Mar 072024
[This is not my picks for the best of the yearāIāll do the FOSCARs laterābut just how Iād vote based on the options presented. And I will be skipping the animated shorts as I have not seen enough of them]
ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
CILLIAN MURPHY (Oppenheimer)
[Iād have given it to Barry Keoghan (Saltburn) for a performance that excels. For the nominees, this is a year of competence, instead of greatness. Each actor did his job, but nothing was really special. JEFFREY WRIGHT (American Fiction) would be my 2nd choice as heās particularly believable. BRADLEY COOPER (Maestro) is in overly broad bio-pic Oscar-bait mode, COLMAN DOMINGO (Rustin) is fine, and PAUL GIAMATTI (The Holdovers) is just being Paul Giamatti.]
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
MARK RUFFAL (Poor Things)
[This is the best category for the year. RYAN GOSLING (Barbie) and ROBERT DOWNEY JR (Oppenheimer) are also deserving winners. Even my lesser ranked nominees, STERLING K. BROWN (American Fiction) and ROBERT DE NIRO (Killers of the Flower Moon), are better than the top Lead Actors.]
ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
EMMA STONE (Poor Things)
[Stone puts in the single best performance of the year and one of the best of the century. LILY GLADSTONE (Killers of the Flower Moon) and SANDRA HĆLLER (Anatomy of a Fall) are adequate. CAREY MULLIGAN (Maestro) overdoes it, unsurprisingly for that film, and ANNETTE BENING (Nyad) is the worst of the group, acting hard, but not well.]
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
DANIELLE BROOKS (The Color Purple)
[Without my top choices, JULIANNE MOORE (May December) and ROSAMUND PIKE (Saltburn), BROOKS and DA’VINE JOY RANDOLPH (The Holdovers) are the best of a lackluster bunch. EMILY BLUNT (Oppenheimer) and AMERICA FERRERA (Barbie) are OK, while JODIE FOSTER (Nyad) shouldnāt be a nominee.]
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
THE BOY AND THE HERON
[This one was easy. ELEMENTAL & NIMONA are cute enough kidās films, but nothing more. ROBOT DREAMS would have been a good short film. And SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE is poorly paced, questionably focused, and is only half a movie.]
COSTUME DESIGN
BARBIE
[A difficult choice between BARBIE and POOR THINGS. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and NAPOLEON are uninspired choices, and OPPENHEIMER being a nom is just odd.]
MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
POOR THINGS
[Barbie should have been nominated if hairstyling mattered. None of the other choices — GOLDA, MAESTRO, OPPENHEIMER, and SOCIETY OF THE SNOW ā are in competition.]
PRODUCTION DESIGN
POOR THINGS
[The snub for ASTEROID CITY is ridiculous, but Iād have ranked it 3rd. Second goes to the incredible work on BARBIE, but nothing beats the imagination shown in POOR THINGS, an all-time great. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, NAPOLEON, and OPPENHEIMER are nowhere near it.]
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
POOR THINGS
[Iām choosing Ludwig Gƶranssonās score because it is the most effective IN the movie. I donāt know that I would sit around listening to it, but it is perfect for what it is supposed to do. If I was going for great music thatās worth just listening to, Iād Choose INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY, but Iām ignoring it for the same reason all the Oscar voters will ā weāve been there. AMERICAN FICTION is good if I want some pleasant light jazz. It didnāt do much for me while watching the film, but itās nice. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOONās score does set the mood, though it isnāt special. The score for OPPENHEIMER was one of my problems with the film. Itās way too in your face. It should have either been more subtle, or it needed to be better melodically, i.e., do what Williams or Korngold have done.]
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)
IāM JUST KEN (Barbie)
[The only good thing I can say about the bland IT NEVER WENT AWAY (American Symphony) is that it isnāt the absolute crap of THE FIRE INSIDE (Flaminā Hot). And Iām surprised how little there is to WAHZHAZHE – A SONG FOR MY PEOPLE (Killers of the Flower Moon). As for the most likely winner, WHAT WAS I MADE FOR? (Barbie), it just annoys me. I donāt want to hear another mumble-cry-talked song. IāM JUST KEN may not be a classic, but itās a lot of fun.]
LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR
[A charming, and very Wes Anderson short. Two of the remaining noms deal with grief; KNIGHT OF FORTUNE does it wonderfullyāsensitively but with some humor in the darknessāwhile THE AFTER does it cheaply, over the top; while the first is nearly tied with HENRY SUGAR, I loathed the second and Iād be happy to hear all copies had been mysteriously destroyed. INVINCIBLE is an Oscar-bait drama. RED, WHITE AND BLUE is in the right place politically, but thatās not enough.]
DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM
ISLAND IN BETWEEN
[I canāt say any of these deserve to win. My choice has an interesting subject (a Taiwanese island close to mainland China) but doesnāt have anything to say about it. It wins because the others are weaker. Oscar docs tend to be overly-direct message pictures filled with face-to-the-camera statements, and weāve got 3 of those: THE LAST REPAIR SHOP is Oscar-bait sob stories. THE ABCS OF BOOK BANNING has children saying ābanning is bad,ā and THE BARBER OF LITTLE ROCK is an unfocused race film that doesnāt rise to the level of a 60 mins segment. NĒI NAI & WĆI PĆ at least is different from those. Itās an āold people are adorableā film; YMMV on how condescending you find it.]
SOUND
THE ZONE OF INTEREST
[I hate voting on sound without knowing the theater is set perfectly, but sound really was important in THE ZONE OF INTEREST. THE CREATOR, MAESTRO, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING and OPPENHEIMER are fine.]
VISUAL EFFECTS
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3
[If what you could do on a budget was a factor, then GODZILLA MINUS ONE would be the easy winner, but the Oscars have never been about budgets or restraint. THE CREATOR also looks great. While I do understand all the VFX involved in both MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING and NAPOLEON, I think there were plenty of better choices.]
CINEMATOGRAPHY
POOR THINGS
[This is another easy one, at least from the nominees; POOR THINGS is absolutely beautiful. None of these are bad. MAESTROĀ is inconsistent. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON and OPPENHEIMER do their job. EL CONDE is the 2nd most interesting.]
WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
POOR THINGS
[BARBIE comes in 2nd. AMERICAN FICTION has major structural problems, and OPPENHEIMERās screenplay isā¦ predictable. And the script is NOT what makes THE ZONE OF INTEREST interesting.]
WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
MAY DECEMBER
[THE HOLDOVER is a distant 2nd. ANATOMY OF A FALL, MAESTRO, and PAST LIVES arenāt worthy]
FILM EDITING
POOR THINGS
[ANATOMY OF A FALL and THE HOLDOVERS are fine, but nothing more. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON has poor editing, and OPPENHEIMER is sometimes good, sometimes bad. None of them are in POOR THINGās league]
DIRECTING
YORGOS LANTHIMOS (Poor Things)
[Lanthimos is the best of the year, but the Academy didnāt nominate my 2nd, 3rd, or 4th choices. CHRISTOPHER NOLAN (Oppenheimer) comes in second of the nominees, purely on craft. His artistry is unimpressive, but it is a meticulously made film. JUSTINE TRIET (Anatomy Of A Fall), MARTIN SCORSESE (Killers Of The Flower Moon), and JONATHAN GLAZER (The Zone Of Interest) were not in contention for me.]
BEST PICTURE
POOR THING