I've been doing my best to prepare for Sunday's show and while there are some gaps in my viewing I have watched nine of the ten nominees for Best Picture and have seen most of the other categories to give an opinion. Here is how I saw the nominees and who I would give the golden statue to (in presumed awards show order). An * means I have not seen it yet.
Best Supporting Actress
This category is stacked and I would be ok with any of these performances winning, although I cannot speak on Hong Chau's performance in The Whale because it is the only one I have yet to see. When I saw Black Panther, I thought Angela Bassett would be the easy choice, then I saw Kerry Condon in The Banshees of Inisherin and felt like she was the winner. Jamie Lee Curtis is hilarious in her multiple roles in Everything Everywhere All At Once and Stephanie Hsu was also excellent in her part.
1. Kerry Condon-The Banshees of Inisherin
2. Angela Bassett-Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
3. Jamie Lee Curtis-Everything Everywhere All At Once
4. Stephanie Hsu-Everything Everywhere All At Once
5. Hong Chau-The Whale (*)
Best Sound
Ok, so I haven't seen Avatar 2, but I'm pretty sure that Top Gun: Maverick is going to take this one, or maybe All Quiet on the Western Front.
1. Top Gun: Maverick
2. All Quiet on the Western Front
3. The Batman
4. Elvis
5. Avatar: The Way of Water (*)
Cinematography
All these films are nice to look at, but I will allow recency bias to sway me, even though it wasn't the best of films.
1. Roger Deakins-Empire of Light
2. James Friend-All Quiet on the Western Front
3. Florian Hoffmeister- Tar
4. Mandy Walker-Elvis
5. Darius Khondji-Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Documentary Short
For the first time, I made a conscious effort to find these movies and give them a watch. There's a lot in these shorts, although some are nearly an hour. It's between the elephants and walruses, with the elephants getting the edge, because of a side love story between the two caretakers.
1. The Elephant Whisperers
2. Haulout
3. The Martha Mitchell Effect
4. Stranger At the Gate
5 How Do You Measure a Year? (*)
Visual Effects
Avatar will likely win, but I haven't seen it yet, so it gets nothing from me.
1. Top Gun: Maverick
2. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
3. All Quiet on the Western Front
4. The Batman
5. Avatar 2 (*)
Animated Feature
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was twice as good as its predecessor, but I loved Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio since I watched it. I was a little disappointed in Marcel the Shell with Shoes On I must say.
1. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
2. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
3. Turning Red
4. The Sea Beast
5. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Animated Short
Another category cleared and this was a wide variety of strange. I recommend most, with the exception of The Flying Sailor, even though it's based on a bizarre true story. I'm going with the most absurd, over the ones that made me a little emotional.
1. An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It
2. The Ice Merchants
3. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse
4. My Year of Dicks
5. The Flying Sailor
Supporting Actor
The trend continues, all of these are solid performances, but I'm going with Ke Huy Quan as the sentimental favorite.
1. Quan-Everything Everywhere All At Once
2. Barry Keoghan-Banshees of Inisherin
3. Brendan Gleeson-Banshees of Inisherin
4. Judd Hirsch-The Fabelmans
5. Brian Tyree Henry-Causeway
International Film
I did a bad job on this one, although in my defense, these are the hardest to stream in the ways that I watch.
1. All Quiet on the Western Front
2. Argentina, 1985
3. EO (*)
4. The Quiet Girl (*)
5. Close (*)
Live Action Short
Also, not a lot of these are available, so I watched the two that I could and I didn't love either of them really.
Le Pupille
Night Ride
An Irish Goodbye (*)
Ivalu (*)
The Red Suitcase (*)
Costume Design
I actually gave Wakanda Forever an extra half-star rating because I loved their costumes so much. Although, Elvis or Babylon will probably win.
1. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
2. Elvis
3. Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
4. Everything Everywhere All At Once
5. Babylon (*)
Original Screenplay
I've watched all of these nominees and I think all of them have a chance to pick up the win.
1. Everything Everywhere All At Once-The Daniels
2. The Banshees of Inisherin-Martin McDonagh
3. Triangle of Sadness-Ruben Ostlund
4. Tar-Todd Field
5. The Fabelmans-Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner
Adapted Screenplay
This category should be called sequels and remakes. I'm not looking here if I liked the movie, but how uniquely it was adapted.
1. Women Talking
2. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
3. Top Gun: Maverick
4. All Quiet on the Western Front
5. Living (*)
Score
It's nice that they nominate other people to lose to John Williams.
