The Oscars are in a weird place. A ceremony that began as a small celebration of a relatively new medium, turned showcase for the actual best within, is now...what? An accused fart-sniffing exercise? An "awards show for movies nobody watches"? A gathering of conspiratorial elites to hatch their latest wrinkle of world-domination and/or mind manipulation?!
No, not really. While the flatulence accusation is a little fair and a decent percentage of the nominated films are unknown to the general public, that is sort of the point. To celebrate the accomplishments of peers and vault up their art if needed. Now, that is point more in theory than practice these days, with the ultra-modern need to take nothing seriously and look at everything with this sort of devil-may-care attitude, cloaking an inability to look at anything with sincerity. Even if it's the very industry that's supposedly being promoted.
When Kevin Costner stood on stage introducing the nominees for best director in 2022, he talked earnestly about the foundation of his love for film birthed at a screening of How the West Was Won. Which was a level of vulnerability the internet couldn't handle, and for which they assumed he had a brain injury. How can anyone take real, true love by definition when we filter everything through a digital portal of snide nothingness? Currently a culture so inept at actual feeling we are incapable of celebrating art or anything else, save money. So don't be surprised when Kimmel gets up there and tells the same rote joke about how long Killers of the Flower Moon is.
This space, however, is built for celebration. Call me sappy and tell me I'm wasting my dying of the light on stories all you want. That's fine. We intend to look back at 2023 with love for these films — "long" ones included — and indifference to those who don't.
Except those who think Saltburn is great. Those we will judge. Harshly and without quarter.
Each category is broken down into two sections: The Forgotten and The Nominated. Forgotten here ranging from a worthy mention to an outright farce of evaluation. It's those that will be lost to time, but shouldn't. Nominated meaning the best from within the pool given to us by the Academy. Because, at the end of the day, you work with what you've got.
(A * means I didn't get around to this one. I apologize to all involved, the Academy, and also for still never having seen Milk. Maybe one day, Sean!)
Laurent Sénéchal, Anatomy of a Fall
Kevin Tent, The Holdovers
Thelma Schoonmaker, Killers of the Flower Moon
Jennifer Lame, Oppenheimer
Yorgos Mavropsaridis, Poor Things
The Forgotten...
A fascinating line up this year, especially considering this is usually where the action genre gets a bone. Speaking of which, John Wick: Chapter 4 answers that bell with aplomb. From the opening scene, both in camera and edit, Wick pushes the audience towards a feeling they can't quite put a finger to. A distress that only grows and isn't answered until later, when the story (and entire saga, really) comes full circle. Great work from Nathan Orloff.
In that same vein, Eddie Hamilton's work on Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. A very solid mix of conventional action quick splices against scenes of high tension he allows some oxygen. Combining especially well on Cruise's flight to the train. Also, Hamilton's edited two Kingsman films, the last three in the M:I series, and Top Gun: Maverick in the last ten years and garnered exactly one nomination from the Academy. Wild.
And lastly, two films that are so pretty the edit was forgotten: Matthew Hannam for The Iron Claw and Michelle Tesoro for Maestro. Both have great cameras, and both fused that with an edit to multiply overall success.
The Nominated...
We kick off on hard mode with a furious two horse race between Schoonmaker and Lame. This is your vintage Baskin Robbins issue: you have to pick your flavor.
Killers of the Flower Moon is a tragedy needing a specific kind of surgeon, both in the director's chair and in the edit booth. Schoonmaker and Scorsese have been on the same cerebral bridge for decades now, and the blades are razors for Flower Moon. Take the transition from the scene in which a house is bombed — pure tragedy, another life lost in this community bleeding at a rate past saving — to the very human orchestrating all this violence with a buddy at a rodeo, signing autographs. There is pure evil in this film, and edits like that punch you in the mouth with it.
Lame's edit of Oppenheimer is much more fluid, more of a dance. The opening sets this tone: raindrop patterns to incandescent eyes, to the hellfire of ambition and the cost of that on Man. Barely a minute in, and it's merely a snack compared to the full menu.
These scenes of emotive visuals stitch throughout with trial and discovery, they the film's booster and breadcrumbs of reminder as to the power inside the titular man's head. Little winks to the audience any time they feel stuck in the mud of courtroom drama. Those scenes and the display of Oppenheimer's growing arc are cut clean and propulsive, but we all know where this is going even before that opening minute. The bomb. And as centerpiece scenes in 2024 go, you aren't going to find anything better than the Trinity test. In sight, sound, and cut, a display of skill that is unforgettable.
