Every new year brings with it new seasons of change. Sometimes they mean working out more and practicing healthier eating habits. Sometimes they mean saving money and becoming more financially responsible. And sometimes, they could be just trying to be a better person. For me, 2025 is bringing many changes with it, including this website. Starting today, I will no longer be publishing movie reviews on DavidDunnReviews.com. Or at least, not in their traditional format.
You see, when I first launched this website in 2013, I did so with the express intent of pursuing my passion, which was the movies. I have always been passionate about the movies. Ever since I was a child, I was always mesmerized by the sights and sounds of the moving picture and how its magic transported us to new worlds, time periods, and characters to fall in love with. I always knew I wanted to be involved with film in some way, shape, or form. And while many doors were closed to me in terms of filming, writing, acting, or directing my own movies, the possibility of covering them always excited me. I will always appreciate my many years of covering the entertainment industry because it taught me much more than just being a better writer: it taught me how to be a better person, which is sadly a rare takeaway in today’s hectic, crazy, busy-bee world.
I always imagined that the movies would forever be a part of my life, no matter where it might take me. So why am I no longer committed to covering them full-time on my website? Well for one thing, my postings have become wildly infrequent. The last movie I officially reviewed on this website was Deadpool & Wolverine last July, and as fun and irreverent as that movie was, it’s a far cry from the best movie of the year. In my Top 10 for 2024, I placed nine movies above Deadpool & Wolverine. The only other one I reviewed on my list was Dune: Part Two. To cover an entire year of movies only to have properly reviewed just two of them is a grave injustice to me. It makes me feel like I failed as a movie critic — potentially even as a movie lover.
The explanation for my infrequent postings most likely revolves around my second reason: I’m tired. I’m exhausted beyond words. I’ve never stated this plainly outright before, but I think any casual viewer can see that I don’t get paid to run this website. Instead, I cover the movies whenever and wherever I can, juggling everything between my professional career, my married life, my social life, and my hobbies. That’s a lot to manage for a 30-something-year-old man, and with juggling all of my responsibilities, my passions inevitably fell to the wayside. Perhaps that’s the trajectory of all dreamers as they grow from childhood into adulthood.
Lastly, and perhaps most significantly, 2024 was the year that completely and utterly broke me: personally, mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Without getting into specifics, 2024 was the year where basically every catastrophe that could have possibly happened was hurled into my lap like a time bomb, and I had to hurry up and disarm it before the next one blew up in my face. I make no exaggeration when I say that last year was most definitely the hardest year I’ve had yet in my young life, and I already know for a fact that harder years lie ahead: that’s the worst part of surviving this hellish marathon.
With all of that under consideration, where does that leave this website? Well despite everything else being up in the air, I don’t think I can entirely shut everything down cold turkey. After all, I am still a writer, and I have to have an outlet somewhere that isn’t Twitter or Reddit.
That being said, I believe my first order of business is recentering myself and giving myself a much-needed and deserved break. After my hiatus is over, I think it’s time for creative reset: a chance to hit the “redo” button and start all over again. I don’t think I need to start from scratch, BUT I do believe this is a time to reevaluate what I’ve been writing about, what topics or conversations intrigue me, and what I might offer to my readers beyond the generic blog posts every once in a while. No matter how you slice it, I am not the same person I was when I first started this website 12 years ago. My writing should reflect who I am today, not who I wanted to be when I first entered the world of entertainment journalism.
So as I’m navigating this new chapter of my life and what it might mean for me and this website going forward, please bear with me as I figure out this new direction. You have all stuck with me through so much, and I could not be more grateful and appreciative for all of your support. I just hope you’ll remain patient with me a little longer as I figure out where I want to take this website in 2025 and beyond.
Thank you as always for taking the time to read my work. Regardless of wherever this website goes next, I’ll see you all at the same place as I always have — the movies.
Out of all of the years I’ve been covering the film industry, 2024 is the first year where I’ve felt genuinely deflated about the movies. Don’t get me wrong, I still cherish the moviegoing experience — the lights dimming, the hum of the speakers crescendoing into full volume, the bright, beautiful picture as it lights up that magical screen. Movies have always been a method of escape for me — that’s as true in 2024 as it was in 2014. I’ll always be grateful that out of the many, many things that have disappointed me from the past year, cinema has never lost its light.
That being said, in such a dim, cruel, callous world… who cares about light anymore? I find the fanciful fantasies of movies to be just that — fantasies, inspiring no real impact or change in the real world. Roger Ebert once said “Art is the closest we can come to understanding how a stranger really feels.” I truly believe that, and I always will. The problem is people nowadays don’t care much about art, and they care even less about other people. Living in such a state, who cares about movies or entertainment? Who cares about change when the means for change no longer work?
In either case, 2024 is thankfully behind us now, and 2025 will be about taking the lessons we learned from the past year and applying them to the future ahead of us. For me, that starts in the same place that it always has, and that is the movies. And while 2024 was a dismal, flimsy, and pathetic excuse for a year, the one thing I am grateful for is that the movies continued to persist. Like all of our favorite books, songs, paintings, poems, and photographs, the movies have inspired emotion and relevance in a year that demanded both in ways we’ve never seen before. I’m happy to say that the best movies of 2024 have risen to the occasion, just like they always have.
A few things before we dive into the year’s list. As always, I have not seen every movie that has come out in 2024, some very intentionally so. I have no desire to waste my time on soulless comic book movies like Joker 2 and Venom 3, especially when the original movies didn’t even warrant a sequel in the first place. But others just plain missed my radar. I had heard time and time again how brilliant The Substance and Anora were and wanted to see them both, but time did not allow me to catch either of those before the end of the year. So if there are any movies that deserve to be on this list and aren’t, I truly am sorry. This is the first year I’ve written this list where I’ve felt genuinely exhausted by it.
That being said, this list isn’t going to write itself, and I’m looking forward to diving into the very best movies the year gave us, starting with my special prize. Every year, I try to shine the spotlight on at least ONE limited-release movie that deserves just as much love and attention as many of the big-budget blockbusters we get throughout the year. Thankfully, my pick for 2024 was easy, because this movie only got a handful of public screenings before it snuck onto streaming services earlier this year. To me, that is the literal definition of “limited release,” so it is my great pleasure to award the Special Prize for 2024 to…
It feels weird to say that a black-and-white slapstick comedy film is one of the best movies of the year, but Mike Cheslik’s zany and wacky little masterpiece is as refreshing as it is straight-up bonkers. Ryland Brickson Cole Tews plays a fur trapper swooning after the affections of the merchant’s daughter, but before he can seek her hand in marriage, he has to offer the merchant the pelts of hundreds of beavers — hence the title. The movie does a brilliant job of channeling the style and appeal of 1930s black-and-white films, paying homage to all-time greats such as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. But aside from its nostalgic charm, Hundreds Of Beavers is simply one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. I caught myself laughing hysterically throughout the picture at the fur trapper’s silly antics in the same way that Elmer Fudd kept getting outsmarted by that pesky rabbit in the original Looney Tunes cartoons. If you’re sick of how cliche and unfunny most comedy films are nowadays, Hundreds Of Beavers will reaffirm your faith in the power of laughter and the movies.
Now without further adieu, let’s hop into the 10 best films of 2024, starting with…
The Merc With A Mouth’s third cinematic outing sees him partnering with the world’s most famous X-Man in this gleefully violent, profane, and outrageous roast of superhero franchises, cinematic universes, and multiverses in general. Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are as great as they’ve always been as both Deadpool and Wolverine, but their chemistry is on another level with Wade’s wisecracking antics clashing with Logan’s jaded rough-around-the-edges demeanor. The action sequences are among the most stylish and exhilarating out of the entire trilogy, and the cameos and easter eggs are unmatched in both their hilarity and fan service. The film doesn’t break any new ground for the superhero genre at large, and while Emma Corrin gave an enthusiastic performance as Cassandra Nova, her character unfortunately doesn’t do any favors for Marvel’s lackluster supervillain problem. That still doesn’t change the fact that Deadpool & Wolverine is a big and bold celebration of the Fox X-Men franchise, a welcome return to form for the MCU, and a wildly fun time at the movies.
Dev Patel teams up with Academy Award-winner Jordan Peele in his directorial debut that’s as fast-paced and action-packed as it is hard-hitting and impactful. After a young boy’s mother is killed and his village is burned down by a powerful business tycoon, he grows up perfecting his mind and body to seek vengeance against those who took everything from him. As the star, Dev Patel is as exemplary as he always is, displaying an emotional depth and complexion that makes you understand his character’s pain and where it comes from. But it’s in the director’s seat where Patel shows his deep love and appreciation for martial arts the most, with action sequences so intense, brutal, and heart-pounding that it makes you feel every punch and kick that lands in the theater. Some of the editing is slightly choppy and the cinematography is a little too shaky for my liking, but regardless, Monkey Man is a breath of fresh air for the action movie genre that encourages everyone to embrace who they are.
Pixar’s return into Riley’s head sees Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust colliding with an all-new team of emotions, and the chaos that ensues is as hilarious as it is heartfelt. The animation is as colorful and as vibrant as ever, with all of Riley’s memories lighting up in a brilliant and mesmerizing display of cosmic awe and wonder. The voice cast is just as outstanding, with Maya Hawke being a particular highlight as the jittery, erratic, and worrisome Anxiety. But it’s Kelsey Mann who takes center stage in his directorial debut, taking the ideas and themes from the first movie and expanding on them in new and relevant ways in the sequel. The very best thing about this movie is that as Riley navigates the confusion of her teenage years, it doesn’t villainize any of her emotions and shows they all have a part to play when it comes to who we are. Our emotions can lie to us, but they can also set us free. Inside Out 2 shows us how.
Alien’s return to its sci-fi horror roots is as horrifying as it is disturbing, with plenty of twists, turns, and surprises to keep audiences on the edge of their seats all the way through. Benjamin Wallfisch’s score is equally beautiful and unnerving, while Galo Olivares’ masterful cinematography is just as intense as it is claustrophobic within the dark, creepy walls of the Renaissance. Cailee Spaeny is effective as the film’s emotional center, and David Jonnson plays one of the coldest and most calculated androids in the entire franchise. But it’s Fede Alvarez who shines the most in the director’s chair, demonstrating a sound understanding of the tension and inspiration behind the Alien franchise like we haven’t seen since Ridley Scott first directed the original in 1979. There are a few cliches and one-liners littered throughout that rely a little heavier on nostalgia than I would have preferred, but regardless, Alien: Romulus is the best sequel in the franchise by a clear mile. The last 20 minutes will haunt you for the rest of your life.
DreamWorks comes out in full swing with the best animated film of the year that’s bursting with creativity, personality, and heart. After a cargo ship crash lands on a remote island, a service robot named “Roz” must learn how to survive against the elements in mother nature. But after befriending an orphaned baby goose, a stray fox, and many other four-legged companions, Roz discovers how to overcome her programming and become a protector for all of the forest animals. The animation itself is gorgeous and eye-catching, with everything from the animals, environments, and skyline sticking out in lush watercolor detail. The voice acting is also incredible, with Lupita Nyongo and Pedro Pascal giving the most nuanced and multifaceted performances out of the entire voice cast. But the most beautiful thing about this movie is its sense of humanity that values every life no matter how big or how small. Whether you come from a forest or a factory, The Wild Robot shows us that every life is sacred and worth fighting for.
The fastest hedgehog alive dashes into theaters for what is quite possibly the best video game film adaptation ever made. When the ultimate life form Shadow (Keanu Reeves) wakes up after being trapped in stasis for 50 years, Sonic (Ben Schwartz) must team up with his friends, Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) and Knuckles (Idris Elba), to defeat him and save the world from utter destruction. Pulling inspiration from the original game it’s based on, Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic 3 is jam-packed with wonderful easter eggs, spectacular action sequences, and heartfelt moments that flesh out these already beloved characters. Jim Carrey is iconic as both the eccentric Dr. Eggman and his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, and plays up the dual role with great comedic timing and effect. However, the biggest star is Keanu Reeves as Shadow the Hedgehog, a dark and grim figure who’s haunted by his tragic past. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 demonstrates that we’re entering a new era of video game adaptations that prioritizes character development and storytelling over everything else. All hail Shadow.
Very few Mad Max fans wanted or asked for a prequel to Fury Road, but Furiosa shows what happens when you get a skilled director with a strong vision behind the camera with enthusiasm for the character and who she represents. In Furiosa, Anya-Taylor Joy squares off against Chris Hemsworth years before Max Rockatansky enters the picture, and their rivalry is as intense as it is seething. Anya does a brilliant job demonstrating the same strength and vulnerability that made Charlize Theron’s character so iconic in the first place, but surprisingly, Chris Hemsworth steals the spotlight in his craziest and most chaotic role yet. I always like it when prominent Marvel actors break out of their typecasts, so seeing Hemsworth so unhinged here brought the biggest smile to my face. Everything else that made Fury Road a classic, from George Miller’s skilled direction to the explosive action sequences and the gorgeous practical effects, all make Furiosa the standout blockbuster of the year. I will never forgive moviegoers for letting this movie bomb at the box office.
Expectations were undoubtedly high for the live-action adaptation of Stephen Schwartz’s iconic musical, but Jon M. Chu absolutely knocks it out of the park with a sweeping fantasy epic that is just as joyous and enchanting as it is dramatic and powerful. This prequel to the classic Wizard Of Oz shows the complex relationship between Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda (Ariana Grande) before they became the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda The Good and how they went from the closest of friends to the most bitter of rivals. The music is faithfully recreated from the original Broadway production and given new life thanks to the incredible vocal talents of both Cynthia and Ariana. Likewise, both of their performances are out of this world, with Cynthia portraying Elphaba’s intensity so brilliantly against Ariana’s blissfully vain Galinda. But the best thing about this movie is the deeper conversations Jon Chu explores, including how easy it is to villainize and marginalize others through propaganda. In every sense of the word, Wicked is pure magic and will make you believe that you too can defy gravity.
Everyone expected this star-studded sci-fi sequel to be as explosive, captivating, and visually spectacular as the first film was. What elevates Dune: Part Two above its predecessor is that it’s deeper, darker, and even more profound and thought-provoking. Greig Fraser’s cinematography is as striking and masterful as it’s always been, bringing weight, meaning, and gravitas into every shot he captures. Denis Villeneuve’s visual scope is equally unrivaled in how he chooses to portray the carnage and chaos of Arrakis, whether that involves Sardaukar hovering in the air or sandworms burrowing through the desert sands. And the all-star cast is nothing short of top-tier, with Timothee Chalamet offering the most raw and compelling performance as the prophesied Lisan al-Gaib. But the best thing about this movie is how much it emphasizes Frank Herbert’s original themes surrounding wealth, power, and religious fanaticism. As the Fremen swear allegiance to Paul and declare war against the universe, the parallels between Arrakis and our world today are disturbingly similar. Yet, the scariest thing about Dune: Part Two wasn’t seeing millions believing in Paul and rallying behind his crusade — it’s that you wanted to believe him too.
