Month: March 2022

For the first time ever, we’re flummoxed. Usually we know by now how these things go down. But for the first time since we’ve started Oscar predictions, we’re at a loss as to who the frontrunner is this awards season. This year has been an anomaly to say the least, more so than even last year’s award season which was the first in the COVID era. Since every curtain raiser awards show that usually points in the direction of where the Oscars will go has either been discredited (Golden Globes), or postponed till the last minute (Critics Choice), the usual Oscar predictions route has been up in the air, which is rather refreshing in a way. There is no solid frontrunner, no one has any idea as to how this will go.

The biggest disrupter of Oscar predictions in the past two weeks is CODA’s momentum gain over Power of the Dog. With its groundbreaking SAG and PGA awards, CODA seems to be edging its way over the western stateside, as opposed to Power’s BAFTA and Critics Choice win. But for the first time in probably ever, the two likely winners for best picture are not only from streaming services, but are also directed by women, which is a feat we should celebrate in itself.

Other categories tend to be up in the air as well. Best actress is one that hasn’t been solidified, although Jessica Chastain’s performance in the Eyes of Tammy Faye seems to be picking up steam from her SAG and Critics Choice wins. The screenplay categories are also up for grabs. Don’t Look Up’s original screenplay win at the WGA awards over Licorice Pizza seems to show the script some promise, but those awards excluded major Oscar nominees, and Belfast’s Critics Choice and Golden Globes win show that film still has potential. On the adapted front, it’s still fair game. CODA won the WGA award, but that excluded Power of the Dog and Drive My Car – two very strong contenders at the Oscars.

Needless to say, anyone’s Oscar predictions are just as valuable as everyone else’s. Don’t take one over the other. Because for the first time in a long time, we have an Oscars where it’s anybody’s game. Here are our 2022 Oscar predictions.

BEST PICTURE

Belfast
CODA
Don’t Look Up
Drive My Car
Dune
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story

BEST DIRECTOR
Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza)
Kenneth Branagh (Belfast)
Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog)
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car)
Steven Spielberg (West Side Story)

BEST ACTRESS
Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye)
Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter)
Penélope Cruz (Parallel Mothers)
Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos)
Kristen Stewart (Spencer)

BEST ACTOR
Javier Bardem (Being the Ricardos)
Benedict Cumberbatch (The Power of the Dog)
Andrew Garfield (Tick, Tick … Boom!)
Will Smith (King Richard)
Denzel Washington (The Tragedy of Macbeth)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter)
Ariana DeBose (West Side Story)
Judi Dench (Belfast)
Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog)
Aunjanue Ellis (King Richard)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Ciarán Hinds (Belfast)
Troy Kotsur (CODA)
Jesse Plemons (The Power of the Dog)
J.K. Simmons (Being the Ricardos)
Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Power of the Dog)

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Cruella (Jenny Beavan)
Cyrano (Massimo Cantini Parrini and Jacqueline Durran)
Dune (Jacqueline West and Robert Morgan)
Nightmare Alley (Luis Sequeira)
West Side Story (Paul Tazewell)

BEST SOUND
Belfast (Denise Yarde, Simon Chase, James Mather and Niv Adiri)
Dune (Mac Ruth, Mark Mangini, Theo Green, Doug Hemphill and Ron Bartlett)
No Time to Die (Simon Hayes, Oliver Tarney, James Harrison, Paul Massey and Mark Taylor)
The Power of the Dog (Richard Flynn, Robert Mackenzie and Tara Webb)
West Side Story (Tod A. Maitland, Gary Rydstrom, Brian Chumney, Andy Nelson and Shawn Murphy)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Don’t Look Up (Nicholas Britell)
Dune (Hans Zimmer)
Encanto (Germaine Franco)
Parallel Mothers (Alberto Iglesias)
The Power of the Dog (Jonny Greenwood)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
CODA (screenplay by Siân Heder)
Drive My Car (screenplay by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Takamasa
Oe)
Dune (screenplay by Jon Spaihts and Denis Villeneuve
and Eric Roth)
The Lost Daughter (written by Maggie Gyllenhaal)
The Power of the Dog (written by Jane Campion)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Belfast (written by Kenneth Branagh)
Don’t Look Up (screenplay by Adam McKay; story by Adam McKay & David Sirota)
King Richard (written by Zach Baylin)
Licorice Pizza (written by Paul Thomas Anderson)
The Worst Person in the World (written by Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier)

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
Affairs of the Art (Joanna Quinn and Les Mills)
Bestia (Hugo Covarrubias and Tevo Díaz)
Boxballet (Anton Dyakov)
Robin Robin (Dan Ojari and Mikey Please)
The Windshield Wiper (Alberto Mielgo and Leo Sanchez)

