Oppenheimer wins 7 Oscars (Best Picture) (film & awards)

[nicholas.slaydon]

Everything Everywhere All At Once is now available on iTunes (and presumably digital VOD) and will arrive on DVD and Bluray on June 14th. EDIT - the iTunes and VOD release were quietly delayed 3 weeks unfortunately.

Make sure you check this out... most unique film of the decade and one of the best - possibly THE best - film of the decade so far. It has at least four genres mixed together, probably more, and you've NEVER seen a film like this. It's better if you don't look into the film too much or tell people too much about it before they see it. Just go in knowing very little or nothing and enjoy (and recommend to others). This is ALREADY a cult classic and it hasn't been out for 3 months yet.

Could be a big Oscars player but it isn't an "Oscars" type of film. So maybe not.

Unfortunately I don't think it will get any Oscar attention. It's unfortunate, as I don't think the studio really considered whether it could even have a chance at the awards, and I think it could. It really should have been released later in the years just to see whether it could have gotten some awards buzz, and I think it could have.

[nicholas.slaydon]

Everything Everywhere All At Once is now available on iTunes (and presumably digital VOD) and will arrive on DVD and Bluray on June 14th. EDIT - the iTunes and VOD release were quietly delayed 3 weeks unfortunately.

Make sure you check this out... most unique film of the decade and one of the best - possibly THE best - film of the decade so far. It has at least four genres mixed together, probably more, and you've NEVER seen a film like this. It's better if you don't look into the film too much or tell people too much about it before they see it. Just go in knowing very little or nothing and enjoy (and recommend to others). This is ALREADY a cult classic and it hasn't been out for 3 months yet.

Could be a big Oscars player but it isn't an "Oscars" type of film. So maybe not.

Unfortunately I don't think it will get any Oscar attention. It's unfortunate, as I don't think the studio really considered whether it could even have a chance at the awards, and I think it could. It really should have been released later in the years just to see whether it could have gotten some awards buzz, and I think it could have.

Everyone still seems to be predicting it now as we enter September, which is surprising. I think it has a decent chance of showing up at the Oscars now.

It would really warm my heart for a it to be nominated, and I would even be quite happy if it won for Best Picture (though it has steep odds going up against the likes of Babylon and Thirteen Lives).

[nicholas.slaydon]

Everyone still seems to be predicting it now as we enter September, which is surprising. I think it has a decent chance of showing up at the Oscars now.

It would really warm my heart for a it to be nominated, and I would even be quite happy if it won for Best Picture (though it has steep odds going up against the likes of Babylon and Thirteen Lives).

Apprently Thirteen Lives isn't going to be campaigned very hard for Best Picture. Some people have read the Babylon script - not me, I avoid spoilers - and say it's too weird to win Best Picture. We'll see.

Things will become more clear in the next few weeks, but I think the "big 5" of the year so far that could actually in Picture are Babylon Bardo Fabelmans Empire Son, with Women Talking and Everything Everywhere All At Once being the biggest contenders on the more "lowkey" side. Making the top 5 + those 2 into a "top 7". Most awards predictions right now from experts, insiders and film nerds have most or all of those top 7 in their predictions for the 10 films being nominated for Best Picture.

Yeah, ever since Amazon bought out MGM and dumped Thirteen Lives into a late July release with next to no promotion of the film I knew they weren't going to be pushing it hard for Best Picture. However, I am still holding out hope for it to be a Green Book style dark horse contender. Why in the world Amazon didn't release Thirteen Lives in theaters in November as MGM was planning to do once it scored the highest of any MGM film ever shown at test screenings is beyond me. It really had the potential to be the crowd pleasing film that can generate the groundswell of support needed to win Best Picture.

I can't speak for the others like The Fabelmans, Empire of Light etc as they're not out yet, and their quality is as yet unknown. However, I don't place a whole lot of stock in what a lot of the professional predictions say, as I've seen some of them that even contain Amsterdam as a potential awards player (and I can assure you with 100% certainty that it is not).

