2025 Oscar Viewing Project

Just in time for Oscar next weekend, I have officially seen all of the Oscar Viewing Project contenders for 2025!  For the second year in a row, I've done this before the ceremony, which feels very in-theme for how we operate.  For those that are new, the Oscar Viewing Project has me watching every single narrative, feature-length nominee at the Academy Awards (i.e. no shorts or documentaries, unless they're in the traditionally feature-length, narrative categories), and rating them in a vacuum, picking my choices based on whom Oscar selected based solely on the quality of the 3-5 nominees in front of me.  If you are truly new, this is the 32nd of the 98 Oscar ceremonies we've done this for, and you can see links at the bottom of this list for past contests.  For the first time since 2001, we have a new category that will be added, and it will be covered (Casting), and I will also be adding it to the My Ballots going forward (though not retroactively).  I have a few more screenings left to finish up the 2025 My Ballot (where I pick the nominees), including one specific animated film that's been annoyingly hard to get ahold of, but in the meantime, we will sort through Oscar.  As a reminder, here was where the domestic box office ranked in 2025:

1. Zootopia 2

2. A Minecraft Movie

3. Lilo & Stitch

4. Avatar: Fire and Ash

5. Superman

6. Wicked: For Good

7. Jurassic World: Rebirth

8. Sinners

9. The Fantastic Four: First Steps

10. How to Train Your Dragon

(Note: I will point out this is the current lineup as of the last writing.  Avatar: Fire and Ash, specifically, is still making relatively decent domestic money, though likely not enough to outearn Lilo & Stitch and move onto the medal stand)

Of these 10 films, I've seen eight of them, skipping both of the live-action animated remakes because, as a general rule, I think these are terrible.  I think it's notable, looking at this, how we have at least one truly original movie (Sinners becoming the highest-grossing totally original story since Gravity), and that the MCU truly just fell from grace here, with Thunderbolts not even crossing the $200M mark domestically and Captain America: Brave New World making $700M less than the last Captain America movie did at the box office (and only Fantastic Four making the Top 10).  Looking down the box office list, most of the unseen movies that I haven't caught yet are horror movie sequels, though The Housemaid stands out as maybe the movie I should've caught and might try to sneak in before the My Ballot (I will definitely be seeing How to Train Your Dragon given so many people loved the visual effects).

But now, it's time to go back just a few months to a time we all were getting a crush on Zohran Mamdani, watching Taylor & Travis get engaged, and seeing the first American pope.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Picture

1. One Battle After Another

2. Hamnet

3. The Secret Agent

4. Sinners

5. Sentimental Value

6. Train Dreams

7. F1

8. Bugonia

9. Marty Supreme

10. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: This is a solid list in what was honestly a very good year for movies, maybe the best since 2021 or even 2017.  But there's no competition for Paul Thomas Anderson here-One Battle After Another is a profound, challenging picture with universally good acting and writing.  Hamnet is really special in second place, proving that Chloe Zhao is emerging as one of our most thoughtful and introspective directors, and I have a sincere enjoyment of the craftsmanship of something like The Secret Agent or Sinners, but One Battle is on another level, and as you'll see, is going to be batting really well this write-up.

Director

1. Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)

2. Chloe Zhao (Hamnet)

3. Ryan Coogler (Sinners)

4. Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value)

5. Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme)

The Lowdown: A second showdown between Anderson & Zhao (both of whom are going to repeat when we get to the 2025 My Ballot), but I won't pretend this is a close race.  I've actually been much kinder to PTA than Oscar has (his films have plenty of My Ballot statues), but I'm glad on some level that Oscar waited for (what I hope) will be a coronation here as this will become the defining work of his career.  Also, I want to say for the record that Josh Safdie's personal troubles are not why he's in last...I just really did not like his movie.

Actor

1. Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another)

2. Michael B. Jordan (Sinners)

3. Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent)

4. Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon)

5. Timothee Chalamet (Marty Supreme)

The Lowdown: Best Actor remains the best lineup of the 2025 acting races, and I will own that none of these (not even Timmy in a movie I didn't like) is a bad performance.  In terms of a win, though, Leo's best work in years is really going to take it over Michael B. Jordan adding nuance to two different characters and Wagner Moura's steady, marked performance in The Secret Agent.  Leo's so good here-a man that even in his prime was over-his-head but in love with ideals and a woman who wouldn't stay, having to reengage with life to save the only thing he truly cares about...this is the kind of star power electricity that Leo promised when he was in his Chalamet years.

Actress

1. Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)

2. Emma Stone (Bugonia)

3. Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value)

4. Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue)

5. Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You)

The Lowdown: I will largely skate by the elephant in the room (I love Rose Byrne, I love Kate Hudson, but these performances are not ranked incorrectly...do with that what you will), and instead focus on the real competition: Jessie Buckley's spiritual work as a mother trying to connect with a man she loves but can't understand and a boy she knows but cannot grasp, and Emma Stone's terrifying girlboss incarnate, totally grasping on to Bugonia's bizarre (and oftentimes off-kilter) wavelength.  I'm going with Buckley because I think she is able to connect more to the ending than Stone.

Supporting Actor

1. Sean Penn (One Battle After Another)

2. Benicio del Toro (One Battle After Another)

3. Stellan Skarsgard (Sentimental Value)

4. Delroy Lindo (Sinners)

5. Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein)

The Lowdown: I like #3-5 in other things (truth be told, there is no acting performance of the 20 that I truly disliked even if there are movies that were cited that I disliked, which is rare), but for me it's a competition between the two Oscar-winning acting titans in One Battle After Another.  I'm going with Penn not because he's the bigger performance, but because I think that big performances sometimes get a bad rap in modern acting (del Toro is certainly subtle), but you need them when you're playing a big character like he is, and he totally inhabits a unique type of weak toxicity that's rarely seen represented in the movies (but oftentimes on cable news).

