12th Annual Oscar Picks

Listen. It's always hard to do this. THIS year? Predicting the winners seems almost impossible! Every single guild award has gone to a different movie.

Fortunately, that doesn't affect me, because I never end up picking the wrong winners! Ever!*

(Previously: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015,  2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008.)

Best Picture: As stated above, this category is more difficult than ever to predict. "Green Book COULD pull off a win here. Maybe. But for no real reason other than following my gut, I've got to go with "Roma" this year. 

Best Director: More often than not, this award goes to the winner of Best Picture. So keeping with that tradition, I've got to pick Alfonso Cuaron. The only upset I could foresee might be Spike Lee (for his first Oscar ever!), but I just don't think it's his year.

Best Actor: Christian or Rami? Rami or Christian? This year it'll be Rami Malek, in what could end up being "Bohemian Rhapsody's" only award of the night. But don't cry for Christian Bale! He'll always have Santa Fe.

Best Actress: I would honestly love to see Lady Gaga win this category (I've had a soft spot for her ever since I watch the stunning documentary about her: "Five Foot Two."), but I'm afraid it's not her year—at least in this category. (Spoiler alert. For... further down the page.) This year will FINALLY be the year Glenn Close ends her streak! She currently holds the record for most Oscar nominations without winning, and it's finally her turn to stand center stage. You go, Glenn Co... I mean, Glenn Close!

Best Supporting Actor: Man, this category is such a question mark to me. But Mahershala Ali has been winning a lot this awards season, so let's go with Mahershala Ali for "Green Book."

Best Supporting Actress: There seems to be a chance that Amy Adams could sneak in here and snag her first Oscar ever (which is insane, because this is her 6th nomination—Leo won on his fifth time out!), but I think she's going to have to wait a bit longer. This year the award is going to Regina King for "If Beale Street Could Talk."

Animated Feature: "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse." That's it, that's the prediction.

Production Design: Conventional wisdom tells me to pick "The Favourite" here. But I can't. I think the winner will be "Black Panther."

Cinematography: The award this year will go to Alfonso Cuaron for "Roma," and I'll tell you why that's interesting: because he'll be the FIRST director to ever win Best Cinematography for a film he also directed. Pretty crazy!

Costume Design: I'll say it again: Best Costume Design goes to the most over-the-top, historical costumes in the category. What makes it a little more interesting this year is that you have "The Favourite" up against "Mary Queen of Scots," two big movies with equally big dresses. My money's on "The Favourite," although it must be said that there's an alternate universe out there somewhere in which "Black Panther" sneaks in a win here.

Film Editing: Conventional wisdom dictates that the year's Best Picture winner will also take home the award for editing, but conventional wisdom is out the window this year. I think it's either going to "Bohemian Rhapsody" or "Vice," and "Bohemian Rhapsody" needs to chill, so I'm picking "Vice."

Makeup and Hairstyling: For the same reason I picked "The Darkest Hour" to win this one last year (making a famous actor UNRECOGNIZABLE), I'm going with "Vice." Maybe this is an indirect way for Christian Bale to get a little nod since he'll miss out on Best Actor!

Original Score: Remember in that one episode of "Sherlock" where he first met The Woman, and he just couldn't figure her out or read her at all, so all he saw when he looked at her were question marks? That's me looking at this field of nominees. "If Beale Street Could Talk" has gotten a lot of critical acclaim, but history teaches us that a Best Picture nominee has better odds in this category. In that case, a film like "BlacKkKlansman" or "Black Panther" (which won the Grammy) might have the edge. DOES ANYONE HAVE A FRIEND WHO'S A VOTING MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY THAT I CAN PLEASE SPEAK TO. Failing that, I suppose I'm leaning critical darling over historical data (which is SO unreliable this year) and picking "If Beale Street Could Talk."

Original Song: What if SNL's Melissa Villaseñor came out and sang "Shallow" instead of Lady Gaga? I. Would Die. She's hilarious. No, but really though, I think this is a well-deserved win for Gaga. She may not be taking home Best Actress, but she will be taking home her first Oscar: Best Original Song for "A Star is Born."

Original Screenplay: It would make sense here for the winner of the WGA award to have a pretty good shot at winning here. Mindbogglingly enough, their top winner, "Eighth Grade," isn't even nominated for an Oscar, so it's back to the drawing board. So unless "Green Book" pulls out a win here, I think "The Favourite" will win this Bo Burnham-less category.

Adapted Screenplay: "Can You Ever Forgive Me" won at the WGA's last week, so there's an outside chance they could repeat on Sunday. However, I think the Academy will find their chance to honor Spike Lee in this category, for his work on "BlacKkKlansman."

Sound Mixing: Okay fine. I guess "Bohemian Rhapsody" will win more than one award. And honestly, I have nothing against the sound in this movie. (Truthfully the sound was the best part!)

Sound Editing: SHHH! The sound editors are accepting their Oscar for "A Quiet Place!"

Visual Effects: "Ready Player One" was a crap movie, but its visual effects were pretty spectacular. Not enough, however, to get them in the running for this award, which seems to be between "Avengers: Infinity War" and "First Man." I kind of want to just play eenie meeny miney mo with this one, but you know what? I love the Avengers. So I'm going "Avengers: Infinity War."

Documentary Feature: First things first: "Three Identical Strangers" should be here. Full stop. That movie BLEW MY MIND. Just put my whole brain in a blender. Watch it as soon as you can, you will not regret it! But anyway. "Free Solo" was also very good and incredibly suspenseful, and I'd like to see it win. But "RBG" also has a lot of great momentum, so I don't know! Maybe 'the little justice that could' will help them pull off a win! "Free Solo," however, just won the BAFTA, so I think that may have given them the edge. "Free Solo" it is!

Documentary Short: It's these little categories that can make or break your ballot, and I always get so stressed out picking which depressing (sorry) documentary short will be crowned the winner. It's just difficult, period. End of sentence. Anyway, I'm going with "Period. End of Sentence."

Foreign Language Film: Unless voters don't want to pick the same film here that they did for the top prize of Best Picture, this one should be going to "Roma."

Animated Short: Have you SEEN how cute that little dumpling is? It's gotta be "Bao."

Live Action Short: If "Skin" is compelling enough to be turned into a full-length feature (which it has been), that should be good enough to win it this award!


*(Counts on fingers) Wait. Am I wrong... a lot? Like, really a lot of the time? Huh.