[nicholas.slaydon]

Predictions:
Best Picture: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
Best Director: The Daniels
Best Original Screenplay: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
Best Adapted Screenplay: All Quiet on the Western Front
Best Actor: Austin Butler
Best Actress: Cate Blanchett
Best Supporting Actor: Ke Huy Quan
Best Supporting Actress: Jamie Lee Curtis
Best Animated Feature: Pinocchio
Best International Film: All Quiet on the Western Front
Best Documentary Feature: Navalny
Best Film Editing: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once


What I want to Win:
Best Picture: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
Best Director: The Daniels
Best Original Screenplay: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
Best Adapted Screenplay: Living
Best Actor: Colin Farrell
Best Actress: Michelle Yeoh
Best Supporting Actor: Ke Huy Quan
Best Supporting Actress: Jamie Lee Curtis
Best Animated Feature: Marcell the Shell With Shoes On
Best International Film: Close
Best Film Editing: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

[nicholas.slaydon]

Predictions:

Best Film Drama:
Oppenheimer
2nd place: Anatomy of a Fall

Best Film Drama Actress:
Sandra Huller
2nd Place: Lily Gladstone

Best Film Drama Actor:
Cillian Murphey
2nd Place: Andrew Scott

Best Film Comedy/Musical:
Barbie
2nd Place: Poor Things

Best Film Comedy/Musical Actress:
Margot Robbie
2nd Place: Emma Stone

Best Film Comedy/Musical Actor:
Paul Giamatti
2nd Place: Jeffery Wright

Best Film Supporting Actress:
Da'Vine Joy Randolph
2nd Place: Danielle Brooks

Best Film Supporting Actor:
Charles Melton
2nd Place: Robert Downey Jr

Best Film Director:
Christopher Nolan
2nd Place: Greta Gerwig

Best Film Screenplay:
Anatomy of a Fall
2nd Place: Past Lives

Best Animated Feature:
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
2nd Place: The Boy and the Heron

Best Non-English Film:
Anatomy of a Fall
2nd Place: Past Lives

Best Score: Oppenheimer
2nd Place: Poor Things

Best Song:
"What Was I Made For"- Barbie
2nd Place: "I'm Just Ken" Barbie

Cinematic and Box Office Achievement:
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour
2nd Place: Barbie

[nicholas.slaydon]

The problem with the Oscars isn't elitism, it's that they routinely go for the "safe," inoffensive, crowd-pleasing picks. Parasite, American Beauty, and Birdman are the rare recent exceptions when the Academy honored truly subversive, innovative art-- but aside from that, their pattern from the 90s through to today has been pretty consistent. It's either conventional crowd-pleasing period pieces like Titanic or The King's Speech; films with anodyne racial messages like 12 Years a Slave, Green Book, Dances With Wolves, or Moonlight; or just sickeningly feel-good tripe like Forrest Gump.

I'm long past the point of caring about what wins Best Picture, but if we're going to have these types of awards, they should honor boundary-pushing films that innovate with the medium and challenge audiences. The idea that this should be a coronation ceremony for whatever superhero movie the largest number of drooling neckbeards watched that year renders it completely pointless.

They go for the "safe," inoffensive, crowd-pleasing picks, but the awards are not going to big blockbusters anymore, like they used to between 1996 and 2004. After Braveheart, Titanic, Gladiator, Lord of the Rings 3, this kind of picture is not winning anymore.

You say that as if Oppenheimer isn't the overwhelming favorite to win Best Picture this year.

[nicholas.slaydon]

You can consider that ignoring Margot Robbie was not a good decision, that she acted better than one or more of the five nominees for best actrees, but I don't believe there was sexism. Every year, there are 5 noms for best actor, 5 noms for best actress, 5 noms for supporting actor, 5 noms for supporting actress. Margot Robbie didn't loose the nomination for a man.

The exclusion of Greta Gerwig, on the other hand, might be motivated by sexism, but we can be not sure.

It would seem strange to accuse the Directors Branch of sexism in this case as first off, Gerwig has been nominated before in the category for Lady Bird, and the branch nominated Justine Triet.

[nicholas.slaydon]

I don't want to be too kind to the Oscars, because there are a ton of problems and I really can't stand them most of the time, but I do think they deserve quite a bit of credit for never jumping on the superhero bandwagon. Obviously everyone is pretending to have always hated Marvel now, but for practically the entire 2010s they were trying to force everyone to acknowledge stuff like Avengers 2 as cinema. Endgame is the most powerful film ever, Black Panther is the most bold and important movie ever made, etc. Outside of a few nominations here and there, the Oscars resisted that. I would much rather nonsense like Coda and Green Book win than Marvel. For all their faults, they deserve the award more than something like Infinity War does.