And finally, my number one movie of the year. I was initially worried I wasn’t going to see this movie before year’s end because the distributors had the bright idea of releasing this film on Christmas, which is a little weird because this isn’t exactly a quote-unquote “Christmas” movie. Regardless, this movie was a Christmas present in its own little way, with some of the best writing, performances, and direction out of the entire year. And that movie is…
In a day and age where Hollywood seems relegated to just keep reusing old ideas over and over again without any creativity or innovation, here comes Robert Eggers with a gothic horror revival that feels wholly unique, original, and inspired. Which is ironic, because the original Nosferatu actually ripped off Bram Stroker’s Dracula first in 1922. But with how haunting, eerie, creepy, and unsettling this new Nosferatu is, I wouldn’t be surprised if future Dracula adaptations ripped off Robert Eggers instead. The production design and costuming accurately reflect the era of 1800s Germany, while every frame of Jarin Blaschke’s gorgeous cinematography feels like it can be ripped straight out of the film and put into a painting. The makeup feels equally cursed and monstrous, with Bill Skarsgard looking straight up unrecognizable as the titular Count Orlok. However, it’s Lily-Rose Depp who outshines everybody as Ellen, playing a loyal and loving housewife in one scene and a deeply disturbed and terrified consort to death incarnate in another. More than being a brilliant horror film, a gripping supernatural thriller, a monumental period piece, and a moving love story all at once, Nosferatu is a modern masterpiece that demonstrates that if we are to tame the darkness, we must first acknowledge that it exists.
Thankfully, that’s all for 2024 folks. Tune in next year when I rank the 10 worst billionaires. Feel free to place your bets now on who places at number one.
It’s not usual that I’m happy with how the Academy Awards play out. This year, I’m happy with the Academy Awards for a number of reasons. One: Jimmy Kimmel was great as the Oscars host, as he always is. With his first year of hosting being the same year as the infamous Moonlight-La La Land Best Picture mixup in 2017, I’m sure every year after that seemed like a cakewalk for the late-night talk show host. He was just as charismatic and clever as he’s always been, and he did a great job making sure the show stayed fresh and kept up its momentum — even when he was facing scathing remarks from twice-impeached charlatan Donald Trump on “Truth” Social. My favorite rebuttal from Kimmel: “Isn’t it past your jail time?”
Two: The bits were actually funny this year and didn’t overstay their welcome. One of my favorite moments was when Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt were ribbing each other for their “Barbenheimer” rivalry, with Ryan pointing out Barbie dominating the box office while Emily observed all the honors Oppenheimer racked up this awards season. John Mulvaney hilariously ribbed Madame Web during his presentation for Best Sound, quoting the infamous “He was in the Amazon with my mom” line. But my favorite bit was when John Cena “streaked” across the stage to present the Best Costume Design category with only the envelope covering his Magic Johnson. Hey, at least you can’t say he didn’t wear his best suit (just as long as birthday suits count).
And lastly, the winners were largely justified this year. There was no obviously outrageous moment like Jamie Lee Curtis winning Best Supporting Actress, or Denis Villeneuve not being nominated for Dune, or Chadwick Boseman losing Best Actor for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Sure there were a few snubs here or there, but for the most part, I can see why most of the winners won this year. It’s very rare that the Academy is on the mark this much. And I’m going to savor every minute of it, because I already know this euphoria will be very short-lived.
Even my predictions went pretty well this year. As per usual, I didn’t get every category right this year, with the most obvious misses coming from those accursed short categories. But before we get to that, let’s start with…
Best Picture:Oppenheimer won the Academy Awards’ most coveted honor of the night, as it deserved to. Not only is it a compelling character drama taking a deep dive into the psyche of one of the most complex men in American history, but it is simultaneously also a cautionary tale on nuclear proliferation and what Oppenheimer’s achievements may mean for the future of the human race. Given the fact that it swept the SAG Awards, the PGAs, the DGAs and every other awards ceremony under the sun, I think it was a foregone conclusion that Best Picture was Oppenheimer’s to lose.
Still, I don’t want to minimize Christoper Nolan’s or Emma Thomas’ achievements. Oppenheimer is not only the best film from 2023, but one of the finest Best Picture winners to emerge from the past several years. I’m glad the Academy got this category right and gave it to Oppenheimer as it justly deserved. Now if only it could denuclearize the rest of the world.
Best Director: Just as he had won Best Picture, so too had Christopher Nolan won Best Director for Oppenheimer. Again, I don’t think there’s much more that needs to be said here other than he obviously deserved it. Not only was his work on Oppenheimer the very best out of the entire year, but he’s also been largely snubbed by the Academy for pretty much his entire career. The first time he was nominated was in 2018 for Dunkirk, and considering he’s mounted even more significant cinematic achievements with the likes of Memento, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, Inception, and Interstellar, it’s kind of stupid that Oppenheimer marks only his second nomination — or his first win, for that matter.
Regardless, he couldn’t have won for a better film, and I couldn’t have been happier when they called Christopher Nolan’s name for Best Director. His Oscar win has been very much overdue.
Best Actor: No surprise here either: Cillian Murphy’s turn as J. Robert Oppenheimer was filled with both humanity and horror, and Cillian did a masterful job bringing the Father of the Atomic Bomb to life. What makes this win even more significant is the fact that this is also Cillian’s first nomination, let alone his first win. It’s baffling to me that such a committed actor has taken this long to be recognized by the Academy, but better late than never I guess. He did a phenomenal job in the lead role of Oppenheimer and absolutely deserved to win. I couldn’t have been happier for him.
That being said, I am sad that Cillian did have to win Best Actor at the expense of Paul Giamatti, who gave an equally gifted performance as Mr. Hunham in The Holdovers. Truth be told, I wouldn’t have been mad if Giamatti did win instead of Cillian, even if I wouldn’t necessarily have agreed with it. But let’s at least be grateful that one noteworthy performance lost to an equally talented performance. That’s the best way to lose at the Academy Awards.
Best Actress: It was a battle of the “stones” for Best Actress this year, with Killers Of The Flower Moon’s Lily Gladstone squaring off against Poor Things’ Emma Stone. And Emma clinched it, if ever so slightly.
Knowing that she had previously won Best Actress for the likes of La La Land in 2017, I mistakenly thought that would work to her detriment considering the fact that she’s already an Oscar winner. I obviously underestimated the weight of her BAFTA win, a mistake I desperately need to learn from going forward with the Academy Awards.
Best Supporting Actor: Again, no surprise here: Robert Downey Jr. was just as compelling as Lewis Strauss as Cillian Murphy was in Oppenheimer, so it makes sense that he also won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. It’s so heartwarming to see Robert Downey Jr. go from struggling with addiction abuse in the 2000s to getting clean to becoming part of one of most successful franchises in cinematic history, only to turn around with arguably one of the best performances of his career in Oppenheimer. I worried for a while that he was going to be typecast after the success of The Avengers, but Oppenheimer proves he’s still got phenomenal acting chops — you just have to give him a role that he can truly thrive in. Congratulations to Robert Downey Jr. and his incredible achievement. The only way his win could have been even better is if he ended his speech by saying “I am Iron Man.”
Best Supporting Actress:Da’Vine Joy Randolph obviously gave the best performance out of all of the supporting actress nominees in The Holdovers, so she was the clear winner by a long mile. Da’Vine’s win is one of those Oscar moments that fills me with so much hope and joy, because she is clearly not as big of a name as her fellow nominees, yet won regardless due to the merit of her performance. She didn’t win by being a nepo baby (*cough cough*, JAMIE LEE CURTIS, *cough cough*) — she won by genuinely being the best actress. I couldn’t be happier for the win and hope that the Academy will follow suit in this voting methodology going forward. Perhaps they could start by taking away Jamie Lee Curtis’ Oscar and giving it to Stephanie Hsu instead.
Best Animated Feature:It was a showdown between The Boy And The Heron and Across The Spider-Verse, and The Boy And The Heron ultimately won much to the dismay of web-heads. Personally, I feel Across The Spider-Verse deserved to win more, and Nimona should have been part of the conversation WAY more than it was. But in its defense, Into The Spider-Verse did already win Best Animated Feature back in 2018, while the last Oscar Hayao Miyazaki won was in 2002 for Spirited Away. The Boy And The Heron is a beautiful, tragic, and spellbinding film either way. If Spider-Verse or Nimona wasn’t going to win it, I’m glad it went to The Boy And The Heron.
No, if we really want to talk about Across The Spider-Verse snubs, we should be looking at other categories it wasn’t nominated in, including Best Original Score, Best Original Song, and Best Visual Effects. Heck, I would have even caved for a Best Picture nomination. Regardless, Beyond The Spider-Verse is still coming out in the next few years, so Spidey will have another shot at the Oscars either way. The Academy better not mess up its mulligan, otherwise Marvel fans will have legitimate reasons to be angry next time.
Best Documentary Feature:20 Days In Mariupol rightfully won Best Documentary, marking not only the third Academy Award-winner I’ve interviewed after Aaron Sorkin and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, but also the first Ukrainian to win an Oscar (how???). While I’m happy that 20 Days In Mariupol won the Oscar, there is a twinge of sadness attached to it knowing that it came at a cost of over 20,000 Ukrainian lives. I choked up at the moment when director Mstyslav Chernov said he wished this film never needed to be made, and similarly, I wish that I never needed to interview him.
Regardless, Mystyslav set out to make this film as a monument to the lives lost in Ukraine. He more than succeeded in making his monument, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s an accomplishment greater than any Academy Award could ever be.
Best International Feature: I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if a Foreign-language film was nominated for Best Picture, it’s a lock for the Best International Feature Oscar. That made The Zone Of Interest winning a foregone conclusion. I just wish I could have seen it prior to Oscar night. It doesn’t help that it wasn’t playing anywhere near me. Here’s a film whose “limited” release was so limited that they should have just labeled it “Eh, we guess it was released.”
Best Original Screenplay:Anatomy Of A Fall won this year’s Best Original Screenplay Oscar as it rightfully should have. I saw the film months ago, and it’s still at the forefront of my mind with its spellbinding and dizzying narrative that masterfully teeters you on the edge of your seat. Did Sandra kill her husband or did she not? All these months later, I still don’t have an answer, and I don’t know if I want one.
Best Adapted Screenplay:Cord Jefferson’s witty and amusing adaptation of Percival Everett’s “Erasure” was as clever as it was insightful in American Fiction, so naturally it made it a perfect fit for this year’s Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. Personally, I still wish it could have gone to Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer, but considering how much it cleaned up in the rest of the ceremony this year, I’m okay with giving this one to American Fiction. Most would probably argue that it deserved it more anyway.
Best Cinematography: I remember back in 2014 when Hoyte van Hoytema took over for longtime collaborator Wally Phister when shooting for Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Years later, he continues to prove he’s one of the most creative cinematographers working in Hollywood today, with some of his most notable projects including Spectre, Dunkirk, Ad Astra, Tenet, and Nope.Oppenheimer demonstrates some of his finest work to date, so of course he deserved to win. I still don’t know how he pulled off those quantum physics sequences without any use of CGI. If they ever produce a documentary about the filming of Oppenheimer, I’ll be the first one to watch it. Mark my words.
Best Film Editing: From Frances Ha to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Jennifer Lame’s editing prowess has taken her all over Hollywood, which makes it especially baffling how Oppenheimer marks only her first nomination. Whatever. Oppenheimer’s film editing is the very best out of the year, and Jennifer Lame deserved to win regardless of whatever snubbing she experienced beforehand. Guess she and Christopher Nolan have that in common.
Best Production Design: It was clear from the trailers that Poor Things had some of the most striking set designs out of the entire year. As gorgeous as Barbieland looked, it lacked the dreamy and ethereal aesthetic that Poor Things nailed so effectively. It was clear from the outset that Poor Things was going to win Best Production Design. Nothing controversial to report here.
Best Costume Design: This one I got wrong because I vastly overestimated the Academy’s affection for Barbie. At first glance, Barbie seemed like the easy frontrunner, but Poor Things’ costumes were just as distinct, and unlike Barbie, didn’t have a template to base its wardrobe around. You won’t find any of Bella Baxter’s or Duncan Wedderburn’s clothes in any play sets or doll boxes. You will, however, find any of Barbie or Ken’s costumes in any toy aisle you happen to stroll past. Failing to observe its originality was perhaps my greatest oversight in making my Best Costume Design prediction this year.
Best Makeup & Hairstyling:While I flubbed up on predicting Best Costume Design, I did correctly predict that Poor Things would win Best Makeup over the likes of Maestro and Golda. Stitches and disfigured jawlines beat big noses and Helen Mirren erasure. I still don’t know why Oppenheimer was nominated in this category. I genuinely don’t.
Best Musical Score:If Ludwig Goransson didn’t win Best Musical Score for his eerie, ominous, and haunting compositions for Oppenheimer, then the Dolby Theatre truly deserved to be hit with a hydrogen bomb. Thankfully, the Academy picked the right winner in this category. For the record, I’m still fuming that John Williams is nominated for Dial Of Destiny over Daniel Pemberton for Across The Spider-Verse.
Best Original Song: As epic as Barbie’s musical number for “I’m Just Ken” was, it’s clear that Billie Eilish was going to win for her beautiful yet heartbreaking single “What Was I Made For?” Long before the nominees were even announced, the impact of her song was at the forefront of my mind for its emotion, its melancholy piano melody, and its somber and bittersweet tone. It’s a masterclass in excellent songwriting, and the Academy got it right when they picked her as the Best Original Song winner.
What’s most surprising about this category isn’t the fact that she won — it’s the fact that it’s the only Oscar Barbie won, period. Look at the list of winners. Barbie did not win in a single other category besides original song. Not production design. Not costume design. Not writing. Certainly not for Best Picture. The only Oscar it won was for its music.
In its defense, “What Was I Made For?” is arguably the most influential aspect of Barbie. I loved the song long before I even watched the movie, and the best part is you don’t even have to watch the movie to appreciate its message. It doesn’t change the fact that Barbie got absolutely shafted by the Academy this year. Many Barbie fans will be reasonably upset by the many ways it was snubbed at the Oscars this year. Personally, no snub was greater than Greta Gerwig getting robbed in the Best Director category. Oh well. At least she had fun singing “I’m Just Ken” with her cast.
Best Sound: Now here’s one of the few surprises from the night. Oppenheimer’s sweeping and striking sounds of atomic molecules crashing into each other was among the most distinct sound design of the entire year. I thought it was a lock for the Best Sound Oscar, but it turns out the Academy felt differently when The Zone Of Interest won instead.
Like I said, I haven’t seen the movie (who has?), so it’s hard for me to say whose sound design was more deserving. What I will say is that the muffled sounds of children screaming in the chemical showers in the small snippet that played during the ceremony was easily the most disturbing moment from the Academy Awards this year. The clip lasted less than 10 seconds, yet that eerie sound is the one thing I remember most from this weekend. It reminded me a lot of the sound design of Nope, where the muffled sounds of people being digested by a giant alien was one of the most haunting and disturbing sounds I had ever heard in a horror movie. In a way, The Zone Of Interest is a horror movie of its own, only it’s covering real-life horrors as opposed to fictional ones.
So while I haven’t seen enough to declare whether or not it deserved the Oscar over Oppenheimer, I can definitely see why it won. This is likely one of the first Oscar winners I’ll be catching once the title hits streaming services.
Best Visual Effects:I have mixed feelings about Godzilla Minus One winning Best Visual Effects, mainly due to the allegations that its VFX artists were simultaneously overworked and underpaid. What gave me hope was seeing that director Takashi Yamazaki worked alongside his fellow artists as a VFX supervisor, meaning that whatever arduous hours his team was working, he was most likely working right alongside them. Does that make their working circumstances any less problematic? Not really, but at least the director is in the trenches with them. If your crew is drowning in misery, at least have everyone be equally miserable together. That’s all I really ask for.
