I keep forgetting the Oscars are coming up since they moved the date up a month. Plus, with the post-Covid neorealist disenchantment with entertainment awards and the fact that there are so many on the junket now. It used to be the Golden Globes were “an indicator”. Now the Globes go into the BAFTAs goes into the SAGs and when the same films, pretty much voted on by the same populations, end up winning everything, what’s the use? Still, my wonderful followers still tell me they value my opinion (or at least the voice I give my opinion), so, here goes. The 2024 Oscars go to…..
BEST PICTURE
Should Win: Oppenheimer
Will Win: Oppenheimer
Got Robbed: Saltburn, Barbie
Oppenheimer does the near impossible, make a 3 ½ movie about science not seem line a 3 ½ hour movie about science. Add flawless performances, diligent direction and almost everyone in Hollywood in cameo roles and it’s one pretty perfect film. But twice as many movies nominated, and they still find ways to miss the obvious. With the script, the direction, the performances, the art direction, and all the media buzz about the scenes, Saltburn wouldn’t win but it deserved recognition. Barbie should never have worked. The fact that all the combined ingredients made it so, plus the fact that it was the box office champion for 2024 should have earned it a nod. The 10 movies were supposed to prevent The Dark Knight 2 from happening again. Here it happened twice. Variety front page news spring, 2024: Academy opens best picture nominations up to 15, and still probably won’t get it right.
BEST ACTOR
Should Win: Cillian Murphy
Will Win: Cillian Murphy
Murphy gives a perfect performance in the biggest movie of the year. He’s virtually unbeatable..
BEST ACTRESS
Should Win: Emma Stone
Will Win : Lily Gladstone
Got robbed: Margot Robbie (Barbie)
Gladstone has swept the season with a somewhat underwhelming performance. But she’s the only real chance for a major award for an important movie. Robbie made Barbie not only make sense but also made it good, smart, and funny. Robbie deserves recognition for every role she takes on. Except Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey. Even her massive gifts couldn’t save that crapfest movie.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Should Win: Robert Downey Jr.
Will Win: Robert Downey Jr.
Spoiler: Ryan Gosling
Got Robbed: Charles Melton (May December)
Downey has also swept everything but there’s a little part of me that wants Gosling to get a bit of recognition for his charming work as Ken. And for being Ryan Gosling. Melton gave the breakout performance of the year as a grown student who had an affair and ultimately married and had a family with his middle school teacher after she served her prison sentence. Watching the Riverdale grad hold his own opposite two highly regarded Oscan winners showed that there was so much more to Reggie Mantle than the hot co-captain of the football team.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Should Win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph
Will Win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph
Got Robbed: Rosamunde Pike (Saltburn)
Randolph gives a strong comic/dramatic performance in a bittersweet comedy. Pike should have gotten a nod for her deluded, medicated, distanced mother in Saltburn, who drops scalding one-liners with sweet abandon.
BEST DIRECTOR
Should Win: Christopher Nolan
Will Win: Christopher Nolan
Got Robbed: Emerald Fennell (Saltburn), Greta Gerwig (Barbie)
Nolan created the best film of the year and his strong direction shows, but again, writer/director Fennell’s snub is indicative of something. Gerwig took something thats hould have been summer fluff at best and made it a smart, funny social commentary on sexism through the 20th century. It sure looks like the elitist Academy is rearing its ugly head again—or just showing it’s not as interested in correcting sex bias as it is all others.
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Should Win: American Fiction
Will Win: American Fiction
Spoiler: Oppenheimer, Barbie
A timely social commentary on the entertainment industry, it appeals to the self-important voters who love to honor stories about the industry. But don’t count out an Oppenheimer sweep for what is actually a great screenplay. And don’t think the Academy is above throwing Gerwig a bone to appease the film, director, and actor snubs. All of the box office champion’s success starts with the surprisingly smart, underrated screenplay.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Should Win: Anatomy of a Fall
Will Win: Anatomy of a Fall
Got Robbed: Saltburn
Expect Fall to rack up creative awards to make up for it not scoring any major ones. Again, if Fennell is anything, she’s a very clever writer and the last act 11:00 twist is indicative of her story telling style, and it’s the best. This is the snub that hurts the worst
EDITING
Should Win: Oppenheimer
Will Win: Oppenheimer
Spoiler: Poor Things
Got Robbed: Barbie
Again, the reason Oppenheimer works is because it is told in great fashion, and the editing is the flow of the story. But if Poor Things is anything it’s artistic. And for heaven’s sake, Barbie traveled from Barbieland to the Arctic to space to land, sea, and air, to sunny Southern California and back. That’s some impressive editing.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Should Win: Maestro
Will Win: Oppenheimer
Got Robbed: Barbie
Maestro does wonderful visual work in both black and white and color, and navigates between the two seamlessly. But Oppenheimer gives us the best four minutes of cinematography of the year for he explosion. Again, Barbie is a delicious study of pink on pink on pink to beautiful extents, but, to borrow from Cher, it’s just not a serious movie….
