Picture: Oppenheimer

When I saw Oppenheimer in theaters, I thought it was overrated. There were good performances, but I just didn’t care for it. I missed some portions of the dialogue because the music drowned it out. I just didn’t feel anything about this film one way or another, other than the annoyance that I couldn’t hear these supposed conversations from two of the supposed greatest minds of the 20th century. I later read an article where a reporter asked Nolan about it and he replied that he didn’t care if people were unable to hear the dialogue. While I love silent films, I would like to hear dialogue if you are giving it to me. It makes me want to skip Nolan’s theatrical releases and wait for streaming or DVD.

After the film won Best Picture, I watched the film again and began to realize what it was that I did not care for. For one thing, especially during the early scenes, we are told several times that Oppenheimer is a genius, but we are never shown that, with the exception of his being able to read Sanskrit. When someone tells him that the Germans have split the atom, he replies that it is impossible and proceeds to prove it is impossible through math while his colleagues replicate it.

However, I think the main problem is the structure of the film. Nolan keeps switching timelines for short scenes that are supposed to tell us something, but just seem to repeat other scenes. Then, a great actor will show up for a scene or two and disappear. Now, I thought Robert Downey Jr. gave a very good performance. I love his little run to meet Oppenheimer for the first time. However, I thought his character was entirely unnecessary. It makes it seem like the Red scare and the ostracism of Oppenheimer is part of a pissing contest between the two of them. Now, I have conflicted feelings about the Red scare. While I don’t believe that people should have lost their jobs over their political leanings, there were individuals in positions of importance with knowledge that would be a big problem if they were in line with the enemy and were willing to tell the enemy about it. I am sure that Oppenheimer’s political leanings were grown out of a genuine care for the poor and needy, but could the government take that chance?

Upon rewatch, I finally learned the dialogue and realized that I really hadn’t missed anything, especially that final conversation, which I found completely ridiculous. So, the supposed best film of the year about a supposed genius, a man that Nolan has called the most important person who ever lived as if he built the bomb by himself, is saying the world is already destroyed because we can’t be trusted with nuclear weapons.

On the DVD, there is a documentary about Oppenheimer the man and it is way better than the film. I say skip the feature film, instead read the book and watch the documentary. You’ll be much more entertained and informed.

Adapted Screenplay 2023

This year, 3 of the Adapted Screenplays are based on novels. One is based on historical non-fiction. The last is based on, well, a doll.

American Fiction is based on “Erasure” by Percival Everett. The film has the same basic structure as the novel, but expands on the novel. The novel also includes more of the book the main character is writing as well as an academic paper, letters, and story ideas. The novel features a murder as opposed to the natural death in the film. The film adds a character and some situations. It is also funnier. My Vote: Film

Barbie is based on Barbara Millicent Roberts, otherwise known as the Barbie doll. There have been a number of Barbie cartoons, but Greta Gerwig did not base the film on any of those. So, what is a grown man supposed to do, go to a toy store (are there any of those around anymore?) and read the back of Barbie doll box (assuming that is even a thing, I am thinking of Star Wars action figure that have information about the character on the back of the box) or play with one. Instead, I just skipped it. My Vote: if you haven’t seen it yet, watch the film. However, judging from box office receipts, you probably already have.

Oppenheimer is based on the historical non-fiction book “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer” by Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin. The book tells his story in a more linear fashion while the film jumps around in time. The film does take some liberties with some of the incidents as well. The book is just more interesting and informative. My Vote: Book

Poor Things is based on the novel “Poor Things: Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandless, M.D., Scottish Public Health Officer” by Alisdair Gray. The novel is told from a first-person point of view of the young doctor with most of Bella’s exploits being told in letters and second hand accounts. The film is third person and spends most of the film following Bella with only occasional scenes with the doctors. My Vote: Novel

The Zone of Interest is based on the novel by Martin Amis. The novel tries to have a plot and an actual story that plays through it. The film is plotless and shapeless. The film really only takes the idea of a family of the commandant living next to Auschwitz. It doesn’t add much. My Vote: Novel

Oscar Predictions 2023

Until last year, the Academy had been spreading the wealth with major categories and often had another film winning many of the technical awards. Last year, they gave a majority of the major categories to Everything Everywhere All at Once with three acting awards as well as directing and writing. This year, it looks like the same film will not only win many major categories, but many of the technical awards. Oppenheimer is nominated 13 times. I am not predicting it to break or tie the record of 11, but I would not be too surprised if it happened. There is also a possibility that it loses Picture and wins a bunch. Cabaret won 8 Oscars, but The Godfather won Picture. I have seen all the nominees, except for three: Io Capitano for International Feature, To Kill a Tiger for Documentary Feature, and Robot Dreams for Animated Feature.

Picture: Like I said, Oppenheimer is looking like it could sweep the major awards as well as technical awards. It has practically swept the Guilds. The only thing I can think of is that there are three categories of voter that might vote it low on their ballot: 1. Older voters who couldn’t hear the dialogue. 2. Minorities who may see this as white people with white people problems. 3. Voters who waited to see it on a screener and were not blown away by the spectacle. So, something strange could conceivably happen because of the weighted ballot, but I think it will win easily.

My Vote: Barbie

Actor: This probably started out closer than it ended up. While Paul Giamatti has won some awards for The Holdovers, Cillian Murphy and Oppenheimer have dominated the award season. He is in nearly every scene of the film that seems to be the favorite of the Academy. He is also playing a real person, something the Academy loves. He will be win #2 for Oppenheimer.

My Vote: Paul Giamatti has been great for years and has rarely been better than in The Holdovers.

Actress: This one comes down to Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon and Emma Stone in Poor Things. Now, Stone has already won. If Gladstone won, she would be only the third minority winner in this category and probably the first American Indian to win any category. However, Stone went out of her comfort zone. You can’t say she is giving the same performance here as she has anywhere else, especially her win for La La Land. I think she will be rewarded for talking a risk.
My Vote: Sandra Huller gives an amazing performance in Anatomy of a Fall. It is hard to tell if she is guilty or not, icy or not, manipulative or not.

Supporting Actor: Robert Downey Jr. is one of the biggest locks of the night to bring Oppenheimer win #3. It is not only a great performance, but it also makes a great story. Hopefully, he can use the spotlight to speak to people who are in the midst of addictions, like he was for much of the 90’s.
My Vote: Gosling brings heart, soul, and great comic timing to Ken in Barbie.

Supporting Actress: For a while, this looked like it could be a close three person race between Emily Blunt for Oppenheimer, Danielle Brooks for The Color Purple, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph for The Holdovers. Randolph started strong and has only gotten stronger. There were some rumors that Brooks was going to win at SAG, but Randolph took that as well, so she is my pick.
My Vote: Da’Vine Joy Randolph was amazing as a grieving mother trying to hold it together during the holidays in The Holdovers. She steals quite a few scenes from Giamatti, not an easy feat.

Director: I always go with the winner of DGA’s Best Director award. That is Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer. Even without DGA, the writing is on the wall for win #4 for Oppenheimer.
My Vote: Martin Scorsese shows in Killers of the Flower Moon that, once again, he is one of the greatest directors ever. He only has one Best Director Oscar while his film student Oliver Stone has 2 and John Ford has 4.

Original Screenplay: I think it comes down to Anatomy of a Fall and The Holdovers. One thing that has been true over the past few decades is that this category is given to writer-directors rather than just writer, so point to Anatomy. It is also given to the more daring and original film, another point to Anatomy. This also might be the only chance to reward Anatomy while The Holdovers will probably win an acting award. So, it will be Anatomy of a Fall.
My Vote: The Holdovers.

Adapted Screenplay: All of the films are nominated for Best Picture. If they want to spread the wealth, then they will reward American Fiction. However, they usually want to reward the Best Picture, even big spectacles, with a Screenplay award. I think they will give Oppenheimer win #5.
My Vote: Barbie.

Cinematography: One of the things people love about Oppenheimer is the look of it and the different looks for the different eras. So, it will get win #6 here.
My Vote: Killers of the Flower Moon.

Production Design: This might be where the Oppenheimer train might stop. While three of these are impressive recreations of the past, there are two that create their own worlds. Even if you didn’t like Poor Things, you have to admit to its striking look. I think Poor Things wins.
My Vote: Poor Things.

Sound: Often, I think the voters think Best means Most. If that is the case here, well, Oppenheimer certainly has the most and loudest sound. I think it gets win #7 here.
My Vote: Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning.

