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www.postmagazine.com 24 POST MARCH 2018 OSCARS WRAP UP BEST PICTURE The Academy can nominate up to 10 movies now, but as with last year, it stopped short with nine: Call Me by Your Name, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The latter two definitely seemed to be the favorites in a tight contest that seemed to run the gamut from small art house films to horror, sci-fi fantasy, war dramas and a story about the freedom of the press. The Shape of Water, the visually daz- zling, emotionally daring fantasy from Guillermo del Toro, led the charge with 13 nominations and was the de facto frontrunner going into the show. But Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri appeared to gain last-minute momentum — and possibly the edge — after it scooped up the BAFTA Best Picture award (and over the past 25 years, the Best Picture at the BAFTAs went on to win the Oscar 12 out of 25 times, making it a so-so indicator of the race's eventual winner). And while both films split the big guild prizes, the race seemed too close to call. But then Oscar is nothing if not unpredictable — remember last year, when Moonlight upset La La Land? Or when Crash smashed Brokeback Mountain? Or when Shakespeare in Love stunned Saving Private Ryan? Maybe Oscar would again favor a small festival favorite, like Call Me by Your Name or Lady Bird? Or maybe it would reward a feel-good war epic like Dunkirk, always a favorite Academy genre, or the other WWII drama, Darkest Hour, or the timely press drama The Post? And the Oscar went to The Shape of Water, which beat out BAFTA winner Three Billboards and ultimately won four top awards. Taking no chances, though, once he got on stage, Guillermo del Toro quickly — and jokingly, we think — checked Warren Beatty's envelope before accepting the big prize. BEST DIRECTOR In the other big race, there were several sur- prises going in to the final stretch, as some big names (Steven Spielberg, Joe Wright) and some strong contenders (Luca Guadagnino and Martin McDonagh) all got shut out as Best Director nom- inees, even though their films won Best Picture nominations. And out of the five survivors, only Phantom Thread's Paul Thomas Anderson had been previously nominated for Best Director — for There Will Be Blood. All the others — Dunkirk's Christopher Nolan, Get Out's Jordan Peele, Lady Bird's Greta Gerwig and The Shape of Water's Guillermo del Toro were all first-timers in this cat- egory. And like with Best Picture, this seemed to come down to a two-horse race, between del Toro and Nolan. The DGA recently gave its big prize to del Toro (and its First Time Feature Film award to Peele) and he went into the show as odds-on favor- ite to win, especially as he also won the BAFTA for Best Director. Nolan looked strong as well because over recent years, the Academy has often reward- ed visionary directors who can deliver spectacle, serious themes, entertainment and cutting-edge cinema — think Inarritu's The Revenant, Ang Lee's Life of Pi , Damien Chazelle's La La Land, Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire and Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity — and Dunkirk ticks all the boxes. But the Academy director's branch also likes to throw the occasional curveball and recognize virgin breakout talent — think Barry Jenkins' Moonlight and Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild. And in that case, and given the increasing pressure to recognize all the changes affecting the Academy now, maybe long shots like Jordan Peele (who ex- pertly juggled horror, comedy and satire) and Greta Gerwig (who impressed with her intuitive grasp of cinema) could upset all expectations. Or maybe the Academy would reward Paul Thomas Anderson for his beautifully-shot melodrama that apparently marks star Daniel Day-Lewis' final film performance. And the Oscar went to Guillermo Del Toro, who in his heartfelt acceptance speech noted that "I am an immigrant, like many of you, and I think the greatest thing our industry does is to erase the lines in the sand. We should continue doing that when the world tells us to make them deeper." And in a year when there were also calls for more inclusion of Latin talent, it's interesting to note that this marked the fourth win for a Mexican director in five years. CINEMATOGRAPHY There were two big stories here in what was anoth- er exceptional year with a varied range of beauti- fully-shot films. First, Rachel Morrison made history by becoming the first woman to join the 90-year- old boy's club of DPs for her inspired work on Dee Rees' southern drama Mudbound. The other, of course, is veteran Brit DP Roger Deakins, nomi- nated for his stunning work on Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049. It's hard to believe, but it marks his 14th nomination without a win, stretching back to The Shawshank Redemption in 1995. He was nominated twice before for his work on films by Villeneuve (Sicario in 2016 and Prisoners in 2015), and racked up noms for such Coen broth- ers films as Fargo, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Man Who Wasn't There, No Country for Old Men and True Grit. But both DPs were up against very strong competition — four-time nominee Bruno Delbonnel for Joe Wright's Darkest Hour, and Oscar newbies Hoyte van Hoytema for Dunkirk and Dan Laustsen for The Shape of Water. And the Oscar went to Roger Deakins, who finally and justifiably won his elusive golden boy. And in a nice touch, the humble legend thanked his crew and noted that one of his early films, Sid and Nancy, starred a young Gary Oldman, who this year won Best Actor for his inspired role as Churchill in Darkest Hour. Dan Cogan (L) and Bryan Fogel win for Best Documentary Feature with Icarus. Unkrich (L) and Anderson Guillermo del Toro Lee Smith