2017 OSCASR PREDICTIONS!

Well we obviously adore the Oscars - the Canal Street bar AND the Academy Awards Ceremony!

And if my name isn't Adele Dazeem, am I pretty good at guessing the results. Not to get too competitive but I've been the gracious winner of numerous sweepstakes at Oscars parties over the year and this year I wanna challenge you to a smackdown...

You can use the Oscars app this year to type in the nominees you think will be snatching trophies tonight or you can print off a ballot sheet and tick off your winners. We've done the same, let's see if you can kick our asses at this.

Here are our predictions...

BEST PICTURE - La La Land

BEST DIRECTOR - Damien Chazelle, La La Land

BEST ACTRESS - Emma Stone, La La Land

BEST ACTOR - Denzel Washington, Fences

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS - Viola Davis, Fences

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR - Mahershala Ali, Moonlight

BEST ORIGNIAL SCREENPLAY - Manchester By The Sea

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY - Moonlight

BEST FORIEGN FILM - The Salesman

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE - Kubo and the Two Strings

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE - 13th

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT - (total guess!) The White Helmets (just cause it sounded smutty)

BEST ORIGINAL SONG - City of Stars, La La Land

CINEMATOGRAPHY - La La Land

PRODUCTION DESIGN - La La Land

COSTUME DESIGN - Jackie

EDITING - La La Land

MAKEUP AND HAIR - A Man Called Ove

BEST SCORE - La La Land

ANIMATED SHORT - Piper

LIVE ACTION SHORT - (another guess) Silent Nights (we like Christmas, so kill us!)

SOUND EDITING - Arrival

SOUND MIXING - Arrival

VISUAL EFFECTS - The Jungle Book

Let's hope for a streaker or another cringe moment like last year's Sam Smith gay fake news history lesson. If you're staying up...have a fun  four hours! We'll be watching it over some prosecco and bagels at breakfast (no spoilers till then!)

EDIT (Feb 28th 2017): Well that escalated quickly! On one hand we have our first LGBT Best Picture winner and another win for best screenplay for an LGBT themed film, plus we have another win for an African American film (the second behind 12 Years A Slave) and eventually a whole stage of creative queer people of colour accepting awards.

But boy oh boy did it feel pretty awful getting to that stage...in the Academy's biggest ever fuck up when it should've been their biggest (and our biggest) triumph. There was a lot of hate and backlash for La La Land in the end and I feel it probably wasn't deserved...films are films and great films are great films but this is the Oscars and it's a competition so the backlash at the Oscars was for the shoe-in that a veto styled painfully white picture was going to beat this small, beloved queer black modern film from a brilliant new director and writer and cast who took a punt on a film that is about masculinity, has a hand job on a beach and a sweet conversation in a cafe as their big scenes and presented them in a poetic, dreamlike state that really pushed what an independent film like this can look like, can do and can make their audience feel.

And the Oscar was handed to them like a dogs dinner. It wasn't on purpose but it didn't feel surprising. It should've been a coronation and a message sent out by the Academy that these sort of films can win and should win and should be made but they flubbed it. 

But let's party and press forward because yeah we love a fuck up and a gasp moment but right now an LGBT black, working class film is not only on the list of great films of all time who won Best Picture like Gone With The Wind, Laurence of Arabia, Schindler's List and The Lord of The Rings but it is, because some white guy was too busy taking photos of Emma Stone to hand Warren Beatty the right envelope (finally Mommie Dearest is no longer the most embarrassing thing Faye Dunaway has been involved in!) Moonlight is now the most famous film in the world and perhaps it's important that we have a visual representation of the baton being handed from the whitest straightest guys alive to the new wave of black, gay, everything film directors being beamed around the globe. Film is visual and maybe it's time we see more white straight guys graciously bowing their heads and handing over their awards to the other guys who don't get the easy chances, who are even more talented than you and who are ready to hold that beacon high to inspire others like them and to level the playing field so all the best talents are able to work alongside each other to make each others work better and to make the race to the top more exciting and challenging for everyone.

Until next year, all my love

Adele Daseem xx