2023 OSCAR PREDICTIONS, PART 1: PICTURE, ACTORS, ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY, SONG PLUS MORE

We've got a lot to say about this year's Academy Award contenders. So much, in fact, we've split our annual predictions piece into two. Pick some fights with us on this page, then follow the link to Round 2... 

Check out 2023 OSCAR PREDICTIONS, PART 2: DIRECTOR, ACTRESSES, ADAPTED SCREENPLAY, ANIMATED FILM PLUS LOTS MORE here.

BEST PICTURE: 
The Guild community, which makes up a big chunk of the AMPAS voters, seem pretty united on this front, with Everything Everywhere All at Once taking the award season spoils in recent weeks across a lot of categories. Tough to bet against it at this stage. The other multi-nominated challenger, All Quiet on the Western Front, will get its dues in the International Feature category. 
NOMINEES:All Quiet on the Western Front; Avatar: The Way of Water; The Banshees of Inisherin; Elvis; Everything Everywhere All at Once; The Fabelmans; Tár; Top Gun: Maverick; Triangle of Sadness; Women Talking
WHO SHOULD WIN: Triangle of Sadness
WHO WILL WIN: Everything Everywhere All at Once.

BEST ACTOR: 
Was Fraser’s to lose for much of the campaigning period, but out-of-the-blue wins for Farrell and Butler have tightened the odds. And a lot of people (ie, those who are backing him as the lead in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator sequel) would like to see Paul Mescal’s performance in Aftersun be recognised, too. Still Fraser by my thinking, but expect this to be a close call.
NOMINEES: Austin Butler, Elvis; Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin; Brendan Fraser, The Whale; Paul Mescal, Aftersun; Bill Nighy, Living
WHO SHOULD WIN: Brendan Fraser for The Whale
WHO WILL WIN: Brendan Fraser for The Whale

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
There are so many great narratives - Judd Hirsch’s Fabelmans nod, making the 87 years-young actor the oldest nominee ever in this category; Barry Keoghan’s rags-to-riches boyhood, leading to recognition for The Banshees of Inisherin; funnyman-turned-dramatic powerhouse Brian Tyree Henry for Causeway. Of course, none match the resurgent career of forgotten child star Ke Huy Quan, whose got a lock on the trophy in our opinion.
NOMINEES: Brendan Gleeson, The Banshees of Inisherin; Brian Tyree Henry, Causeway; Judd Hirsch, The Fabelmans; Barry Keoghan, The Banshees of Inisherin; Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once
WHO SHOULD WIN: Ke Huy Quan for Everything Everywhere All at Once
WHO WILL WIN: Ke Huy Quan for Everything Everywhere All at Once

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY 
The Daniels’ moment. Which is a big call amongst a line-up like this, but…well, here we are.
NOMINEES: Todd Field, Tár; Tony Kushner & Steven Spielberg, The Fabelmans; Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once; Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin; Ruben Östlund, Triangle of Sadness
WHO SHOULD WIN: Ruben Östlund for Triangle of Sadness
WHO WILL WIN: Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All at Once

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
NOMINEES: All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany); Argentina, 1985 (Argentina); Close (Belgium); EO (Poland); The Quiet Girl (Ireland)
WHO SHOULD WIN: Close
WHO WILL WIN: All Quiet on the Western Front

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE 
NOMINEES: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed; All That Breathes; Fire of Love; A House Made of Splinters; Navalny
WHO SHOULD WIN: Fire of Love
WHO WILL WIN: Navalny

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
NOMINEES: Ryan Coogler, Ludwig Göransson, Rihanna & Tems, “Lift Me Up,” Black Panther: Wakanda Forever; Lady Gaga & BloodPop, “Hold My Hand,” Top Gun: Maverick; M.M. Keeravaani & Chandrabose, “Naatu Naatu,” RRR; Diane Warren, “Applause,” Tell It Like a Woman; Ryan Lott, David Byrne & Mitski, “This Is a Life,” Everything Everywhere All at Once
WHO SHOULD WIN: M.M. Keeravaani & Chandrabose, “Naatu Naatu,” from RRR
WHO WILL WIN: M.M. Keeravaani & Chandrabose, “Naatu Naatu,” from RRR

BEST EDITING 
NOMINEES: Eddie Hamilton, Top Gun: Maverick; Mikkel E.G. Nielsen, The Banshees of Inisherin; Paul Rogers, Everything Everywhere All at Once; Jonathan Redmond & Matt Villa, Elvis; Monika Willi, Tár
WHO SHOULD WIN: Eddie Hamilton for Top Gun: Maverick
WHO WILL WIN: Eddie Hamilton for Top Gun: Maverick