Also, Takashi and his crew looked really excited to be at the Academy Awards. For crying out loud, he brought a gold Godzilla statue with him, and his team all had their own Godzilla figurines with them. Regardless of whatever their working conditions were, you can tell that they were passionate fans who poured their hearts into this atomic-sized monster epic. As long as they’re happy, I’m happy. And for whatever it’s worth, Godzilla Minus One did have the best visual effects out of the year regardless.
And finally, we come down to those blasted short categories. The only one I got right this year was Wes Anderson winning Best Live Action Short for The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar. The rest were all a bust. Thankfully, Issa Rae and Ramy Youssef at least had the good sense to keep the presentation as blissfully short as their nominees.
That brings my total score this year to 18 out of 23 categories guessed correctly. Not a bad year for me, although I did lose in my own family’s pool. Oh well. At least I got to go to bed before 11 for a change.
On February 24, 2022, Russia’s preeminent dictator Vladimir Putin launched his invasion on Ukraine, declaring it as a necessary step to the “demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine,” whatever that’s supposed to mean. He claimed that this operation didn’t include occupying Ukrainian territories. That they weren’t going to impose anything on anyone by force. That they would not infringe on the rights of Ukraine and its people.
He said all of this while shelling residential neighborhoods, carrying out attacks on innocent civilians, bombing hospitals, and killing children and their families. Once again, Putin proves that his actions are what you should listen to most — not his lies.
While this operation was carried out, photojournalist and war correspondent Mystyslav Chernov was on the front lines, covering the siege for the Associated Press. The footage that was not used in AP’s reporting, he edited into a 94-minute documentary called 20 Days In Mariupol, which is nominated for Best Documentary at the 96th Academy Awards.
I recently had the privilege of sitting down with Mystyslav to ask him about his experiences filming that conflict up close, but before I did, I wanted to watch the movie myself to ensure that I was well-prepared to discuss the topic at hand.
My viewing experience was nothing short of horrifying. When watching other movies about real-life conflicts, whether it’s 1917, All Quiet On The Western Front, or Oppenheimer, it’s helpful to know that what you’re watching on screen isn’t real. Yes, someone died at some point and someone lived through indescribable suffering, but the people you’re watching on the screen are not those people. At the end of the day, they get to clock out of work, they get to go home, and they get to live their happy lives, hopefully with a family who loves and values them.
The people I watched in 20 Days In Mariupol did not have that privilege. Despite what Russia’s propaganda may have you believe, there were no actors involved in this conflict. There were no set extras, body doubles, or special effects. When you watch someone die, they died. When a father grieves for his dead son, it’s real. When a hospital is overwhelmed with citizens whose limbs have been blown off, it’s real. When a mother wails for her dead infant, it’s real. And when the bodies of both children and adults fill mass graves until it’s overflowing, it’s real.
In many ways, the carnage and cruelty in Ukraine mirrors that in Gaza right now. And just like Ukraine, people don’t seem to care what happens to the innocents who live there.
It’s hard to pin down the exact number of casualties Ukraine suffered from the ongoing conflict, but it likely exceeds 20,000 people. Imagine a small city wiped off of the face of the Earth in a heartbeat. That’s what Mystyslav witnessed during the fall of Mariupol.
Before I go into our conversation, I would like to encourage all of my readers to watch 20 Days In Mariupol as soon as they can either on PBS Frontline or YouTube. After that, I encourage you to support Ukrainian relief efforts however you can. The Ukrainian Red Cross actually helped Mystyslav and his team escape from Mariupol at the end of the film, so they’re at least one initiative I strongly recommend. There’s also Future For Ukraine, Razom, Nova Ukraine, as well as the GlobalGiving Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund. There are plenty of opportunities to help those who are suffering in Ukraine. Even $1 can go a long way for those drowning in a sea of sorrow.
As we begin, know that this is probably one of the most important interviews I’ve ever conducted. That’s because this isn’t covering the movies — it’s covering life. Specifically the life of Ukraine and her people — including Mstyslav Chernov.
Mstyslav Chernov | AP
David Dunn: Your film opens on such a haunting line: “Wars don’t start with explosions —they start with silence.” As you were driving through the streets of Mariupol on the eve of the invasion, what was that silence saying to you?
Mstyslav Chernov: This war has lasted for me and all Ukrainians for 10 years. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2013, so all these 10 years, we’ve heard explosions on the front lines. We tried to cover it and keep telling the story of this invasion to the world, and the world didn’t always pay attention to that because there were so many other important events happening in Syria, Iraq, and Europe. But the front line was always active. There was always fighting.
But that night before, it was completely silent as we drove along the front line. It was so unusually quiet. It felt like the calm before the storm. As the world looked away from what was happening, nobody really believed that the war was about to start. Nobody really wanted to believe that tomorrow, our world would be shattered and changed forever.
Even when the bombs started to fall, there were moments of dire attempts to keep their humanity and hope that there was still a chance that our world would not fall apart. That silence was also striking. The fact that people clung to their humanity until the very, very last moment when the bombs already hit the residential areas in Mariupol. That is another kind of silence that was there not only for the people of Mariupol, but probably for the whole world. They didn’t really want to believe that Russia did attack Ukraine openly this time — that they did probably start the third world war.
The more I travel and talk to people in the U.S., the more I realize that this belief that the world hasn’t changed and can stay the way we remember it is an attempt to keep silence around us. Not everyone probably realizes the gravity of what has already started, as the people of Mariupol did not realize that until the bombs started to hit their houses. Russia is already at war with NATO. Russia has already been openly stating that to their own military, their own people, and their media for over a year. The west doesn’t seem to completely realize the gravity of that fact — that Russia is already at war with them.
DD: So it’s more than just bringing attention to what’s going on in Ukraine — you also want to bring attention to how grave of a threat Russia really is?
MC: How grave the situation is. For many people, it still seems like this concerns only Ukraine. That this is a local conflict that has no influence on the U.S. or other parts of the world. But this and the victory of Russia on the battlefield will have huge implications around the world — in other regions where other countries are waiting for their opportunity to invade their neighbors. This will signal that they can do that and nobody will stop them. It will have huge implications on U.S. security because of the U.S. presence in those regions. It will have huge implications on the economy of the entire world. It may ultimately result in direct confrontation between Russia and NATO, as many generals are saying right now in Europe and the U.S.
Evgeniy Maloletka | AP
DD: Your film has been getting a lot of recognition on the awards circuit. You’ve obviously won the BAFTA, you’ve won the DGA, and you’re nominated for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards. What change do you hope comes from all of this attention your film is getting, and by extension, the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia?
MC: Well, it would be naive of me to think that the film could change international policy — that it can change the course of the war. I actually address that thought in the film itself. When Vladimir the police officer tells us this is going to change the course of the war — the images of the bombing of the maternity hospital — I do express my doubts about that. I do extend my doubts to the film as well, although I feel that cinema is a much more impactful medium. It has a stronger appeal and stronger impact on audiences. The more recognition this film gets, the more audiences will see that. That’s actually my main hope, for more people to see it.
Addressing the hope for change, I would rather express my doubt about that because it takes much more than one film or 10 films or any kind of reporting to actually change international policy. I think there should be much more effort to really change the course of the war efforts from politicians, from countries, from civil societies, which will someday probably realize that it’s not only about Ukraine, but it’s also about the security of their own countries. That’s probably what I hope this film will ultimately bring.
It’s not a political issue, and it’s not a bargaining chip for political arguments. It is an urgent humanitarian catastrophe. People are dying every day. They need to be helped because that’s what we as humans do. If someone is being attacked in the street by a criminal, we call the police, we intervene, or we try to stop the crime. It’s quite the natural thing to do for modern society. For the people who see the film, I hope they look at Ukraine again not as a political topic, but as a humanitarian catastrophe.
There are approximately 14,000 graves right now on the outskirts of Mariupol. That means there are at least 14,000 people who have been killed just in that siege — not only by the bombs, but by the conditions that were created by the lack of food and medicine. We do hope that this tragedy will be recognized and reacted upon in a way — or taken seriously, at least.
Mstyslav Chernov | AP
DD: This documentary was incredibly hard to watch, which is why I imagine it was even harder to film. I think of the line in the movie where you say “My brain will desperately want to forget all of this, but the camera will not let it happen.” How did you keep filming despite all of the horror you were witnessing? What kept you going through it all?
MC: In the moment, you’re only thinking about two things — how do I not die, and how do I even go on after this? You’re also thinking about your shutter speeds, how much battery you have left on the camera, how many minutes are on these cards. This is all happening at the same time in your head. Very often, you’re so scared that you don’t want to do what you do.
But then you look at the people around you — the people who are burying people, who are burying children and adults in mass graves in the city center of Mariupol. They were still doing that, even while the bombs were falling nearby. The day before that, that nearby cemetery was hit by a shell, and those people still do their work, just like the firefighters without water or the doctors without medicine. When you look at all of those people and you look at how strong the community is, that’s what keeps you going. You feel like part of the community and you just realize you need to do your part.
Of course, it sometimes feels like that’s not enough. You can’t really stop a bullet with a camera. You can’t really protect anyone. But people kept telling us, “You have to keep filming. You have to make sure that the world knows about what’s happening in Mariupol.” They wanted to be heard, and that alone was a huge motivation for me, because we were the only ones who could give them that voice.
DD: One of the most sickening, disheartening moments of the film was watching how Russia tried to delegitimize your reporting through mass disinformation campaigns. What did you feel when your editors told you what was happening outside of Mariupol?
MC: As a journalist, I wasn’t surprised, because I went through that before in 2014 when Russia shot down the MH17 Boeing going over Donetsk Oblast by Hrabove. There was such a storm of misinformation and misinterpretation and distortions, and that showed me that the most important events are immediately followed by a misinformation campaign — fake news and propaganda.
I was not surprised when it happened after the Mariupol maternity hospital bombing, because it was already happening before that. Some Russian bloggers were saying that the woman who died was just an actor, or it was staged scenes. I was prepared for that, and it’s actually a good indicator of the importance of the work. If it evokes a strong response of propaganda, it means that the work and this story is making an impact.
But my heart bleeds for the people who lost their families — who lost everything. Apart from the fact they lost everything, they are also being told that this is all fake. Even their pain is denied and questioned. I know how painful and devastating it is for the residents of Mariupol.
DD: Do you see 20 Days In Mariupol as a way of legitimizing and restoring truth to their pain?
MC: Yeah, that’s probably the main motivation behind what I did in Mariupol and also what I did when we started making the film. We wanted to make sure that this story is not forgotten and that they will have a way to express their tragedy and prove that this really happened. It’s at least a way to save their memory — those children, those thousands who were murdered. It would be a monument to those who died.
It’s not usual that I’m looking forward to the Academy Awards. From one stupid slip-up after another, the Academy has consistently demonstrated that it’s more interested in patting its own back rather than rewarding the most legitimately deserving winner every year. We all remember where we were when Chadwick Boseman lost Best Actor for his last great performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in 2021, or when Denis Villeneuve wasn’t nominated for Best Director with Dune in 2022, or when Jamie Lee Curtis won Best Supporting Actress over all of her fellow nominees just last year. Let’s face it — we’ve all been conditioned to be let down by the Academy time and time again. That’s probably why I’ve been less disappointed by them in recent years — because my expectations for them have been so low.
And yet, I’m uncharacteristically… hopeful for this year’s Academy Awards. Every year, I pen down one or two movies that I think will win an Oscar even though there is clearly a more deserving nominee in their category. I’m happy to say that this year, it doesn’t seem to be that way. Indeed, the most frustrating thing about this year seems to be who isn’t nominated rather than who is. Despite this, I’m very much looking forward to seeing how this year’s ceremony pans out. Many of the nominees are much overdue for an Oscar, so the fact that they may finally become Oscar winners excites me to no end.
Don’t get me wrong: the Academy Awards still scored some big misses for this year’s ceremony, and I do expect a few upset wins regardless. Let’s break down the Academy Award nominees for 2023 and see who is well on their way to becoming an Oscar winner:
Best Picture:Ah, Best Picture. We meet again. Time and time again, my success with predicting you has been very inconsistent. Sure, I correctly predicted that 12 Years A Slave, Birdman, Nomadland, andEverything Everywhere All At Once would all win Best Picture, but I’ve gotten more Best Picture winners wrong in the past decade than I care to admit. Spotlight, Moonlight, The Shape Of Water, Green Book, Parasite, and CODA were all Best Picture winners that I didn’t see coming, because how on Earth would I? With a selection that erratic, how could you possibly be expected to develop a criteria from a winning pool that’s so blasted inconsistent?
Still, I’ve got a good feeling about Oppenheimer winning Best Picture this year. Not only has it won the Golden Globe, the BAFTA, and the PGA Awards — it’s also one of last year’s most successful films and one of the highest-grossing biopics of all time at $960 million. With a hit that critically and commercially successful, it’s hard to deny its impact on both film and pop culture. My money’s on Oppy.
Best Director: Christopher Nolan won the Director’s Guild Award, which means he’s pretty much a lock to win the Best Directing Oscar for Oppenheimer.About damn time. Despite being one of the most cutting-edge filmmakers of our time, Christopher Nolan has been relentlessly snubbed by the Academy ever since Memento in 2000. From The Dark Knight to Inception to Interstellar, Christopher Nolan has been consistently overlooked in the Best Director category over and over again. He didn’t even get his first nomination until Dunkirk in 2017, which is arguably his worst film. He hasn’t deserved any of the snubbing he’s received the past two decades, so the fact that he may finally win an Oscar is the most exciting thing about this year’s ceremony.
And he couldn’t have gotten it for a better film either. Not only is Oppenheimer one of his very best films, but it is also one of his most intelligent, most thoughtful, most weighty, most consequential, and most haunting films all at the same time. I’ve seen the film four times now, and the ending never fails to send chills down my spine. The fact that I know what to expect and I still react the same way every time is the signs of a brilliant director. I can’t wait to see him accept his Oscar. It’s been much overdue.
Of course, we can’t talk about Best Director without talking about the most obvious snub: Greta Gerwig was absolutely robbed for a nomination despite how creative, compelling, clever, and downright hilarious Barbie was. Need I remind you that I hate Barbies with a passion, yet Greta delivered something so fresh and original with that film that you can’t help but fall in love with it. It is beyond stupid that she was overlooked for Best Director this year when Jonathan Glazer is already nominated for Best International Film for The Zone Of Interest. How many of you even seen the movie? I’ll bet you that 10 of my readers have never even heard of it.
It goes without saying that the Academy typically rewards filmmakers long beyond when they were supposed to. Christopher Nolan is this year’s much-overdue Best Director winner. Hopefully within a few years, so will Greta Gerwig.
Best Actor: This year’s Best Actor race is truly intense because we have two really strong nominees who both deserve to win. On one hand, Paul Giamatti gave a very raw and real performance in The Holdovers as a grumpy history teacher learning to connect with his fellow students. I am not exaggerating when I say that Paul Giamatti gave one of the finest performances of his career for The Holdovers — maybe the finest ever. It’s just so authentic and vivid and grounded that it’s hard to imagine that Mr. Hunham wasn’t a real person. Paul Giamatti just brought so much life to that role, and I can’t imagine another actor playing that part as masterfully as Paul Giamatti did.
But on the other hand, Cillian Murphy gave just as raw and authentic of a performance as the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer. And their performances are both so distinct and specific that it’s hard to say which one is objectively better. I’d hate to be one of the voters in this category because if it were up to me, my tiebreaker would come down to a coin toss. It’s that close.
