Well, hello there, Everyone! It’s been a while. Actually, it’s been over a year since anything of substance was posted to the site, and I’ve missed you all–and our explorations of Best Picture-winning films. Just as all of you have undoubtedly experienced in the last year or so, it’s been a royal mess in just about every area of life and society. For me personally, it’s been a rather stressful year with teaching being more complicated and challenging than it’s ever been before–still rewarding, but so demanding on my time that poor FlicksChick got put on the back burner for a sad, long while. So in honor of tonight’s Academy Awards (which, like all the other awards shows of the past year, are sure to be rather bizarre), I’m posting some thoughts and predictions about a few of the main categories–with the hope that, once school wraps up shortly, I’ll be able to devote more time to continuing FlickChick’s quest to examine each Best Picture winner.

The big thing in tonight’s show is going to be social issues. The Academy has been losing its relevance and ability to connect with younger audiences over the past few years, and it desperately wants to portray itself as diverse and forward-thinking. Last year, we got Parasite as BP, a film with an entirely Asian cast and a non-English script (and an awfully good winner, in my opinion). This year, we won’t get an international film as BP, but we probably will see folks from many groups that have historically not been ultra-successful in major Oscar categories (namely, African Americans and women) take home awards in those categories.

For instance, in the acting categories, it is quite possible that all four awards will go to people from racial minorities. Daniel Kaluuya should win Best Supporting Actor, and Yuh-Jung Youn is a very possible winner for Best Supporting Actress. Best Actress is one of the closest races of the night in that it really wouldn’t be a surprise if any of the nominees (except perhaps for Vanessa Kirby from Pieces of a Woman) took home the award. I’m going with Viola Davis as my pick, but I think Carey Mulligan could quite possibly take home the Oscar here. The award for Best Actor is sure to be one of the more moving moments of tonight’s show as the Academy will undoubtedly posthumously present Chadwick Boseman with the award. Boseman died of cancer this past August, but his role as the titular character in Black Panther (2018) made him a hero of African-American culture–and of those who love to see good triumph over evil–and his win tonight will be a nod of respect to the socio-cultural legacy he leaves behind him, as much as it will be for his strong performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

As far as the awards for writing and directing go, like last year these awards will likely prove good predictors of which film we’ll be adding to our BP list. I think Promising Young Woman will certainly win Original Screenplay, and Nomadland is likely to win Adapted Screenplay (though it could lose to The Father), setting up a show-down between those two for Best Picture. Promising Young Woman has been called this year’s Parasite by some, but I think Chloe Zhao will win for Directing for Nomadland–which will also elevate Nomadland to the show’s top award of BP. If Zhao wins for her directing, she will only be the second woman to prove victorious in this category (the only other being Kathryn Bigelow, whose war flick The Hurt Locker also won Best Picture in 2008). Then again, if last year’s results showed us anything, it’s that a film can pick up a lot of momentum right before the Oscars and snatch BP right from under the “favorite’s” nose, which is rather exciting. So, I’m not totally counting out Promising Young Woman.

Thanks for reading, Everyone, and enjoy tonight’s show!