Previewing the Oscars

With the upcoming Academy Awards, many movies, actors, and actresses await the category winners.

Disney, Flickr, Creative License

The Oscars premiere Sunday, March 4. Laura Jennings predicts the outcome of the anticipated award show.

Laura Jennings, Staff Writer

On March 4, 2018, Hollywood will gather for its biggest night of films: The 90th Annual Academy Awards. With nominations being announced since January 23, speculations and predictions of winners have been circling around for weeks.

The most highly contested category of the night is Best Picture. This year, the nominees include big winners at the Golden Globes like “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouriand “Ladybird,” and blockbuster hits like “Get Out” and “Dunkirk.”  Favorites for this category include “The Shape of Water” and “Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri,” based on their wins at other award shows this year.

Some of the other disputed categories are the race for Best Actor and Best Actress. For Best Actor, Gary Oldman from “Darkest Hour” and Timothee Chalamet from “Call Me by Your Name” are two of the nominees who are predicted to have the most success. For the women, Frances Mcdormand from “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”, Saoirse Ronan from “Ladybird,” and Sally Hawkins from “The Shape of Water” are all contenders for the winning award of Best Actress.

Predictions for some of the smaller categories include “CoCo” for best animated feature, “Faces Places” for best documentary, and Guillermo del Toro for “The Shape of Water” for Best Director. The categories of supporting roles are toss ups between Sam Rockwell for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,”  and William Defoe for “The Florida Project” for Best Supporting Actor, and Allison Janney for “ I, Tonya,” and Laurie Metcalf for “Ladybird” for Best Supporting Actress.

This year’s competition could not come without some controversy. Gary Oldman, a contender for Best Actor, has been accused of having a history of domestic abuse. Guillermo del Toro has been accused of plagiarizing the idea for “The Shape of Water” from the estate of a late playwright named Paul Zindel. The film has many similarities to Zindel’s TV production “Let Me Hear you Whisper,” which aired fifty years ago. Some critics are upset over the Academy’s choice to nominate “The Post” for only two awards.

Eager viewers will be watching from home to see the ceremony take place. It takes place at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, with Jimmy Kimmel hosting for consecutive year. The show will air on ABC at 7 pm CST.