5 Thoughts on Thom Tillis & Don Bacon's Retirements

Yesterday was my birthday, so I will be honest that I did not feel like writing, but we are not skipping what is one of the biggest electoral stories of the year...times two.  This past week, both Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) announced their retirements as Congress tries to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (I can't believe that's what they decided to call it), with Tillis doing it directly as a result of his lack of support of the bill, and the ensuing attacks from Donald Trump that came afterward.  As is our wont here, we will be doing our typical "five thoughts" quarterbacking about what these retirements mean for 2026.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC)

1. Thom Tillis Retires Because of Trump

Sen. Tillis's retirement is a game-changer in a lot of ways, but the biggest is because it was linked to Trump.  According to reports (none of which have been substantiated convincingly, so take with something of a grain of salt), Tillis had been considering retiring for a while, and with Trump attacking him (Trump said on Truth Social that he was looking at "numerous people" who were interested in running against Tillis in a primary), he decided he didn't want to go for another term, and publicly blamed the president for his decision.  Tillis, though, had officially started a campaign, and is a proven vote-getter in North Carolina, having defeated well-funded candidates in Kay Hagan & Cal Cunningham...there's no guarantee that his successor will be able to do the same, particularly given that while Trump won in 2024, Democrats like Josh Stein & Jeff Jackson were able to get split ticket support with terrible candidates down-ballot.  The president is celebrating Tillis's exit right now, and I suspect a lot of MAGA crowds are...but I can guarantee the NRSC is panicking over the Pandora's Box this just opened.  It's also worth noting that with Tillis leaving in the way he did, Democrats can praise him without worrying about his reelection chances (Stein & Jackson, for example, were quite complimentary of Tillis yesterday in a way they otherwise wouldn't have been), something they have done with other Republicans like John McCain & Mitt Romney in recent years to compare them favorably to Trump.

Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC)

2. All Eyes Turn to Roy Cooper

Here's where I point something out-the North Carolina Senate race was a Tossup last week, and is a Tossup now.  But it's a tossup where the Democrats now have more upside, and the question for the entire race still remains: what will Roy Cooper do?  The 68-year-old former governor has never lost a statewide race in North Carolina despite having run in years like 2004 and 2016 when that was a challenge, and has been the preferred candidate for much of the cycle.  We've talked about this a bit before, but both the NRSC and DSCC have struggled this cycle to recruit former governors, and Cooper has said he won't make an announcement until later this summer, but with Tillis out, getting Cooper would probably shift this from "Tossup" to "Slight Democrat" an advantage the DSCC, faced with the daunting task of picking up four seats with a rough map, can't really afford to cede.  I've said it a few times now, but if Chuck Schumer & Kirsten Gillibrand can't get at least one of the two most sought-after governors (Janet Mills & Roy Cooper), their recruitments efforts this cycle must be deemed a failure regardless of the end results.  With Tillis retiring, that becomes even more important.

RNC Chair Lara Trump (R-NC)

3. What If Cooper & Tillis Both Skip?

That said, Tillis retiring is a gift to those who worry that Schumer & Gillibrand will be failures on that front (I'm still undecided if they will pull it off, but leaning toward no), as this race is now a tossup until the dust settles, even without Tillis or Cooper.  Republicans will have a host of options.  While former Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson initially declined, it's possible that he might change his mind (he even tweeted something about this jokingly), though I doubt after his landslide loss that President Trump would want to give him a second shot.  A much more interesting option would be the president's daughter-in-law, former RNC Chair Lara Trump.  Ms. Trump spent much of the earlier part of this year aggressively trying to get the Senate seat that went to Ashley Moody in Florida, so running in North Carolina feels a bit gauche (but that'd just make her fit in at family picnics), and she'd be hard to beat in a primary if she ran, particularly since she'd likely only run with the president's approval.  Other names like Reps. Pat Harrigan, Dan Bishop, Brad Knott, Addison McDowell, & Greg Murphy (a who's who of "who exactly?"), as well as state party Chair Michael Whatley, all could be in contention at this point, though I think Lara Trump is the most important name to watch from the onset.

The Democrats already have a top tier candidate running, even with Cooper waiting around, in Rep. Wiley Nickel (a one-term incumbent who was redistricted out of his seat last cycle and has been running here for a while).  Nickel begins with a head start, but I doubt that he would get this race to himself if Cooper doesn't run.  This is maybe the best shot a Democrat has at a Senate race in North Carolina since 2014, and people like Rep. Deborah Ross, Senate Minority Leader Sydney Batch, AG Jeff Jackson, & LG Rachel Hunt are all likely names to take a second glance here, most of them glossier than Nickel even with a head start.   Jackson, in particular, is going to have to make a decision as arguably the next-in-line after Cooper (I'd been assuming he'd run against Sen. Budd in 2028), over whether or not to run for yet another office so quickly after a hard fought contest for Attorney General.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE)

4. Don Bacon's Retirement Sets Up a Flip

Like I said, Tillis wasn't the only retirement this past week.  Rep. Don Bacon previewed his formal retirement announcement (expected today), and the celebrating you're hearing is the DCCC getting pumped about a likely flip.  Bacon is the House Republican who represents the bluest district in the Union, and the only Republican in the lower chamber who sits in a seat that Kamala Harris cleared 50%+ in during last year's election (for the record, Susan Collins also represents such a seat in the Senate).  State Sen. John Cavanaugh (son of the only living Democrat in Nebraska to have served in the US House) was the frontrunner for the nomination prior to this announcement (he has endorsements already from former Sens. Bob Kerrey & Ben Nelson), and while I could see other Democrats in the state taking a look, I wouldn't be surprised if the field stays relatively geared toward Cavanaugh, especially with Dan Osborn running for Senate.  Unlike Tillis's seat, this race is no longer a tossup.  This is a blue seat, one vacated by the Republicans' best option, and the Democrats already have a star recruit...you don't beat those kinds of alignments in a 6th-year midterm unless the Democrats make a mistake...calling this seat a "Leans Dem" is not premature, and important, as the Democrats only need to pickup three seats to get the House majority next year.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA)

5. Is this a Sign of Things to Come?

Tillis & Bacon both retiring within days of each other feels to me like a "the shoe is dropping moment."  While both races could be explained in a vacuum (Tillis no longer wanting to deal with Trump is not a unique situation, but he's been targeted more publicly than most, Bacon has been looking at retirement for a while now), this reads to me like a party that does not think they are going to have a good midterm.  There are other names at this point that I'm watching.  Sen. Joni Ernst, coming off of her Grim Reaper tour, looks like a possible option to retire, but given that Tillis came largely out of nowhere, there are other names that would be worth mentioning.  I was trying to think of the candidates who, like Tillis & Bacon, would hurt the Republicans the most (at this point I kind of think Dems would prefer to face Ernst).  Obviously the #1 is Susan Collins, which would be a hosanna-in-the-heavens moment for the DSCC (even though a lot of Democrats, like me, would prefer to see her go down in an election rather than picking this seat up thanks to a retirement if only for the catharsis), but people like Sen. Dan Sullivan & Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick retiring would dramatically upend their races, particularly with Trump looking bored and like he wants to get involved in the minutia of primaries with loyalists in seats that might not hold them.  But I do feel like the dam is bursting, and the Republicans aren't liking what they're headed into come 2026.

What Zohran Mamdani Means for Democrats

State Rep. Zohran Mandai (D-NY)

There's a lot of politics in the United States, and I will be honest-I am only one man.  So while I don't feel the need (after going into a more relaxed environment with the blog last year) to cover everything political on this blog, when I do cover it, it's generally something related to either federal politics or a governor's race.  Therefore, I wasn't planning on weighing in on the New York mayoral election, though it wasn't for lack of interest.  I used to live in New York (my district, for the curious, went to Cuomo because I lived in the central Bronx), and so it's fun to watch election results for a community I actually know.  But given there are a lot of misconceptions going around, I wanted to clear up a few things (from my perspective) of what this does and does not mean for the upcoming midterms.

First, let's ground ourselves in what happened.  On Tuesday, Zohran Mamdani, a member of the New York State Assembly, decidedly beat former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the mayoral election.  Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, was an underdog for much of the race, as Cuomo had dominated polls since he entered the contest, and Mamdani was behind in virtually every poll save one headed into election day, though he clearly had the momentum.  New York election law is odd, and a primary win (though it affords Mamdani the position as frontrunner) doesn't preclude other candidates from running, and it appears that both Cuomo and incumbent Mayor Eric Adams will be in the race as independents when we have the general election later this year.

