At this point, I have lamented my seeming inability to compellingly praise cinema's mainline pleasures (acting, directing, writing) so much that I probably need to lament something new: namely, how difficult it is coming up with a new metaphor every year about how hard it is for me to write about these things. Last year's was a banger! I made a Lord of the Rings joke, accompanied by a picture of a confused owl! Genius is real, and it walks amongst us. Unfortunately for us all, genius very rarely walks into my room, and I am, as previously stated, so busy that my eyeballs are in actual danger of falling out of my head. So, in lieu of a fresh and sassy new metaphor, we all might have to settle for me saying that I will do my best to be more entertaining tomorrow. Maybe I will draw you a picture of a crying centaur as penance? I probably won't, but you can imagine it, which will be just as good. Look at him. He's miserable. And he's played by Tom Cruise! Surely this makes up for the lack of a new metaphor.
So here's how it'll go: I'll just rattle off my top five nominees in the acting, directing, and writing categories with some brief (...ish) commentary about the field. Knock your socks off! Or knock your socks on! I'm not here to judge you, I'm here to judge the movies, and I am gonna do so much of that.
Note: I'll include clips for the acting categories, but there won't be any rhyme or reason behind who gets them or why. It'll just be whatever I feel like/whatever I can easily find on Youtube.
Best Actress
5. Jessie Buckley-Hamnet
4. Zhao Tao-Caught by the Tides
3. Keke Palmer-One of Them Days
2. Emma Stone-Bugonia
1. Rose Byrne-If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You
Honorable mention: Jennifer Lawrence-Die My Love
A fun, eclectic mix here. Jessie Buckley's holding down the Oscar bait fort with her openness and vulnerability in Hamnet--a performance that I do really like, but admit to not quite getting her Oscar juggernaut status. Much happier to sing the praises of the undersung Zhao Tao and Keke Palmer, neither of whom have gotten any considerable awards attention this year and both of whom should be cleaning up, the first for her nearly silent portrayal of a wounded and bemused woman through decades of Chinese history and the other for being one of the funniest people in cinema. (Her delivery of 'not even infants?' keeps me up at night, but that whole video is a great showcase.) Either of those two would be great winners, but they're ceding the top spots to Emma Stone, whose partnership with Yorgos Lanthimos continues to yield her most bananas, bug-eyed work, and Rose Byrne, who made me feel like I spent her entire movie trapped in a pressure cooker with an unruly hamster.
Actor
5. Dylan O'Brien-Twinless
4. Josh O'Connor-Wake Up Dead Man
3. Michael B. Jordan-Sinners
2. Jesse Plemons-Bugonia
1. Abou Sangaré-Soulemane's Story
Honorable mention: Timothée Chalamet-Marty Supreme
Unbelievably difficult to decide which of these top six was getting left out; I started with Dylan O'Brien on the outside looking in, but it felt wrong enough that I did something silly and bumped Timothée Chalamet out of the top 5 entirely. Is this possibly an example of my undying and somewhat embarrassing love of Dylan O'Brien winning out over the fact that Timmy's been a bit of a dick lately? Maybe, but how can I turn down O'Brien's wonderfully nuanced performance as two very different twins, or (speaking of dual roles) Michael B. Jordan's cockiness and ferocity in dual (kind of triple, actually?) performances in Sinners (major spoilers for Sinners in that clip). While slots 3-6 were constantly up in the air, the top two seem obvious. Jesse Plemons has never been better (which is saying a lot) as a slippery conspiracy theorist becoming increasingly unhinged against Emma Stone's calm. And it's a cliché to say someone is a revelation, but just watch Abou Sangaré in his very performance in Soulemane's Story and tell me that it doesn't feel like seeing a miracle unfold in real time. (The performance is nowhere on Youtube, unfortunately, but it's worth seeking out.)
Supporting Actress
5. Sissy Spacek-Die My Love
4. Naomie Ackie-Sorry Baby
3. Kirsten Dunst-Roofman
2. Nina Hoss-Hedda
1. Amy Madigan-Weapons
Honorable mention: Teyana Taylor-One Battle After Another
You can tell I'm having a wildly off-consensus year in this category because only one of these five women have any clips on youtube to speak of. And I don't get it! How does Sissy Spacek's brittle, is-she-or-isn't-she dancing on the edge not take off? How are people not falling over themselves to reward the emotional complexity in Naomie Ackie and Kirsten Dunst's quiet and fragile performances, both generously supporting the leads of their movies while carving out a vital space for themselves? In any other year this would have gone to Nina Hoss--admittedly, a woman I am as likely to reward just for breathing as for anything else she does, but watch Hedda and then explain to me how you don't want her to drown in a shower of golden trophies. But the performance of the category--and probably the year--for me is so obviously Amy Madigan, whose Gladys is one of the more original and vibrant creations in recent years. She storms into a horror movie like a cartoon character and takes charge of it through sheer lunacy, only shedding that lunacy later to to astounding effect (warning: that clip both has spoilers and violence). I've thought about one line reading that she does, and her reaction after--"and then I'll go home!" followed by such need and fear and vulnerability for a split second before papering over it with a little chuckle--at least every week since seeing this, and I have to assume I'll be thinking about it for weeks to come.