Granted, Cillian does have the traction of awards season on his side. Sure, Paul has already racked up the Golden Globe and the Critic’s Choice Award, but Cillian has also won a Golden Globe, a Satellite Award, a BAFTA, and a SAG award. Usually that many rapid wins in succession indicate a fast track to winning the Oscar. I have to give this one to Cillian Murphy for Oppenheimer,but if Paul Giamatti does pull off a surprise upset, it will have been well-deserved.
Best Actress: It all boils down to a battle between the “stones.” Emma Stone won the BAFTA, while Lily Gladstone won the Screen Actor. Both gave incredibly gifted performances in their respective movies. And unfortunately, both the BAFTAs and the SAG Awards are relatively consistent when picking the Best Actress winner. So, who’s going to take home the Oscar?
Well in recent years, the Oscars have seemed to lean a little more in favor of the SAG Award winners moreover the BAFTAs. I know 2020 backfired with Frances McDormand winning Best Actress for Nomadland, but since that was such a strange year in movies anyway, it’s hard to see whether that win was truly based on merit or if it was just of consequence of such a garbage year in movies. Lily Gladstone wasn’t even nominated at the BAFTAs, so there’s no telling how that category would have gone if she was involved.
Because of all of this, I have to go with Lily Gladstone for her deadpan performance in Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon. If she does win, it will have been very well-earned, because her performance was so great that she even outshined her co-stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. It’s true that Emma Stone is an equally talented actress and gave it her all in Yorgos Lanthimos’ bizarre twist on Frankenstein in Poor Things, but the difficult thing about this category is that both of their performances are so, so different. At the end of the day, it may just come down to personal preference, which is a difficult thing to predict when it comes to Academy voters. This truly could go either way on Oscar night.
And while I do believe Lily Gladstone deserves to win Best Actress, I want to give a special mention to Sandra Huller for her incredibly nuanced performance as a writer stuck at the center of her husband’s death in Anatomy Of A Fall. Her character teeters between the edges of seeming innocent and guilty at various points of the film, and she does a masterful job blurring the lines and keeping the audience on their toes as to her character’s true motivations. I know the competition is between Stone and Gladstone, but truly, it should be a three-way tie between the three of them. Her performance was truly compelling, and she hasn’t gotten the credit she’s deserved all awards season.
We should also not forget how ridiculous it is that Margot Robbie is not nominated for Barbie. Did her co-stars Ryan Gosling and America Ferrera deserve their supporting actor nominations? Absolutely, but not at Margot’s expense and not in her absence. The fact that everyone unanimously decried Margot’s snubbing speaks to how stupid of a decision the Academy made in this year’s Best Actress race. They’ll be answering for that snub for years to come.
Speaking of supporting actors…
Best Supporting Actor:It’s no contest — Robert Downey Jr. deserves to win for playing the sniveling, conniving little politician Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. This is a man who has played several larger-than-life characters over the past several years, including Charlie Chaplin, Paul Avery, Kirk Lazarus, Sherlock Holmes, and oh yeah, IRON FREAKING MAN. Yet for all of the parts he’s played, none have felt quite as sinister or obsessive as his role as Lewis Strauss. I know he’s the biggest name amongst this year’s nominees, but I genuinely believe he deserves to win not because of his notoriety, but because of all of the raw talent he proudly displayed in Oppenheimer.
Special shoutout goes out to Chukwudi Iwuji, who turned out a downright evil and maniacal performance as the High Evolutionary in James Gunn’s Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3. His performance was every bit as hateful as Robert Downey Jr.’s was, and by all accounts, he deserved to be nominated right alongside him. Once again, the Academy proves that having one of the best villainous performances of the year doesn’t matter to them. As long as that performance is in a Marvel movie, it will not get nominated. Pathetic.
Best Supporting Actress: I’m actually relatively split in this category because I love so many of this year’s nominees. America Ferrera had the year’s best monologue in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, while Emily Blunt’s presence was arguably just as powerful as her on-screen husband’s in Oppenheimer.
But when I stack all of these performances up against one another, one clearly outshines the rest — Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s turn as a grieving mother in The Holdovers was easily the most heart-wrenching and devastating performance out of the entire year. All of this year’s supporting actress nominees gave brilliant performances, but Da’Vine’s felt the most raw, the most real, and the most human of them all. She was a clear standout in the movie, and I hope she prevails on Oscar night despite the tough competition she’s facing.
Best Animated Feature: In previous years, it’s been very clear who the Oscar frontrunner is in the Best Animated Feature category, whether you’re talking about Soul in 2020, Encanto in 2021, or Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio just last year. 2024 isn’t as clear cut, with Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, The Boy And The Heron, Nimona, Robot Dreams, and Elemental all scoring nominations. I don’t remember the last time that the animated feature race was this close, and that really speaks to what an outstanding year in animation we had. It was such a great year that we couldn’t even nominate all of the animated films that deserved to be, including Suzume, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Regardless of however it plays out on Oscar night, let’s be grateful that we have such a stacked and competitive category this year, because moments like these don’t come around very often.
As far as this year’s animated feature race goes, it’s a toss-up between Across The Spider-Verse and The Boy And The Heron, both equally ingenious and captivating films in their own way. I personally prefer Spider-Verse not just for its stunning animation and breathtaking visual feats, but also because its story is just as complex and builds upon the Spider-Man mythos in ways I never would have imagined. But The Boy And The Heron equally deserves praise for being as mature and thought-provoking as it is. Sure, it may not be the most exciting or the most sensible film out of the nominees, but what it lacks in coherency it more than makes up for with its philosophical questions and its gorgeous animation that paints this beautiful and twisted world to life. The Oscar really can go to either film on Oscar night, but I’m betting on The Boy And The Heron just because it’s the most unique out of all of the nominees. And in this race, uniqueness can make all of the difference.
While on the subject, I want to give a special shoutout to Nimona for being just as impressive a visual and narrative feat as those movies are, yet consistently getting shoved to the side because of… what exactly? It’s LGBT-adjacent themes? By every account, Nimona deserves to be taken as seriously, if not more so, than Spider-Verse and The Boy And The Heron, but its biggest win this awards season was for Best Writing at the Annie Awards. It deserves to get recognized for so much more than merely its writing, and the fact that it may go home with nothing will go down as one of the biggest snubs in Oscar history. Regardless of whoever wins, you are loved very deeply Nimona. Never forget you are a hero in everybody’s eyes.
Best Documentary Feature:Besides already winning the BAFTA and the DGA Award, no film this year has been more horrifying or haunting than 20 Days In Mariupol. I didn’t see the film in time last year, but if I had, I would have named it my second-favorite film of 2023. It’s that riveting and powerful.
I’ll have more to say on 20 Days In Mariupol later this week, but for now, all I have to say is that you should watch this movie as soon as you can. It’s easily one of the best films I’ve seen last year and demonstrates that the Academy should consider more documentaries for Best Picture.
Best International Feature: I say the same thing every year — if an International film is nominated for Best Picture, it’s a lock for the Best International Feature Oscar. But in this case, this year’s eventual Oscar-winner is a double-whammy. Not only is The Zone Of Interest nominated for Best Picture, but Jonathan Glazer is also nominated for Best Director. The last time that happened was in 2021 when Ryusuke Hamaguchi was nominated for Drive My Car, and sure enough, he won the International Feature Oscar as expected. The same thing will happen this year with The Zone Of Interest. Do not bet against it.
An honorable mention goes out to Takashi Yamazaki’s terrifying monster epic Godzilla Minus One, which takes the atomic behemoth back to his roots as a horrifying metaphor for war and nuclear destruction. Sure it’s a big-budget blockbuster that the Academy doesn’t typically go for, but it could and should have made an exception for Godzilla Minus One. Honestly, I would have even pushed for it being nominated for Best Picture. But the Academy didn’t even have the good sense to nominate The Iron Claw for anything this year, so good luck trying to appeal to the Academy’s lack of common sense.
Best Original Screenplay: In a bizarre turn of events this Oscar season, the Writer’s Guild of America set its awards date after the Academy Awards. The Oscars take place on March 10, while the WGA Awards are taking place a full month afterward on April 14. I have no idea why they would do this. Sure, the WGAs play it close to the Academy’s airdate, but that’s usually within a span of a couple of weeks — not an entire month after the Oscars take place. Because of this, we’ll have to make our best writing predictions without the Writer’s Guild this year. Disappointing, but it isn’t the first time I’ve made my predictions without the WGA. Maybe this time it’ll finally be an even playing field.
This year’s race boils down to two nominees: David Hemingson’s The Holdovers and Justin Triet’s Anatomy Of A Fall. I love them both for very different reasons, The Holdovers for its quirky sense of humor and emotional honesty and Anatomy Of A Fall for its tense and spellbinding narrative that keeps you on your toes all the way through. The worst thing about this category is that regardless of whoever wins, someone else will have undeservedly lost. That makes me irrevocably sad about this year’s Best Original Screenplay nominees.
If we’re going with the quote-unquote “best” original screenplay, it’s The Holdovers hands-down. Not only does it do an incredible job drawing you in and getting you sucked into the lives of these people staying inside this depressing little boarding school, but it does an incredible job humanizing these characters and getting you to root for them despite their circumstances. It’s a masterful dramatic balancing act, and David Hemingson’s entire writing prowess is proudly on display.
But the one thing to understand about the Academy is that they don’t always go for the “Best” in any category (as evidenced from Jamie Lee Curtis’ Best Supporting Actress win for Everything Everywhere All At Once last year). Instead, they often go for the flashiest nominee — the one that will often grab the most headlines and garner the most attention. Judging by that criteria, Anatomy Of A Fall is mesmerizing in its investigative aspect, keeping you guessing throughout until the film finishes on its jaw-dropping conclusion. The Holdovers is obviously the better screenplay, but Anatomy Of A Fall is undoubtedly the smarter one. Intelligence might top emotion in this Oscar race, so I’m going to go with Justine Triet’s Anatomy Of A Fall.
Best Adapted Screenplay: My first thought gravitated toward Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer, but then I thought about the film’s technical elements — how the score, cinematography, and masterful editing brought this intelligent and introspective script all together. Is it some of Christopher Nolan’s finest writing to date? Absolutely, but I think it’s even more impressive from a directorial standpoint. I don’t believe another filmmaker could direct Christopher Nolan’s scripts and make it work as brilliantly as he does. That’s one of his greatest strengths as a filmmaker — he stands on his own as an independent storyteller.
That being said, I do think any director could pick up Cord Jefferson’s screenplay for American Fiction and do just as good of a job. I don’t mean that as a slight toward his directing — I mean that his writing is so strong that it makes it hard for another filmmaker to come in and mess it up. It really could go either way, but considering how much potential Oppenheimer has to winning in other categories, adapted screenplay is really American Fiction’s best chance to win an Oscar, so that’s the one I’m going with.
Best Cinematography: Unbelievably enough, Hoyte van Hoytema has never won an Oscar for Best Cinematography, so he’s more than deserving in winning it for Oppenheimer now. Not only has he also been historically overlooked by the Academy like Christopher Nolan (his only other nomination was with 2017’s Dunkirk), but he’s also done incredible work on other movies that have often gone unrecognized. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Her. Interstellar. Spectre. Tenet. Nope. Time and time again, he’s demonstrated that he can pull off some of the most creative shots ever put to film, and that’s just as true with Oppenheimer as it is with his other works. My jaw dropped when I learned that the quantum physics sequences depicting atoms and molecules were practically shot instead of generated through CGI, and the rest of the film’s cinematography is just as masterful as those sequences. Whether it was the Trinity Test or that horrifying sequence at the Los Alamos gymnasium, every single scene is dripping with Oppenheimer’s guilt and the unbearable atomic weight he bears on his shoulders. No film was simultaneously as haunting or as striking this year as Oppenheimer. If Hoyte van Hoytema doesn’t win it despite his cinematic mastery, it will be a grave, grave injustice.
Best Film Editing: I know it seems like I’m just fanboying at this point, but there’s truly something to be said about an editor who can make a film about a bunch of guys talking in a room compelling, riveting, and interesting all at once. That’s Jennifer Lane’s great accomplishment with Oppenheimer, and it’s also why she deserves to win. Granted, there are several reasons why the movie is amazing, from the performances to the writing to the cinematography to the music to Christopher Nolan’s outstanding direction. But Jennifer Lane masterfully brought it all together and made the film clear and concise despite how much was going on. Oppenheimer’s editing is the very best of the year, point blank, period.
Then again, Laurent Senechal’s editing for Anatomy Of A Fall was similarly masterful and expertly kept audiences in the dark whether Sandra was truly guilty or innocent. I don’t expect there to be an upset win in this category, but if there is, it does deserve to go to Anatomy Of A Fall. I’m good either way just as long as Bohemian Rhapsody doesn’t win.
Best Production Design: On first glance, my temptation was to put down Barbie for Best Production Design. But then I asked myself “What made Barbie’s production design so outstanding outside of Barbieland?” I’ll give you that it’s genuinely impressive and does look like any little girl’s Barbieland playset in the real world. But it’s only three locations: Barbie’s home, Ken’s beach, and Weird Barbie’s home, so it was simple for the set designers to knock it out of the park since their sets were so well contained.
Compare that to the expansive, dreamy, and surreal production design of Poor Things. Not only is it much bigger and grander than Barbieland is, but it’s all filled with very evocative imagery that’s as peculiar as it is elusive. It is a cursed fantasy if I’ve ever seen one, and I can’t imagine Poor Things losing to Barbie. Oh well. At least pink still looks good on you, girl.
Best Costume Design:If there’s any Oscar Barbie deserves to win, it’s costume design. Not only does every piece of clothing look like an outfit you could find in Barbie’s closet, but the catalog is so massive that I’m shocked Mattel didn’t make it themselves. Sure Poor Things also has some fine costume work as well, but most scenes have you drawn toward the intense and intoxicating scenery, not whatever Emma Stone is wearing. Barbie’s wardrobe is much more dazzling and deserves the Oscar more. It’s just. So. FABULOUS!
Best Makeup & Hairstyling: Yeah, Bradley Cooper has a big nose in Maestro. Big deal (literally!). I’m not as interested in resurrecting prominent composers as much as I am in bringing your most lividly messed-up vision to life on screen. We haven’t had a good makeup nominee like that for a while, and the last creature makeup to win the Oscar was 2016’s… Suicide Squad. Bleh.
We desperately need a palette-cleanser. That’s why I think Poor Things is going to win it for those horribly grotesque Frankenstein’s monster-esque stitches Willem Dafoe wore throughout filming.Oppenheimer getting nominated in this category is downright laughable.
Best Musical Score: Before we go into my prediction, shame on the Academy for nominating John Williams for Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny over Daniel Pemberton’s phenomenal and captivating score for Across The Spider-Verse. Mind you, I’m not dissing John Williams himself: the guy is obviously a massive music legend, and if we’re looking back, he’s mostly deserved the more than 54 nominations he’s received throughout his illustrious 70-year career.
But of all of his film compositions, Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny is perhaps the most… phoned in. I’m not saying it’s bad. It has the same melodies, themes, and marches from all of the Indiana Jones movies. And if we’re just looking at nostalgia alone, it was refreshing and nice to hear his iconic score in the theater once again.
