OVP: Picture (2023)

 OVP: Best Picture (2023)

The Nominees Were...

Ben Le Clair, Nikos Karamigios, Cord Jefferson, & Jermaine Johnson, American Fiction

Marie-Ange Luciani & David Thion, Anatomy of Fall

David Heyman, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley, & Robbie Brenner, Barbie

Mark Johnson, The Holdovers

Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas, Martin Scorsese, & Daniel Lupi, Killers of the Flower Moon

Bradley Cooper, Steven Spielberg, Fred Berner, Amy Durning, & Kristie Macosko Krieger, Maestro

Emma Thomas, Charles Roven, & Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer

David Hinojosa, Christine Vachon, & Pamela Koffler, Past Lives

Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Yorgos Lanthimos, & Emma Stone, Poor Things

James Wilson, The Zone of Interest

My Thoughts: Whenever I finish another one of these seasons, I always seem to start humming "The Blower's Daughter" by Damien Rice, a song that I associate specifically with the film Closer, which I saw in college and was one of the first (then) contemporary films that I saw specifically as "mine."  It was a movie that very few of my friends or people I knew had seen (or liked), and that I loved when it came out (and still do, as is evidenced by the 2004 My Ballot where it made the Best Picture lineup).  The movie is about the passage of time & missed opportunities, but it's also a distinctly college movie for me, one of those formative flicks that you didn't realize going into the year would become part of your personality.  I think about that particularly with Best Picture lineups, because my hope is that some of these movies mean that for young cinephiles who are carving their path in the world, and loving movies in that way that it becomes harder to do the older you get.

One of the movies, though, that shocked me in that specific way in 2023 was The Zone of Interest. Jonathan Glazer takes way too long to make his movies, but he does at least make your patience worthy of the wait.  The Zone of Interest is a fascinating treatise on evil, how it seeps into our day-to-day life so much we can no longer see a world without it feeling commonplace.  The sound design is rich here, adding personality to the picture, and the writing & performances (particularly Sandra Huller) only accentuate this distinct look at the Holocaust and World War II (and, let's face it, modern fascist movements in the United States & Europe).

Another film that reminds me of Closer (I promise, I won't reference Mike Nichols' picture for all of these, but if you haven't seen it, do yourself a treat & seek it out) is Past Lives, though the 2023 movie has a far warmer heart.  I talk about my love of ticking clock romances on this blog a lot, but this one turns that a bit on its head, giving the main love triangle too much time to process their romance, leaving regret in place of urgency.  The way that the film examines how we become ghosts of our former selves (something you only begin to understand as you enter middle age), not in a melancholy way but in an inevitable one is really prescient stuff.  More than any other film in this lineup, I'm happiest this made it because it's the film that could've most easily gotten lost from public consciousness of the Oscar contenders.

The Holdovers is one of those movies that becomes better because of the parts, even if the sum doesn't always add up.  The warm performances from the three leads give it a lot of its flavor, as does some of the poignancy that invades Alexander Payne's script.  The movie is too neat, with every turn feeling telegraphed from the opening moments, and in the process Payne manages to screw up the ending, as he hasn't invested in our main character to make some of his choices in the final scenes feel unsaid.  Simple movies can be total masterpieces, but you have to get every part right if you're going to approach from that vantage-Payne only gets some things right.

Screwing up the ending, though, is not a sin exclusive to The Holdovers.  Maestro has the overconfidence to end with "any questions?" as if Bradley Cooper's film has answered fully the life of a complicated man.  But he doesn't-the movie invites far more questions than it answers, and what it does it gives a lot of really staid conversations about the life of Leonard Bernstein.  I think some of the conversations here are overplayed (I'm tired of talking about straight actors playing gay-in an era where openly gay Jonathan Bailey can get cast as the straight romantic lead in Wicked and get to front a major franchise like Jurassic Park, I think we can concede that we've made some progress), but the film's handling of Bernstein's sexuality seems hampered by real-life considerations (like his family's access to the life rights), and in the process Bernstein remains unknowable throughout the picture, a clear drop given the ending of the film.

But Maestro doesn't fumble at the beginning of the movie.  This is the last time I'll complain about it this season, but Anatomy of a Fall screws up much of its film's momentum at the top of the picture when it shares that it will end without resolution.  The movie never really recovers from that.  Though there are scenes of value (I think the title sequence is impressive, and Sandra Huller is better than the script), the movie's need to stay ambiguous becomes a problem as it feels too open-ended, and especially given how long it is, it lacks perspective on the crime itself.

