Milk is the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in San Francisco who was killed by Dan White (also an elected official). Milk is a nice guy and that makes him easy to like. People around him are happy and want him to do good and the audience gets right in step with them. That is the main factor of this film because Sean Penn plays Milk and Sean Penn is not known for being likable, or happy. Sean Penn is known for playing miserable people that do bad things and have bad things done to them. The man's face is a permanent scowl, for god's sake. So it is surprising, entertaining, and impressive to see Penn embodying Harvey Milk as he does. He won the Academy Award for this and I can see why (though I don't agree with it).


But this film has more going for it than performances. It has some ideas about hope and acceptance and who doesn't like that? The acceptance concerns gay rights and that is something that people to this day have a problem with. I didn't really need convincing from this film. If gay people want to get married or work in the same place I work, then they should be able to as far as I'm concerned. I was just hoping that this movie didn't turn out to be a two hour long gay pride parade with flamboyant gay people in risque costumes making out and rubbing each other. If that sounds anti-gay, so be it, but being heterosexual doesn't involve putting on displays of it, so why is sexuality and showmanship always part of gay pride stuff? Can't people be gay and wear suits and still get their point across? Yes, they can and this movie shows that. Though there is a bit of the flamboyance and whatnot, but it's not over the top or even unnecessary. This film walks a fine line and it keeps itself from being comical or too serious, also. It is entertaining and hopeful and that is thanks to Gus Van Sant.


Van Sant not only kept the movie balanced, but he also threw in some style here and there with some split screen work and some interesting angles. Is there some kind of film school message to be found with the scenes between Milk and White (in which they are shown from the shoulders up, but only take up half the screen)? I'm sure there is but I don't want to dissect it. I just noticed that it looked different and frankly, different is almost always better these days. So check out Milk for a great performance from Penn, two impressive performances from Hirsch and Franco, a balancing act from Van Sant, and ignore the annoying Diego Luna (you'll understand when you see it).



Now just a paragraph on the reboot of "Friday the 13th." No need to look deeply into this one. It has Jason, he kills people in semi-interesting ways. He runs now, which I thought was a mistake. The whole menacing thing about Jason is that he always walked but still caught up to everybody. Anyway, Jason kills potheads and oversexed college kids, so this is business as usual. The jokes are cheesy, but high school kids on down might enjoy them. There are a few odd references that I personally enjoyed (if the whole Heineken/Pabst Blue Ribbon thing wasn't a nod to "Blue Velvet" then that is just one of the biggest coincidences in film history). There are some unintentionally funny lines ("Where are you, gun?") and a guy screams just like a little girl at one point. So there is fun to be had here, but I think this is a misstep in the series. "Freddy Vs Jason" was much more enjoyable. I wish they would have stuck with that route. Oh, and Jason uses a bow and arrow in this, which I thought was odd.


Now for my Oscar rant. Sean Penn won Best Actor tonight in the bloated, overlong Academy Awards. I knew that he was neck and neck with Rourke, but I still thought Rourke would win because it's the better performance. I'm going back to my old mainstay argument when it comes to accting awards here. Milk was a real person and Sean Penn did a great impression of the guy. Mickey Rourke did not get to watch footage of Randy the Ram! He had to create something from the page. That is much more impressive to me. Not to mention that his performance is much more entertaining, if that matters anymore. But "The Wrestler" was about wrestling and giving an award for playing a wrestler doesn't give the Academy members the chance to pat themselves on the back as much as giving an award to the protrayer of a slain gay rights activist does. So I'm saying it was all political, especially since it was Penn who won, and that is the only way I can justify it. But here's to Mickey Rourke anyway, there's just going to be an empty spot next to the dozens of other awards you (rightfully) won before tonight.



Next week: I honestly don't know, nothing big comes out, I might just do a few DVD reviews - Frozen River, Changeling, Body of Lies...