Supporting Actress

1. Amy Madigan (Weapons)

2. Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another)

3. Elle Fanning (Sentimental Value)

4. Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners)

5. Inga Ibsdotter Lileaas (Sentimental Value)

The Lowdown: Madigan gives one of the most unhinged supporting performances in recent years, channeling in many ways actors like Kathy Bates in Misery or Ruth Gordon in Rosemary's Baby to give us something truly terrifying (and speaking of Trump, if you think the red-haired clown terrorizing a group of children isn't an allegory for the guy that has plagued the Epstein list, watch again).  Taylor would be a really worthy winner too, and I love the imprint she made on this movie with only time in the first 40 minutes or so, but this is Madigan by the widest margin of the acting races.

Adapted Screenplay

1. One Battle After Another

2. Hamnet

3. Train Dreams

4. Bugonia

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: One Battle is not done with its wins yet, and takes another one for PTA.  One Battle is honestly one of the rare one of Anderson's films that is more of a director's achievement than a writing or acting one, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have the oomph to best Hamnet, which is also a wonderful and deceptively strong screenplay (the way that it folds ideas of Shakespeare into the film, while also feeling vaguely universal).  The rest of this category I'd probably upend, and will when we get to the My Ballot.

Original Screenplay

1. Sinners

2. Sentimental Value

3. Blue Moon

4. It Was Just an Accident

5. Marty Supreme

The Lowdown: I'll be honest, the writing categories are where a relatively decent Best Picture lineup (like I said, 2025 is one of the best years for movies so far this decade) shows some chinks in the armor, as you have films like Marty Supreme & Bugonia where I actively disliked the endings and felt they took down chunks of the movie.  There is a touch of that with Sinners, so I will note that it is just barely beating out Sentimental Value (which nails its ending), but the inventive plotting and the way that it unfolds a closed door horror so well means I'm going to slightly favor the vampires over the Swedish introspection.

Animated Feature Film

1. Elio

2. Little Amelie, or the Character of Rain

3. Zootopia 2

4. Arco

5. KPop Demon Hunters

The Lowdown: In what was otherwise a strong year for cinema, I'll own that animation was terrible.  It's not even a case where we have a bunch of better films sitting around-KPop is good when the music is playing and Zootopia is good if you don't constantly compare it to the original and Arco is good if you pretend the melancholy ending was at all earned by the rest of the picture...but overall this is not an impressive list.  If I have to pick a winner, it'd be Elio, a somewhat forgettable Pixar movie that nonetheless has gorgeous animation, beautiful music, and some really strong emotional plotting, but would stand out more if Pixar hadn't been using the same plot for every non-Toy Story film since Cars 3).

International Feature Film

1. The Secret Agent (Brazil)

2. Sentimental Value (Norway)

3. It Was Just an Accident (France)

4. Sirat (Spain)

5. The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia)

The Lowdown: The movies of this category used to, on very rare occasion, get nominations in other fields, but this year we have four of them nominated elsewhere and two nominated for Best Picture.  Even with this category, the Academy is becoming entirely focused on the Best Picture field.  Thankfully that's where this should be, as those are the two best movies of the bunch, with weirdly similar plots (both movies are essentially about how you can never know your parents).  I prefer The Secret Agent, a subtler movie with a more sprawling historical look behind it (and the better central performance), but honestly either one here is a winner.

Score

1. Hamnet

2. One Battle After Another

3. Sinners

4. Bugonia

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: I am a total sucker for Max Richter, whose soft melodies and gorgeous, romantic use of strings and swelling orchestras is a callback to the man I frequently confuse him with (Max Steiner).  Hamnet earned him his first Academy Award nomination, and I struggle to find a reason not to give him this (the OVP is in a vacuum, as a reminder, so I'm not trying to make up for lost time-just noting that Richter has gotten multiple My Ballot nods at this point, and will get another one in 2025 from me when we get there later this month).  One Battle After Another, by another favorite of mine (Jonny Greenwood) is really aces as well, even if it isn't quite as distinctive as we're used to from Greenwood's collaborations with Paul Thomas Anderson.

Original Song

1. "I Lied to You," Sinners

2. "Golden," KPop Demon Hunters

3. "Sweet Dreams of Joy," Viva Verdi!

4. "Train Dreams," Train Dreams

5. "Dear Me," Diane Warren: Relentless

The Lowdown: I sometimes struggle with how to grade this category, because I do feel that it should not just be about the quality of the song, but also about how it is incorporated into the movie.  "Golden" is an ear worm that I have not stopped listening to since it came out (there's a reason this became a genuine pop hit), but the "I Lied to You" sequence in Sinners is easily one of the best scenes of the year, and in my opinion deserves this statue even if "Golden" might be a better piece of music outside the realm of the movie.  Of the three also-rans (i.e. the songs you don't know), "Sweet Dreams of Joy" is much better than you'd expect, and sadly "Dear Me" is exactly what you'd expect (we really should've just given Diane Warren that Oscar for Burlesque and none of this would've happened).

Sound

1. F1

2. Sinners

3. One Battle After Another

4. Sirat

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: After watching Sirat, I realized why this was nominated (the sound work is on full-display throughout, and honestly is a supporting actor in how prominent it is), though unlike The Zone of Interest, I wasn't as impressed, and felt it bordered the line between best and most that sometimes tech categories can't distinguish.  I was far more impressed with F1 and Sinners, the former a sea of zooming cars & "you're practically there" race scenes, the latter a wonderfully constructed semi-musical.  I'm going to go with F1, a movie I think did both mixing & effects well (I'm old-school), but either would make a good winner.