A movie that better balances the need to be two things at once is American Fiction, though it isn't totally successful either.  American Fiction is really smart as social satire, giving us a cutting diatribe about the commodification of diversity and the ways that racism can take on different forms, even in seemingly progressive politics.  But in a weird twist, the film itself doesn't have enough strength in its family drama (the types of books that the main character wants to write) to sell that story-within-a-story angle.  The film's call sheet is smart (save for a woefully miscast Sterling K. Brown), with Jeffrey Wright a strong lead and I loved the meta-casting of Erika Alexander in a movie about a writer who struggles to convey to his publishers that the Black experience can take on any lens (Alexander is best-known for playing Cousin Pam on The Cosby Show, one of the first mainstream Hollywood productions to truly emphasize this message).  It's just short, though, of being something truly special.

Poor Things in a lot of ways has that "just short" of something truly great scenario going for it as well.  Like American Fiction, it has a strong lead performance, and it has a lot to say, in this case about feminism.  But also like American Fiction, it can't quite find a balance, though here it's trying to keep up with Lanthimos' need for shocking the audience through sex, body humor, and tantalizing moral conversations.  All of these can make up great art (see Lanthimos' The Favourite, in fact), but in Poor Things it gets in Lanthimos' way.  I'll also own that some of the aesthetic choices in the picture feel arbitrary (and a bit ugly for me), which made the film suffer whenever I wasn't getting to revel in Emma Stone's brilliant work.

Killers of the Flower Moon continues Martin Scorsese's recent trend of making his best pictures at the close of his career.  Running well over three hours, the movie gives us a totally epic tale, one that feels more complete for being pieced together (news flash: not every big story works better as a miniseries...this is proof of that).  The acting is somewhat strong.  We have Robert de Niro giving his best performance in decades, and Lily Gladstone's understated approach giving us a woman who is always hiding in Mollie Kyle, a strategy that makes her final scenes just sing on the screen.  I think DiCaprio is miscast (and Brendan Fraser is laughably bad), but those are minor quibbles when you're getting to see a master like Scorsese at work.

We of course have to end with the two movies that will forever be intwined, both in moviegoers' minds and at the Oscars: Barbie and Oppenheimer.  We'll start our Barbenheimer conversation with Oppenheimer, a movie that underlines how Christopher Nolan is one of our most visually arresting film directors.  The movie's aesthetic choices are divine (the art direction & cinematography are both laudable, I also think the editing approach works when it easily could've been too much), and most of the ensemble cast delivers, including some of the bit players like Benny Safdie or Casey Affleck.  I do think Nolan continues to struggle at writing women (and Emily Blunt's not giving us enough to make up for that), but Oppenheimer is going to age beautifully as a Best Picture winner, a striking meld of populist intellectualism.

Barbie is a movie, unlike Oppenheimer, that wasn't guaranteed Best Picture consideration.  It's due to Greta Gerwig's shiny pink optimism that this became the biggest hit of 2023.  Barbie is going to be hard to grade for future generations primarily because it was a phenomenon (the marketing on this film was both costly and insanely effective, with a press junket that should be studied), but the film itself is also strong.  It looks sensational (love the costumes, art direction, & makeup), and the lead actors are both fizzing with chemistry, though the standout remains Ryan Gosling's Ken, inevitably the definitive role of one of our best working actors.  I do think some of the commentary about feminism feels a bit prosaic, but I am hardly going to Kensplain girl power-Barbie is delicious & frothy fun.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes have their categories separated into Musical/Comedy and Drama, with six nominations each so we do get some new names, though not in Drama, where Oppenheimer beats Anatomy of a Fall, Killers of the Flower Moon, Maestro, Past Lives, & The Zone of Interest.  Instead it's in Musical/Comedy where Oscar nominee Poor Things took it over some films from the AMPAS lineup (Barbie, American Fiction, The Holdovers) and some not (May December, Air).  The PGA copied Oscar verbatim for both nominations and wins, and BAFTA (the only game in town still doing five nominations) went with Oppenheimer atop Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon, & Poor Things.  I wrote an entire article about who might've been in 11th place, and while future pundits (who rely too much on stats for my taste) will assume The Color Purple or Nyad were in 11th place, I honestly think it was All of Us Strangers, Origin, or Air that was in 11th, and would've been the first film since 1943 to get in for Best Picture without a nomination anywhere else.  This is a fascinating conversation (more so than any recent "who was the runner-up" dialogue), so here's the article if you want more or want to know why I picked those specific titles.

