While we concluded our look at 2018 earlier this week (all links at the bottom of the article!), we have introduced this year a new feature (an epilogue, if you will) to our Oscar Viewing Project ballots, and that is the "My Official Ballot" feature. Here, for 19 of the Oscar categories (I don't see enough of the Foreign Language Film contenders to fill this out in good faith), I pick all of the nominees I'd have in each category if I had had an Oscar ballot. Please enjoy (this is a pretty big undertaking to write each time, but I know I enjoy it & I've heard you do too so I'm going to keep at it), and make sure to share your ballots in the comments!
Bad Times at the El Royale
Cold War
The Favourite
First Man
Free Solo
Hereditary
Lean on Pete
Love, Simon
The Other Side of the Wind
Roma
Gold: An absolutely gorgeous ode to cinema from start-to-finish, the jazzy Cold War pops with electricity, but perhaps more potently, with the necessity of time...the way we think of it as an unlimited resource until we finally understand the supply runs out.
Silver: We waited nearly fifty years for Orson Welles' final masterpiece to make it onto our screens (sadly not the big screens, as this was one of many films in 2018 that were seen mostly on our laptops), but it was worth the wait. An extraordinary vision of a complicated director, from a man who knew a thing or two about that subject.
Bronze: Andrew Haigh continues a flawless cinematic track record with his gorgeously-felt Lean on Pete, a film that's at first about a boy & his horse, and then we soon learn it's about all of us, and the way we approach a changing America.
Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (Free Solo)
Alfonso Cuaron (Roma)
Andrew Haigh (Lean on Pete)
Pawel Pawlikowski (Cold War)
Orson Welles (The Other Side of the Wind)
Gold: Pawel Pawlikowski's magnum opus happens largely because he's so willing to deny the audience more space. The film was criticized by some for being too short, but I think that's where its genius flows. Like many other films of this nature (Casablanca, Brief Encounter), it draws strength from knowing that there are only certain moments for us to spend with these characters before they're gone-make them count.
Silver: It's something of a cheat to include The Other Side of the Wind, partially because we don't know entirely how much of the end result lies in Orson Welles' capable hands, but it's not a film I'm going to skip here just because some of it is guided by unknown forces-it's just too good to deny.
Bronze: Alfonso Cuaron brings his whole self to Roma, a movie that feels plucked from the pages of his own youth, a personal tribute to his childhood that has the feeling of time gone by, and yet as fresh as if you were witnessing it this morning.
Ryan Gosling (First Man)
Lucas Hedges (Boy Erased)
John Huston (The Other Side of the Wind)
Tim Kalkhof (The Cakemaker)
Charlie Plummer (Lean on Pete)
Gold: With breakout performances, you should occasionally be forgiven for not being able to tell what is simply you getting to know a new personality & what is something that is raw talent. Charlie Plummer's work in Lean on Pete feels more the latter though-he plays his boy lost with such commitment, you don't know where the line between actor & character begins.
Silver: Yes, in some ways he's simply mining the same well that he brought to immortality as Noah Cross, but if you're going to borrow from your own work, borrow from one of the greatest performances of all time. John Huston's posthumous work here is a testament to the well-rounded artist (and actor!) that he was.
Bronze: Ryan Gosling could've done the biopic route, and probably gotten default hosannas without much work. But his Neil Armstrong goes beyond that, becoming a man who is desperate for an absolution he cannot articulate. Introverted characters can be a challenge, but Gosling doesn't let that deter him.
Toni Collette (Hereditary)
Olivia Colman (The Favourite)
Joanna Kulig (Cold War)
Emma Stone (The Favourite)
Rachel Weisz (The Favourite)
Gold: Of all of the women in The Favourite, I think Weisz does the best job & she does it with both the least screentime and the trickiest part. We are meant to understand the other two characters at the outset, but her Sarah is an enigma-how much of what she presents is real, and how much an illusion? Weisz knows how to hold back to keep you guessing.
Silver: Toni Collette has gotten her share of critical praise in the past few years, with cinephiles remembering her in a way awards bodies rarely do. Nowhere is this juxtaposition more evident than her work in Hereditary, which was totally Oscar-worthy (damn genre bias), but will enjoy a long shelf life regardless of gold statues because she's that good.
Bronze: A tight race between the remaining three women (this is a ridiculously solid lineup), but I'm going to lean just a bit on Olivia Colman. Her work as the Queen is such fun, but also Colman is a smart actress who can put in touches of doubt & privilege where the script is trying to mock. She is the queen, after all.
