Pop Altar’s Totally Shaky 91st Academy Award Predictions
image: Netflix
BEST PICTURE
“Black Panther”
“BlacKkKlansman”
“Bohemian Rhapsody”
“The Favourite”
“Green Book”
“Roma”
“A Star Is Born”
“Vice”
The top prize could realistically go to five of the eight nominees above. Black Panther won the SAG Ensemble Award, and actors make up the biggest voting block of the Academy. However, not everyone who’s in SAG is also in the Academy, so the Academy tends to lean a bit more conservatively than SAG. Bohemian Rhapsody [inexplicably] won Best Picture – Drama at the Golden Globes, and it apparently has a ton of popular support, so you really can’t say it’s not a contender. And don’t get me wrong – I liked the movie – I just would have gladly had If Beale Street Could Talk take its place. Green Book won the PGA’s top award, so you can’t count it out, either. Despite its various controversies, it has still managed to get nominated for major SAG acting awards, and it also won the Golden Globe for Best Picture – Comedy. BlacKkKlansman is a possibility because of a surge in support for Spike Lee as Best Director, for a collection of historically deserving work that never got nominated. Plus, BlacKkKlansman is just fucking awesome for its skillful meld of drama, thriller, social commentary, and comedy.
Roma is my prediction, though. Because all of the above films will most likely split the vote on films that are non-traditional feel-good or niche films that are just happy to be nominated. In this scenario, I think that the Academy will fall back to its traditional norms (in a year where it was attacked for trying to retreat from them) and award the film that falls most closely to its auteur- celebrating roots. Roma is also just a damn beautiful film, and I won’t be mad at all if it wins.