Pick: Jennifer Lame, but I'd understand either way
Laura Karpman, American Fiction
John Williams, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Robbie Robertson, Killers of the Flower Moon
Ludwig Göransson, Oppenheimer
Jerskin Fendrix, Poor Things
The Forgotten...
Obligatory Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross mention, this year for The Killer. Their tag team with Fincher melting into familiar shades of loneliness and the cold areas of your mind most leave ignored. As soundtrack to the interstitial and predatory movements of Fassbender's killer, it is (again) the ice in Fincher's nightcap. "Fuck.", "Consequences Are Automatic", and "Empathy Is Weakness"; all titles you could envision NIN using without prompt. Another submission of evidence it's been a match made in heaven since that Se7en title sequence. Could you imagine a better scoring to the fight in Florida? (Not me.)
Sad in a not shocked because it's the Academy-way that the wonderful score to Rye Lane by Kwes didn't get a nod. Save the lead performances or Dom's pink Converse, it's the star of the show (and it's a damn good show). Hitting piano-tinged updates on its romcom roots, with added flourishes of glitched electro and lo-fi love. It's worth listening to without context. Seriously, give "Wave At Boats" a spin and get back to me.
Gavin Brivik's propulsive throwback score to How to Blow Up a Pipeline deserves mention, alongside Tim Hecker's spiraling work on Infinity Pool, Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen's lovely piano in Past Lives ("See You"), and Owen Pallett's grace in Dream Scenario.
The Nominated...
From the opening scene in Killers of the Flower Moon, a certain auditory stage is set. Out of the reeds and into a repeated horizon of painful appropriation, elders bury a pipe in new ground. The silence of this event and its acceptance smashed through by oil struck and Robertson's score. Black liquid dancing with the celebrating tribesmen as joy is heard in drumbeat and seen in new, luxurious living. There is much to love about Robertson's anachronistic blend of Osage melody and electric guitar here and throughout.
Karpman's work in American Fiction is in lockstep with the subject matter, thematically and tonally. A jazzy underbelly to human conversation and creative discovery. Whether they be of the satirical or rooted branding, sound captures the spirit regardless. Much like the film itself, there is a bit of a high wire act at play in the bouncing between ridiculousness of Monk's professional life and seriousness of the personal. Karpman is game, and the film is better for it.
Alas but, there is only one winner here. "Can You Hear the Music" Göransson states but does not ask. Strings tensing, overcome by horns. Their blows slowly drowned by electrified crescendo. The goosebumps on your skin the only reply needed.
Pick: Ludwig Göransson
Edward Lachman, El Conde
Rodrigo Prieto, Killers of the Flower Moon
Matthew Libatique, Maestro
Hoyte van Hoytema, Oppenheimer
Robbie Ryan, Poor Things
The Forgotten...
So, so many gorgeous cameras at work this year. From marbled wrestlers, to distanced cameras on families, to staired gun battles, to grained beauty of trophy wife or the American southwest.
How about Dan Laustsen and his lens in John Wick: Chapter 4? Again, we ignore the action genre, Academy? The spinning destruction and severed car doors around the Arc De Triomphe, the birds-eye gunfight with incendiary bullets, the angelized beauty of Baba Yaga on the Sacré-Cœur steps. No? Not good enough? I disagree.
If we ever get to the root of why The Iron Claw didn't get more love, I guarantee the list won't include Mátyás Erdély's camera. He shoots chaos in the wrestling ring and the familial brand outside it with equal magic. Juxtaposed wonderfully in the B&W opening: McCallany's brutality to his opponent and the crowd surrounding versus a family packed into Cadillac, moments away from a sadness they'll never shed. There is a static shot of Efron hitting the ropes in this that is permanently stamped on my retinas.
It's from a different phylum, but Łukasz Żal's dissociated work in The Zone of Interest is fantastic. In a movie with subject matter like the atrocities at Auschwitz, you are bound to find some powerful images, at least through the expected channels. But in Glazer's decision to leave it all offscreen and only exposed auditorily, the camera is forced subtle in its unfolding of story. Żal gets there using layered skies, natural light, sediment creeping down a river, and via static cameras within the house. Using these Big Brother lenses to reduce the family as much as possible. Down to simple actions like turning off the lights before bed. It's (obviously) not that simple, despite Żal's convincing.
