All right, we have officially finished up the 2017 races, and with that, we're heading into the final leg of the season. For those that are new, I have already seen all of the films nominated in all of the narrative categories at the Oscars (you can see links to every race & more in-depth analysis at the bottom of the page), and in the past few weeks I have been going back, seeing a number of 2017 films that I'd never caught before (as a well as 1-2 rewatches) in hopes of completing the year. The Oscar Viewing Project is about seeing where I go with Oscar's choices, but this takes it a step further with my own nominees. With that said, here is whom I would've picked in all of the major Oscar categories in 2017 if I had been the Academy.
1945
Beach Rats
The Big Sick
Call Me By Your Name
Coco
Dunkirk
The Florida Project
God's Own Country
Jane
Lady Bird
Gold: Practically perfect, Call Me By Your Name is one of the great screen romances, a ticking clock love story that unfolds against the backdrop of one young man's first love, which only he doesn't understand is a fleeting moment in time.
Silver: Pixar has spent much of the past decade being "pretty good" so it's easy to forget that it can be "the best of the best" when it is firing on all cylinders. Coco is a gorgeous, moving musical that captures the wonder of childhood without forgoing the tenderness that you see in the picture as an adult.
Bronze: The other ticking clock gay romance of 2017, Francis Lee's God's Own Country is a character study duet between two splendid leads, but it's also a look into the strange dynamics of family, and how we must accept our loved one's as they are, or else we risk our relationships being false.
Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird)
Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name)
Francis Lee (God's Own Country)
Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk)
Ferenc Torok (1945)
Gold: Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name may not be the showiest of these nominees, but it's definitely the one that feels the most complete. Elio & Oliver are a specific tale, one that he doesn't feel the need to water down with a lot of side stories that go nowhere, and that focus makes the movie work.
Silver: Christopher Nolan does the exact opposite approach with a similar level of success (film is truly versatile). Here he enthralls the audience with a gorgeous, "you are there" look at war while making all of his characters anonymous. As I said earlier in this series, he makes them no one so that they can somehow be everyone.
Bronze: Guadagnino isn't the only man who employs a limited amount of time to maximum effect in this lineup. Ferenc Torok's wartime thriller shows the ways that we bear the grief of battle & the trauma of shame long after our actions have gone by & we feel we have escaped its consequences.
Timothee Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name)
Harris Dickinson (Beach Rats)
Armie Hammer (Call Me By Your Name)
Josh O'Connor (God's Own Country)
Alec Secarneau (God's Own Country)
Gold: Timothee Chalamet has become such a ubiquitous young star that you'd honestly be forgiven for forgetting he's a damned fine actor. But that's certainly the case with a movie as special as Call Me By Your Name, where he picks the opportunity to announce himself to movie audiences, here as a lovelorn young teenager first understanding his sexuality.
Silver: Artists are frequently complicated, and certainly I'm not one to advocate for Armie Hammer these days. But it's impossible to deny what he does here, his character trying to retreat away from the responsibility of domesticity expected of him, hoping & pleading for a different life before it's also gone for him.
Bronze: Like Chalamet, O'Connor took this young gay man & made a career out of it. Someone who cannot imagine anything better for himself than a few horny hookups in a bathroom stall suddenly encounters love & is in complete culture shock over it, O'Connor plays a man whose world is upended effortlessly (I love the little touches of adolescent adoration that sneak into his romance with Secarneau).
Brooklyn Prince (The Florida Project)
Florence Pugh (Lady Macbeth)
Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird)
Kristen Stewart (Personal Shopper)
Kate Winslet (Wonder Wheel)
Gold: The one really close race (for me) of the acting prizes in 2017 (the other three are blowouts), I'm just barely giving this to Ronan, whose Lady Bird is a totally unique creation, not only a perfect fit for the film, but also a different level of Ronan as a performer, proving she can take on the guise of a chameleon.
Silver: Millimeters behind her is Kate Winslet, whose faded beauty in Wonder Wheel is some of the best acting I've ever seen in a Woody Allen movie-she takes a theatrical character & just nails it within the confines of Allen's sometimes rickety script. That final scene-what an actress.
Bronze: If Ronan was hitting her peak & Winslet regaining it, Pugh was announcing her ascendancy in 2017. The future Oscar nominee & It Girl brings a vicious ambition to Lady Macbeth that feels, well, Shakespearean.
