There were rumors, of course, that the Academy was going to cancel the telecast or the ceremony or the entire shebang this year because of (at the time) the wildfires in California. And I admit I was kind of rooting for them not to, because Oscars night has become a Thing for me and my people. But beyond the notion of the fires, there's also (at least to me) a pervasive sense that this is the band playing on as the Titanic sinks.
I'm not going to blather much about not-movies, I promise, but I do kind of want to think about why I still care and what it's possible to get out of this. Take as read the masturbatory nature of awards shows (my usual response to that, when I'm not in polite company, is "so what? Masturbation feels good") and take as read the fact that it is, indeed, rich people congratulating other rich people for the most part. Is there any more or less point this year than any year? Sure, the money that gets spent on the telecast should go to [whatever], but it wouldn't no matter what because that's not how this works; it's not like there's an Oscar fund that the money can just be taken out of (this was why it annoyed me when people were saying "cancel the show and give the ad money to wildfire relief" - dude if there's no show there's no ad money). Sure, the big awards - the acting, directing, and Best Picture ones - are typically rich-on-rich, but then you've got the people making documentaries and shorts and in technical categories for whom this isn't a $20 million check, it's their job, and they're getting the recognition that they deserve (I guess, I mean who knows how the Academy votes, but that's a separate thing).
But I think what it really comes down to for me is that yes, this is a circus (as in "bread and"), but I love movies and the Oscar noms push me to see films that I'd be unlikely to see under normal circumstances. Sometimes that gets me to see movies that open my eyes to things I didn't know or didn't know much about (I'm Still Here, Nickel Boys). Sometimes they're interesting and entertaining and push me towards other artists (after watching A Complete Unknown, I remembered how much I like early Dylan). Sometimes movies are useful for their mistakes (Emilia Pérez). Sometimes...they're just kinda boring and not for me (Dune: Part Two) and that's fine, too.
So I'll keep doing this yearly Oscars thing until the ship sinks, or until I can do more good for the world by skipping it, I guess. If it turns out this is the last time, well:
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| It's been a privilege. |
Let's talk about who's likely to win and who I think should win. Unlike previous years where there have been frontrunners, I'm kinda firing blind on a lot of these.
Best Actor: The last Oscar nom that I saw was The Apprentice, so let's start here. I saw it last because I really didn't want to think about That Fucking Guy any more than I had to, but rules are rules (plus I'm a fan of Sebastian Stan anyway). The thing about playing a real person, especially one as famous as Cheeto Mussolini, is that it's easy to slip into impersonation, but that's not what a biopic is (or it shouldn't be). I thought Stan did an amazing job of capturing exactly how weak, scared, ignorant, narcissistic, and dangerous Mango Tinyhands really is without just doing a parody. I don't think he's gonna win, but I kinda hope he does because it would annoy Musk's Hand Puppet.
Ahem. What else we got? Well, we've got our one non-white nominee, Colman Domingo. I like Sing Sing more the more I sit with it - as a theater kid myself, I know the transformative and self-reflective power of playing a role because it forces you to think as not-you. I think that as powerful as Domingo's performance was, it was a lot like some others he's given, and I think the strength of the movie was in the ensemble cast.
Which is actually the same note I have about Conclave and Ralph Fiennes, although I think he did more to anchor the film than Domingo did in Sing Sing. Fiennes' performance as a man who's nominally motivated by his faith but is in fact trying to keep this vastly complex machine from breaking down was really well done.
So that leaves Adrien Brody and Timothée Chalamet, who are really the two front-runners. Of the two, I think Brody is the safer bet, because I think The Brutalist is both the better and more complex performance and because it's the kind of movie Academy voters feel like they "should" vote for. Chalamet's turn as Bob Dylan was impressive, and I very much enjoyed that it was a different kind of musician biopic than the usual "musician comes from nothing, makes good, gets popular, does all the drugs, either dies or rebounds".
My Choice: I'm really torn, but I Brody's was the one that stuck with me the most.
My Prediction: Adrien Brody
Best Actress: Hoo boy.