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

Oscar’s Choice: Oppenheimer won by so much, it's a genuine question between The Holdovers, Barbie, Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Zone of Interest what was in second place (whomever it was, they were distant, but I'd probably bet on The Holdovers if forced to choose because of how the ranked ballots work).

My Choice: Not a hard one for me-The Zone of Interest is the best in a really solid list of movies (Oscar did better here than he has in a lot of recent years even if there won't be much overlap with my personal ballot).  Behind it (in order) are Killers of the Flower Moon, Past Lives, Oppenheimer, Barbie, American Fiction, The Holdovers, Poor Things, Anatomy of a Fall, and Maestro.  So that means in our six Barbenheimer matchups, Barbie went 5-1...but still missed for Best Picture.

And there you have it-another OVP in the books.  Are you all still enchanted by Oppenheimer, or do you favor a darker picture like The Zone of Interest?  Who do you think was in the second and eleventh places in a year where that was quite murky?  And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2023?  Share your comments below!

Also in 2023: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2023

Past Best Picture Contests: 1931-32, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Actor (2023)

OVP: Best Actor (2023)

The Nominees Were...

Bradley Cooper, Maestro

Colman Domingo, Rustin

Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers

Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer

Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction

My Thoughts: We are now moving into the Best Actor race, and similar to Best Supporting Actress, I'll own right now that this is not a field I was super impressed by.  The actual actors in this field are kind of exciting.  We have three first-time nominees, all longtime character actors who were finally getting their due...that's always worth celebrating.  But the performances themselves (save one) are none of these actors' best.  This is what happens when you rely too heavily on biopics (three of the five), where impressions of the actors are so an ingrained part of how we judge these actors that they get surrounded by movies that can't support their work.

This is the case with Colman Domingo, who was cited for playing civil rights activist Bayard Rustin.  Netflix has sort of become the place to churn out paint-by-number biopics that get you a nomination just for wearing the right makeup & being in the right spot in your career to get the Academy's attention.  But the movies they churn out are bad, and this is not a good film.  That's not how you should judge a performance, of course, but any touches that Domingo is adding here (and I'll be real-I'm a fan, but there's very little happening here that feels beyond two-dimensional, both in the film and the performance) are drowned out by how hopelessly generic the approach is.  It's all bon mots and monologues, and not in a good way.

The same can be said for Bradley Cooper in Maestro.  It's clear (in another Netflix biopic, I might add) that this is the vehicle Cooper thought would land him an Academy Award, and he does all of the aging, mincing, & unnecessary backstory (that "years of composing lessons" story really did not help your case here, Bradley) that you'd expect from a Best Actor win for playing a gay man.  But it's all mimicry and no understanding.  We spend so much of this film focusing on his relationship with his wife, we don't really understand anything about Bernstein himself, which is crucial for the "any questions" glibness of the ending.  Cooper, like Domingo, is a good actor, but this is the first time the Oscars nominated him for a bad performance.  Honestly, given he's capable of more, I'm glad he didn't win here.

Instead it was in the third biopic where we found our winner.  Cillian Murphy is the best of the three biopic performances, as he gives more of Oppenheimer than the Netflix dramas ever could (because there's more style to his film).  I love the internalized conversation he seems to always be having on his face, the way that he won't share his thoughts with the world, but he is clearly giving them to himself over-and-over again.  I don't care about the film's politics when it comes to judging his acting, and I do think the movie does a good job of projecting a perspective on Oppenheimer even if it's not the real-life version of him.  I do wish I knew more about his romantic relationships by the end of this given that it's so crucial to the story (whom did he really love?), but Murphy nails Oppenheimer's relationship to his own creation.

Paul Giamatti's gotten a lot of flack on this blog through the years (I think of him generally as an over-actor, and he's not my cup of tea).  So color me delighted that this is the first time I've really enjoyed him onscreen since Sideways.  The script cheats him out of a great moment at the end where his character really connects with the film's arc (mostly because Payne's script doesn't really give him a full arc), but that's a small complaint when we get a lot of rich detailing prior to it.  We understand why he has devoted his life to teaching, how he has spent so much of his existence walled into his own ideas, afraid of experiencing a world that might contradict them (or, worse yet, make them murky).  This is good stuff-I want more material like this for him in the future.