The problem is it’s a score that we’ve heard before. In fact, it’s the same score that he was previously nominated for in the original Indiana Jones trilogy. There’s zero interpolation to it, there’s nothing original or novel about it, I’m not even sure he composed new music for Dial Of Destiny. IT’S THE SAME MUSIC. Good music sure, but the same nevertheless.
Compare ALL OF THAT to Daniel Pemberton, who to date has only been nominated once for Trial Of The Chicago 7. His themes in Across The Spider-Verse were energetic, epic, awe-inspiring, fresh, original, dramatic, and exciting. I caught myself humming Miles, Gwen, and Miguel’s themes several times throughout the year, and I can confidently say that it was the second-most streamed film score I listened to all year. For it to not even get a nomination is beyond insulting.
The worst part? This is the second time Daniel Pemberton was snubbed by the Academy, and the second time it was for the same bloody franchise. I don’t remember most of the 2017 Best Original Score nominees, but you know what I do remember? Daniel Pemberton’s music for Into The Spider-Verse. At this point, I’m just preparing myself for Pemberton to get snubbed again whenever Beyond The Spider-Verse comes out. The fact that I have to even prepare myself for that is just plain pathetic.
Granted, even if Daniel Pemberton did get nominated, he’d still probably lose to the same guy who won the 2017 Best Original Score Oscar anyway: Ludwig Gorranson. I mentioned that Across The Spider-Verse was my second most-streamed film soundtrack of the year. Oppenheimer was my first. The mesmerizing themes, incredible strings, and that big, hulking, epic bass that feels like a man spiraling toward nuclear destruction was simultaneously the most captivating and most terrifying thing I’ve listened to all year. There were a lot of reasons why Oppenheimer worked so well, but Ludwig Gorranson’s score was one of the biggest ones. When the cast, the dialogue, and the unraveling plot wasn’t rapturing our attention, it was Ludwig Gorranson’s score peering into the mind of the Father of the Atomic Bomb and what made him tick.
No other film score this year was as impactful, as powerful, and as hypnotizing as Ludwig Gorranson’s music for Oppenheimer. If he doesn’t win, it’ll be an even bigger snub than Daniel Pemberton’s.
Best Original Song:First of all, just what on God’s green earth is “The Fire Inside” doing here? There were several great songs from the year that didn’t get nominated, from “Am I Dreaming?” in Across The Spider-Verse to Lauv’s “Steal The Show” in Elemental. I know a lot of people who really enjoyed Flamin’ Hot, but I have NEVER heard ANYONE say ANYTHING positive about “The Fire Inside.” It’s just such a nothing track that created zero traction in an otherwise strong year for film music. I could think of at least 10 other songs that would be more worthy of a nomination than “The Fire Inside,” so the fact that it got nominated over all the others is beyond irritating.
That being said, the clear frontrunner is Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?”, and it deserves to be. Not only does it have some of Billie Eilish’s most cutting, devastating lyrics to date, but the simple and melancholic piano melody is so soft and serene that it makes you want to cry. I’m not kidding when I say that I got emotional the first time I listened to it, and I still get emotional every time I listen to it. It’s just that powerful.
I do like that “Wahzhazhe” is nominated for Killers Of The Flower Moon, and seeing Jon Batiste nominated for American Symphony’s “It Never Went Away” was a nice surprise. And sure, “I’m Just Ken” is nominated too, but does anyone really think it’s better than “What Was I Made For?” The only people who probably think so are those misogynistic incels who truly believe Ryan Gosling gave a better performance than Margot Robbie did, and their opinions aren’t worth squat anyway.
The only thing that might get in the way for Billie Eilish’s win is the fact that she previously won Best Original Song for No Time To Die two years ago. Can the Academy Awards REALLY award ANOTHER Best Original Song Oscar so soon after a previous win? Yes it can, and it should.
Best Sound: Fun fact: when I sat down to write my predictions this year, the very first category I predicted was Best Sound. How could I not? Christopher Nolan’s films have a history of performing very well in the sound category, whether you’re talking about The Dark Knight, Inception, or Dunkirk, but few of his films leave an audible impact as powerful as Oppenheimer did. Even before the Trinity Test sequence, you felt the impact of the bomb tests shake the very theater like you were hiding in a bunker until detonation. And when the atomic bomb itself blew up, it felt like an earthquake shaking the ground beneath you. It was the scariest and most terrified I ever felt in a movie theater, and it was all thanks to the masterful sound design at work here.
At the same time, I don’t want to take away credit from the other worthy sound nominees. The Creator had some impressive sound design with its futuristic dystopian setting, and Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning had some great tricks at work with the Entity mimicking the voices of Ethan’s comrades. But when I think of the best sound of the year, Oppenheimer was the atomic bomb of sound design. It really is the only pick to make here.
Best Visual Effects: I’m very conflicted in this category between the nominee that deserves to win and the nominee that should win. On one hand, Godzilla Minus One has some of the most terrifying monster destruction ever caught on film that feels equally as monumental as it does massive. Godzilla has never felt larger or more ominous than ever before. When his attack on Japan began, it felt like an atomic bomb went off and shook the very Earth. Godzilla Minus One does have some of the most gargantuan visual effects out of the entire year, and if it does win, it deserves to… kind of.
The problem is what the cost of those visual effects were. While the film was initially praised for pulling off such incredible visual effects at just a meager $15-million budget, we now know why it was able to do that — it’s because they were overworking and underpaying their visual effects artists. Japan’s working conditions for animators are notoriously awful, with artists working long hours for low wages. Apparently visual effects artist’s working conditions aren’t much better, with just 35 artists working on 610 VFX shots for Godzilla Minus One. Because of this, I feel very conflicted about Godzilla Minus One winning the Oscar, because at that point, what are you really rewarding: the visual effects or the horrific working conditions?
Personally I would rather the VFX Oscar go to either Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 or The Creator, two films that were just as visually stunning while exercising more humane working conditions. I don’t know which film is going to win on Oscar night, but right now the momentum is behind Godzilla Minus One. If they do win, I hope the visual effects artists will use the moment to speak against their working conditions and help push toward positive change in Japan. That will mean more than a statuette anyway.
Also, Oppenheimer and Spider-Verse were both robbed in this category and deserved to be nominated for their outstanding visual prowess. I don’t care if their effects were practical or animated: both movies displayed some of the most spectacular visual feats out of the entire year, and the fact neither got nominated shows that the Academy doesn’t value nor respect visual effects that exist outside of a computer screen. Shame on them.
And finally, we come to this year’s short categories, none of which I’ve seen but still have to predict every year regardless. Funny thing is I normally struggle in this category due to how few of the nominees I’ve seen, but this year, my predictions are easy. Not because I’ve seen the nominees, no, but because I know the people who made them. Predicting the category is a pain in the rear every year, so if sheer bias is all I have to go on, and I’m going for it baby.
Besides guessing The ABC’s Of Booking Banning winning Best Documentary Short, I’m also going to predict that The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar and Ninety-Five Senses will win live-action and animated short respectively. Why these nominees? Well for one thing, Wes Anderson has never won an Oscar despite being nominated seven times for the likes of The Royal Tenenbaums, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom, Grand Budapest Hotel, and Isle of Dogs. For another thing, this is Jared and Jerusha Hess’ first nomination, and I would love to say “From the Academy Award-winning directors of Nacho Libre and Napoleon Dynamite.” Gosh!
That’s all for now, folks. I’ll see y’all on Oscar night. Nobody drop any atomic bombs on the Dolby Theatre in the meantime.
It’s startling when you realize just how much your family resembles yourself. Ever since I was born, my Dad, my Grandpa, and I have been pretty much the same person. We all have heavily fixated minds and are deeply passionate about the subjects we’re interested in. We’re all emotionally oblivious and have trouble connecting with people on a meaningful level. We all struggle with anxiety and how to deal with our toiled emotions. And we all loved grabbing a slice of Grandma’s homemade pies. Even our baby pictures look identical.
I always related very much to my Dad and Gramps because for most of my life, we all connected and struggled with the same things. Now, it’s just my Dad and me.
Part of a family of eight, David Lee Dunn was born on March 5, 1938 from his mother, Hilda Dunn. Gramps and my Grandma, Marilyn, eloped in 1959 and had two children: my Dad, Stacey, and my Aunt U’lette, who sadly passed away in 2020. I remember visiting them both at their old home in Papa Grove, Illinois when I was very little. I used to play inside their pantry, taking out all of the pots and pans and banging on them with wooden spoons like I was a drummer in a band. Grandma told me that Gramps would always put the pots and pans back in the pantry after I was done playing with them, only for me to bring them back out and play with them all over again. I smile at the thought of him eventually giving up altogether, telling my Grandma to just pick up a pan off of the floor when she’s ready to cook dinner.
I don’t remember Gramps being the warmest personality as I was growing up. Grandma was always the one who played with me, sang with me, made toys with me, and tucked me into bed in her upstairs bedroom. That’s not to say Gramps wasn’t affectionate in his own way — it just looked different from Grandma’s, like asking if I wanted a cookie or giving me a glass of milk.
I found out why our interactions felt different much later in life, and that’s because Gramps was uncomfortable. Not with me mind you, but rather with himself. You see, the Dunns all struggle with a form of high-functioning autism that blessed us with great skill while cursing us with social ineptitude at the same time. My talents were in writing, while my Dad’s was in music.
Gramps, meanwhile, was a master at machinery. If you gave him a wrench, that guy could work his way around any car engine or kitchen appliance, tinkering away until he found what made it tick. My Dad always said that Gramps was the best worker he ever had, and I could see why. He wasn’t called “Mr. Fixit” for nothing.
But that level of genius comes at a cost. As I already mentioned, people on the autism spectrum struggle in social settings more than most other people do. I myself always struggled with what to say to people while growing up. I couldn’t read sarcasm that well, and I didn’t know how to pick up on other people’s nonverbal cues.
Gramps had it worse than any of us. Not only were his symptoms more severe, but because his condition wasn’t properly diagnosed until 1981, he went through most of his life without the support he needed. He was always questioning himself, uncomfortable with his emotions and how to properly communicate with others. When I went to Sunday church with Grandma, I remember Gramps always skipping out on going with us. Not because God wasn’t important to him, but because he was legitimately scared that he might have to talk to somebody.
I know firsthand what it’s like to be a prisoner in your own body — I’ve lived that way my whole life. But in many ways, Gramps’ prison was worse than mine ever was. That’s why I relate to him so strongly.
It’s also why I’m so grateful that as I grew older, our relationship became stronger. At around the time I entered high school, he took a great interest in video games, and my Dad and I got him an Xbox 360 for Christmas. The games he played were the same as the movies he watched, either action or westerns. I remember watching him as he shot up gunslingers in Red Dead Redemption or Call Of Juarez, stormed the beaches of Normandy in Call Of Duty, or shot down a fighter jet in Ace Combat. No one else in my family really got into gaming as much as Gramps did, so it was nice to share that passion with him and bond over it together.
But as time passed, Gramps’ hearing got worse, and eventually, so did his mind. Earlier this year, Gramps was diagnosed with early-onset dementia. We were told he probably wouldn’t live past the year. He passed just shortly after Easter.
It’s so strange and heartbreaking to see someone you love deteriorate right in front of you. He often tried to eat inedible objects like bottle caps or napkins, and at other times, hallucinated that other people were there with us when they weren’t. One time, he pointed out to the garden and said “There’s my Ma. I’m going to go see her soon.” One of the scariest things to happen, however, was one day when he accidentally locked himself inside his closet for six hours. My Dad literally had to rip off the door bolts just to get him out of there.
The most surreal thing by far though was the moments where you recognized your loved one hiding behind the mental fogginess of their mind. In one of my last interactions with him, I helped him to get up from the couch to go into the other room. Behind his tired eyes and smile, I could see my Grandpa exhausted and weary not just from the disease, but from all of his years living on this Earth. “I’m no good Dave,” he muttered to me in between some tired chuckles. I pressed my forehead into his and told him “You’re good, Gramps.” The fact that one David was saying this to another, I still don’t know if we said these things to ourselves or to each other. Maybe both.
At other times, Gramps faded away, and the sick and frail persona took over. There was one point where he clutched onto my body while standing up in his bedroom, and I held him up for about two hours. It felt like my body was a pillar, and it was the only thing keeping him from falling into despair.
It’s been a few months now, and it still feels weird without him around. This isn’t my first time losing a grandparent, and it won’t be my last time either. But losing someone you grew up with who feels so much like yourself feels like a piece of you has died with them. My Dad, Gramps, and I all grew up feeling like we’ve never really been understood by the world. To lose someone who did understand you so personally makes the loss feel a little bit deeper.
I take comfort knowing that despite all of the bad days, memory lapses, and fading comprehension, it was still my Gramps I saw when I visited my grandparent’s home. I know this because when my dad was going through his things after he passed, he found my wife and I’s wedding invitation within the pages of his Bible. I remind you — this was a man who tried eating bottle caps and locked himself in his closet. And in the midst of all of that mental anguish and confusion, he still somehow found a way to put his grandson’s wedding invitation next to the most special place in his heart. That’s how Gramps loved — silently, yet truly.
Despite everything our family has experienced in the past few months, I’m happy that my most prominent memory of him isn’t his dementia episodes or his hearing problems. It was a small, potentially inconsequential moment at their old home in Christmas 2005. I was home alone with him while Grandma was out shopping, and I was crying at the ending of How The Grinch Stole Christmas (don’t judge, I was a sentimental kid). Given his own social struggles, it would have been easy for him to ignore me and continue watching football in the other room. Instead, he came over to me, hugged me, and kissed me on the forehead. It was the first genuine moment of affection I felt from him where it didn’t feel forced, awkward, or uncomfortable. It felt natural. It felt like him.
I think I collectively speak for everyone when I ask “What the hell is going on?” Earlier this year, the Writers Guild of America announced its intention to strike for the first time in 15 years following a fallout of negotiations with their producers. Then just last month, the Screen Actors Guild did the same thing and announced their own strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. It’s the first time actors have gone on strike in 40 years, and the first time both actors and writers were on strike together in 60 years.
And here I was, thinking COVID-19 would be the most damaging thing to the film industry in the 21st century. Turns out greedy Hollywood producers were the deadliest virus of them all.
What compelled these unions to strike? Like with anything else going on in the entertainment industry, it’s complicated, and unfortunately, neither of them are boycotting just for one singular reason. Both SAG-AFTRA and the WGA have several issues that went on unaddressed by their peers, and it just reached a boiling point where both felt that the only way their voices would be heard is if they stopped working altogether. It’s frustrating, but understandable. The only other actions guild members could take at this point would be to take their lattes and avocado toasts and start throwing them at studio executives. Hell, maybe I’d join em’.
I’ll start with the Writers Guild since their strike has been going on longer. For starters, they weren’t being paid fairly. They never are. The only reason the previous 2008 strike ended was because writers were promised residual payments for television programs streaming online. Even then, that deal came with major concessions, including residual payments only kicking in after a 17-day period and zero jurisdiction over reality TV, animation, and DVD residuals. Still, it was considered a major win for Hollywood writers back in the day and allowed for more union writers to be hired at fairer rates.
I remember that strike when it began in 2007. I was a freshman entering high school, and I was watching my television screens flooded with images of writers and their picket signs. I remember being confused, thinking to myself “They have the best jobs in the world — they get to tell stories! What could they possibly be striking about?” I didn’t understand enough about the struggles of living day-to-day as a writer, and I wouldn’t understand until I watched Daniel Snyder’s phenomenal documentary film Dreams On Spec.