Song: Billie Eilish and her brother won two years ago for the No Time to Die theme. She recently won Best Song and Best Song Written for the Visual Medium at the Grammys for the song she is nominated for here. She is the probably the most recognizable name on the ballot, though they will also have heard of Jon Baptiste who is nominated for a song from his documentary. They may know Mark Ronson, who has eight Grammys for producing and writing songs and is nominated for “I’m Just Ken.” They are sure to know Dianne Warren, who is 0 for 14 so far in this category and nominated for a movie nobody saw. I think that they will want to reward Barbie and do it here, which leaves 2 songs and I think they will give Eilish and her brother their second Oscars for “What Was I Made For”.
My Vote: “I’m Just Ken” is the highlight of Barbie, one of the best films of the year.

Score: Last year, All Quiet on the Western Front won with a score that sounded to me like a child pounding one end of a piano. This year, I think the score of Oppenheimer sounds like the same thing. So, I think it will get win #7 here.
My Vote: Killers of the Flower Moon.

Editing: There are three types of movies that win here: Best Picture winner, musicals, and action movies. There are neither of the last two types, so Oppenheimer gets win #8 here.
My Vote: Killers of the Flower Moon.

Costumes: Unless they love suits and hats, I think Oppenheimer won’t be a factor here. I think it will come down to the attempted realism of Poor Things and the recreations of doll fashion with Barbie. I think they will go with Poor Things.
My Vote: I like the lived-in costumes of Poor Things.

Visual Effects: Godzilla Minus One not only has great effects, but has a great story regarding them. While other films sent their effects to special effects houses, the makers of Godzilla did it in-house with a crew of about 20 with the director overseeing the work.
My Vote: Godzilla Minus One.

Makeup: They love to give it to biopics, so I can see them going with Maestro or Oppenheimer. However, if they see Best as Most, then Poor Things, so I’ll go with that.
My Vote: I think the full body makeup of Society of the Snow. It makes you feel the frostbite.

Foreign Film: It is nominated for Best Picture, so Zone of Interest will win.
My Favorite: Society of the Snow.

Documentary Feature: Like last year’s winner, 20 Days in Mariupol is very timely.
My Favorite: 20 Days of Mariupol.

Documentary Short: It has been a hot topic for liberals the past few years, so I’ll go with The ABCs of Book Banning.
My Vote: I liked The Barber of Little Rock.

Live Action Short: I think it could come down to what the voters want: an intelligent adaptation of Roald Dahl directed by Wes Anderson (The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar), a liberal twist on abortion (Red, White, & Blue), or something that pulls on the heartstrings (After). I think they will reward Anderson.
My Vote: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is very entertaining.

Animated Short: I think this comes down to if there are enough John Lennon fans to overcome the Academy’s Holocaust bias. War is Over has Lennon’s music and his anti-war sentiment while Letter to a Pig is about the Holocaust. I think they’ll go with Letter to a Pig.
My Vote: I liked how Our Uniform used clothing as a screen to show scenes on.

Animated Feature: I think this comes down to Boy & the Heron or Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse. The Academy has only gone to sequels when the first film was before the category started. The first Spider-Man won. Hayao Miyazaki has won previously with Spirited Away and this is his last film (or so he says). Many of his great films were before the category started as well. I think the Academy gives him a nice retirement present.
My Favorite: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

So, I am predicting Oppenheimer to win 8, not a record, but impressive. You never know, it could pull off some of the categories such as Production Design and Costumes.

Oscar Nominations + Top Ten 2023

I generally don’t write about movies that were not nominated for the Oscars or considered “snubs” since Oscar nominations are subjective. They are just people’s opinions. Everyone has an opinion and is entitled to it. However, I feel the need to address Greta Gerwig not being nominated for Best Director for Barbie. Sure, the film was nominated for Best Picture, making her the first director (male or female) to have her first three movies all nominated for Best Picture. Sure, she was nominated for Adapted Screenplay, along with writing partner and life partner Noah Baumbach. The reason I believe that she deserved a Best Director nomination is that I can’t imagine another person directing her screenplay just as good. As an example, let’s take the movies of Quentin Tarantino. I look at the two movies that were written, but not directed, by Quentin Tarantino. By that, I mean Natural Born Killers and True Romance (I won’t get into From Dusk Til Dawn or movies he was brought on to be a ‘script doctor’). Both are still very good movies as they are and I have both in my DVD collection, but they may have been ever better if he directed them. Oliver Stone turned Natural Born Killers into an exploration into what makes us violent while Tarantino accepts that we are violent, but we can still have morality within our violence. Tony Scott turned True Romance into a well-written Tony Scott film with his choppy editing style. Compare the Mexican standoffs in True Romance and those in films Tarantino directed. Now, imagine either of those gentleman directing Pulp Fiction. If anyone else directed Pulp Fiction, it would have been compromised and a lesser film. I believe the same about Gerwig and Barbie.

Now, let’s talk about what did get nominated. There are some terrific actors who received their first nominations, such as Jeffrey Wright, Cillian Murphy, and Emily Blunt. Stephen Spielberg received a nomination for producing Maestro, making it the 13th film he was nominated for producer, a record. Bradley Cooper now has 12 nominations, as many as Jack Nicholson. However, Nicholson’s nominations were all for acting while only 5 of Cooper’s nominations have been for acting. Martin Scorsese became the oldest Best Director nominee and was nominated for the 10th time, breaking the tie with Spielberg to be the second most nominated director. John Williams has added another nomination, his 54th. He is the second-most nominated person, only Walt Disney has more due to producing numerous short films. Dianne Warren has been nominated for 15 Oscars without ever winning. I am guessing more people voted for her than actually watched Flamin’ Hot (I did and enjoyed it more than some of the Best Picture nominees).

Every year, I say that they should return the Best Picture nominees back to 5 and this year is no different. There were three foreign films nominated for Best Picture. Actually, it is more like two and a half since Past Things is half in English and takes place in New York. It was also written and directed by Celine Song, who, while being born in Korea, moved to Canada when she was 12 and has been living in New York for over 10 years. Are people really watching all the Best Picture nominees? You can watch many of them on streaming platforms, like Past Things can be seen on Paramount+ or Showtime. Are people doing so? While more films are nominated for Best Picture, fewer films are being nominated in other categories, with the exception of Visual Effects.

The Academy has made strides to include more minorities. It has worked somewhat. The Best Picture nominees include a film about a Black family, a film about the plight of Osage Indians (though it is told mainly through the perspective of a white man, Leonardo DiCaprio), and a film about a Korean-American woman. For the fifth consecutive year, a film (actually 3 films) directed by a woman was nominated for Best Picture. A woman was nominated for Best Director and half the Best Picture nominees have at least one female producer. Half the Best Picture nominees are about women. Four of the screenplay nominees were written or co-written by women. Best Actor features 2 Black men, one of whom is openly gay. Lily Gladstone became the first American Indian woman to be nominated for Best Actress. Supporting Actress features a Black man. Supporting Actress features 2 Black women, a Latina woman, and a lesbian. One of the nominated songs is in the Osage language written by a Osage man.

As usual, comic book films were completely ignored, except for one nomination in Visual Effects and one in Animated Feature, while Actors and a Director who has worked on those films have nominations. Christopher Nolan, the odds-on favorite to win Picture, Director, and Screenplay, did all three on his Dark Knight trilogy. Best Actor features Rocket Racoon, Scarecrow, The Watcher, and The Rhino. Colman Domingo has also starred on Fear the Walking Dead TV series. Actress features Gwen Stacy and Annette Bening, who was in the first Captain Marvel. Supporting Actor has 2 Avengers, Iron Man and The Hulk. Sterling K. Brown was Black Panther’s uncle. Robert DeNiro was in The Joker. Gosling hasn’t done a comic book film, possibly because he refuses to do sequels, at least to his own films. The Supporting Actress nominees have not been in comic book films, though Emily Blunt has been rumored for several roles (most notably Sue Storm since her husband played a Reed Richards variant) and was in Edge of Tomorrow, based on a Japanese manga.

The way the Academy does the voting for Best Picture is to number the nominees from 1 to 10 based on your preference. 4 of the nominees are on my top ten. I am going to do the Best Picture nominees based on my preference and then my Top 10.

Best Picture nominees

10-Past Lives-I had to watch this film twice because I felt like I missed something. I didn’t, I just think that it is missing a scene or two. Also, the characters were just not that interesting.

9-Zone of Interest-There have been so many movies about the Holocaust, but they continue making them despite having nothing new to say. This one was about the family of the commandant who all live happily next to Auschwitz. It adds nothing to the discussion.

8-Maestro-This film lacks any drama whatsoever. It felt partly like an acting exercise and partly a bizarre Bradley Cooper workout video.