Mamdani's win upset the powers-that-be in New York politics distinctly.  Cuomo, despite having a host of sexual harassment claims against him, was endorsed by major Democratic Party hitters like former President Bill Clinton and Rep. Jim Clyburn, and has been a giant in Democratic politics for decades.  Mamdani winning puts major Democrats in the state (including Gov. Kathy Hochul, Senators Chuck Schumer & Kirsten Gillibrand, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries) in the awkward position of either endorsing their party's nominee (i.e. a Democratic Socialist) or bucking the primary voters in the largest city in their state (i.e. their base).  Given the three statewide figures are facing primary challenges (or likely primary challenges), this is a position none of them wanted to be in, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were all secretly hoping for Cuomo or a third candidate to upset.

First off, I want to be clear-these four need to endorse Mamdani.  Former DNC Vice Chair David Hogg (whom we've discussed before on this blog) is not someone I agree with often when it comes to the state of the Democratic Party, but his tweet "tell them what they've always told us-vote blue no matter what" rings well here.  New York City is a very blue city, and Mamdani is the Democratic nominee.  This isn't a case where we nominated someone with criminal allegations (like, say, Eric Adams) or sexual misconduct accusations (like, say, Andrew Cuomo).  Mamdani by all accounts is a very left-leaning but still palatable in this jurisdiction nominee, much like the Squad in their districts.  You don't get to spend years lecturing the left "vote for the moderate because it's the only way to stop the Republicans" and then when the left nominates one of their own in a jurisdiction that they can totally win, you start getting hypocritical by not backing their candidate.  I'm not asking for Democrats in other districts like Laura Gillen to get behind him (she's not a New York City-based House member, and is also from a somewhat vulnerable district), but Schumer/Hochul/Jeffries/Gillibrand need to get behind him, or they deserve the consequences that come next (i.e. primary challenges and threats to boycott their party).  If they can't, they shouldn't be in the leadership positions they are in.  So far, none have heeded that call (and Gillibrand has made some verbal slips that border on racist), but they're going to have to before November or they're going to be in trouble in their upcoming elections.

That being said, I don't think that Mamdani is, on the surface, the "future of the party" or this is a harbinger of things to come in 2026.  For starters, he still needs to win-polls show him with a lead over Adams & Cuomo in a three-way race (there is also a Republican, Curtis Sliwa, who will take support from Adams/Cuomo and could play spoiler here), but it's not insurmountable and it's possible that 1-2 of these three men will drop out and endorse the other to improve their collective chances.  But even if he does win, Gracie Mansion is hardly a good launchpad for national politics in recent years.  Mike Bloomberg, Bill de Blasio, John Lindsay, & Rudy Giuliani all mounted presidential campaigns from the post...all of them ended in embarrassment and defeat in the primaries.  Being mayor of a major city is a somewhat thankless job, and requires you to take positions that are at odds with how a mostly suburban nation lives-it's why being a governor or a senator is a better place to start a presidential campaign.  Mamdani in a lot of ways resembles the rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-he's charming, from the far left but able to relate to mainstream audiences, young, and very attractive.  I would definitely assume he has a future in the party, but he needs to win & govern before we start assuming he's a name to remember for a future gubernatorial or senatorial campaign (Mamdani, unlike AOC, is not a naturally-born citizen so he can't run for President).

And we also need to stop assuming he is a sign of things to come in 2026.  Just days before Mamdani won this race, across the river in New Jersey, their Democratic Party had nominated establishment candidate Mikie Sherrill, and in Virginia they nominated former Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, another left-of-middle Democrat far more in the mold of Gillibrand than Mamdani.  Mamdani's campaign was impressive, and shouldn't be dismissed...but he was up against a uniquely awful option in Cuomo.  The biggest mistake the establishment made here is picking a well-known but uniquely terrible candidate when going with someone like Adrienne Adams (not as famous, but local and scandal-free) would've been far smarter & might've resulted in Mamdani not being able to catch fire.  This will be difficult to duplicate in other places in 2026-there are few candidates as reviled as Cuomo, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a lot of challengers as talented as Mamdani.  I do think there are spots on the map next year where incumbents could be vulnerable (already there's a movement to take out Shri Thanedar, and again if you've read this blog for a while you'll know that I'll be fulling back that), but so far Mamdani's win feels like a unicorn situation, and not a predictor of a Democratic Tea Party in the making...though the delayed & embarrassing reactions of Gillibrand, Schumer, Jeffries, & Hochul are not helping the establishment's cause to stave off such a movement given the excitement on the left over Mamdani's win.

My 1981 Oscar Ballot

We have officially let Oscar have his say, but now it's time for me to have mine.  In April, we looked at all of the Oscar nominees for the 1981 Oscars (aka the 54th Academy Awards), but while the Oscar Viewing Project is focused on what I would've picked with Oscar, we always add on a coda of the My Ballot Awards, where I make a list of whom I would've selected as my winners and nominees from the years of all eligible films.  

Coming off of the high of 1957 (links to all past My Ballot Awards are at the bottom, and you'll see that while we have finished off all of the 21st Century, we're enjoying being a bit more sporadic in the 20th Century...next up after this we'll be in the 40's), I will admit that 1981 was a bit of a letdown.  Though I do like all of the pictures nominated in my Best Picture field, in 1957 I was cutting movies that I genuinely loved to make sure I got the strongest Top 10 possible, while in 1981 I was actively adding new screenings to the list to try and pad out & see if there were some unidentified gems lying around (with a few exceptions there weren't and most of this was me discovering this was just not the year for me).  Still, you'll see a few of the hallmarks of my favorites (westerns, film noir, & epics abound), as well as the inclusion of a few names that so far have not shown up in an My Ballot before for the actors, as 1981 is one of those years bridging Classical Hollywood (Katharine Hepburn, John Gielgud) with a new generation of stars like Kathleen Turner & Harrison Ford.

As ever, a few notes before we star-I don't always copy Oscar verbatim.  This year didn't have a Best Scoring category (that was about to go the way of the dodo), but we plan on doing that from 1934 to 1984 (i.e. the full run of the category at the Oscars), so it's included here.  Makeup was new to the Oscars in 1981 (Hairstyling would be added later), but we include both, along with five nominees for both it and Visual Effects, and we will also have Sound Editing as a category this year (and a good lineup was pulled together, if I do say so myself).  With that said, let's begin!

Picture

Blow Out

Body Heat

The French Lieutenant's Woman

Heaven's Gate

Mephisto

Muddy River

On Golden Pond

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Reds

Thief

Gold: Only one of these movies is officially on my 100 Favorite Films list, and therefore it's an easy call for the top prize.  Raiders is just a magical adventure-completely filled with a 1950's popcorn film aesthetic, but with an elevated budget & effects, it's perhaps the best encapsulation of Spielberg's blockbuster side in one picture.

Silver: While Raiders is the only movie in my Top 100, Reds is just bubbling underneath.  Warren Beatty's best directorial effort, it is a romantic, sweeping epic, one filled with brilliant performances (just you wait for the acting prizes), and one that isn't afraid to take both politics and love seriously.  Truly special, and the kind of movie they simply don't make anymore.

Bronze: Finishing off the list is Body Heat, one of the last great neo-noirs before that subgenre would go out of fashion for most of the 1980's, with Kathleen Turner playing a sexy adulteress that no one can escape.  Chilling mystery...in the sweatiest movie imaginable.

Director

Warren Beatty, Reds

Michael Cimino, Heaven's Gate

Lawrence Kasden, Body Heat

Steven Spielberg, Raiders of the Lost Ark

Istvan Szabo, Mephisto

Gold: We're keeping the Raiders train going (I do not make any promises that's not the only train reference this article) with Steven Spielberg getting the prize.  I'm obsessed with the way he continually mines his childhood for elevated classics, proving that there is greatness even in the most seemingly disposable ideas (like the Saturday action-adventure matinees).

Silver: Speaking of movies about trains (see, I told you) we're giving second prize to Warren Beatty, the actor-turned-director-turned revolutionary in Reds, a completely marvelous piece of filmmaking, combining documentary style cuts with the fictionalized story of John Reed (far before that was a commonplace trope).

Bronze: Michael Cimino spent most of his life running from Heaven's Gate (a fate one of our Best Actress nominees also associated with her nominated movie), and I'm excited to give them both a reprieve for committed, fascinating work that the public couldn't appreciate at the time.  This is a movie that encapsulates the final chapter of the Classical Hollywood western...also it has a sequence with a train too.

Actor

Warren Beatty, Reds

Klaus Maria Brandaeur, Mephisto

Henry Fonda, On Golden Pond

Harrison Ford, Raiders of the Lost Ark

John Travolta, Blow Out

Gold: Warren Beatty is one of my favorite actors, and sometimes that's in spite of himself, as Beatty is a big actor, one who doesn't always allow his natural movie star charisma to flow.  It's rather appropriately vain (yes, this post is about him), then, that some of his best work is in a movie he himself directed, giving us the vibrant, ill-fated politics of John Reed with such tenacity.

