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Since expanding the field to up to 10 movies for the 82nd Academy Awards in 2009, the Academy Award for Best Picture has become significantly harder to predict. Unlike the other 23 awards, the Academy also began using ranked choice voting to determine the Best Picture winner in 2009, with voters able to list up to five of the nominees in order of preference. That’s led to some surprising wins in recent years, from “Spotlight” besting “The Revenant” to the chaos that ensued when “Moonlight” upset runaway favorite “La La Land.”
This year, it feels like a two-movie race between “1917” and “Parasite,” with both movies winning a number of the earlier awards that typically bode well for Best Picture nominees. But because awards balloting is secret, we can only make educated guesses on the movies that consistently finished second or third during awards season, which could indicate a dark horse candidate on a ranked choice ballot.
To help you make sense of this year’s Academy Awards — as well as give you some of my own personal picks as Boston.com’s chief movie scribe — here are my thoughts on the biggest categories at the 2020 Oscars, including who I think will win, who I wish would win, and who was snubbed of a deserving nomination.
The nominees: Antonio Banderas (“Pain and Glory”), Leonardo DiCaprio (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”), Adam Driver (“Marriage Story”), Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”), Jonathan Pryce (“The Two Popes”)
In my personal ranking of the Best Picture nominees, “Joker” is on the lower half of the list. It’s repetitive, reductive, and offers trite social commentary you might hear from a nihilistic freshman philosophy major or your least favorite friend on Facebook. None of that is the fault of Phoenix, however, who pours every ounce of himself into tormented clown Arthur Fleck. If “Joker” wins just one of the 11 awards for which it’s nominated, it should be for Phoenix’s performance. And based on his sweep of the four awards traditionally most relevant to the Oscar acting categories (Screen Actors Guild, Critics’ Choice, Golden Globes, British Academy Film Awards), it’s Phoenix’s race to lose. Consider this a makeup award for an actor who remains Oscar-less despite deserving performances in movies like “Her,” “The Master,” “You Were Never Really Here,” “Inherent Vice,” and “Walk the Line.”
In a strong group of nominees, I still wish the Academy had found a way to nominate Adam Sandler for his outsized performance as Manhattan jeweler Howard Ratner in “Uncut Gems.” Even as you cringe with each ruinous life decision Ratner makes, you can’t look away from Sandler, who hits a career high in the Safdie Brothers film.
Will Win: Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”)
Should Win: Phoenix
Was Snubbed: Adam Sandler (“Uncut Gems”)
The nominees: Cynthia Erivo (“Harriet”), Scarlett Johansson (“Marriage Story”), Saoirse Ronan (“Little Women”), Charlize Theron (“Bombshell”), Renée Zellweger (“Judy”)
In another stacked category with no weak links to speak of, Renée Zellweger’s take on Judy Garland at the end of her career in “Judy” is this year’s rightful frontrunner. Zellweger, who like Phoenix won every major award so far this winter, is utterly captivating from the moment she first appears on screen. She doesn’t shy away from the ugly truth of Garland’s final months, showing how the impulsive, needy, and unreliable screen star was left penniless and utterly broken by the Hollywood studio system that chewed her up and spit her out as a teenager.
Missing from the crop of nominees is Awkwafina, who was a revelation in “The Farewell.” As an aspiring young Chinese-American writer living in New York who must travel to China when her grandmother is diagnosed with cancer — and then must accept her family’s decision not to inform her grandmother of said diagnosis — the actress is alternately defiant, heartbroken, and ultimately accepting as she copes with her grief.
Will Win: Renée Zellweger (“Judy”)
Should Win: Zellweger
Was Snubbed: Awkwafina (“The Farewell”)
The nominees: Tom Hanks (“A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”), Anthony Hopkins (“The Two Popes”), Al Pacino (“The Irishman”), Joe Pesci (“The Irishman”), Brad Pitt (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)
Brad Pitt is less of a supporting actor in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and more like a co-lead with Leonardo DiCaprio. That said, this is Pitt’s award to lose: he swept the aforementioned prerequisite awards, he’s never won an acting Oscar, and America will likely never tire of seeing him playing slight variations on his bemused and effortlessly cool persona. If I had my way, I would love to see Joe Pesci take this award for his uncharacteristically reserved performance in “The Irishman.” Instead of leaning into the blisteringly angry energy he cultivated in films like “Goodfellas,” “Casino,” and even the “Home Alone” movies, he leaves the scene-chewing to his fellow nominee Al Pacino. As Pesci shuffles back into unofficial retirement, it would be nice to send him on his way with some hardware.