7-Poor Things-I enjoyed some of this film and there are good performances. However, I think the film pushes the line of decency with its content and the amount of nudity. I really think that someone paid off the MPAA for its R-rating. It is supposed to be a feminist version of Frankenstein, but seems to be the first film written by Velvet Jones since this film is about how great it is to be a prostitute. You get to figure out what you like sexually, get to meet interesting men, and appear to have plenty of free time to read, have sex with your fellow prostitutes, and go to Marxist rallies.

6-Oppenheimer-Not a really bad movie, just overhyped and overpraised. It has a wonderful look to it and the effects are first-rate. I just never felt like I got to know these people in anything but a superficial capacity. The actors do what they can, but they are fighting a losing battle. One huge problem I have is that the music and the rest of the sounds are often louder than the dialogue and I had trouble hearing the dialogue. Nolan seems to want it that way, which makes me want to skip his movies in the theater and wait for a DVD with subtitles.

5-American Fiction-This is a genuinely funny and insightful film. The cast is first-rate. I would have put this film in my top ten, but I was disappointed that they cut away before we get to hear what Monk had to say as well as see the reaction to it. I don’t need a Big, Important Speech, but I wanted something.

4-Anatomy of a Fall

3-The Holdovers

2-Killers of the Flower Moon

1-Barbie

My Top Ten

I don’t think this was a particularly good year for movies, but there were some that rose to the top. There aren’t any movies that I am really sad to leave off.

10-American Symphony-Directed by Matthew Heineman-This is a terrific documentary about performing artist Jon Baptiste, who took the Grammys by storm in 2022. I was not familiar with him previously, except that he won an Oscar for the score of Soul. The film looks at what it means to be an artist, especially a Black artist, and the pigeonhole people try to shove you into. It also shows his personal life as his wife receives a cancer diagnosis. There is a great scene in an airport after his Grammy wins as he is trying to fly back to his sick wife. He listens to the radio on his headphones to people putting down his Grammy wins while others are praising him to his face. It was shortlisted for Best Documentary Feature, but didn’t get the nomination. Nominated for Song-104 minutes-Streaming on Netflix

9-Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse-Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, & Justin K Thompson-Written by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, & David Callaham-While the Sony live-action films continue to stink, their animated films have been great. This takes what they did well on the first one and enhances rather than rehashes it. It has an amazing look to it. The new character of Hobie is a work of genius, both visually striking and wonderfully written. Nominated for Animated Feature-140 minutes- Streaming on Netflix

8-Anatomy of a Fall-Directed by Justine Triet-Written by Triet & Arthur Harari-This is a French legal drama starring a German actress, Sandra Huller, in a wonderful performance. The film tells the story of a trial of a spouse after either an accident or a murder. As you watch it, you realize it is the story of a dissolving marriage. It goes even deeper than that when you think about this being a German woman being tried in France who insists on speaking English at the trial. Very thought-provoking.-Nominated for Picture, Actress, Director, Original Screenplay, and Editing-152 minutes-Can be rented on Amazon Prime or Apple+

7-Flora & Son-Directed & Written by John Carney-Another musical love story by the man who did Once. This one is more of the motherly love as a free-spirited single mom takes guitar lessons in order to communicate with her troubled son. The film stars Eve Hewson, who is Bono’s daughter. She is just wonderful in the film. Joseph Gordon Levitt has a small part as a guitar teacher she meets online. They have great chemistry despite spending most of the film apart on computer screens.-97 minutes-Streaming on Apple+

6-The Holdovers-Directed by Alexander Payne-Written by David Hemingson-In 2011, Payne directed The Descendants, which I thought was a masterpiece. Two years later, he directed Nebraska, another excellent film. The Holdovers is only the second film he has directed in the ten years since then. I have missed him. He makes films about how people really are and makes them different than other directors. He allows his actors freedom to create real, nuanced characters. This is a story of a friendship that a teacher and his student forge (along with the school nurse), which is not a new story, but Payne makes if feel new. Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph all give wonderful performances.-Nominated for Picture, Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, and Editing-133 minutes-Streaming on Peacock.

5-Godzilla Minus One-Directed and Written by Takashi Yamazaki-I have seen several Godzilla movies and none of them have been close to being in my top ten, only a couple of them were any good at all. Here is the Godzilla movie that I never thought I needed or wanted. It is a film with a heart and brains. It allows its characters to feel so real in a way few action movies do, few films at all do. It is finds itself saying something unique about the Japanese people. It is a highly original film.-Nominated for Visual Effects-125 minutes-Not currently streaming, but it is still in theaters.

4-Killers of the Flower Moon-Directed by Martin Scorsese-Written by Scorsese & Eric Roth-Martin Scorsese has made a lot of great films and he adds this one to the list. He likes to look at what people do for money and what will move us to violence. At one point in the film, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character says, “I love money, almost as much as I love my wife.” The fact that he helps to kill her family and tries to poison her leads me to question that statement. It is well-written, superbly acted, and looks amazing. The ending sequence is wonderful.-Nominated for Picture, Actress, Supporting Actor, Director, Cinematography, Production Design, Song, Score, Editing, and Costumes-206 minutes-Streaming on Apple+

3-Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3-Directed and Written by James Gunn-While the rest of the MCU has been either disappointing or downright awful lately, this was a revelation. It takes these characters that we have seen in other things and gives them depth. Bradley Cooper is nominated this year for his Leonard Bernstein impersonation, but he gives heart and soul to a computer-generated raccoon with just his voice. How is that not great acting? It has emotions as well as one of the best hallway fights of the MCU. I think we need to be critical of superhero movies when they are bad, but think they should be rewarded when they knock one out of the park.-Nominated for Visual Effects-150 minutes-Streaming on Disney+

2-Barbie-Directed by Greta Gerwig-Written by Gerwig & Noah Baumbach-This was a treat. I really did not expect it to be any good, but it was amazing. It was visually stunning. It was witty. It made you think. Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are pitch perfect as Barbie and Ken without overdoing it. Gosling singing “I’m Just Ken” was one of the highlights of my year.-Nominated for Picture, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Production Design, 2 songs, and Costumes-114 minutes-Streaming on Max

1-Dream Scenario-Directed and Written by Kristoffer Borgli-I saw this film and thought it was great. It made me feel for the characters, especially Nicolas Cage’s Paul. It is one of Cage’s best performances. There were many ways for the story to go and it continued to surprise me. It is also funny and philosophical. Then, I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a long time. It is rare to find a film that will make me feel, think, and use all my senses. It has no easy answers, but asks a lot of interesting questions.-102 minutes-Can be rented on Amazon or other streaming services

Final Thoughts on Oscars 2022

I am a bit behind on my posts, but I still wanted to write about the Oscars. I know that I might be stretching the limits of the Oscars Present category, but here goes.

I thought the telecast ran smoothly. There were a few snafus, such as the fact that they were supposed to show a clip from Citizen Kane before the Cinematography category, but it didn’t come up. There were some mini-controversies. I didn’t like that they basically stopped the show and did a commercial for The Little Mermaid live action remake and the salute to only one studio, Warner Brothers. Liam Neeson (and maybe others) didn’t like the joke about having Irish nominees increasing the likelihood of another fight. Some people didn’t like that the dancers in “Naatu, Naatu” were not from Asia, but do you know how much it costs to fly in dancers from Asia as opposed to getting people of Asian descent from Los Angeles?

The ‘In Memorium’ tribute was a bit of a mess. They did a fade in and out so that people spent much of their time out of focus. Some people complained that they missed some people and they should have included Anne Heche, who only starred in two movies (Donnie Brasco and Wag the Dog) with any Oscar nominations, and Tom Sizemore, who had a really embarrassing personal life. I think there were two that they left off that should have been included. One is Melinda Dillon, who was nominated twice and was in several other films with nominations, and played the mother in a modern classic in A Christmas Story. The other is Hugh Hudson, who directed Best Picture winner Chariots of Fire. They could have added Paul Sorvino as well as they could easily have shown a scene from Goodfellas with both he and Ray Liotta, since we lost two great stars from that wonderful film. While they did have Louise Fletcher, they missed a great opportunity of showing her Oscar acceptance speech because she was the first person to use sign language as she was a real-life CODA.

I decided to go through each category and say something about the winner and what I thought of the win.

Picture: Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, Jonathan Wang. Everything Everywhere All at Once. As I said, it looked like it could sweep and it did. Since going to more than five nominees, only Gravity won as many Oscars as Everyone did. Only 2 other films have won 3 acting Oscars and the other 2 (A Streetcar Named Desire & Network) didn’t win Best Picture. These seemed like the least likely people to win so many awards with only one feature and some shorts as well as TV work as experience. But, the Academy has been expanding what the Best Picture is. They have been getting smaller and more independent since the 90’s. However, most filmmakers that win Best Picture have a longer track record. I have read some people say this is the first science-fiction film to win, but I thought The Shape of Water was science-fiction. Kwan and Wang are American born men of Asian decent. I really liked the film when I first saw it and I think it was even better on second viewing. One of the interesting things about the film is that instead of the special effects being handled by an outside company, like ILM or Weta, they did them themselves with a group of 12 people, including the directors. The effects were just as good as any of the nominees for Visual Effects.

