Okay, I promise this is the last time I’ll make one of these posts for the rest of the year.

The major fall festivals (TIFF, Telluride, and Venice) happened. So many movies got mediocre reception at these festivals (namely Alejandro Gonzalez Inaritu’s Bardo, Florian Zeller’s The Son, and Sam Mendes’s Empire of Light).

So the race has taken a more serious shape. Here are the old predictions.

Here are the renewed predictions:

Picture:

1. The Fabelmans
2. Babylon
3. Avatar: The Way of Water
4. Everything Everywhere All At Once
5. The Banshees of Inisherin
6. Women Talking
7. Elvis
8. TAR
9. The Whale
10. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Alt: Top Gun: Maverick

Director:

1. Steven Spielberg - The Fabelmans
2. Damien Chazelle - Babylon
3. James Cameron - Avatar: The Way of Water
4. Daniels - Everything Everywhere All At Once
5. Todd Field - TAR

DGA Snub: Martin McDonagh - The Banshees of Inisherin

Lead Actor:

1. Brendan Fraser - The Whale
2. Austin Butler - Elvis
3. Colin Farrell - The Banshees of Inisherin
4. Bill Nighy - Living
5. Hugh Jackman - The Son

Alt: Diego Calva - Babylon

Lead Actress:

1. Margot Robbie - Babylon
2. Naomi Ackie - I Wanna Dance With Somebody
3. Michelle Yeoh - Everything Everywhere All At Once
4. Cate Blanchett - TAR
5. Olivia Colman - Empire of Light

Alt: Jennifer Lawrence - Causeway

Supporting Actor:

1. Ke Huy Quan - Everything Everywhere All At Once
2. Brendan Gleeson - The Banshees of Inisherin
3. Paul Dano - The Fabelmans
4. Brad Pitt - Babylon
5. Ben Wishaw - Women Talking

Alt: Barry Keoghan - The Banshees of Inisherin

Supporting Actress:

1. Michelle Williams - The Fabelmans
2. Claire Foy - Women Talking
3. Sadie Sink - The Whale
4. Kerry Condon - The Banshees of Inisherin
5. Janelle Monae - Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Alt: Nina Hoss - TAR

Original Screenplay:

1. Everything Everywhere All At Once
2. The Banshees of Inisherin
3. Babylon
4. The Fabelmans
5. TAR

Adapted Screenplay:

1. Women Talking
2. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
3. The Whale
4. Living
5. Bones & All

Cinematography:

1. Avatar: The Way of Water
2. Babylon
3. The Fabelmans
4. Empire of Light
5. The Batman

Production Design:

1. Avatar: The Way of Water
2. Babylon
3. The Fablemans
4. Elvis
5. Amsterdam

Costume Design

1. Babylon
2. The Fabelmans
3. Elvis
4. Amsterdam
5. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Hair and Make-up

1. The Whale
2. Elvis
3. The Batman
4. Babylon
5. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Original Score:

1. The Fabelmans
2. Babylon
3. Avatar: The Way of Water
4. Women Talking
5. Empire of Light

Sound:

1. Avatar: The Way of Water
2. Top Gun: Maverick
3. Babylon
4. Elvis
5. The Fabelmans

Film Editing:

1. Avatar: The Way of Water
2. Babylon
3. The Fabelmans
4. Everything Everywhere All At Once
5. Elvis

VFX:

1. Avatar: The Way of Water
2. Top Gun: Maverick
3. Everything Everywhere All At Once
4. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
5. The Batman

After re-watching the absolute masterpiece Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Spielberg, 1977), I was in awe. This got me thinking a lot about aliens, and it seems to me that that is an area where movies and TV shows have been lacking in recent years.

When I say "aliens", I mean something truly alien, foreign, mind-bending, even terrifying (although I'm not very fond of horror) -- so not the tame, often humanoid extraterrestrials that we fully understand, like you usually see in Star Trek and Trek-like shows. But rather stories of contact that make us rethink the boundaries of existence.

A recent movie that touches on that was 2016's Arrival, which has more than one similarity with Close Encounters.... Another is Contact (Robert Zemeckis, 1997).