Also: Erik Messerschmidt (The Killer), Philippe Le Sourd (Priscilla), Robert Yeoman (Asteroid City), and Jarin Blaschke/Lowell A. Meyer (Knock at the Cabin) all require mentioning. As I said, a year of great cameras.
The Nominated...
Despite it being uneven on the whole, there are many lasting images within El Conde. Lachman frames blenders in silhouette, vampiric capes from above, foggy plains, guillotined horse heads, servants in their ushankas, dragged-by-hair-bodies, presidential busts, barn door hugs, and hatchling flights. Each a lasting image.
Killers of the Flower Moon is on Apple TV right now. Boot it up and scan to about the 1:52 mark. Prieto pulls back from the central couple's kiss goodnight, backing to the corner for a beat before a shockwave explodes the bedroom windows. A surprise for all but one. Family scatters to the main floor while a pivoting and swirling camera follows them. To the kitchen, to the cellar, to the source of their wake. Women and children hide. The camera follows the boogeyman back into the house, everything framed like it's Michael Myers and not their patriarch.
Libatique unloads the clip in Maestro. Reminding the audience of Bernstein's impact on his wife's life in shadow, craning next to subtextual trees when they fall in love, and remaining still while they argue into dissolution. He harshly juxtaposes Bernstein as a wide eyed kid in simple hues, only to turn him into a neon-lit monster when giving into his other half. Black and white, hazy color, it's got it all. Libatique's skill encapsulated in the scene at Ely Cathedral. The building and its inhabitants beauty captured with patience, craft, and (of course) style.
Pick: Real conundrum here...I'll go Matthew Libatique
Cord Jefferson, American Fiction
Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, Barbie
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Tony McNamara, Poor Things
Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest
The Forgotten...
Little rapid fire!
— Shay Hatten and Michael Finch, John Wick: Chapter 4 (perfect grace note on the series)
— Kelly Fremon Craig, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (lovely and unprecious)
— Ariela Barer, Jordan Sjol, and Daniel Goldhaber, How To Blow Up a Pipeline (a complete re-imagining)
— Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller, BlackBerry (derivative, but in the best sense)
The Nominated...
Much is mixed without diluting in Jefferson's script for American Fiction. The juggling between social satire and familial reckonings a high-wire act, especially if you want both to have emotional bite. In extreme: take the ridiculousness of Wright's lunch with Brody against Lucretia Taylor's loving question in the car. Or, in a scene, the funeral at the beach. Family with earnest words of goodbye and tears of acceptance, before an outside force enters and it all turns neighborly row. A comedic grace note on letting go. You need the players for this to balance, but it all starts on the page.
Would one want a ten-year deep dive into Nazi life to be called a labor of love? Glazer's take on the source novel more a blunt object than love triangle, a blank stare at vantablack evil. Of which, in screenplay, cards are held at chest. Atrocities unknowingly abound, but the tension of holding this, and nobody within actually addressing it, is how the moments where it seeps out hit like an ungoverned freight train. A rope-a-dope, and simplicity is key. All that begins at Glazer's keyboard.
Pick: Jonathan Glazer
Justine Triet and Arthur Harari, Anatomy of a Fall
David Hemingson, The Holdovers
Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer, Maestro
Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik, May December
Celine Song, Past Lives
The Forgotten...
This truly will be the forgotten section, as this line up has garnered very little awards love...
Do you remember Beau Is Afraid? Ari Aster's sprawling epic of the smallest man alive is worth accolades past just the writing, but let's start there. He taps his usual well of anxiety, this time through a familial control so complete it renders the titular man a trembling husk. A human unable to answer simple questions or complete average tasks. Aster's adventure film for neurotics isn't for everyone, and I get that, but the conventions he plays with are both exploratory and exciting, hilarious and horrific. Difficult to navigate that all coherently in one script, no?
As far as statements on today's world go, Kristoffer Borgli's tale Dream Scenario sings. Taking online identity, mid-life weariness, and how much of ourselves we sell for what we want through sieves of modernity. Holding up a mirror to the audience, but never in disservice to message or tone. This really culminates in the dream reenactment scene with Cage and Gelula, where an incredible tightrope is crossed on these fronts. It's a harsh look at the masks worn in the digital age, and how the new American dream might just be a nightmare. But, hey, at least we have our happy pictures.