Timothee Chalamet (Lady Bird)
Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project)
Ian Hart (God's Own Country)
Lucas Hedges (Lady Bird)
Michael Stuhlbarg (Call Me By Your Name)
Gold: It isn't just the monologue. Michael Stuhlbarg has spent much of the movie getting to that point, gifting us with an observant, nerdy-but-naive father to Elio. But it's the monologue, one of the best in film history, that shows us how much he understands. In a few short moments Stuhlbarg gives us a lifetime of one character.
Silver: Willem Dafoe has spent much of his career playing villains or people on the edges of sanity. So imagine my surprise when the best performance of his career comes not from a villain, but a man stuck in shades of grey-a "good guy" who takes comfort in his actions not through morality, but through the inescapable prickliness of "it's what I was told to do."
Bronze: One of the most exciting young actors working (I gave him three nominations in a row), Lucas Hedges' best work might be his closeted gay teen in Lady Bird. Every scene he is moderating who he's supposed to be, with only having room to breathe in one fierce, heartbreaking hug.
Holly Hunter (The Big Sick)
Gemma Jones (God's Own Country)
Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread)
Laurie Metcalf (Lady Bird)
Octavia Spencer (The Shape of Water)
Gold: Laurie Metcalf has spent a lifetime playing the harried, frazzled moms & aunts that are the bread-and-butter of supporting work in sitcoms. Yet she never phones it in, and that's how you get a creation as complete as hers in Lady Bird, totally investing in this woman (look at the ways her interests are in plain sight even if Lady Bird couldn't identify them), & giving her a full portrait from the edges.
Silver: Lesley Manville also understands what being on the sidelines is like in Phantom Thread. The best performance in a well-acted film, Manville's Cyril is a woman who has survived not because she doesn't know where to point the daggers, but because she's smart enough to only play them when it's necessary.
Bronze: Holly Hunter is our third protagonist's female relative to medal, and again the surprise comes from the ways that we learn her backstory. This is a woman who was once just as headstrong & in-love as her daughter, and while time has tamed that, she shows that it's been stowed away, ready & waiting.
Call Me By Your Name
Lady Macbeth
The Lost City of Z
Wonder
Wonderstruck
Gold: In a relatively soft lineup (original is better than virtually all of these), my favorite screenplay of 2017 is decidedly James Ivory's Call Me By Your Name. Gorgeously dialogued ("I remember everything," "we go bankrupt by the age of thirty") and plotted, it meanders & lingers but never stays in the same place, the story always pushing you forward.
Silver: Riffing on Shakespeare as much as paying homage to him, Lady Macbeth feels like the tale this year that is the hardest to pin down. Where it's headed is in an obvious direction, but even as it happens, you can't help but be shocked by the way the story pushes you there.
Bronze: Multi-character stories, especially ones that are opaque about it, are a challenge for filmmakers, but you'd be forgiven to think that Wonder is effortless. A family film that feels too good for a descriptor that implies a pejorative, it's a testament to "all genres can have greatness."
1945
Coco
The Florida Project
God's Own Country
Lady Bird
Gold: Greta Gerwig's look into her own youth feels as if she had a time machine attached, it's so exact. It might be mildly narcissistic to pick this based on my own experience (Lady Bird & I are chronologically the same age), but with wry jokes ("it's the TITULAR role!"), it's a brilliant movie.
Silver: It's rare that I enter a movie knowing so little about it as 1945. It's equally rare that that becomes such a profound asset. A thriller, mystery & war film all rolled into one, every scene feels essential as we count down to the fates of a town enthralled in secrets.
Bronze: Sean Baker's magnum opus is a look at not just the wonder of youth, but also at the ways that we can approach the world differently based on what we know of it. Naturalistic dialogue helps, but it's more the story structure that makes Florida Project sing-just in the shadow of the Most Magical Place on Earth, we find that magic is in the eye of the beholder.
Coco
The Lego Batman Movie
Loving Vincent
Gold: Speaking of the most magical place on Earth...while most of the past decade Disney has outdone its kid brother Pixar, in 2017 Pixar gave the decade its best animated feature film. Coco is a perfect movie from the start, an array of color, music, & emotion, with a captivating family element so well-timed, it's honestly been the mold for pretty much every Disney-Pixar film since.
