It's been two-and-a-half weeks since the Oscars ceremony awarded what they thought was the best of 2019 in cinema. They did pretty well compared to past years, but they could have done better, both in their winners and nominees. I'm not alone when I say there were so many great gems out there that got the boot, some of which were even critical and box office hits, while others that didn't deserve the recognition sadly got it instead. 

So now, I have my ideal lineup of nominees and winners that I think the Academy should have gone for, one that would have guaranteed less controversy and more people willing to watch the show. With that, I combined box office numbers with the objective quality of the film, so that the nominees are movies the general public has actually heard of, and promote strong artistic values. I also made sure that there's an even balance, particularly in the Best Picture lineup, of films that appeal to men and women, as well as represent different ethnicities. Each of the top ten grossing films of the year get nominations, even if just for tech categories (except for Joker, because its Razzie nomination discredits its public respect). I also tried to make sure that of the films that pass as works of art, they each have an even balance of nominations in the major categories (Picture, Director, Screenplay, Acting) as the tech categories, that way, they can be looked at as not only profound social commentaries, but exercises in the power of visual storytelling. I don't want otherwise effective films like 1917 to be looked at as great technical achievement and nothing else, because they contain so much more depth than just that.

I'll try to do more of these with as many of the 2010s Oscar lineups as I can, but I ultimately want you to see this as a good guide on what films I most recommend you see, and just what problems exist within the Academy of Motion Pictures. Feel free to comment your thoughts!

Sorry for not posting my winner predictions here on this blog, but I did post them on my other social media sites, including Instagram. In total, I predicted 17 out of 24 correctly, which is shockingly not much of an improvement based on how I did in past years. Yet compared to how previous ceremonies have went (particularly last year's), I am so much more satisfied with what happened; my complaints this year are relatively few.

First, here's the full list of winners last night:

Black Panther
Best Picture
Best Popular Film

What do these three have in common? The latest changes the Academy has made, with the inclusion of a 25th category: Best Popular Film. What does that mean? Well, to be honest, nobody knows, not even the Academy themselves! They're still working out the details...

Another significant change they made includes condensing the ceremony to a much stricter 3 hour run time, which means the winners of the smaller categories will only be able to have their speeches condensed into a shorter montage run during commercial break, kind of like how the Tony Awards works.

If you've been on social media a lot since yesterday, I'm sure you saw that the response has been overwhelmingly negative. As in, I have not seen even one person who's happy about these changes. At first, I didn't really care much about the Best Popular Film category, but after thinking about it more, and hearing other people's reactions, I do have some things to say.

I now want to introduce something that is new for both of us: a full complete list of what I believe is the best of the year. Now, I haven't seen everything this year, and that includes several of the films that the Oscars nominated, so based on all 53 releases this year I assessed and graded, here's what I genuinely believe deserves the honors.

But first, a few notes on some of these categories:

I considered the animated films for all the categories except for makeup and costume design, since there are technicians behind the editing, cinematography, and set design that deserve every bit as much recognition as those who work on live action films. So it's virtually free for all in everything.

I also consider all films that feature visual effects shots a chance in Best Visual Effects. I say that it should be the goal of any vfx artists to  make the effects invisible, so that's what I've been judging this year.

I'm not following the same judgment as the Oscars, who like to judge based on technical achievement. While that's important to acknowledge to make sure the artistry of filmmaking continues to grow with its discoveries, my focus is on how the practical elements contribute to the film's unique needs, so you may find nominees in some of these categories you'd never expect to find in any other awards show lineup. I'm not saying I'm better than any of them, but rather this is my two cents on what's important in filmmaking.

So now without further ado, here's my nominees, starting with...

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​Let me introduce two movies to you. One is the essential Oscar movie everybody would expect to see sweep up the awards. The other is an Irish animated feature film with a very limited release. Guess which one is the better movie?