Eileen's rapier-sharp script from Luke Goebel and Ottessa Charlotte Moshfegh (based on her own book) is in the mix, as well. A dreary tale of 1960s Massachusetts that begins grey and turns black. Loneliness and isolation multiplied by setting and sub-, with side quests into sexual and gender dynamics. There is much to chew on in total, but the star of the show is the dialogue. Subtextual conversations cover this runtime without skipping a propulsive beat. All culminating in a noir basement scene. A woman tied up, two more conflicting on how to handle it, and quite possibly the most haunting line I've heard in ages.
The Nominated...
Anatomy of a Fall is such an ensnaring examination of relationships. How they form, how they take shape across years, how that shape comes with habit, and how habit can slowly kill you. And, most importantly, how that fingerprint of connection is unknowable to anyone else, even after harsh explanation and public vivisection. Triet and Harari throw it all in a courtroom, asking the audience if, in judgement, they'll utilize their experience (human) or the evidence at hand (court).
Past Lives, what a script from Song. Every clause of dialogue and every space between them measured out with the precision of a world-class baker. She spins the ordinary eternal, the average dramatic. Both through that tungsten foundation and in the details throughout. Maybe who we were before is who we are always. Time but a loop that always ends where it began. The siren's call of nostalgia heard in faraway stares and empty hotel rooms. Or maybe we really are the changed, adult human with bigger feet and different hair. Tracked on bridges of actual journey, our youth discarded with our grade school clothes in donation bins.
Or, maybe we're both, and adulthood is simply finding our midpoint between the two. Wrestling with devil and angel, old and new, on questions of impossible answering. Song stares these questions in the face, never ignoring the details or moments that come with them.
Pick: Celine Song
Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple*
America Ferrera, Barbie
Jodie Foster, Nyad
Da'Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
The Forgotten...
In Eileen, Anne Hathaway is an enigmatic house on fire. A child carrying around the audience with a plush toy leash. From entrance, she perks all watching to their toes and holds them there like Medusa, unreadable in her trance of sex, class, and blonde hair. She's Oldroyd's joker in the deck until the final exclamation, and any human with a pulse is down for the ride.
Rachel McAdams delivers one of those steadying, graceful performances in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret that is usually awarded in this category. Issue being, she's so good here that it's beyond that sort of obvious pick and into, "What the hell are we doing here?"-type territory. She glides around the entire runtime, sprinkling each scene she's in with some kind of cerebral fairy dust. (and I would 100% join her painting class)
For her matriarchal antonym: enter Patti LuPone in Beau Is Afraid. This is the kind of performance you are fully aware is fake, fully aware is being performed by an expert, and you're still convinced this woman would scare the ever-loving shit out of you if you saw her in the street. It's simply that good. From phone conversation to arena berating, she is a tornadic force to Beau's every move. The human embodiment of that nightmare everyone has where they're back at school and don't know the answers to the test. Except the answers are nothing more than a child's and every one of them is wrong. Forever.
Scarlett Johannson captures the spirit of Asteroid City best, finding the sad spaces between Anderson's words in one of her better performances. I don't think it's true, but I also don't know that it's not true that Sandra Hüller is better in The Zone of Interest than the film she's actually nominated for. Either way, what a year. And, of course, Julianne Moore in May December. Her predator under a princess delusion somehow not the most manipulative character within. Another stunner.
The Nominated...
Considering the amount of rope she gets — and taking into account the metric used to calculate these nominees seems to be just how well they did in their "big" scene — Blunt nails her role in Oppenheimer. Her Sorkian verbal warfare with Jason Clarke is the best example of such within, and a vital showing of why it mattered to the man himself. Her pleas of standing up for oneself finally answered on her own, during the only real shot she gets to do so (insert comment or intrusive thought on Nolan and writing women here). It's a performance that probably demands more screen time, but there'd be riots in the discourse streets if that film was any longer.
Randolph gives one of the best performances of the year in The Holdovers. Applying a thin, fatigued veneer to a woman drowning in the only heartbreak a mother should never know. In eye and facial movement hiding her pain, oscillating between indifferent defeat and a knowing look of the feeling having lifelong hold. The memories, the happiness, the eternal bruise of loss. On the couch watching game shows, or hauling a small box up flights of stairs, it's always there. In the weeds like a jungle cat, waiting for the right song or season to pounce. This entire emotional range displayed in each scene she works. Exemplary stuff.
