I did it. I had to go to two different theaters yesterday because the one I went to first was having “events” of some sort and had canceled all its normal screenings with minimal notice, but I regrouped, ate something, and saw the last movie on the list, the Aaron Sorkin directorial debut Molly’s Game. Just in time to discuss its Adapted Screenplay nomination, too! But we’ll get to that later.

I tend to enjoy talking about a movie more the less widely seen it is, partly because I like introducing other people to things I like and partly because if you haven’t seen the movie yourself it’s harder for you to call me on my bullshit. The movies up for the biggest awards this year have mostly been seen by a substantial number of people, so I’m going to try to move through them as quickly as I can. If you haven’t already seen them yourself, there’s almost certainly someone out there with much smarter things to say about them than me, and after all, I’ve got to leave something in the tank for when I talk about Best Picture on Sunday.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

The Big Sick
Get Out
Lady Bird
The Shape of Water
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Congratulations to Emily V. Gordon, who’s gone from mostly-comatose supporting character played by somebody else to Oscar-nominated co-screenwriter in no time at all. No one appreciates a well-executed 9/11 joke more than I do, and Kumail Nanjiani’s “we lost 19 of our best guys” is an all-timer.

I’ve been hoping the winner here wouldn’t be Three Billboards, because the movie’s biggest problems are story problems. From McDonagh’s generally unrecognizable take on race relations in America to the abrupt redemption of Sam Rockwell’s violently racist cop, there are too many puzzlers in this fitfully excellent film for me to understand why so many other awards bodies thought this was the best script the year had to offer.

I appreciated Lady Bird‘s lively and cracking wit. Greta Gerwig clearly has her own long and complicated relationship with the city of Sacramento, but she’s effortlessly made Lady Bird‘s characters feel like real, three-dimensional people rather than mere extensions of her own feelings and experiences. No one tells a better fairy tale than Guillermo del Toro (except maybe Roald Dahl), and The Shape of Water is a seamless one.

Get Out, though, may be the only one of these movies that truly gets better the more you think about it. It’s a first-rate parable that does the remarkable work of bringing horror movie immediacy (and more impressively, accessibility) to the thorny, tangled subject of supposedly benign liberal prejudice.

Will Win/Should Win: Get Out.

Upset Special: Public opinion seems to be settled pretty firmly on Get Out, but Three Billboards did win a ton of other screenplay awards and may not be totally out of the running.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Call Me by Your Name
The Disaster Artist
Logan
Molly’s Game
Mudbound

A handful of films picked up their sole nominations in this category; one of them, The Disaster Artist, seemed like it was poised for more before a number of women outed director and star James Franco as a real creep. Here’s my qualified defense of The Disaster Artist: A lot of people who worked on it are not James Franco, and the film made me laugh almost nonstop the whole time I was in the theater. If you’re a big fan of The Room—and I know we’ve got a few here—it’s still pretty close to essential viewing. The screenwriters really did carve a great script out of Greg Sestero’s book, and it’s nice to see that recognized.

Logan didn’t blow me away, but I’m willing to put that down to personal taste. There’s no question it’s a very different kind of superhero movie from its Marvel predecessors, with the sort of gravitas that we haven’t seen—or haven’t seen executed well, anyway—since Christopher Nolan stopped making superhero movies. If it were up to me, though, I’d have preferred recognition for Deadpool‘s madcap, fourth wall-demolishing screenplay last year.

What you think of Molly’s Game is going to depend pretty much entirely on your tolerance for writer/director Aaron Sorkin, and mostly for writer Aaron Sorkin. The direction is competent but at times feels like a pale imitation of movies like The Big Short, I, Tonya, and maybe some of Edgar Wright’s stuff. Meanwhile, Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba are good, but neither’s anywhere near their career best. The script is talky, like you’d expect, and surprisingly voiceover-heavy (the 80% estimate I gave a friend yesterday doesn’t seem like it can be right, but it doesn’t seem wrong either) and the dialogue is peppered with literary and cultural allusions, as well as out-of-left-field trivia.

The clear betting favorite here is Call Me by Your Name, with Mudbound the main challenger. Call Me‘s script gives its talented cast some absolutely lovely character moments to work with; it’s elegant and poetic in the same way that almost every aspect of the production is. Mudbound couldn’t be more different: It’s hard-hitting and uncompromising, and in the end, it just grabbed me more than Call Me did.