Actor: Brendan Fraser, The Whale. I think Frasier is a good actor in both comedy and drama, but I didn’t think this performance was great. He won because the Academy loves rewarding actors in performances in which they are playing in prosthetics, playing gay, having big scenes, and/or having a personal/professional comeback story. I think there is too much performance in the performance. He is also very whiny. There is also a long stretch where he is asleep on the couch while things are going on around him. I can’t think of another Oscar winning performance where the character spends so much time asleep. The closest I can think of is Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, but she is interacting with Gregory Peck even while asleep. Frasier will be in Martin Scorsese’s Killer of the Flower Moon.

Actress: Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once. Yeoh is the first Asian to win in the lead category. She was born in Malaysia. She began her film career as the female Jackie Chan despite Chan being trained in martial arts by Bruce Lee and Yeoh being trained as a dancer. I don’t think either of those disciplines help you land a motorcycle on the top of a moving bus, but she did that in Supercop 2, though the outtakes at the end shows she missed a few times before nailing it. She was also a Bond girl in Tomorrow Never Dies where she had chemistry with Pierce Brosnan while Brosnan and Teri Hatcher had real life antagonism that led to them having no chemistry. She’s been a Star Trek captain. She was in 2 Marvel films as different characters. She has grown into being a really great actress. She definitely deserved the award. I think she deserved previous nominations for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (overrated film, but she is amazing in it) and Crazy Rich Asians (she is great in a role that could easily have become cliche). She has upcoming roles in a Disney+ show American Born Chinese, a Kenneth Branaugh film, and the film version of Wicked.

Supporting Actor: Ke Huey Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once. He was born in Vietnam, but his family fled to the U.S. when the North Vietnamese took control of the entire country. He was a child actor, starring as Short Round in Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom and Data in The Goonies. It is interesting that three of the kids from Goonies have been in Best Picture winners with Sean Astin in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Josh Brolin in No Country for Old Men, and now Quan. Though, as Kimmel pointed out, the same can be said of Encino Man with Astin, Frasier in Crash, and Quan. Anyway, he found good roles hard to come by and worked behind the scenes in movies until he saw Crazy Rich Asians and decided to get back into acting. He really is the heart of that movie and he nails his emotional scenes. It is sad to think of all the great roles he missed out on because there were no good roles for young Asian men. He has upcoming roles in American Born Chinese and Loki.

Supporting Actress: Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything Everywhere All at Once. I am not sure this was a great performance, but it is an interesting one. I wonder if the voters gave her the Oscar for being in the scenes in the universe with the hot dog fingers as walking around with hot dog fingers and not completely falling on your face is some kind of achievement. I also liked that there were scenes where she got to be Michael Myers-like. I think her performance could be done by just about anyone and was given higher status because she is a star. Curtis quit acting for a while. She wrote some children’s books as well as a graphic novel. She is also an inventor with 2 patents related to diapers. She is married to Christopher Guest, who (in addition to being a great actor and director) is a Baron and member of the House of Lords.

Director: Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Known as The Daniels, they met when they both attended Emerson College. They directed some music videos and TV together before directing Swiss Army Man, a bizarro world version of Cast Away. They are the third directing duo to win Best Director after Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins for West Side Story and Joel & Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men. Kwan is the 4th person of Asian descent to win after Ang Lee won twice, Bong Joon-Ho, and Chloe Zhao. They will be directing an episode of a Star Wars show and are attached to an adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle which has yet to be picked up by a network or streaming service.

Original Screenplay: Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere All at Once. The Daniels join a small group of artists that have won Picture, Director, and Screenplay. It is small because having multiple producing nominees for Best Picture and having the director as producer have both been recent occurrences. That group includes Billy Wilder for The Apartment in 1960, Francis Ford Coppola for Godfather Part II in 1974, James L. Brooks for Terms of Endearment in 1983, Peter Jackson for Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in 2003, Joel & Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men in 2007, Alejandro Inarritu for Birdman in 2014, and Bong Joon-Ho for Parasite in 2019. Three other people won 3 awards in one year: Marvin Hamlisch won all 3 Music categories in 1973 for The Way We Were and The Sting. James Cameron won Picture, Director, and Editing for Titanic in 1997. Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson’s partner in life and film, won for Picture, Screenplay, and Song for Return of the King. Walt Disney won 4 awards in 1953 for Documentary Feature and three short films.

Adapted Screenplay: Sarah Polley for Women Talking. Polley is a great actress and an interesting writer-director. She was in films from Adam Egoyan, such as The Sweet Hereafter, and other independent films, such as Go and Existenz. I think the films she has made behind the camera are interesting, but none of them are great. I didn’t think Women Talking was as interesting as her other films and the seeming happy ending was not earned. The men are going to hunt the women down and take them back, violently if they need to since they don’t seem to extend their pacifism to their wives. Even if they don’t, are the women going to a place where women are not exploited, molested, or mistreated? Where is that utopia?

Cinematography: James Friend, All Quiet on the Western Front. Friend is from England. I haven’t seen any of his other films. This is the most deserving out of the 3 technical awards All Quiet won.

Production Design: Production design: Christian M, Goldbeck & Set Decorator: Ernestine Hipper, All Quiet on the Western Front. They are both from Germany. I’ve seen one other film from each of them. Goldbeck was the supervising art director for The Reader. Hipper was Set Decorator for Tar. She was nominated twice at the Art Director’s Guild last year. I think the production design for All Quiet was good, but was it better than other WWI films, such as 1917, or the detailed recreations from the past of Babylon or Elvis?

Sound: Chris Burdon, James H. Mather, Al Nelson, Mark Taylor, & Mark Weingarten, Top Gun: Maverick. With the exception of Nelson, they were all previous nominees. Taylor previously won for 1917. Weingarten previously won for Dunkirk. The sound is fine for an action movie.

Song: Music by M.M. Keeravani. Lyrics by Chandrabose. “Naatu Naatu”, RRR. They are both Indian and work in Bollywood. The song is great and the scene it was in is brilliant.

Score: Voker Bertelmann, All Quiet on the Western Front. Bertelmann is a German and his stage name is Hauschka. He was previously nominated for Lion. I found the score of All Quiet annoying, like a kid who discovered the bass end of a piano playing as hard as they can with no melody.

Editing: Paul Rogers, Everything Everywhere All at Once. Rogers is the son of noted photojournalist Melissa Springer. One of the keys to the success of Everything is in its editing. It flips between universes quickly without being jarring and it never calls attention to itself.

Costumes: Ruth E. Carter, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Carter, who also did the costumes for Malcolm X and Amistad, won for the first Black Panther. That win made her the first Black person to win for Costumes. This win makes her the first Black woman to win multiple Oscars. She will be doing the costumes for the MCU’s Blade, whenever that film gets made. I guess she will be the costumer for all Black superheroes in the MCU. I find the win a little perplexing as all the returning characters basically wear the same costumes that they wore in the first film and the new characters are seapeople who don’t seem to wear much clothing.

Visual Effects: Richard Baneham, Daniel Barrett, Joe Latteri, & Eric Saindon, Avatar: Way of Water. Baneham and Laterri previously won for the first film. Laterri also won for Two Towers, Return of the King, and King Kong. The effects in the original were groundbreaking. The sequel is just more of the same. The water in Cameron’s documentaries is more interesting than the water in the sequel.

Makeup: Annemarie Bradley, Judy Chin, & Adrien Morot, The Whale. Two women winning with Chin being the first woman of Asian descent to win for Makeup. Morot was previously nominated. He originally wanted to be a stuntman, but an article he read about The Thing changed his mind. He practiced his makeup by sculpting casts of his friends’ Star Wars toys and experimenting with different materials to make masks. The makeup in The Whale is good for the most part, but it looks phony in the scene in the shower.

Foreign Film: Germany, All Quiet on the Western Front, directed by Edward Berger. It is the 4th win for Germany. It previously won for The Tin Drum in 1979, Nowhere in Africa in 2002, and The Lives of Others in 2006. Berger is a German filmmaker. I haven’t seen any of his other films, which have mostly played at film festivals. Before making his own films, he worked in the U.S. with Ang Lee and Todd Haynes.

