1. The Power of the Dog, Dune, Belfast, and West Side Story
2. King Richard, Drive My Car, Don't Look Up, and Nightmare Alley
3. CODA, Licorice Pizza, Being the Ricardos, and The Lost Daughter
4. The Tragedy of Macbeth, Encanto, No Time to Die, and Flee
5. Tick, Tick... Boom!, Parallel Mothers, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and The Worst Person in the World
6. Cruella, Spencer, The Hand of God, and Lunana: a Yak in the Classroom
1 Nomination
- Costume Design: Jacqueline Durran (Little Women, Darkest Hour, Beauty and the Beast, Mr. Turner, Anna Karenina, Atonement, Pride & Prejudice) & Massimo Cantini Parrini (Pinnochio)
Director: Joe Wright
Cast: Peter Dinklage, Haley Bennett, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Ben Mendelsohn, Bashir Salahuddin, Monica Dolan, Joshua James
Oh shit. This had no right being as bad as it was. I love Joe Wright, and I just can't figure out why he did this. I cannot believe that people were talking about Peter Dinklage possibly getting an Oscar nomination. Sure. If Russell Crowe deserved an Oscar nomination for Les Misérables. This Cyrano exists in some kind of no-man's-land nation that is fighting an unnamed war, and not one moment of it is believable in any way. The entire thing feels artificial. This is made even more absurd by singing and dancing. Like, maybe this could have been something if it did not also ask us to take these characters singing and dancing seriously, but then it does. The characters erupt into song in ways that feel completely unmotivated. Worse still, Peter Dinklage is a terrible singer... I just don't understand what this movie was doing. This movie is laughably, almost hilariously, bad. I want to say something else about this: if you adapt Cyrano de Bergerac into a musical, then you make a transposition: Cyrano must cease to be a poet. Cyrano's poetry exists in this film in addition to the songs, and so the poetry is supposed to be the most beautiful thing in the movie, but of course what needs to be the most beautiful thing in the movie is the music. If you're going to adapt this text into a piece of musical theatre, then you make Cyrano into a singer. He must be a singer with a beautiful voice but an ugly face while Christian, his rival, can't sing a lick but looks beautiful. Or you make Cyrano a lyricist and Christian a singer. Something. But this Cyrano doesn't use the form at all. Instead it tacks tacky songs onto a very old plot for one of the worst movies of the year.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #57 out of 59
1 Nomination
- Animated Feature
Director: Michael Rianda, Jeff Rowe
Cast: Abbi Jacobson, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Michael Rianda, Eric Andre, Olivia Colman, Beck Bennett, Fred Armisen, Chrissy Teigen, John Legend
I know that everyone loved this movie, and I really wanted to like it, but it was not for me. I just absolutely cannot get behind the old narrative that family is everything. Family is not everything. This dad is a dick to his daughter all the while she is growing up, and then the robot overlords come and there is a near apocalypse, and suddenly what this girl learns is that... even though her dad has been kind of a dick and not cared about her interests for the last decade, her family really is the most important thing in the world. Like... ok, but that seems like a rather facile point of view. To be fair, Mitchells has many good jokes, and the animation style is quirky and fun. It deserves its nomination, for sure. I just didn't care for the movie.
1 Nomination
- Animated Feature
Director: Enrico Casarosa
Cast: Jacob Tremblay, Jack Dylan Grazer, Emma Berman, Saverio Raimondo, Maya Rudolph, Marco Barricelli, Jim Gaffigan, Peter Sohn
On the other hand, I really liked Luca. This is really, really cute. I think I enjoyed this more than it really deserved, but it has some awesome moments. Luca is pretty obviously an allegory for sexuality. The kids are really aquatic fish monsters, and they show their true colors when they get wet. But Casarosa's treatment of this is charming. The non-fish-monster girl is hilarious and adorable, and the film really got me a couple of times. There's a true clutch-your-pearls moment at the end of act two that had me shook. I enjoyed this a lot.
Will Win: N/A
On the other hand, I really liked Luca. This is really, really cute. I think I enjoyed this more than it really deserved, but it has some awesome moments. Luca is pretty obviously an allegory for sexuality. The kids are really aquatic fish monsters, and they show their true colors when they get wet. But Casarosa's treatment of this is charming. The non-fish-monster girl is hilarious and adorable, and the film really got me a couple of times. There's a true clutch-your-pearls moment at the end of act two that had me shook. I enjoyed this a lot.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #27 out of 59
Raya and the Last Dragon
1 Nomination
- Animated Feature
Cast: Kelly Marie Tran, Awkwafina, Gemma Chan, Izaac Wang, Daniel Dae Kim, Benedict Wong, Sandra Oh, Jona Xiao, Lucille Soong
I have to confess to being a little surprised that this film made the final cut for nominations in this category. This was a very strong year for animated features. I saw many more than I usually see because I've been on kind of an animation kick, and I kind of expected Hosoda Mamoru's Belle or Patrick Imbert's Summit of the Gods to appear in this slot. Both were better than Raya, although it is fine, and it has dragons – I love dragons. Instead, the Academy went with a second Disney movie (for the record, this doesn't happen very often – more usually each studio gets one nomination). But Belle and Summit of the Gods are both excellent films, so I guess they just went with the big name. In any case, it's an also-ran here. It can't win a thing. Not against Encanto, dragons or no dragons.
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