BEST COSTUME DESIGN 
NOMINEES: Jenny Beavan, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris; Ruth Carter, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever; Catherine Martin, Elvis; Mary Zophres, Babylon; Shirley Kurata, Everything Everywhere All at Once
WHO SHOULD WIN: Jenny Beavan for Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
WHO WILL WIN: Catherine Martin for Elvis

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

NOMINEES: All Quiet on the Western Front; Avatar: The Way of Water; The Batman; Black Panther: Wakanda Forever; Top Gun: Maverick
WHO SHOULD WIN: Avatar: The Way of Water
WHO WILL WIN: Avatar: The Way of Water

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT
An Irish Goodbye; Ivalu; Le Pupille; Night Ride; The Red Suitcase
WHO WILL WIN: Ivalu

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
The Elephant Whisperers; Haulout; How Do You Measure a Year?; The Martha Mitchell Effect; Stranger at the Gate.
WHO WILL WIN: How Do You Measure a Year?

WIN DOUBLE PASSES TO THE OSCAR-NOMINATED AFTERSUN

Courtesy of Kismet Films, SCREEN-SPACE has 6 in-season double passes to give away to see Paul Mescal in his Oscar-nominated performance in AFTERSUN, the universally acclaimed debut feature from writer/director Charlotte Wells.

TO WIN, simply tell us in 25 words or less about that special family holiday you remember from your childhood. Provide your answer in the comments section below.  

Set in a fading vacation resort in the mid '90s, 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) treasures rare time together with her loving and idealistic father, Calum (Paul Mescal). As a world of adolescence creeps into view, beyond her eye Calum struggles under the weight of life outside of fatherhood. Twenty years later, Sophie's tender recollections of their last holiday become a powerful and heartrending portrait of their relationship, as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn't, in Wells' superb and searingly emotional debut film.

Critics have been unanimous in their praise...:

"A tremendous film. Something that looks at a hard topic like depression in a very beautiful and human way." - BBC.com

"A triumph of new British filmmaking." - Empire

"Every moment, every snippet of dialogue, every detail down to the smallest role or the tiniest detail in the background feels like a vibrant slice of real life." - Chicago Sun-Times

AFTERSUN is in Australian cinemas from February 23.

T&Cs: 
Australian residents only, sorry; competition closes 11.59pm on Wednesday February 22, 2023. This is a game of skill and entries will be judged by Screen-Space contributors; the judge's decision will be final and no correspondence will be entered into. Double-passes will be emailed to winners and may be used at all participating cinemas, at the venue's discretion. The prize is not transferable for cash or to be used with any other offer on any other film in general release. 

THIS YEAR'S CINEMATIC BIN WATER: THE WORST FILMS OF 2022

Hollywood offered up its traditional sludge - a dire video-game adaptation (Uncharted), a terrible remake (Firestarter), a cash-grab franchise low (Jurassic World Dominion), and an MCU nadir (Doctor Strange and The Multiverse of Madness). The ongoing descent of Mel Gibson into B-movie hell plummeted alarmingly with the unforgivably stupid On The Line.

Beyond Hollywood…same stink, different s**t. The Phantom of the Open proved that there’s a razor’s edge between ‘Mark Rylance Great Actor’ and ‘Mark Rylance Shameless Ham’ (the jury is split on his odd turn in Bones and All). All Jacked Up and Full of Worms, despite the year’s best title, was a putrid, shock-for-shock-sake cult wannabe that became the film that hipsters mentioned to seem cool. Australia had one of those films, too - the teen-trauma misery-porn of Blaze, art-directed with no eye for storytelling by gallery darling Del Kathryn Barton.  

But it fell to the streaming platforms to find me the five that had me truly gagging on my movie-viewing in 2022:  

5. THE MAN FROM TORONTO (Dir: Patrick Hughes | Stars: Kevin Hart, Woody Harrelson, Ellen Barkin | U.S. | 110 mins) Jason Statham dropped out over script issues (wait…WHAT?!) and Woody Harrelson was shoe-horned into the kind of overproduced, underdone buddy comedy/star vehicle that is crippling Netflix’s credibility with viewers. (Netflix)

4. PINOCCHIO (Dir: Robert Zemeckis | Stars: Tom Hanks, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt (voice), Cynthia Erivo (voice) | U.S. | 105 mins) Has any filmmaker fallen so far in audience esteem as Robert Zemeckis? The latest bold, red line under his name was this treacherous Disney exploitation of one of their most beloved cartoon characters. (Disney+)

3. BIG BUG (Dir: Jean-Pierre Jeunet | Stars: Isabelle Nanty, Elsa Zylberstein, Claude Perron | France | 111 mins) Pitched as some kind of farcical social satire, this typically ‘European’ but atypically awful sci-fi vision of a dystopic near-future repped a lowpoint for the once great French visualist. (Netflix)

