Hello. My name is Nemo Nilsson. You may know me as the Last-Minute Movie Critic, a moniker under which I have been published for many years.
Now, I pivot my career to the esteemed realm of awards blogging: spending my precious time for the benefit of the public, to pen ponderously about the prestigious accolades that come to pass during Hollywood’s most powerful time of the year: Awards Season.
But, I also have been recently transformed into a frog.
approximate look-alike (credit: gary_leavens on Flickr [cc-by-sa-2.0])
I seem to have upset a witch outside the AMC Burbank 16, even though I didn’t see her in front of me and I spilled just as much Harold and the Purple Crayon grape-flavored ICEE on myself as I did her. It’s really no reason to get hysterical, and I feel like she was overreacting. She overreacted further when I made the perfectly neutral statement she was overreacting, and that she should calm down. I don’t know why people don’t respond to manners anymore these days. And women wonder why men don’t hold the door for them anymore.
Anyway, now I’m a frog. Yep. When I got back to my apartment a few days later, the first thing I did was figure out how to look it up. I’m confident that I’m a frog, not a toad. So I got that going for me.
And now, I’m going to hopefully become your #1 spot for Awards Season news, updates, and predictions (maybe even a little red carpet gossip!) because the witch told me that the only way I would turn back into a man is if I got my predictive Oscar ballot 100% correct. In the world of film criticism, sometimes the assignment chooses you.
Now that I have become once again proficient with using a keyboard and mouse, I can present to you some awards season takes, reacts, and predicts.
Two Cents
I’ll start by pitching some opinions about the films nominated for Best Picture, most of which were released after I went from a member of AMC A-List to a member of the order Anura. Once again, the Academy’s goldfish-like memory that biases them against all the great cinema that came out before September not only fails themselves, but the moviegoing public at large. However, because I am just that dedicated to the service and duty in which I make my bread, I hopped, skipped and jumped into cinemas to watch (almost) all of these nominees, for you the reading public. You’re welcome.
I can say sneaking into movies is…well it’s not “easier” by any stretch of the imagination (nobody holds the door for anyone anymore,) but it is free even if you get caught. People think you’re just a frog and not a fellow movie buff, and critic of some renown.
Anora (dir. Sean Baker)
Sean Baker takes his nonjudgmental, oft-sympathetic lens for the members of the lower classes and paints on a bigger canvas than before, as the title character is swept up in the fairy tale of receiving the affections of a Russian oligarch’s son. Some say comedy is tragedy plus time, I say Sean Baker’s latest posits that comedy is humanity plus money. Once Ani marries Ivan, and the latter’s family finds out, it becomes one of the funniest movies of the year.
The Brutalist (dir. Brady Corbet)
The most impressive thing about The Brutalist, at least to me, is its scope and scale, a swing at the grandeur of making “an American epic” with a budget of only around nine and a half million dollars. If nothing else, it proves that “big movies” don’t need to be prohibitively expensive, and while this is on the lower end of the budget spectrum, it makes me lament the absence of the historically-solid stream of mid-budget movies that used to be a staple in the studio industry’s economic portfolio. Instead of putting two hundred million eggs in a basket that needs to make a billion dollars to seem like a hit, the eggs could be put into several baskets and bring home dozens upon dozens of loaves of bread.
That metaphor lost me a bit. After I’m done writing this I’m going to research if frogs can eat bread… Anyway, Adrien Brody is astounding as a Hungarian immigrant fleeing the systemic oppression of Nazi Europe to the shores of the United States, where he will face the systemic oppression of the American Dream. Is it hard work, or the luck of ‘being chosen’ by a wealthy benefactor (a brilliant turn by Guy Pearce) that gets him closer to that ‘dream’ we all dream? Makes this writer think about whether we have much say at all in this place, or if we’re just crabs in a bucket – playthings for the powerful to come along and choose to elevate or decimate at their whim and leisure.
A Complete Unknown (dir. James Mangold)
I barely managed to get into this one by hopping into a woman’s open purse, which involved a daring episode of dodging her hand, as she reached for some lip balm during the trailers while I waited for her to just put it down so I could make my way out. For A Complete Unknown, this exciting escapade would have felt like a waste of time if not for the pleasant music throughout; it’s just another historical music biopic leaning on the crutch of telling a series of events rather than anchoring those events to the spine of a story. By the end I felt I knew the main character about as well as the title implies. Though the cast is very good.
Conclave (dir. Edward Berger)
The phrase “a movie for adults” gets thrown around a lot these days, but not as often as the movies themselves get thrown around theaters. Conclave is a great example of “twenty million dollars, two hours, and people talking in rooms: it’s a hearty meal” filmmaking. With the steady hand of a script from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy co-writer Peter Straughan based on the novel of the same name by Robert Harris, director Edward Berger isn’t ‘lost in the trenches’ with this one like 2022’s All Quiet on the Western Front.