Silver: Considering the franchise appears to be over, it's a crying shame that the Lego movies didn't even merit one nomination in this field from Oscar. After all, if you can find a movie filled with as many clever jokes & cheeky visual humor as The Lego Batman Movie from 2017, it hasn't crossed my path.
Bronze: The story is mixed (we all know the tale of Van Gogh at this point), but the animation is of another world. I try to judge holistically for this category (story & voice acting deserve their place) but if we went solely on how pretty the film is, you'd be forgiven for choosing Loving Vincent even over Coco.
Baby Driver
Call Me By Your Name
Coco
Dunkirk
Get Out
Gold: One of the year's best sound scores, Baby Driver makes its sound work well (trying to find ways to combine its vibrant music with a principle character who is deaf is really sharp & worth the payoff), and of course the screeching cars give us a variety of places to listen.
Silver: One of the few places where Call Me By Your Name doesn't get a gold in this lineup, it's not for lack of trying. Another magnificent song score, coming in at the edges of this story along with babbling brooks, well-placed conversations...it never fails to impress.
Bronze: Few films accomplish the kind of specific aural cues that Get Out does. A horror film needs great sound, but even by that metric Peele's movie exceeds-look at the ways that we get a rustling of leaves or a clinking of a teacup, and how integral that becomes to the way the tale unfolds.
Baby Driver
Blade Runner 2049
Dunkirk
The Lost City of Z
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Gold: By land, air, or sea, Dunkirk delivers continually. There's a reason that people got nauseous the first time they watched this dialogue-scarce movie, and it's because the aural design throws you deep into the picture itself, making sure every corner of the human ear is explored.
Silver: Baby Driver does the best job of any 2017 movie of combining its mixing & editing to the point where you almost can't tell the difference. Still, only a fool wouldn't realize that the car chases, all with their own personalities (hell, every car comes with its own sound), adds dimension and shows why Baby loves the drive.
Bronze: Blade Runner 2049 is probably the most obvious choice in this lineup, but that doesn't mean it doesn't deserve its citation. A future world complete with robots and flying cars that feels cribbed from our own has enough nods to modern technology to underscore the realism that has made this franchise so powerful.
1945
Coco
Jane
Phantom Thread
Wonderstruck
Gold: Philip Glass' scores run the gamut from genius to, well, too much. Jane, though, with its found footage feel & the way that it almost suspends belief that these videos exist, need some personality behind the screen, and that's exactly what Glass gifts this marvelous documentary.
Silver: Jonny Greenwood is the best composer working today, and you see that in the unique, gliding creation he instills in Phantom Thread. I love the way that it feels dreamlike, so light & supple that you are almost tracing your hands over one of the movie's silk dresses.
Bronze: I sometimes feel that it's a bit of a cheat to pick a score to a musical for this award. After all, much of the power of the score finds its way from the genius song composers. But I can't deny Coco, which gives us a suite onto itself, and beautifully recalls each musical number in the picture.
"Mystery of Love" (Call Me By Your Name)
"Never Enough" (The Greatest Showman)
"Un Poco Loco" (Coco)
"Remember Me" (Coco)
"Visions of Gideon" (Call Me By Your Name)
Gold: "Visions of Gideon" is a perfect end credits song, mostly because it's not that. Playing as a memory, the song captures the beauty of the movie we'd seen before it, but also plays alongside Timothee Chalamet's weeping (but eventually comforted) face.
Silver: "Mystery of Love" doesn't get the grand moment that "Visions" does in the confines of the film, but it does, like all of Sufjan Stevens' score, capture the glory of romance, fleeting & ever-changing.
Bronze: The entire score to Coco could've made a worthy inclusion in this list, but if I only have one medal to give it (Sufjan won't be denied) I'll go with "Remember Me," which has two intriguing versions in the movie (the commercial & the felt), giving us a look at how different approaches can grant multiple perspectives (a message at the heart of Coco).
Blade Runner 2049
Coco
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
Wonderstruck
Gold: What I'm looking from most in a Production Design nominee is a set that feels lived-in but incites some sort of magic that helps the film. Few designs do that quite the same way as Wonderstruck, which brings us behind-the-scenes of the many museums that litter New York City's cultural landscape.
Silver: Building off of the 1982 landmark movie (and its spectacular visual design), Blade Runner 2049 does the extremely difficult task of feeling like an extension of both the original Ridley Scott picture and our current Apple-infused landscape...not an easy task when you consider the movie was 35 years of technology ago.
