In one of the most mud-slinging, wide-open Oscar races in years, picking winners is like walking a tightrope over a pit of snapping scandals.
No sooner did "Emilia Pérez" -- a Spanish-language musical crime drama from a French director -- receive the most nominations (13) of any movie this year than its chances were dinged by resurfaced tweets from the film's star, Karla Sofía Gascón, the first openly trans actress to score an acting nomination.
Though Gascón has since apologized for comments that denigrated Muslims, George Floyd and the campaign tactics of her fellow nominee, Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres ("I'm Still Here"), many have wondered if the damage is insurmountable.
Then there's the controversy around "The Brutalist" -- with 10 nominations, including best picture -- for using artificial intelligence to help acting nominees Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones in the very few scenes where they had to speak Hungarian.
And what's with "Anora" -- boasting six nominations, including best picture -- filming all those sex scenes without an intimacy coordinator, as revealed by star and acting nominee Mikey Madison in a Variety chat?
And does the blockbuster musical "Wicked" really deserve the top prize if it's only Part 1 of a film that won't be complete until Part 2 is released in November?
Clearly these issues have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the nominees themselves. The film academy is always concerned with how it looks to the outside world. Still, the heated battle between image and merit only adds to the fun, especially in a super competitive year like this one when trying to figure out how nearly 10,000 Oscar voters are going to come to a consensus is more of a head-scratcher than ever.
Let the games begin with my predictions about who should win -- and who will win -- in the major categories.
Best actor in a leading role
- Adrien Brody ("The Brutalist")
- Timothée Chalamet ("A Complete Unknown")
- Colman Domingo ("Sing Sing")
- Ralph Fiennes ("Conclave")
- Sebastian Stan ("The Apprentice")
SHOULD WIN (if the public voted): Timothée Chalamet ("A Complete Unknown")
Chalamet's performance as the young Bob Dylan is acting, singing, guitar-strumming, harmonica-blowing perfection.
And just a week ago, after watching Adrien Brody ("The Brutalist") take most of the critics prizes, he finally caught a big break with a significant win from his peers at the Screen Actors Guild for transcending impersonation in a warts-and-all portrait that also captures the petulant arrogance of the future Nobel Prize winner whose music, lyrics and raw vocal rasp helped define a generation. Chalamet's transporting performance catches Dylan in the exhilarating act of inventing himself as multitudes, a fugitive troubadour and poet who's always creating and always in the wind.
Should Chalamet, nominated before in the same category for 2017's "Call Me By Your Name," win the Oscar on Sunday night, he will become, at 29, the youngest nominee ever to win the best actor prize, besting previous record holder Brody by nine months and change.
WILL WIN: Adrien Brody ("The Brutalist")
Sorry Timmy, but the one to beat is still Brody -- the current holder of the title of the youngest best actor winner (he was one month shy of his 30th birthday when he won the Oscar for 2002's "The Pianist" as musician Władysław Szpilman, a Polish Jew who survived the Nazi invasion of Warsaw.
Brody tops even that career triumph with his "Brutalist" portrayal of László Tóth, a Hungarian-born Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor who arrives in America after the war in a burst of anticipation and dread. Acting doesn't get better or go deeper than the emotional tour de force given by Brody, who brings every fiber of his being to the role of his career.
A second Oscar seems inevitable.
Best actress in a leading role
- Cynthia Erivo ("Wicked")
- Karla Sofía Gascón ("Emilia Pérez")
- Mikey Madison ("Anora")
- Demi Moore ("The Substance")
- Fernanda Torres ("I'm Still Here")
SHOULD WIN: Mikey Madison ("Anora")
The odds favor Madison. Let me explain.
While Oscar traditionally makes guys wait until they have some age on them, the gold statue practically climbs into the hands of a young beauty in a breakthrough part. I'm talking Audrey Hepburn ("Roman Holiday") to Gwyneth Paltrow ("Shakespeare in Love") and Jennifer Lawrence ("Silver Linings Playbook"). So why not bestow the crown on Madison, 25, acing the title role in "Anora" as the stripper/sex worker who falls for her own fantasy of marrying a handsome prince -- in this case the son of a Russian oligarch -- and living happily ever after.
The comic and dramatic chops Madison brings to the role really are award worthy.
WILL WIN: Demi Moore ("The Substance")
The only thing Oscar loves more than a discovery is a comeback, and Moore practically defined the term by scoring her first nomination at 62 for "The Substance," Coralie Fargeat's razor-sharp horror-satire about Hollywood's greatest fear: aging.
During her victory speech at the Golden Globes, Moore talked about being dismissed as a "popcorn actress" who should stay in her lane. No way. For pushing past vanity to find the bruised heart of a character who literally splits herself in half to preserve the illusion of timeless allure, Moore spoke to everyone who felt banished to oblivion at the first sign of a wrinkle. She also found her finest two hours on screen.