The cast is resolutely phenomenal, and the intrigue is immediate, even before the various conspiratorial angles start to unbutton their robes: you really want to see and understand what happens at the Vatican when a Pope dies. After the title drop, the first thing we see is the efforts to sound-proof (to an extreme degree) and board up the windows of the room where the voting will happen. We get locked into this sequester with the Cardinals, it’s quite the fly-on-the-wall thrill ride. Weird to say “thrill ride” for a film where the camera is mostly locked-down, but it’s true. The gentleman whose hat I had snuck in on was so engaged he didn’t even notice me shifting my weight from time to time.
Dune: Part Two (dir. Denis Villeneuve)
I saw this one in my regular body, because it was a March release! A blockbuster that feels like it was made by people who care about making blockbusters and (dare I say it) art, too. But I had the same problem with this — like many other critics — as I did with Part One, which is that it felt like half a story. I cannot fathom why that is. Why is that, Denis?? Lots of other critics said the exact same thing about both films, so we must be on to something. Yet, despite our great tastes and sterling intellects, it remains a mystery.
Emilia Pérez (dir. Jacques Audiard)
I’m surprised this was nominated for Best Picture because it’s a Netflix release, and those aren’t real movies, you know? I was distracted through most of the runtime because I got stuck in between two couch cushions and there was nobody around to help me. Really isn’t anyone to help me these days. I have to do everything myself, which is why it’s taking me a month to write this article I would ordinarily be able to pump out in six minutes flat. I apologize for depriving you all of great Golden Globes content. I used to be a professional!
So this is a musical, and I didn’t know that going in because I don’t really hear much about movies these days for obvious reasons. The songs were so grating I was surprised Pasek & Paul weren’t credited on them. I would have covered my ears if I knew where my ears were and if I wasn’t also lodged in the couch. I thought Zoe Saldaña really went for it. I didn’t recognize her at first since I mainly know her from Guardians of the Galaxy where she is green and Avatar where she is blue, catlike and 13 feet tall. (She’s really good in those movies, and I even think she deserved a nomination for The Way of Water (2022, dir. James Cameron) but the Academy has a bias against “transformative performances” when you’re playing an alien instead of a historical figure or famous celebrity.) Now, in Emilia Pérez, she is loud. Which I imagine is just as good a way to snag a nod. More power to her.
I’ll admit I thought she might’ve been playing a real-life lawyer like Erin Brockovich or James B. Donovan, and that’s why she has been getting particular attention for this role. Which is credit to her performance: everything in the movie is so very authentic: Mexico, the trans experience, Pasek & Paul style musical numbers, Selena Gomez’ Spanish… There’s apparently a lot of negative backlash online against the depictions of these things, but maybe they’re just on a hate train and didn’t actually watch the movie. Awards bodies like the Academy, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and the French guys at Cannes might know a thing or two more about the world than you. Their jobs literally involve traveling the globe, watching all manner of films, and above all picking the best in movies every year. You think they don’t know real life when they see it? What are your credentials, a Twitter account? A mom’s basement? Avocado toast instead of a travel fund? I may be a frog but I see no reason why all those decision-makers would be wrong about something like this. Great art has authenticity, it speaks to truths both personal and universal. If Emilia Pérez doesn’t have those things, why is it the most nominated movie at this year’s Oscars, and the most-nominated non-English-language film in the Oscars’ history? Maybe put your American bias down and explore something in other languages made by other cultures, like this movie about Mexico made by a French 72-year-old and starring a Spanish racist.
Then again, in all fairness, like I said I was distracted through most of this. So I must defer to the trustworthy and honorable awards bodies more than my own acutely refined opinion in this one instance. Maybe I should give it another watch before passing judgement. The whole second half I was pinned upside-down in the back of the couch, and then Netflix autoplayed Heart of Stone (2023, dir. Tom Harper). And nobody was around to help me, so the entirety of Heart of Stone was the backdrop to my own personal 127 Hours until, after falling asleep for a little bit, I managed to wriggle free. Actually, now that I think about it, this is on-par with the viewing diligence of an actual Academy voter.
I’m Still Here (dir. Walter Salles)
A powerful work about perseverance in a place hostile to your very being for no right reason at all. Another movie that is unavoidable to not view through the prism of the now and here. In a way, it’s oddly hopeful as if a hand extended across time, to tell us not to despair. But on the other hand, a reminder that accountability and reparations are not platitudes, but necessary building blocks to the healing process. The movie is based on the memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva (the son of the film’s central character Eunice) and in an interview with The Guardian he summed it up nice and plain:
“Why hasn’t it been overcome? Because there were no convictions, there was no reparation [after the dictatorship],” argued Paiva, whose father’s killers were never brought to justice. “So long as these things are not punished, our democracy will always be under threat.”
Nickel Boys (dir. RaMell Ross)
As my own personal point of view has radically shifted in the recent months, I was quite taken by Nickel Boys‘ core conceit: (almost) the entire movie is presented in first-person POV. The camera gives as much of a performance as the actors, and it’s fully transportive and intimately engaging. I knew nothing about this movie going in (full disclosure: I thought I was sneaking into a theater showing The Brutalist) and that fresh-eyed approach made the structure sing, as we’re introduced to childhood tranquility, then realizing the setting is the 1960s amid the Civil Rights movement, and then our black protagonist is sidelined by the cancerous indifference of the system and dragged immutably into hell on earth. Where it goes from there is harrowing, moving, and poetically grand in a “the great American movie” manner. Undoubtedly one of the most affecting and artistic cinematic achievements of 2024, so it will likely be ignored at the Oscars.