Casting

1. Hamnet

2. Sinners

3. One Battle After Another

4. The Secret Agent

5. Marty Supreme

The Lowdown: The first year of this category, I also kind of need to set my own parameters of how I'm going to grade this, as (like editing) you don't entirely know what was left in the cutting process.  For me, I think it comes down to how well the cast works together, how ingenious/inventive the casting process is (particularly if an actor isn't an obvious choice), and whether there are any clear standout good/bad casting decisions that elevate/demote it.  For me, I have Hamnet over the next two-I don't think there's a bad choice in the casts here, which is saying something as there usually is, but Hamnet had the stunt casting of two actual brothers to underline one character and the character he inspired, and that on top of Mescal & Buckley being perfect for their parts puts it in the lead.

Cinematography

1. Train Dreams

2. One Battle After Another

3. Sinners

4. Marty Supreme

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: Sinners has, for my money, some of the best cinematography of the year.  The Golden Hour shots are honestly breathtaking, but the night scenes suffer (by my personal tastes), with them trying to patch over some of the gaps in the visual effects (I liked the makeup, but the visual effects were more hit-or-miss for me), by making the screen too dark to see properly make it hard to judge overall as a success.  As a result, I am all in on the beautiful Train Dreams, a gorgeous Lubezki-esque take on the passage of time with a camera.  In a year where, in general, Cinematography was lacking (this is somehow going to be the weakest of my My Ballot lists in a few weeks), this is the one film that really embraced looking like a movie you'll remember forever.

Costume Design

1. Sinners

2. Hamnet

3. Marty Supreme

4. Avatar: Fire & Ash

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: It's possible I totally upend this entire list (looking like the only category I'll do that with), but for me it's all about the outfits specifically worn by Michael B. Jordan & Michael B. Jordan in the film.  Part of Sinners ability to inspire is that you kind of need to be horny for the dual MBJ's (this is a very sexy movie, with an early sex scene and Jack O'Connell clearly meant to be both figuratively and literally carnal), and the gorgeous teal-and-red combo that Ruth E. Carter brings here is better than the peasant period fare in Hamnet or the out-of-this-world third spin on Avatar (the craziest nomination of 2025).  I will note that the Mia Goth peacock outfit in this photo is so good it makes me forget that I was largely uninspired by the rest of Frankenstein.

Film Editing

1. One Battle After Another

2. Sinners

3. F1

4. Sentimental Value

5. Marty Supreme

The Lowdown: I mean, sometimes this category gets something a bit out-of-the-box (F1 was probably further along here than in the Best Picture race), but there are days I think "Oscar didn't try to think beyond his five favorite movies in the editing branch...should I even bother?"  I will note that One Battle After Another's win here comes from the way it unfolds tension-the bank robbery scenes, the harrowing conversation late in the film between Sean Penn & Chase Infiniti...it's something to behold.  Sinners might have had a better shot if it had had more consistent cinematography lighting, as well as had the good sense to cut that post-credits ending which feels nonsensical and totally unnecessary (but the building tension there is something else).

Makeup & Hairstyling

1. Kokuho

2. Sinners

3. Frankenstein

4. The Smashing Machine

5. The Ugly Stepsister

The Lowdown: Oscar has historically struggled with horror in his category even though it is very much the bread-and-butter of the genre, so it's weird to see a lineup where the majority of the nominees come from that world.  I am not so apathetic (I nominate horror more regularly for the My Ballot), and while I was impressed with the violent deformity of Sinners and the albino care of Frankenstein, my heart belongs to the remarkable beauty and elegant aging of Kokuho, giving us a first-hand at the look of kabuki theater.

Production Design

1. Sinners

2. Marty Supreme

3. One Battle After Another

4. Hamnet

5. Frankenstein

The Lowdown: We're going to give Sinners its final trophy here (genuinely curious how this compares to its count with Oscar-it ended up taking three statues from me), with the sets in this feeling so authentically barren.  There's so much personality and touches in the dancehalls and railway stations in Coogler's work, and yet they feel appropriately isolated-there's nowhere to run.  I'll note that most of this lineup is good, and this is Marty Supreme's worthiest nomination (I love the on-a-budget redesign of New York City that never feels like it's on a budget at all), but Sinners feels like it lives in the set the most, and adds the most to the story.

Visual Effects

1. Avatar: Fire & Ash

2. F1

3. Jurassic World Rebirth

4. Sinners

5. The Lost Bus

The Lowdown: Putting Avatar in a lineup of Visual Effects always feels like you're playing on cheat mode.  The latest round doesn't have the "how the hell did they do that?" impact that its predecessors had, but in an era where visual effects are increasingly sloppy, overdone, and clearly glossed over by darkened cinematography (looking at you, The Lost Bus), it has beauty and looks fantastic, and even against something as impressive as the technical virtuosity of F1, it's unbeatable.

Past Oscar Viewing Projects: 1931-32, 1948, 1957, 1972, 1981, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024

Kate Hudson and Oscar's Changing Tastes

I have been following the Oscars relatively religiously since 1995.  That was the first year I actually read, in real time, magazines like TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly trying to predict who would win, and even did my own predictions with my family.  If the old Malcolm Gladwell adage is correct, I hit 10,000 hours of expertise toward the Oscars before I could drive a car, and know a thing or two about the ceremony and its tastes.

