My 2018 Oscar Ballot

While we concluded our look at 2018 earlier this week (all links at the bottom of the article!), we have introduced this year a new feature (an epilogue, if you will) to our Oscar Viewing Project ballots, and that is the "My Official Ballot" feature.  Here, for 19 of the Oscar categories (I don't see enough of the Foreign Language Film contenders to fill this out in good faith), I pick all of the nominees I'd have in each category if I had had an Oscar ballot.  Please enjoy (this is a pretty big undertaking to write each time, but I know I enjoy it & I've heard you do too so I'm going to keep at it), and make sure to share your ballots in the comments!

Picture

Bad Times at the El Royale

Cold War

The Favourite

First Man

Free Solo

Hereditary

Lean on Pete

Love, Simon

The Other Side of the Wind

Roma

Gold: An absolutely gorgeous ode to cinema from start-to-finish, the jazzy Cold War pops with electricity, but perhaps more potently, with the necessity of time...the way we think of it as an unlimited resource until we finally understand the supply runs out.

Silver: We waited nearly fifty years for Orson Welles' final masterpiece to make it onto our screens (sadly not the big screens, as this was one of many films in 2018 that were seen mostly on our laptops), but it was worth the wait.  An extraordinary vision of a complicated director, from a man who knew a thing or two about that subject.

Bronze: Andrew Haigh continues a flawless cinematic track record with his gorgeously-felt Lean on Pete, a film that's at first about a boy & his horse, and then we soon learn it's about all of us, and the way we approach a changing America.

Director

Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (Free Solo)

Alfonso Cuaron (Roma)

Andrew Haigh (Lean on Pete)

Pawel Pawlikowski (Cold War)

Orson Welles (The Other Side of the Wind)

Gold: Pawel Pawlikowski's magnum opus happens largely because he's so willing to deny the audience more space.  The film was criticized by some for being too short, but I think that's where its genius flows.  Like many other films of this nature (Casablanca, Brief Encounter), it draws strength from knowing that there are only certain moments for us to spend with these characters before they're gone-make them count.

Silver: It's something of a cheat to include The Other Side of the Wind, partially because we don't know entirely how much of the end result lies in Orson Welles' capable hands, but it's not a film I'm going to skip here just because some of it is guided by unknown forces-it's just too good to deny.

Bronze: Alfonso Cuaron brings his whole self to Roma, a movie that feels plucked from the pages of his own youth, a personal tribute to his childhood that has the feeling of time gone by, and yet as fresh as if you were witnessing it this morning.

Actor

Ryan Gosling (First Man)

Lucas Hedges (Boy Erased)

John Huston (The Other Side of the Wind)

Tim Kalkhof (The Cakemaker)

Charlie Plummer (Lean on Pete)

Gold: With breakout performances, you should occasionally be forgiven for not being able to tell what is simply you getting to know a new personality & what is something that is raw talent.  Charlie Plummer's work in Lean on Pete feels more the latter though-he plays his boy lost with such commitment, you don't know where the line between actor & character begins.

Silver: Yes, in some ways he's simply mining the same well that he brought to immortality as Noah Cross, but if you're going to borrow from your own work, borrow from one of the greatest performances of all time.  John Huston's posthumous work here is a testament to the well-rounded artist (and actor!) that he was.

Bronze: Ryan Gosling could've done the biopic route, and probably gotten default hosannas without much work.  But his Neil Armstrong goes beyond that, becoming a man who is desperate for an absolution he cannot articulate.  Introverted characters can be a challenge, but Gosling doesn't let that deter him.

Actress

Toni Collette (Hereditary)

Olivia Colman (The Favourite)

Joanna Kulig (Cold War)

Emma Stone (The Favourite)

Rachel Weisz (The Favourite)

Gold: Of all of the women in The Favourite, I think Weisz does the best job & she does it with both the least screentime and the trickiest part.  We are meant to understand the other two characters at the outset, but her Sarah is an enigma-how much of what she presents is real, and how much an illusion?  Weisz knows how to hold back to keep you guessing.

Silver: Toni Collette has gotten her share of critical praise in the past few years, with cinephiles remembering her in a way awards bodies rarely do.  Nowhere is this juxtaposition more evident than her work in Hereditary, which was totally Oscar-worthy (damn genre bias), but will enjoy a long shelf life regardless of gold statues because she's that good.

Bronze: A tight race between the remaining three women (this is a ridiculously solid lineup), but I'm going to lean just a bit on Olivia Colman.  Her work as the Queen is such fun, but also Colman is a smart actress who can put in touches of doubt & privilege where the script is trying to mock.  She is the queen, after all.