Pick: Patti Lupone in a photo finish, Da'Vine Joy Randolph in the group tied for second
Sterling K. Brown, American Fiction
Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things
The Forgotten...
Paul Mescal is very good in All of Us Strangers, same with both Milo Machado-Graner and Samuel Theis in Anatomy of a Fall. Dominic Sessa plays the wandering Bambi to great success in The Holdovers. Holt McCallany is frustratingly lovely as the vicariously living and endlessly demanding patriarch in The Iron Claw. And Donnie Yen steals every frame he occupies in John Wick: Chapter 4. The kitchen scene? C'mon! Every damn frame, folks. They never reward a performance like his — stylized action, no trench of despair for him to exhume in a blubbering mess — and it's a shame.
However...there are two gargantuan elephants in the room, here. (1) What we are doing leaving Glenn Howerton (BlackBerry) out of this ceremony? He finds the exact balance between desperate, success-hungry sadist and charming, I-don't-know-how-I'm-saying-yes-to-you businessman. He's an absolute livewire. A ferocious comedic performance to heights we haven't seen in years. There's a line in Tommy Boy about Dennehy being such a good salesman he could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves. Howerton's Balsillie could do the same, except it'd be icy blood instead and the woman would leave the sale crying.
And then, the Academic crime of the year...(2) Charles Melton in May December. A phenomenal performance of a child's mind in a man's body. Spilling out in distressed physical tics and eyes-down interactions with adults. He's a baby filing taxes. Cooking hot dogs and somehow keeping his wife's Fabergé egg of emotions steady while he ignores his own for years. He's ally-less, looking anywhere for relational kindness and getting only exploitation in return. He smokes a joint with his son and it's the only time a person in the film seems to give a damn about him. So when Melton stands behind that chainlink at graduation and everything finally boils over, you're seeing a man in five limbic states at once. Melton finds each and wears them all. I don't know how, but he does.
He's an anxiety-hiding boy walking through his 30s like a shellshocked phantom, and you've never rooted for someone harder in your life. A massive achievement.
The Nominated...
Ruffalo's predatory opportunist in Poor Things is hilarious. A sexual yapping chihuahua of little substance and he knows it. Playing it like he's always a second away from running behind his mother's legs, cowering until the false confidence returns.
God, Downey is so good when untethered to the [REDACTED] universe. When he's able to color outside the lines a bit. As Strauss in Oppenheimer, he gives his most mature performance in some time. Balancing the braggadocious melodies he's become comfortable with against an emotional pool he's pulled from less: insecurity. His smarmy comeuppance seen in eventual denial, a scene that perfectly captures the spectrum of his talent.
Why aren't we shouting from rooftops about De Niro in Killers of the Flower Moon? He the snake oil salesman. Dealing death in green clothing, De Niro is a wanton monolith of greed. The beauty of the performance lies not in the spoken and action, but in the subtext. He finds subtle evils in the nonverbals. One in particular on Gladstone's deathbed. After offering encouraging words in her native tongue, he quickly shifts both his faces in smile and disgust. It's frightening. The American werewolf in Oklahoma.
Pick: Charles Melton by levels, Robert De Niro from those nominated
Annette Bening, Nyad
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Emma Stone, Poor Things
The Forgotten...
Listen, let's just get it out of the way: any and all successes Barbie accomplishes rely on Margot Robbie's performance. The film has issues, but she is absolutely not one of them and should've been nominated. Okay? Okay.
Natalie Portman as central provocateur/antagonist in May December could be her finest work yet. An emotional bulldozer to all around her. Micro-mimicking and pulling at threads others thought were invisible. She completely nails the tone, and that vulnerability level shines.
Alma Pöysti is a volcanic mountain in Fallen Leaves. Her face and body movement simple, clean, like the life she leads. But it's what hidden that intrigues, that audience feeds off of. Her quiet hiding tectonic emotional movement behind hugs with dogs and turning off radios. The performance and film's greatest strength being that it never erupts, and never needs to.