I was struck by that while thinking about this year's Best Actress race.  I have bemoaned on this blog many times the near uniformity in the Academy's nominations compared to precursors in recent years (it's why we ended up with, for the first time since 2006, not a single person who qualified for our annual "No Globe, No SAG, No Problem!" article last year).  However, we'll get to that problem in a few weeks once the SAG nominations have been announced.  For today, I want to talk about something that Oscar has developed in this uniformity: good taste...and how it's costing us what would've been a certain Oscar nomination (and likely win) 15 years ago.

Starting in the mid-to-late 2000's, we began to see acting lineups that would always go to the same films.  The Globes, SAG, and BAFTA were at one point a pretty strong indicator of what might be in the conversation, but they didn't end the conversation-new names showed up and Oscar would pick titles and stars that didn't win previously.  But when the awards bodies began to sync, they also started to emulate other people, namely critics prizes and influential online predictors who became a circle of self-fulfilling prophecy.  In the process, acting prizes that would've been long-shots a few years ago became real threats for nominations.

The Oscars do have a history of nominating acting performances from character actors and unknowns that might have otherwise gone unnoticed, at least since the 1970's.  Some that come to mind include Emily Watson (Breaking the Waves), Isabelle Adjani (The Story of Adele H), and Massimo Troisi (Il Postino).  But looking at the Best Actress field in 2025, this seems to be almost completely a list of performances that would've all been longshots years ago.  Renate Reinsve is acting largely in Swedish, Jessie Buckley is in an introspective period drama, Rose Byrne plays in an uncomfortable black comedy, Amanda Seyfried in an unusual dramatic musical, and Tessa Thompson in a retelling of an Ibsen play.  Even established stars like Jennifer Lawrence & Emma Stone are in complicated, sometimes hard-to-watch films from prickly auteur directors that would be a stretch ten years ago.  The Best Actress field at the Oscars has historically been for crowdpleasers, for biopics and romances and uplifting dramas.  It's also been historically for nominating either sturdy dramatic movie stars (like Bette Davis or Susan Sarandon), comeback vehicles for former glory, or for honoring Hollywood's newest "princess" (or reigning America's Sweetheart).  I'm not bemoaning the change (because a good chunk of what I just said is sexist even if it's reality for the Academy), and some of these performances are really good (I've seen almost all of them).  But in an era where the Oscars have lost their identity to precursors (and in the process kind of blended into an increasingly predictable pattern), it's weird that there's one performance this year that, 15-20 years ago, Oscar would've not just nominated, but would've been the frontrunner for the win: Kate Hudson in Song Sung Blue.

Hudson has every hallmark of an Oscar winner, and in some ways matches some of the recent trends even for the modern Oscars.  She's playing a real-life person in a musical drama, and is getting a late-in-the-year release that won her a Golden Globe nomination.  She is a former America's Sweetheart, something that at one point would win women like Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, & Reese Witherspoon their own statues and given how that phrase has largely gone out of style, she (along with Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Aniston) is one of the last actresses who may ever really carry that title (in a Hollywood desperate for nostalgia & turning back the clock, this can't be discounted).  Which gets us to something that has been a trend in recent years: she's another movie star from the 1990's & early 2000's who is still acting, and who hasn't won an Oscar yet.  In recent years we've seen the Academy fall for people of this era without a statue (Will Smith, Brendan Fraser, Robert Downey, Jr., & Demi Moore all fall into this bucket), and she'd be a solid bet as a result.  The fact that her mother and stepfather are also iconic movie stars (her mom already has an Oscar), would just add another dimension to the prize.

So why does Hudson feel like an afterthought?  Part of this is box office.  In a different era, Song Sung Blue would be the kind of movie that would be a guaranteed crowdpleaser (83% on Rotten Tomatoes, a Christmas release, two movie star leads...something that would drive people to the theaters), but in this era where anything that isn't horror feels like a risky bet at the box office, there's no guarantee that the film's gross will be there.  Box office, as ever, still matters with Oscar (if it wasn't a sleeper hit, The Substance would've had no chance last year...same with Sinners & Weapons this year), but the kinds of films that Oscar would normally gain permission to like (like, say, The Blind Side) because audiences demanded it aren't really a thing anymore, and that's impacted not just the Oscars, but other awards bodies as well.  Anyone But You, for example is a terrible film...but given it's a romantic-comedy and made $220 million in an era where movies like it never make that kind of money, in the HFPA days Sydney Sweeney & Glen Powell both would've gotten Globe nominations.  Hudson has a Globe nomination, but if you look at predictions sites, they seem to think she's an asterisk on this race rather than a more serious race for the win (or, quite frankly, even a nomination).

And they might be right.  I could be Paul Muni in The Last Angry Man being furious about the loss of the ancient texts, ones that would've pointed to Hudson being a nominee, but do those texts still matter in an era where critics seem to inform Oscars more than genre or what is populist?  It's entirely possible that me trying to look at this race from an historical angle (which would definitely say to include Hudson in your guesses) is foolish and I should focus on the nominees most likely to get stacks of precursor citations and buzz online...that might be the only correct way to predict the Oscars now.  And I haven't seen Hudson in this film (it's not out yet in Minnesota, but I will over Christmas), but her missing might be a good thing-I really like Kate Hudson (she's gotten two My Ballot nominations on this site for a reason), but I don't know that this looks like my thing.  So don't confuse this for me wishing she was in, but instead noting the passage of time and how the Oscars of my youth are very different than those of today, an era marked by far more consistency in good taste...and quite a bit more boredom in seeing who is included.

OVP: Supporting Actress (2000)

OVP: Best Supporting Actress (2000)

The Nominees Were...