Speaking of scene-chewing, it would have been nice to see the Academy show some love to Daniel Craig hamming it up as detective Benoit Blanc in “Knives Out.” The British actor clearly relished every syllable of country-fried dialogue he was given in Rian Johnson’s film, adding yet another element of fun to this endlessly enjoyable whodunnit shot in Massachusetts.
Will Win: Brad Pitt (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”)
Should Win: Joe Pesci (“The Irishman”)
Was Snubbed: Daniel Craig (“Knives Out”)
The nominees: Kathy Bates (“Richard Jewell”), Laura Dern (“Marriage Story”), Scarlett Johansson (“Jojo Rabbit”), Florence Pugh (“Little Women”), Margot Robbie (“Bombshell”)
If the Supporting Actress Oscar covered a years’ worth of performances, Dern would be my pick based on the combined strength of her turns in “Marriage Story” and “Little Women.” And she’ll almost certainly win, as she swept the SAGs, Globes, BAFTAs, and CCAs just like the other three frontrunners. That said, my single favorite supporting actress performance this year came from Florence Pugh, for her covetous, cantankerous Amy March in “Little Women.” Saoirse Ronan’s Jo is rightfully the focus of the film, but Pugh ultimately steals the show.
Easily the most stunning snub when the nominations were announced last month was the lack of a nomination for Jennifer Lopez in “Hustlers.” The singer/actress completely outshines nominal lead actress Constance Wu in the strippers-gone-bad film, and earned nominations from the Globes, CCA, and SAG. What gives, Academy?
Will Win: Laura Dern (“Marriage Story”)
Should Win: Florence Pugh (“Little Women”)
Was Snubbed: Jennifer Lopez (“Hustlers”)
The nominees: Martin Scorsese (“The Irishman”), Todd Phillips (“Joker”), Sam Mendes (“1917”), Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”), Bong Joon-ho (“Parasite”)
Part of me hopes that the Academy gives this to Scorsese, an all-time great director who faced a torrent of criticism for his assertion that superhero movies aren’t cinema and only has one Best Director Oscar to his name, for “The Departed.” The likely winner here is Mendes, who has taken home wins from the Directors Guild, Globes, and BAFTAs. For the Critics’ Choice directing award, Mendes tied with “Parasite” director Bong Joon-ho, who would get my (non-existent) Oscar vote. The South Korean filmmaker is a master of twisted class parables, and the number of shots that stick with you well after the credits roll in “Parasite” can’t be counted on two hands.
Or maybe I wouldn’t cast my hypothetical ballot at all, to protest the fact that Greta Gerwig’s incredible work on “Little Women” went unrecognized by the Academy. Gerwig somehow managed to make significant changes to Louisa May Alcott’s novel while still preserving the spirit of the book in every way. In a less-capable director’s hands, the narrative jumping back and forth in time could have been muddled and confusing. Gerwig not only made it work, but enhanced and refreshed a story that has been told many times before.
Will Win: Sam Mendes (“1917”)
Should Win: Bong Joon-ho (“Parasite”)
Was Snubbed: Greta Gerwig (“Little Women”)
The Nominees: “Knives Out” (Rian Johnson), “Marriage Story” (Noah Baumbach), “1917” (Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns), “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (Quentin Tarantino), “Parasite” (Bong Joon-ho, Han Jin Won)
The four major awards for original screenplay were split between “Parasite” (Writers Guild Awards, BAFTA) and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (Critics’ Choice, Golden Globes). When in doubt, it’s best to follow the lead of the Writers Guild in matters of screenwriting, so I suspect “Parasite” will pull this off. That said, I’m a sucker for a good mystery, and Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” had me hooked from the first minute. What began as a simple line graph scrawled in Johnson’s Moleskine became a twisting narrative chock-full of punchlines and one-liners that had me leaving the theater positively giddy.