There's a few different scenes within Past Lives that Greta Lee completely engulfs. Starting with the enigmatic opening; a bar rail with Lee between her emotional wellsprings. An offscreen discussion narrating her faraway looks and smiles to each, as the zoom increases and she looks down the lens. We can guess, but know nothing at this point, just that whatever she's thinking, we need to know. The journey to that answer is lovely, and it's in large part due to her.
The disproportionate amount of ink spilled for Elordi versus Cailee Spaeny in Priscilla is...something. And while he's good, she's fighting in a different weight class. Her doe eyes and submissions hiding opinions and dreams, her smile a holstered gun she only fires in particular moments. She's great.
Napoleon is a relative spasm of a picture, but Vanessa Kirby finds layers amongst the madness. Lola Campbell is a ball of spiky charisma in Scrapper, hilarious and nuanced throughout. And how could one not love Mia McKenna-Bruce in How to Have Sex? Finally mask-less, dancing alone, eyes searching for a gentle hand amongst Gomorrah's partygoers.
The Nominated...
Mulligan is so good in Maestro. She provides heartbeat and refuses victim complex when she's more than justified to do so. Bouncing around her man's indiscretions and the levity he assigned them with grace and, eventually, courage. Far from a shell of a character when it easily could've been, and that is credit to her performance in both wonder-eyed journey and said assertion.
In Anatomy of a Fall, Hüller takes ambiguity on page and further removes puzzle pieces. Instead applying a cellular understanding of her union and it's unknown qualities, with a hatred of pity and all its distributions. It's a chilled, incredulous performance that is in complete lockstep with Triet's probing tone.
In Poor Things, Stone plays Frankenstein's princess with zeal. Brilliantly speed-running her child/adult-hood rebellious years on a tipped scale. Balancing yearling curiosity and infectious joy with the emotional discoveries of real world truths. For a character constantly embargoed by the men around her, Stone is as untethered as she's ever been in the performance. To get to the comedic heights she does in "infancy" and the dramatics she does in the second half, in one performance? Hilarious, thoughtful, and without a shred of insincerity.
But the performance I'll remember most from 2023, and the one that stands above every other, is Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon. She the audience's life raft, a beacon of light amongst hellfire. Her performance a junior moon to every scene and interaction she's in, lifting all tides. The charisma when flirting, and the Sisyphean pain of being chained to an evil exploiter. After yet another tragedy, she lets out an anguished wail that is one of the few under those cinematic conditions to ever actually work (emotionally, anyway). One for the vault.
Pick: Lily Gladstone
Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Colman Domingo, Rustin
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction
The Forgotten...
Andrew Scott (All of Us Strangers)? Zac Efron (The Iron Claw)? Keanu Reeves (John Wick: Chapter 4)? All giving arguably the best performances of their respective careers? Scott is so utterly lovely, a massive performance of arms-length defending and fissured vulnerability. He's an emotional war veteran of an adult, his chest's tight knot the holding place for all his pain. You fall in love with the guy. And for the latter two, this just feels like a writing off from ghosts of their past. An ignorance of what's at hand based on expectation. Efron leverages his golden retriever persona into muscled brotherly love. And, if we're auditing Oscar bait scenes, his is the best of the lot. Reeves, I mean, if you're in his corner you've been there for a while and are sick of fighting this battle. You get me? For any naysayers out there, please tell me who else takes on Wick and finds even a quarter of the success? While weaving such an arc? My inbox is open.
In the vein of going to bat, Joaquin Phoenix (for the film) and Nicolas Cage (for the reputation). Understandable that Beau Is Afraid is not exactly everybody's cup of tea, but Phoenix is such a trampoline of chaos in it. Bouncing from riot-scene runaway to cartooned daydreamer to thimble-sized man at mommy's feet. With damn near every scenario bathed in redlined anxiety. And for Cage, well, we should all be glad the industry is finally leveraging his jazz-like style. Both he and his jacket (hilarious) tethered in Borgli's puppet show from hell in Dream Scenario. Good year for the sad sap lead!
Also, for years pre-Revenant, all the public did was clamor for Leonardo DiCaprio to win one of these damn things. Despite the actual performances or (rightful) losses, you'd hear and see it everywhere. Now, having won both the gold statue in question and that fight with bear, when he's been doing arguably his most interesting and subtle work, those voices are silent. It's both befuddling and fascinating.