Bronze: Darkest Hour does a marvelous job of countering elegant drawing rooms with the claustrophobic offices (few films recall the London blitzes to come in the same way as cramped spaces), teaming with books, food, & equipment that make you feel immersed in this world fully
Beach Rats
Blade Runner 2049
Call Me By Your Name
Dunkirk
Wonder Wheel
Gold: One of the weirder things about Woody Allen's wilderness has been Vittorio Storaro, who has been basically making the most beautiful films of the past few years, totally knocking it out the park with the lustrous Coney Island in Wonder Wheel without anyone noticing.
Silver: Frequently feeling like it's lensed as if through a soft lens (you can practically touch the Rococo clouds on the screen), Call Me By Your Name uses every inch of sun-dappled Italy to invite you into this tale.
Bronze: Stunt cinematography can sometimes backfire, but when it's done well it can totally change your perspective. Look at the way that Dunkirk makes you feel like you're part of this tale, every ocean splash and overheating engine jumping off of the screen.
The Beguiled
The Lost City of Z
Phantom Thread
Victoria & Abdul
Wonderstruck
Gold: Having a technical aspect of your film be a critical component of your plot is a dangerous game. If you don't pull it off, you risk the entire movie falling apart. But when the gowns are as exquisite and genius as those found in Phantom Thread, it adds a whole dimension to the story
Silver: Of course Sandy Powell can pull off something as specific and from two different periods as Wonderstruck. A movie that bridges characters across decades, it gives us a look at classic & contemporary design with character-driven touches (that look great in color and black-and-white).
Bronze: This category, even for me, tends to favor period work more than it should. But it's hard to deny something like The Lost City of Z, which does a great job of aging & weathering pristine suits & jackets as our protagonists go further & further into the heart of the jungle.
1945
Baby Driver
Beach Rats
Call Me By Your Name
Dunkirk
Gold: The best trick in Call Me By Your Name is how the movie hides its run time. At more than two hours, most romances would struggle to not repeat themselves, but this movie paces perfectly so that you never stay anywhere long enough to feel full...which makes you crave more even as you sit for every moment of the credits
Silver: Dunkirk's action sequences are spectacular, and a lot of that has to to do with the rigorous editing. The people in the audience ready to vomit aren't doing so solely due to cinematography, but also because we are getting the exact right balance of escapist and can't escape.
Bronze: Moving through the city, we understand that 1945 is something special-we are given an overview of the town, at once too many characters to track, but edited so specifically that once you return to these people you'll never forget them.
Blade Runner 2049
Darkest Hour
Dunkirk
I, Tonya
Wonder Woman
Gold: Dolly Parton once wrote that she aspired to be a "Backwoods Barbie" to achieve a "country girl's idea of glam." That's what we want in I, Tonya, as the movie brings us overly-rouged Tonya as she aspires to the type of sophistication that she'll never reach. Combined with stellar recreations of famous people, I, Tonya delivers.
Silver: I'm all about pretty makeup with this category (you hire the world's most beautiful humans to be in the movie-why hide them under prosthetics?), and the Amazonian majesty that Wonder Woman brings to the big-screen is surely worthy of recognition.
Bronze: Realistic dirt, mud, blood, & tears bedeck the men of Dunkirk. In a movie that strives for practical effects & hyper-realism, having a makeup department that never falters is a key part of that adventure.
Blade Runner 2049
Dunkirk
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
War for the Planet of the Apes
Gold: A jaw-dropping update of its groundbreaking predecessor, Blade Runner 2049 uses modern technologies and preexisting production design to give us a world onto itself. Not only is this brimming with CGI that works, but it's also beautiful-movies are supposed to be eye-pleasing, and this is a case where more is also best.
Silver: Dunkirk combines practical effects with occasional CGI with incredible ease, underlining the realism and presence of Christopher Nolan's vision. The aerial battles, in particular, are incredible.
Bronze: All of Last Jedi is setting great new leaps in Lucasfilm and the franchise that basically invented modern special effects. But it's the Battle of Crait that truly breaks the mold, a gorgeous trail of red against the sandy, doomed landscape that is inarguably the best single effect in a 2017 movie.
Also in 2017: 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 Design, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2017
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