Supporting Actor

Hugh Grant (Paddington 2)

Josh Hamilton (Eighth Grade)

Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther)

Alessandro Nivola (Disobedience)

Alex Wolff (Hereditary)

Gold: The Marvel Cinematic Universe is not known for its ability to craft compelling villains, but that doesn't mean they don't have some home runs in the cannon.  Michael B. Jordan's work as Killmonger is another in a succession of great performances, one that brings a moral justness that helps him rise above your typical "take over the world" villainy.

Silver: Disobedience is teaming with good performances, but none better than Nivola, who plays a man who is devoted to god, but who cannot understand the right path when his wife wants to leave him for another woman.  A longtime character actor getting a really plum part-you love to see it. 

Bronze: Josh Hamilton's big monologue in Eighth Grade, where he pleads with his daughter to understand how much his world revolves around her & how much it hurts to see her in a way that she doesn't see herself...it's bravura work & one of the best-acted scenes of 2018.

Supporting Actress

Ann Dowd (Hereditary)

Cynthia Erivo (Bad Times at the El Royale)

Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk)

Nicole Kidman (Boy Erased)

Lilli Palmer (The Other Side of the Wind)

Gold: Regina King is one of the best actresses in the business, and so it's a pleasure to know she won her Oscar for maybe her best-ever work (give or take The Leftovers).  What makes her turn in Beale Street so fascinating is the way she shows herself, her younger self, as she flees from the confines of being a mother for the first time in decades...and the way she secretly relishes it before returning to her story.

Silver: Cynthia Erivo got her Oscar nomination a year later for Harriet, but let's be honest-she's never been better onscreen than she was in Bad Times, totally investing in her failed lounge singer (with clear talent), and providing a delicious ensemble with its best character.

Bronze: Like Huston, it's hard to judge Palmer decades later outside of the confines of her career at the time.  But what you can't deny is that she's acing this performance, someone who knows our protagonist better than any, and someone who genuinely can speak freely of him because she's the one person in the movie who no longer needs him.  Impressive stuff from an under-sung actress.

Adapted Screenplay

American Animals

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

First Man

If Beale Street Could Talk

A Simple Favor

Gold: Nicole Holofcener's bitter look at loneliness and the ways that we handle it comes with great wit, something that never feels like we're shortchanging Lee Israel's story in Can You Ever Forgive Me?.

Silver: James Baldwin finally has his world translated to the screen in If Beale Street Could Talk, a story that feels like a memory, focusing on the biggest things first & occasionally letting the small moments linger in the background.

Bronze: Biopics rarely do well in the screenplay department, sticking to the boilerplate "memoir" template to get their tale across.  This isn't so for First Man, which unfolds like a kaleidoscope, us getting to see the complicated world of a man who wants to leave his pain behind.

Original Screenplay

Cold War

The Favourite

Hereditary

Lean on Pete

The Other Side of the Wind

Gold: There's so much into The Other Side of the Wind to unpack in a screenplay.  We have our main story, the film-within-the-film, and of course the true story of the film, the way that the movie parallels the lives of director Welles and star Huston in real life-it's a mesmerizing whirlwind of a tale, and brilliantly executed.

Silver: Sometimes screenplays are about plot, and indeed The Favourite has a succinct, well-presented plot.  But here it's about the crisp dialogue & words happening on the screen.  There's something so delicious in every line of nasty, brutal dialogue of this film that you can't help but be enamored by.

Bronze: A love story needs to have complications.  Cold War brings those complications, but they don't always appear as such while we're moving-the film's brevity, as I have mentioned often in these past ten weeks, is its genius, but that puts pressure on the writing to make every second count-that's what happens here.

Animated Feature Film

Isle of Dogs

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Teen Titans Go!: The Movie

Gold: In a relatively weak year for the format (as a reminder, this is the only category we only do three-wide because there aren't enough contenders in my opinion to do five), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse does something we didn't think was possible anymore-it makes the superhero genre feel fresh & young again.  Aided by beautiful, playful animation (and so many animation styles), it brings a vibrancy that a lot of other comic book franchises have lacked as the genre gets worn out.

Silver: I'm showing my fangirl nature here not only by going one-two with comic book movies, but by picking an extended episode of a TV show for silver, but it was a big-screen movie, and more importantly, Teen Titans Go is an hilarious, delicious TV show, and none of that allure is lost as they move to the big-screen.

Bronze: Isle of Dogs is beautiful, even more so than Anderson's last animated feature Fantastic Mr. Fox, making both piles of garbage & a fictionalized Tokyo feel like new splendors for the eye.  And while I had some problems with the plot, the cast is also so much fun here, my favorite moment being a scientist named Yoko Ono...being played by the Yoko Ono.

Sound Mixing

Bad Times at the El Royale

Cold War

First Man

Hereditary

Roma

Gold: I mean, it's hard to pick anything other than Roma to take this prize, right?  The sound work in this movie feels authentic & raw, as if it's organically happening and Cuaron is just picking it up via a camera.  It's rare sound feels like a film's best quality, but honestly-that's what happens here.