Documentary Feature: Diane Beker, Shane Boris, Melanie Miller, Odessa Rae, Daniel Roher, Navalny. Three women won here. Roher is the director of the film. Rae is an actress who was key in the formation of Ivanhoe Pictures, which produced Crazy Rich Asians. She launched her own production company in 2021 that is focused on non-fiction content. Boris was also nominated for Fire of Love. Navalny is an amazing documentary and one of the best films of the year. Its subject is still in prison for his beliefs.

Documentary Short: Kartiki Gonsalves & Guneet Monga, The Elephant Whisperers. They are both women from India. Gonsalves is a nature photographer. Monga was the executive producer on previous winner Period End of Sentence. She also the founder of Sikya Entertainment, which produced The Lunchbox, a wonderful film. The Elephant Whisperers is good and the elephants are cute, but I felt it needed something more.

Live Action Short: Tom Berkeley & Ross White, An Irish Goodbye. This is a great short film. It is both funny and touching with a nice twist.

Animated Short: Matthew Freud & Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, & the Horse. A rather boring short that seems to want to be The Jungle Book without the story, action, or anything of particular interest.

Animated Feature: Alex Buckley, Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson, & Gary Unger, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. Del Toro, a Mexican filmmaker, had previously won Best Picture and Best Director for The Shape of Water, making him the first person to win Animated Feature and win either Picture and Director. I don’t think it is a great movie, but it is entertaining and takes chances, unlike the Disney remake.

Picture: CODA

CODA won Best Picture last month at the Oscars. In doing so, it broke many traditions of the Academy. It is the first film from a streaming service to win Best Picture. I don’t even think it had much of a theatrical release. It is the first film to win Best Picture without either a Director or Editing nomination since Editing became a category in 1934. It had only 2 other nominations. It is the lowest amount of nominations for a winner since Grand Hotel had no other nominations in 1932. I wonder why this happened. Did many members of the Academy not watch the film until after the nominations? Was the support of the acting branch (and possibly the writing and producing branch) so high that it overcame a lukewarm reception by other branches? Director Sian Heder wasn’t nominated at the DGA or the Oscars. The only other time that happened was in 1989 with Bruce Beresford for Driving Miss Daisy.

The first thing I noticed while watching CODA is that it is a genuinely funny movie. It is rare that the Best Picture winner is funny. Most of the comedies that win are not funny. There are a few exceptions, like It Happened One Night and The Apartment. These are terrific characters who feel very real and are very funny. I liked the film the first time and liked it even better the second time. One thing that changed is that I watched the film that CODA is based on. It is not that La Familie Beliar is a bad film, but CODA feels more real. The characters and situations just feel so down to Earth. These feel like people that you might know. The actors are superb. This is the only film I’ve seen with Troy Kotsur (though he played a Tusken Raider under much makeup in The Mandalorian), but he is terrific. Emilia Jones was only 19 when she shot the film. She spent 9 months learning to sign, getting vocal lessons, and learning to operate a fishing vessel. She is wonderful as a teenager who is unsure of her place in her family and the world.

CODA was written and directed by Sian Heder. She is only the third woman to direct a Best Picture winner. She is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon Drama School in Pittsburgh. She had only directed one film previously. She did a couple of shorts, but mostly worked on television, writing a number of episodes of Orange is the New Black. It almost makes me want to binge watch that show. I’m interested to see what she will do next.

Other Wins: Supporting Actor- Troy Kotsur
Adapted Screenplay

Other Best Picture Nominees: Belfast, Don’t Look Up, Drive My Car, Dune, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, Power of the Dog, West Side Story

I already did a Top Ten of 2021, but I have updated it.

My Top Ten of 2021: Encanto (Jared Bush + Byron Howard)
2. Belfast (Kenneth Branaugh)
3. Tick, Tick, Boom (Lin-Manuel Miranda)
4. Parallel Mothers (Pedro Almadovar)
5. Spiderman: No Way Home (Jon Watts)
6. CODA (Sian Heder)
7. Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier)
8. A Hero (Asghar Farhadi)
9. Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson)
10. Our Friend (Gabriela Cowperthwaite)

Thoughts on Oscar Nominations 2021

I was very surprised last year with how many of last year’s Oscar nominations were great. This year, it is just about the exact opposite. It also seems as though it is a foregone conclusion that The Power of the Dog is going to win Best Director as well as Best Picture and Dune will win a bunch of the technical awards. Dog was the frontrunner before the nominations, but now it is the only film with a directing, writing, and editing nomination, as well as having four nominations for acting and the most nominations for any film. Also, I think the Academy will try to make up for The Piano having the misfortune of being nominated in the same year as Schindler’s List as well as gay cowboy film Brokeback Moutain (assuming Dog is a gay cowboy film) losing Best Picture to Crash. The only things I see preventing Power of the Dog from winning most of the big awards are: 1. The weighted ballot rewards movies that may not have all the first-place votes, so Campion can win Director and Screenplay, but lose Picture. 2. The Power of the Dog is not nominated for Best Ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild. While the individual actors are nominated for 3 individual awards, this could show a lack of overall support. There also haven’t been awards on TV yet as the Golden Globes were held, but not on TV. There might still be time for upsets. 3. It is from Netflix and the streaming services have yet to win Best Picture. Is there still a bias?

So, I didn’t think many of the Best Picture nominees were very good. I think Belfast is the best live action film of the year. Licorice Pizza and CODA also made my top ten. West Side Story is good in places and had good performances, but is still a lesser film that the original. King Richard also had great performances, but I felt it was saying that it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, but how much money you make. Dune looks great, but is only half a movie. I am also not someone who thinks the book is great literature and think Paul is a rather boring protagonist. I thought The Power of the Dog had some interesting ideas that were never fully realized. It is one of those films that makes the characters blank so that you can transmit what you believe on the characters, but I think those characters just end up being blank. Nightmare Alley and Don’t Look Up were just negative films that were not very entertaining. I will say there is a 10-minute portion of Nightmare Alley with David Strathairn that lifts the film up that made me wish the rest of the film was on his level and made me sad that a brilliant actor such as Strathairn could never become a leading man because that is not what an ideal leading man is like. Drive My Car has not opened around where I live, but I am hoping to catch up to it in the next few weeks and it will go on HBO Max in March if it doesn’t come to theaters. Other than that film, Worst Person in the World, and Cyrano, I’ve seen all the nominees in the regular categories.

Ever since the Academy has moved to more than 5 Best Picture nominees, I have thought it hurt them rather than helped. This year, Nightmare Alley does not have any nominations in the acting, directing, or writing categories. Having 5 nominees makes those nominees more important. With the Academy’s weighted ballots, it does not look like there will be a blockbuster or an animated film nominated for Best Picture. The very purpose of moving to 10 was because Dark Knight and Wall-E were overlooked. So, if the purpose of it is not being met, why are they still doing it? Are there that many people who will watch the awards because they are fans of only Dune or Nightmare Alley or one of the others that would not have been nominated with only 5? It is time to go back to just 5.

As for the other categories, the blockbusters, like the superhero films, are relegated to just the technical awards. Spiderman: Far from Home, the film that is now #3 in all-time domestic gross, despite the pandemic, is nominated for just Visual Effects. However, there are plenty of actors who have played superheroes nominated. Best Actor features Doctor Strange, Spiderman, and Deadshot. Javier Bardem has also played a villain to James Bond and the Pirates of the Caribbean films. For Actress, Nicole Kidman has been both Batman’s girlfriend and Aquaman’s mother. Jessica Chastain was in an X-Men film. Kristen Stewart has been a Charlie’s Angel, Snow White, and Bella in the Twilight series. In Supporting Actor, there is J. Jonah Jameson, Nightcrawler, and Steppenwolf. Tony Kotsur also directed a movie about an actor who plays a deaf superhero. Supporting Actress has Spiderman’s girlfriend and M. Kenneth Branaugh also directed the first Thor.

Once again, writer-directors dominated the awards with 4 of the nominated directors also nominated for writing. There were two couples that got nominated. Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz are the 6th married couple to be nominated for acting in the same year. They are nominated for lead acting categories, but for different films. Jesse Plemons and Kirsten Dunst are nominated in the supporting categories for the same film. They are a real couple, but have not, like their characters, tied the knot. They previously played a couple on the TV show Fargo. As good as a character actor as he has become, Plemons will always be Landy Clark from Friday Night Lights to me.

A few years ago, there was a big push to honor minorities and their films. There are more films with minorities and more of them being nominated. Best Picture has a lot of movies about white people with white problems, but there does feature films about a Black family, a mostly deaf family, a Hispanic gang, and a Japanese film. Best Actor features two Black men and a Spanish man. A Spanish woman is nominated for Actress. Best Supporting Actor features the first deaf actor nominated 36 years after Marlee Matlin won Best Actress. Best Supporting Actress features a Black woman and a Puerto Rican woman. Best Director features a Japanese man as well as the first woman to be nominated for Best Director a second time who can pull off the rare 3-for-3 if she wins for Picture, Director, and Screenplay. In addition, CODA was written and directed by a woman. Three of the Adapted Screenplay nominees were solely credited to women. However, none of the Best Actress nominees are from Best Picture nominees.