PRODUCTION DESIGN
Should Win: Poor Things
Will Win: Poor Things
Spoiler: Oppenheimer, Barbie
For all the criticisms lobbed at Poor Things the thing it did was get the visuals of a fantasy turn-of-the-century Europe perfect. London to Alexandria to Paris to bordellos to palaces, the sets were amazing. But so did Barbie. And Oppenheimer was no slouch either, if the Academy is in bandwagon mode.
SOUND DESIGN
Should Win: Oppenheimer
Will Win: Oppenheimer
Spoiler: Maestro
A film that balances everything from whispered conversation to an atomic bomb pretty much fits the bill. But if they want another chance to award Cooper, blending the concert sequences with the rest of the movie could be a way to go.
COSTUME DESIGN
Should Win: Napoleon
Will Win: Barbie
Spoiler: Poor Things
Gone are the days of the glorious period pieces dominating the costume awards (Nicholas & Alexandra, Cleopatra) so the Bonapartes, who influenced the Romanoffs, probably wont get reciprocation here. But Barbie has the accomplishment of taking two generations of perfect costume designs made for an 11” doll and translating them into flawless fashion for a normal-sized human figure—although they have the outright advantage of that figure being the divine Margot Robbie’s, on which everything looks flawless, so win. But don’t count out the vintage European costumes designed through the quirky lens of Poor Things, which was as much responsible for its unique visual appeal as the alaborate sets.
HAIR & MAKEUP DESIGN
Should Win: Barbie
Will Win: Maestro
Spoiler: Poor Things
I mean, after fashion, Barbie is literally totally about hair and makeup. But look for the aging of Bradley Cooper and Carrie Mulligan to get recognition for a good (“serious”) film that just has better alternatives in all categories. But don’t rule out Poor Things for Willem DaFoe’s Frankenstein-ian scar makeup alone.
VISUAL EFFECTS
Should Win: The Creator
Will Win: The Creator
Got Robbed: Oppenheimer
How did the most impressive visual effects sequence of the year not even get a nomination?! They replicated detonating an atomic bomb! But blending human and robots through eerily ever-improving AI is a parable the Academy may want to call our attention to this particular year.
DOCUMENTARY
Should Win: 20 Days in Mariupol
Will Win: 20 Days in Mariupol
Political implications, life imitating art, reinforce the story of Ukranian journalists trapped in Mariupol living the horrors theyr’e covering
INTERNATIONAL FILM
Should Win: Society of the Snow
Will Win: Zone of Interest
Got Robbed: Anatomy of a Fall
Anatomy of a Fall, the awards circuit shoe-in for international film, was not submitted for international submission by France who opted for another film, so the film that is a major contender for all the big awards isn’t in the category it should own. So i can’t blame the Academy for this snub, but i still qualify it as a robbery, just an inside job. Society of the Snow is a beautifully retold story of the 70s Chilean soccer team that crashed in the Andes and had to do the indescribable to survive (a Spanish remake of the 70s Survive, based on the smash book every adolescent boy read, Alive), but Zone of Interest has a better track record going in.
ANIMATED FEATURE
Should Win: The Boy and the Heron
Will Win: Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse
The revered Hayao Miyazaki has turned in his most elaborate and stunning take since Spirited Away, but there is always an anti-anime bias at the Academy. Spider-Verse is an award winning franchise that continues to keep giving, even if it’s a little intentionally glib than the groundbreaking original.
SONG
Should Win: “I’m Just Ken” (Barbie)
Will Win: “I’m Just Ken” (Barbie)
Spoiler: any other song from Barbie
Any of the Barbie songs are a possibility, but Ryan Gosling is just so damned cute singing this one, and he’s been invited to sing it at the ceremony, so, fingers crossed.