As for a movie that I wish had made the field, New Hampshire natives Robert and Max Eggers’ script for “The Lighthouse” reads like Herman Melville’s long-lost attempt at playwriting, with Willem Dafoe embodying the mad seafarer Captain Ahab in every line. (A24 was kind enough to post the script online, and it’s worth a read if you have the time.)
Will Win: “Parasite” (Bong Joon-ho, Han Jin Won)
Should Win: “Knives Out” (Rian Johnson)
Was Snubbed: “The Lighthouse” (Robbert Eggers, Max Eggers)
The nominees: “The Irishman” (Steven Zaillian), “Jojo Rabbit” (Taika Waititi), “Joker” (Todd Phillips, Scott Silver), “Little Women” (Greta Gerwig), “The Two Popes” (Anthony McCarten)
In case you couldn’t tell from the preceding paragraphs, I adored “Little Women,” which has a fighting chance in this category thanks to winning two significant screenwriting awards (Critics’ Choice, USC Scripter Awards) this season. The other two have gone to “Jojo Rabbit” (WGA, BAFTA), the Hitler youth dramedy from New Zealand writer-director Taika Waititi, who also plays the film’s imaginary Führer. The WGA is usually the strongest indicator of Oscar success, so I suspect the Academy will favor “Jojo” over “Little Women,” unfortunately.
I’m not sure any screenplay was truly “robbed” by being omitted from this category, but a sixth I wouldn’t have minded seeing was “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster took what could have been a safe, by-the-numbers biopic of a beloved figure and tried something new, adding fourth-wall breaks and trippy dream sequences throughout. It doesn’t always work, but it is an admirable effort to shake up a staid genre.
Will Win: “Jojo Rabbit” (Taika Waititi)
Should Win: “Little Women” (Greta Gerwig)
Was Snubbed: “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” (Micah Fitzerman-Blue, Noah Harpster)
The nominees: “Ford v Ferrari,” “The Irishman,” “Jojo Rabbit,” “Joker,” “Little Women,” “Marriage Story,” “1917,” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” “Parasite”
Before dissecting this category, I’m going to stump once more for “The Farewell” as the movie most deserving of a Best Picture nod that didn’t receive one. The understated but powerful studio debut from Lulu Wang gave American viewers a window into a culture not well-represented in American film, but told a story that is universally resonant.
As noted above, Best Picture is widely seen as a two-film race between “1917” and “Parasite.” Sam Mendes’ World War I drama is the presumptive frontrunner after wins from the Producers Guild Awards, Golden Globes, and BAFTAs. But “Parasite” has also won its fair share, winning top prizes from the Screen Actors Guild and top foreign film awards from the Globes and BAFTAs.
Beyond their respective wins, both “1917” and “Parasite” have data points that support and detract from their chances. “Parasite” has won the top awards from the vast majority of critic groups, but of the 12 foreign language movies that have been nominated for Best Picture in the past, zero have taken home the trophy. “1917” has won nearly every award expected of Best Picture frontrunners, but it would also be the first Best Picture winner in 88 years to not receive any acting or editing nominations, joining 1932’s “Grand Hotel.”
Oddly, “Parasite” actually fits the profile of a ranked choice Best Picture winner better than “1917” in terms of box office. Since 2009, only “Argo” and “The King’s Speech” grossed more than $100 million in domestic box office (DBO) among Best Picture winners. Every other winner in that timeframe except for “Green Book” ranks among the 15 lowest-grossing Best Picture winners of all time, adjusted for inflation. That would seem to favor “Parasite” ($33.2 million DBO) over “1917” ($121.5 million).
“Parasite” was my favorite movie of 2019, so I will be over the moon if it wins the top award. But “1917” has so much going for it, I find it hard to bet against. I’ve changed my pick four times now, and would probably keep flip-flopping until the night of the ceremony if my editor let me hold off on publishing this article until 7:59 p.m. on Sunday. I’m a cynic at heart (aren’t most critics?), but I’m going to try to use positive thinking to manifest my desired reality: “Parasite” makes history with an upset win.