Will Win: Call Me by Your Name. With no cinematography or directing nominations, and two great supporting performances also missing out, there are scant few opportunities for the Academy to reward Call Me. Adapted screenplay is a bit soft overall and gives them that chance.

Should Win: Mudbound.

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water
Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World
Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

If Sam Rockwell’s character arc doesn’t quite work, it’s not for lack of effort on his part. Whether or not you think he deserves it, his character is plainly wracked with guilt and self-loathing, and Rockwell channels that into some explosive moments. His co-star, Woody Harrelson, probably wouldn’t have had my vote for a nomination. He’s fine, but Call Me and Mudbound each had a couple of better performances in my opinion.

Christopher Plummer might not be here if he hadn’t made headlines replacing Kevin Spacey on short notice, and that would be too bad. All the Money is at bottom a straightforward film about greed, and Plummer gives that greed a human and even sympathetic dimension in a way that I don’t think Spacey could have.

The Shape of Water is mostly Sally Hawkins’ movie to carry, but Richard Jenkins still carves out a space where he can shine as a nervous and initially unwilling accomplice to Hawkins’ Eliza. In my view, his character actually embodies the central conflict of the film, between the part of us that sees evil and oppression and cries out for something to be done, and the part that knows life will be easier if we just don’t get involved.

Willem Dafoe’s at his absolute career best in Sean Baker’s deeply human The Florida Project as a motel manager struggling to do what’s best for his impoverished tenants in the long shadow of The Happiest Place on Earth. He’s tough but kind, an authority figure to the roomers but ultimately powerless to make much more than a marginal difference in their lives, and painfully aware of it.

Will Win: Sam Rockwell.

Should Win: Richard Jenkins.

Upset Special: Willem Dafoe

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Leslie Manley, Phantom Thread
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

No shortage of moms in this category. You’ve got moms who are trying hard (Mary J. Blige and Laurie Metcalf)… and then you’ve got Allison Janney’s acerbic, emotionally abusive LaVona Fay Golden, mother to the titular Tonya Harding. I, Tonya is one of a couple of movies this year that really seem to get dysfunctional families, and Janney’s believably cruel portrayal is the perfect centerpiece to that facet of the story.

Leslie Manley is very good, if understated, in Phantom Thread, sharp-tongued and quietly confident. It’s tempting to say that her spot should have gone to the phenomenal Vicky Krieps for the same movie, but that might have been stretching “supporting actress” a bit too far even for the Academy, as I’m not sure Krieps doesn’t have more screen time than Daniel Day-Lewis.

Octavia Spencer was just fine in The Shape of Water, funny and scared and defiant, but this feels a bit like a nomination just for being Octavia Spencer; I’m not convinced she had one of the five best supporting performances.

Will Win/Should Win: Allison Janney. She’s just awful, and it’s spectacular.

Upset Special: As the main challenger I don’t know if Laurie Metcalf qualifies as a true upset here, but I also don’t think anyone else has a shot.

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name
Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Roman J. Israel, Esq., the latest from Nightcrawler director Dan Gilroy, did not achieve the sort of critical success that his last movie did. Sure, it’s uneven at times, and dependent toward the end on some hard-to-swallow plot developments, but I found it to be a pretty entertaining and even thoughtful legal thriller. In January, before I’d seen it, Washington’s nomination elicited some eyebrow-raising from me, but I’m here to tell you now that he’s as good in this, as an eccentric criminal defense lawyer struggling with the collapse of his firm, as he was in Fences last year.

Gary Oldman’s got the Academy’s traditional preferences dialed in: He’s in makeup, playing a famous person, and he’s got a British accent. The popular image of Winston Churchill is as a big, blustering presence, and Darkest Hour certainly spares plenty of scenes for that, but the really striking part of the show Oldman puts on is Churchill’s doubt, his fear, and his incompetence. Again, this film doesn’t touch the uglier parts of Churchill’s legacy, but it’s probably as complete a portrait as we’ve seen to date.

Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out everything you want in a horror movie protagonist: Charming enough that you want to see him live, smart enough that you don’t get frustrated with him, and vulnerable enough that you genuinely worry for him. Get Out doesn’t lean on jump scares or (traditional) body horror; its principal means of conveying fear are good old-fashioned narrative tension and the palpable terror, infectious terror Kaluuya displays himself.