There's a very talented group of actresses this year, mostly, and while all of the acting category are a little whiter than I'd like (but not a total shutout for POC, so like, yaaaay), this year actually makes history as the first openly transgender woman gets nominated in this category! So you go, Karla Sofía Gascón! I mean, sucks that we couldn't make this history with a better movie, a better performance, and a better, um person, but we don't get the history we want.
All that aside, I was not a fan of Emilia Pérez generally (I'll talk about why anon), and I wasn't wowed by Gascón's performance particularly. And I think she has managed to show, as the young folks say, her entire ass enough that she's not winning this.
Likewise, despite the box office of Wicked and her deserved acclaim for the performance, I don't think Cynthia Erivo is winning. I think it's possible she might have a stronger shot next year when the second part comes out, but I think there are other contenders with more momentum.
Speaking of that, I think any of the other three actresses could take it. Mikey Madison has gotten a bunch of other noms for her work in Anora, and won a BAFTA. I think that the role could have fallen into any number of tropey pitfalls and didn't - I didn't necessarily like Anora (the character, not the movie) but I could very much see who she was and where she was coming from. Likewise, Fernanda Torres' turn as Eunice Paiva was heartbreaking and, sorry to say, feels like it might become topical.
I think, though, that both of those performances have strikes against them - Madison had that whole intimacy coordinator kerfuffle (which is, as they say, a nothing-burger; she was offered an intimacy coordinator and felt comfortable without one, so why are we prodding at this), and the Academy isn't always keen on movies with graphic sex. Torres has the problem that the movie was pretty hard to see in the States. And also...
Demi Moore did an incredible job in The Substance, and she's never been nominated, and the subject matter is probably near and dear to a lot of voters' hearts. She's also the favorite to win. I struggle with who my choice would be, because my impulse is to go for Moore because I love horror and the genre doesn't get enough recognition, but Torres compels me, too.
My Choice & Prediction: Demi Moore, but I wouldn't be sad if Torres or Madison took it
Best Supporting Actor: And, back to The Apprentice, for Jeremy Strong. As with Stan's performance, I think Strong does a great job of showing us a loathsome human being and making him understandable, if not relatable, but never letting us forget how vile he really was, even when the poor sonofabitch is dying of AIDS. Yora Borisov surprised me in Anora, because I didn't know any of the actor's names and based on the trailers I thought it was the actor playing the oligarch's son (which turned out to be Mark Eydelsheyn). But Borisov's Igor, like Anora herself, is a more realistic character than we'd normally get - he's not ice cold or super competent, not overly violent or mean or stupid. He's a guy trying to do his job but also not be a total tool about it, he panics, and he gets mad, and honestly he approaches Anora with a lot more patience than he might have.
Anyway, neither of those guys are going to win, and neither is Edward Norton. His performance as Pete Seeger was fine (and hearkened back to his tour-de-force in Death to Smoochy - just a little, right?), but I think the buzz from A Complete Unknown belongs to Chalamet. This category is really a race between Guy Pearce and Kieran Culkin, and from what I've seen Culkin kinda has it sewn up.
Is that deserved? I don't know. Pearce definitely propels the action in The Brutalist, and his character is someone you love to hate (I actually really like that we don't see what happened to his character because I appreciate denying the audience that catharsis, I think it's very in-theme with the movie itself). Culkin's character in A Real Pain reminded me of any number of people I've met who are just like Benji; they're intense and vivid and demanding and then the next day they're off to something/someone else and that shit drives me crazy.
My Choice: Guy Pearce
My Predication: Kieran Culkin
Best Supporting Actress: And here we have a few performances that I just wasn't crazy about. Ariana Grande can sing, of course, and I'll give her this, she managed to make the role her own rather than following too closely with what Kristin Chenoweth did. Isabella Rossellini did a great job with what little screen time she had in Conclave, but what the heck, I'll use this as my slot to say this: We really should have an Ensemble Cast Oscar, and that's what Conclave should be nominated for. Even so, she's got a chance, because first of all it's her first nomination and second of all her performance was good. I just think there wasn't enough of it.