Like the Oscar nominations, I don’t think the rest of the films this year have been very good. The industry seems to be in a transition. The big studios are concentrating on their franchises that they guard very closely while the smaller studios and streaming services are giving directors freer reign. Netflix is advertising a new movie every week. How are they supposed to keep track of all those productions? Do writer-directors need someone to watch them? I think that may lead to great things, such as Citizen Kane and the films of Paul Thomas Anderson or it may lead to some esoteric nonsense. Anyway, the last few years it has been harder to find films to put on my top ten than feeling bad about leaving films off of it. It was easy to name a worst film of the year. That is The Eternals. As I watched it, I felt like all the people who find superhero films boring. They are only boring if the characters are as cardboard, the dialogue is as ridiculous, and the action scenes as bad as those in The Eternals. Here is my top ten.

10. Annette– The English language debut of nutty French Leos Carax. His last film Holy Motors was as strange as they come. This one is almost as strange. It is a musical and an erotic love story and a tragedy and a character study and a horror film all wrapped up in one. It starts with a cast singing “Can we start?” and ends with the cast singing “If you liked it, tell a friend”. In between, it is the most bizarre film I saw all year or the past decade. It is truly a sight to behold, but cannot be ignored.

9. CODA– Many of the films on this list tell stories of families and tell them in a new and original way. Now, this is not exactly new as it is based on a 2014 French film and there have been others like it (Beyond Silence, a 1996 German film is also quite similar), but it is the little things this film gets right. The family seem very real and the situations seem very real. The school and teachers feel real. It is also a wonderful depiction of small business owners in a small town.

8. Shiva Baby– Every so often, an independent film will come out of nowhere and grab me. I had never heard of this film, but it was nominated for the John Cassavetes Award at the Independent Spirit Awards meaning it was made for under $500,000. It is better than most films that cost 100 times that. It is about a Jewish girl going to the Shiva with her parents. She has made some bad choices and the way the film shows the claustrophobia of the walls coming in on her is outstanding. It is also very funny. If you can get past the description of the film on HBO Max and the first scene, it becomes a terrific film.

7. Licorice Pizza– Paul Thomas Anderson makes movies that are original and each one is different from the last. He looks back at his own teenage years growing up in the late 70’s (the gas shortage is a major plot point). He had a crush on an older woman and this is a Tarantinoesque creation of what could have happened if she liked him as well. Some have criticized the film for this, but I see it as his wish fulfillment. The film features wonderful characters and some great acting from newcomers.

6. A Hero– I wrote about this one before. This is an Iranian film from the great Iranian director Asghar Farhadi. The way he tells stories is fascinating and the way he twists the main character into emotional knots is wonderful. It may not be his best film, but it is a better film that most of the acclaimed films from this year.

5. Spiderman: Far from Home– Occasionally, a blockbuster can come along and make you think and feel. The MCU films are always entertaining (except Eternals) and some are more than that. These characters are likeable and they try to do the right thing. We’ve seen Peter Parker rely on his friends and family, but the decision he makes at the end of the film for the others in his life is a wonderful character moment. There are great moments throughout the film, including rewards for fans of these films. I put this film as the best of the MCU and one of the best superhero movies ever.

4. Tick, Tick Boom– A great musical biopic. It does not follow the usual beats of a biopic. Instead, it tells the story through the subject’s own music. Andrew Garfield gives an amazing performance. He is a real Renaissance man who adds song and dance to his great performance. He has been giving wonderful performances since I first saw him in The Social Network. I never knew much about Jonathan Larson beyond Rent, but this shows that he had much more to offer. When Lin-Manuel Miranda first saw Rent, he decided that was what he wanted to do with his life and he made his directorial debut here to honor Larson. His passion for the material shows on screen.

3. Parallel Mothers– Penelope Cruz gives a luminous performance in Pedro Almadovar’s absorbing, emotional drama. Her character has a lot going on in the film and Cruz makes it all feel very real. The film also brings real life into its drama as they are still dealing with Spain’s past sins during the Franco years. It has one of the best last shots of the past few years.

2. Belfast– Kenneth Branaugh takes a break from Shakespeare and Agatha Christie to make something very personal. It is set during The Troubles in Belfast. It is a personal film for Branaugh who grew up in the same time. It is a love letter to a time and his family. It features great performances, wonderful writing, and great directing. Branaugh first showed his directorial talent in Henry V in 1989 and Belfast is able to use his gifts to make a sweet film about family.

1. Encanto– Everything about this film works for me. I love the characters, their songs, their relationships, and their emotions. It is one of the best films about family I’ve seen and one of the best animated films ever. I fell for these characters and still occasionally watch the songs on YouTube. It is able to be emotional and thought-provoking and entertaining all at the same time. I walked out with a spring in my step, a smile on my face, and the songs on my lips. It really stayed with me.

Oscar Predictions 2020

The Oscars are being held in April for the first time since 1987, the year that The Last Emperor won. The host that year was Chevy Chase, who began his monologue with “Good evening Hollywood phonies.” The following year, the Oscars and Rob Lowe hit rock bottom when Lowe began the show singing “Proud Mary” with Snow White. They revised the lyric to “Rolling, rolling, the cameras keep on rolling” as dancers dressed as tables and drinks tried to dance. Anything that the Oscars have in store for this year can only be a step up. Oscar winning director Steven Soderberg is one of the producers of these awards. They are using more than one venue and winners will be there live unless they are oversees where have been asked to dress up even if they are accepting awards from their living rooms.

As for the awards, Director, Supporting Actor, and a few others are easy, but there are many awards that are just a toss up. Three years ago, 5 out 8 nominees for Best Picture were about minorities with 3 of the acting awards going to minorities. This year, there are more actors who are minorities nominated than ever before and there is the possibility that all 4 of the acting categories will go to minorities and a Chinese woman could win 4 categories. No one has ever gone 4-for-4. Walt Disney won 4 in 1953 when he won 3 of the 4 Short Subjects awards, back when they had 4 instead of 3, and Documentary Feature. However, he was nominated twice in 2 of those categories. This year, I’ve seen all the nominees, except 2 of the Documentary Shorts.

Picture: Since the Academy has gone to a weighted ballot, Best Picture has become extremely hard to predict because it might not follow the other awards. Chloe Zhao could win the other 3 awards and lose Best Picture. I think Nomadland is going to win, but there is the possibility of Judas & the Black Messiah, Mank, Minari, Promising Young Woman, or Trial of the Chicago 7 winning. You just never know.

My Vote: Nomadland

Actor: Since Chadwick Boseman died of cancer in August, he has been the front runner for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. He had 4 nominations at the SAG awards this year, so actors (the largest block of Academy voters) seem to want to give him a posthumous tribute. The only thing that might give pause in predicting him is that Anthony Hopkins won at the BAFTAs and Riz Ahmed won at the Independent Spirit Awards. Other than that, it has been a clean sweep for Boseman. Now, Ahmed has a great career ahead of him and he will be back again. However, this is obviously Boseman’s last stand and probably 83-year-old Hopkins’ last shot. I think some older members might vote for Hopkins, but Boseman will win.

My Vote: Anthony Hopkins in The Father gave if not his best performance, one of his best in a truly remarkable career.

Actress: This is one of the categories that is a complete tossup. Two of the nominees recently won Oscars, but that doesn’t always stop voters from recognizing people again. 4 of the nominees have taken precursor awards. If they are gaga over Nomadland, McDormand could still win, but it looks to be a tossup between Viola Davis in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman. While a dozen films have won both Best Actor and Best Actress, none have done so without a Best Picture nomination. Mulligan was nominated for her breakthrough performance in An Education in 2009. Since then, she has done acclaimed work on both stage and screen. Promising Young Woman is unlike anything she has done in the past, I think they will want to reward her for it.
My Vote: McDormand in Nomadland. She has won 2 Oscars previously, but Fern in Nomadland is completely different from Marge Gunderson from Fargo or Mildred Hayes from Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. She is also completely different from her characters in Mississippi Burning, Almost Famous, or North Country, her Supporting Actress performances. She is an incredibly versatile actress. Her non-actor costars in Nomadland didn’t even realize she was an actress until she told them. That is high praise.

Supporting Actor: I think the lock of the night is Daniel Kaluuya for Judas & the Black Messiah.
My Vote: He may have been a little too old for the part (Fred Hampton was only 21 when he was murdered by the FBI), but there are few actors that could have played Hampton with the charisma the Kaluuya did. He comes in and takes the movie over in every scene he is in. He helped make Judas & the Black Messiah one of the best films of the year.

