5th Annual Oscar-a-looza: Who's the Best Supporting Actress?

Betty Gabriel in Get Out

As has become an annual Oscar tradition Too Fat 4 Skinny Jeans movie blogger Brian Wezowicz and I will be weighing in with our hot takes on this year's major category nominations. Here is the first installment of this year's nerdfest. Stay tuned for more in the days ahead...

Brian: Welcome back! It's always great to trade Oscar picks with you, but this year marks a mini-milestone. It's our 5th year of doing Oscar Predictions together. So let's pop a bottle of champagne and jump right in, shall we? Our Top 10 lists are out... the nominations are here... it's time to predict the future once again with my favorite film blogger.

2017 was an exceptional year for film. There was quality all around, in both the art house and blockbuster genres. From game changing thrillers (Get Out), to superheroes (Logan, Thor: Ragnarok, Wonder Woman), to your typical Oscar bait (The Post, Phantom Thread, etc.), 2017 was a great year for film. It was also a year of earth shattering revelations about rampant sexual abuse throughout the industry.

Industry titans fell (Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey), and I feel like we're only scratching the surface with the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements. We're seeing it in these nominations. James Franco, once a lock for an acting nomination, was shut out. Christopher Plummer was nominated for, seemingly, not being Kevin Spacey. We also don't seem to have a clear frontrunner for Best Picture/Director like we've had in years past. I am very much looking forward to the big show this year.

For those unfamiliar with how these picks work, Adam and I will go through each category and pick who will win and who we think should win. I'm switching up our normal third category (dark horse) with the biggest snub and/or surprise. I feel like with the deluge of pre-Oscar awards, most of the nominations come down to one or two choices. There hasn't really been a true dark horse in awhile, so let's concentrate on who we felt should have been nominated, or something who was nominated that may not have been as deserving as someone else.

Allison Janney in I, Tonya

First up... Best Supporting Actress. Here's the nominees:

Supporting Actress:
Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread
Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

Will Win: Allison Janney - I've been a huge fan of Janney since her West Wing days (my favorite show of all-time.). And she is, by all accounts, an absolute delight in this film. She's taken some early awards and I think she wins this one.

Should Win: This is a tough one, because like it could be a coin flip between Janney and Laurie Metcalf for her wonderful performance in Lady Bird. I'll be happy if either of these nominations win.

Snub/Surprise: I know you've mentioned Mary J. Blige in previous emails, so I'll let you tough on that. For me, the biggest snub was Holly Hunter in The Big Sick. She gave, in my opinion, the best performance in that delightful dramedy. I'm a bit surprised she got left out. What do you think?

Adam: I couldn't agree more with your summation of a very tumultuous and interesting year at the movies. Hollywood is ever-so-slowly starting to get it in terms of the problems in its culture, and yet still have a very long way to go. Still, by-and-large this past year was refreshingly good.

The blockbusters were a little smarter (with some notable exceptions ... hopefully we've seen the last of the Pirates and Transformers franchises) and the awards caliber movies were a more eclectic bunch than usual. Among the Best Pictures nominees, only Darkest Hour and The Post feel like your parents' prestige pictures, but I digress.

This year's Best Supporting Actress contenders was pretty much what a lot of people were predicting, with the pleasant surprise of Lesley Manville sneaking in for a terrific performance in Phantom Thread over Holly Hunter in The Big Sick. I loved Hunter's performance but she's been honored many times before and won the Best Actress prize for The Piano, so I am cool with the new blood.

Laurie Metcalf in Lady Bird

Will Win: Allison Janney, she's great in I, Tonya but most importantly it's the showiest role in the bunch. She gives a big, broad, scene-stealing performance in a movie a lot of people really like and are bummed to see outside the Best Picture race. She's been cleaning up all awards season and to your point has a lot of fans and good will from her West Wing days. Sometimes, these categories produce a surprise winner but other than Metcalf, who is also similarly beloved by her peers, I don't see anyone upsetting her.

Should Win: I like Octavia Spencer a lot but she did nothing she hasn't done before in The Shape of Water. Mary J. Blige didn't really register for me as anything special in Mudbound. I think Lesley Manville's nomination is her reward, she's great, but her film is breaking too late to steal this. So to me its between Metcalf and Janney. I actually think Metcalf has the harder role, they both play domineering mothers, but Janney's is more one note and comedic, whereas Metcalf has to play her part more grounded and nuanced. So I would give to Metcalf by a nose.

Snub/Surprise: There were a lot of potentially great outside the box choices they could have made here. For instance, there are times where this category can feel like 'the place where we recognize black women' -- but for me an African-American woman who deserved to be here was the great Betty Gabriel from Get Out, who was chilling, sad and funny in a small but unforgettable turn as the 'housemaid' from hell. Also from that same film Alison Williams was a standout. Hell, I'd love to see the Oscars pay tribute to the late Carrie Fisher, who finally got to be the baller leader she was born to be in her last film, The Last Jedi.