Supporting Actor
5. Austin Abrams-Weapons
4. Benicio Del Toro-One Battle After Another
3. Andrew Scott-Blue Moon
2. Delroy Lindo-Sinners
1. Stellan Skarsgard-Sentimental Value
Honorable mention: Sean Penn-One Battle After Another
A wild and delightful embarrassment of riches in this, what is reliably the dullest of major categories. It kills me to leave Senn Penn out, and he could easily be in the top 5 any other day, as could equally interesting performances from Michael Cera in The Phoenician Scheme, Kayo Martin in The Plague, or why not, even Noah Jupe in Hamnet or Jacob Elordi in Frankenstein. But for now, I feel good about these five. Madigan has (rightfully) taken all of Weapons' awards oxygen, but what is the movie without Abrams' jangly comedy and live-wire energy? Similarly, everyone's talking about Ethan Hawke in Blue Moon for reasons that are both completely understandable and kind of depressing, but where's the love for Andrew Scott, crafting a complicated and fully realized history in about five minutes of screen time? Sean Penn has the showier performance in One Battle..., but I'll give a slight edge to Del Toro, if only because I think kindness and generosity is harder to make seem interesting and valuable than it is to be a compelling villain. Finally, everyone throw some praise hands up for two great character actors finally getting their due, or at least a little bit of it. Delroy Lindo is one of the best actors on the planet, and it's a thrill to see him given so much to work with in Sinners. It's awfully tempting to put him in the top spot, but I've got to go with Skarsgard here (even if it's arguably a lead performance). There's so much gravity to his performance--everything inside him and outside him demanding to be felt and realized--and he makes it all manifest with the smallest eye movements, the slightest modulation in tone, the most casual of gestures. Real masterclass stuff.
Director
5. Jia Zhangke-Caught by the Tides
4. Park Chan-wook-No Other Choice
3. Danny Boyle-28 Years Later
2. Ryan Coogler-Sinners
1. Paul Thomas Anderson-One Battle After Another
Honorable mention: Charlie Polinger-The Plague
Five big swings from five ambitious directors, each of them bringing something special to what could have been a very different project. Jia's signature coup is to create a movie in the margins of his other work, tracing both his own evolution as an artist and China's course through the turn of the 21st century by creating a project that exists in the interstices of both of those narratives. No Other Choice is certainly fun on its own, but Park breathes manic life into the project, never settling for a standard transition or mood when he can do something wacky. Ditto Danny Boyle, who could have settled with making a lazy legasequel but chose instead to make a dizzy and heartfelt meditation on letting go, filmed entirely on iPhones--not that you'd be able to tell from how beautiful it looks. Coogler and Anderson are in a steel cage match for first place, both for making movies that feels as though no one on the planet could have made them. It's hard to deny Coogler's confidence and skill with a camera or his deftness in juggling different tones and genres, but I've got to just give it to Paul Thomas Anderson, who invested One Battle with the kind of electricity that feels like magic.
Original Screenplay
5. It Was Just an Accident
4. Sinners
3. Griffin in Summer
2. Weapons
1. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Honorable mention: The Plague
Kind of a funny thing this year with screenplays in both categories, in that many of my reservations about the movies this year, even the ones I loved, came from their scripts. So in both categories I've cobbled together a motley crew of 'great movie, fine screenplay' and 'fun screenplay, the movie was nice too' entries. As for reservations coming from the script, I'm side-eying Sinners and It Was Just an Accident here, but both movies are so unique and high-achieving that I can't begrudge them this spot (even if I maybe should?). Love, love love Griffin in Theater's unhinged theater kid energy and how it so carefully captures a very specific queer experience that at least some of us have had (writing a play for your straight crush and then being devastated when they don't actually want to act in it) (we, uh, we've all done that, right?). Also love Weapons' effortless toggling of humor, satire, horror, and actual pain. First and biggest props, however, go to On Becoming a Guinea Fowl for doing everything that each of these movies did and more: an evocation of a time and place that cuts like glass, juggling multiple tones and themes with grace, and serving something that feels new and fresh.
Adapted Screenplay
5. No Other Choice
4. Final Destination: Bloodlines
3. Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
2. Wake Up Dead Man
1. Bugonia
Honorable mention: The Long Walk
A category that feels vaguely barren and less vaguely bananas, resulting in what must surely be the very first writing award that any Final Destination film has ever received. But why not? It expands on the franchise with such humor and ease that I'm happy to give it its flowers, even--or especially--at the expense of other, more Oscar-nominated screenplays. (Seriously, is the best adapted screenplay category this year one of the worst lineups in history?) No Other Choice and Little Amélie earn their spots by being exactly what they need to be in exactly the right amounts. Wake Up Dead Man would make for a satisfying winner, if only for its remarkably even-handed and empathetic approach to faith (if not necessarily for its central mystery), but I'm going with Bugonia's by turns hilarious and disturbing weaponization of corporate speak and inspirational buzzword-ing done to dastardly effect.
And that's that (again)! Which is good thing because a) I have got to start doing something else if I want to actually survive this week for real, and b) I am surely in jeopardy of overloading you all with too much of a good thing. One more aptly deployed metaphor or adverb and your minds will explode from having experienced every positive human emotion at once. I'll be back tomorrow with everyone's favorite annual event: me losing my mind about sound editing and costumes! I can't wait, and I'm sure you can't either, but you're just going to have to. Life is full of crushing disappointments! Stay tuned to see if one of those disappointments will be seeing if If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You's stellar sound work or One of Them Days' immaculate costumes will be snubbed yet again. Spoiler alert: they won't! No disappointments for anyone! What a time to be alive!
No comments:
Post a Comment