Penrose "Kermode Awards"- My Alternate Oscar picks Part 2

Continuing on from my awards for the alternate Oscar picks for films in 2019. A quick recap of the rules, you can only win a category if you aren't nominated for an Oscar in that same category. We've done the technical awards, now onto the acting and the big two, directing and best picture.

Best Supporting Actor

First up is our best supporting actor and with Mahershala Ali absent this year, its back to the academies favourites with Al Pacino and Joe Pesci both close to a win for The Irishman. However it looks like its finally time for Hollywood favourite Brad Pitt to receive his dues for his gruff machismo performance in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Yet my best supporting performance goes to an actor who has been passed along by the academy year after year, with 2019 giving by far his biggest challenge with Willem Dafoe in The Lighthouse. Both Dafoe and Pattinson gave a staggering performance as two Lighthouse keepers driven mad by isolation and misery, but it was Dafoe's preaching pirate accent that showed us why he is long overdue for some award recognition.

Best Supporting Actress

Now onto the supporting actress and I would put my money on Laura Dern's powerful performance in Marriage Story for the win, with Margot Robbie and Florence Pugh following up for Bombshell and Little Women. However this years Kermode goes to a foreign actress that has seemingly gone under the radar. This years best supporting actress goes to Zhao Shuzhen for her heart warming performance in The Farewell. This year The Farewell seems to have been ignored by the Oscar board, with Awkwafina and Lulu Wang being snubbed for Actress and Director respectively. But to ignore this tender and heart wrenching portrayal of the sweet Grandma unaware of her own approaching death, is really a massive loss in of itself.

Best Actor

So we now reach the big two in the acting category and surprising no one, it looks to be a battle between Joaquin Phoenix for Joker and Adam Driver for Marriage Story. However, with a year chock full of surprise performances from the likes of Song Kang Ho, who I thought would of been the surprise addition for his uncanny role in Parasite, and Taron Edgerton who not only was nominated for a BAFTA for his lead role as Elton John in Rocketman, but also won a Golden Globe for the same performance. Nevertheless the real actor who deserves recognition this year, is an actor who has made one of the greatest on screen transformations in recent memory. In a strange turn of events, best actor goes, to Adam Sandler for his eerily uncomfortable performance in Uncut Gems. This tremendous Safdie Brothers gem is another brilliant cinematic experience ignored by the academy, and it really is a shame since Sandler in this film is almost unrecognisable from his happy go lucky past of comedies. Its a real example of the right film picking the right actor, and Sandler delivers above and beyond what we expected with a chilling, unnerving performance that would have the Joker himself concerned.
Best Actress

And once again we reach best Actress and another predictable Oscar favourite win with Renee Zellweger for her portrayal of Judy Garland in Judy, with Scarlett Johansen following close behind for Marriage Story. Yet again you notice the pattern of multiple nominee's listed here yet no newnames seem to be around apart from Cynthia Erivo for Harriet (who looks to be the token black actor nominee in a #oscarssowhite world). Missing here are life changing performances by Alfre Woodard for Clemency, BAFTA nominee Jesse Buckley for Wild Rose and even Lupita N'yongo for her frightful duo performance in Jordan Peele's Us. Therefore this year, since there were so many brilliantly female led performances that the Oscars seem to ignore, there are two winners for this years Kermode for Best Actress. Firstly to Noemie Merlant for the liberating and loving performance in Portrait of a Lady on Fire. And the next going to rising Latin American star Mariana Di Girolamo, for her sensuous and discomforting character in Pablo Larrain's Ema. Both of these women took roles that would often be given to male characters and managed to give them an individual flare of androgyny that is amiss from the female characters in Hollywood today, and are both deserving of recognition.

Best Director

So we finally reach the final two and first to director where in a sea of familiar such as Scorsese, Mendes and Tarantino, it is the Korean prodigy Bong Joon Ho who is the big hope for the win following up from Alfonso Cuaron's win for Roma last year. Now while I would consider Bong to be the real winner, there is once again a shameful lack of female representation in this category. Usually this could be defended by saying that the female directed films weren't on the same tier this year, but with fantastic works from Lulu Wang, Greta Gerwig and Joanna Hogg, how can you put Todd Phillips over them?! But onto the Kermode award and this year thanks to the huge turnout of brilliant works of cinema goes once again to two directors. Firstly to Robert Eggers for going beyond the call of duty for his Lovecraftian horror film The Lighthouse, and also to the directorial debut of Mati Diop for her harrowing tale of love and ghosts in Atlantique. Eggers is probably the most underrated director in America right now and with this being his second feature he's already making a name for himself as a new auteur in eldritch horrors. His careful attention to detail with locations and dialogue is something no other director is doing and continues to push the barriers of the horror genre to new places. As for Mati Diop, she has already made history by becoming the first black woman to be nominated and to win at the Cannes Film Festival for directing and you can see way. Portraying the busy capital of Senegal as a supernatural force on the female led protagonist (played by Mama Bineta Sane), as Diop combines a touching love story with the unnerving setting to deliver a stunning debut feature.



Best Picture

A last but not least, the Best Picture Award. This year the Oscars have a mixture of deserving nominees such as Parasite, Little Women, 1917 and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, mixing with some filler crowd pleasing nominations like Ford vs Ferrari, Jojo Rabbit and Joker. Its once again hard to predict a winner with last years winner Green Book throwing a spanner in the works of predictions, however my favourite still remains with Parasite with the academy favourites being 1917 and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Looking at the nominations however we once again have an abundance of films that truly use all its elements of cinema to its advantage, and to me no other film this year does it better than this years Best Picture winner, The Lighthouse. Robert Eggers and his crew went to Nova Scotia in miserable weather and three trained Seagulls and came out with a timeless piece of cinematic genius. It was dramatic, funny, horrific and at times joyful and afterwards left me questioning my own sanity. It is a true marvel of genre bending that will entrance and shock its viewers, and it firmly deserves it place with the Kermode for Best Picture.