Silver: A jazzy interlude, played beautifully throughout the film, Cold War takes all of the best parts of noir (a dangerous woman, a score that hints at what's to come) and turns it up to eleven.  I particularly loved the juxtaposition of the different musical stylings the two leads endure as their romance continues.

Bronze: First Man is that rare effects film that never sacrifices the dialogue.  There's no moments of Christopher Nolan-esque dismissal of the screenplay, but instead explosions don't deter us from knowing what the actors are saying.  Combined with an iconic score, this is a well-delivered space epic.

Sound Editing

Bad Times at the El Royale

First Man

Hereditary

Mission Impossible: Fallout

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Gold: The entire moon-landing sequence of First Man is an aural symphony.  The way that the film makes it feel real-time, as if we're actually witnessing these historic first steps for mankind...it say something about how good this movie is that the score never even feels like a distraction.

Silver: Similar to the moon landing, Spider-Man gets a lot of its credit here for the giant whirling vortex that Kingpin brings with him to the film's climax.  That said, there's no part of this movie that is phoning it in-the film has the rich soundscape of an independent animated film while presenting as a blockbuster, a difficult task to achieve.

Bronze: Bad Times at the El Royale sounds amazing.  There's the giant shootouts toward the end of the movie, but the movie is more than that-there's specificity in the way that certain crushing dirt and clicking record players heighten the tension, while still feeling at home with the larger music component of the picture.

Original Score

Bad Times at the El Royale

BlacKkKlansman

First Man

If Beale Street Could Talk

Puzzle

Gold: Two years after Nicholas Britell created magic for Barry Jenkins in Moonlight, he is bringing a totally different (but completely genius) siren's call to If Beale Street Could Talk.  It's hard to make a film score so specific that you proclaim "that's Beale Street" but Britell does that from the opening notes.

Silver: Justin Hurwitz's use of a theremin could have felt gimmicky in lesser hands.  After all, a theremin recalls the cheesy space films of the 1950's, not prestige fare like First Man.  But done as a subtle lullaby, this opus feels totally at-home and distinctive to the moon walk experience.

Bronze: The most traditional score of these five would be Bad Times at the El Royale, which has the difficult task of not only feeling strong (which it is), but also to stand up to a large musical quotient in the movie (there's a lot of soundtrack here).  Michael Giacchino finds that balance, and gets us another success.

Original Song

"All the Stars," (Black Panther)

"Maybe It's Time," (A Star is Born)

"The Place Where Lost Things Go," (Mary Poppins Returns)

"Revelation," (Boy Erased)

"Shallow," (A Star is Born)

Gold: Lady Gaga could've just phoned in her musical work on A Star is Born and gotten an Oscar (the Academy likes giving this to musical icons), but she didn't.  "Shallow" stands among her best music, a total triumph at a crucial moment in the picture.

Silver: I am going one-two on A Star is Born here, as "Maybe It's Time" is the other song that feels at-home, a lived-in song from a singer who's been famous so long that he knows exactly what music will sell to his audience.  Easy, soft, & quick-with-the-hooks.

Bronze: Gaga wasn't the only songwriter starring in their movies in 2018.  Troye Sivan took a soulful approach with "Revelation," accompanying his performance as a young gay man trying to make it through a conversion therapy camp.

Art Direction

Black Panther

The Favourite

First Man

Roma

Shoplifters

Gold: Roma does a great job of creating story through detailing, particularly in the production design.  Look at the ways we see rows & rows of clothing racks in the department store (giving us a better sense of how gargantuan the riots are)-it's a film that feels like it was actually shot in the 1970's, not relying on CGI to fill in all of the gaps.

Silver: Possibly the best of the recent "prestige space epics," in terms of production design, First Man uses the moon-landing to create realistic sets & attention-to-detail (it feels like we're actually in these rockets) to keep us fully vested in a story where we already know the ending.

Bronze: The most "Oscar-bait" of these five contenders, The Favourite uses the grandeur of the giant bookshelves and lush drawing rooms not just to underscore how ridiculous these people's lives are (and out-of-touch), but to also underline how trapped this world is, and the desperate need to stay in command of it.

Cinematography

Cold War

First Man

Free Solo

Roma

We the Animals

Gold: Roma's an embarrassment of riches for this category, let's be real (it's hard for four very good contenders to compete in such a way).  Cuaron's camera is less interested in the story and more in giving you a sense of this world, drawing you in as if you're in a virtual reality-it's a beautiful mood picture.

Silver: The other black-and-white epic of 2018, Cold War is less about mood and more about the passage-of-time.  The camera lingers on moments between our lovers, less being about us getting into their world and more about them finding a way to underline the fleeting nature of time.  Nothing lasts forever...