2. POKER FACE (Dir: Russell Crowe | Stars: Russell Crowe, Steve Bastoni, Liam Hemsworth | Australia | 94 mins) There’s ‘vanity project’ and then there’s Poker Face, in which Russell Crowe paints himself as a ‘secret angel’ benefactor for his already well-off mates and unfaithful family members. This guy has an Oscar, yet exhibits no discernable storytelling skill in a single frame of this streaming pile of s**t. (Stan)

1. THE BUBBLE (Dir: Judd Apatow | Stars: Karen Gillan, David Duchovny, Keegan-Michael Key | U.S. | 126 mins) I actually admire that they tried to pull off a COVID lockdown comedy while in their own production ‘bubble’. But it feels like an improvised sketch run amok, with no one providing any ‘in-points’ for the group to react with; not a single scene offers a laugh - topical, nonsensical, satirical, whatever. It’s 126 minutes (!!) of talented people hoping someone else will do something funny. They don’t. (Netflix)

NOW CHECK OUT OUR BEST FILMS OF 2022 HERE.

HOW AMSTERDAM AND DON’T WORRY DARLING HEIGHTEN THEIR REALITIES TO DISSECT OURS

They are two of the fall award season’s most star-studded and discussed films. David O’Russell returns to directing for the first time since 2015 with Amsterdam, a massive production spanning two continents and set in a post-WW1 period of free-spirited decadence and simmering fascism. And Olivia Wilde’s tabloid-fodder retro-mystery Don’t Worry Darling, which pits Florence Pugh against The American Dream in a ‘50s milieu that demands a blind eye be turned to hideous misogyny.

Prior to release, they were both singled-out as Oscar frontrunners and in all likelihood will still factor, albeit in below-the-line categories like costume design, art direction, production design. Both are stunning films to look at, their imagined worlds rich with colours and camera tricks that provide some giddy visual moments. Pugh might jag a Best Actress nomination for her gutsy turn, too. But critics have been a bit down on them as a whole - Don’t Worry Darling has some passionate advocates, but is topping out at 40% on Rotten Tomatoes; Amsterdam, slightly worse off at 35%.

I’m in the Fresh Tomato crate on both, while also certainly acknowledging that both films are flawed in ways they shouldn’t be (especially Amsterdam, which is O’Russell at his most wildly self-indulgent). What I find particularly fascinating is that they are mainstream studio projects that give full-flight to entirely constructed realities constructed to address the most pertinent social issues of contemporary Western society. Yes, I wish they were better films, but I’m glad they are being made at all. (Pictured, right: from left, John David Washington, Margot Robbie, Rami Malek and Anya Taylor-Joy in Amsterdam) 

Don’t Worry Darling imagines a manicured suburban paradise built to serve the male employees of The Victory Project, a secret undertaking that starts to smell to Alice (Florence Pugh) like a global domination cult based on the principles of patriarchal superiority. She’s married to the upwardly mobile Jack (Harry Styles), one of the key offsiders to the Hank Scorpion-like Victory Project boss, Frank (Chris Pine), who demands the ladies of his utopian America just lay back and enjoy the spoils of their husband’s worklife, no questions asked. Wilde and scriptwriter Katie Silberman work in some fantasy elements to shade the film in cool scifi-ey, genre beats, but the message finds an urgent clarity - ladies, fight back, kicking and screaming, or lose your voice entirely.

Amsterdam bounces back and forth between 1930’s NYC, the European theatre of conflict in 1917 and the titular bohemia of 1919. Two wounded soldier buddies (Christian Bale, John David Washington) bond with a French/not-French nurse (Margot Robbie) in a friendship pact that carries them all the way to the soulless strengthening of corporate greed in a booming pre-WWII U.S. economy. From that dark seed, the ties that bind fascism and capitalism are sown. There are a multitude of eccentric sideways deviations in O’Russell’s ‘cuckoo’ farce, affording a whole lot of stars (Zoe Saldana, Mike Myers, Ed Begley Jr, Robert de Niro, Rami Malek, Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Rock, Taylor Swift) some flavoursome bit parts. But mostly, Amsterdam is a nutty, noisy narrative about the birth of Trump’s America.

The end-goal impact that Wilde and O’Russell were working towards is to be found in two landmark films that remain relevant today. Don’t Worry Darling recalls The Stepford Wives (Bryan Forbes' 1975 original, and definitely not Frank Oz’s 2004 misdirection), which conjures a similar well-to-do American middle class designed to continually strengthen the patriarchy. And both films want to expose the horrors of modern life in the way that Peter Weir and Andrew Niccol did in 1998 with The Truman Show, the visionary takedown of the entertainment sector’s most shameless exploitation model, the then newly-minted world of reality TV. (Pictured, above: Katharine Ross in The Stepford Wives)

Neither Don’t Worry Darling nor Amsterdam nail it with precision, but they do indicate that smart, ambitious, high-end social commentary is still on the studio agenda. Audiences may need a little more convincing; at time of writing, O’Russell’s US$80million folly is bombing, while Wilde’s starry vision is waning after a strong first week. And there are factors out of the industry’s control that are in play, like the difficulty more adult-skewing pics are having in drawing audiences post-COVID. But both films suggest that at least some of the Hollywood hierarchy take their role as arbiters of the world’s most popular and influential artform seriously.

