Oscars Preview 2023

 Sigh. This isn't going to be a great year for hate watching the Oscars.

Before I get deep into, you can see my Top Ten of 2022 here.

There is one and only one Best Picture nominee that I disliked intensely, which is All Quiet on the Western Front. If it wins, I'll be too frozen to deal from hell freezing over to car.  If it wins something else, I'm not going to spend the emotional energy.  And part of me admires Netflix's ability year after year to take some piece of claptrap artsy filmmaking and invest millions of dollars and get it into the completion. I wish every of my clients' books would be published with similar investment and enthusiasm.

I don't even know what movie I'm rooting for.  I saw The Fabelmans twice, it held up well, and it's a great movie. I've seen Top Gun: Maverick a handful of times, and could watch it over and over and over again. Tar has kept its pull on me four months after, and I might just see it again this weekend.  I didn't care fo Women Talking, but I knew I wouldn't, and it held up better than most movies that are similar.  

Everyone's talking about Everything Everywhere All at Once.  I didn't like the movie. I rested my eyes in the middle of it, in part because I couldn't understand. But I don't mind it. It's not some piece of overrated artsy something like Power of the Dog or Western Front. It isn't some navel-gazing love letter to oneself like The Artist.  It's refreshing and different and it sparked a chord amongst my clients like very few other movies have done; I can't think of another movie that doesn't have a Marvel logo attached that got as much social media attention in my circle as Everything Everywhere All at Once.  So I'm totally chill if it wins.

Where is Nope? Great score, great script, great acting, great photography. It's Nothing Nowhere Everywhere on my Oscar ballot. That's wrong.

Where is Danielle Deadwyler?  The Best Actress race this year has an overabundance of worthwhile nominees, and my carping here fails my own test.  It's not enough to say what you wish were nominated, but you have to identify the thing it should replace.  Every single Actress in a Leading Role nominee this year is deserving.  But, still, where is Danielle Deadwyler?  From those nominated, I'd go with Cate Blanchett.  It's considered a race between her and Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere.

I don't 100% love any of the Best Actor nominees.  How about Owen Teague from Montana Story? Tom Cruise from Top Gun: Maverick? Gabriel LaBelle from The Fabelmans?  It wasn't a great year in the category, but any of these three people I'd more happily send home with an Oscar than whomever actually gets to take one home.  I've read that Colin Farrell has a difficult time because he's doing a great job playing a character like himself, but I think Tom Cruise suffers from that a bit. He's really, really good in Top Gun: Maverick. For being Tom Cruise, he's very good at sharing the screen with other people, and it's as much what he does with the other people on the screen as he does with his own role that I think he ought to be here.  Getting back to Colin Farrell, it doesn't help that his role in Banshees requires him to be stupid.  And I don't mind his performance. Or Austin's, or Paul's, or Brendan's.  I can just too easily think of other people I like more.

Supporting - what is Causeway?  Did this film even play in New York?  I'm fine if Ke Huy Quan wins, but again, if I scrolled back through my 2022 films, I can too easily be "where's Paul Dano." Even Brandon Perea in Nope.  

Supporting Actress, I'm a Hong Chau or Kerry Condon person. Has been widely and accurately pointed out that Dolly de Leon should be here from Triangle of Sadness, and I wouldn't mind to see her on this ballot instead of Jamie Lee Curtis.

Cinematography: Sure, lifting my eyes up from the newspaper I read on my iPad during Western Front, it looks gorgeous. But my own favorite from the nominees is Empire of Light. I love movies, I love movie theatres, and it's rare to see a lobby filmed as lovingly as the one in Empire of Light, or to see a theatre looming as gloriously over its surroundings as the theatre does here. The two best things about Empire of Light, which is not a great movie, are Micheal Ward, and Roger Deakins.

Animated Feature, I saw three of the movies, and Puss in Boots!!!  Everyone is saying it's Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio.  Please see my note above about Netflix, millions of dollars, and marketing award bait.

Costume Design, whatever. But it would be a nice place for Elvis to get something.

Directing is a tough category.  Spielberg, great. McDonagh, great; though McDonagh's movie curdled for me on second viewing, it's because of the script. The movie is full of great ingredients, and credit to the director for that. Todd Field - great. Triangle of Sadness -great.

Documentary is a category that often does weird things.  From those nominated, Navalny. Who We Are and The Automat could replace any two of the other nominees, and the list would be better. I saw only two of the nominees, however.

Film editing, Elvis or Top Gun: Maverick

International Feature Film:  I saw four of the nominees this year, and, well, I'll hate watch this one category.  Close and Argentina 1985 are better.

Doesn't Makeup have to go to The Whale?

Ugh. Best Score. I want John Williams to win for The Fabelmans, and I want Justin Hurwitz to win for Babylon, and most of all I want a tie.  Carter Burwell is also very good for Fabelmans.  And there are lots of other good scores that aren't on the ballot.  Michael Abels for Nope is one.  Michael Giacchino for The Batman is another.

Song.  Where is Good Afternoon?  

Production Design: Elvis. or Fabelmans. Or Avatar: The Way of Water.

Sound: Top Gun: Maverick 

Visual Effects: Top Gun: Maverick

Adapted Screenplay: These are the ones I have to choose from?  Of those nominated, Top Gun: Maverick.  But you could nominate The Good House, I'd be happier. In fairness I'm not going down my list of movies for the year and finding a lot of other candidates, but this category is weak.

Original Screenplay: This would be a category where The Menu could be nominated.  I'm not a big fan of the Banshees script, but Everything Everywhere is definitely an original, The Fabelmans is great, Tar is great if I forget about the last fifteen minutes.  Triangle of Sadness is less great.

Other stuffs: I complain about Netflix, but looking over my 2022 movie list, The Good Nurse holds up ten weeks into 2023 than a lot of my other 2022 movies.  Armageddon Time isn't robbed to not be up for anything, but the scene in Flushing Meadows Park is one of the best scenes I saw all year.

You can head over to BilmBlog500.blogspot.com for my annual live blogging during the Oscar ceremony. You can follow me on Letterboxd, @jabbermaster.