Bronze: In what I believe is a first, I'm giving a nomination for Best Cinematography to a documentary in 2018.  Free Solo earns this through not just sheer jaw-dropping technical prowess (the cameramen not only have to film the climb, but they also have to do so without, you know, killing the star), but also by keeping you at the edge of your seat as you barely breathe through the picture.

Costume

Black Panther

Cold War

Crazy Rich Asians

The Favourite

A Simple Favor

Gold: No modern filmmaker is better at her job than Sandy Powell.  In The Favourite, Powell does something incredible.  Sticking with primarily white, blue, & black, she gives us something that feels at-once of-the-period and totally unique to The Favourite, just enough gaudy flourishes to be like "that's The Favourite" even in a cinematic universe brimming with period costumes.

Silver: Contemporary design is so overlooked at the Oscars, it doesn't even feel like a snub when something like A Simple Favor gets tossed out.  And yet, this is a genius bit of costume-designing.  Look at the way that pretty much everything that Blake Lively wears feels totally in-character, which is tricky considering the many layers to who she is.

Bronze: Another contemporary gem is Crazy Rich Asians.  Honestly-there are only so many ways you have the clothes scream "I'm rich" without feeling redundant, and yet the movie never feels phoned-in or like we're not seeing consistency in the characters (also, hats off for giving the men something sexy to wear and not just the ladies).

Film Editing

Cold War

First Man

Free Solo

The Other Side of the Wind

Roma

Gold: This is possibly the best lineup for Film Editing we've done for a My Ballot (it's my favorite category in this list, and I've never said that before), but even so-editing together the work of a nearly fifty-year-old film when virtually all involved are dead?  The Other Side of the Wind making any sense at all, much less being genius, is in a class by itself.

Silver: One last mention of it, but the time shifts in Cold War in a ticking-clock romance are totally at the mercy of the editing.  If you were to feel cheated by the story not having enough weight, that would have been the result in the editing room.  That you don't, that it feels just right...that's why it's cited here.

Bronze: Free Solo is a movie that tells you the tale of a man without needing to underline it, and so I don't want to undersell the interview portions of the picture.  But come on-the way you are clawing into your chair as Alex scales this mountain-it's impossible to look away.

Makeup & Hairstyling

American Animals

Black Panther

Border

The Favourite

The House with a Clock in the Walls

Gold: Prosthetics are not the gold-standard in movies, let's never forget that...makeup should serve the story, for the good or the grand.  That's why I'm picking The Favourite as my #1 choice here, as the hair work, along with the ridiculously over-the-top makeup seamlessly fits into the absurd tale Lanthimos is bringing to audiences.

Silver: That said, prosthetics can also be mesmerizing.  The troll makeup in Border is jaw-dropping, always feeling real (crucial considering we are in "our world" when it comes to this tale), without ever needing to be "most."

Bronze: American Animals is admittedly making a specific play for this award (there's an entire sequence where we see the main actors putting on old age makeup, getting to see the process in action). But that doesn't mean the way that these characters transform isn't impressive, and doesn't feel real to this strange fictionalized documentary.

Visual Effects

Ant-Man and the Wasp

Christopher Robin

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

First Man

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Gold: It doesn't have the near omnipresent effects of the other four films (this is the one picture here that is a "supporting effects") movie, but the moon landing sequence in First Man is so beautiful, and so full of rich coloring that it earns the gold medal on that alone.

Silver: There is no cinematic universe quite like the top-tier effects of Star Wars, and I love the wryness that Solo uses to distinguish itself.  Think of the Speeder Chase, full of genuine fun on top of visual spectacle, or the way that the Kessel Run lives up to its legend.

Bronze: Christopher Robin doesn't fall into the trap of hyper-realism (or bringing dead actors back from the grave), but as a result it succeeds where The Lion King & Rogue One don't.  We get to see these stuffed figures from our childhood (Pooh & Piglet & Eeyore) come to life as clearly imaginary but beautiful figures from the pages of AA Milne.

Also in 2018: Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018

Other My Oscar Ballots: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

OVP: Picture (2018)

OVP: Best Picture (2018)

The Nominees Were...

Kevin Feige, Black Panther

Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Raymond Mansfield, Jordan Peele, & Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman

Graham King, Bohemian Rhapsody

Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday, & Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite

Jim Burke, Charles B. Wessler, Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly, & Nick Vallelonga, Green Book

Gabriela Rodriguez & Alfonso Cuaron, Roma

Bill Gerber, Bradley Cooper, & Lynette Howell Taylor, A Star is Born

Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Adam McKay, & Kevin Messick, Vice

My Thoughts: We are officially at the finish line here after tackling 19 different Oscar races, so it's time for us to round the bend.  Some housekeeping for loyal readers-we'll publish this today, head into the My Ballot (who I would've nominated in each category) tomorrow, and then we'll kickoff our new season of the series on either Sunday or Monday (we're still backlogged with years, so we aren't skipping a beat), with Best Makeup for that year (I won't spoil our next featured ceremony just yet but know we're still in the 21st Century) coming up late next week.  We'll also resume more regular blog posts (including some more elections coverage, which I know we've been slacking on) as I get back from vacation-mode throughout next week, with us resuming our regular output on November 22nd.  But for now, let's sit back & grab the popcorn, as we discuss the eight films that Oscar deemed its very best in 2018.