PREVIEW: 2022 SWIFF

Screenwave International Film Festival (SWIFF) has unveiled its 2022 program, a mammoth undertaking that will bring over 130 sessions and exclusive events to the Coffs Harbour region over 16 jam-packed days, from Thursday 21st April to Friday 6th May, 2022.

Building on the success of its 2021 Festival, SWIFF has cemented itself on the Australian film festival circuit as the premiere regional film event. In addition to hosting over 80 different feature films in 2022, SWIFF is looking to break its attendance record with the addition of its new Storyland music festival, taking place on Saturday 23rd April at Park Beach Reserve, headlined by Courtney Barnett and Hiatus Kaiyote.

SWIFF Artistic Director, Kate Howat says, “People are ready to embrace shared arts experiences again. Seeing the enthusiasm for the festival has given us license to grow bolder though, both in the addition of Storyland, and in the comprehensive film line-up we’ve made for all the film tragics out there, just like us.”

SWIFF audiences will be among the first in Australia to witness The Northman (pictured, right), the latest epic cinematic masterpiece from the visionary director, Robert Eggers (The Witch, 2015; The Lighthouse, 2020), featuring an all-star line up of Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, Claus Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Willem Dafoe and, in an exciting return to the big screen after a 20-year absence, Icelandic superstar Björk.

Reinforcing its status as a truly international film event, works from 40 countries feature in this year’s World Cinema program, making it the most culturally rich line-up in SWIFF history. Highlights of the program include Kogonada’s trippy sci-fier After Yang, with Colin Farrell, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Oscar frontrunner, Drive My Car, Sebastian Meise’s Venice Best Film winner, Great Freedom; Julia Ducornau's auto-erotica Palme d'Or winner Titane; and, the great Asghar Farhadi’s Cannes Grand Prix winner, A Hero.

Already established as a festival dedicated to local sector representation, SWIFF ‘22 will comprise a line-up of the very best in new Australian films. These include the AWGIE Award winner Ablaze, directed by Alec Morgan and Tiriki Onus, and Ithak, the story of John Shipton, father of imprisoned Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, in his fight to save his son. John Shipton, Gabriel Shipton and director Ben Lawrence are guests of the Festival.

Honouring one of the most audacious filmmakers of all time, Paul Verhoeven’s catalogue of films will take centre stage in a seven film retrospective at SWIFF. Among them are the groundbreaking 1992 blockbuster Basic Instinct; the nihilistic classic, Robocop; the rarely-seen early works Spetters (1980) and Flesh+Blood (1985, and starring festival patron, Jack Thompson); and, his latest shocker, the religious satire/nunsploitation pic, Benedetta. The strand offers a unique insight into the work of a pure provocateur whose heady cinematic cocktails mix violence, sexuality, and ambiguity, with lashings of social commentary.

The program will also showcase an extensive line-up of documentaries including the Oscar-nominated Flee, a thrilling vision fusing animation and archival footage to tell the story of a gay Afghan refugee; the Australian Premiere of Sam & Mattie Make a Zombie Movie (pictured, right), the story of two New England teenagers with Down syndrome who write and shoot their first feature film; and, the self-reflexive I Get Knocked Down, from Chumbawamba founder and anarcho-punk rocker, Dunstan Bruce.

Closing SWIFF’22 will be Everything Everywhere All At Once, by visionary filmmakers Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels (Swiss Army Man, 2016; The Death of Dick Long, 2020), a hilarious and big-hearted sci-fi action adventure starring acclaimed actress Michelle Yeoh and the iconic Jamie Lee Curtis.

SWIFF Live returns with two film screenings accompanied by live music on stage. In Beautiful Dark: The Music of Twin Peaks, the iconic music of David Lynch’s masterpiece will be performed by Beautiful Dark, a 7-piece ensemble band, taking audiences on a journey through Lynch’s strange and mysterious world. And in an exclusive partnership with The Surf Film Archive, SWIFF ‘22 will present the World Premiere of That Was Then, This is Now, collaborating with Australian director Jolyon Hoff alongside live music composers Headland, to screen on Saturday 30th April at the CHEC Theatre.

SWIFF’22 is proudly presented by Ashton Designs, with Storyland made possible by the Australian Federal Government’s RISE Fund, and the NSW State Government through the Regional Event Acceleration Fund, Create NSW, and Regional Arts NSW.