The Substance (dir. Coralie Fargeat)
I’ve gotten used to a lot of unsavory things very rapidly. I eat bugs now. There’s a lot more than you’d think if you know where to look! So I must admit I wasn’t as grossed-out by Coralie Fargeat’s new body horror Hollywood satire as I may once have been. Which does not mean it’s not the most awesomely sickening movie to come along in quite some time: the people walking out of my screening are testament to that. It just means that my sticking to it, as the cowards fell by the wayside, has less to do with my dedication to the cinematic experience than it does to my recently-fortified iron stomach. I found this an enthralling story. It hits familiar beats of the satirization of Hollywood’s view of aging women, but what might sound rote or over-done on paper ends up executed in a vivacious manner, with a furious attitude and gleeful disdain that keeps it from ever being ham-handed while it nevertheless beats you over the head. How did Fargeat do that? It’s incredible. It shouldn’t work, but damn does it ever.
One pertinent example is how the filmmaking leers at Margaret Qualley’s body. This is no male gaze, it’s a full-on spoof of the male gaze. It’s so hyper-sexualized that it transcends being arousing and loops straight into being hilarious. It satirizes the casual-as-breathing exploitation of young women’s bodies by presenting it at its ridiculous extreme, in a way that should make you stop and think upon every less-extreme example going forward. That takes serious talent.
Wicked (dir. Jon M. Chu)
I did not see Wicked. I could cop to it being because of the difficulties of seeing movies as a frog, but I’m righteously stubborn and persevered for all the others. The truth is I did not want to see it last November, and I do not get this one being a Best Picture nominee. I don’t know anyone who saw it, I have no idea why it’s so popular. But it must be, because during its opening few weekends there were so many people at the AMC Burbank 16 that I could not feasibly venture to any screenings without being trampled by folks going to see Wicked. It’s hard not to take this personally, that a silly movie about a wicked witch gets all the attention for no discernible reason. First of all, like Dune: Part Two it’s only half a story, but unlike Dune: Part Two, it’s the first half. So the story isn’t even finished yet!!! I seriously just don’t get it. They’re not even remotely the same. One was shot by ace cinematographer Greig Fraser and the other was shot through a dirty car windshield facing the setting sun on the 105. I know “Best Picture” doesn’t use that definition of the word ‘picture,’ but these are two very different pictures.
And Dune was actually good because the attractive, young, smart hero who’s right about everything gets to tell the old foolish witch to shut up and she actually does. She doesn’t keep shrieking at him or turn him into a space frog. You can’t just make a prequel to The Wizard of Oz that celebrates the villains who eventually get rightly crushed by houses and melted by water. We celebrate real-life villains far too much these days. What a disgusting, morally irresponsible motion picture. Its popularity is a sign that our culture is wayward and lost.
Juror #2 (dir. Clint Eastwood)
This one wasn’t nominated, but it should have been instead of Wicked. If “Disco” Dave Zaslav could have turned Clint Eastwood into an amphibian, he would have. This is my way of saying that he apparently hates Eastwood for no good reason at all and should be ashamed of his reckless, baffling actions. Like myself, Juror #2 managed to hop into a very small number of theaters domestically, but could have gone much, much farther if it hadn’t been stymied by small-minded, closed-hearted, unreasonable people.
The Predictions
Now I will go through the full spread of nominees and talk about my reasoning behind my predictions, just so anyone reading knows they aren’t random and that my mind is still firmly intact as a whip-smart facet of my otherwise amphibious being. Afterwards I will list my predictions without commentary so that those of you merely here to read the list may read the list. I’d recommend being more curious than that, but that’s because I’m old-school. I believe in conversation.
Best Visual Effects
I feel pretty confident that Dune: Part Two will take home the statue on this one. The first movie won this as well, and it’s the same effects because it looks the same. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The only way this wouldn’t be the case is if Disney fixed it (the awards, that is) and campaigned hard for Alien: Romulus (dir. Fede Álvarez). But scary movies don’t really get Academy Awards unless they’re really good. Or in this case, even a little bit good. Granted, that little bit may very well be delegated to the VFX team! But that’s where it becomes a toss-up, right? A movie with great visual effects that’s also really good might have more weight behind it. The awards are a political theater, and you have to factor these things in. Cast aside personal feelings, like how I really connected with Better Man (dir. Michael Gracey) because it’s about a guy who doesn’t feel human.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (dir. Wes Ball) of course continues that series’ fantastic visual effects work, but I feel it’s rather routinely un-sung. Partly because it came out in the summer, and partly because delivering top-of-the-line CGI primates is the expected bar to clear from this series, so it may unfortunately not get its due appreciation. Which is a shame! As for the final contestant, Wicked, (again, personal feelings aside) the category is Best Visual Effects, and I think the effect of its visuals is already apparent to everyone with good taste. “Oh but the train looked good!” they say. THE TRAIN IS PRACTICAL. IT WAS REAL. THEY BUILT IT. THEY JUST MADE IT LOOK LIKE CGI BECAUSE NOBODY KNOWS HOW TO MAKE PRACTICAL THINGS LOOK REAL ANYMORE. THE ART OF FILM IS NOT DYING IT IS BEING KILLED.