Silver: Harrison Ford's turn in Raiders of the Lost Ark is his best stuff, a totally from scratch icon that feels filled with swagger, sex appeal, and just the right amount of hero to keep you cheering for him in every corner of the picture.  If this wasn't in a bottle (we decide all of these awards based totally on merit in the moment, and not if they won elsewhere), I'd give him the gold because I don't think he'll win somewhere else (Beatty probably will), but a silver for such a turn is hardly anything to scoff at (part of the reason I feel Oscar should be more judicious with his nominations, which I anticipate he'll still get 1-2 more of at least).

Bronze: Klaus Maria Brandaeur's work in Mephisto is two-pronged, as it's both giving you a performance of a man, one whose life onstage continues to echos his real life (and vice versa) while it's perpetually channelling the movie's ending in every chapter.  Really strong stuff in a fascinating picture.

Actress

Faye Dunaway, Mommie Dearest

Katharine Hepburn, On Golden Pond

Diane Keaton, Reds

Meryl Streep, The French Lieutenant's Woman

Kathleen Turner, Body Heat

Gold: Diane Keaton is not known for drama now (I honestly don't know what modern audiences would associate her onscreen persona with it's been so long since she was really good in a movie), but at one point she oscillated better than any actress in Hollywood between her Oscar-winning comedic chops in Annie Hall to her breathtaking, romantic leading woman work in something like Reds (for my money the best performance of 1981 in any category).

Silver: We're following her with maybe the second best performance in any category (in a relatively weak year, the three best lineups I assembled, imho, were Actress, Score, & Sound Mixing), that of Kathleen Turner as the sultry seductress in Body Heat, a movie she steals entirely as she announced (this was her big-screen break) that she was about to own the 1980's onscreen.

Bronze: Finishing it up we have another two-pronged bit of work, though more literally so than Brandauer's as Meryl Streep is playing two different women in The French Lieutenant's Woman, a movie she famously disliked but is one of my all-time favorite pieces of work from her, particularly her haunted onscreen harlot (hey, they said it first).

Supporting Actor

Paul Freeman, Raiders of the Lost Ark

John Gielgud, Arthur

Rolf Hoppe, Mephisto

Jack Nicholson, Reds

Mickey Rourke, Body Heat

Gold: Like Keaton, Jack Nicholson is so far away from our modern day interpretation of him in Reds that it almost feels like a cheat to give him the top prize for such a turn (this is no one's go-to reference, including mine, for the best Nicholson performance).  But what Nicholson does here, charismatic cruelty ("Poor Jack" "Poor Gene"..."You're a lying Irish whore from Portland")...it's barbaric, and it's sensational as he smolders through every moment.

Silver: Wit and timing, that's John Gielgud in most roles but who would've guessed that pairing him with Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli would result in his best work?  In a year where Oscar was giving out statues to senior citizens like tic tac's, it's Gielgud's sardonic butler who is the most satisfying, because of all of the work it's the most earned.

Bronze: Mickey Rourke's breakout in Body Heat (fun fact-he had a small cameo in Heaven's Gate so he's in two Best Picture nominees here) isn't much more than a cameo, so why can't I stop thinking about it?  He knows everything that happens, and because he's oozing sex appeal (just like Kathleen Turner) he's perhaps the only man in this movie with more than one brain cell.

Supporting Actress

Karen Allen, Raiders of the Lost Ark

Colleen Camp, They All Laughed

Madeline Kahn, The History of the World, Part 1

Maureen Stapleton, Reds

Shelley Winters, SOB

Gold: You think I'm going to give it to the entire Reds cast and not also hand it over to Maureen?  Oscar never did it, but I'm going to-a full four-picture acting sweep, as her Emma Goldman is one for the ages, filled with a verve and tenacity that would be the real life anarchist's trademark.  Stapleton such a rich actress, adds a texture of wisdom to this film about the naiveness of revolt.

Silver: Raiders trades off with Reds once again as I give my silver to Karen Allen, taking what easily could've been a girlfriend role (and would basically be just that in the next Indiana Jones picture), and gives us a heroine worth rooting for (and one that is both sexy and smitten with our Indy...just like we are with her).

Bronze: I have seen Clue more than I have any other movie, and I love every bit of it.  If you'd told me that Colleen Camp was capable of what she does in They All Laughed, though, I would've, well, guffawed with the rest of you (if you will).  Her fast-talking, man-chasing, ambitious country singer is the entire reason to see this movie, and she steals it from actors as diverse as Ben Gazzara, John Ritter, & screen legend Audrey Hepburn.  Bravo Yvette, bravo.

Adapted Screenplay

The Fox and the Hound

The French Lieutenant's Woman

Mephisto

On Golden Pond

Thief

Gold: One of the strangest lineups I think I've ever assembled (this is a weird list, right?), in a year with very few adapted screenplays it's beyond easy to declare Mephisto our champion.  Richly layered, borrowing from Cabaret but more so bringing it to startling, shocking reality, it gives us the tale of Faust over-and-over-and-over again...until even the audience wonders if they could fall for it.

Silver: As I said, I disagree with Streep both about her work and about the plot structure of The French Lieutenant's Woman, giving us two versions of John Fowles' novel, both informing the other, and giving us the paths of tragedy (and fate) with different final destinations.

Bronze: We're concluding this with the most quotable of these five movies ("you old poop" "you're my knight in shining armor"), On Golden Pond is one of those movies that it's so hard to separate myself from, it reminds me so badly of my grandparents (whom I miss more every year), but it's also fine even without an emotional attachment, a feel-good look at the complicated relationships that come from loving someone we didn't choose.

Original Screenplay

Blow Out

Body Heat

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Reds

Time Bandits

Gold: If you're keeping track, we're now 5-2 (this was the real Barbenheimer race for me) with Reds taking down Raiders once again with a lyrically stunning piece of writing (if you're going to put Eugene O'Neill as a character in your work, you need to come prepared for the lesson), endlessly quotable while still structured in an interesting way.

Silver: Coming behind it are the sexy come-on's of Body Heat.  Made very much in the vein of Double Indemnity and Out of the Past, complete with some ready-baked Dashiell Hammett-style rejoinders ("You aren't too smart, are you?...I like that in a man"), this is a truly witty piece of filmmaking between the steam heat of the premise.

Bronze: We'll finish with one more quotable bit of movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark.  You'd be forgiven for thinking the script isn't the best aspect of this, but that's like saying that Star Wars isn't script-driven...despite the fact that you can't stop saying lines while you're watching.  Really engaging fun.

Sound Mixing

Blow Out

Heaven's Gate

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Reds

Thief

Gold: Complete with John Williams' iconic score (we'll get there in a second), the sound work in Raiders is just beyond belief, dialogue shouted and whispered and such care put into making sure you know this is "elevated" beyond the Charlton Heston-style adventure pictures that inspired it.

Silver: Whenever a movie is about the craft that features it, I tend to be a sucker for its My Ballot placement (it's why I nominated Super 8 for makeup and The Dressmaker for Costume), and that's surely the case for Blow Out, a film whose early moments literally are about finding the right sound to put into the picture.  The care that we get with making this aurally perfect is maybe the movie's best stylistic choice?

Bronze: We're not far behind with Thief, though, a movie that starts off the template of Michael Mann movies having just impeccable auditory design, as the silences are so crisp to contrast the whirling saws and drills that title character James Caan brings to his craft.

Sound Editing

Blow Out

Dragonslayer

Excalibur

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Thief

Gold: We're sticking to the same three medalists (don't give me that look-I at least wasn't too AMPAS lazy with picking the same 4-5 nominees as both of my also-ran's are different in Mixing vs. Editing), and the gold stays the same.  The opening of the Arc of the Covenant and the rolling of the boulder at the beginning are incredibly memorable scenes that you could know just from the sound alone.

Silver: Thief's first image that you recall when you leave it is a sea of smoke and fire with churning drills & saws cutting through a gigantic vault.  It's rare that a movie is known for its sound work, but that's true of many of Mann's pictures, and here we get very specific stuff around what makes James Caan's style so special.

Bronze: Another scene that you can't deny is the one of John Travolta recording the car crash that sets the entire movie into motion, which we relive over and over with carefully constructed sound cues, understanding not just how important it is for the story...but how key it is to the authenticity of every picture.