We'll start with the movie that is going to have the longest legacy of any of these pictures, Black Panther.  Though others before it came close (The Dark Knight) or kind of skirted the line into the genre (Birdman), Black Panther was the first traditional comic book movie to get nominated for Best Picture.  The movie is solid, one of the better outputs from Marvel.  It has a self-contained story, and the acting is good.  Ultimately while this is a landmark in terms of diversity & having our first major Black superhero, the story itself doesn't elevate enough to be a truly seismic film for me (I still prefer Captain America: Winter Soldier of the Marvel pictures), but this is special for a reason.

BlacKkKlansman is in a similar boat for me when it comes to this list.  This is a solid movie-Spike Lee does not always make movies that I love, but he's consistent & distinctive enough that I always find myself intrigued by what's onscreen.  There are moments in BlacKkKlansman where it gets ahead of itself, Lee giving us too many ideas at once, particularly in the film's first half before the central story has captured us.  But that doesn't mean that it doesn't work well, taking a sharp look not just at the racist institutions of the past but also how they have bled into the constructs of the present.

Our third colorful film title, Green Book, also deals with the subject of "race in America," but it does so in a tactless way.  Green Book is not a bad movie in a normal sense-it looks good, its story structure works...it's a feel good movie that gets from Point A to Point B without needing a layover.  Its racial politics are troubling, though, as is the way that Mahershala Ali's character is approached (both by the script, and it has to be said, the actor himself).  Green Book I maintain is the sort of movie that feels more disposable than heinous...no one would give a crap about this movie had it not been nominated for (and then won) a Best Picture Oscar.

I don't know that that's the case for Vice.  This film, one of three movies with problematic politics in this list, is attempting the biggest artistic swings of the bunch, using random Shakespearean monologues & a mid-film credits sequence to feel absurd in the face of atrocities from the Bush administration.  But here's the thing-the filmmakers don't deserve credit for standing up to these men a decade after they took & left power, and the movie forcefully rubbing the American public's noise in Dick Cheney's legacy, disregarding that a vast swath of Americans (including, in 2000, a near majority of them) turned down the administration.  This is a bad movie, and quite frankly an offensive one from a director who took the worst parts of his last picture & decided to amplify them.

Since we're already on the "films that cause heartburn" section of 2018, we might as well round out with Bohemian Rhapsody.  Obviously the politics of Bohemian Rhapsody are a giant red flag-the movie is ridiculously homophobic, and the sort of hatchet job look at one man's life that should've been in the $2 bin at Wal-Mart within three months of its release rather than a gargantuan, Oscar-winning blockbuster. But it's also just a truly terrible movie.  The editing, acting, cinematography, writing-they are all pedestrian & working in the worst kinds of cliches imaginable.  I don't get the appeal of this movie beyond its soundtrack, and if you want that...just listen to your old Queen albums?  A perplexing black mark in Oscar's track record.

It feels strange to put Bohemian Rhapsody and Roma into the same hemisphere, much less into the same category for Best Picture the movies are such polar opposites.  A personal love letter to both his childhood and to cinema, Alfonso Cuaron brings a warm approach to this film, not just with rich cinematography, but also with a story that feels full without every needing a lot of exposition.  I am someone who doesn't need a film like this to be richly-plotted, since film is a visual medium & we should embrace that, and Roma is a picture that leaves you immersed in its feelings & dialogue.

A good example of a movie whose plot gets in its way is A Star is Born.  I really liked the first 30-40 minutes of this movie.  I thought it was taking a sort of abstract approach not just to the most timeless of Hollywood tales (everyone knows how this is going to start & end), but also to the concept of these two specific celebrities, not wanting to get bogged down in the trivialities of where this is headed.  The movie falls apart for me after "Shallow," though, when Lady Gaga can't handle the weight of the acting, and the movie tries to present the tale as if it's new & fresh when it's stale (we've done this five times now, this isn't a story with a lot of curves).  As a result, this is the "good movie" of the bunch that I relegate to the bad.