Judi Dench, Chocolat

Marcia Gay Harden, Pollock

Kate Hudson, Almost Famous

Frances McDormand, Almost Famous

Julie Walters, Billy Elliot

My Thoughts: Surprises aren't really a thing in the Oscar acting races anymore, not like they once were.  Today, you might go in knowing you're going to win (Robert Downey Jr. this year), knowing you might win (Lily Gladstone this year), or knowing you won't win (Sterling K. Brown this year).  But there was a time where technically anyone could win, and what a thrill that was (the real ones will know what I just did).  In 2000, we had one of the bigger upsets in the acting races we've encountered in our My Ballots, when Marcia Gay Harden pulled off victory over far likelier contenders that year.

Let's start with Marcia.  For those who don't know, in 2000, you could've made a serious argument that Harden was in fifth place even among the nominees before she went on to win.  She got her victory through being just that good.  Her Lee Krasner is a fascinating composite onscreen.  We see the ways that Harden navigates being a wife, a female painter (in a time where they got ignored), and someone who understood the financial opportunity that came with marrying one of the great artistic minds of the 20th Century.  Adding in a fantastic bit of accent work, Harden becomes very hard to beat if you actually see her movie.

That said, her chief competition at the time was impressive too.  One of her biggest competitors was Kate Hudson, who roared into movie stardom (just like her mom) with Almost Famous, and like her mom, got an Oscar nomination to prove it.  I think people's attitudes toward Hudson in the years that followed (where she hit stardom, but not superstardom and never did something this good again) have clouded their tastes on this performance, which is really wonderful.  She embodies the beautiful hipster, trying to cling to those who are actually experiencing fame, knowing (but never showing) that this will only last while her youth continues.  It's a tragic, but very real performance, and the soul of the film.

The other competitor for the win was Judi Dench.  Just two years after her Oscar win, she was a serious threat for victory in 2000 for Chocolat (and easily the closest that Miramax came to getting that film a statue).  Her work here is pleasant.  It'd become the prototype for the "sweet old woman" roles that Dench would milk as a proper movie star in the next couple of decades, but it hadn't been established yet so it feels much fresher.  I do think that this isn't worthy of Oscar, even if it's good acting-it's a bit too paper thin, especially in her character's bigger moments.

Julie Walters is another renowned British character actress who made it into this field, and her work in Billy Elliot is also solid.  I will admit to a soft spot for both of these actresses (I'll watch anything they do), but I don't think that Walters is quite as good as, say, her costar Jamie Bell in this film.  She gives us a lot of what we'd expect from Walters (a surly disposition masking a kindly heart), but it doesn't give us quite enough more.  I wanted more hints at how she missed her own opportunities, how she also dreamed of getting out, to add more dimension to her character.  But, again, a fine piece of work that it's hard to get mad about Oscar citing.

Frances McDormand is arguably the best actress of these five women, but I do think she has the least to do in her nominated performance, and more importantly, the least impact on her film.  Her concerned mother has some humor which McDormand can ring, but it comes across as a bit one-note, or at the very least sharp as she imbues the "anxious mother who doesn't understand" character with little nuance.  It's possible that this nomination cost Hudson her win with vote-splitting, but I'd not entirely be convinced anyone looked at this and said "one of the year's five best" without it actually getting a nomination.

Other Precursor Contenders: The Globes went with Hudson, and the same lineup as Oscar save Harden, who was pushed out for Catherine Zeta-Jones (Traffic).  SAG gave their statue to Dench, again against the Oscar lineup without Harden (here it was Kate Winslet in Quills who got the nomination).  BAFTA gave their statue to Julie Walters (see what I mean about Harden being a surprise) with McDormand, Dench, Lena Olin (Chocolat), & Zhang Ziyi (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) as the nominees.  In sixth place, I think you could make a few arguments here.  Zeta-Jones was obviously in the running, but at the time she was facing something of a "too-much-too-soon" backlash (she's always been an old school "give good quip" sort of movie star, and that has occasionally hurt her with a press that wanted a docile princess-type).  So it was likely either Winslet or Connie Nielsen (Gladiator) nearly making it, both the primary female character in an all-male, Oscar-cited cast.

Actors I Would Have Nominated: I have no such prejudices against Catherine Zeta-Jones (I don't want relatable stars), and would've nominated her splendid work in Traffic, showing how deep her talent could get two years before Oscar could no longer deny her.

Oscar’s Choice: Like I said above, Marcia Gay Harden pulled off a big upset against Dench & Hudson, a win that has aged pretty well by my estimation.

My Choice: In a very close race (both of them will show up in our My Ballot article in the next week) I will select Marcia Gay Harden over Kate Hudson, as I think she has more notable character work in her choices, but either would've made a good winner.  Behind them are Walters, Dench, and then McDormand.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Does everyone agree with Marcia Gay Harden as the Oscar victor, or do people want someone else in retrospect?  When was the last time you feel we had a truly left field acting winner?  And was it Zeta-Jones, Winslet, or Nielsen in sixth place?  Share your thoughts below!

Also in 2000: Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Foreign Film, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Makeup, Previously in 2000

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

OVP: Marshall (2017)

Film: Marshall (2017)
Stars: Chadwick Boseman, Josh Gad, Kate Hudson, Dan Stevens, James Cromwell, Sterling K. Brown
Director: Reginald Hudlin
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Song-"Stand Up for Something")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Biopics should never be confused with the men and women they depict.  Frequently this is something that I feel the need to underline, but especially when it comes to Thurgood Marshall, a hero to many (including me).  Marshall's career as a pioneering Civil Rights attorney and a lauded jurist (who eventually became the first black man on the Supreme Court), is riveting stuff & the sort of story that should work for a movie biopic, particularly if they continue the "slice of life" trend that biopics have done in recent years rather than try to cover decades of a person's existence.  However, Reginald Hudlin's recent treatment of Marshall, where we see him doing an early Civil Rights case about a black man accused of raping a white woman, is a cookie cutter biopic that in some stretches is just egregiously bad, poorly acted, and feels almost like a parody of an Oscar-bait film.