Score

Chariots of Fire

Gallipoli

Heaven's Gate

On Golden Pond

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Gold: Not that there was ever any doubt we'd get there eventually, but after 15 My Ballot nominations, four of them silver (i.e. just barely missing), we finally get John Williams his first outright win for this project, as there is no denying the caliber and iconography of those blasting trumpets.

Silver: The only mention in this entire article of the movie that would win Best Picture from Oscar (which I just found to be fine), I'm not stupid-I know that Chariots of Fire deserves mention here, and in most years would've deserved a win.  That combination of classic (a piano) with the modern (a synthesizer) feels at home for a movie about defying convention and what we thought was possible.

Bronze: Okay, Best Score is the best lineup here (apologies to Sound & Actress), because again, in most years On Golden Pond would've been a threat for the win, and here it's barely getting on the medal stand (Gallipoli & Heaven's Gate are also really terrific too...pretty proud of this quintet).  I loved the way the film uses a melodic solo piano accompanied by the sounds of nature (i.e. the loons) to establish the familiar, but heartfelt places we'll go with this picture.

Scoring

The Fox and the Hound

The Great Muppet Caper

Pennies from Heaven

Gold: The musical was starting to die by the late-1960's, so by the 1980's it was basically six feet under.  As a result, you'd be smart to assume that in this era, they were turning their camera toward nostalgia to see if what was old was new again, which is what Pennies from Heaven does so well.  The musical numbers in this, particularly Christopher Walken tap-dancing to "Let's Misbehave" are showing that even if the musical was dead, love for it was still achievable.

Silver: Speaking of reaching back to Classical Hollywood, the vocal stylings of Pearl Bailey were the key to The Fox and the Hound, the rare hit for Disney in the 1970's and 80's before a singing mermaid would rescue the studio from oblivion.  Bailey's warmth adds as a level of emotion to the picture.

Bronze: Though it's hardly as good as some of the other editions of the Muppet films, the score to The Great Muppet Caper is still filled with charming ditties, my favorite being the expositional "Hey a Movie!"

Original Song

"Best of Friends," The Fox and the Hound

"Endless Love," Endless Love

"For Your Eyes Only," For Your Eyes Only

"The Inquisition," History of the World, Part 1

"Kentucky Nights," They All Laughed

Gold: I already slipped in my reminder that this is written in a vacuum, so I should also throw in the second reminder I try to put in here-it's not a case where I have to love the movie if I'm nominating a terrific element of it in a tech category.  That's certainly the case with the perfectly-wonderful "Endless Love" from the truly dreadful Endless Love.  Great song, terrible movie, and a tune that finds a way to match the best of the picture.

Silver: Sheena Easton was a 1980's pop queen, so much so that she broke the rare James Bond threshold (at one point it was quite difficult to land for a Bond theme song), but she rightfully did as the smoky, smooth melodies of For Your Eyes Only is the best part of the movie.

Bronze: If you've ever cried at The Fox and the Hound, it's not just the story, but also the soulful, heartfelt pleading of Pearl Bailey's "Best of Friends" that gets you in love with it.  The way she proclaims "you're breaking all the rules," knowing what is to come.  That's acting through singing, and what elevates a great movie song to be essential-to-the-movie.

Art Direction

Escape from New York

Excalibur

Heaven's Gate

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Reds

Gold: The only one of the 12 matchups between Raiders and Reds in this article where neither of them end up winning the gold medal, and that's because of the incredible grandeur on display in Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate.  Bigger isn't always better, but this gives a sense of the West dying by making sure it feels like it truly came alive one last time, authentically and with cities seemingly sprung from the ground.

Silver: That said, I'm not totally past Raiders getting another victory here, as it comes in with the Silver.  The rock in the opening, of course, is the most important (as is some brilliant work with the trains and location scouting), but everything here feels like we're walking into a movie confident it will be immortalized into a theme park ride someday (meant as a compliment).

Bronze: We finish off with Escape from New York, a truly weird movie but one that plays with the Big Apple's iconography in fascinating perversions & twists.  Wholly unique, and a movie that deserves its cult following.

Cinematography

Blow Out

Body Heat

Heaven's Gate

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Reds

Gold: I've made a few jokes about the quality of 1981 as a whole, so I want to be very clear-when it comes to movie moments (of all time) you'd be hard-pressed to have one that feels as important to how my vision of the cinema is shaped quite like Diane Keaton walking down a train platform, looking for Warren Beatty, a camera confidently capturing love effervescing from her in the best scene in Reds (and one of the most romantic scenes I've ever seen in a movie).

Silver: Vilmos Zsigmond is responsible for some of the most beautiful onscreen imagery of the 1970's & 80's (he's nominated twice here, as he also did Blow Out), but the way that he captures the realistic majesty of the Old West in Heaven's Gate is jaw-dropping...see this on the biggest screen you can find.

Bronze: Speaking of movie moments that define me, Harrison Ford replacing that idol and running from a boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark is basically shorthand for modern cinema it's so iconic, but it also precedes a picture that is teaming with confident looks at landscapes and well-lit movie sets.

Costume

Body Heat

Excalibur

Heaven's Gate

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Reds

Gold: Sometimes a movie character can be summed up in one outfit.  Though they're borrowing a bit from Secret of the Incas (every person should see this movie not because it's good but because you kind of won't believe how similar to Raiders it is...seriously-add it to your Letterboxd list) in terms of Indy's main look, the movie itself is filled with wonderful touches, and of course, you can't beat that weather-beaten fedora.

Silver: I love when a character is telegraphed through their costume choices (a good costume designer is the best thing a screenwriter can ask for), and that's true through pretty much every person in Excalibur, including the sexualized beauty of Helen Mirren's Morgan le Fey or the creepy modernity of Nicol Williamson's Merlin.

Bronze: Beauty and extravagance are key to great costume work, but so is authenticity and character design.  Look at the way that Diane Keaton's Louise changes her style as the film progresses to match her politics, or the sea of breezy white linen that she, Nicholson, & Beatty wear to contrast the beautiful beach scenes (giving us even more visual beauty in Reds).

Film Editing

Body Heat

Mephisto

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Reds

Thief

Gold: Our final matchup between Reds and Raiders will end in a draw as Raiders makes it 6-6 (if you want a tie-breaker, Raiders both won Best Picture and took 2 gold medals to Reds' one in the categories they were pitted against each other, so it should take the victor's circle).  The action scenes at the beginning and end of this are what do it.  The boulder chasing scene, in particular, is a textbook definition of great editing (you see it from four angles to underscore immediately what Ford is up against). 

Silver: Reds, despite its length (i.e. "what's edited?") comes in next, and a lot of that isn't just in the way that we see the romance play out in true long-form fashion so you're invested by the end, but also in the way that it achieves its realism through the then-unique documentary-style touches that Beatty's picture utilizes.

Bronze: The way that the tension unpacks in Thief again shows just how confident Michael Mann was as a filmmaker from the beginning, his movie giving us not just character work from Caan & Weld, but also keeps the audience invested in the act of the thefts that are the centerpiece of the story (even while much of it is being talked about more than seen).

Makeup & Hairstyling

An American Werewolf in London

Clash of the Titans

The Evil Dead

Excalibur

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Gold: The premiere year of this category for Oscar (we'll do it for the entirety of the project as movies have had makeup since the beginning), the Academy got it exactly right, and with a horror movie to boot!  An American Werewolf in London is a combination of creepy makeup effects, hyper-realistic terror, and just a touch of sex appeal to keep you on your toes.

Silver: The Evil Dead hardly has any sex appeal (we'll leave that for the bronze medalist), but it's very much playing with the concept of creepy makeup as it moves about the (literal) cabin.  I am not always into the over-stylized looks of Sam Raimi, but I cannot deny it when he does it well, and this is genuinely terrifying demonic possession, aided in large part by the grotesquerie of the makeup.

Bronze: Unlike Oscar, I always make a point of showing that you can make movie stars beautiful and still achieve impressive makeup and hair work.  That's certainly true in Excalibur, where Helen Mirren's high ponytail and overly dramatic eyes are just one example of the film using desire in all of its looks to give us the lust that consumes a tale that's centered around literature's most famous adultery.

Visual Effects

An American Werewolf in London

Dragonslayer

Excalibur

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Superman II

Gold: Everything comes together perfectly in Raiders of the Lost Ark, from the incredible face-melting makeup to the miniature work & practical effects (especially during the gigantic opening rolling rock sequence).  Spielberg was as inevitable in this category once as James Cameron, and with good reason.

Silver: Sometimes effects are truly grand, unstoppable but housed in movies that don't really deserve something that impressive (looking at you, Transformers movies).  Other times they are subtler, like the glowing green hues and impressive wizardry on display in Excalibur, a marvelous example of using a budget for all it's worth to advance your tale.