Will Win: “Parasite”
Should Win: “Parasite”
Was Snubbed: “The Farewell”
For decades, tabloids wrote Jessica Simpson’s story for her. But little did we know, she had been chronicling her own history in her diaries. In a new memoir, Open Book, Simpson unearths her emotions from the past 15 years. Starting with the devastating day she realized she had a problem and working backward, Open Book looks at Simpson’s life from her childhood to her burgeoning career to being a household name. It’s not all about the glamour. Simpson writes about her most vulnerable moments, the times she felt the most “nekkid” — not just naked. She lays out her relationships, her body image, and her trauma for everyone to read, since the tabloids always seemed so curious. Here are some of the heart-wrenching details from Open Book, out now, that will let you get to know Jessica Simpson a little bit better.
Starting when she was 6 years old, a young family friend sexually abused her.
Whenever Simpson and her family visited a family they were close with in another town, the daughter sexually abused Simpson in their shared bed, Simpson claims. “It would start with tickling my back, then going into things that were extremely uncomfortable,” she remembers. “Freezing became my defense mechanism, and to this day, when I panic, I freeze.” Eventually, Simpson says it progressed to a point where the girl would lead Simpson into a closet or “linger” until they were alone. As her little sister, Ashlee, grew up, Simpson felt it was her responsibility to protect Ashlee from the abuse. After shouldering the secret for six years, she finally found the courage to tell her parents. “I feel like you guys might know that this has been going on, but if you don’t know what’s been going on, she’s been touching me for years and it makes me really uncomfortable and I don’t ever want to go back there,” Simpson recalls saying on the way home from the girl’s house. They never visited that friend again, but they also never discussed the sexual abuse.
Her marriage to Nick Lachey was fraught from beginning to end.
While it’s true that Simpson’s father wasn’t happy with her engagement to 98 Degrees singer Nick Lachey, she reveals that she was the one against a prenup — not her father, as the tabloids may have suggested. “No, this was an intimate discussion between a man and his soon-to-be wife,” she says. “Which is to say that I exploded.” By the end of the relationship, they didn’t even need a prenup (although it might’ve been helpful). After long stretches of not speaking, Simpson asked for a divorce and Lachey hesitated, trying to get her to stay with him. They slept together one last time before the divorce was finalized, while Lachey was promoting his “divorce album.” Then Simpson had to end it. Since they had no prenup and she was tired of going back and forth, when Lachey asked for “a certain number” as part of the divorce agreement, Simpson relented, figuring she’d make it back. “And then I did,” she cheekily writes, referencing her Jessica Simpson Collection. “Give or take a billion.”
During this time, she had an emotional affair with Johnny Knoxville.
Who knew the set of the Dukes of Hazzard remake was so romantic? Filming the movie was a refuge from Simpson’s marriage in more ways than one. During this time, she began an emotional affair with Johnny Knoxville, or, as she called him in her diary, “the boy from Tennessee.” “I could share the deepest authentic thoughts with him, and he didn’t roll his eyes at me,” she writes. “He actually liked that I was smart and embraced my vulnerabilities.“ With her marriage to Lachey crumbling and the knowledge that she and Knoxville were never going to run away together, Simpson let her relationship with him fizzle out. (Oh, but that “Let Him Fly” cover on her album A Public Affair? It’s not about Nick Lachey. It’s about Johnny Knoxville.)
She took diet pills for 20 years after Tommy Mottola, former CEO of Sony Music, told her to “lose 15 pounds” when she was 17.
“Okay, you gotta lose 15 pounds,” Simpson remembers Tommy Mottola telling her right after she signed to Columbia Records, which is part of Sony. She “immediately” went on an “extremely” strict diet and started taking diet pills, which she would do for the “next 20 years.” Throughout her book, Simpson details anxieties about her body, her weight, her size, and the ways she tried to change herself. For readers and for her daughters, she writes, “You are perfect as you are. But at the time, this is what we thought we had to do. I say ‘we’ because I was about to become the family business, and there was a lot of pressure to be what the label needed me to be.”
The chili cook-off mom-jeans fiasco did not help.
