Oscars

Oscars 2023: The Supporting Actors

Jeremy BeckOscars
Da'Vine Joy Randolph in The Holdovers; Robert Downey Jr. in Oppenheimer

And now, we get to the good stuff. Having previously analyzed the odds and ends and the big techies, we move on to the categories that are more likely to provoke excitement, debate, and name-calling. “He’s overacting!” “She disappears into the role!” “How could the Academy have nominated that guy over THAT guy??”

In my view, discussion of the acting categories isn’t especially interesting in terms of who will win (especially not in these two races, which are both veritable locks), or even who should. It’s most valuable as an excuse to publicize my own ballots, which are meant to fend off post-hoc grumblings about “snubs,” and which can be cited (and ridiculed) in perpetuity. Sure, it’s fine years after the fact to kvetch that Lily Gladstone should have been nominated in 2016 for her devastating performance in Certain Women, but how many of you monsters were on record saying that at the time?

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

NOMINEES
Emily Blunt—Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks—The Color Purple
America Ferrera—Barbie
Jodie Foster—Nyad
Da’Vine Joy Randolph—The Holdovers Read More

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Oscars 2023: The Big Techies

Jeremy BeckOscars
A scene from El Conde

With the Oscars fast approaching, we’re digging into the various feature categories. Yesterday, we looked at some odds and ends; today, we’re moving on to “the big techies.” What makes these below-the-line categories more significant than yesterday’s grouping? My random and arbitrary opinion, that’s what. In fact, I’d like to congratulate Best Costume Design on graduating from the minor leagues and making its first ever appearance in this batch; the promotion was long overdue, given that roughly 80% of my Twitter account these days is just screenshots of actresses in beautiful dresses.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

NOMINEES
El Conde—Edward Lachman
Killers of the Flower Moon—Rodrigo Prieto
Maestro—Matthew Libatique
Oppenheimer—Hoyte van Hoytema
Poor Things—Robbie Ryan Read More

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Oscars 2023: The Odds and Ends

Jeremy BeckOscars
A scene from Nimona

Welcome to Oscars week! Over the next five days, we’ll be running through each of the 20 feature categories at the 96th Academy Awards, bestowing upon you our predictions, preferences, and assorted grievances. Will our analysis be rooted in a painstaking combination of industry buzz and historical research? Not remotely. But it’s important to go on record with these things, if only to have the receipts. Ten years after every Oscars, people invariably say things like, “How could the Academy not have nominated that guy for that movie??” Well, unless you file your own contemporaneous ballot before each ceremony as I do, I hereby decree your grumbling invalid.

Today we’re running through six miscellaneous categories—the fields that no normal human cares about, but which might make a difference in your Oscars pool (do people still do Oscar pools?). Let’s get to it.


BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

NOMINEES
The Boy and the Heron
Elemental
Nimona
Robot Dreams
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Read More

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Oscars 2023: Nominations and Analysis

Jeremy BeckOscars
Annette Bening and Jodie Foster in Nyad

The Oscars are a whipping boy. Despite their ostensible function of celebrating the year’s best movies, their real value lies in what they get wrong—the so-called “snubs,” the head-scratching inclusions, the rhetorical shrieks of “How did they choose him there but not her there??” We like following them because we like kvetching about them.

To that end, the nominations for the 96th Academy Awards did their job in both senses of the phrase. Sure, there were the usual infuriating exclusions (nothing for Asteroid City?!) and puzzling replacements (that sound you just heard was every boomer trying to figure out their Netflix login in order to watch Nyad), plus one genuine shocker (we’ll get to that). But otherwise—and as is usually the case—most of the nominations were, well, pretty good. Sure, no category perfectly aligned with my personal dream ballots (all of which shall be revealed at a later date!), but it’s unrealistic to demand perfection from the Oscars. Besides, if they got everything right, they would have no reason to exist. Read More

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Oscars 2023: Nomination Predictions

Jeremy BeckOscars
Sandra Hüller in Anatomy of a Fall

Movie critics love telling people how little we care about the Oscars, which is why we spend every year rigorously predicting, analyzing, and castigating them. It is true, of course, that the blessing of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences confers no special level of excellence upon the chosen films; it certainly doesn’t change personal opinions of them. But if the Oscars are meaningless, they are at least meaningless in a meaningful way. Even as the Academy has diversified its membership such that it’s no longer exclusively run by old white guys, the Oscars still function as a form of fossilizing—preserving in amber the tastes and trends of a particular cinematic epoch. They allow future generations of movie-lovers to look back and ask in puzzlement, “What the fuck were they thinking?”

There are worse questions to ask, and to have answered. And so, per tradition, we here at MovieManifesto now embark on our annual scrutiny of the Oscars—a ritual characterized not by scientific precision or sober reasoning, but by random guesswork and snotty resentment. It’s fun! Read More

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