My apologies, this movie has a habit of getting me uncharacteristically emotional and subjective.
Best Film Editing
Editing is a little tricky, as some Academy voters don’t actually know what editing is. Fitting, perhaps, as the masters will tell you that great editing is invisible. But as an Awards Blogger, I merely have to unlock the awesome power of my Hollywood-understanding third eye, scan the Matrix-code of the awards landscape both politically and artistically, as I have done and will do again, over and over for my deserving, discerning, attractive audience and followers. Stand back, this might perplex and amaze you:
I think it will be The Brutalist.
editing fact: this iconic image was achieved by flipping the shot upside-down.
Best Costume Design
There’s a good diverse mix of eras and places in this year’s costume design field. Intuition might tell you that Nosferatu is going to grab it because that is the film set closest to (actually at the beginning of) the Victorian era; the ‘Best Costume Design’ period for movies. I think it certainly deserves the award, after all Robert Eggers is a master of period details and that extends to his entire crew: Linda Muir did a fantastic job. But the Oscars aren’t always about what “deserves the award.”
My prediction is Conclave, as that film has a lot of heat in general, and although it’s set contemporarily, the employees at the Vatican all dress like historical people of old. While that may seem like cheating, you have to understand, and appreciate, that Lisy Christl had to recreate these costumes by hand; you couldn’t just borrow clothes from the Vatican. For one thing, that would be lazy, and for another thing they’d risk finding pornographic images stitched into the lining or pinned beneath the hats. Or so one assumes.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
This category is usually a tough one, as they often nominate fantastic special effects work, like making Nosferatu from Nosferatu or the monster-woman from The Substance. To me, that’s not only more interesting and apparent than “just regular makeup on the actors who always wear makeup anyway but now they are wearing makeup in a movie,” it’s also in-line with the Academy’s modus operandi of “Best means Most.” What’s more Most Makeup than a full-body old rotting vampire man? Up to and including his “wooden stake” (penis.)
However, the political powers cannot be denied, and I think this one will go to Wicked, the movie with hitherto-unexplained zeitgeist heft, for making Cynthia Erivo into a green person and Ariana Grande into a white person.
despite the fact that none of the Guardians of the Galaxy films
won this award… perhaps Gamora will be green with envy!
Best Production Design
Which is more brutalist? The Brutalist or Dune: Part Two? Haha, just a little joke for you. Now back to not being fun: Wicked is probably going to win this. Yes, the Vatican replication is very cool in Conclave, and it has a similar campaign weight to Wicked, but I think the latter has the edge because it’s ostensibly recreating iconic and nostalgic (at least to the average age of Academy voters) locations from The Wizard of Oz. Which is kind of like if you won Best Adapted Screenplay for adapting a novelization of the movie Casablanca.
Best Sound
This is the one that may screw up my chances to break the curse the most. Not just because gauging what will win this category is often routinely difficult (even through the prism of “Most Sound,”) but one struggles to remember the sound mix of each nominee to be able to do any sort of mental comparison or ranking, without watching all of them back to back, or “knowing audio” in a “professional or passionate manner.”
Plus, there are so many different angles to consider: you’ve got a movie about music with A Complete Unknown, you’ve got a movie with excellent alien soundscapes with Dune: Part Two, you’ve got a musical that was still perceptible when wedged between two cushions with Emilia Pérez, you’ve got a musical people kept seeing for some reason with Wicked, and you’ve got The Wild Robot, an animated feature which means that literally every single facet of the soundtrack had to be chosen and created. No on-set anything, because there’s no set.
Hmm…the ones with the apparently-strongest-armed campaigns are Wicked and Emilia Pérez, so I think I’m going to give my prediction to Wicked, again. It doesn’t matter how personally offensive I find the film, if it’s my way out it’s my way out.
Best Cinematography
Dune (2021) won Best Cinematography in its year, but unlike Visual Effects, I don’t think that will constitute a sure-fire twofer. Emilia Pérez certainly has the means for “Most Cinematography.” Nosferatu has a lot of deserving craft with its candle-lit scenes and process for filtering out reds in the nighttime scenes, but those don’t boil down to a catchy word with “vision” in the name. The Brutalist was shot in VistaVision, which is notable enough to be mentioned a lot, which to me sounds like a perfect blend of bragging and campaigning. Go Brutalist, I say!
Best Original Score
The cynic in me, who rarely gets a voice in my articles, nonetheless thinks Wicked has something here. Being a musical means your score and your songs, which are two different things, will be seen as one and the same by the voters. Emilia Pérez is also a musical. This is tough. In times like this I check the Golden Globes for their award winner as that might be a good reflection of where the heat is.