Bronze: Finishing off our 1981 is Dragonslayer, a movie whose entire story lives and dies off of whether the audience is enraptured by the titular beast.  The special effects team ensures it is, using then-cutting edge computer technology combined with puppetry and gigantic set pieces to make a creature not just real, but full of characteristics to distinguish itself.

Other My Oscar Ballots: 1931, 1957, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024

Why Democrats Should Take (Another) Chance on Christina Bohannan

State Rep. Christina Bohannan (D-IA)

This past week, former State Rep. Christina Bohannan (D-IA) announced that she was running for Congress in Iowa.  This isn't entirely surprising.  Bohannan lost her race in Iowa in 2024 against Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks by less than 1000-votes, a blindingly tight margin given that Donald Trump was winning the race by 8-points that night in a blowout in Iowa over Kamala Harris.  But Bohannan also lost the 2022 race against Miller-Meeks, again by a very close margin against a sitting incumbent...but a loss nonetheless.  This means that she will be seeking a run for Congress after two losses, something that if you read my blog you know I do not typically support (I am very much a "fool me twice, shame on you...fool me thrice, shame on me" strategist when it comes to campaigns).  But with Bohannan, I am making an exception to the rule, and I wanted to talk about why, and also the history of the current House and why Bohannan is running an uphill battle (even though it's one I think she'll win).

Running for Congress once and losing, and then running a second race and winning is pretty common.  Of the 432 current members of the US House, 16% of them followed this path.  This includes people like Young Kim, Steven Horsford, & Pete Sessions, who all ran for Congress as incumbents, lost, and then ran again (something that Rep. Yadira Caraveo is attempting next year, something we talked about here).  It also includes people like Roger Williams, Michael Baumgartner, & Troy Downing, who ran for the Senate but didn't win before then seeking a seat in the US House.  But the point is-this is pretty common, and we're likely to see a number of people trying this this cycle, some of them successfully.

But what Bohannan is attempting is much, much rarer.  While 69 members have come in with one previous congressional loss, only 9 have done so with two previous congressional losses.  Most of these have something unusual about them.  Nick Begich ran in a special election and a general election before winning (so not really the same as Bohannan in that there was a special election involved), while John James lost two Senate races, not two races for the same House seat.  Ryan MacKenzie never actually made it to the ballot in either of his two runs for the House before pulling off a victory in 2024.  Ro Khanna, Jeff Crank, Adriano Espaillat, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, & David Schweikert had at least one of their losses come from primaries, so they didn't get as high-profile of a loss in a general election.  The only current member who lost two congressional races as a general election candidate and won on their third try is Mark Takano, who lost two races to Rep. Ken Calvert in 1992 & 1994, and then in 2012 staged a comeback bid and won a House race in a redrawn district.

It's worth noting, even with the current Congress, that Bohannan could conceivably lose three races, and still end up in Congress, and not be alone.  Five current members won on their fourth try for Congress.  They include Mark Harris, Tom Kean, Jr., Ed Case (who like Kim, Horsford, & Sessions, did so as a previous member), Juan Vargas, &, well, Mariannette Miller-Meeks.  Yes, the woman that Bohannan tried to beat lost races for her swingy seat in 2008, 2010, & 2014 before finally getting a victory in 2020, winning that race by a staggeringly close 6 votes (not percentage points...votes).

So why do I support someone like Bohannan, while someone like, say, Rudy Salas (who is attempting the same thing in California this year) I am actively hoping we end up with a different candidate?  It's because Bohannan has consistently outperformed or matched her environment.  It's clear to me that in 2024, had Harris done even a little bit better nationally, Bohannan would've won even if Trump still won the seat.  In 2022, she outran expectations (and her party's gubernatorial nominee).  This is a candidate that has been dealt bad cards two cycles in a row, and either matched or (in 2024) dramatically exceeded those expectations.  Iowa is a tough environment for Democrats right now-there's no evidence that we have a better option lying around, and the party is putting up a strong slate with Rob Sand for Governor and either JD Scholten or Zach Wahls for the Senate.  In a stronger blue environment, Bohannan has what it takes to finally get a victory (if she assembled the kind of coalition she got in 2024, she'd win).  This is admittedly in a red-trending state, and her chances of holding this seat (against a stronger candidate than Miller-Meeks, an exceedingly weak incumbent) in 2028 means she'd start reelection as an underdog...but you fight one election at a time in politics & that is a problem for a different day.  In 2026...I think she's still a good bet despite two previous losses.

Thoughts on the Political Shootings in Minnesota

House Speaker Melissa Hortman (D-MN)

This morning, I was stunned to wake up to see my home state of Minnesota trending on social media, and was staggered when I clicked, and found out what had happened.  Last night, former Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, and sitting State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were shot & killed by an assassin, one who had earlier that night shot State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette, who are currently still hospitalized but reports show should survive.  Both Hortman and Hoffman are Democratic lawmakers in the closely-divided Minnesota state legislature, where they both provide(d) a key, majority-making or defining vote for the DFL in the legislative body.

This shook me, I won't lie, not just because it was a staggering act of violence, but because this quite literally was close-to-home for me.  Hoffman is my State Senator, and as I'd find out from the news reports this morning, lives about a 5-minute drive from my house (his neighborhood I've driven by pretty much every week for the past seven years).  I live on an incredibly quiet street, as quintessentially suburban as you can imagine (where the biggest crime you normally see is someone having their grass too high).  This is terrifying to know that it was happening so close to my home, and I say this as someone who has lived in relatively high crime areas in my twenties (I literally saw a police chase as I was walking home from buying Oreos when I lived in the Bronx).

When situations like this happen, there's a lot to process, and I will own that I''m still quite frankly in shock (it's not often you have to do the math on a location to understand if you or your friends are currently in a "shelter in place" order or not).  But inevitably with these sorts of situations, there's a lot of misinformation that circulates online until the facts of the situation become presentable (and then oftentimes conspiracy theorists abandon those).  The assassin, at least as of right now, is not in custody, but they do have a suspect whose name they have released to the press, and that it's clear that this was a targeted attack, as a manifesto in the suspect's vehicle contained not just Hortman & Hoffman's names, but also the names of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Senator Tina Smith, Rep. Ilhan Omar, and Attorney General Keith Ellison, all of whom are Democrats, and sources at ABC News seem to indicate that this might have some connection with the suspect's extremist views on abortion.

I'm not going to say more here as we don't know what else is true, and I don't want to spread misinformation, but I felt the need to talk about this today because it's on my mind, and so I want to address something that isn't necessarily misinformation, but perhaps is more so focused on lack-of-knowledge.  Earlier this week I complained on social media about the lack of press coverage of Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) being forcibly removed from a press conference being held by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.  I didn't talk about it this week here (because honestly my life has felt really messy, and I've been trying to wrap my head around it), but I was struck by how blasé the media was being, buying into the clear, total lie that Noem & her security guard didn't know who the senator was, and that he was a "threat" to her that needed such rough handling.  That the next day Padilla wasn't the top headline of the New York Times or Washington Post made me viscerally angry, another fascist moment from the Trump administration being dismissed as "just another day in the office."

So I want to talk here about, from a purely historical analysis, how rare what happened last night was, and why it should be treated as a big deal.  In a country desensitized to gun violence, it might be safe to assume what happened to Hortman & Hoffman last night is relatively common, and indeed some friends I talked to today assumed it was...but it's not.  Political assassination attempts in the United States are not common.  Recent attempts on the lives of Donald Trump, Paul Pelosi, Steve Scalise, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, & Gabby Giffords made the news because they were so incredibly uncommon.  Even in an America where violent crime is talked about repeatedly in the news (and outpaces all of the western world), it has to be said-this is just not something we typically see. even if you expand your conversation to assassination attempt.

Rep. Leo Ryan (left) meets President John Kennedy (right)
both eventual victims of political assassination

But in terms of successful assassination attempts, like those on Hortman, it's virtually unprecedented in modern time.  The last successful presidential assassination was in 1963 and the last successful assassination attempt on a member of Congress was either Leo Ryan in 1978 or Larry McDonald in 1983 (the strangeness of McDonald's death we discussed in this article if you want to understand why it has an asterisk next to it in terms of being a true assassination).  In fact, in the past 100 years, only one president and only 3-4 (give or take McDonald) sitting members of Congress have been assassinated, and absolutely no governors have.