Supporting Actress: This is another award that is a tossup. This could go to one of 4 of the nominees. Right now, Youn Yuh-jung is the front runner for Minari and they might want to reward the film somewhere and this is the easiest place. However, the Academy also likes to go for pretty, young blondes and Maria Bakalova went toe-to-toe with Sasha Baron Cohen (and Rudy Guiliani) in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and Amanda Seyfried held her own with Gary Oldman and was one of the high points in Mank, a film with 10 nominations. Glenn Close is now tied with Peter O’Toole with 8 nominations without a win. Her grandma in Hillbilly Elegy brought many detractors (and a Razzie nomination), but her body of work is difficult to ignore. I am still thinking Yuh-jung wins.
My Vote: She may have won a couple of years ago, but Olivia Colman is just fantastic in The Father as the daughter whose heart is breaking in seeing her father in the state he is in. Her face tells us so much of her desire to be there for her father (even when he puts her down), but also wanting to lead her own life.

Director: Chloe Zhao won DGA and that usually links up with the Oscars. She will be only the second woman to win.
My Vote: Chloe Zhao for Nomadland.

Original Screenplay: All five of these films are nominated for Best Picture. I don’t think Sound of Metal has much of a shot, but Promising Young Woman, Judas & the Black Messiah, Trial of the Chicago 7, and Minari all have a shot. If any of them want to win Best Picture over Nomadland, they probably need to win here. The Academy likes to reward bold, new, exciting visions. so I will go with the boldest and newest filmmaker with Promising Young Woman.
My Vote: Judas & the Black Messiah avoided the cliches and brought history to life with its words.

Adapted Screenplay: Can Chloe Zhao go 3 for 3 and win here for Nomadland or will they want to reward The Father with something? I’ll stick with Nomadland.
My Vote: Nomadland interpreted a non-fiction book and told a fictional story that is all too true for many Americans.

Cinematography: While I would not be too surprised with an upset, I think Nomadland wins.
My Vote: Nomadland‘s story shows a side of America most people have never seen. It’s beautiful visuals do the same thing.

Production Design: Up until the late 60’s, black and white had its own category. Since then, only a handful of black & white films have been here and only a couple have won. The one thing the Academy loves is movies about movies that evoke old time Hollywood, like Mank does. It was nominated for 10 awards and they will reward it here.
My Vote: While the sets of The Father might seem simple, they change in small degrees that adds to the isolation and confusion of the main character.

Sound: Since 1982, there have been 2 awards for sound. One was Mixing and one was for Editing. No one really knew the difference, so often the same films would be nominated for and win both. So, they just eliminated one category and everyone competes together. Only two films with the word Sound in their title have ever competed in this category and they both won. Then again, that didn’t help Adaptation win Best Adapted Screenplay. Films about musicians do well here, so I’ll go with Sound of Metal.
My Vote: Sound of Metal puts you into the head of the main character and his hearing problems.

Song: For the fourth year in a row, someone has been nominated for an acting award and for Best Song. No one has won the acting part yet, but Lady Gage won Song two years ago. Glenn Close is 0-for-8, but Diane Warren is 0-for-12. She is nominated for a song that is not in English (which rarely wins) and the ballot does not list her name, just the title of the song and the film. I think it is between “Speak Now” from One Night in Miami or “Husavik” from Eurovision Song Contest. While “Husavik” comes at the climax of its movie, more people will have seen One Night in Miami. Since they also nominated Leslie Odom Jr. in Supporting Actor and probably watched him electrify in Hamilton on Disney+, I think they will go with “Speak Now.”
My Vote: I find “Speak Now” dull with repetitive lyrics. It blends together too much with 2 of the other nominees. “Husavik” comes in the climax of Eurovision Song Contest and I was ready to stand up and applaud for it.

Score: The Academy tends to give Score to films about musicians, so Soul will win here.
My Vote: The music of News of the World was very evocative of other great Westerns.

Editing: There are three types of movies that win here: Best Picture winner, musicals, and action movies. So, Nomadland, Sound of Metal, Trial of Chicago 7 (not exactly an action movie, but explosive in some scenes and the story jumps between the courtroom and the protest). I still think Nomadland will make Chloe Zhao 4-for-4.
My Vote: Nomadland

Costumes: This is another toss up. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom won a Costume Guild Award. However, the Academy often sees these technical awards as Best equals Most and Ma Rainey takes place mostly over one day with most of the characters wearing the same things throughout. So, it could be Emma, Mank, Ma Rainey, or Mulan. I think Mank and its Old Hollywood digs wins.
My Vote: Emma

Visual Effects: With no Best Picture nominees, I think it will come down to Tenet and Midnight Sky. Christopher Nolan films do well here, so Tenet.
My Vote: The creature effects of Love & Monsters and how they interact with the environment is visually stunning.

Makeup: Like Costumes, Ma Rainey won Make up Guild Awards. Also like Costumes, Most is always better, so I’ll go with Pinocchio as nearly everyone is wearing some kind of big make up.

My Vote: Pinocchio is boring, but the makeup at least gives you something to look at.

Foreign Film: With Vinterberg’s Director nomination, Another Round is the obvious choice.
My Vote: The Man Who Sold His Skin is a terrific black comedy.

Documentary Feature: Another toss up between Crip Camp, My Octopus Teacher, and Time. My Octopus Teacher has the environmental angle and Time has Black Lives Matter angle, but Crip Camp has Barack and Michelle Obama as executive producers (no, they don’t get an Oscar if it wins).
My Vote: In Mole Agent, a private eye goes undercover in a retirement home to see about if a client’s mother is being cared for properly and get involved in the people’s lives. It is so good, some people suspect it is staged.

Documentary Short: It’s between Colette and The Holocaust versus Love Song for Latasha and Black Lives Matter. I think it is Love Song for Latasha.
My Favorite: All three of the ones I have seen seem a bit too short. Colette at least has archival footage of the Holocaust that I have never seen.

Live Action Short: I think the two about the Middle East will cancel each other out. The Letter Room has star power behind it because it stars Oscar Isaac. Feeling Through is a nice story about a homeless teenager helping a deaf guy. It at least has a happy ending. Also, Executive Producer Marlee Matlin will be presenting at the Oscars because of Sound of Metal. However, I think Black Lives Matter brings another award with Two Distant Strangers.
My Vote: Most of the Live Action Shorts this year left me scratching my head wondering what they were thinking or trying to say. Feeling Through is at least good and has a happy ending, but Two Distant Strangers blew me away with its Groundhog Day like structure and just when you thought it was going one way, it throws a brilliant curve. It is produced by Lawrence Bender (who produces Quentin Tarantino movies, including Pulp Fiction) and Sean Combs. I wanna hear that Oscar speech.

Animated Short: The love animals, so Burrow might win. However, if there are parents voting for this award, then If Anything Happens, I Love You is a cinematic gut punch.
My Vote: If Anything Happens, I Love You

Animated Feature: Soul seems like the obvious choice. It is not a lock, but close. Wolfwalkers has a chance and they love Aardman Animations, so Shawn the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon has a shot.
My Vote: I enjoyed the brother dynamic in Onward.

Final Thoughts on Oscars 2019

The Oscars were handed out last Sunday and I thought they did a great job with the awards themselves. With the exception of Adapted Screenplay, all of the winners were very deserving. The actors all gave good to great performances. However, the show itself was not as good as the awards.

It began with Janelle Monae singing a song about the films that were not nominated. Now, I am fine with celebrating all the movies made for the year, but this was utterly ridiculous. The night is about movies and celebrating the nominees, not saying these should have been the nominees. Eminem finally decided to show up to sing “Lose Yourself” 17 years after winning the Oscar for it. Do it 2 years ago or wait 3 years and you have an anniversary; doing it now just seems like padding. I think that the singing of the Best Songs were actually pretty good. I can understand about bringing in a choir for one of the songs, but they seemed to show up for every one. Lastly, why did they not have a host, but had the announcer bring out one celebrity only to announce another celebrity? Just cut out the middle man and let the announcer do his job.

Parasite became the first film not in English to win Best Picture. It is also the first to have an entirely Asian cast. Last Emperor and Slumdog Millionaire both had portions in another language and a mostly Asian cast, but also cast Europeans, like Peter O’Toole (Irish) and Dev Patel (born in London). It is also the first film to win both Best Picture and the Palme d’Or since Marty in 1955. I think it is a great film. I’ll have to watch the film again to see how the rest of the film works if you know its secrets. Then, I will do a proper review. I do have to applaud the Academy for going for a film that does not always feel like the normal Best Picture winner and adheres to a particular genre. It is also somewhat critical of rich people, which is most of the Academy.