Once again I’m in awe of Daniel Day-Lewis’s knack for really getting into the minds of his characters, because man, he’s gotten into a weird one in Phantom Thread. His domineering dressmaker’s hidden insecurities inform every moment of Day-Lewis’s screen time, and that probably saves the entire film, because that closing twist would have been a tough sell with virtually any other actor.

Timothée Chalamet has been in full surly teen mode for both of his films this year, but Call Me lets him flesh out that archetype a little more. I do wish his performance was less closed-off, though; as I understand it, the book the film is based on allows the reader frequent access to Elio’s inner monologue, which helps alleviate concerns about what might otherwise read as a predatory relationship.

Will Win: Gary Oldman.

Should Win: Denzel Washington.

ACTRESS IN A LEAD ROLE

Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
Meryl Streep, The Post

This is about as stacked as I can remember the Best Actress category being. I will insist, though, that Meryl Streep’s spot should have gone to a newcomer like Tatiana Maslany (Stronger) or Alexandra Borbély (On Body and Soul), both of whom simply did more in their respective roles than Streep did. There’s never anything wrong with a Meryl Streep performance, obviously, but the role of Katharine Graham just doesn’t stretch her that much.

Where Supporting Actress was full of moms, the lead actress category only has the one: Frances McDormand’s vengeful firebrand in Three Billboards. McDormand is great, hilariously cutting, but there’s also a deep sorrow to her performance that informs everything she does.

Sally Hawkins’ highly emotive work in The Shape of Water is all the more impressive because she can only speak through sign language. It feels like that limitation really focused her work, because her portrayal of Eliza is brilliant, simultaneously brave and shy, terrified but unstoppable.

Whatever you think of Tonya Harding, the person, you’re almost sure to feel some sympathy for Tonya Harding, the I, Tonya character, and that’s all Robbie’s work. The best choice director Craig Gillespie made on this movie was to treat almost everything that takes place on screen as essentially unreliable, a story without truth, and Robbie was the perfect actress to push the idea of “Tonya’s truth” brashly and without shame.

Saoirse Ronan’s role in Lady Bird is a sort of mirror image of Chalamet’s in Call Me, but Greta Gerwig’s script gives Ronan more to do, and Ronan is absolutely game for it. Lady Bird’s running battles with her mother have plenty of real emotional weight to them, and I’ve never seen anyone better capture that mix of excitement and paralyzing terror that accompanies leaving a loving home for the first time.

Will Win: A win for Frances McDormand may as well be etched in stone. As good as her competition is, she’s won basically everything this awards season and she’s not going to be stopped now.

Should Win: Margot Robbie.

Upset Special: Sally Hawkins. I think talk of a Three Billboards backlash mostly exists to fill space on entertainment pages, but in the very unlikely event that it’s real and intense, Hawkins, who was a razor’s edge from being my top pick, could benefit.

DIRECTOR

Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread
Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
Jordan Peele, Get Out
Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water

It’s hard to talk about direction without just talking about the movie as whole, and I’ll be talking about all five of these movies again in a few days, so I’ll move quickly here. The best argument for Greta Gerwig is how easy she makes everything in Lady Bird look. Lady Bird might have twice as many important relationships in it as the next best high school movie (Mean Girls, the next best high school movie is Mean Girls) and yet it flows absolutely effortlessly. Phantom Thread, I’ve said before, is a long walk, but there’s a lot of pretty scenery along the way. Whether the destination justifies the journey is going to be a divisive question. The best horror movie of the year, in my opinion, is not Get Out, it’s Dunkirk. As tense and well-paced as Get Out is, and as much as I’m looking forward to the next thing Jordan Peele directs, Christopher Nolan has taken “tense and well-paced” to an entirely different level.

But, in the end, there’s a reason The Shape of Water has thirteen Oscar nominations: Guillermo del Toro has put together a movie that’s well-crafted at every level looks, sounds, and feels like absolutely nothing else out there. Give the man his trophy.

Will Win/Should Win: Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water.

Second Choice: Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk.

Upset Special: Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird.

make it snow is an alot of beer who’s watched alot of movies. See you Sunday!