Hugh Grant (Paddington 2)
Josh Hamilton (Eighth Grade)
Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther)
Alessandro Nivola (Disobedience)
Alex Wolff (Hereditary)
Gold: The Marvel Cinematic Universe is not known for its ability to craft compelling villains, but that doesn't mean they don't have some home runs in the cannon. Michael B. Jordan's work as Killmonger is another in a succession of great performances, one that brings a moral justness that helps him rise above your typical "take over the world" villainy.
Silver: Disobedience is teaming with good performances, but none better than Nivola, who plays a man who is devoted to god, but who cannot understand the right path when his wife wants to leave him for another woman. A longtime character actor getting a really plum part-you love to see it.
Bronze: Josh Hamilton's big monologue in Eighth Grade, where he pleads with his daughter to understand how much his world revolves around her & how much it hurts to see her in a way that she doesn't see herself...it's bravura work & one of the best-acted scenes of 2018.
Ann Dowd (Hereditary)
Cynthia Erivo (Bad Times at the El Royale)
Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk)
Nicole Kidman (Boy Erased)
Lilli Palmer (The Other Side of the Wind)
Gold: Regina King is one of the best actresses in the business, and so it's a pleasure to know she won her Oscar for maybe her best-ever work (give or take The Leftovers). What makes her turn in Beale Street so fascinating is the way she shows herself, her younger self, as she flees from the confines of being a mother for the first time in decades...and the way she secretly relishes it before returning to her story.
Silver: Cynthia Erivo got her Oscar nomination a year later for Harriet, but let's be honest-she's never been better onscreen than she was in Bad Times, totally investing in her failed lounge singer (with clear talent), and providing a delicious ensemble with its best character.
Bronze: Like Huston, it's hard to judge Palmer decades later outside of the confines of her career at the time. But what you can't deny is that she's acing this performance, someone who knows our protagonist better than any, and someone who genuinely can speak freely of him because she's the one person in the movie who no longer needs him. Impressive stuff from an under-sung actress.
American Animals
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
First Man
If Beale Street Could Talk
A Simple Favor
Gold: Nicole Holofcener's bitter look at loneliness and the ways that we handle it comes with great wit, something that never feels like we're shortchanging Lee Israel's story in Can You Ever Forgive Me?.
Silver: James Baldwin finally has his world translated to the screen in If Beale Street Could Talk, a story that feels like a memory, focusing on the biggest things first & occasionally letting the small moments linger in the background.
Bronze: Biopics rarely do well in the screenplay department, sticking to the boilerplate "memoir" template to get their tale across. This isn't so for First Man, which unfolds like a kaleidoscope, us getting to see the complicated world of a man who wants to leave his pain behind.
Cold War
The Favourite
Hereditary
Lean on Pete
The Other Side of the Wind
Gold: There's so much into The Other Side of the Wind to unpack in a screenplay. We have our main story, the film-within-the-film, and of course the true story of the film, the way that the movie parallels the lives of director Welles and star Huston in real life-it's a mesmerizing whirlwind of a tale, and brilliantly executed.
Silver: Sometimes screenplays are about plot, and indeed The Favourite has a succinct, well-presented plot. But here it's about the crisp dialogue & words happening on the screen. There's something so delicious in every line of nasty, brutal dialogue of this film that you can't help but be enamored by.
Bronze: A love story needs to have complications. Cold War brings those complications, but they don't always appear as such while we're moving-the film's brevity, as I have mentioned often in these past ten weeks, is its genius, but that puts pressure on the writing to make every second count-that's what happens here.
Isle of Dogs
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Teen Titans Go!: The Movie
Gold: In a relatively weak year for the format (as a reminder, this is the only category we only do three-wide because there aren't enough contenders in my opinion to do five), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse does something we didn't think was possible anymore-it makes the superhero genre feel fresh & young again. Aided by beautiful, playful animation (and so many animation styles), it brings a vibrancy that a lot of other comic book franchises have lacked as the genre gets worn out.
Silver: I'm showing my fangirl nature here not only by going one-two with comic book movies, but by picking an extended episode of a TV show for silver, but it was a big-screen movie, and more importantly, Teen Titans Go is an hilarious, delicious TV show, and none of that allure is lost as they move to the big-screen.
Bronze: Isle of Dogs is beautiful, even more so than Anderson's last animated feature Fantastic Mr. Fox, making both piles of garbage & a fictionalized Tokyo feel like new splendors for the eye. And while I had some problems with the plot, the cast is also so much fun here, my favorite moment being a scientist named Yoko Ono...being played by the Yoko Ono.