Our final movie is The Favourite, a movie that while it will never have the pop culture cache of Black Panther, is probably going to have some of its staying power in arthouses.  That's what happens when you get three beloved, Oscar-winning actresses (one wasn't there when it came out, but this got her the designation) at the top-of-their-game, and then give them a script to die for.  Honestly while Roma might hit different heights in terms of cinematography that are beyond Favourite, this movie is the best traditionally-structured film of the bunch, totally original despite telling a story that's been around for hundreds of years.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes split their nominations between Comedy/Musical and Drama, so we have a full ten nominees here.  Drama gave its top prize to Bohemian Rhapsody (I had honestly totally blocked that out) over Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, If Beale Street Could Talk, and A Star is Born, while Musical/Comedy went with Green Book against Crazy Rich Asians, The Favourite, Mary Poppins Returns, & Vice.  BAFTA went with Roma for its win, besting BlacKkKlansman, The Favourite, Green Book, & A Star is Born, while the PGA went with Green Book over Black Panther, BlaKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, Crazy Rich Asians, The Favourite, A Quiet Place, Roma, A Star is Born, & Vice.  In terms of ninth place, I know Crazy Rich Asians got the most precursor love but considering it scored in no other Oscar categories, I would assume Beale Street or Cold War, given their respective writing & directing nominations, would have been closer.

Films I Would Have Nominated: You'll find out tomorrow. 😉

Oscar’s Choice: In what was considered a slight upset at the time, Green Book bested Roma and a surging Bohemian Rhapsody to take an ill-advised Best Picture trophy.

My Choice: Roma is my winner, with The Favourite shortly after, the only two films that I genuinely loved of this lineup.  Following them would be Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, A Star is Born, Vice, and Bohemian Rhapsody, in that order.

And there you have it-another OVP in the books.  Tomorrow we'll do the My Official Ballot, but in the meantime-are you with me on Team Roma or did you prefer the Academy's Green Book?  Do you think Crazy Rich Asians had a shot at a Best Picture nomination or was it just not Oscar's jam?  And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2018?  Share your comments below!

Also in 2018: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018

Past Best Picture Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

OVP: Director (2018)

OVP: Best Director (2018)

The Nominees Were...

Alfonso Cuaron, Roma

Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite

Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman

Adam McKay, Vice

Pawel Pawlikowski, Cold War

My Thoughts: Well, we're going to lose a little bit of time this week on our write-ups, and I would apologize for not having new articles out, but I'm on vacation & the week ahead of vacation got away from me a little bit (a busy week of both work & outside-of-work getting prepped for my first vacation in two years).  Two years without a vacation feels like something I should just enjoy, so I'm skipping apologies.  As a result, while I will probably write an article or two while I'm on vacation (the term "vacation" for me is not really a word I can handle as I'm kind of like a shark-even when I'm relaxing I need to be doing something), we'll play the next week by ear other than for sure you'll get my Saturdays with the Stars, as I've never missed one of those (and the next two weeks are already written anyway).  With that preamble, let's discuss Best Director.

It's kind of hard to grasp that this was Spike Lee's first nomination for Best Director.  Let that sink in for a second-it took until 2018 for Spike Lee to be nominated for Best Director at the Oscars.  But it's exciting that Lee's first nomination for Best Director came for a film that feels like a proper "Spike Lee Joint."  BlacKkKlansman has a raw energy to it, one that is willing to take the audience on a journey & I loved some of the provocative imagery, particularly as Lee knowingly counters the Klan meetings with the obvious modern corollaries).  I will say that there were times that Lee's direction, particularly in the first hour feels ill-served, slightly too chaotic as we're settling into the story, but Lee had earned several Oscar nominations by the time this one came about, so I'm not going to quarrel too hard with his inclusion here.

Alfonso Cuaron might be the modern filmmaker I genuinely admire the most, or whose films I consistently adore the most.  Roma is no exception to that, but it's also a film that feels so personal that there was a risk that Cuaron wouldn't make it something that we'd be able to connect with.  Cerebral films can be a challenge, sometimes becoming just "pretty pictures on the screen."  However, Cuaron takes a step back & ensures that this film feels universal not in its message, but in the hazy way that our childhoods become idealized, almost abstract constructs of what we remember.  Roma is a singular vision from start-to-finish, absorbing & challenging but never without purpose.

Cold War can claim a similar path.  Shot by genius Pawel Pawlikowski, this is the one film that won't be returning in the Best Picture field, but what an inspired choice for Oscar to nominate it here.  Pawlikowski's trick is making his short, fleeting movie feel like a bit of a cheat, the way that wrong decisions can cost people years of happiness, and the way that our tendencies to try the easier or faster way out oftentimes get in our way.  Shot in stark black-and-white, Pawlikowski never relents with his camera, but still makes the film feel smoky, romantic, & tragic.

Yorgos Lanthimos' movies have progressively grown on me.  I hated Dogtooth, quite liked The Lobster, was concerned about The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and officially fell in love with The Favourite.  The movie's genius comes from its writing & acting, so it's nice to see that even though it was getting third billing, the direction got a nod here as well.  The movie's pacing is crisp (a comedy, even a black comedy, needs that), and I also think Lanthimos is right to take a slight detour away from his typical style of "totally detached" by putting some genuine emotional stakes here (you learn to care about two of these women in a way you don't the third, unlike some of his other films where you kind of assumed everyone is doomed).  This investment pays off as the movie's jaw-dropping finale is reached.