Even when you go a step further into state legislators, it's very, very rare that a politician is assassinated.  In the past 100 years, despite tens of thousands of Americans having served as legislators, only six have been assassinated, including Hortman, and in the past 50 years, it's just three.  In addition to Hortman, you have Tommy Burks in 1998, who was a State Senator in Tennessee who was murdered by his opponent Byron Looper, who was trying to exploit a loophole in the state law that would allow him to win if his opponent died close to the election & that opponent couldn't be replaced (Looper ended up losing when Burks' widow Charlotte ran as a write-in candidate).  The remaining state legislator would be State Sen. Clementa Pinckney, who was killed by a white supremacist in 2015 during the Charleston Church Shooting.

That's it-just those three in the past 40 years.  Burks & Pinckney's deaths were national news.  Charlotte Burks received an across-the-aisle endorsement from Tennessee's Republican Gov. Don Sundquist in her write-in campaign, and President Obama gave the eulogy at Pinckney's funeral.  Given Hortman's position as a former House Speaker, she is arguably the highest-ranking person in American politics to be assassinated since Rep. Ryan in 1978, almost 50 years ago (i.e. older than the majority of most Americans).  Given the conversation about escalating violent rhetoric in this country, particularly if early suggestions were correct that this was a coordinated attack on a specific political party, I think it's important that this not be considered "just another day in modern American politics" given there is virtually no recent political history for what happened last night.

Jack Ciattarelli's Impossible Quest

State Rep. Jack Ciattarelli (R-NJ)

Last night in New Jersey, one of only two states holding gubernatorial races this year, both parties chose their nominees.  The Democrats in a deeply crowded field that featured the Mayors of Newark & Jersey City, a former Senate President, and two sitting members of Congress saw Rep. Mikie Sherrill win the nomination by a pretty sizable margin (votes are still being tabulated, but while it's not the point of this article it is downright embarrassing that Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a current member of the US House, got a distant 4th place in this race, even if it likely won't impact his chances at running for reelection next year).  On the Republican side, the GOP overwhelmingly chose former State Rep. Jack Ciattarelli, who came into the race with the endorsement of President Trump.

Ciattarelli might be a name that you know, and it's because this is his third time running for Governor of New Jersey.  In 2017, he ran against the establishment favorite (Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno) and despite Guadagno going in with virtually every advantage into the race, he held her below 50%.  This allowed him to run in 2021 as the Republican nominee (side note, and maybe a story for a different day, but I never put together that in 2021 Ciattarelli ran with longtime Republican moderate Diane Allen, a New Jersey GOP staple who, had they nominated her in 2002, likely could've pulled off an upset and made sure the Democrats didn't get the Senate majority in 2006), where Ciattarelli nearly beat Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy (D), losing by less than 3-points, in what was one of the worst electoral nights of Joe Biden's presidency for the Democrats (until 2024).

Ciattarelli is not a gadfly candidate, and Republicans are rightfully excited about his potential.  Unlike a lot of recent races (like what's going in Virginia right now), they didn't nominate someone totally toxic to moderate voters, and come off of a 2024 election where Donald Trump came within 6-points of beating Kamala Harris in the normally sapphire-blue Garden State, there is a sense of "is this a fluke or this a trend?" particularly given Sherrill has a congressional record that Ciattarelli can run against.

But I have some cold water to splash on the New Jersey GOP-this is not the cycle that Ciattarelli can pull this off.  I do think that he will do better than a more generic or conservative Republican would do, perhaps even getting the race closer than Winsome Earle-Sears does in Virginia.  Phil Murphy is deeply unpopular, and New Jersey does enjoy switching parties when they get a new governor.  But they care about national trends more.  Ciattarelli is one of those candidates who has largely matched the mood of the country-he has not (yet) proven to be a Laura Kelly/Andy Beshear/Susan Collins-style candidate who can outrun by almost godlike margins against his party.  In many ways he reminds me of Beto O'Rourke and Stacey Abrams-an impressive candidate, one who got very close in a cycle for him that was solid...but that doesn't have the juice if the national wind isn't already at his back.

Because let's face it-despite the country still being divided (inexplicably so) over Trump's views on immigration and democratic norms, wallets are pinched, 401k's are down, and people do not like the direction of the country.  When that happens, especially in an off-year election, they tend to rebel against the party in power, and that's particularly true for New Jersey.  While Democratic gubernatorial candidates have won with Democrats in the White House (Murphy did so in 2021), Republicans haven't.  In the past 40 years, the only two Republican Governors of New Jersey (Christie Todd Whitman & Chris Christie) were both elected in the wake of a Democratic presidential victory.  Without that, no matter what Ciattarelli does...you're going to have Governor Sherrill.

My 1957 Oscar Ballot

All right, I let Oscar have his say, and now it's my turn.  I have officially seen all of the screenings that I wanted to before weighing in on 1957, including every narrative, feature-length Oscar-nominated movie, and am prepared to say what films I would pick to nominate for all of the Oscar categories.  I will own that this year took longer than I thought, because 1957 is one of the best years of movies I've encountered.  The Best Picture lineup here is incredible, filled with directors & genres that I love (Mysteries! Westerns! Epics! Oh My!), some of them hidden gems but many of them films that Oscar just couldn't realize at the time were genius.  As always, I haven't seen every film from 1957, so if there's a particular favorite of yours that I missed, don't hesitate to ask in the comments before you assume I just snubbed it!

A few notes before we start.  I do not intend to always copy Oscar verbatim.  You'll notice here that there are actually a few additional categories (like Makeup & Hairstyling) that Oscar didn't include until later (which is insane given how crucial makeup has always been at the movies), and I have larger lineups for things like Visual Effects than Oscar (which at this point in history is probably more of a "Special" effects situation given there's no CGI quite yet, so I'm counting stunt work, camera tricks, and practical effects here).  I also included the category of Dance Direction, which had a short-lived run in the 1930's as a category for Oscar, but I think is really interesting, so I'm going to include it for all of the run of Classical Hollywood (when musicals regularly featured dancing).  With that said, let's begin!

Picture

3:10 to Yuma

An Affair to Remember

The Bridge on the River Kwai

A Face in the Crowd

Nights of Cabiria

Paths of Glory

The Seventh Seal

White Nights

Wild Strawberries

Witness for the Prosecution

Gold: Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal is one of those movies that stays with you your whole life.  I saw it during college, and it changed how I look at cinema, it felt so breathlessly fresh & new despite being almost 50 years old at the time.  It gives you a sense of the unrest of death, the way that no matter when or how it happens, we aren't prepared for it, but know that no one can escape it.

Silver: David Lean's brilliant The Bridge on the River Kwai won the Best Picture Oscar, and though I didn't quite give it my top prize, it still is so fine that it ranks amongst the best decisions Oscar ever made in the category.  A look at the paranoia that comes from war (and the madness...MADNESS).

Bronze: Finishing off one of the finest lineups I've ever assembled for this prize (give or take 2007, I don't know that I've come up with a better Top 10 list) is A Face in the Crowd, Elia Kazan's prescient look at the way that celebrity can cover up the darkness in men's souls (and in their audience's).

Director

Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal

Federico Fellini, Nights of Cabiria

Elia Kazan, A Face in the Crowd

Stanley Kubrick, Paths of Glory

David Lean, The Bridge on the River Kwai

Gold: We're going to keep Bergman in the gold medal seat here (he nearly got a double citation for Wild Strawberries, as he was in sixth place for it), because it's one of the great achievements in the craft.  Many directors have tried to explain the meaning of life through their movies.  Bergman comes the closest to figuring it out.

Silver: David Lean is up there with Bergman as one of my all-time favorite directors (they'd both make a Top 10 list if I had one), and you see that with Bridge in the way he blends the epic scale of the movie with the quiet, desperate control of the performances he has that will all lead up to the title scene of the picture.

Bronze: Speaking of Top 10 all-time directors, Stanley Kubrick takes the bronze here with the definitive war-is-hell epic (give or take Apocalypse Now!), a haunting look at life in the trenches of World War I, and how it sucks the humanity out of its soldiers while bureaucrats shuffle papers.

Actor

Kirk Douglas, Paths of Glory

Henry Fonda, 12 Angry Men

Andy Griffith, A Face in the Crowd

Alec Guinness, The Bridge on the River Kwai

Charles Laughton, Witness for the Prosecution

Gold: Alec Guinness is known to a generation of filmgoers as Obi-Won Kenobi, a terrific performance that I will undoubtedly nominate when I get to 1977 at the end of this year.  But this...this is his finest hour as a haunted, by-the-books Colonel Nicholson who loses all sense of logic as he cannot escape a lifetime of duty.

Silver: For anyone who grew up watching him as Andy Taylor on his eponymous show, Andy Griffith is the most unlikely person imaginable to be playing a ruthless, power-hungry hillbilly given the platform of the world.  It's hard not to think of Donald Trump while watching the way that his cruelty becomes fodder for the masses.