The film follows three aspiring screenwriters as they struggle to get their scripts picked up to be made into movies. Those writers include Deborah, who’s buried under bills and struggling to pay rent, Joe, a middle-aged father who cares for his Autistic daughter, and David, who works as a talent agent assistant. Spoiler alert: the only one whose screenplay gets picked up is David’s, and it was made into the 2006 mockumentary horror film Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon.
Hollywood has notoriously undervalued its writers for a long, long time, so it doesn’t surprise me that this continues to be the case. This has always been baffling to me, because writers are arguably the most important role in any film. They’re responsible for every significant story beat that happens in a screenplay. They’re responsible for crafting the characters, their moods, personalities, flaws, and motivations. They’re responsible for the words they speak and what emotions they experience. They’re responsible for what happens to them and how they react to forces beyond their control. And they’re responsible for the adventure they experience and how they’ve personally changed by the end of it all.
My screenwriting professor used to say “You can make a bad movie from a good script, but you can’t make a good movie from a bad script.” Those words have always resonated with me because those words are true. Everything that goes on in a film revolves around its script. Without it, you don’t have a movie to show, let alone a story to tell.
Actors are arguably just as important as writers are. If writers are responsible for what the characters say, then actors are responsible for how they say it and how they bring these characters to life. And bizarrely enough, they too are being undervalued by the Hollywood elites for both similar and different reasons.
For one thing, actors are also not being fairly compensated for residual payments, especially across streaming platforms. How on Earth was this an issue for writers 15 years ago, and the AMPTP still hasn’t learned its lesson? For another thing, SAG-AFTRA members want to limit the use of self-taping auditions since the severity of COVID-19 has died down considerably. This also makes sense not just from an actor’s perspective, but a humanistic one too. I concede that I do conduct phone interviews on occasion, but when I’m interviewing someone for an important story, I always choose in-person meetings. That’s because that personal interaction is essential to understanding who they are and what value they can bring to your story. If I can understand that as a community reporter, how the hell can Hollywood execs not understand this after 30-plus years in the industry?
But the grossest issue by far, and what ultimately led to the SAG-AFTRA striking, was the use of artificial intelligence. You see, one idea the AMTP proposed was using A.I. to scan background actors’ faces, pay them for one day’s work, and after they’ve finished working for ONE DAY, they would relieve them of their duty and use their likeness to replicate background actors. Think about that for a second. They’re trying to remove real people from real film productions and replace them with a freaking program.
Considering background actors are one of the lowest-paid movie jobs by far ($178 per day, according to SAG-AFTRA), the cost savings are minimal, but the consequences are huge. Not only are you slowly phasing out real people working on your production (imagine a film where all of the background extras are the CGI monstrosities from The Flash), but that also means studios would own actors’ faces. If a background actor somehow made a big break and wanted to star in a major blockbuster movie down the road, they can’t because a different film studio would own their likeness. This sounds more and more like a seriously messed up “Black Mirror” episode by the minute, and the scariest part by far is that nobody is talking about this nearly as much as they should be.
Keep in mind that when SAG-AFTRA voted unanimously to go on strike, they weren’t going on strike for billionaire stars like Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Pratt, or Tom Cruise. They went on strike for everyone else in their movies, the people you see walking around in the background but never see their faces. People have a misconception that just because they know a few successful Hollywood stars that every actor must be filthy rich and swimming in money, and that’s just not the case. Far, far more people in the film industry are living paycheck to paycheck rather than in these multi-million-dollar mansions that some people fantasize about. That’s also why SAG-AFTRA unanimously voted to strike, because every actor has been there before and they know how brutal the business can be.
Needless to say, these concurring strikes have also resulted in delays across multiple studio productions. Spider-Man: Beyond The Spider-Verse has shut down production, as has the second season of “The Last Of Us.” Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 2 has also stopped filming, and many upcoming films may be pushing back their releases since actors can’t contractually promote their upcoming movies. The cast of Oppenheimer literally walked out of its premiere the same day the strike was launched. The film to have been affected the most, however, is Deadpool 3. Here is a film that literally BEGAN production right when the writer’s strike started, and it was forced to shut down production only two months in after the actor’s strike was authorized. If at least one joke about either of the strikes isn’t going to be in the final movie, I’m going to be extremely disappointed.
Only God knows how long these strikes will last. The longest-running writer’s strike was five months in 1988, while the longest-running actor’s strike lasted for six months in 2000. The most recent strikes resulted in over $2.1 billion in economic losses, and that was just for three months. The current writer’s strike is about to pass that milestone, so it’s reasonable to assume that the losses will be even greater this time around.
The solution to avoiding greater losses and delays is simple — pay your talent what they’re worth. Their demands are not outrageous. Seriously. If people are rewatching certain movies or binging certain TV series, actors and writers should be fairly compensated for those views because they’re the ones who brought those stories to life. Yes, producers and studios serve a vital role in film production too, but their value only goes as far as the dollar amount they provide. The plain and simple fact is that money alone does not make a movie — people do. And in an industry where the average Hollywood producer makes millions upon millions of dollars, it’s insane to not sacrifice a little bit of that so your writers and actors can live a little more comfortably, or even decently.
Pay your damn writers and actors. Maybe you could fire David Zaslav and use his salary.
Everyone has heard the old adage “Life gives, and life takes away.” The same could be said for the Academy Awards. For every heartfelt emotion and every well-deserved win it gives us, it’s usually followed up with an incredibly awkward moment or a deeply disrespectful snub. Perhaps no ceremony embodies that more than the 95th Academy Awards, which embodies the best and worst of both worlds.
On one hand, the ceremony itself was… pretty lackluster, to be quite honest. The pre-show on the Red Carpet was the same disaster as it’s always been (Hugh Grant was a BIG mood), the playing-off was especially obnoxious this time around, and Jimmy Kimmel was… fine. Just fine. He had a couple of good jabs about the infamous slap at last year’s Oscars (and one especially scathing one-liner about the now-deceased Robert Blake), but the rest of his time as host ranged from passable to downright cringeworthy. I never want to hear him ask Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai if she thought Harry Styles spat on Chris Pine, and I never, ever, EVER want to hear her be called “Malalaland” ever again.
On the other hand, outside of a handful of giant, gaping “WTF?” moments, the winners by and large this year were well-deserved. I mean sure, there were some glaring errors (*cough, cough* SUPPORTING ACTRESS *cough, cough). But by and large, this was one of the better years for the Academy Awards. I don’t get to say that often, so I’m very happy I get to say that this time around.
Best Picture:Of course Everything Everywhere All At Once won Best Picture, and it more than deserved it. Not only is it A24’s highest-grossing movie of all time, but it is simultaneously one of the most beloved pictures of the whole year, sweeping awards season like it’s the greediest kid on a Monopoly board.
But more than the awards hype, Everything Everywhere All At Once truly is just one of the most unique, creative, captivating, and mesmerizing cinematic experiences I’ve ever had. It’s simultaneously a layered yet simple story about a family of broken souls trying to find their place in a vast multiverse and learning that their happiness doesn’t lie in status, success, or money, but in each other. It shows that love is the greatest superpower you can have in any multiverse, and that’s one of the most beautiful things about this unusual, strange, wacky little film.
It’s so wonderful to see something like Everything Everywhere All At Once win Best Picture not only because it’s outside of the Academy’s usual wheelhouse, but because it’s outside everybody’s usual wheelhouse. It genuinely is one of the most abstract and outrageous films ever made, but simultaneously, it hit the mark on every single emotional note that it needed to. It is a truly special, one-of-a-kind cinematic experience you owe to yourself to experience at least once, and the fact that it won Best Picture makes me happy beyond words. What else can I say? The Academy got it right this year, folks. The Academy got it right.
Best Director:In the same vein as Best Picture, directing duo Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan also won Best Director for Everything Everywhere All At Once. How could they not? With as bold, batty, and breathtaking as Everything Everywhere All At Once is, one would have to be insane to even think of such an outlandish premise in the first place. But the Daniels prove that they are of sound mind because they somehow made all of the insanity work. I still don’t know why Ruben Ostlund is nominated here for Triangle Of Sadness, but it’s all history now. Daniels won Best Director this year, and boy did they deserve it.
Best Actor:Brendan Fraser won it big for The Whale, and man did he deserve it. His performance as the 600-pound Charlie is strong enough to bring any man to tears, and he displayed a depth, complexion, and vulnerability that I didn’t even know he had. This was a well-earned comeback year for Brendan Fraser, and I hope his career only continues to climb from here.
A side-note to Warner Bros.: Release Batgirl, you cowards. This win only further proves that Brendan Fraser was ready for his villainous turn as the Firefly, and I still haven’t forgiven you for robbing me of that.
Best Actress:Michelle Yeoh was the heart and soul of Everything Everywhere All At Once, so it doesn’t surprise me that she also won the Oscar for Best Actress. But man, am I so, so happy for her. The fact that she is only the second woman of color to win this award and that Halle Berry was the one to present it to her just speaks to how far we’ve come and how much further we need to go from here. A well-deserved congratulations to Michelle on her win. At 60 years old, she proves that no woman is beyond her prime.
Best Supporting Actor:Ke Huy Quan won Best Supporting Actor for playing multiple versions of Waymond Wang in Everything Everywhere All At Once. Was there any doubt? Whether he was a feeble or meek husband or a larger-than-life action hero, Waymond’s many roles demanded range from Ke Huy Quan, and he played all of them beautifully. I especially love that when he went up to the stage, Harrison Ford was there to embrace him as Indy. You did it, Short Round. Congratulations.
Best Supporting Actress: This is the part of the ballot where I begin to have a meltdown, because what the actual HELL was the Academy thinking? Here is a category where there are several worthy nominees, and nearly all of them are deserving of the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Hong Chau for portraying a grieving nurse in The Whale. Kerry Condon playing a sister torn between two sides of a feud in The Banshees Of Inisherin. Angela Basset playing a grieving mother to a fallen king in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. And Stephanie Hsu for playing the conflicted and torn daughter split between all of her alternate selves in Everything Everywhere All At Once. All of these actresses were more than deserving of the Supporting Actress Oscar. Instead, the Academy decided to give it to… Jamie Lee Curtis for playing a lesbian with hot dog fingers.
Are. You. Kidding. Me.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Jamie Lee Curtis is a fine actress, and she’s played several remarkable characters over the years, from Laurie Strode in Halloween to Linda Dryadale in Knives Out. But with all due respect to Jamie Lee Curtis, she isn’t the Best Supporting Actress of the year. She isn’t even the Best Supporting Actress in her own movie. Stephanie Hsu’s character demanded way, way, WAY more from her as an actress and as a performer. One could fairly say she’s just as essential to the film as Michele Yeoh and Key Huy Quan were. Instead, the Academy just skipped over her entirely and gave her Oscar to someone who did just a fifth of the work. That isn’t just disrespectful to Hsu as an actress: that’s disrespectful to all of the nominees in the category. What possible justification could there be for such snobbery?
Well that’s just it: snobbery. With her career spanning 45 years, it’s safe to assume that the Academy views this more as a legacy award rather than a legitimate acting Oscar. So what? That still doesn’t make it any better. You meant to tell me that this nepo baby deserved it more than Angela Basset, Kerry Condon, Hong Chau, and newcomer Stephanie Hsu, who gives a better performance than her anyway? Really? REALLY???
In terms of snubs, this is probably worse than Chadwick Boseman’s Best Actor snub in 2020, and I’m being dead serious when I say that. Because at least in that situation, Boseman lost to a worthy actor in Anthony Hopkins for The Father. Not only is Jamie Lee Curtis not comparable to her fellow nominees: she’s not comparable to them in any of the other multiverses. That’s how stupid this win is. It defies reality as we know it.
This may go down as one of the worst Oscar snubs in history, but there will be time to reflect on that later. Right now, I’m going to eat a hot dog and pretend it’s one of Jamie Lee Curtis’ fingers. Maybe that’ll make me feel better.
Update: It did not make me feel better.
Best Animated Feature:Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio deservedly won Best Animated Feature, which helps make up for all of the other categories it was wrongfully overlooked in. Guillermo Del Toro’s speech saying animation was a medium and not a genre was long overdue and well-earned, and his tribute to his late mother was simply beautiful. We could all learn a thing or two about life and love from that wonderful little film. But whatever you do, don’t watch the live-action remake on Disney+. We have enough of those to worry about already.
Best Documentary Feature: As close as this category was, Navalny took home the Oscar for Best Documentary, and rightfully so given the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The words of Alexei Navalny’s wife Yulia sticks out to me the most: “My husband is in prison for telling the truth. My husband is in prison for defending democracy.” Those are two things that are very much under attack in America right now as well. Hopefully Alexei’s fight against tyranny will stir some hearts to do the same over here as well.
Best International Feature:All Quiet On The Western Front, of course. Can you imagine the outrage if anything else won? But as predictable as the International Feature category was, there was a lot more relating to All Quiet On The Western Front that was much more surprising. But we’ll circle back to that later.
Best Original Screenplay:If Everything Everywhere All At Once is anything, it’s wholly original, which made it a shoo-in for the Original Screenplay category. God dang, did the Daniels have a good night at the Oscars.
Best Adapted Screenplay:With only two nominations, Women Talking winning Best Adapted Screenplay was a big win for the small but mighty feature on Oscar night, especially since half of the Best Picture nominees went home with zero Oscars (including even The Banshees Of Inisherin despite garnering nine nominations). Though I will say my favorite part of this win was when my mother-in-law asked why they weren’t playing Sarah Polley off of the stage. “Ma!” my brother-in-law says. “It’s because women talking!” You couldn’t write better comedy than that.
Best Cinematography:We already knew James Friend was going to win Best Cinematography for All Quiet On The Western Front, but his win is more of an indictment on the category itself and how awful this year’s nominees were. Roger Deakins even publicly chided the Oscars for intentionally snubbing Greig Fraser for his incredible work on The Batman. Granted, he already won last year for his amazing work on Dune, but that doesn’t make his snub feel any better. In fact, it makes it worse, because you can clearly tell the craftsmanship behind it and yet still see it get skipped over because “it’s a superhero movie.” Pfft. Please.
Many more well-deserved cinematographers were snubbed here, including Larkin Seiple with Everything Everywhere All At Once, Ben Davis for The Banshees Of Inisherin, Jarin Blaschke for The Northman, Claudio Miranda for Top Gun: Maverick, and the truly idiotic one, Hoyte Van Hoytema for Nope. But whatever, it’s old news now. At least the Academy picked the best one out of a bad bunch.
Best Film Editing:It was down to Top Gun: Maverick and Everything Everywhere All At Once in the editing race, and Everything clinched it, if ever so barely. With Top Gun: Maverick being such a popular hit, I thought the Academy would take any chance it could get to recognize the acclaimed action sequel. The Academy ended up going with the jump cuts and genre-mashing that came with Everything Everywhere All At Once. An easy mistake to make, but it could have gone to either of those films on Oscar night. And in another multiverse, it did.
Best Makeup And Hairstyling:The Whale won for convincingly adding 600 pounds to Brendan Fraser’s battered body, and deservingly so. Was there ever any doubt? Of course, there are naysayers out there who say The Batman or Elvis should have won instead. To that I say, nothing is worst than when Norbit was nominated for Best Makeup in 2007. Absolute nothing. The Whale deserved to win, and Charlie deserves a hug.