Bad Times at the El Royale
Cold War
First Man
Hereditary
Roma
Gold: I mean, it's hard to pick anything other than Roma to take this prize, right? The sound work in this movie feels authentic & raw, as if it's organically happening and Cuaron is just picking it up via a camera. It's rare sound feels like a film's best quality, but honestly-that's what happens here.
Silver: A jazzy interlude, played beautifully throughout the film, Cold War takes all of the best parts of noir (a dangerous woman, a score that hints at what's to come) and turns it up to eleven. I particularly loved the juxtaposition of the different musical stylings the two leads endure as their romance continues.
Bronze: First Man is that rare effects film that never sacrifices the dialogue. There's no moments of Christopher Nolan-esque dismissal of the screenplay, but instead explosions don't deter us from knowing what the actors are saying. Combined with an iconic score, this is a well-delivered space epic.
Bad Times at the El Royale
First Man
Hereditary
Mission Impossible: Fallout
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Gold: The entire moon-landing sequence of First Man is an aural symphony. The way that the film makes it feel real-time, as if we're actually witnessing these historic first steps for mankind...it say something about how good this movie is that the score never even feels like a distraction.
Silver: Similar to the moon landing, Spider-Man gets a lot of its credit here for the giant whirling vortex that Kingpin brings with him to the film's climax. That said, there's no part of this movie that is phoning it in-the film has the rich soundscape of an independent animated film while presenting as a blockbuster, a difficult task to achieve.
Bronze: Bad Times at the El Royale sounds amazing. There's the giant shootouts toward the end of the movie, but the movie is more than that-there's specificity in the way that certain crushing dirt and clicking record players heighten the tension, while still feeling at home with the larger music component of the picture.
Bad Times at the El Royale
BlacKkKlansman
First Man
If Beale Street Could Talk
Puzzle
Gold: Two years after Nicholas Britell created magic for Barry Jenkins in Moonlight, he is bringing a totally different (but completely genius) siren's call to If Beale Street Could Talk. It's hard to make a film score so specific that you proclaim "that's Beale Street" but Britell does that from the opening notes.
Silver: Justin Hurwitz's use of a theremin could have felt gimmicky in lesser hands. After all, a theremin recalls the cheesy space films of the 1950's, not prestige fare like First Man. But done as a subtle lullaby, this opus feels totally at-home and distinctive to the moon walk experience.
Bronze: The most traditional score of these five would be Bad Times at the El Royale, which has the difficult task of not only feeling strong (which it is), but also to stand up to a large musical quotient in the movie (there's a lot of soundtrack here). Michael Giacchino finds that balance, and gets us another success.
"All the Stars," (Black Panther)
"Maybe It's Time," (A Star is Born)
"The Place Where Lost Things Go," (Mary Poppins Returns)
"Revelation," (Boy Erased)
"Shallow," (A Star is Born)
Gold: Lady Gaga could've just phoned in her musical work on A Star is Born and gotten an Oscar (the Academy likes giving this to musical icons), but she didn't. "Shallow" stands among her best music, a total triumph at a crucial moment in the picture.
Silver: I am going one-two on A Star is Born here, as "Maybe It's Time" is the other song that feels at-home, a lived-in song from a singer who's been famous so long that he knows exactly what music will sell to his audience. Easy, soft, & quick-with-the-hooks.
Bronze: Gaga wasn't the only songwriter starring in their movies in 2018. Troye Sivan took a soulful approach with "Revelation," accompanying his performance as a young gay man trying to make it through a conversion therapy camp.
Black Panther
The Favourite
First Man
Roma
Shoplifters
Gold: Roma does a great job of creating story through detailing, particularly in the production design. Look at the ways we see rows & rows of clothing racks in the department store (giving us a better sense of how gargantuan the riots are)-it's a film that feels like it was actually shot in the 1970's, not relying on CGI to fill in all of the gaps.
Silver: Possibly the best of the recent "prestige space epics," in terms of production design, First Man uses the moon-landing to create realistic sets & attention-to-detail (it feels like we're actually in these rockets) to keep us fully vested in a story where we already know the ending.
Bronze: The most "Oscar-bait" of these five contenders, The Favourite uses the grandeur of the giant bookshelves and lush drawing rooms not just to underscore how ridiculous these people's lives are (and out-of-touch), but to also underline how trapped this world is, and the desperate need to stay in command of it.