Our final nomination is for Jeffrey Wright, no longer a go-to-answer for "greatest working actor without an Oscar nomination" (that would be...Carrie Coon now, maybe Sarah Paulson?).  Like Giamatti, he's playing a fictional character, and that helps because we get a lot of layers to his Monk Ellison.  I think the film overall struggles with some balance issues (the literary satire is so good that the counterweight of the family drama takes a backseat), but you don't get that in Wright's work.  He plays Monk as a very imperfect flesh-and-blood man, one who has never quite fit in (both in his life, and in his family).  He doesn't have what it takes to sell every aspect of the over-complicated ending, but that's a small quibble (and really more a task for the writers).

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes split between Comedy/Musical and Drama for their nominations, so we had 12 names in total from the...anyone know what they call this voting body now that it's no longer the HFPA?  Drama went to Murphy over Cooper, Domingo, Leonardo DiCaprio (Killers of the Flower Moon), Barry Keoghan (Saltburn), & Andrew Scott (All of Us Strangers), while Giamatti won Comedy/Musical against Wright, Nicolas Cage (Dream Scenario), Timothee Chalamet (Wonka), Matt Damon (Air), & Joaquin Phoenix (Beau is Afraid).  The SAG Awards were a verbatim copy of Oscar (winner & nominees), while BAFTA went with Murphy atop Cooper, Domingo, Giamatti, Keoghan, & Teo Yoo (Past Lives).  In sixth place, the smart money would be on Leo (he was the only one of the three campaigned actors in his film to miss in a big Best Picture), but I do think Andrew Scott was closer than him.  Leo's been in this situation a few times now (J. Edgar, Don't Look Now) where he does well all season but Oscar isn't interested, and Scott had a lot of passion at the close.  I think he was next up.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: Andrew Scott gave the best performance onscreen I've seen in at least five years.  That he was clearly so close to an Oscar nomination and the Academy chose not to honor him...shame, shame, shame.

Oscar’s Choice: The season started out with it being a horserace between Murphy & Giamatti, but once Murphy took the SAG Award, all intrigue was gone, and Oscar completed the Oppenheimer sweep.

My Choice: I'm going to be contrarian here and pick Wright (I have yet to see someone echo this sentiment in my Twitter followers).  I think he adds the more perspective to his film than his chief competition, and also has the trickiest part to balance.  Behind him (in order) is Giamatti, Murphy, Cooper, and then Domingo.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Are you all-in for the billion-dollar success of Cillian Murphy, or would you like to dare-to-be-different by sticking with Jeffrey Wright & I?  Is everyone else as sick-to-death of these hopelessly disposable Netflix biopics as I am?  And how badly is that Andrew Scott miss going to age in the coming years?  Share your thoughts below in the comments!

Also in 2023: Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2023

Past Best Actor Contests: 1931-32, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Original Screenplay (2023)

OVP: Best Original Screenplay (2023)

The Nominees Were...

Justine Triet & Arthur Harari, Anatomy of a Fall

David Hemingson, The Holdovers

Bradley Cooper & Josh Singer, Maestro

Samy Burch & Alex Mechanik, May December

Celine Song, Past Lives

My Thoughts: Moving into the big eight (this is now certain to be the fastest we've turned through a series, as I have every intention of getting this all published by the end of the month, a two-month turnaround), I think one of the biggest complaints I have about the new ten-wide Best Picture fields comes into focus best in the writing categories.  Of the two writing categories, 90% of the nominees came from Best Picture nominees, and had Barbie stayed in original (as I would've included it as...saying it's "adapted" from a toy is a bit specious to me, given there's very little source material associated with a Barbie doll, and if Barbie is adapted, then we should say the same of King Richard and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), it's near certain that it would've been a ten-for-ten carbon copy.  This is really bad.  I have less overlap in my personal ballots for screenplay (albeit more overlap than I probably should), and that's just one person, not a larger Academy body where there should be more diversity of opinions.  We need to figure out a way to have some differentiation-not all of the Best Picture nominees have some of the best writing.

