Golden gongs
The ultimate guide to this year’s Oscars – and who we tip to win
A new format
1Despite
a capable compère in Chris Rock and a Best Picture victory for compromise candidate Spotlight, last year’s Oscars were not a hit. Viewing figures hit an eight-year low, and there was no viral coup to rival Ellen DeGeneres’s legendary 2014 all-star selfie – let alone the near-the-knuckle routines the Golden Globes have lately made their trademark.
So expect the format to receive a kick up the you-know-what, with firsttime MC Jimmy Kimmel as the foot that administers it. The comedian and talk-show host specialises in the kind of stunts that spread across the internet like bush fires, so devising at least one of those will be Priority One.
Kimmel’s long-running mock feud with Matt Damon is a likely flashpoint: as a producer of Best Picture contender Manchester by the Sea, the actor will be present. But don’t bet against something riskier. There’s also a stringent new 45-second time limit for speeches, which should help keep things on the less-exhausting side of three and a half hours.
Trump. Lots of Trump
2What
will winners spend their allotted 45 seconds on? As much politics as they can cram in, if recent weeks are anything to go by. From the Globes to the Baftas and Screen Actors Guild, anti-Trump speeches have been a 2017 awards season mainstay. And despite Republican harrumphing that the public don’t want entertainers to interfere in politics, those millions of clicks aren’t coming from nowhere.
It’s possible America’s new president may have even influenced this year’s ballot, though not in a way he’d appreciate. Until recently, the presumed Best Foreign Language frontrunner was Toni Erdmann, the German candidate. But when the White House suspended travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, Iranian contender The Salesman became a talking point. Now its director Asghar Farhadi has announced he won’t attempt to make the trip. That raises the possibility of a solidarity Oscar.
Absent friends
3The
Oscars’ annual In Memoriam reel is always an emotional interlude, but this year’s promises to be a 15-hankie wipe-out. Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, John Hurt, Gene Wilder, Mary Tyler Moore, Anton Yelchin, Curtis Hanson, Garry Marshall and Michael Cimino are among the many stars and filmmakers whose talents will surely be commemorated.
A landmark result almost nobody expects
4Ever since Manchester by the Sea was unveiled at the Sundance Film Festival 13 months ago, Casey Affleck has been touted as a Best Actor frontrunner. And so ingrained is the narrative – reinforced by highprofile wins at the Baftas, Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice Awards – that a quiet but seismic shift in the terrain has been all but overlooked. The Screen Actors’ Guild’s own Best Actor Award has been in lock-step with the Oscar vote in 18 of the 22 years it’s been around, including the past 12 on the trot. And a few weeks ago, the 23rd winner of that prize was… Denzel Washington, for his firebrand work in Fences, for which he’s also Oscarnominated against Affleck. A Washington win would be a landmark: it would be Washington’s third, bringing him into line with Daniel Day-Lewis, Ingrid Bergman, Walter Brennan, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. But it wouldn’t be an upset – providing you’ve been paying attention.
It’s no one’s ‘time’ (thank goodness)
5The sense of it being “someone’s year” at the Oscars is the most tedious voting rationale around. (Few would begrudge Leonardo DiCaprio his Academy Award after 20-odd years in the game, but did it have to be for last year’s grunty turn in The Revenant?) The closest thing to an overdue winner in 2017 is Viola Davis, up for her third acting award in nine years, but the nominees are generally a fresh bunch with years of second chances ahead.
Meryl Streep, on her 20th nomination and counting, is an obvious exception, though she won’t win. But Isabelle Huppert – a bona fide cinematic icon and somehow only first-time nominee – just might. Emma Stone is the category favourite. But a decisive Stone-Huppert showdown hasn’t yet taken place – they both won at the Globes, Huppert’s performance in Elle wasn’t Bafta-eligible, and she wasn’t a contender at the SAG. Stone remains the safer bet, but is by no means a dead cert.
Best behaviour
6Where hosts fail to generate Shareable Content, fate has a funny way of stepping in: see the John Travolta red carpet ooze-a-thon of 2015 and his “Adele Dazeem” on-stage gaffe the previous year. Then there was the apparently stony reaction to costume design winner Jenny Beavan’s casual attire at the 2016 ceremony, a Vine clip of which has been viewed 63.7 million times to date. One apparent non-clapper was director Alejandro González Iñárritu, who actually released a statement after the ceremony, with supporting footage, to prove he had in fact applauded. In the age of the gif, optics matter more than ever, which means clenched grins and roboclaps a-go-go.
Not so white
7The all-Caucasian acting shortlists of 2015 and 16 were a recent low point for the Academy: it was their first back-toback white-out since the early Eighties, and suggested a chronically blinkered view of what kind of stories were Oscar-worthy. This year’s far more varied nominations alone suggest change is afoot. But if Denzel Washington wins his category and the other three fall into place as expected – Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Mahershala Ali – 2017 would be the first year in Oscar history in which the majority of acting winners were non-white. A shot of that foursome at the winners’ photo-call would be the image,
and story, of the night.
A host waiting in the wings?
8Generally, hosting the Academy Awards is a hiding to nothing. Better to be magnificent in minutes then talked up as the genius MC that might have been. If Kimmel disappoints, LinManuel Miranda’s name will inevitably come up. The actor-composer behind theatrical super-smash Hamilton will be on stage with Auli’i Cravalho, performing his Moana ballad How Far I’ll Go, up for Best Original Song. Earlier this week he brushed off The Hollywood Reporter’s suggestion he might host in future. But either way, you sense this won’t be a one-off.
Plenty of partying
9Though voting closed on Tuesday, the campaign trail continues, right up until the big night. Tonight in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills respectively there are rival functions for the British and Australian nominees, plus a Women in Film reception and achingly exclusive soirées around the Hollywood Hills. Saturday’s Independent Spirit Awards on Santa Monica Beach has Andrea Arnold’s American Honey among the favourites.
Jack’s back
10For
years, Jack was to the Oscars as ravens are to the Tower of London, though at last year’s event he either attended incognito (unlikely) or was a no-show. The news that he’ll come out of retirement after seven years for the Hollywood remake of Toni Erdmann, though, gives the three-time winner a reason to show up in style this time. Jack Nicholson, Best Actor 2018? The campaign
begins now.