(Real Life Doesn't Have Spoiler Alerts) The film looks at Marshall (Boseman) in the 1940's, when he was an attorney for the NAACP that would travel the country trying to help people accused based on the color of their skin, rather than for crimes they actually committed.  He is brought to Connecticut to defend Joseph Spell (Brown) against accusations that he raped Eleanor Strubing (Hudson).  In order to be admitted to the courtroom to defend Spell, however, he needs a Connecticut attorney to vouch for him, and through a series of events this is Sam Friedman (Gad), who after a testy exchange with the judge (Cromwell), he's forced to defend Spell even though he's not a criminal attorney.

The film focuses almost exclusively on the case, rather than talk about other aspects of Marshall's life.  There are brief interludes with his wife, as well as a conversation with Langston Hughes (played by Jussie Smollett, whom I didn't know was in the film until I saw his name in the credits, but it felt right to watch some of his work in light of what happened yesterday), but mostly it's just focused on the case, and in particular underlining the racial prejudice against Spell, whom you don't have to be a rocket scientist as an audience member to know is not guilty.  The film plays out as one would expect, with Gad's Friedman initially reluctant to get involved in a case of this nature & ending up being a noted Civil Rights attorney after he gets Spell off.

This is all a feel-good history lesson, and occasionally we need those in a world that is blinded by racism & hate (thanks in large part to a White House who uses that as their point-in-trade), but it's also a dreadful movie.  The film feels like a cookie-cutter story, one that would be more at-home as a made-for-TV film from the 1980's than a major-budget motion picture.  The acting is stiff & dreadful.  I don't know that I've seen Hudson more ill-at-ease in her character, and Gad is horrendous, at one point not even able to pull off a convincing onscreen laugh without it looking staged.  Boseman is the best part of it, though he frequently feels too, well, sexy for the part, but at least he has some charisma to spare as Marshall, though his big moments feel ham-fisted.  However the script is rife with cliche, and there's no sense of art in what's happening onscreen.  The main title song is very hummable; Andra Day is too good of a singer not to command the (weirdly, considering how cardboard the rest of the film is) creative end credits, but this song isn't worthy of this movie, which is boring & unworthy of its protagonist.

OVP: Deepwater Horizon (2016)

Film: Deepwater Horizon (2016)
Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez, Dylan O'Brien, Kate Hudson
Director: Peter Berg
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Sound Editing, Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

One of the crucial aspects of an action movie is that you root for the main character.  The film can't really function without it, in fact.  The whole point is you are out there, cheering on the men or women (but too often just men) that are trying to prevent the city/planet/solar system from being destroyed.  Then when they do, or don't, you have a vested interest in their success or defeat.  Normally, even in movies I don't like, I don't struggle with this, but Deepwater Horizon was different.  I am not naive about where my oil comes from, but I also am not going to sit around and celebrate literally anyone involved with this disaster, and so I struggled to get through this picture without yelling vigorously at the television like I did when the initial catastrophe happened.

(Spoilers Ahead) The reality is that offshore drilling should be a last-ditch resort to get oil (and we need to be doing more to get electric cars and non-petrochemical solutions to our energy needs), so I'm already at a disadvantage because I don't view these sorts of positions with the same sort of esteem you'd expect for, say, the military or the police or firefighters or any other profession that Mark Wahlberg decides to play onscreen (he used to be such an interesting actor, and then he turned into Clint Eastwood without the occasional artistry, which is such a disappointment because his movies are too big of hits for me not to end up seeing them time-and-again).  There is little forgiveness to be had here, and knowing that everyone was at fault here-not just the crew, but BP and Transocean were cutting corners to meet deadlines that ultimately polluted the entire Gulf of Mexico, killing marine life (and wiping out populations that could take decades to recuperate), as well as harm the well-being and livelihoods of people living in coastal Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas, and Louisiana.

I will admit, therefore, that no amount of Michael Bay-esque blame on John Malkovich is going to allow me to forgive anyone involved here.  Everyone should have been shouting "NO!" at the top of their lungs, and the rest of the film I checked out of what was happening.  It never approaches the level of propaganda that 13 Hours achieved, but I still checked out every time I remembered this was a real story, and the overall acting in the movie is too wooden.  I am hesitant to name a "best of" in the cast, since it was probably no one (I'm a big fan of Russell and Rodriguez in general, so it'd surely be one of them but not really based on their work here but general adoration), but I have to say Kate Hudson's role in this makes me once again question how she won an Oscar nomination, and Malkovich at some point has to try again and not just play yet another version of the same creepy-John-Malkovich style character.

The film won two Oscar nominations, and this feels okay.  The sound work is a combination of loud and louder, but doesn't have the precision of something like Wahlberg's Lone Survivor a few years back, and feels like it was nominated because Sound Editing is a sucker for underwater work.  It's fun to see a movie with practical special effects nominated here, as I actually like that they mix it up (there's an enormous amount of skill required to succeed on that front today, and it shows onscreen).  I don't know that there's a lot of differentiation in the special effects, with the biggest moment being Rodriguez's giant jump with Wahlberg (which is the only action moment in the film I was truly impressed by, but I didn't love the idea of Wahlberg having to help rescue the only woman on the rig like we're in an Errol Flynn picture), but when they are creating CGI for the film, it doesn't blend well and I think this is more a nod to the technical achievement of undertaking the film than whether or not it actually succeeded in looking believable.