Supermarket-tabloid connoisseurs will remember Simpson’s “mom jeans,” a pair of high-waisted bell-bottoms that were just a few years away from becoming the norm again. She wore them to Radio 99.9 Kiss Country’s annual Chili Cook-off in 2009, at a time when she was feeling confident. “I swear, I thought I looked beautiful,” she opens the chapter titled “Death By Mom Jeans.” “I had always been in on the joke, and that gave me power,” she writes. “Now that it was everybody else making it, I didn’t think it was funny. I was insulted for myself and all women.” But as more and more headlines and interview requests rolled in, her confidence dwindled and “a dysmorphia set in.”
Her relationship with John Mayer escalated her dependency on alcohol.
John Mayer’s history of treating and speaking about women disrespectfully is well recorded, but the effect it had on his exes has really been talked about only in Taylor Swift songs. In Open Book, Simpson details her tumultuous on-again-off-again relationship with Mayer. She would agonize over text messages to make sure everything was grammatically sound and wouldn’t upset him, spent “hours decoding a basic fact” to respond properly, and drank to fight the anxiety. “It was the start of me relying on alcohol to mask my nerves,” she admits. She adds that Mayer was “obsessed” with her, and his insistence even while they were separate led to Tony Romo’s breakup with her. Eventually, she realized Mayer had been using her for inspiration. “All this time, all those years, he was breaking up with me to torture himself enough to get good material,” she claims, while also taking responsibility for her part in the back-and-forth. But she kept seeing him until Playboy happened: Mayer’s infamous Playboy interview is full of chaos, such as his saying he isn’t attracted to black women. He also talked about sleeping with “girls” in the plural and called Simpson “sexual napalm.” “When he reached out to me, I changed my number and changed my email,” she writes. “Delete.”
She admits to being drunk while appearing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2017.
While hanging out on Ellen, Simpson joked and slurred her words, quickly becoming the talk-show host’s punch line. “I admit I drank beforehand and was also on steroids for a chest infection that made me hoarse,” she confesses in the book. “I was nervous, but I’d always been able to turn it on for talk shows. Instead, I couldn’t find Ellen’s rhythm, mumbling, and second-guessing everything I was saying.” The show was just one obstacle on Simpson’s slippery slope.
She “needed a drink every morning” to combat “the shakes.”
Early into the autobiography, Simpson admits to drinking vodka early in the morning to combat shaking and anxiety. She would mix vodka with flavored Perrier sparkling water in a glittery tumbler and bring it with her. When she decided to become sober, she says her last drink was from her faithful “glittercup.”
After confronting her father, she had a breakdown that forced her to get sober.
Halloween is typically a fun event at Simpson’s home with her husband, Eric Johnson, but in 2017, she started the day with that glittercup. Already anxious from an event at her daughter’s school, Simpson came home and opened up to her father, who had been her longtime manager. By this point, she had painfully fired him and was nervous to play him any of her new music, which had been inspired by him. “All the feelings I had been suppressing washed over me in a rush, and I was drowning in them. My world was rotating around me so fast that I didn’t have any clue as to how to control it,” she writes of her panic. Her close friends, employees, and husband were all at the house for an annual Halloween party and were there for her when she admitted she was “not okay.” She spent the night drinking in her room, listening to her kids trick-or-treat. The next morning, she decided to stop drinking alcohol for good.
Her friends were prepared to stage an intervention.
Simpson’s friends Koko, CaCee, Stephanie, and Lauren (all of whom have either worked with or currently work with the star) had been planning for Simpson to “hit rock bottom” for six months before she finally decided to go sober. “Lauren already had a doctor lined up, one who specialized in getting celebrities in-home treatment for addiction,” Simpson explains in the book. Initially, she had “the nerve to be offended,” but soon she was ready to do the work to change for the better. “To walk forward through my anxiety,” she writes, “I first had to look back to understand what pain I was running from, and what I was trying to hide.”
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Harvey Weinstein’s defense lawyer has never been the victim of a sexual assault — because she “would never put herself in that position,” she said in a new interview.
The question about Donna Rotunno’s personal history was posed to her Thursday on the podcast “The Daily.”
“I have not because I would never put myself in that position,” Rotunno told New York Times reporter Megan Twohey. The reporter — along with her colleague Jodi Kantor — broke the bombshell story exposing the allegations of sexual misconduct against Weinstein.