I'm sure many people were spewing this same elitist nonsense back in 1977 about Star Wars.

Except that Star Wars was nominated for a boat load of Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director, and won six awards (the most of that year). No Marvel movie could ever claim that (and for good reason).

[nicholas.slaydon]

the reason why the Oscars resisted the MCU were twofold: 1) the oscars prefer self-contained movies rather than being part of some broad narrative dictated by a studio and 2) the sheer quantity of them.

The Oscars resist comic book movies in general (let's not pretend the Dark Knight's snub didn't happen) for the same reason they resist westerns, thrillers, horror, comedies, sci-fi, action, fantasy, animation, etc.
Because Academy members consider genre movies to be beneath them and unworthy of such lofty recognition.

Sure, there will be the occasional Silence of the Lambs, Dances with Wolves, or Lord of the Rings.
But they are the exception that proves the rule.

You say that the Academy resists genre films as if Everything, Everywhere, All at Once didn't sweep the Oscars last year as a comedic Sci-fi film. Likewise genre action films like Top Gun: Maverick were nominated last year, along with a sci-fi fantasy like Avatar: The Way of Water. To be frank there are simply not enough westerns being made to have them nominated frequently, but True Grit (2010) and The Revenant were both nominated for a slew of awards. Likewise, Get Out was nominated in 2017 for both Best Picture and Best Director. Genre films get nominated every single year, that doesn't mean they win every year, but then again the Academy isn't a hive mind, but rather over 10,000 individuals who I do think in general cast their votes for who and what they consider to be the best in each category.

[nicholas.slaydon]

Academy Award Predictions:

Best Picture:
Oppenheimer

Best Director:
Christopher Nolan

Best Actress:
Lily Gladstone

Best Actor:
Cillian Murphy

Best Supporting Actress:
Da'Vine Joy Randolph

Best Supporting Actor:
Robert Downey Jr.

Best Adapted Screenplay:
American Fiction

Best Original Screenplay:
Anatomy of a Fall

Best Cinematography:
Oppenheimer

Best Costume Design:
Poor Things

Best Film Editing:
Oppenheimer

Best Makeup and Hairstyling:
Poor Things

Best Production Design:
Poor Things

Best Score:
Oppenheimer

Best Song:
What Was I Made For (Barbie)

Best Sound:
The Zone of Interest

Best Visual Effects:
Godzilla Minus One

Best Animated Feature:
The Boy and the Heron

Best Documentary Feature:
20 Days in Mariupol

Best International Film:
The Zone of Interest

Best Animated Short:
WAR IS OVER!

Best Documentary Short:
The ABC's of Book Banning

Best Live Action Short:
The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar



What I want to win:

Best Picture:
Anatomy of a Fall

Best Director:
Christopher Nolan

Best Actress:
Sandra Huller

Best Actor:
Cillian Murphy

Best Supporting Actress:
Danielle Brooks (this is such an awful category this year, that I would have to vote Danielle Brooks just because I couldn't bring myself to vote for anyone else.)

Best Supporting Actor:
Ryan Gosling

Best Adapted Screenplay:
The Zone of Interest

Best Original Screenplay:
Anatomy of a Fall

Best Cinematography:
Oppenheimer

Best Costume Design:
Barbie

Best Film Editing:
Anatomy of a Fall

Best Makeup and Hairstyling:
Society of the Snow

Best Production Design:
Barbie

Best Score:
American Fiction

Best Song:
I'm Just Ken (Barbie)

Best Sound:
Oppenheimer

Best Visual Effects:
The Creator

Best Animated Feature:
Robot Dreams

Best Documentary Feature:
20 Days in Mariupol

Best International Feature:
The Teachers Lounge

Best Animated Short:
Ninety-Five Senses

Best Documentary Short:
Island in Between

Best Live Action Short:
Invincible

[nicholas.slaydon]

I turned off Poor Things after the first 30 minutes because it was stupid and embarrassing, so I can't judge Emma Stone's performance fairly, but from what I saw I thought she was kind of bad. Maybe that was just the writing. I'm assuming (or at least hoping) that it got better as it went along.

It did not get better. The writing was bad throughout, and the direction was even worse.