Best Production Design: This is where the Oscars go in a sharply different direction than I was expecting. In a surprise upset, All Quiet On The Western Front bested Elvis, Babylon, The Fabelmans, and even Avatar for Best Production Design. This is deeply unusual because historically, war pictures never perform well in the production design category. The closest I’ve seen is when Lincoln won in 2013, and even then, I think you could argue that’s more of a historical film than a war film. It just doesn’t happen, so the fact that Christian Goldbeck and Ernestine Hipper beat all the odds makes their win even more impressive.
Now, do I think it deserved to win? Not really, no, especially when you compare it to the grandiose sets of Elvis and Babylon. But I can at least see the craftsmanship behind All Quiet On The Western Front. At the very least, it’s less embarrassing than when Mank won Best Production Design in 2021, so I’m going to take this as a win either way.
Best Costume Design:In another stunning upset, one king bested another when Black Panther: Wakanda Forever won Best Costume Design over Elvis. Which isn’t really that surprising. After all, Ruth Carter previously won the Oscar for the first Black Panther movie in 2019. My reasoning for not picking her was more historical than anything else, because not only has a black woman never won two Oscars in the costume category: a black woman has never won two Oscars in any category. With this win, Ruth Carter has made history, and I couldn’t be happier for her blazing a trail for others to follow.
Best Musical Score: Of all of the musical scores that could have been awarded the Oscar, the Academy had several great options to choose from, from Justin Hurwitz’s snazzy and stylish score for Babylon to John Williams’ wonderful melodies in The Fabelmans to Son Lux’s ambitious and transcendental compositions in Everything Everywhere All At Once. Instead, the Academy chose All Quiet On The Western Front, a score so bloated and poorly mixed that it made me think my stereo speaker was broken.
The funny thing is when you look at the larger composition overall, Volker Bertelmann crafts a wonderfully tragic and heart-wrenching score that fits perfectly with the film’s anti-war themes and the loss of innocence. The problem is its main musical theme, the one it played during its presentation snippet no less, is just three blaring dubstep synths that make you want to gouge your eardrums out. It is the worst part of the score by far, and yet somehow, it beat out all of the other nominees.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m happy for Volker and I’m glad All Quiet On The Western Front has yet another win under its name. But in terms of this year’s nominees, this score was easily among my least favorites. I’ll be revisiting the tracks that filled me with an emotion other than mild annoyance and confusion.
Best Original Song:RRR’s “Naatu Naatu” won Best Original Song, and rightfully so. As much as I loved Lady Gaga’s stripped-down version of “Hold My Hand” and Rihanna’s powerful performance of “Lift Me Up,” there’s no question which song was the most fun, the most high-energy, and just the most memorable of the year, and it’s one where you don’t even understand the lyrics. I love the fact that “Naatu Naatu” won when RRR was effectively shut out from the rest of the ceremony, and I especially love that Telugu cinema finally got its moment at the Oscars. Congratulations to M. M. Keeravani and Chandrabose for their much-deserved win, and I look forward to seeing what they produce next.
Best Sound:Unsurprisingly, Top Gun: Maverick won in the Best Sound category. And it’s deservedly so, with the sound design blasting you in the face like the engine of a Super Hornet. That said, what is a surprise is how much Top Gun: Maverick was overlooked in the rest of the ceremony. It didn’t win Best Film Editing. It didn’t win Best Original Song. And on a much larger scale, it was not nominated for a lot more, with its biggest snub being in the cinematography category.
It goes to show that just because you’re the most popular film of the year doesn’t mean you’ll be revered by the Academy as much. Oh well. At least it didn’t go home empty-handed, plus it has over $1 billion waiting at home to make it go down better.
Best Visual Effects:Avatar: The Way Of Water won, duh. If All Quiet On The Western Front won in this category too, I swear I would have lost my mind. Thank God that didn’t happen.
And finally, the short categories. It’s funny. Normally, I expect to do pretty poorly in the shorts since I never get to see them, but against all odds, I’ve done pretty decently at predicting them in recent years. The only one I got wrong this year was Best Animated Short, where The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse won. But considering the fact I predicted live-action and documentary shorts correctly, that’s a win in my book. Regardless, no title was better from any of the categories than An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Fake And I Think I Believe It. My Year Of Dicks is a close second.
Speaking of which, my favorite moment from the Oscars this year actually comes from the live-action short category, where An Irish Goodbye won. During their acceptance speech, director Tom Berkeley asked to use his time to wish his co-star James Martin, who has down syndrome, a happy birthday. Seeing the entire audience sing happy birthday to this wonderful young man as his face lights up with happiness is easily one of the greatest moments I’ve ever witnessed at the Academy Awards. It’ll be hard for anything to top that sweet and sincere moment in future Oscar ceremonies.
So yeah, the Oscars gives and takes. With my guessing 17 out of the 23 winners correctly, this was a pretty great year for the Academy Awards all around. Just don’t ask my opinion about Jamie Lee Curtis’ supporting actress win. The Academy will never live that one down.
It’s funny how long controversial Oscar moments live in our memory. The infamous mix-up between Best Picture winner Moonlight and La La Land, for instance, happened six years ago, yet it feels like it could have happened yesterday. The same could be said for when Crashwon Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain in 2005, where many people wished that there actually was a Best Picture mixup. Then there’s 2022, when Best Actor winner Will Smith infamously walked up and slapped Chris Rock in front of 15 million viewers for an off-color joke he made about his wife. That happened a year ago, and it’s still being talked about to this day, including in Chris Rock’s recent comedy special “Selective Outrage,” where he slapped back at both Will and Jada (“I didn’t have any entanglements!” he clapped over the weekend).
With all of these flubs, flashbacks, and eff-ups still living in our memories years later, this makes me even more excited for this year’s Oscar ceremony than usual. What surprises await this year? Will Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announce the wrong winner yet again? Will Mark Wahlberg pronounce the name of Women Talking correctly? Will Will Smith and Chris Rock box it out on stage like Apollo Creed? Who knows! Your guess is as good as mine, folks.
Speaking of guesses, with the 95th Academy Awards taking place next weekend, it’s now or never when it comes to making my predictions. After all, we can’t predict everything that’ll happen on Oscar night, so let’s have fun with the things we can predict, starting with…
Best Picture: Ah, Best Picture. We meet again. This category has become noticeably dicey to predict in recent years. Out of the past 10 ceremonies, I’ve predicted the Best Picture winner correctly four times: Argo in 2012, 12 Years A Slave in 2013, Birdman in 2014, and Nomadland in 2020. Every other year has been a complete and utter crapshoot. The Shape Of Water won in 2018 despite no other science-fiction film winning out of the Academy’s 90-year history. Same goes for Parasite in 2019 in regard to International films. The Power Of The Dog seemed primed to win Best Picture last year, but CODA snuck up right behind it and snatched it from its grimy hands. Which is all fine and dandy because, as you might remember, The Power Of The Dog was vastly, vastly overrated.
Since the Producers Guild of America award seems to carry more weight than it has in previous years, it seems that Everything Everywhere All At Once is the clear frontrunner for Best Picture this year. If it is, then it is more than deserving, because film duo Daniels created one of the most immersive cinematic experiences of all time with that picture. I’ve never seen a film that has been simultaneously exciting, gripping, absorbing, emotional, weird, funny, unusual, horrifying, and heartfelt all at once. It truly is one of the most unique moviegoing experiences I’ve ever had in the theater, and it stands out amongst its fellow nominees.
Sure, there are other great movies that are in contention, from Martin McDonagh’s Banshees Of Inisherin to James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way Of Water to Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, but none of them have the momentum or the energy behind them the way Everything Everywhere All At Once has all season long. If Best Picture wasn’t going to go to Everything Everywhere All At Once, my next best guess would be All Quiet On The Western Front since it’s the next most-nominated film at nine nominations total. But since its predecessor already won Best Picture (albeit in 1930), it doesn’t seem likely that its remake would reach the same heights. Everything Everywhere All At Once is the most likely Best Picture winner. If it does end up winning, then the Academy got it right this year big time.
Best Director:Daniel Kwan and Scheinert defeated Steven Spielberg to secure the DGA, which means they’re all but assured to win Best Director for Everything Everywhere All At Once. It’s just as well, because they easily delivered one of the most creative, unique, original, mesmerizing, and breathtaking films I’ve seen in the past several years. I will be overjoyed if the Daniels end up taking home one of the night’s biggest prizes. Now if only someone would explain to me why Ruben Ostlund is nominated here for Triangle of Sadness.
Best Actor: I actually agonize quite a bit over this category and how badly two different nominees deserve to win here. On one hand, Austin Butler gave a mesmerizing and incredibly gifted performance as the King of Rock N’ Roll in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, brilliantly resurrecting the rock icon and giving him humanity, heart, and soul. On the other hand, Brendan Fraser is at the best he’s ever been in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, and he gives a deeply intimate and tragic performance as a morbidly obese father who is slowly dying from heart failure.
It’s a close call, and I honestly wish I didn’t have to pick between these two amazing performances. But if we’re going solely off of impact, it’s no question that the Best Actor Oscar belongs to Brendan Fraser. Sure, he hasn’t done anything as significant up until now, and he was downright awful in those Godforsaken Mummy movies. Despite all of this, he gives a real tearjerker of a performance as Charlie and he makes you reflect on life, love, joy, happiness, grief, trauma, sadness, and all of the emotions in between. Austin Butler solidified himself as Elvis in our hearts forever, but Brendan Fraser shattered our hearts as Charlie.
Best Actress: As great as Michelle Williams and Ana de Armas were in The Fablemans and Blonde respectively, this year’s Best Actress race boils down to two phenomenal performances: Cate Blanchett in Tar and Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All At Once.
I’m going with Michelle for three reasons. One: Cate Blanchett already has two Oscars, one for The Aviator and one for Blue Jasmine. The only other actresses to secure three Oscars are Meryl Streep and Frances McDormand, and I’m sorry, but I just don’t see Cate Blanchett being on Meryl Streep’s level, no matter how great her performance was. Two: Michelle Yeoh won the SAG Award for Best Actress, and seven times out of 10, that’s been most accurate in predicting the Oscar winner too. And three: She just plain deserves it. Between portraying a strict and overbearing mother, a dissatisfied wife, and a neglected daughter, Michelle wore many faces in Everything Everywhere All At Once, and she portrayed all of them beautifully.
She perfectly encapsulated womanhood while simultaneously demonstrating how generational trauma affects more people than just yourself. Dare I say, her performance was perfect in Everything Everywhere All At Once, and her fellow nominees will be hard-pressed to unseat her.
Best Supporting Actor:Ke Huy Quan, without question. I know that Everything Everywhere All At Once demanded more dramatically from both Michelle Yeoh and Stephanie Hsu, but it could be argued that Waymond was just as central to the film as much as his on-screen wife and daughter were. Not only that, but Ke Huy Quan did a brilliant job portraying multiple versions of Waymond, not just as his shy and squeamish self from the main universe, but also as the superheroic action-hero version of himself from the Alphaverse. His monologue on doing laundry and taxes was the most powerful, pure thing out of the whole movie, and Ke Huy Quan proved he’s more than just Short Round from Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom.
Best Supporting Actress: First of all, what on Earth is going on with Hollywood’s sudden aversion to Stephanie Hsu? She was every bit as essential to the film as her on-screen parents were, arguably more so since the main conflict dealt directly with her character and her search for meaning and purpose in all of her different lives. Yet, since the Golden Globes took place back in January, she’s been relentlessly snubbed in place of her co-stars, and I don’t know why. She wasn’t nominated for the Golden Globe. She wasn’t nominated for the BAFTA. She was nominated at the SAG Awards, but she lost to… Jamie Lee Curtis. For what? All her role entailed was stapling a circle to her head, griping about taxes, and licking Michelle Yeoh’s hot dog fingers. She had nowhere near the depth, complexion, and variety that Stephanie Hsu brought to her performance, yet she’s consistently been recognized more on the awards circuit than Stephanie Hsu was, and I don’t know why. She should be at the top of consideration for supporting actress this year, but because of how relentlessly she’s been snubbed all season, she’s at the bottom of the pack, which is easily the most disrespectful thing to come out of awards season this year by far.
That being said, I think Best Supporting Actress this year will go to Angela Bassett in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. She brilliantly and powerfully portrayed everyone’s collective grief over Chadwick Boseman, and there were moments in the film where it didn’t feel so much like she was acting as much as she was just expressing her genuine emotions. I can’t explain why Michael B. Jordan was stupidly snubbed years ago in the first Black Panther, but that’s neither here nor there. Angela Bassett deserves this year’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar. If Jamie Lee Curtis somehow nabs it away from not one, but two deserving nominees, I’m going to drown her Oscar in dirty hot dog water.
Best Animated Feature: First of all, what an amazing year in animated film. Yes, the animated feature category is usually one of the strongest every year, but this year that’s especially the case. With this year’s five nominees including Marcel The Shell With Shoes On, The Sea Beast, Turning Red, Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, any one of these nominees is more than deserving of the Best Animated Feature Oscar. Not for nothing, three of these movies made it onto my best films of the year list. It might have been four if Puss In Boots: The Last Wish wasn’t released so damn late into the year.
That being said, I think this year’s animated feature Oscar should go to Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. Not only is it beautifully animated with expert craftsmanship and detail with its stop-motion animation, but it also carries a maturity to it that makes it feel as relevant for adults as it does to children. It is easily one of the most beautiful, thoughtful, and poignant remakes of 2022, and it deserves nothing less than the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
On another note, I am absolutely baffled that Pinocchio only secured one nomination in the animated film category. I understand it not getting a Best Picture nomination, but seriously: nothing for music? Cinematography? Production design? Good gravy, if Avatar can get nominated for production design for its animated work, surely Pinocchio deserves nothing less.
Best Documentary Feature: In most other years at the Oscars, there’s usually a clear frontrunner when it comes to Best Documentary, whether you’re talking about My Octopus Teacher in 2021 or Summer of Soul in 2022. We don’t have that privilege this year with all of the nominees being on mostly equal footing. The closest one to a frontrunner I can think of is Fire of Love, which was recently announced to being adapted into a feature-length film. But just because it’s more popular doesn’t automatically make it the winner. After all, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? was simultaneously one of the highest-grossing and most well-made documentaries of all time. It wasn’t even nominated in 2019.
No, for Best Documentary, I think the Academy is going to go more topical than anything else, and there’s probably no other film more timely than Navalny, which focuses on the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020. With the ongoing Ukrainian War costing hundreds of lives daily, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Academy highlighted a film that brought attention to this issue, especially since previous Oscar winners CitizenFour and Icarus had similar subjects.
Of course, this could just be me trying to justify my prediction for an otherwise unpredictable category. Take your pick. Mine is Navalny. Screw Putin.
Best International Feature: I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again — if a Foreign-language film is nominated for Best Picture, it’s a lock in the International Film category. With All Quiet On The Western Front being nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, it’s safe to say that Edward Berger’s gripping war epic will win the International Feature Oscar as well. It’s more than deserving, with Berger creating a harrowing yet tragic portrait of war and how it does nothing but take lives and leave families devastated. While there’s much well-deserved confusion as to how on Earth Decision To Leave was snubbed in this category, there’s no questioning the emotional impact behind All Quiet On The Western Front and how much it deserves to win. I can’t wait to see Edward Berger win his first Academy Award. That’ll be a big moment to pay attention to on Oscar night.