Our final nominee is Adam McKay.  I didn't mind McKay's previous film, The Big Short, even if it wears badly in the memory as a result of Vice.  Vice takes all of the worst parts of The Big Short (the fourth-wall breaking, the clumsy story structure), and turns it up to eleven.  I think modern filmmaking sometimes confuses provocative with quality, but that's not the case.  In the same way that you can made a traditional film and make it genius, films that feel outside-the-norm if they include characters that don't feel consistent or random asides that totally take you out of the picture aren't automatically brilliant...just because it's new doesn't make it good, and Vice's kitchen sink approach to filmmaking feels lazy & like a bad episode of Family Guy more than a true movie.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Alfonso Cuaron, over Lee, McKay, Bradley Cooper (A Star is Born), and Peter Farrelly (Green Book).  BAFTA went with Cuaron as their winner as well, sticking to the Academy's lineup with the exception of McKay being bumped for Cooper.  And the DGA likewise picked Cuaron, with the exact same lineup as the Golden Globes.  All of this is to say that in terms of sixth place...I have no idea.  Looking at my predictions at the time I actually guessed Lanthimos & didn't go with Farrelly, and I do think that's the right play in retrospect...but Farrelly winning for writing & Green Book taking Best Picture does make you wonder in retrospect if Cooper was somehow in seventh place despite dominating the whole season.

Directors I Would Have Nominated: I'm going to make a point of doing the My Ballot within the next week, so you'll see later this week who I would've put here & I'm not going to spoil the surprise.  Suffice it to say, Adam McKay will not be in the running.
Oscar's Choice: Cuaron joins George Stevens (and I believe that's it) as one of only two directors to win multiple Best Director trophies but never have a film (to date) win Best Picture.

My Choice: I am going to go against-the-grain here and go with Pawlikowski over Cuaron.  Cuaron has the most obvious choice, but Pawlikowski's film so easily could falter in a way that I think Cuaron's never could, and so by the slimmest of margins I'll give it to Cold War (OVP spoiler alert: both will make My Ballot).  Lanthimos, Lee, & McKay follow.

Those were my thoughts-how about yours?  Is everyone still on Team Alfonso or does someone want to come over to join me with Cold War?  Since he has two Oscars now, will there still be pressure to give Spike Lee a third trophy at some point for Best Director?  And was it Farrelly or Cooper who was just out-of-reach in sixth place?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Also in 2018: Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018

Past Best Director Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019

OVP: Actress (2018)

OVP: Best Actress (2018)

The Nominees Were...

Yalitza Aparicio, Roma

Glenn Close, The Wife

Olivia Colman, The Favourite

Lady Gaga, A Star is Born

Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

My Thoughts: We talked on Monday about how Best Actor was possibly the worst lineup in Academy history.  Best Actress, thankfully, gives us a solid grouping of women, albeit ones in completely different stages of their careers.  We have here two women making a splash in their first lead roles albeit one as an aspiring preschool teacher who had never acted before, the other as a Golden-Globe winning superstar who had been a household name for the better part of a decade.  You also had a character actress getting her first major chance at a breakout part (that would graduate her to proper headliner), the most important comedic actress of the past decade who was trying her hand at a dramatic part, and the one, indisputable classic movie star of the bunch, in the hunt for an Oscar on her seventh nomination.

We rarely start with AMPAS's choice, so let's mix it up & begin with Olivia Colman, the surprise victor on Oscar night.  Colman's work here is fascinating, because it's surely the most engaged of the three leading ladies in The Favourite, if that makes sense.  She has to play Queen Anne as a slightly ridiculous person, someone that has been so coddled her whole life (born the niece of the king, she had never known a day of financial hardship but was horribly broken up about her inability to have a child survive to adulthood), but someone that we can at once sympathize with & who can sneak up on us.  Notice how deliciously Colman sinks into the rare moments where Anne wields her power, but always knows that it's there, ready for her to command if she so chooses...and the heartbreak in Anne being aware that her power will never truly bring her companionships & love, the things she most desires.  It's a great balancing act from an actress who knew her time had come, and got the job done.

Yalitza Aparicio, like Colman, is the lead in a major Best Picture contender.  Aparicio, though, doesn't have the decades of stage & screen experience Colman brings to her big moment, and it shows.  Aparicio is good for what this part is-she's solid in the way that she can convey a studied meditation for director Cuaron to bring to the screen, but I left thinking that this wasn't all raw nerve in her performance.  First-time performers frequently suffer from not building a strong enough base inward for us to attach to their characters (they're too surface-level), but Aparicio if anything is the opposite-she's too measured, too controlled in what she's doing, and it makes it difficult for the audience to see her as more than her character-I left not knowing who Cleo really was, and as she's the central focus, that's a problem.