The Golden Globe went to Challengers (dir. Luca Guadagnino) which isn’t even nominated for the Oscar. Well, there goes the obvious choice. Wait, why is Challengers completely shut out this year?? Well now, this feels like more of a toss-up than Best Sound. Who knows which way it could go. If I could flip a coin I’d flip a coin, but instead I’ll just guess The Brutalist. It’s the longest film so it stands to reason it has the longest, or Most, score.
Best Original Song
“El Mal,” the title track from Emilia Pérez, won the Golden Globe, and the film is nominated in this category twice. The other nominees are songs from another Netflix film, The Six Triple Eight (dir. Tyler Perry, yes that one) a song from Sing Sing (dir. Greg Kwedar,) which is a movie with only two other nominations (Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay) so not a lot of steamroller-strength campaigning for that one, and a song from Elton John: Never Too Late (dir. R. J. Cutler & David Furnish) which is a documentary, but it’s also Elton John. Although, he already has an Oscar (The Lion King) so it’s not like there’s the pressure to give him one.
By assessing this field of competition, I think it will go to Emilia Pérez. I suppose it would be unfair to just say Emilia Pérez for this one because that covers two nominees and I think I have to be as specific as possible. So let me say that I hope it’s “El Mal,” because that would be muy bueno.
Best Animated Short Film
Gonna be honest, I wouldn’t have heard of any of these even if I was still a human. I just don’t “do” short films. I’m a serious awards blogger and critic of feature films. I’m sorry, that’s just where the buck stops. I once again have to pick a random title from a group of nothing that has any kind of campaign heft. You’d think they’d have a lot of money left over after making a film that would barely fit into a half hour, so why not roll out the campaigns everywhere? I don’t get it. Nevertheless, I’ve done my research of the Wikipedia synopses, so I’ll pick Wander to Wonder.
Best Live Action Short Film
Anuja. I can hear it so clearly in the voice of some celebrity reading from the envelope. Again this is completely based on nothing, I’m grasping at straws. I said before that Best Sound or Score would be what could seriously blow my chances at becoming human again, but it’s truly these. At least Score and Sound are attached to films with actual campaigns. Nothing against short films, but I have no idea how the Academy even views these. It’s a total mystery, even to a sharp and insightful blogger like myself.
Best Documentary Short Film
Siiiiiiiiiiiiigh. Okay I’m being facetious, this one is a little easier to gauge because I can check a summary of the subject matter. The subject matter is often what wins, because then the person who made the film gets to go on stage and speak about how the issue they made a film about is important (which is good!) and Hollywood gets to feel like they made that statement, and aren’t they progressive for giving an award and less than 90 seconds of air time to this important message (which is good PR!)
So I think it’ll be Death by Numbers.
Best Documentary Feature Film
That prior metric is even more pronounced for Documentary Feature Film. Wouldn’t you know it, every film nominated is about an important issue. Which country experiencing horrible atrocities will win a brief spotlight between commercials for Crest toothpaste this year? I have heard of No Other Land (dir. Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal, and Yuval Abraham) and Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (dir. Johan Grimonprez) but notability does not always prove what is going to come out ahead. This feels like the most “the vote will be split and something will win from that split” category this year.
Which flavor of performative liberalism will win the day? I have no idea but let’s say Porcelain War. People in Hollywood still read news about Ukraine, right? If I hear anything else that changes my mind on any of these guesses, I reserve the right to update my list in any way ahead of the start of the ceremony. There’s always the possibility that those morons at the United Nations remember they work at the United Nations and decide to stop any given atrocity, thereby any of these could become moot non-issues by broadcast. So this is subject to change. I’ll keep my “ear” to the ground for any and all buzz surrounding these documentaries (and other such nominees) even if I don’t get around to seeing any of them, much less receive any gift baskets from their teams.
Best International Feature Film
Emilia Pérez and I’m Still Here both have Best Picture nominations as well as this one, so they’re the safest bets. Flow (dir. Gints Zilbalodis) also has been nominated for Best Animated Feature, but because of that distinction, I doubt it gets the same caliber of support for this award as the other two. Will more members vote for Emilia Pérez here so they can vote for something else to be Best Picture? Or will they vote for I’m Still Here here so they can vote for Emilia Pérez for Best Picture? A case like Parasite (dir. Bong Joon-ho) where Emilia Pérez wins both categories is unlikely, because Parasite was actually that good, and none of its token props stars were huge bigots.
I think Emilia Pérez will win here, partly because it got a surge of popularity all awards season, and because it’s a Spanish-language film directed by the French, set in Mexico featuring an almost-entirely-non-Mexican cast. Certainly, this is the Most International Feature Film. It’s about as effective a uniting of nations as the United Nations.
Best Animated Feature
Flow won the Golden Globe, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it somehow beat the big hitters (Pixar and DreamWorks) for the Oscar, although the HFPA has far fewer Americans in it than the AMPAS, and thus are more educated and can tolerate, and even appreciate, an animated film about animals in which the animals do not speak a human language. This consideration gives the slightest of edges to The Wild Robot (dir. Chris Sanders) in which the animals do speak, so our children don’t get any funky ideas about ‘understanding visual storytelling.’ Personally, I can “speak” from experience and say write that while I have the full cognizant functions of a human man, as a frog for the time being, I am unable to speak my mother tongue in any practical way. Point Flow.