The acting awards are an interesting bunch since there only Renee Zellweger is a typical Oscar winner playing a real life person. She was also a previous Oscar winner. The other three have been giving good and great performances for some time and were finally rewarded. I wonder what Joaquin Phoenix’s win means for future comic book adaptations. Only five performances from comic book movies have received nominations, all four previous were in Supporting Actor. Those performances are Al Pacino as Big Boy Caprise in Dick Tracy (Joe Pesci won for Goodfellas), Paul Newman as John Rooney in Road for Perdition (Chris Cooper won for Adaptation), William Hurt as Richie Cusack in History of Violence (George Clooney won for Syriana), and Heath Ledger’s win for The Dark Knight. This is also only the second time actors have won Oscars for playing the same characters, assuming they are the same character since the Academy lists Phoenix’s performance as Arthur Fleck rather than Joker. The other time was Don Corleone. Will there be more nominees for comic adaptations as a result of Phoenix’s win or is this a special case because Joker felt more like a Scorsese movie than a comic book movie and it was a psychological drama and not an action movie?

Speaking of comic book adaptations, this is two years in a row that a comic book movie has been nominated. I doubt it is a sign of things to come. Other than Joker’s win for Actor and Score and its other nominations, the only comic book movie to receive a nomination was Avengers: Endgame for Visual Effects, which it lost to 1917. While Phoenix won for a comic book role, none of the other winners have starred in comic book adaptations, although Dern has been in both the Jurassic Park and Star Wars franchises and Brad Pitt, who I am sure has had plenty of offers to star as comic book heroes, had a cameo in Deadpool 2.

Last year, a record number of films about minorities were nominated for Best Picture. This year, not very many made the cut and only two actors who are minorities were nominated. I think a big difference last year was that many of the films nominated were from typical Academy genres while this year they were not. Get Out was nominated as it skirted the edges of being a horror film while Us went all in on the horror. The Academy does not nominate horror films for major awards. Only one real horror film (The Exorcist) has ever been nominated for Best Picture. Dolemite is My Name has a problem in that it is a comedy that is actually funny and the Academy usually doesn’t nominate those. Harriet didn’t get good reviews or any traction for the award season. While the four acting awards were all white, there were some minority winners in other categories. In addition to Zellweger and Dern, there were 11 other women who won awards, including Best Picture. Bong Joon Ho won three of the major awards, a rare feat. The other screenplay was won by a Maori man. Animated Short was about and won by a Black couple. An Asian man won in Makeup. Only time will tell if last year was an aberration or if more films will be nominated. Only a dozen foreign language films have been nominated for Best Picture and now one has finally won. Are there more to come? Only time will tell.

Oscars Predictions 2019

This year, the Oscars were moved up to the beginning of February rather than the end of February. Despite that, I was able to see all of the nominees, except Corpus Christi for Foreign Film. Once again, the Oscars have been controversial and are hard to predict. I didn’t do well last year since I didn’t see Bohemian Rhapsody, which won 4 awards. This year, the acting awards seem obvious as well as International (no longer Foreign) Film, but everything else seems up in the air.

Picture: The frontrunner has changed on a regular basis. At certain points, a case could have been made for each of the films only to have them fade. I think it is a 4 picture race down to Irishman, 1917, Parasite, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, with 1917 winning in a photo finish.
My Vote: 1917

Actor: Joaquin Phoenix has been winning all the award shows, but does the Academy want to go for something more serious? It is only the fifth performance from comic book adaptation to be nominated and two of those (Paul Newman in Road to Perdition and William Hurt in History of Violence) were not the superhero kind. The other two were Al Pacino for Dick Tracy and Heath Ledger for Dark Knight. If Phoenix was the only nomination for Joker, then I might be tempted to pick an upset for Jonathan Pryce (he’s the Pope after all. How many Catholics, or ex-Catholics, will vote against the Pope?). However, Joker has 11 nominations. The Academy clearly like Phoenix. This is his 4th nomination after Gladiator, Walk the Line, and The Master. It looks like it is time to finally reward him.
My Vote: Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur in Joker.

Actress: Renee Zellweger not only plays a real person, plays someone with a drinking problem, gets lots of speeches, and gets to have big emotional moments, but she is playing someone the older members of the Academy knew, but never got to recognize for her talent. Zellweger also does her own singing
My Vote: Cynthia Erivo was wonderful in Harriet.

Supporting Actor: The Academy will want to be the last stop on the Brad Pitt Comedy Tour.
My Vote: Tom Hanks did more than just play Mr. Rogers in Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, he showed the living embodiment of what Rogers stood for. I think it is his best performance.

Supporting Actress: Laura Dern has won the award shows. She not only is a past nominee herself, but her parents are past nominees. She also gets to have a great speech about the inequality between men and women. There is a possibility that they will want to reward Scarlett Johansson, who was nominated twice for two Best Picture nominees.
My Vote: Kathy Bates was great as the bewildered mother in Richard Jewel.

Director: Sam Mendes won DGA and that usually links up with the Oscars.
My Vote: Sam Mendes for 1917

Original Screenplay: It comes down to Once Upon a Time In Hollywood and Parasite. If either wants to win Best Picture, then they will need the win here. The Academy likes to reward bold, new, exciting visions and, while not exactly new, Bong Joon Ho fits the exciting visionary while Tarantino might be too much the same.
My Vote: Parasite

Adapted Screenplay: 4 of the 5 nominees are Best Picture nominees. Joker isn’t winning here, so it comes down to The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, and Little Women, all of whom may be winning their only award here. Irishman will probably seem old hat. So it is between Taika Watiti and Greta Gerwig. I think they will reward Gerwig for her new vision of an old classic as well as not being nominated for Director.
My Vote: Joker

Cinematography: 1917 seems like the obvious pick here.
My Vote: 1917

Production Design: This is harder category since there is no stand out. Everyone is solid and there are no obvious, costume dramas. I think it will either be the many sets of The Irishman or the recreation of old time Hollywood in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Often bigger and more, as well as biopics, win here, so I’ll go with Irishman.
My Vote: The recreations of 1917 had me almost feeling and smelling the trenches of World War I.

Sound Mixing: 1917 will do well in the technical awards.
My Vote: 1917

Song: The 3 films here did not have any other nominations and the other 2 had only 1 other nomination. Three of the nominees have won before. Anybody can win, but I think they will give it to “I’m Gonna Love Me Again” from the Elton John biopic.
My Vote: “I’m Gonna Love Me Again” from Rocketman.

Score: It will come down to Joker and 1917. If the voters really loved 1917, they might give it another award here, but I think it will be Joker.
My Vote: 1917

Editing: This could be a Best Picture preview. If Parasite, Irishman, or Jojo Rabbit win here, then they will probably win Picture. If Ford v. Ferrari wins, then it will be good for 1917. They like to reward action here, so I’ll go with Ford v. Ferrari.
My Vote: Parasite

Costumes: This is an odd character. How is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood nominated here? Brad Pitt wears a T-shirt/Hawaiian shirt combo the whole time. You can buy that at the thrift store. Jojo Rabbit might have a chance here, but Little Women is the kind of film that wins here.
My Vote: Little Women

Visual Effects: Usually, the Best Picture nominee wins, but Irishman‘s effects have been criticized while 1917‘s effects are a little too small. Avengers: End Game is one of the highest grossing movies of all time and is a way to finally award Marvel something.
My Vote: Avengers: End Game

Makeup: Biopics usually do well here, so I’ll go with Judy.
My Vote: I am not kidding when I say Maleficent: Mistress of Evil had a great look to it, including the Makeup.

Sound Editing: It will be either 1917 or Ford v Ferrari with 1917 winning.
My Vote: Ford v Ferrari

Foreign Film: Parasite is the obvious choice.
My Favorite: Parasite

Documentary Feature: I think it is between American Factory, Edge of Democracy, or For Sama with American Factory winning.
My Vote: Edge of Democracy

Documentary Short: What will the Academy care most about? With #metoo still important and Learning to Skateboard in a War Zone If You’re a Girl.
My Vote: Learning to Skateboard in a War Zone If You’re a Girl

Live Action Short: Saria hits on immigration and class warfare and is a true story.
My Vote: Neighbor’s Window

Animated Short: They like animals, so Kitbull might win, I think but Hair Love will win.
My Vote: Hair Love

Animated Feature: This is up in the air with the precursor awards all going for different films. If they want to reward originality, then I Lost My Body. Klaus won the Annies, but I think it might be too slight. I still think Toy Story 4 will win.
My Vote: Toy Story 4