How does Oscar resist that? Two words: it doesn't.
Best actor in a supporting role
- Yura Borisov ("Anora")
- Kieran Culkin ("A Real Pain")
- Edward Norton ("A Complete Unknown")
- Guy Pearce ("The Brutalist")
- Jeremy Strong ("The Apprentice")
SHOULD WIN: Jeremy Strong ("The Apprentice")
The "Succession" Emmy winner is evil incarnate as Roy Cohn, the dark prince of a lawyer who served as the architect of Donald Trump's rise to power before he even seriously considered politics. Cohn's three commandments for success certainly stuck with his apprentice, played by best actor nominee Sebastian Stan: "Attack, attack, attack; admit nothing, deny everything; and always claim victory -- never acknowledge defeat." Strong plays Cohn with a demonic humor that makes every laugh sting, even those that sow the seeds of his own discussion.
Strong finds a path into Cohn's battered soul in a film that didn't deserve its box-office neglect. He'd be tough to beat, except for...
WILL WIN: Kieran Culkin ("A Real Pain")
The "Succession" Emmy winner -- he and Strong played feuding brothers on the landmark series -- is in the wrong category since his is a lead performance in every sense of the word as a misfit named Benji on a Holocaust tour of Poland, where his late grandmother escaped the death camps. Director Jesse Eisenberg, who wrote the Oscar-worthy script for this funny, touching and vital dramedy, plays the cousin who accompanies Benji on the trip. There's not a manipulative, sanctimonious, false note in Culkin's off-the-charts great performance.
Forget the category fraud, if there is a sure-thing among this year's Oscar nominees, Culkin is it.
Best actress in a supporting role
- Monica Barbaro ("A Complete Unknown")
- Ariana Grande ("Wicked")
- Felicity Jones ("The Brutalist")
- Isabella Rossellini ("Conclave")
- Zoe Saldaña ("Emilia Pérez")
SHOULD WIN: Isabella Rossellini ("Conclave")
If you want to know what a true supporting performance is, check out the magnificent Rossellini as Sister Agnes, the only female in this all-male conclave of cardinals in the timely business of electing a new Pope. Critics say that Rossellini has only one big dialogue scene, not enough to cinch the win. Nonsense. She creates a woman in full in the space between words.
This is a first nomination for the gifted daughter of actress Ingrid Bergman and director Roberto Rossellini, and she emerges as the film's moral conscience and its grieving heart.
WILL WIN: Zoe Saldaña ("Emilia Pérez")
Don't expect the controversies swirling around her film and her co-star Gascón to hurt the chances Saldaña has at taking home her first Oscar.
As the lawyer at the center of the story -- hardly a supporting role -- Saldaña proves she's more than the action dynamo of the "Avatar" franchise and Marvel Cinematic Universe, but an actress of grit and grace. She might even propel her sensational song-and-dance, "El Mal," into a best song Oscar.
Where Rossellini goes small, Saldaña goes big and, fair or not, the size of her portrayal should tilt the balance in her favor.
Best picture
- "Anora"
- "The Brutalist"
- "A Complete Unknown"
- "Conclave"
- "Dune: Part Two"
- "Emilia Pérez"
- "I'm Still Here"
- "Nickel Boys"
- "The Substance"
- "Wicked"
SHOULD WIN: "The Brutalist"
By any measurement of roaring talent and ambition, director Brady Corbet's intimate epic about the immigrant experience in America is the best picture of the year. "Anora" and "Conclave" are breathing down its neck, but the technical aspects from cinematography to score are top-notch and the direction of the category best Corbet and the acting of Brody, Jones and Guy Peace set a new gold standard. The crucial complaint is that "The Brutalist" is too long at three hours and 35 minutes. Length didn't hurt "Oppenheimer" and it shouldn't be a problem here -- except for the growing plague of short attention spans.
So unless Oscar voters come to their senses and do the right thing, I'm conceding defeat.
WILL WIN: "Conclave" ... in a squeaker victory over "Anora"
I expect a dead heat on Oscar night, with the saints of "Conclave" just edging out the sinners of "Anora." Either could prevail. "Anora" showed a recent surge by claiming victory at the influential producers and directors guilds -- Sean Baker's love letter to sex workers is definitely the cool kids' choice. But throwback voters, blanching at the sex, drugs and F-bombs in "Anora," are more comfortable with Edward Berger's classical approach in "Conclave," which won the day at the BAFTAs (the British Academy with an overlapping membership with the American version) and just a week ago grabbed the best ensemble cast trophy from the Screen Actors Guild, the largest voting group at the Oscars.
It's a coin toss, which should have us all holding our breath on the big night.
What could be better?! Place your bets.
The 2025 Oscars will take place Sunday, March 2, airing live on ABC and streaming live on Hulu beginning at 7 p.m. ET.
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