Oscars Recap!

            It feels like it takes so long to get here, so many of these movies come out over the course of the year, and most of them come out in November and December, so the movies have had their chance to be out and be seen. Still we wait all the way until the middle of March to see what the best movies of the previous year were. It just seems odd, but anyway, it is finally here, and Conan did an excellent job hosting again with the Weapons opening bit, and then the first Oscar was given to Weapons! So shout out to Conan for making the horror nominees the centerpiece for his opening gag.

            Horror is not a genre that is normally recognized at the Oscar’s, so having Amy Madagen win for best supporting actress is huge, especially considering that she was up against women in movies that were nominated for best picture. Do I think she was the best performance of the bunch? No, but I was rooting for her anyway. There have been so many great horror movies that have not received any nominations, so hopefully this sets a trend of a continual recognition of the amazing performance in horror as well.

            While we are talking about actresses, let’s talk about best actress in a leading role going to Jessie Buckley. She was the only sure-fire winner for all the acting awards, and she deserves it. She plays this naturalistic witch in Hamnet so well, and the whole movie is balanced on her back. This is especially true during the play scene at the end. She creates so much emotion that tears abounded from the audience. People were worried however that one of her final interviews would prevent her from winning, because she said she made her boyfriend choose between her and his cats, and he chose her. Also her new movie The Bride was largely panned as well.

            Frankenstein winning for the makeup and costume categories plus production design makes sense as well. They clearly put the time and care into making the monster look incredible, but the other costumes were ornate and of the time as well. After watching the documentary about Guillermo Del Toro, you can tell that he has a firm appreciation for the craft and for making his movies look real. This means limiting the CGI crap. He has a whole museum in Netflix dedicated to his movies and his creations for the movies. So this is well deserved.

            The category that has become my favorite is Best International Feature Film. This year, I was able to see three of the five: The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, and It Was Just an Accident. Sadly, I missed out on The Voice of Hind Rajab and Sirat. But of the three that I did see, I was totally enraptured by them. I do think that Sentimental Value is the best, but I would have loved to see It Was Just an Accident win, because it was about an ex-convict in Iran capturing a man, that he thought tortured him in prison, and he was going to get revenge, but he called some other former prisoners to see if they thought it was the same guy. So it would be interesting to hear what an Iranian thinks about all that is going on right now. (It Was Just an Accident and The Secret Agent are both on Disney+, watch them!)

            The documentary category was interesting this year as well. The thing is, many of these documentaries are just depressing, and they are about the loss of real human lives, unlike in the rest of the movies that are being shown. So when the crowd cheers for a movie like All the Empty Rooms and The Perfect Neighbor, it just feels wrong. I was able to see many of the Documentary Shorts, and All the Empty Rooms(Netflix) was good, but I much preferred The Devil Is Busy(HBO Max). I was not able to see Mr. Nobody v. Putin, but I did get to watch The Alabama Solution on HBO Max and The Perfect Neighbor on Netflix, and they are both powerful docs, and I highly recommend watching them.

            Now is time for my yearly rant about Alex Garland’s movie being left out for sound. F1 is cool, and everyone loves to hear the engines roar on the massive speakers in IMAX, but no one is doing sound as well as Garland. In Civil War last year, and Warfare this year, his sounds of battle are so visceral. It feels like you are a part of the war. I truly do not understand how these movies do not even get nominated for this category.

            My other gripe is cinematography. Sinners won this, and they were the favorite going into it, but I do not think that should have been the case. The most beautifully shot movie of this year by far was Train Dreams. What really worked against this movie was its Netflix only release. I feel like if this had gotten a theatrical release, and people would have seen the master work on the big screen, then maybe it would have gotten the respect it deserved, because this is one of, if not, my favorite movie from this year.

            The talk going into this Oscar’s has mostly been surrounding two movies, Sinners and One Battle After Another, and it is safe to say that One Battle won the war. They took home best picture and best director. These wins helped get Paul Thomas Anderson his first Oscar and a couple more after that. He has been well deserving in the past, and he has been considered one of the best directors in recent history, but he had failed to win an Oscar despite having some bangers. So it was great to see him finally get recognized.

            Sinners did get two big wins. They won for cinematography. This was exciting because Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman ever to win for best cinematography. Then Michael B. Jordan won for best actor. Originally this seemed like it was going to be Timothée Chalamet’s award to lose, but after Jordan won at the Actor’s awards, the tide shifted, and everyone thought Jordan was going to win, and he did! He had to give a unique performance, because he was playing two roles at the same time. I do think that Chalamet’s performance was more impressive. He really carried Marty Supreme, whereas Sinners was more of an ensemble, so there was less for Jordan to carry. Either way, I still think it is cool that he won, and that a movie like Sinners was so well recognized.

            Final takeaway: One Battle After Another stole the show, but there was a good spread of awards amongst the contenders. My number one ranked movie for the year still continues to be left out of the Oscars, and my secondary pick from the Best Picture contenders also continues not to win. Maybe one year the Academy and I will see eye to eye.