This is true for something like Maestro.  The biopic of Leonard Bernstein has some elements that are worthwhile (particularly the cinematography), but it's not well-written.  The movie doesn't know how to talk about Bernstein's sexuality, veering occasionally into homophobic with how dismissive it is of his relationships with men (The Imitation Game and Bohemian Rhapsody are other examples of this).  This feels like it's so crucial to understanding Bernstein that the rest of the film comes across incomplete.  Like King Richard before it, this is a case of the family being too involved with the creation of the movie, wanting it to be a work of legacy more than a work of art.

This isn't a problem for May December, which is clearly based off of the relationship between Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau, but because it's not technically an exact replica, it gets to be far more interesting.  The movie's script unfolds in a really knowing way, showing how manipulation can happen even when we want to initially project our own understandings onto characters (particularly Natalie Portman's main actress, craven and yet working toward something we don't understand until the final scenes).  I love some of the line readings (Melton's speech about not understanding if he's giving his child a traumatizing memory or not, Portman's justification for a romantic relationship with him)-it's really calculating writing, with lots of sharp double meanings and damning conversations about ethical filmmaking.

This is also true of Past Lives.  Celine Song's movie, one that shows us the way we carry our own romantic (and life) expectations around, even after we've long moved past or given up on them, is one of the better films I've seen in a while when it comes to giving us a grown-up look at love.  The movie talks about how we cannot be young again, but it does it without spoon-feeding that concept to us, and I love the way that we as an audience are brought along on this romance, eventually realizing that, like the characters, we're never going to totally know what might've happened for these people had life been different...just like our own lost loves.

Alexander Payne's quite famous for his scripts at this point, and there is some of the expected wit throughout The Holdovers to underscore that reputation.  Paul Giamatti litters the film with bon mots, and there are some marvelous monologues from Da'Vine Joy Randolph, particularly as she starts to open up to the reality that her dead son will never be home for Christmas again.  The writing is really clean, but also needs some mess to make the ending work-we need a better understanding of where the film is going after the credits (we understand the "why" behind Giamatti's decisions...we might need a bit more of the "what next" in order for this to feel like a complete story).  Still, solid writing-this could be taught in a college course it's so well-constructed.

Does putting the "Did She Do It?" title card in the opening scenes get blamed on the writers...I genuinely want to know as I'd probably up this a star if it didn't.  It's writing, and it's onscreen, so I'm going to put some of the blame on them, and the way they steal much of the film's suspense from the get-go.  The way that it wields misogyny as a weapon not just by the characters but against the viewers (I would imagine polling gender lines for the "did she do it?" question would be pronounced) is really good...but the way the film takes too long to get to the inevitable ending is not.  I think wanting to keep the character open-ended takes away from Sandra Huller's work, and this is a weird aspect of the film to have honored.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes combine adapted and original into one category, and the winner came from this field with Anatomy of a Fall beating Past Lives (the four other nominees are adapted).  The BAFTA's split theirs, with Barbie replacing May December here (it would go adapted for the Oscars), but otherwise a copy of Oscar in both wins & nominees.  The WGA Awards, weirdly, were held after the Oscars (I cannot remember the last time this happened), so they knew what would happen, and because of guild rules (that largely preclude subtitled films) we had The Holdovers winning here, with Air & Barbie replacing Anatomy of a Fall & Maestro.  In sixth place, I think it was Air, and not just because it's the only new name in the precursors.  Beyond the Top 5, this was a weak field with very few Oscar contenders, and this feels like a spot they would've added a new name.

Films I Would Have Nominated: Yes, The Holdovers is genuinely funny in parts, but it would've been cool if we'd had room for the funniest film of the year, Emma Seligman & Rachel Sennott's destined-to-be-a-classic Bottoms, which deserved one of these spots.

Oscar’s Choice: The early dominance of Anatomy of a Fall at the Globes carried all season, and brought it back to the Dolby, stopping Alexander Payne from getting his third writing statue.

My Choice: This is a tough call between May December and Past Lives, and I'm going to give it to the former because I think it does a slightly better job of using audience expectations in creative ways, but either would've been a really cool Oscar winner.  Behind these two are The Holdovers, Anatomy of a Fall, and then Maestro.