Cold War
First Man
Free Solo
Roma
We the Animals
Gold: Roma's an embarrassment of riches for this category, let's be real (it's hard for four very good contenders to compete in such a way). Cuaron's camera is less interested in the story and more in giving you a sense of this world, drawing you in as if you're in a virtual reality-it's a beautiful mood picture.
Silver: The other black-and-white epic of 2018, Cold War is less about mood and more about the passage-of-time. The camera lingers on moments between our lovers, less being about us getting into their world and more about them finding a way to underline the fleeting nature of time. Nothing lasts forever...
Bronze: In what I believe is a first, I'm giving a nomination for Best Cinematography to a documentary in 2018. Free Solo earns this through not just sheer jaw-dropping technical prowess (the cameramen not only have to film the climb, but they also have to do so without, you know, killing the star), but also by keeping you at the edge of your seat as you barely breathe through the picture.
Black Panther
Cold War
Crazy Rich Asians
The Favourite
A Simple Favor
Gold: No modern filmmaker is better at her job than Sandy Powell. In The Favourite, Powell does something incredible. Sticking with primarily white, blue, & black, she gives us something that feels at-once of-the-period and totally unique to The Favourite, just enough gaudy flourishes to be like "that's The Favourite" even in a cinematic universe brimming with period costumes.
Silver: Contemporary design is so overlooked at the Oscars, it doesn't even feel like a snub when something like A Simple Favor gets tossed out. And yet, this is a genius bit of costume-designing. Look at the way that pretty much everything that Blake Lively wears feels totally in-character, which is tricky considering the many layers to who she is.
Bronze: Another contemporary gem is Crazy Rich Asians. Honestly-there are only so many ways you have the clothes scream "I'm rich" without feeling redundant, and yet the movie never feels phoned-in or like we're not seeing consistency in the characters (also, hats off for giving the men something sexy to wear and not just the ladies).
Cold War
First Man
Free Solo
The Other Side of the Wind
Roma
Gold: This is possibly the best lineup for Film Editing we've done for a My Ballot (it's my favorite category in this list, and I've never said that before), but even so-editing together the work of a nearly fifty-year-old film when virtually all involved are dead? The Other Side of the Wind making any sense at all, much less being genius, is in a class by itself.
Silver: One last mention of it, but the time shifts in Cold War in a ticking-clock romance are totally at the mercy of the editing. If you were to feel cheated by the story not having enough weight, that would have been the result in the editing room. That you don't, that it feels just right...that's why it's cited here.
Bronze: Free Solo is a movie that tells you the tale of a man without needing to underline it, and so I don't want to undersell the interview portions of the picture. But come on-the way you are clawing into your chair as Alex scales this mountain-it's impossible to look away.
Makeup & Hairstyling
American Animals
Black Panther
Border
The Favourite
The House with a Clock in the Walls
Gold: Prosthetics are not the gold-standard in movies, let's never forget that...makeup should serve the story, for the good or the grand. That's why I'm picking The Favourite as my #1 choice here, as the hair work, along with the ridiculously over-the-top makeup seamlessly fits into the absurd tale Lanthimos is bringing to audiences.
Silver: That said, prosthetics can also be mesmerizing. The troll makeup in Border is jaw-dropping, always feeling real (crucial considering we are in "our world" when it comes to this tale), without ever needing to be "most."
Bronze: American Animals is admittedly making a specific play for this award (there's an entire sequence where we see the main actors putting on old age makeup, getting to see the process in action). But that doesn't mean the way that these characters transform isn't impressive, and doesn't feel real to this strange fictionalized documentary.
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Christopher Robin
First Man
Mission Impossible: Fallout
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Gold: It doesn't have the near omnipresent effects of the other four films (this is the one picture here that is a "supporting effects") movie, but the moon landing sequence in First Man is so beautiful, and so full of rich coloring that it earns the gold medal on that alone.
Silver: There is no cinematic universe quite like the top-tier effects of Star Wars, and I love the wryness that Solo uses to distinguish itself. Think of the Speeder Chase, full of genuine fun on top of visual spectacle, or the way that the Kessel Run lives up to its legend.
Bronze: Christopher Robin doesn't fall into the trap of hyper-realism (or bringing dead actors back from the grave), but as a result it succeeds where The Lion King & Rogue One don't. We get to see these stuffed figures from our childhood (Pooh & Piglet & Eeyore) come to life as clearly imaginary but beautiful figures from the pages of AA Milne.
Also in 2018: Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018
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