At the same time, one must consider that Inside Out 2 (dir. Kelsey Mann) made $1.699bn at the box office, and Pixar’s triumphant return to “theatrical releases” instead of “the Disney+ dustbin” may be the thing to celebrate this year in the Animated Feature category. So as much as I am a die-hard Wallace & Gromit fanatic, I must pick… Flow for Best Animated Feature! What an upset!
I wish I had a boat load of animal friends to help me during this trying time.
Best Original Screenplay
Conclave won the Golden Globe, but that was a general Screenplay award. Here that is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, again making things difficult. The Brutalist, again, being 215 minutes, likely has the Most Screenplay. I think The Substance also has a shot at making up for not winning the Globe, but, maybe because The Brutalist is finally hitting wide and The Substance came out last fall, my awards-season Matrix-vision is sensing that the former is shoring up heft while the latter is running out of its 15 minutes (thematically relevant insight considering the subject matter. Great one, Nemo.) I think I could guess The Brutalist.
But then again, people have issues with the second half, whereas nobody has had any issues with A Real Pain, and this is a category where those kinds of less-nominated movies can win something big. What if it’s A Real Pain? I think I’ll place my bet on that one. I’d love to see Jesse Eisenberg get a speech, and actors-turned-writer/directors have a crossover appeal among voters, especially when they knock it out of the park.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Conclave seems the obvious choice, even as it contends with Emilia Pérez, although the latter’s recent controversy may or may not affect this category. This is another tough choice, but my gut is telling me Conclave clinches it. Sometimes, being a solid adaptation of a book is enough for the Adapted Screenplay win. I know, right?
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Now we get into the realm of celebrity, where taking the temperature is often the most illuminating. The hot debate this year seems to be Succession co-stars: will it be Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain (dir. Jesse Eisenberg) or Jeremy Strong in The Apprentice (dir. Ali Abbasi)? The down-to-earth chillaxer, or the intense method man? My internal compass, usually sharp as…a regular compass…is at a crossroads here. I feel like taking all these factors into account — celebrity, politics, campaign heat, that Culkin won the Globe and the SAG Award — my assumption right now is that Kieran Culkin gets the Oscar, and gives another speech about how he can’t believe he won, despite it happening seven other times for his riveting performance this film. (That last part is not part of my Official Predictions as far as the witch’s curse goes, as it is not specifically about an award, so if that one turns out to be incorrect it doesn’t count.)
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Isabella Rossellini, an icon. Zoe Saldaña, fearlessly singing about genitals. Ariana Grande, blonde. I think for Best Supporting Actress, Saldaña takes it home, possibly because of the controversy surrounding her very, deeply, racist-in-the-way-only-a-European-could-be co-star Karla Sofía Gascón. Zoe’s been working her butt off to respond to things in a way that says “I want to maintain my nomination is worth separate consideration from All That Mess.” So who knows, maybe she shines through! I certainly feel bad for her, and I suspect I’m not alone. And the math adds up: she won the Globe and the SAG, bits of data which make these categories so much easier to foretell.
Best Actor in a Leading Role
This is where I make my ‘dark horse’ prediction. Where I trust my intellect more than my gut, and say that Timothée Chalamet will win for A Complete Unknown. He does a very good Bob Dylan impression, and is a hot star right now in utter, righteous defiance of how Hollywood’s studio owners resolutely refuse to mint movie stars anymore, because names get in the way of the brands (who gives a damn how much a name can sell any movie, even those with modest budgets? We need to crap out pink and green merchandise! Consumerism over art! Business degrees over business sense!)
Yes, Sebastian Stan is also nominated for playing a real person (some Nazi from 1946), but Bob Dylan is a famous historical celebrity people actually enjoy, who has contributed at least one good thing to the world in his life, and will be missed when he passes away. He also sings! The simple fact is that people like Bob Dylan, and people like Timothée’s performance of Bob Dylan, and his performances of Bob Dylan’s music, which is a triple threat as far as the Academy (most of whose voters are actors) is concerned. It’s been long enough since the last music biopic Best Actor win, skipping over Austin Butler’s Elvis (dir. Baz Luhrmann) so it feels like this kind of award logic will be revisited, just like Highway 61. And his recent SAG win fills me with optimism here.
Best Actress in a Leading Role
Desperate though I am for Karla Sofía Gascón to give what would absolutely be an even-weirder-than-Will-Smith acceptance speech, the controversy of her massive and easily-discovered bigotry is realistically going to tank her chances, even as it probably won’t tank the chances of Emilia Pérez overall. So how does the vote split? Cynthia Erivo for Wicked? Demi Moore for The Substance? An upset by the young Mikey Madison for Anora? Let’s be real, they’re not going to give it to Fernanda Torres for I’m Still Here. That’s not how Best Actress works, sadly.