Those are my thoughts-what about you?  Do you want to join Oscar with the (potential) French killer, or would you rather join me on the roof with Charles Melton?  Is everyone kind of on the same page that we need to shake up these nominees a little bit again as 90% overlap is too much?  And if it wasn't Air in sixth place...what was?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2023: International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2023

Past Best Original Screenplay Contests: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022

OVP: Picture (2021)

 OVP: Best Picture (2021)

The Nominees Were...

Laura Berwick, Kenneth Branagh, Becca Kovacik, & Tamar Thomas, Belfast

Philippe Rousselet, Fabrice Gianfermi, & Patrick Wachsberger, CODA

Adam McKay & Kevin Messick, Don't Look Up

Teruhisa Yamamoto, Drive My Car

Mary Parent, Denis Villeneuve, & Cale Boyter, Dune

Tim White, Trevor White, & Will Smith, King Richard

Sara Murphy, Adam Somner, & Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza

Guillermo del Toro, J. Miles Dale, & Bradley Cooper, Nightmare Alley

Jane Campion, Tanya Seghatchian, Emile Sherman, Iain Canning, & Roger Frappier, The Power of the Dog

Steven Spielberg & Kristie Macosko Krieger, West Side Story

My Thoughts: We are officially finishing off 2021, the year that brought back the "ten-wide" rule (thank the lord...it should be ten or five, not this floating number each year), and the year where movies returned to theaters.  We'll get to the My Oscar Ballot tomorrow (where I pick my nominees), but for today, we've talked about all of the films for weeks (links to all past contests below)-let's crown a winner!

Dune is a movie that plays as a half of a film.  This isn't the first time this has happened (Empire Strikes Back and Back to the Future II come to mind), but even in a world where sequels are inevitable, I don't know that I love that it's not a complete vision, as it's hard to gage without seeing the second half.  That's really the only complaint I have about an otherwise magical film.  The effects, cinematography, and writing are all top drawer, playing with visual space onscreen by showing grandeur against a limitless nothingness on the planet of Arrakis, and featuring solid turns from Rebecca Ferguson & Charlotte Rampling.

Speaking of movies that feel incomplete, we have King Richard.  This has a solid lead performance from Will Smith, but it's too glossy for me.  This happens when you have portrayals of real-life figures, especially when those real-life figures still have a lot of power to shape their narrative (the Williams sisters are not signing off on a movie that makes their dad look bad).  As a result, you get an unrealistic look at a man who the film insists is always right, and late in the film tries to give you some of the complications of his parenting without actually articulating them.  The tennis scenes are well-edited & timed, but the film itself can't claim the same.

Licorice Pizza was marred in some critical debates by conversations about its content...largely from young critics who don't really understand that movies aren't supposed to be literal reflections of life.  The film itself is meant to be a suspension-of-reality, and it pays off.  We get Anderson's most cinematic movie yet, a dreamy look at the coming-of-age narrative, with terrific performances from Cooper Hoffman (very much doing his dad proud) and a star-is-born turn by rocker Alana Haim.  Throw in fun cameos by Bradley Cooper & Harriet Sansom Harris, and you've got yet another "W" in the PTA column.

The Power of the Dog is a slow-burn enigmatic tale that never stops surprising the audience.  That lack of expectation & the way that we don't know what's next is really a testament to Campion's ability, decades into her career, to come up with one of her best movies to date (have to clarify with "one of" when you made The Piano).  Benedict Cumberbatch's weird accent work and unusual delivery is somehow the perfect fit for his Phil, an enthralling, dangerous man who knows the best way to make all of the people in his life (ably played by Kirsten Dunst, Kodi Smit-McPhee, & Jesse Plemons) on edge, and feeling like they have no way out.

Drive My Car got most of its press from its length and the shocking moment 40 minutes into the movie where they decided to start the credits, showing the audience they're in for the long haul.  But that's not a problem for the movie, whose in-depth story of grief & loss doesn't play as a dirge, but instead something you want to continue watching.  The movie overdoes it with the connections to Uncle Vanya and some of the side characters (specifically the owners of the theater company) feel a bit stilted, but overall it's a strong movie, and features a great lead performance from Hidetoshi Nishijima.