Also: Michael Fassbender (The Killer), Dave Bautista (Knock at the Cabin), Thomas Schubert (Afire)
The Nominated...
In love with Giamatti's performance in The Holdovers. A flawed curmudgeon who, despite the flaws he wears on his sleeve, you can't help but root for. A man who is who he is and cannot understand nor pity those who aren't (to a fault). Giamatti takes these cold steel girders of character structure and finds the role's vital aspect in the insulated subfloor: Pathos. The former merely a shell, waiting for the simple gift of kind understanding to set himself free. He provides a meditative viewpoint to a character otherwise seen binary.
Almost hesitant to ask it (considering the counter examples), but is this career best work from Murphy? Stoic charisma in bushels as he builds and builds his bombic work, only to topple into introspective guilt as he sees the result of it. The common argument against the film is how it displays this result (and what isn't shown), but one of the reasons why that isn't valid is because of Murphy's perspective. The entire film hinges on it, and he's a visual magnet.
Wright is the, "it's about time" nom here (and just had an insane year overall). The rise and fall of a frustrating and frustrated captain, an artist not starved but starving for success and understanding. So long, that he's on a relational lazy river of a life, ignoring all that's "lower" than him for the sake of pride. Wright hits the funny and mopey notes with charisma, as most of his frustrations are at the various systems/people failing around him. But, more importantly, finds poise and grace in his eventual arc of self-reflection.
Pick: honestly completely comfortable with any of those three winning, or any of The Forgotten rushing the stage and stealing it
Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall
Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
Jonathan Glazer, The Zone of Interest
The Forgotten...
The Academy is making that flippant judgement with Celine Song, here. The whole, "the promise is so good on this initial feature, they'll surely find their way back again"-brand of foolishness. The performances she guides and the tone she curates in Past Lives grade-A. Honestly, does this film not have a 100% approval rating amongst the people you know? It's not just the writing, and it's not just the performances (according to the Academy, at least). Such a memorable opening statement ought to be recognized from someone who will — I must relent the smaller point — surely be around for a long time.
Payne? Alexander Payne? Making the holiday movie nobody really asked for but everyone coveted as a cozy (drink!) standout this past winter? He presiding over one of the best ensembles of the year, navigating the script's turns from laughs to cries with deft touch and pacing? That guy? No love? Fine.
The Nominated...
Um...fuck?
It's difficult not to apply the "Could someone else have made this film?" metric to the nominees this year. Issue and reason for expletive being, the best of the direction probably couldn't have been done by anyone else.
Could another filmmaker make Killers of the Flower Moon? My instinct says "yes", but the beauty of Scorsese lies in his role as captain. Gone are the days where Marty needs to be showy. His recent output is technically great, but it's also efficient. He finds ultra-talented people at each stage of production (Schoonmaker, Prieto, De Niro, Gladstone, etc) and lets them work. Delegate what you can so you can add your signature flourishes when needed. His flourishes just so happen to be some of the greatest the form's ever seen.
Now, while I assume Nolan is the opposite of Marty in terms of work distribution, there are also numerous ways to direct (breaking new ground in opinion here, right?). And, going back to the thesis question, it's tough to imagine someone else being able to make Oppenheimer, at least at anywhere near the levels he gets it to. Nolan is a known juggler, biting off more than he can chew multiple times (Tenet, to many The Dark Knight Rises), but he struck creative gold in Los Alamos. Another IMAX-ed sensory feast, this time in a blend that fully coalesces. It's a masterpiece.
Could anyone else have made The Zone of Interest? Could any of the above make an unforgettable music video like "Virtual Insanity" and win a VMA? For the first time, I think not at all (to both). Whereas another director could've found a diluted version of Oppenheimer or another way in on Killers of the Flower Moon, I doubt we see a vision at all resembling what we got from Glazer's on Nazi life and its river of despair. The deviant viewpoint to start, the antiseptic cameras, the ambient auditory horror. Each of these films portrays evil in some form, but it's in Zone that it hits the hardest.
Pick: I'm aware the only reason anyone would read this is to see the picks, but I simply cannot choose; I just want everyone to have a good time, maybe hand out statues to each of 'em
American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest
The Forgotten...
Wouldn't actually make too many edits to the nominees, but other worthy parties include:
"The [mentions of John Wick: Chapter 4] will continue until [its level of public appreciation] improves." Stahelski and Co. pull off the series greatest trick in 4's balance of expectation and innovation. Amongst the shell casings, dripping blades, and all other collateral damage throughout the series, they have now crafted something unexpected: a beautiful ending.