My instinct says that Demi Moore will win, like she did the Golden Globe and SAG Award, for two main reasons: this is her “comeback moment” — recall Brendan Fraser’s lauded work in The Whale (dir. Darren Aronofsky) — after being out of the spotlight for decades. And also because it’s an aging once-superstar making a return in a popular, daring film that can be called “triumphant” and “brave” because she allows herself to look like a 62-year-old woman in it. Oh, and be covered in monster makeup. These are all good things for the face of feminism at The Oscars (because the face is all it can be.) This is the very “substance” Hollywood craves, to sustain itself so it can ignore all the ways it is otherwise horrible to women. A lifetime achievement or a mea culpa? What’s it to you? Do you hate women? The Oscars loves women. How dare you.
Best Director
Golden Globes gave this to Brady Corbet, though Baker, Audiard and Fargeat are once again nominated alongside. This is often where a split occurs, where the film that gets Best Director is different from the film that gets Best Picture. Sometimes, rarer still, this is reflective of a nuanced distinction between what may be better (or “most” i.e. more noticeable) direction and helming of a film than the resulting film being better than something else. Though other times, the awards overlap and the same film wins, because “why wouldn’t the best picture have the best direction?” This makes consideration for Best Picture and Best Director a sort of binary star. One could inform the other.
This year, of the five Best Director nominees, all films are also nominated among the ten for Best Picture. The possibility of a twofer is there. But this is a trickier Best Picture race than usual, I think. And I believe we can predict a Best Director mostly independently of whatever the other may be. We must again consider the political theater for this one, which means Sean Baker is out. We must also consider the statistical, historical biases of the Academy, so Coralie Fargeat is unlikely to win, because women rarely win even in the odd years they’re actually nominated. (This is not because she’s a woman, but because the Academy is historically biased against women.) James Mangold was already out; one of those cases where the campaign’s entire fuel expense was just to get him on the board. I got a nose for this sorta thing (even though I mostly breathe through my skin these days.)
That leaves hotshot wünderkind Brady Corbet and French cis man Jacques Audiard, ally of trans and Mexican people everywhere. Unless the winds for Emilia Pérez waver, they might just give it to Audiard, resulting in a case of Oscar Brain so enormous that the next cinematic event he cooks up could make Iñárritu’s Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths look like the work of a journeyman.
Certainly, Audiard did the Most Directing, in that Emilia Pérez is loaded with “choices” regardless of if they cohere to a comprehended vision — regardless of whether there is a vision. He threw everything at the wall and for many humble, in-touch people who go to Cannes every year, a lot of it did stick. So I suppose, mathematically, this factor is about on-par with Corbet winning the Globe. Though the Foreign Press awarding an American over a Frenchman (and a Frenchwoman!) speaks to how palpable and strong the vision is in The Brutalist. My mind is split, but my gut says Corbet, and my temporarily-three-chambered heart says Corbet, so I am going to say Corbet.
Best Picture
Emilia Pérez seemed like the shoe-in for this award until the end of January. But it still might win, because virulent, omnidirectional racism and “sympathy for Hitler” is a winning formula in this country, apparently. All other lacking qualifications aside, apparently. Although remember, it may also win Best International Film. But…you know what? I’m going to say that a double win is not off the table, because sometimes the only way to fight fascism is to give two big trophies to a movie people have called “transphobic” and “deeply stupid,” according to some of my more politically-minded blogging peers. Who am I to argue with results?
But, since the controversy might actually stick (actions still have consequences?? Huge if true.) let’s look at all ten nominees and try to reverse-engineer a process of elimination, pare it down to the films that have the biggest chance of actually winning. Because unlike last year, there is no clear winner from the jump, as many of the best films of the year were simply not nominated because, for example, they came out in May. This is the race where the moneyed political campaigning is the fiercest, of course. For example, it’s the only reason CODA (dir. Sian Heder).
So, Dune: Part Two is definitely not winning. I think it would be a fine choice — after all, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won, and that was another grand achievement of 20th century genre epic literary adaptation. But Dune came out in the first half of the year, and at this point feels like its nominations are perfunctory more than celebratory. Which is sad, because it’s a great film and a really good half a story.
Nickel Boys is also not going to win, nor will A Complete Unknown, nor will The Substance, not for similar reasons but just because these feel like the lightweight hitters (campaign-wise) in this field and I don’t really have anything else to say so let’s move on.
Anora is an interesting one, because it’s been buzzed about a lot, but it didn’t win any Globes. It received the Palme d’Or at Cannes, however, and has wins in lots of critics circles (which I cannot vote in as I am a frog right now) as well as other smaller awards like the BAFTAs. Stuff the mighty American bloggers don’t have time to cover because we need to be in the trenches of the Globes and the Academy Awards. Nonetheless, it doesn’t feel like the kind of film the Academy awards these days with the top prize.
I’m Still Here is the international film that will take the fall in the Best Picture category regardless of whether it loses Best International Film. Emilia Pérez is just that much more important, don’t you see? Who needs the sober contemplation of thematic relevance to the current moment when you have annoyingly catchy songs about sex change operations?