1. The Fabelmans-John Williams
2. The Banshees of Inisherin-Carter Burwell
3. All Quiet on the Western Front-Volker Bertelmann
4. Everything Everywhere All at Once-Son Lux
5. Babylon-Justin Hurwitz (*)
Editing
I'd like to take beef with most of these editors because only one of these movies is less than two hours long. I like these movies, but I really could have loved some of them more if they would've cut 10-20 minutes out of these movies. Therefore these are ranked from shortest runtime to longest.
1. The Banshees of Inisherin (114 Minutes)
2. Top Gun: Maverick (130 Minutes)
3. Everything Everywhere All At Once (139 Minutes)
4. Tar (158 Minutes)
5. Elvis (159 Minutes)
Documentary
I went from having seen not seeing any of these movies on Friday to watching four of the five by early Sunday morning. All That Breathes probably would've been better as a short.
1. Fire of Love
2. A House Made of Splinters
3. Navalny
4. All That Breathes
5. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (*)
Production Design
Set design and the layout of the background, the little details. Stuff I only pay attention to if there are easter eggs or if it's done poorly.
1. Elvis
2. The Fabelmans
3. All Quiet on the Western Front
4. Avatar: The Way of Water (*)
5. Babylon (*)
Original Song
This category is the bane of my existence. There are so many mediocre movies that are nominated over history that I have yet to watch. Tell It Like a Woman currently has a 3.6/10 on IMDB, but was nominated because Diane Warren has to be nominated in an attempt to finally get her a win. Fortunately, all the other songs appeared in movies I already watched. This category also features the lone nomination for RRR, which is a crime, because it was easily my lock for International Film and one of the best movies of 2022.
1. “Naatu Naatu” from RRR; Music by M.M. Keeravaani; Lyric by Chandrabose
2. “This Is a Life” from Everything Everywhere All at Once; Music by Ryan Lott, David Byrne, and Mitski; Lyric by Ryan Lott and David Byrne
3. “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever; Music by Tems, Rihanna, Ryan Coogler, and Ludwig Goransson; Lyric by Tems and Ryan Coogler
4. “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick; Music and Lyric by Lady Gaga and BloodPop
5.“Applause” from Tell It Like a Woman; Music and Lyric by Diane Warren (*)
Directing
This is a close category, but I'll give it to the Daniels because of the multiple styles that show up in their movie. Spielberg is the sentimental pick.
1. Everything Everywhere All At Once-Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
2. The Banshees of Inisherin- Martin McDonagh
3. The Fabelmans-Steven Spielberg
4. Triangle of Sadness-Ruben Ostlund
5. Tar-Todd Field
Lead Actor
Brendan Fraser has a strong chance to win for The Whale, but I've only watched two of these performances, so I'll go with the one that the actor is still doing even though the movie wrapped long ago.
1. Austin Butler-Elvis
2. Colin Farrell-The Banshees of Inisherin
3. Brendan Fraser-The Whale (*)
4. Paul Mescal-Aftersun (*)
5. Bill Nighy-Living
Makeup and Hairstyling
Nobody looks like they are wearing bad wigs, although none of them could fix whatever voice Tom Hanks was doing in Elvis. Fatsuits also played a big part in three of these nominations.
1. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
2. The Batman
3. All Quiet On the Western Front
4. Elvis
5. The Whale (*)
Lead Actress
After watching all but the controversial nomination of Andrea Risborough, I feel like everyone should just be excited to be nominated because this is Michelle Yeoh's world and they're just living in it. Also, Blonde is an awful film that de Armas tries to shine through, but it is a miserable watch.
1. Michelle Yeoh-Everything Everywhere All At Once
2. Cate Blanchett-Tar
3. Michelle Williams-The Fabelmans
4. Ana de Armas-Blonde
5. Andrea Risborough-To Leslie(*)
Best Picture
The one everyone wants to know. I got to watch nine of the ten to say with certainty that nothing compared to the ridiculously fun Everything Everywhere All At Once. These are just in order of personal favorites and not by any Best Picture metric.
1. Everything Everywhere All At Once
2. Top Gun: Maverick
3. The Fabelmans
4. All Quiet On the Western Front
5. The Banshees of Inisherin
6. Tar
7. Women Talking
8. Elvis
9. Triangle of Sadness
10. Avatar: The Way of Water (*)