“So you’re saying that you have never been sexually assaulted because you would never put yourself in the position of being sexually assaulted?” Twohey asked.
“I’ve always made choices from college-age on where I never drank too much, I never went home with someone I didn’t know, I just never put myself in any vulnerable circumstance ever,” she said.
Twohey followed up by asking if Rotunno believed that every woman who has been sexually assaulted had put themselves in that position. Rotunno quickly backpedaled. “Absolutely not,” she said. “All I’m saying is that women should take precautions.”
The interview comes one day after the defense presented their first witness, Paul Feldsher, a close pal of Weinstein, who bombed on the stand, calling the disgraced producer a “sex addict” with a “voracious appetite” for women. The defense case continues Thursday.
Weinstein is charged with two counts of rape, two counts of predatory sexual assault and one count of criminal sexual act stemming from the allegations of three women. If convicted he faces up to life in prison.
“CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King was strikingly absent from her show on Friday after she criticized her network.
“CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King was noticeably absent from her show on Friday after trashing CBS News for distributing an "out-of-context" clip that enraged fans of late NBA legend Kobe Bryant — but the network insists it was a scheduled day off and unrelated to her public criticism of CBS News.
The morning show opened without a mention of King, as CBS News correspondent Jericka Duncan sat in her seat amid a report that staffers are angry over the backlash King has received as viewers took to Twitter to question why she was off.
“Gayle was off the show today because she had a long-standing commitment out of town,” a CBS News rep told Fox News.
King’s eyebrow-raising absence came roughly 24 hours after she declared she would have “a very intense discussion” with network executives over handling of an interview about the legacy of Bryant that landed her in hot water with critics.
GAYLE KING ‘VERY ANGRY’ AT CBS NEWS OVER ‘OUT-OF-CONTEXT’ KOBE BRYANT CLIP
King recently interviewed WNBA icon Lisa Leslie about her relationship with Bryant and a clip of a particular question about a 2003 rape accusation went viral, with everyone from imprisoned comedian Bill Cosby to rapper Snoop Dogg criticizing the CBS anchor.
VANESSA BRYANT BREAKS SOCIAL MEDIA SILENCE WITH PHOTO OF KOBE, DAUGHTER GIANNA
She was widely accused of smearing Bryant and responded Thursday with an Instagram video in which she blamed her employer for distributing an "out-of-context" clip of the interview that resulted in the widespread backlash.
“I know that if I had only seen the clip that you saw, I’d be extremely angry with me too,” King said. “I am mortified. I am embarrassed and I am very angry.”
The CBS News anchor said she was advised to ignore the criticism but didn’t follow that advice.
CBS' 'THE TALK' WEIGHS IN ON GAYLE KING'S BEEF WITH NETWORK OVER KOBE BRYANT COVERAGE
“Unbeknownst to me, my network put up a clip from a very wide-ranging interview, totally taken out of context, and when you see it that way, it’s very jarring. It’s jarring to me. I didn’t even know anything about it. I started getting calls... I didn’t know what people were talking about,” King said.
“For the network to take the most salacious part, when taken out of context and put it up online for people who didn’t see the whole interview is very upsetting to me and that’s something I’m going to have to deal with, with them,” King said. ‘There will be a very intense discussion about that.”
King’s decision to blame the incident on CBS has not stopped critics from attacking her on social media, where she continued to be vilified for viral clip on Friday morning.
CBS said that changes to its internal process have already been made as a result of the backlash King received.
“Gayle conducted a thoughtful, wide-ranging interview with Lisa Leslie about the legacy of Kobe Bryant. An excerpt was posted that did not reflect the nature and tone of the full interview. We are addressing the internal process that led to this and changes have already been made,” CBS told Fox News.
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Meanwhile, TMZ reported on Friday that CBS “staffers feel the network owes it to its talent to keep them out of messes like this” and the network “failed by not protecting its undisputed star of the morning show.”
Citing “sources connected to the show,” TMZ noted that “some of Gayle's coworkers are incensed over the backlash she's getting.”
CBS News did not respond to a request for comment about the TMZ report.
Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others died in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26. He was 41.