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT
Ala Kachuu — Take and Run (Maria Brendle and Nadine Lüchinger)
The Dress (Tadeusz Lysiak and Maciej Ślesicki)
The Long Goodbye (Aneil Karia and Riz Ahmed)
On My Mind (Martin Strange-Hansen and Kim Magnusson)
Please Hold (K.D. Dávila and Levin Menekse)

BEST FILM EDITING
Don’t Look Up (Hank Corwin)
Dune (Joe Walker)
King Richard (Pamela Martin)
The Power of the Dog (Peter Sciberras)
Tick, Tick … Boom! (Myron Kerstein and Andrew Weisblum)

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Coming 2 America (Mike Marino, Stacey Morris and Carla Farmer)
Cruella (Nadia Stacey, Naomi Donne and Julia Vernon)
Dune (Donald Mowat, Love Larson and Eva von Bahr)
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram and Justin Raleigh)
House of Gucci (Göran Lundström, Anna Carin Lock and Frederic Aspiras)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Encanto (Jared Bush, Byron Howard, Yvett Merino and Clark Spencer)
Flee (Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Monica Hellström, Signe Byrge Sørensen and Charlotte De La Gournerie)
Luca (Enrico Casarosa and Andrea Warren)
The Mitchells vs. the Machines (Mike Rianda, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Kurt Albrecht)
Raya and the Last Dragon (Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada, Osnat Shurer
and Peter Del Vecho)

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Ascension (Jessica Kingdon, Kira Simon-Kennedy and Nathan Truesdell)
Attica (Stanley Nelson and Traci A. Curry)
Flee (Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Monica Hellström, Signe Byrge Sorensen and Charlotte De La Gournerie)
Summer of Soul (Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Joseph Patel, Robert Fyvolent and David Dinerstein)
Writing With Fire (Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh)

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Audible (Matt Ogens and Geoff McLean)
Lead Me Home (Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk)
The Queen of Basketball (Ben Proudfoot)
Three Songs for Benazir (Elizabeth Mirzaei and Gulistan Mirzaei)
When We Were Bullies (Jay Rosenblatt)

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Be Alive” — music and lyrics by DIXSON and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (King Richard)
“Dos Oruguitas” — music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda (Encanto)
“Down to Joy” — music and lyrics by Van Morrison (Belfast)
“No Time to Die” — music and lyrics by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell (No Time to Die)
“Somehow You Do” — music and lyrics by Diane Warren (Four Good Days)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Dune (Greig Fraser)
Nightmare Alley (Dan Laustsen)
The Power of the Dog (Ari Wegner)
The Tragedy of Macbeth (Bruno Delbonnel)
West Side Story (Janusz Kaminski)

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
Drive My Car (Japan)
Flee (Denmark)
The Hand of God (Italy)
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (Bhutan)
The Worst Person in the World (Norway)

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Dune (production design: Patrice Vermette; set decoration: Zsuzsanna Sipos)
Nightmare Alley (production design: Tamara Deverell; set decoration: Shane Vieau)
The Power of the Dog (production design: Grant Major; set decoration: Amber Richards)
The Tragedy of Macbeth (production design: Stefan Dechant; set decoration: Nancy Haigh)
West Side Story (production design: Adam Stockhausen; set decoration: Rena DeAngelo)

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Dune (Paul Lambert, Tristan Myles, Brian Connor and
Gerd Nefzer)
Free Guy (Swen Gillberg, Bryan Grill, Nikos Kalaitzidis and
Dan Sudick)
No Time to Die (Charlie Noble, Joel Green, Jonathan Fawkner and Chris Corbould)
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Christopher Townsend, Joe Farell, Sean Noel Walker and Dan Oliver)
Spider-Man: No Way Home (Kelly Port, Chris Waegner, Scott Edelstein and Dan Sudick)

The Oscar nominees revealed just three weeks ago point in a direction where the Academy hasn’t really gone before. The films nominated aren’t necessarily box office darlings (not even Dune made it into the green stateside), nor are they franchises or revives (save for West Side Story). Rather, this year’s nominees revolve around subtlety to tell their stories, requiring viewers’ patience and their “dismissal” hat to be hung at the door. They aim to challenge the viewer, which is what any great film should do – test the boundaries of not only what you’re comfortable with, but also push the limits of your empathy. And perhaps this is why this year’s Oscar nominees are not necessarily quiet, but sensitive in their approach of telling their stories.

Let’s start with the first and biggest example: Drive My Car – Japan’s three-hour Oscar submission that’s an adaptation of Murakami whose opening credits don’t even appear until 50 minutes in – is this year’s Oscar favorite just behind The Power of the Dog. The film centers around a stage director (Hidetoshi Nishijima) who loses his wife and accuracy of vision and is forced to hire a driver (Tôko Miura) to transport him to and from rehearsal. At first tricked for self-importance, Drive My Car’s slow and quiet unraveling of its story of empathy thaws and rises to the surface during its lengthy run-time. Perhaps this is the function of the plot – it acts subtly and un-detectable, that its conflict only barely reveals itself. Their connection at first comes off stand-off-ish, but how the film employs the venue of a car for its subjects to be vulnerable with each other only aids the film’s empathy.

