The Interested Bystander’s Final Oscar Predictions for 2024-2025

The Substance (c) MUBI

The time has come to finally predict the winners of the 97th Academy Award winners. After what can only be described as chaotic, with the fires in the LA area as well as political upheavals, the frontrunners of many of the categories have shifted throughout the award season. The film with the most nominations (Emilia Pérez) may only get three wins while a film with just six nominations (Anora) may be get four. 

Last weekend’s SAG Awards did not help with clarity of who might win the Oscar. Did Demi Moore win for Best Actress because of her similar narrative to her character in The Substance and can the Academy overlook the body-horror aspect of the film to give her the win. Or can Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres repeat her win Golden Globe win for I'm Still Here just as Carnivale starts in Brazil? Adrian Brody has dominated the Best Actor category in the precursors for The Brutalist, but when Timothée Chalamet won the SAG Award for A Complete Unknown, it seemed like a path was made for him to win (he is the only actor to lead TWO Best Picture nominees). 

Below are my percentage picks for each category as well as my vote if I was an Academy voter. If you have an Oscar Pool with friends or at work, look at the odds and make up your own mind as to who you think will win. 

Thanks to everyone who followed the Oscars with me. This year is going to be bonkers. There is going to be one big surprise, but can one predict surprises? I decided to do one crazy prediction. 

Enjoy! 

Theater Reviews: Idina Menzel Defies Gravity Again for Her Best Broadway Performance in “Redwood”; Personal “Grangeville” Gives Playwright Samuel D. Hunter an Opportunity to Exorcise Demons; Politicians Learn Who They Work for in Relevant “Garside’s Career”

Redwood (c) Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

Broadway: Redwood 
At the Nederlander Theatre 

Jesse, the main character of the new musical Redwood by veteran Tina Landau and newcomer Kate Diaz, seems to be tailor-made for Idina Menzel in her first Broadway show since the Sliding Doors-like musical, If/Then. First of all, she’s back at the Nederlander Theatre, where she originated performance artist Maureen in Rent, always fighting with lesbian lover, Joanne. In Redwood, Jesse is married to a photographer, Mel (De’Adre Aziza), and at the start of the show, she is running away from their marriage for reasons we don’t find out until later. Menzel played Elsa, the Queen of Arrindell in the film Frozen, who reconnects with nature, which gave her ice powers. Jesse finds herself in the redwood forest of Eureka, California, where, after somehow convincing two tree botanists, Finn (Michael Park) and Becca (Khaila Wilcoxon), into letting her ascend the tree they’re studying, finds some semblance of peace. And like her Tony-winning role as Elphaba in Wicked, Jesse enjoys repelling from the tree in one of the best moments of Redwood, jumping all over the stage in her ropes and harness. And while I have liked Menzel in many of her roles, her performance here feels like her most complete as Jesse bares her soul, exuding pain and joy with powerful vocals and impressive athletics (I guess the height never bothered her anyway). 

Dorian Film Awards Shower "The Substance" with the Most Wins for 2024 - 2025

The Substance (c) MUBI

Thursday Feb 13, 2025 - Los Angeles - GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, counting more than 500 entertainment critics, journalists and media icons, has announced the winners of its Dorian Film Awards. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat’s shocking Hollywood satire The Substance was crowned Film of the Year, with the Mubi release taking five Dorians in all, including star Demi Moore for Film Performance of the Year and Fargeat for Film Director of the Year. 

Writer-director Jane Schoenbrun’s thought-provoking horror tale I Saw the TV Glow, which had lead the Dorian hunt with 9 nominations, took LGBTQ Film of the Year as well as LGBTQ screenplay honors. Will & Harper, the irresistible road-trip documentary charting actor Will Ferrell’s enduring friendship with trans comedy writer Harper Steele, won both Documentary of the Year and LGBTQ Documentary. And GALECA members showed 40-love for Challengers, director Luca Guadagnino’s homoerotic spin on Jules and Jim. The film’s writer Justin Kuritzkes earned Screenplay of the Year, while rock legends Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for their tension-building techno score. 

Wicked fans will be pleased that Dorian voters held plenty of space for the musical fantasy’s stars. The group gave Ariana Grande a pinky hug for Supporting Film Performance of the Year, Jonathan Bailey was named Rising Star, and Cynthia Erivo—who plays misunderstood, green-skinned heroine Elphaba Thropp in the hit—won LGBTQIA+ Film Trailblazer. Past recipients of the latter honor—which is meant for an artist who “inspires empathy, truth and equity”—include Janelle Monáe, Pedro Almodóvar, Isabel Sandoval and Colman Domingo. 

“In our 16th year, GALECA’s members still have wicked fun toasting their favorites in film both mainstream and LGBTQ-themed,” said group president Walt Hickey. Added vice president Diane Anderson-Minshall, “I’m certain even some ultra-conservatives who are out to erase all sorts of ‘woke’ words and letters—not to mention history—are secretly taking note of our winners. Everyone appreciates the expert Q+ eye on entertainment.” 

Film Reviews: The Bears Are Overshadowed by Singing Nuns in the Enjoyable “Paddington in Peru,” While People Are Looking for Their Place in the World in This Year’s Oscar-Nominated Live Action Shorts

Paddington in Peru (c) Sony Pictures

Film Review: Paddington in Peru 
In Cinemas 

The successful series of Paddington films, based on the Michael Bond books, have always been wholesome fun surrounding the British bear with the marmalade addiction, with just a bit of gleeful, campy villainy to keep it interesting. In the first film in 2015, it was Nicole Kidman as a maniacal taxidermist; in the 2018 sequel, it was Hugh Grant as a thieving hammy actor. Now we have Antonio Banderas as a tour boat captain in the Amazon searching for buried treasure, in which he believes Paddington holds the key. But, no shade to Banderas, he is not the one who steals Paddington in Peru because there are singing and dancing nuns in this year’s edition, and they are led by the always smiling Olivia Coleman. And as much I love Coleman, she rarely plays just a happy, optimistic character (her film résumé includes The Favourite and The Lost Daughter), but here as the joyful Mother Superior (occasionally with a guitar), she outshines. 

Theater Reviews: Three Shows (“Urinetown,” “Still,” “English”) Get a Second Life and They All Succeed in Different Ways

Urinetown (c) Joan Marcus

Theater: Urinetown 
Presented by Encores! at New York City Center 

There was always a problem with the title. Cheers to the publicity team of the original 2001 Broadway production of Urinetown who made the musical by songwriter Mark Hollmann and book writer Greg Kotis with the unpleasant title into a Tony-winning hit (although it lost Best Musical to Thoroughly Modern Millie) that ran for three years. Almost twenty-five years later, the title has been normalized to almost being quaint (“Remember the fuss over Urinetown?”), but the question at its new presentation by Encores! is if the show has retained its irreverence and humor, especially with its prescient plot of corrupt government and the dangers of global warming. Playing like a Charles Dickens novel adapted by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, the show takes place in the near future in a town in which a shady corporation charges its citizens to pay to use its public restrooms in response to a worldwide drought, and if they try to circumvent this (like peeing outside), they will be shipped to a mythical hellhole known as Urinetown. The corporation is run by Caldwell B. Cladwell (Rainn Wilson), who is made rich by bribing politicians. In a poorer section of town, Bobby Strong (Jordan Fisher), a young rabble rouser who sees the suffering of his family and friends and decides to rebel against this unfair law. Their power struggle is related to us by narrators Officer Lockstock (Greg Hildreth) and a young street waif, Little Sally (Pearl Scarlett Gold), who will also factor into the plot.