So who does that leave? Felicity Jones provides some much-needed clarity to Brody's character in The Brutalist. Monica Barbaro was amazing as Joan Baez, and when I saw A Complete Unknown I didn't realize she'd been nominated (I didn't know her name and I thought maybe it was someone from I'm Still Here), and the whole way through I was thinking "shit, she should have gotten a Supporting Actress nom".
And then there's Zoe Saldaña. Her performance was probably my favorite thing about Emilia Pérez, but that still ain't saying much. I think she did the best she could with the material, and I don't think she deserves the win, but I also think that if anything about the movie deserved recognition, it was her.
My Choice: Monica Barbaro
My Prediction: Isabella Rossellini, I think? Lots of tough calls this year
Best Original Screenplay: Man, the nominations are really consolidated around the Best Picture films, much more than in years past. Anyway, here we have The Brutalist, Anora, and The Substance, but also A Real Pain and September 5.
September 5 was interesting, especially having seen Munich, which told some of the same story from a very different perspective. I think telling it from the perspective of the news-folks trying to cover the story kept it from being too exploitative, and the writing is definitely the hallmark (that and Leonie Benesch's performance; if she'd gotten a Supporting Actress nom over Saldaña or Grande I wouldn't have cried). A Real Pain also definitely deserves its nom here, weaving together this narrative about family and history and found family.
I hate to say it, because as much as I loved The Substance I think that the writing wasn't the best thing about it. I think the direction and the performances and the effects were all amazing, but the script and the world-building were just OK in comparison (that said, if it wins, I'm OK with that because yay horror).
But I don't think it's going to beat either of the remaining two. Of the two I think The Brutalist is the more ambitious story, though Anora might be the tighter and more character-driven. The buzz I'm seeing has this race between those two, with Anora as the slight lead.
My Choice: The Brutalist
My Prediction: Anora
Best Adapted Screenplay: Here we are again, with five books I haven't read being adapted. And again, mostly Best Picture noms, all except Sing Sing. Sing Sing ain't winning, but as far as an adaptation goes they did a pretty bang-up job, even casting most of the theater-troupe inmates to play themselves.
So that leaves us Emilia Pérez, Nickel Boys, Conclave, and A Complete Unknown. I really hope that Emilia Pérez doesn't win this ("Penis to vagiiiinaaaa"), because frankly the script was kind of garbage. Of the others, I think the strength of Nickel Boys was its direction and cinematography (neither of which it's nominated for, which is a shame), and that leaves A Complete Unknown and Conclave. Smart money's on Conclave, I think, and I'm fine with that (I'm still not sure how I feel about the final "twist" in that movie, but it's definitely a more interesting script than the Dylan biopic).
My Choice & Prediction: Conclave
Best Director: Once again, we've got five Best Picture nominees. From what I'm reading this is basically between Sean Baker and Brady Corbet. I don't think James Mangold can (or should) win this, and I definitely think Jacques Audiard has lost whatever chance he might have had (he'd better have, anyway).
If anyone pulls an upset, I'd love it to be Coralie Fargeat. The Substance is delightfully gross and weird, and her direction (and the two lead performances) make it.
But assuming there's not an upset and it's Baker or Corbet? I think I gotta go with Baker, but it really could be either of them. Baker won the DGA, Corbet won the Globe, Anora won the Palm d'Or, Corbet won the BAFTA, it's really a toss-up.
My Choice: Coralie Fargeat
My Prediction: Err...let's say Sean Baker
Best Animated Feature: Another race with some drama! (Inasmuch as there's some chance for an upset.) I think we can safely count out Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. As much as I enjoyed it, it's not nearly as good as the others and it's not as good as Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Likewise, I think Inside Out 2 peaked a little too early and it's just not as strong as the front-runners (with that said, I remain impressed at the filmmakers' ability to take the natural drama of growing up and put a narrative to it within the fiction).