Bronze: Kirk Douglas is not an actor I generally cite as one of my favorites, and indeed he's generally a mixed bag for me (at best) in his long run during Classical Hollywood.  So color me surprised (but delighted) that I will include him as a My Ballot medalist for the best work of his career in Paths of Glory, a fully-felt and realized anti-war achievement.

Actress

Marlene Dietrich, Witness for the Prosecution

Giuletta Masina, Nights of Cabiria

Deborah Kerr, An Affair to Remember

Anna Magnani, Wild is the Wind

Patricia Neal, A Face in the Crowd

Gold: The first time I saw Nights of Cabiria, I was in a second-run movie theater in Los Angeles, and remembered walking out, sunset behind me as I looked for my car, entranced by the things that Giuletta Masina had done in this movie, giving us a vibrant, singular title character that will always be with me.

Silver: Oh Marlene, I'm sorry I couldn't give you the top prize (and oh how wrong Oscar was to not even consider you), but the many chapters of her work (so layered) in Witness for the Prosecution would've won if Masina wasn't giving us a role most would fall before.

Bronze: All of which means that one of my personal favorite movies, one that I've probably seen more than any other mentioned on this list, just barely enters the medal conversation.  I love the chemistry that Deborah Kerr, so regal & kind, brings to her romance with Cary Grant.  The unapologetic romance of the movie's close only works because Kerr is so committed to the material.

Supporting Actor

Lee J. Cobb, 12 Angry Men

Bengt Ekerot, The Seventh Seal

Sessue Hayakawa, The Bridge on the River Kwai

George MacReady, Paths of Glory

Max von Sydow, The Seventh Seal

Gold: Sometimes it's hard to tell whether a performance is great or if the role is so crucial to the film you kind of have to love it.  Bengt Ekerot toes that line (and part of me wishes that I'd seen more of his work so I'd have faith I'm doing the right thing giving him the top prize over a really solid assembly), but a recent rewatch confirmed how much he understands the inevitable malice of his character...to the point it almost feels comical.

Silver: Behind him is Sessue Hayakawa, one of the great casting decisions of the 1950's (Hayakawa was the first Asian leading man of the 1930's before largely disappearing from Hollywood movies), playing the maddened villain of David Lean's epic (though of course the true villain, and even Hayakawa's Col. Saito falls to it, is war itself).

Bronze: Similar to Hayakawa, George Macready has to embody the villain in his role, but in a much less literal way.  Macready's performance is filled with indifference, and the way that he has escaped years of threats to his life, giving the attitude less of a war commander and more of a hostess planning a dinner party.

Supporting Actress

Ruby Dee, Edge of the City

Elsa Lanchester, Witness for the Prosecution

Una O'Connor, Witness for the Prosecution

Janis Paige, Silk Stockings

Kay Thompson, Funny Face

Gold: It's not often we get to see the benefits of a marital chemistry brought to life on the big-screen, but that's the case with Elsa Lanchester's performance in Witness for the Prosecution.  What could've been a silly part as Charles Laughton's private nurse feels crucial to understanding his character, the driving backbone of the picture.

Silver: It's not often you get the same movie getting the top two prizes, but Una O'Connor has spent a lifetime in movies stealing scenes (hell, we may have both of them back for Bride of Frankenstein in 1935).  She gives a memorable piece-of-work as a maid, devoted to her benefactress (but also angered by the inheritance she was cheated out of).

Bronze: The late, great Janis Paige steals all of Silk Stockings for herself (Cyd Charisse is just left in her wake).  The "Satin and Silk" number is the highlight, but she does delicious, sexy work as a picture star who wants to be taken seriously...but more so wants to have a good time.

Adapted Screenplay

The Bridge on the River Kwai

A Face in the Crowd

Paths of Glory

The Seventh Seal

Witness for the Prosecution

Gold: I am likely going to say this a few more times in 1957, but man is this a stacked category (for the record, original screenplay is not an all-timer lineup...but this is).  In picking the #1, I'm going to go with Paths of Glory.  I think it's the rare war film that gets most of its strength from the plotting and dialogue, which unfold a political message that the audience probably isn't anticipating, which gives it more punch.

Silver: Behind it is another story that you don't necessarily anticipate all of its turns.  A Face in the Crowd is a movie that we can see coming now, because we understand the corrupting influence of celebrity, but part of the reason we can see it is that movies like A Face in the Crowd blazed that trail before us...a truly formative screenplay.

Bronze: The Seventh Seal is more of a director's film than a writer's (even though they're the same person), but its complicated look at the Black Plague as metaphor for all of life's troubles (and all of mankind's folly) is smart, concentrated plotting from a man best known for giving us feeling over structure.

Original Screenplay

The Devil Strikes at Night

Forty Guns

Kanal

Nights of Cabiria

Wild Strawberries

Gold: The other Bergman picture is my choice for Original Screenplay.  Wild Strawberries is not about the universal nature of death, but instead about the way that our accomplishments become all that we have to stand upon, and what we give to our loved ones as memories of our time (whether we want to or not).

Silver: Nights of Cabiria is a movie that gives us raw, sometimes uncomfortable dialogue as we live life through a woman full of boundless passion...and men that want to suck it out of her.  The scene toward the end where she is begging the only man she's ever trusted for death is frightening, and gives us a sense of the beauty of what comes next.

Bronze: Largely forgotten today, The Devil Strikes at Night (a Best Foreign Language Film nominee that lost to Nights of Cabiria) is a strange amalgamation of genres (it is both a film noir and a look at the rise of fascism in one picture).  Its realism, and the way that it inspires the movie's cruel (and unusual ending) are really finely delivered.

Sound

3:10 to Yuma

The Bridge on the River Kwai

Funny Face

Paths of Glory

The Seventh Seal

Gold: The Bridge on the River Kwai...I say the name and you can hear the whistling & marching.  The movie's best moments are linked to sound-tension, music, conversational dialogue.  It is a film given the sound-laden trope of a war picture, but it gets the best results by escaping that cliche, using it as an addition rather than a crutch.

Silver: The Seventh Seal doesn't quite have the budget of Lean's epic, but it also makes use of sound work, from the dancing ending to the abrupt use of the score to drive what's to come, and how the audience must feel (even before the characters)...telegraphing I wouldn't normally enjoy except it gives us time to realize that no one can stop what's coming.

Bronze: Oscar always finds room for a musical here, but I don't...I need it to truly step up to the plate before I just give a musical one of my big five (if done correctly, you should never have a "default" nominee).  But Funny Face...that's a movie that earns it.  Think of the grandeur of the photo shoot montage-combining a bouncy score with a witty repartee between Astaire & Hepburn, and then a bouncy bit of sound effects all to lead to the movie's famous Nike of Somethrace sequence, when everything combines...and it's just magic.

Score

An Affair to Remember

The Bridge on the River Kwai

Forty Guns

Gates of Paris

The Seventh Seal

Gold: Getting back to that telegraphing, I just am in awe of the music of The Seventh Seal.  The film largely uses original music, which is insane as it feels plucked from a chorale concert at the height of the 11th Century, authenticity used for a movie with a modern message.

Silver: Technically the Colonel Bogey March is not eligible here, which is why it's not getting the Gold Medal, but that's the only thing holding back The Bridge on the River Kwai, a grand lesson from Malcolm Arnold in how to craft a big, distinctive composition that feels at once at home within the picture and forever in our memories, bringing us back.

Bronze: Using the title song to keep us linked, Hugo Friedhofer unveils a giant, romantic backdrop to An Affair to Remember, full of big swings & woodwinds, a full-scale romance for a movie that doesn't shy away from the melodrama that comes from burgeoning, first-time true love.

Scoring

Funny Face

Les Girls

The Pajama Game

Gold: This category differs from Best Score in that it is focusing on how musical songs are incorporated into the picture, with it feeling like it needs to be a plot point (it's not technically a "Best Musical" category but it's definitely where we'll favor it when it comes to the category because musicals are going to have a leg-up in how they handle songs since they are part of the plot, and that's true of all of my nominees in 1957).  The gold medalist here, the first time we've done this category in a My Ballot, is Funny Face, which doesn't have quite the same amount of musical numbers as some other contenders but gives us a new interpretation of Gershwin classics.

Silver: Following it is the the "put on a show" deliciousness of Les Girls, incorporating into a surprisingly plot heavy musical fun divergences like "Ladies in Waiting" there to keep you from guessing too much about how this will end up for Gene Kelly and his many dalliances.

Bronze: Finishing this off is the Broadway translation of The Pajama Game, never quite escaping its Shubert Alley roots, but you'd be hard-pressed to care as Carol Haney vamps it up in "Hernando's Hideaway" (the best translation, and the only one that doesn't feel like it's staged) or Doris Day falling desperately in love with "Hey There"...you'll be forgiven for thinking this is a better movie than it is.  