While Beau Is Afraid may be an acquired taste, it's also Aster's greatest genre and tonal swing to date. The most insane hero's journey you could imagine, with his usual yields of anxiety drenched terror paired with occasional daydreamed whimsy(!). Seemingly alone in open water on this one, but personified penis monsters aren't for everyone.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline absolutely rips. Full stop. All ticking clocks of tension and DIY environmental takeover.
Early on in The Iron Claw, Durkin lets you know which pieces are on the Von Erich chessboard. He window dresses it up with muscled, flying bodies and genuine brotherly love, but the highway ends at total tragedy regardless. With a second half barrage resembling an emotional carpet bomb, it's a stunning tale of tyrannical sadness.
My spiritual father David Fincher did it again. The Killer is fantastic, and The [king] is [very much not] Dead.
BlackBerry provides a metal mulleted view into the familiar territory of techbio. A hilarious glimpse at a technology whose brief success will be forgot long before the ripples of its impact die out. And possibly before I forget Howerton's performance.
The Nominated...
When taken literally, awarding this based upon the best picture and as an accomplishment in the visual artform, it's Oppenheimer. Nolan's film — and all his work, really — builds to remembrance as an image or images. Snapshots of hellfire screaming into the mesosphere, of subjectivity framed as binary (B&W) or amorphous (color), of man's limits on the face of the one expanding them. Sensory overload be damned, Nolan is nothing if not a preeminent image maker.
Scorsese views more in totality, and directs that way. Killers of the Flower Moon is a grievous stare at an "American" mirror, both past and present. The tragedy of that story living behind each scene. Each act of greed and violence. And exclaimed in admission at the end of it all. In a film filled with greatness, that spirit of truth is one of its biggest strengths. And, for me, the final grace note of that mirror coming back sings because of it.
When The Zone of Interest ended, I questioned when the last time was I saw something that felt so evil. Craft is all over the film and it's fantastic in that way, but how evil oozes out of the margins and into everything you're seeing and feeling is pretty remarkable. It's an unerring, blunt jewel that disregards all convention around the topic it displays. Leaving behind a bone bruise of an impression, and something completely unforgettable.
Pick: as much as I want to waffle yet again, it's Oppenheimer
So there it is. An entire year of film distilled to a few gold statues and an awards program people get up in arms about, only to forget the winners by the time they're scrolling Instagram. Many were — jokingly, I hope — clamoring for the dog Messi from Anatomy of a Fall to earn a supporting nomination. While Messi is undoubtedly captivating throughout, that dog couldn't care less about any of this stuff. It's all below a chew toy. And, if we're being honest here, our canine friend is right: pitting artistic expressions against one another via some variable metric each voter alone uses, is pretty meaningless. Especially when some of the results look laughable years later. Shakespeare in Love, CODA, etc etc.
Ultimately, it's supposed to be a celebration of the medium. With the glitz, extravagance, and rest of the pomp. So let's be like Al and pop a few pills while we enjoy on the couch, shall we?
"I was at the Oscars once, for Serpico. That was the second time I was nominated. I was sitting in the third or fourth row with Diane Keaton. Jeff Bridges was there with his girl. No one expected me to come. I was a little high. Somebody had done something to my hair, blew it or something, and I looked like I had a bird's nest on my head, a real mess. I sat there and tried to look indifferent because I was so nervous. Any time I'm nervous, I try to put on an indifferent or a cold look. At one point, I turned to Jeff Bridges and said, 'Hey, looks like there won't be time to get to the Best Actor awards.' He gave me a strange look. He said, 'Oh, really?' I said, 'It's over, the hour is up.' He said, 'It's three hours long.' I thought it was an hour TV show, can you imagine that? And I had to pee - bad. So I popped a Valium. Actually, I was eating Valium like they were candy. Chewed on them. Finally came the Best Actor. Can you imagine the shape I was in? I couldn't have made it to the stage. I was praying, 'Please don't let it be me. Please.' And I hear...'Jack Lemmon.' I was just so happy I didn't have to get up, because I never would have made it." — Al Pacino
Full reviews for (almost) all nominated and mentioned can be found on my Letterboxd page.