I don't think Memoir of a Snail is going to win, but I really loved it. The art and animation style, the voice work, and especially the darkly funny story were all lovely. But I think that the final race is really between Flow and The Wild Robot, both of which were beautifully shot, well-told stories. I think The Wild Robot is likely to take it; it's the more traditional of the two and has dialog and everything, but my brain keeps going to be to Flow. The art and animation are truly beautiful, and the animals actually act like animals (the dogs are impulsive and chummy, the capybara is chill, and so on). Also it's nominated for an International Feature Oscar, so maybe it's got a shot?
My Choice: Flow
My Prediction: The Wild Robot
Best Cinematography: I never know how to call this, but if I don't include it I've only got nine predictions and that seems wrong somehow. And besides, since Nosferatu got robbed of a Best Picture nom, this is my only chance to mention it. Robert Eggers is going to get a Best Director and/or Best Picture nom one of these years, but Nosferatu was apparently too weird or slow or Count Orlock's mustache was too bushy, who knows. Either way I think this is my choice for the category.
But like I said, it ain't winning. I don't think Emilia Pérez is, either, and I'm a little confused as to why it's here? Same with Maria, though I remember a bit more about the way it was shot than for Emilia Pérez. (Why in the world is that nominated over Nickel Boys?) Dune: Part Two deserves its nom here, and The Brutalist definitely does, and ultimately I think that's what's going to take it.
My Choice: Nosferatu
My Prediction: The Brutalist
Best Picture: Right, here we go!
OK, let's dispense with the easy ones: Dune: Part Two is not winning, and honestly I was so fucking bored by it. Maybe it's because I've not read the novels, I don't know, but honestly when I saw Part One I remember thinking that they should have just skipped to the interesting bits, and seeing this one I kept thinking "wait, was I supposed to remember that dull-ass movie I saw five years ago?"
Nickel Boys is not winning, but I'm annoyed it didn't get more noms than it did. It should have taken Emilia Pérez' spot in Director and Cinematography, at least. The first person perspective could have been gimmicky, but in the context of the film it really enhances the story.
I don't think The Substance is winning. Horror, as I've said, doesn't get recognition at the Oscars often, and body horror even less so. I would love to be wrong, but I think that the momentum here is behind Demi Moore.
A Complete Unknown isn't winning. I don't think it's undeserving of the nom, but I do think that it's another biopic, and the fact that it takes a different approach than other similar ones doesn't make it any more likely to win.
Wicked, likewise, isn't taking this one. Sure, it's probably the one that did the best box office, but I think that it's likely to win in the some of the technical categories but not the big prize. If the Academy were going to vote for a musical I think they'd want to pat themselves on the back for giving the prize to Emilia Pérez.
And while we're on the subject, I don't think Emilia Pérez is winning. There's the controversy over the star's racism, the director's comments about Spanish as a language and Mexicans as a people, and the fact that it's just not that good a film. I think it got nominated on the strength of the premise, mostly by non Spanish-speakers who didn't appreciate the problem with a bunch of French people making a movie about Mexico.
Which still leaves us four possibilities: Anora, The Brutalist, Conclave, and I'm Still Here. I do not think I'm Still Here will win. If it wins anything (beyond Best Actress, which I still think is going to Moore), it's likely to be International Feature (which, I hate to say, could also go to Emilia Pérez). But it's topical, and it's good, so if enough voters have seen it and rank it higher enough, it could sneak through. I rather doubt it, though.
Speaking of ranked choice voting, that could also lead to Conclave winning. It's a safe bet, it's got strong performances, it's accessible, and apart from that last twist it's not a terribly challenging movie to get your head around (you know, for the older voters).
But I think, once again, the real race is between Anora and The Brutalist. Anora is the more accessible film - it's shorter, it's got an easier story to follow, and it's more exciting. The Brutalist is a big, long, sweeping epic, with a lot of historical weight and some amazing performances. Will the AI controversy (also a nothing-burger) hurt it? Will the runtime? I really don't know.
A lot of the predictions I've seen pretty much say "eh, could be either one" and then pick one, so that's what I'm gonna do, too. As for my choice, thinking about what the most emotional impact, what was the most entertaining, what had any kind of rewatch value...I'm still torn.
My Choice: The Brutalist, I think, but ask me tomorrow and I may have changed my mind
My Prediction: (flips coin) Anora
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