West Side Story is one of those remakes I insisted I didn't need...until I saw it and realized "this one gets a pass."  Of course Spielberg has possibly the greatest musical score of the 20th Century to play with, but he reinvents characters (Mike Faist comes out as a STAR in this), gives us unique takes on the film's original text (it isn't afraid to point out the racial politics at play that were underdone in the 1961 film), and during many of the musical numbers, you're reminded why he's one of the great filmmakers of all time (that scene at the dance!).  There are quibbles (the choreography is too repetitive, the cinematography feels a bit too heightened in some scenes), but overall this is Spielberg's best work in decades.

The films of Adam McKay have gotten increasingly off-track, and utterly ridiculous (giving a man an Oscar does not make him Quentin Tarantino).  That's more-than-true with Don't Look Up.  Listen, nothing in this film isn't true-the absurdity of the media, the inability of the political establishment to do anything about major issues without needing to be pushed to the brink...this is literally what is happening with climate change.  It's appropriately terrifying.  But it's broad as a barn, and with a call sheet that boasts five Oscar winners (not to mention Timothee Chalamet & Melanie Lynskey!), he does nothing with this godsend of a cast, making Mark Rylance & Meryl Streep give maybe the worst performances of their careers.  A sloppy, gross mess...that admittedly makes some decent points.

CODA is the sort of movie that if you take it out of the context of the Oscars, would age very well.  The movie is strong if formulaic, with a decent roster cast (best of the bunch is Daniel Durant as a sexy, sullen older brother caught in his sister's shadow), and it does what it is attempting to do well.  Simple is not always easy, and it plays at warmth & heart without feeling saccharine or like you're watching a third act speech on a 1990's sitcom.  Giving it the Oscar made it an easy target for potshots, but if we're being honest-it's a good movie, and better than a lot of its competition.

The same can be said for Belfast, a wonderful spin on the Cinema Paradiso trope that gains a lot of its strength through the casting department, as the entire team is working well here, particularly Jamie Dornan in the film that gets him out of his Grey doldrums and proves what a fine actor is underneath his chiseled-from-marble exterior.  In a different life, this would've been a feel good, word-of-mouth hit thanks to the way that it plays on the importance of family set amidst the tragedy of violence, and while it doesn't stick the ending...after a joyous ride it's hard to care that much.

The final nomination is for Nightmare Alley, arguably the big shocker of this slate, and like West Side Story, a remake I didn't really want but was happy to receive once it came on my doorstop.  Like WSS, the movie does things the original couldn't, particularly sticking to the original book ending (which I won't spoil here, but it's better than what we get in 1947), and playing with the nastiness of the darkest film noir of the Golden Age.  Bradley Cooper has never been better, and the ways the gothic cinematography play with space are super inventive.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes separate their categories into Drama and Musical/Comedy (and in 2021, they separated their awards from an audience given the HFPA boycotts), so you have The Power of the Dog taking Drama over Belfast, CODA, Dune, and King Richard, while Musical/Comedy went in the predictable direction of West Side Story against Cyrano, Don't Look Up, Licorice Pizza, and Tick Tick Boom.  PGA goes ten-wide, and picked CODA atop Oscar's lineup save for Drive My Car & Nightmare Alley which were replaced with Tick Tick Boom and Being the Ricardos.  And BAFTA is still five-wide so while they went with Power of the Dog as well, it was only over Belfast, Don't Look Up, Dune, & Licorice Pizza.  Eleventh place has to be Tick Tick Boom, given its precursor run, lead actor citation, & (most crucially) a nomination for editing with AMPAS.

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

Oscar’s Choice: In a victory that I predicted but still shocked, CODA took it over the more critically-acclaimed Power of the Dog (I also wonder if in future years we'll think about this as the year Dune lost in the way we think of Star Wars losing in 1977, depending on that franchise's legs).

My Choice: In a pretty solid field, Power of the Dog stands on top as the champion.  Jane's look at the western is too strong to ignore, and I'm not going to make the same mistake as Oscar.  Following it will be (in order) Dune, West Side Story, Licorice Pizza, CODA, Nightmare Alley, Belfast, Drive My Car, King Richard, and Don't Look Up.

And there you have it-another OVP in the books.  Are you joining me in Jane's uncomfortable western or do you want the heartwarming tale that Sian brought with CODA?  What film was most vulnerable to an attack from Tick Tick Boom?  And overall-what is your favorite movie of 2021?  Share your comments below!

Also in 2021: Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, International Feature Film, Animated Feature Film, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup & Hairstyling, Previously in 2021

Past Best Picture Contests: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

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