Which brings me back to Emilia Pérez. The fact that it’s a Netflix release historically means its chances at an Oscar are slim, and the controversy of its disturbingly-racist prop star at the center of all the marketing for the film awards campaign certainly adds to that black mark in a way that cannot be dismissed, even as it has a crazy amount of momentum from all the wise liberal bastions watching it and proclaiming its importance. We all assumed a competent politician would be able to win the Presidency, but then we remembered at the last second that she was a woman, and therefore unworthy by any other metric. Twice. That’s just God’s plan, man. Women are bad. Anyway, back to the feminist masterpiece Emilia Pérez. It has these myriad problems going against it, especially the Netflix status, so while I think it could definitely be the upset, it has more of a mountain to climb to get there, now.
Which leaves us with The Brutalist, Conclave, and Wicked. An immigrant story about the American Dream, a riveting tale of the electoral politics within the Vatican, and some stupid half-complete, bland-looking bauble about how witches have feelings (in my experience, people with feelings also have common courtesy and don’t immediately yell at someone for making a simple mistake, apologizing for it and asking for a similar apology in return because it logically takes two people to bump into each other.)
The Brutalist seems like a respectable choice: it’s an American epic, it has an intermission with a timer which is frankly revolutionary to the medium, and very helpful (or would be if I were still a human who needed to go to a separate room to pee,) and it may well end up winning. Wicked could reportedly stop fascism just as much if not more than Emilia Pérez if it won, so despite my personal feelings, it’s got that going for it. Any port in a storm.
I think Conclave speaks to the refined, classy side of the Academy’s sensibilities as much as The Brutalist does, just in a different way. Another perfectly respectable choice. Which will it be: uplifting the old national ideals, or lauding a spotlight on the imperfections of the Catholic Church (one of the few organizations more corrupt than Hollywood)?
This is difficult. I’m split. As I suspect the Academy will be, as well. Suitable, I suppose, (especially if it is Conclave) but I need an answer. I am going to summon all of my might as an awards blogger, and sleep on it. Perhaps the truth will be revealed to me in a dream. You may joke, but I think that’s a likely place to pull from. I need to feel sure because the fate of my form rests on this list.
*15 hours later*
I have determined that my choice is The Brutalist. I think Wicked has some steamrolling publicity but I don’t think the Academy by and large will vote for it on its bubblegum popularity alone. “How could a blockbuster musical win Best Picture?” they’d say. As for the streaming musical, I think the Emilia Pérez chickens coming home to roost are going to detract votes away from it. Meanwhile Conclave, although good, is a suitably “safe choice” for them to make. One that viewers tuning into ABC might see as the “boring choice,” as a movie that has seemed to only set the world of grown-up adults on fire, and by ‘on fire’ I mean they collectively said “that was really good!” I think The Brutalist might just win out on the basis of being the longest, being about the American Dream immigrant story, having a trailer with some real heft and pizzaz… Wait, no, it might still be Conclave.
Oh brother, this is a coin flip. If only they had to keep voting until a specific majority was reached!
What a horrible year to have a curse – predicting the Best Picture is a foggy affair. Why couldn’t this have befallen me last year when Oppenheimer (dir. Christopher Nolan) cleaned up and pretty much everything was obvious? I see no majority winner here, whatever gets it will have between 15-20% of the total votes cast. That’s also not a part of my official predictions don’t quote me on that.
This is too much stress for my tiny little green body. I mean, it could still be Wicked.
*41 hours later*
Okay I think I’m going to say it’ll be The Brutalist. Honestly the odds of being wrong are higher in the shorts categories so what does it really matter if I get this wrong, too? It’s all or nothing. Much like the decision of the characters in The Brutalist to set sail for the shores of the United States. It will be exciting to watch an Academy Awards broadcast and truly have no idea which movie will be named by a figure of Hollywood royalty at the end of the show. Or, it would be more exciting if my own manhood wasn’t depending on it.
The Predictions:
- Best Picture — The Brutalist
- Best Director — Brady Corbet
- Best Actor — Timothée Chalamet
- Best Actress — Demi Moore
- Best Supporting Actor — Kieran Culkin
- Best Supporting Actress — Zoe Saldaña
- Best Original Screenplay — A Real Pain
- Best Adapted Screenplay — Conclave
- Best Animated Feature — Flow
- Best International Feature Film — Emilia Pérez
- Best Documentary Feature Film — Porcelain War
- Best Documentary Short Film — Death by Numbers
- Best Live Action Short Film — Anuja
- Best Animated Short Film — Wander to Wonder
- Best Original Score — The Brutalist
- Best Original Song — “El Mal” from Emilia Pérez
- Best Sound — Wicked
- Best Production Design — Wicked
- Best Cinematography — The Brutalist
- Best Makeup and Hairstyling — Wicked
- Best Costume Design — Conclave
- Best Film Editing — The Brutalist
- Best Visual Effects — Dune: Part Two
Best of luck to the nominees and to the voters, whom I cannot influence but should be aware that how they vote will directly affect whether a man who was wrongfully transformed into a frog turns back into a human, and a valuable member of society: an awards blogger.