Original Song

"3:10 to Yuma," 3:10 to Yuma

"An Affair to Remember," An Affair to Remember

"All the Way," The Joker is Wild

"Gunfight at the OK Corral," Gunfight at the OK Corral

"Wild is the Wind," Wild is the Wind

Gold: I will own going into this year that I did not expect that Best Original Song would be a category where I'd be actively bartering with myself over 5-star songs that I have to cut, but this ended up being an all-timer lineup, to the point where I literally cut "Jailhouse Rock" (which was eligible) from my list.  The song that came out on top for me is Johnny Mathis's haunting overture "Wild is the Wind" which molds the struggling romance within that (very solid) picture.

Silver: Behind it we have Frank Sinatra singing one of his signatures, "All the Way" in another movie that in a lesser year would likely have gotten more notes on this list (it's very good, and has a strong performance from TMROJ favorite Mitzi Gaynor).  The song informs the really haunting, personal approach of this biopic.

Bronze: Finishing off this medal round is one of the two Frankie Laine western songs I cited here, "Gunfight at the OK Corral."  I'm picking this over "3:10 to Yuma" as I feel like it's a quintessential western song (maybe the quintessential western song), and also it's just so fun-I dare anyone to listen to this and not need to dive right into the movie that follows.

Dance Direction

Funny Face

Les Girls

Silk Stockings

Gold: One more music category, but this time it's clearer where the focus is (and, as expected, it's going to heavily favor musicals as they're the ones that generally have dance sequences).  Funny Face again wins here, and while the obvious reason is the elegant grace of Fred Astaire (the first of potentially many match-ups between he & Kelly as they fight over this My Ballot statue for years to come), the secret weapon is Kay Thompson, breathtaking (she nearly medal-ed for me, and is one of my favorite nominees I fought to include above), in a rare acting role after many years as an entertainer & writer.  

Silver: Gene Kelly's dancing gets the next position.  Les Girls doesn't have a lot of musical numbers, and Kelly himself only dances in a few of them, but when you have Kelly having a jazz-inspired ballet of sorts with Mitzi Gaynor (both dressed head-to-toe in skin tight black against a red-and-white stage set), the screen almost starts to steam it's so sexy.

Bronze: We're back to Astaire with Silk Stockings, not my favorite of his musicals, but you've got Astaire just showing off with things like his spats-and-tails take on rock-and-roll with "The Ritz Roll and Rock" and Cyd Charisse's impossible elegance extending into "It's a Chemical Raction."

Art Direction

Desk Set

Funny Face

Les Girls

Paths of Glory

White Nights

Gold: That red-and-white staged bar is just one of many reasons to marvel at the set design of Les Girls.  I particularly was smitten with the simple detailing in the title trio's apartment, filled with little splashes of color and clutter that you don't usually find in a Golden Age musical.

Silver: Outdoor design is also something that you don't generally get a lot of beauty for in Classical Hollywood pictures, but the way that we get a visually stunning, realistic trench in Paths of Glory is just one way that the movie inspires a different outlook on what you'd expect in a war picture of the era.

Bronze: You can see both the inspiration (movies like Port of Shadows that came before it), as well as movies like Don't Look Now and Querelle that would not be possible without it, but that doesn't take away from the enchanting loneliness that White Nights (aka Le Notti Bianche) achieves as we get lost in a succession of Italian nights with two desperate souls in a gorgeous, haunting Tuscan village.

Cinematography

3:10 to Yuma

Forty Guns

Nights of Cabiria

Paths of Glory

The Seventh Seal

Gold: There are a dozen movies that would've normally gotten mentioned here (so many pretty pictures), so every one of these movies are bringing their A-Game.  I'm going to give the top prize to Paths of Glory both because it's gorgeous, and because it uses the cinematography to tell the story, the wandering camera in long shot (Kirk Douglas's walk through a battle is unforgettable).

Silver: Behind it is the beautiful cathedral style approach of The Seventh Seal, a movie that uses somewhat closed sets to still insist on a sense of beauty & mystery.  Like Paths of Glory, its one image so ingrained in moviegoers' memories (the dancing on the hill) is just part of a continually impressive story.

Bronze: Has the west ever felt so isolating (and alive) than the gigantic widescreen scale of Forty Guns, a movie that you almost can feel the dust hitting your face during some of the horse chases.  At one point near the beginning the camera gives us a look from the vantage of a pair of frightened horses to instill that this is not just a typical late-stage western we're watching.

Costume Design

Funny Face

Les Girls

Raintree County

The Seventh Seal

Silk Stockings

Gold: Edith Head, on her first nomination for the My Ballot, already has secured a Gold Medal for her Givenchy-aided work in Funny Face.  I don't know that Audrey Hepburn has ever looked as glamorous as she does coming down the steps of the Louvre in a strapless scarlett gown...hell, I don't know if anyone has ever looked that glamorous in a movie.

Silver: Three times the fun for Orry Kelly in Les Girls, getting to do different riffs on what Kay Kendall, Taina Elg, & Mitzi Gaynor will do with matching outfits is a lot of the character-building fun in this movie.  Particularly love the giant chapeaus they have in black velvet dresses & white silk gloves in the title song (complete with crimson pumps to keep the sex appeal as high as you can get it).

Bronze: Cyd Charisse's elegant ballerina act with a see-through teddy lingerie (it's got the title name for a reason) is the best look, but this film is constantly throwing out fun stuff (even for the men...Astaire looks super dapper), and I love that it sees its leading ladies mile-long legs (Charisse & Paige) as an asset in the costume department.

Film Editing

The Bridge on the River Kwai

A Face in the Crowd

Paths of Glory

The Seventh Seal

Wild Strawberries

Gold: We're getting toward the end, and one last "all Best Picture" lineup (sometimes I get creative with Film Editing...apparently not in a year this tight).  The winner is our Best Picture winner, The Seventh Seal, which has tricky editing (it's not always clear what time we're in, or if we're in a time at all), but that it gets us where we need to go is a true achievement.

Silver: Behind it is the wartime struggles of Paths of Glory, a movie whose pacing is almost hidden, as you can't quite understand where it's going.  It makes key scenes at the end, like those of the prisoners scared of death, all the more potent because we've been lulled into this not realizing where we're about to be taken.

Bronze: The pacing of The Bridge on the River Kwai is easier to ascertain, but it still feels crucial as it's not picked up by all of the characters...the tension isn't in what's about to happen, but more so will they understand in time.

Makeup & Hairstyling

Funny Face

Kanal

Nights of Cabiria

Paths of Glory

Witness for the Prosecution

Gold: The gorgeous clown makeup Giuletta Masina dons in Nights of Cabiria, complete with an elegant pixie cut that doesn't read as chic so much as easy (very important to a character who aspires to glamour but can't actually achieve it) are some of the subtle touches brought to this beautiful work.

Silver: To say too much about the achievement in Witness for the Prosecution would be to ruin some of the best little bits of the picture, but let's just say it's transformative, and that the still-life beauty of Marlene Dietrich in her early scenes proves that she only got more devastating with age.

Bronze: While it's a mainstay in this category for modern movies, realistic or wartime makeup is not something I normally get to recognize for this category in the Golden Age.  But Kanal is made far from Hollywood (and is years ahead of its time), and the grungy sewer looks of this movie, as they try desperately to escape, adds to its haunting power.

Visual Effects

The Bridge on the River Kwai

The Incredible Shrinking Man

Jet Pilot

Paths of Glory

The Spirit of St. Louis

Gold: And for our final gold medal we're going to introduce a movie that we haven't mentioned once, The Incredible Shrinking Man, a movie about toxic masculinity before that was a phrase (the opening scene he spends demanding his wife get him a beer...and the movie that follows he literally becomes less of a man).  The special effects here, especially those involving him against the backdrop of live animals (you see actual cats & tarantulas in the picture) are some of the best I've seen in this era.

Silver: Though there are some war-time effects throughout, The Bridge on the River Kwai is getting this medal solely for one big bang at the end of the picture.  David Lean (who took a heavy hand in this sequence) had multiple cameras set up to see an actual bridge explode for the title scene, and what comes out of it is one of Hollywood's best finale climaxes.

Bronze: In a face-off of two aerial showcases for the bronze, I'm going to go with The Spirit of St. Louis over Jet Pilot, mostly because I like the retro charm and grace that it uses compared to the sleekness of Howard Hughes' final big production, but both are well-showing why the movies turn to the skies.

Other My Oscar Ballots: 1931, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024