Best Original Screenplay:Everything Everywhere All At Once, no contest. Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees Of Inisherin was equally as emotional and heartbreaking, but it lacks the complexity, the innovation, and the creativity that Everything Everywhere All At Once has. I make no exaggeration when I say it is the most original screenplay I’ve ever read. I don’t know how the Daniels’ came up with the wacky, crazy, bat-insane ideas they come up with in that film, but they did it and they turned it into something meaningful, sincere, and deeply profound. If that doesn’t deserve to win Best Original Screenplay, then none of the nominees do.
Best Adapted Screenplay: Let’s start with the obvious question here: what the heck even counts as an “adapted” work nowadays? Out of the five nominees, only three of them are based on preexisting works. The other two are sequels to original films (Top Gun: Maverick and Glass Onion). What’s worse is that one of those movies, Knives Out, was first nominated for original screenplay before its sequel flipped over to the adapted side. What gives? How can something be considered original in one second and adapted in the next? Why weren’t these movies nominated for original screenplay? What confused, outdated system is the Academy using to make these confounding nominations?
As far as the remaining nominees go, it’s pretty clear who the winner will be: Women Talking. Living hasn’t generated anywhere near enough conversation to even be considered in the running, and as great as All Quiet On The Western Front is, its greatest strengths lie elsewhere beyond the writing (such as Edward Berger’s phenomenal direction, James Friend’s breathtaking cinematography, the disquieting and eerie visual effects). That leaves Women Talking as the most likely winner for this category. If, for any reason, either Top Gun or Glass Onion wins, I will pull my hair out and question reality as I know it.
Best Cinematography: Out of all of the categories from this year’s Oscar ceremony, the worst one by far is Best Cinematography. Not only are there two nominees nobody’s even heard of before (Bardo and Empire Of Light), but Elvis is nominated under this category. ELVIS. Over Everything Everywhere All At Once? Over The Banshees of Inisherin? Over Top Gun: Maverick? The Fabelmans? The Northman? The Batman? Nope? I could pick like 10 movies that deserve to be here more than these nominees, so the fact that these were the ones we ended up with is utterly infuriating.
That being said, it does make my job of predicting the winner easier, so the Oscar for Best Cinematography this year will go to All Quiet On The Western Front. It may not be as spectacular as the other movies I mentioned, but the scope of its battles is phenomenal and it does a brilliant job showcasing how war tears apart the body and the soul. It’s not my favorite cinematography of the year, but then again, none of these nominees are. If, for some bizarre reason, All Quiet On The Western Front doesn’t win, it will be a snub on monumental levels.
Best Film Editing: Yes yes yes, I know Best Film Editing is the biggest joke of a category since that stupid “Oscars Cheer Moment” award was introduced last year. Not because film editing isn’t important, mind you, but because the Academy consistently names some of the stupidest winners more than any other category. Dunkirk won in 2018 despite being more incomprehensible and disjointed than a Michael Bay picture. Bohemian Rhapsody’s win in 2019 was straight-up laughable. And can anyone tell me with a straight face why The Power Of The Dog was even nominated last year? If Peter Sciberras’ editing was that outstanding, he would have edited The Power Of The Dog down from two hours to one hour. Or even better, barely a minute.
That being said, the category has been making something of a comeback in recent years, with The Sound of Metal and Dune being the most recent winners. The fact that Academy voters are beginning to take film editing more seriously gives me hope for the category this year, although it wouldn’t surprise me if they still gave it to Elvis or something.
Anyhow, predictions. I love Paul Rogers’ work on Everything Everywhere All At Once and thought he did a brilliant job diving into all of these different multiverses and editing them into one cohesive story. But by that same token, Eddie Hamilton also had to take over 800 hours of flight footage and edit all of that down into the lightning-quick action sequences you see in Top Gun: Maverick. For context, that’s more footage than all three films in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy — combined.
Film editing this year is really something of a coin toss, especially since there are two outstanding nominees that are more than deserving. But as far as my coin toss went, I’m going with Top Gun: Maverick. Whatever wins, it can’t be worse than Bohemian Rhapsody’s Best Film Editing win… probably.
Best Makeup And Hairstyling: First of all, why on God’s green Earth is Everything Everywhere All At Once not nominated for Best Makeup? The many different forms, shapes, and appearances of the Jobu Topaki prove that it should have at least been a contender. Or at least, more of one than Elvis, whose greatest makeup work was making Tom Hanks look fatter than he normally is. But I digress. This is one of many snubs from the night, and unfortunately, it isn’t the last one.
Despite that, there actually is a clear winner in this category, and that is Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale. People who were shocked to find Brendan Fraser’s sudden weight gain for that film might be surprised to find out that he was wearing a fat suit the entire time. That’s especially stunning since there are extended sequences in that film where Charlie can be seen naked, and there is zero indication that body isn’t his own. It’s that convincing.
Of course, there’s other incredible makeup work that deserves to be praised, such as transforming Colin Ferrell into the Penguin for The Batman or covering soldiers in mud and gore in All Quiet On The Western Front. But there really is no defeating The Whale. At least, as long as Austin Butler’s bloated fat suit in Elvis doesn’t take it first.
Best Production Design: If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the Oscar for Best Production Design, it’s to never bet against Baz Luhrmann. The past two times his films have been nominated for Best Production Design, they’ve won it for both Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby.I expect this year to be a three-peat as Elvis wins for production design yet again. Frankly, I’ll be shocked if any other nominee wins. If there is a technical category that Elvis excels in, it’s definitely production design.
Best Costume Design:Elvis. See production design above.
Best Musical Score: As controversial as Babylon is, the one thing I think everyone can agree on is that the score is mesmerizing. That’s thanks to composer Justin Hurwitz, who has been Damien Chazelle’s primary collaborator since his 2009 debut Guy And Madeline On A Park Bench. He even won two Oscars in 2017 for La La Land. With Babylon being nominated in three categories, it isn’t expected to win much on Oscar night, but its best chances do lie in Best Musical Score.
Compare that alongside the likes of its fellow nominees. Hauschka’s score for All Quiet On The Western Front is so bloated and droning that it’s offensive that it’s even nominated. Carter Burwell’s score for The Banshees Of Inisherin is so mopey it’s pathetic. Son Lux’s composition for Everything Everywhere All At Once is the most beautiful and transcendent score of the year, but this is their first nomination, so their chances are pretty much zilch. And John Williams for The Fabelmans? How many Oscars does that guy have again?
Nah, Babylon has the best chances here. I’m still personally rooting for Everything Everywhere All At Once to win, but I’m not betting on it. Meanwhile, let’s all share our collective frustration that The Batman wasn’t even nominated. That snub alone makes this category that much less legitimate.
Best Original Song: Yet another great category for the Oscars this year. This year has five outstanding nominees from five outstanding artists: “Applause” from Diane Warren, “Hold My Hand” from Lady Gaga, “Lift Me Up” from Rihanna, “Naatu Naatu” by M.M. Keeravani and Chandrabose, and “This Is A Life” by Son Lux. In any other year, any one of these nominees could have been the clear-cut winner, but 2022 just happened to be the year they all collided. They’re all simply outstanding nominees, and any one of them deserves to take home the Academy Award on Oscar night.
As great of a problem as it is to have such a competitive category, it unfortunately makes predicting this year’s winner an absolute nightmare. “Hold My Hand” is an absolute banger from Lady Gaga, while “This Is A Life” is an intimate and personal little lullaby-like tune that’s a personal favorite of mine. But if we’re going with the populist’s vote, there’s no denying that RRR’s “Naatu Naatu” has a real shot at winning this year. Not only was RRR ridiculously skipped over in the International Film category, but “Naatu Naatu” is just EPIC in all caps. The most impressive part? You don’t even need to understand the lyrics. The song is just that infectious to listen to on its own.
I honestly don’t know who the Best Original Song Oscar is going to on Oscar night, but my bet is on “Naatu Naatu.” Either way, I can’t wait for the live performance.
Note: Yet another snub among many is the Weeknd’s “Nothing Is Lost” from Avatar: The Way Of Water. Abel’s vocals and the heart-wrenching lyrics hit harder and harder after you’ve seen the movie.
Best Sound:As competitive as this year’s sound category is, I don’t think anyone seriously expects any of the nominees to unseat Top Gun: Maverick, do they? I mean sure, The Batman’s sound work stands up just as much as its Oscar-winning predecessor The Dark Knight,All Quiet On The Western Front uses the presence and absence of sound to brilliant yet horrifying effect, and Avatar: The Way Of Water got incredibly creative with the sounds of the Na’Vi, the human invaders, and the Tulkun alike.
That being said, nothing beats Tom Cruise breaking the sound barrier in the first 10 minutes of the film, and the rest of the movie doesn’t let up. The entire film feels like you’re in the cockpit while 1,000 feet in the air, with the G-forces constantly pushing against your body. The out-of-this-world sound design is to thank for that. Another film could steal this Oscar in an upset win, but it isn’t likely.
Best Visual Effects:If any other film wins Best Visual Effects over Avatar: The Way Of Water, I’m going to burn the Dolby Theatre to the ground. As amazing as Top Gun: Maverick, All Quiet On The Western Front, and The Batman are, the visual effects are just one part of those films’ brilliance — especially when so much of it is practical effects. Avatar: The Way Of Water, on the other hand, utilizes both practical and computer-generated effects to brilliant effect, beautifully blending both styles into a mesmerizing display of Pandora. Avatar: The Way Of Water is the clear-cut winner. If anything else wins, it will be straight-up thievery.
And now, those pesky short categories that I never see every year but still have to predict nonetheless. How about we go with An Irish Goodbye for live-action short, The Elephant Whisperers for documentary short, and My Year Of Dicks for animated short since the title is funny. That’s about as good a metric as any when predicting the short categories.
Well, that’s all until next weekend, folks. Good luck with your Oscar ballots, and whatever you do, stay away from Chris Rock, or he’ll make his next comedy special about you.
I think the Oscars have conditioned me for disappointment. Every year, I tune in eagerly to the nominations announcement waiting to see who is in the running, only to face one baffling snub after another. Knives Out missing out on a Best Picture nomination in 2020. Da 5 Bloods getting skipped over in nearly every category in 2021. Denis Villeneuve being snubbed a very much-earned Best Director nomination for Dune just last year. Every year, I wait and wait and wait for the Oscars to get it right, only to be met with confusion, frustration, and mind-boggling disappointment every single time.
For the first time in five years, that disappointment never came. In fact, this was probably one of the best Oscar nominations I’ve seen in quite some time.
Now don’t get me wrong, there were still plenty of snubs from this year’s nominees. Robert Eggers’ The Northman was overlooked in all of the categories, as well as Adam Sandler’s heart-pounding basketball drama Hustle. Perhaps most bafflingly, Jordan Peele’s eerie sci-fi horror film Nope got a resounding zero nominations. Seriously? Not even one for cinematography? Film editing? Production design? Visual effects? Even sound?
So yeah, snubs are still aplenty, but for the most part, the Academy got it right this year. Now there’s a sentence I’d never thought I’d type.
At 11 nominations total, Daniels’ genre-bending masterpiece Everything Everywhere All At Once is this year’s biggest contender with four acting nominations, a Best Director nomination, and a Best Picture nomination. The film deserves every single nomination it has received and then some, with the only categories it was notably absent in including makeup and visual effects. Still, even with those snubs, it practically swept all of the major categories and has solidified itself as a for-sure contender on Oscar night.
At nine nominations apiece, the next biggest Best Picture contenders include the German anti-war film All Quiet On The Western Front and the Irish tragicomedy The Banshees Of Inisherin. The surprising thing here isn’t the fact that both are so closely tied to Everything Everywhere All At Once. The surprising thing here is that All Quiet On The Western Front is nominated as many times as it is. Originally thought to be a front-runner in the International Film category, it’s now considered a leading contender in the Best Picture category as well, especially with additional cinematography, visual effects, and adapted screenplay nominations.
Following closely behind those two films, however, is Baz Luhrmann’s bedazzling musical biopic Elvis. Austin Butler was obviously a shoo-in in the acting category, and it’s probably the film’s best chance to win an Oscar as well. But I wouldn’t call it a done deal. After all, Austin still has to contend with Brendan Fraser in The Whale, and I question if there’s any performance that could potentially overtake his. Although bafflingly, The Whale did not receive a Best Picture nomination despite also securing makeup and Best Supporting Actress noms for Hong Chau.
From there, the Steven Spielberg biopic The Fabelmans secured seven nominations, including Best Picture. Spielberg obviously got nominated multiple times up and down the ballot, from director all the way to original screenplay. Yet, the biggest surprise to me was Judd Hirsch’s inclusion under the supporting actor category for Sammy’s excitable circus Uncle Boris. His scene was one of my favorites from the whole film, and he did a really brilliant job showing how art can make us feel whole while simultaneously ripping us in two. He was easily one of the film’s most standout actors and created a big impact despite his small screen time. I’m really glad he was nominated, even though his chances to win are extremely slim.
Following The Fabelmans with six nominations apiece are the tragic psychological drama Tar and the heart-racing action sequel Top Gun: Maverick. These are two very different films finding success on two very different sides of the ballot, with Top Gun: Maverick sweeping in most of the technical categories while Tar secured screenplay, actress, and directing noms. The interesting thing is seeing what they aren’t nominated for. Tar was noticeably overlooked in the music and production design categories, while Top Gun: Maverick was wrongfully snubbed under cinematography (actually, the entire cinematography category has gone down the crapper. But there will be time to talk more about that later).
After that, Avatar: The Way Of Water fits in comfortably as the eighth Best Picture nominee, securing additional nominations under the sound, production design, and visual effects categories. While it is a technical and emotional powerhouse of a film, I don’t really expect it to be a major contender in most categories with the notable exception of visual effects, which is fine. After all, the first movie won three Academy Awards and even earned James Cameron another Best Director nomination. If The Way Of Water even comes close to the first film, it will have been a success. Besides, at over $2 billion, it’s the highest-grossing movie of 2022. It’s not like it needs the extra hardware.
Behind Avatar: The Way Of Water is the Swedish satire Triangle Of Sadness, which has secured screenplay and direction nominations aside from Best Picture. Besides that, I gotta be honest: I’ve never heard of the movie. The only thing I know about this film is that its poster features an older woman throwing up gold. Aside from that, I’ve got nothing. Needless to say that there will be few people rooting for it on Oscar night.
And finally, the last Best Picture nominee is Women Talking, a monumental little film about a group of women who band together to defend themselves from vicious attacks in their colony. What’s perplexing about this film isn’t the fact that it’s nominated for Best Picture: that much is to be expected for a film of this subject matter. What’s perplexing is that it only secured one other nomination in the adapted screenplay category. How many times do we have to go over this, Academy? A film cannot be considered Best Picture-worthy for one element alone. Selma wasn’t Best Picture-worthy just because of the song “Glory,” and The Post wasn’t Best Picture-worthy just because of Meryl Streep. Neither can Woman Talking stand on its own just for its screenplay. Seriously, would have killed you to give the movie a supporting actress nomination? Production design? Costumes?
I could pick apart other grievances I have with the nominees this year, like how The Batman astoundingly missed a Best Original Score nomination, while The Woman King was overlooked in every category Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was nominated in despite being superior in nearly every way. But for the most part, I’m surprisingly pleased with the nominees we have this year. For once, Academy Award voters prioritized the films that deserved the most recognition and lifted up the artists that we might have missed last year. Let’s hope they keep that momentum going into the Oscars ceremony on March 12.
DAVID DUNN 