Lady Gaga is the opposite problem-it's all surface-level work, and her newness as an actress shows in this part.  Gaga is better in the first half than the second, but that second half is a cliff for me.  She plays Ally like an empty vessel, not able to convey the bigger moments & faltering badly when A Star is Born stumbles into cliche when other (more experienced) actresses might have been able to keep the cliche fresh.  Think of the wooden approach she takes to "it's a disease" when discussing Cooper's alcoholism, or the way she doesn't moderate her emotions to be believable as a character.  The singing is great (she's a good singer, this is not up-for-debate), but unlike someone like Jennifer Hudson, who also got an Oscar nomination for her first major role, who suffers to elevate her star persona when she's acting but brings it hard when she's singing, Gaga can't do either in A Star is Born-other than "Shallow," I felt like this was a rough, one-dimensional portrayal.

The movie The Wife got a lot of flack in 2018 for being Oscar-bait, a way for Glenn Close to finally get an Oscar in a movie that very few people had seen.  This wasn't fair (at least the last part-The Wife making $20 million hardly puts it in "lowest-grossing Best Actress nominee" territory), but the film itself isn't great, which is perhaps the reason Close lost.  This is a pity because this is one of Glenn Close's best performances, in my opinion, and a respectable nominee for Best Actress.  She doesn't give in to some of her more famous ticks (there's no grand scenery-ensaring moment from Close, a theater actress through-and-through), and she plays her character so well without us ever having to scrutinize what she's thinking (unless that's what she wants).  Colman's win will age well, but anyone who thinks Close's wouldn't have didn't see this movie-she's excellent.

Melissa McCarthy is a great actress-I would've given her the Oscar in 2011, and she just misses my Best Actress cut in 2015.  That said, it's beyond fun to see her in a stretch like Lee Israel.  She doesn't get some of her warm-hearted tenderness that has made her a star, nor does she get to engage in a lot of physical comedy, her calling card.  Instead, she plays Lee Israel as someone who is lonely, unapologetically lonely, but also as someone who is desperate to understand the next step in her life (when the world essentially doesn't want her anymore).  It's a tough movie, a bitter one, but she doesn't sentimentalize, which is tricky, especially in the late courtroom scene where she has to admit to opening herself up without losing her specific character traits.  A really classy choice by the Academy not to skip McCarthy for such an atypical, sometimes unlikable leading role.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their nominations between Drama and Musical/Comedy, so we have ten women nominated for these awards.  The Drama category went with Glenn Close (in something of a surprise considering Lady Gaga would've been more HFPA's style), besting not just Gaga but also McCarthy, Nicole Kidman (Destroyer), & Rosamund Pike (A Private War), while Comedy/Musical went for Colman over Emily Blunt (Mary Poppins Returns), Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade), Charlize Theron (Tully), & Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians).  SAG went with Close as well, over Blunt, Colman, Gaga, & McCarthy, while BAFTA favored Colman against Close, Gaga, McCarthy, & Viola Davis (Widows).  In terms of sixth place, I predicted Emily Blunt for the Top 5 at the time & still think she was close.  She had the one-two punch of A Quiet Place and Mary Poppins, had dominated the precursors (she won supporting for A Quiet Place in a true hindsight shock), & at this point was overdue for some time with Oscar.  I'm not sure what the holdup was here, honestly-at some point you have to assume AMPAS just doesn't like someone.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Next week we're going to get into my final list so I'll resist again the need to provide some hints, but I will say that I understand most of Oscar's impulses here, and in particular while it's not forgivable, it's understandable in such a field why they put Stone & Weisz in supporting even though they should've had room here.

Oscar’s Choice: The precursors do point to a closer race than what we assumed at the time, but Olivia Colman pulled off the upset and took what might've been Glenn Close's best chance at an Oscar, though unlike what we thought at the time, it was not her last chance at a trophy.

My Choice: I decide these things in a vacuum, and in a vacuum, I'd give this to Olivia Colman, who gives the best performance of these five women.  McCarthy follows, with Close, Aparicio, & Gaga behind.  I will say, as a result, that this was one of the opportunities I had to give the trophy to Close (but I'm skipping it) as she's very good (she'd be in my Top 10 that year), and since I still have screenings left in 1987/88, I deny her this trophy (again, in a vacuum as that is the OVP's wont) not knowing if I might be in a similar camp to Oscar in never giving her a trophy as a result.

Those are my thoughts, but now I want to hear yours!  Are with both Oscar & myself in falling head-over-heels for Olivia Colman?  Will Glenn Close ever get an Oscar?  And what's the deal with Emily Blunt's strange Oscar drought?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Also in 2018: Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2018

Past Best Actress Contests: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019