But the theme of empathy is not only a foreign affair: The Lost Daughter also maintains roots in its approach to intimate filmmaking. It’s another film whose conflict is not strictly overt, but requires patience and attention to figure out. It centers around a college professor (Olivia Colman) who’s apparently lost touch with her daughters and confronts her unsettling past when she encounters a new mother (Dakota Johnson) and her daughter. You assume her daughters are dead, or even worse, assume she’s at fault. But again, there’s only a very fine line of conflict in the film, most of which is worn and communicated via Colman’s performance. It is not one that is externalized, but internalized. The film’s story may as well have started before the beginning of the film, as that’s what’s implied: the thrusting of Colman’s character into a world she rejects is not necessarily shown, as the film forces the audience to be in Colman’s shoes in order to understand.

But perhaps the most likely film to win the top prize this year is The Power of the Dog, Jane Campion’s period piece western centering around a rugged cowboy (Benedict Cumberbatch) whose world is shaken up when his brother (Jesse Plemmons) brings home a new wife (Kirsten Dunst) and kid (Kodi Smit-Mcphee). The slow-burn conflict focuses on the empathy (or lack thereof) between Cumberbatch and Smit-McPhee. Clearly a homosexual, Smit-McPhee’s character serves to hit Cumberbatch’s vulnerable spots in the most cunning of ways, acting on his flaw of queer repression to change him over a period of time. He does so effectively, but again in such a minute way, externalized only through glances of the eyes and the softest of touches.

The inclusion of these films, and as frontrunners no less, seems to have Twitter scrambling to argue that the Academy is in fact “changing,” but maybe they’re rightfully so. Ever since 2017, the Academy has been inviting younger, more diverse members to join, and perhaps it’s only taken five years in order to see the result. The Academy has nominated “art” films before, but they’ve never been, for lack of better words, this quiet. Take a look back at the arthouse films nominated in the past twenty years. Crash was most definitely the surprise indie to win, but definitely wasn’t subtle in its message. Moonlight was definitely a step forward for the Academy, but that film was driven more by its externalization of empathy more so than subtlety. Roma was an exceptionally well-done film, but its ingenious indulgence of directorial choices and set pieces make it not very self-effacing.

This year’s Oscar nominees also fuel a fire to a debate that’s been resurfacing for a couple years – “why are movies so long nowadays?” With the inclusion of lengthy films such as Drive My Car (2 hours and 59 minutes), Nightmare Alley (2 hours and 30 minutes), and Licorice Pizza (2 hours and 13 minutes), the general public will likely begin to equate awards worthiness and critical acclaim with length. It’s almost as if a movie has to be long to get any awards recognition. But there are two sides to that argument.

The Academy tends to equate length with “seriousness,” indicating craft and skill. The shortest film to ever win best picture is Marty (1 hour and 31 minutes), but even that was an anomaly – it was a comedy, which tend to be shorter (and only four of which, arguably, have ever won best picture), with the average best picture nominee length from the past 20 years easily above the two-hour mark. But is that a necessary pre-requisite? Must a film be of a certain length to capture the attention of the academy?

The other side of the argument is that subtlety does often require patience, at least in terms of a feature length film. In order for a director to not be strictly overt and obvious in telling a story, the film almost needs to challenge the audience in that sense. It needs to bring about and require active viewership. Sure, it can be a film that actively tells you a story while the audience passively receives, but that’s exactly what it will be. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But a “smart” film, the kind that brings about a revelatory experience, requires an active audience. A film is more effective when both sides are actively participating, and the Oscar nominees this year embody that. It’s not to say so much that they are “long,” but they’re films of considerable length in order to accurately “challenge” an audience by asking for attentive viewership. One can argue that the Academy only nominates long films, but another can just as accurately say they nominate films that challenge us.

And when the length is rewarding, those are the ones that often stick with the viewer. The problem isn’t if a film is three hours. What matters is if it feels like three hours. If done effectively, if the writer has done their job, length is secondary. It’s when the narrative drifts out to sea that one starts to notice the length. Seven Samurai is three and a half hours long, but gets to and sticks with the conflict in the first minute.

But for all intents and purposes – yes, these movies are long. But they’re only long because they want to challenge you. It is the nature of filmmaking to actively challenge an audience, to force them outside of their comfort zone. It’s the sheer audacity to transcend what’s possible in film and push the limits of human empathy. Because subtlty drives this year’s Oscar nominees, then they just might be the next phase in film evolution to raise the art to a higher plane of existence.