Oscar Picks 2019

As is tradition for me now, I went and saw all the Oscar-nominated movies. This year, I've decided not to venture guesses about who might win. The Academy has favorites and I'm not here to guess who those people might be. I'm just here to record what my favorite movies and performances for the year of 2019. (I have not seen any of the shorts yet, so those categories are not included.) I won't be right, but I want to cheer for those that I loved. Here they are.

Best Picture: Ford v Ferrari --Of all the best picture nominees, this is the only one I honestly would see again. I haven't met anyone yet that didn't like this movie. Out of all the movies I saw in the theater, I felt like this one had the best feeling in the theater after the movie was over. And isn't it good to see a movie and feel good when leaving?

Best Lead Actress: Saoirse Ronan (Little Women) This is the third year in a row that she's impressed me with a performance and each of her characters is distinct and different. She deserves a win.

Best Lead Actor: Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) I don't think any other performance comes close. He commanded every single scene.

Best Supporting Actress: Margot Robbie (Bombshell) Margot has been dominated the movie world for the past few years. This movie made me ugly cry because of her performance.

Best Supporting Actor: Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) When you can steal the show from Leonardo DiCaprio, you deserve an award.

Best Director: Todd Phillips (Joker) His creativity impressed the hell out of me.

Best Animated Movie: Toy Story 4 Unpopular Opinion-This is my favorite one since the first one.

Best Foreign Movie: Parasite It wasn't my favorite movie, but it got so much buzz, it should win this category for sure.

Best Documentary: The Cave I think this man is doing a great service to the world by documenting the horrors going on in Syria. I have learned so much from this documentaries and this one has a lot of heart.

Original Screenplay: Marriage Story Honest and moving.

Adapted Screenplay: The Two Popes Writing is always a category that means a lot to me and both the scripts I picked are from Netflix movies. I think that shows that Netflix is giving some wonderful opportunities to wonderful story tellers.

Best Original Score: 1917 Very recognizable music.

Best Original Song "I'm Standing With You" from Breakthrough I'm not a big fan of religious movies generally, but I can honestly say I enjoyed this movie and I enjoy this song.

Sound Mixing: 1917

Sound Editing: 1917 Have I mentioned how much the sound in that movie impressed me? Haha.

Cinematography: The Irishman This one was really was tough. I think 1917 is the obvious choice, but I read up on the cinematographer for this movie (Rodrigo Prieto) and the majority of the de-aging for these actors was done solely through camerawork (not makeup). This guy used like 3 different types of cameras for every single scene and filmed hundreds of hours. And, for the most part, he did it alone. It's an impressive feat. Rodrigo has been Scorsese's go-to guy for a long time and has paid his dues.

Visual Effects: Avengers:Endgame The amount of effects for this movie is insane and nothing else compares.

Costume Design: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood It was very distinctive and a major asset to this movie.

Production Design: 1917 Even when watching, I kept making comments about how elaborate the set was.

Film Editing: Ford v Ferrari This movie has so many shots that had to be combined and you don't even notice how elaborate it really is. That's a sign of success.

Makeup and Hair: Maleficent: Mistress of Evil There is good makeup work in a lot of movies, but nothing is to the scale of this movie and all those beautiful fairies.