MESA, Ariz. >> The previous 48 hours was huge for John Axford.
The A’s reliever, studied film in college, is a serious movie buff, including having made half a dozen appearances at the Milwaukee Film Festival when he played for the Brewers. He’s even got an executive producer credit for a documentary about the Canadian rock band The Reason, a film he introduced in Milwaukee two years ago.
Thursday night, he attended a special showing of the Oscar-nominated film. Moonlight. Mahershala Ali, one of the film’s stars, was born in Oakland and raised in Hayward and contacted the A’s about giving the club the special screening.
Beyond that, Axford wants to finalize his picks for Sunday’s Oscars and post them online. He would like Moonlight to win for Best Picture, but he thinks he’ll pick La La Land.
He earned some street cred in 2014 when he went a perfect 18-for-18 in his Oscar picks. He’s gone 20-for-24 the last two years. And he said by going with La La Land, he could get back closer to perfection.
“It’s an interesting year for films,” he said. “For a pick to win, I would like it to be Moonlight. But I think I will be going with La La Land. I’ve been wrong two years in a row voting for films that I wanted to win.
“This year is I’m going with a film I don’t want to win and just hoping that Moonlight win. I just think Hollywood is not going to be able to shy away from La La Land. It has the most nominations. And it’s Hollywood looking at itself.”
Axford has gotten some television talk show time the last two years to discuss his picks, but other than giving a few interviews, this year he says he’s just going to post his picks on Facebook and social media “and we’ll see how that goes.”