We're going to leave it there because there isn't much more to say about Deepwater Horizon.  For those of you who saw it (which is probably a lot of you-Wahlberg movies tend to make bank), what were your thoughts?  Were you like me where you couldn't put your real-life opinions behind you and invest in these characters, or were you rooting for Wahlberg the whole time?  And what do you think of the film's two Oscar nominations-deserved, undeserved, or perhaps you're still mad that it lost?  Share below!

Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)

Film: Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016)
Stars: Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, JK Simmons, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, Jackie Chan, Kate Hudson
Director: Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I actually reread a couple of old reviews of mine before deciding to tackle this installment of the Dreamworks' series Kung Fu Panda just to get a sense of the previous films.  Dreamworks (foolishly, in my opinion), decided to go with a Pixar-level tactic of waiting five years to come out with a new installment to one of their quintessential film franchises, hoping that overall devotion to the series could carry that long.  Considering the gross for the film was down over $100 million from the previous installment, this was probably a foolish decision (Dreamworks Animation has made several of those in the past decade), but I was also curious to read reviews because of my memory of the first two films.  I am not a fan of this animation house-despite 32 feature films, most of which I've seen, I have only really liked three of the movies they've produced, two of which of are in this series (the other being the first How to Train Your Dragon).  Revisiting what may well be the final film in the trilogy (at least I'm hoping that's the case considering how it closes) felt like a weird rush for a trio of films I initially wrote off before actually watching them and being impressed.

(Spoilers Ahead) I think there's a few reasons to really enjoy the Kung Fu Panda pictures, but one of the chief ones is that they're genuinely funny.  Jack Black is an actor of somewhat limited means, but he's a compelling onscreen presence and when he finds a role that suits him, like Po, he nails it against the wall.  Po is hilarious, albeit a character whose eventual journey to being the Dragon Master is a bit hard to follow if you hadn't immediately seen the two previous films.  I never quite know what the rules are for sequels in rehashing "scenes from the previous episode," but I will say that I felt a little lost for the first fifteen minutes or so trying to remember what had happened in the previous episode, and specifically if JK Simmons' Kai (an evil yak, because of course), was a new villain or a villain from a previous installment that I'd just misplaced in my memory.  He was, in fact, new, though here I feel like the franchise dropped the ball a bit, as no one was going to live up to Gary Oldman's evil peacock from the second installment of the series (that was a joyous creation).

The film does succeed in a number of great visual gags, though.  The fights here are some of the best I've seen in the series, and truly marvelous to behold.  The film also does a good job of balancing Po's increasing seriousness with his natural comic persona (this is, after all, still a children's movie and never had the gravitas to be able to pull off what Pixar did during it's 2007-10 Golden Age)-the scene where Po must decide whether to return to the mortal realm or not is one where the adults get what he's deciding, but for the kids it still has the playfulness where it's a panda talking to a turtle.

All-in-all, no new ground is broken here and I maintain that the second film is still the best part of the series, but there's a lot to love in this installment.  I genuinely liked most of the scenes, and felt like the movies continued to find a cultivated and strong supporting cast of players (something Dreamworks does well), except in one very obvious case: Kate Hudson's Mei Mei.  I know the story behind this part, clearly intended to be a love interest for Po that got lost in storyboarding, and originally Rebel Wilson, whose comic skills match Black's, was scheduled to play the part and then (due to scheduling conflicts) had to drop out and Hudson filled in at the last minute.  This ends up being a disaster, as her first scene feels strange (is she just a woman who is blinded by her lack of talent or is she just seducing Po-it's very hard to say?), and then she has almost no interactions onscreen with Po, but gets a ridiculously over-the-top line reading at a critically-emotional scene later on in the film where she said she was a "nunchuck chick" and yet we haven't hearkened back to her at all since her first blustery scene.  It's a badly edited choice by the directors, one where they probably should have cut her storyline entirely from the film but didn't know how to (and probably were trying to set up a potential sequel for the studio's sake), but Hudson is badly underwritten and miscast, and it wears on those scenes of the movie in a jarring way (it's the first thing I thought of wanting to write about prior to this review...never a good sign for a film I actually liked).

Those are my thoughts on (what I'm hoping, in terms of story structure) is the final Kung Fu Panda film, and by-and-large it was a successful trilogy in my opinion.  How about you?  Which is your favorite (as I mentioned above, mine's the second) and where does this rank on your Dreamworks' animation list?  Do you also feel like Rebel Wilson could have saved Mei Mei or was this simply a character without redemption?  Share your thoughts below!

A Mother's Day Celebration: Hollywood's Best Mother-Daughter Pairs

In honor of Mother's Day, I thought it would be fun to look at my five favorite mother-daughter pairs in Hollywood.  Below I have ranked the best mother-daughter pairs at the movies:

5. Diane Ladd and Laura Dern

Laura finally started to catch up with mama Diane at the Oscars this past year.  The Rambling Rose costars have had a long history with Oscar, with Ladd nominated three times versus Dern's two nominations.  Both are brilliant performers who also costarred on HBO's Enlightened.

4. Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher

Debbie was one of the biggest stars of the 1950's, headlining dozens of romantic comedies, and is still celebrated today (she recently won the SAG Life Achievement Award), while Carrie Fisher would have enormous success in front of the screen in the Star Wars films (she'll be in Episode 7 later this year) and behind the screen as a comedian and screenwriter.

3. Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson

Goldie Hawn is perfect, and I've always LOVED these two together whenever they do interviews or talks on the red carpet.  Kate hasn't had the career her mom has, but she's always insanely fun and I constantly wish she'd pull her mom out of retirement for some sort of mother-daughter comedy (who wouldn't want that?).

2. Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli

Both legends in their own-right, two of Classic Hollywood's biggest stars both won Oscars (Judy a juvenile award, while Liza emerged victorious with Cabaret), and both became immortal for their singing prowess and stage presence.

1. Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis

Janet's a Hollywood icon, starring in three of the best films ever made (Touch of Evil, Psycho, and The Manchurian Candidate) while Jamie Lee Curtis has headlined films as diverse as Halloween, True Lies, and Freaky Friday.  Together they're not just Scream Queens of different generations-they're my favorite mother-daughter pair in Hollywood.

Those are my favorites-how about yours?  Who else would you add to this list?  Share in the comments!  And Happy Mother's Day!

Glee: Wonder-Ful (#4.21)

With only one more to go, you had a feeling that this would be more setup than actually delivery, though it was nice that we had resolutions to some story lines.  Granted, they were stories that we hadn't mentioned in months, but, well, that's Glee, isn't it?

The McKinley High Glee Club was prepping for Regionals, and, can we just stop for a second here?  With Regionals in the season finale, is there any possible way that they win the competition?  Shouldn't we have hit Regionals weeks ago if there was any shot of them going to Nationals?  After all, wouldn't that have been a plot by now if Nationals was going to be a significant achievement?  Either they're losing Regionals or they are winning Regionals and we'll find out in voiceover in the season premiere next year that they got last place or something at the National competition, which is why we'll continue seeing another round of slushies.

But I digress, as there were significant stories for Mercedes, Artie, Kurt, and Rachel this past week, which was a bit unusual, considering at one point they were the sole recipients of plots on this show (also, where was Finn?).  Mercedes, who has been basically absent all season (while Amber Riley was doing...what, precisely?) returned and it appeared that her record producer had less than reputable intentions for her.  After loving her voice and landing her record deal, she was asked to show a ton of skin in her album cover, which of course she balked at, and in turn lost her record deal.  So we now have a reason for Mercedes to return to Ohio, selling her CD on Amazon and out of her car.  The glee club-always struggling to make it work.

Artie, as well, had some second thoughts about impending success-he had been accepted at the Brooklyn Film Academy, and suddenly was having doubts about whether he could make it in New York.  Honestly, though, this seems a bit out-of-character for the overly confident Artie.  I loved that we saw his equally sassy mother (played by the brilliant Katey Sagal), but did anyone really believe that he wasn't going to go with leaving for New York (and inviting another character into the New York plot line?).  And did anyone else think that his little speech after Mercedes performed crossed the line into offensive?

Also, with this plot, I want to throw a little bit of cold water onto this story, as the success rate of these students has entered epic and silly levels.  I grew up in a small-town high school like McKinley, and maybe, just maybe, one person managed to get into the caliber of one of these students (and one person period, not one person per year).  And yet Artie is going to a school which is clearly modeled on NYU, Mike is in the Joffrey, Kurt and Rachel are clearly in a school modeled on Juilliard, Quinn is at Yale, Brittany is headed to MIT, and Mercedes landed a record deal right out of the gate.  I know that Finn, Puck, and Santana have struggled to find themselves, but shouldn't someone at some point out that the glee club is about as good at producing future stars as the 1990's era Mickey Mouse Club?

Kurt's story was a bit conventional for him (his dad was thankfully healthy and we got yet another wonderful Hummel family moment), and gave us the awkward circumstance of Blaine wanting to propose to Kurt.  Burt balked at this rightly, and while a marriage proposal from Darren Criss is always something to say yes to, I thought that this was a bit silly considering they aren't even officially dating anymore.  Though I will say that an impetuous marriage proposal is far more likely in a small town high school than someone getting accepted to Yale, so brava for realism, I guess...

The final plot was the Rachel one, and I honestly can't decide how I feel about it.  Overall, I haven't minded Kate Hudson this season (she's had a better role to play than Sarah Jessica Parker), and it's nice to know that she has at least some teacherly instincts, celebrating her student's huge achievement.  However, you know you have a problem with your story when people assume that something is a dream sequence because it's so unlikely, and that's how I felt when Hudson broke out in celebration of Rachel, doing her best Stevie Wonder (whose ear candy ditties were the theme of the episode).

The best moments of Glee are the sly fourth wall ones and the ones that celebrate the geekiness of the characters without making it a moral lesson.  My favorite fourth wall moment this week was when Kitty decided to help Artie, and she said something along the lines of her wanting to mix it up between being mean and nice, and she wasn't always sure which she was going to be (something to that effect, at least).  I felt like this was the writers speaking through her as to the fact that they're not sure what's going on with this character, just that she's far more interesting than Marley and so that's why she gets more screen-time.

And though the guys delivering the news fell into a rather ugly set of gay stereotypes, the moment when they listed out Lea Michele's competitors for the part of Fanny Brice (Sutton Foster and Mamie Gummer) was delicious.  I loved Michele rationalizing herself against Foster ("but she's doing Bunheads") and proving she doesn't know Broadway as well as she thinks she does (with Gummer, "can she even sing?").  Part of me is wishing these really are the competitors, and that the divine Foster (who at some point would have made a brilliant Fanny Brice, but is probably a wee bit too old for the part) and the lovely Gummer both make guest appearances next week.  And, considering her Emmy nominations for the series and her recent stint on the show's fictional Great White Way, why have we not seen a return of April Rhodes, as played by the great Kristin Chenoweth, this season?

And that's where we are at headed into the finale-I know the previews made it look like Blaine pops the question anyway, but aren't we all fairly certain that the surprise wedding will be Emma and Will's?  Do you think that Rachel will get the part (I'm thinking no for continuity's sake, but I'm hoping yes since it would throw the show in a new direction creatively)?  And who is the catfish (please don't let it be Kitty as it would be too obvious and too easy of an answer)?  We'll find next week on...Glee!