I think before we get into the Andrea Riseborough of it all, we should perhaps talk about the way that the nominating process works. First things first, the academy has 17 branches. And each branch nominates in specific categories. A member can only be a member of one branch, and if she is invited to join more than one branch, she has to choose. There is an actor branch, a costume designer branch, a casting director branch, a director branch, a music branch, a writer branch, a documentary branch, etc. And there are ten more: cinematographers, executives, film editors, sound, makeup artists and hairstylists, marketing and public relations, producers, production design, visual effects, and animation and short films (which are grouped together for some reason). There are also two member-at-large groups – one for artists and one for agents. During the nomination process, each of the 23 Oscar categories is nominated by the branch responsible for it. If you're a costume designer, at this stage you get to vote to nominate two Oscar categories only: costume design and best picture. For actors that is more: there are four acting categories plus best picture. Music has two plus best picture; so do the writers. You get the picture. (International film has a whole other complex process that has changed a lot over the years.) But there is a very specific key to the nominating process: You get to vote for a slate of 5 nominees in each category, but you rank them. And only one of your votes counts.
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| If you want BTH to get nominated, you put his name at the top. |
Let's take my list of nominees for Best Supporting Actor this year: I would have voted for 1. Anton von Lucke in Great Freedom, 2. André Holland in Bones and All, 3. Jeremy Strong in Armageddon Time, 4. Albrecht Schuch in All Quiet on the Western Front, and 5. Barry Keoghan in The Banshees of Inisherin. When they count the ballots, they put them all in large piles. So: let's just assume that most people voted for Ke Huy Quan and Brendan Gleeson. They get nominated and all the votes that put them at the top get removed. (If you voted for one of them at the top of your list, that's who your vote counts for. No one else on your list matters.) Next: they take the people got the least amount of votes (like Anton von Lucke) and they redistribute. Now they put my vote in the André Holland pile, but of course, he's also eliminated quickly, so they move it to the Albrecht Schuch pile. Maybe my vote never counts at all, or maybe my vote ends up in the Barry Keoghan pile. (There's no ballot anyway, since I'm just an amateur Oscar fan.) But if you're really, really set on someone, you put that name at the top and you move the big names – who you love but are less passionate about – lower on your ballot. This is how Paul Mescal got an Oscar nomination, and Brian Tyree Henry got an Oscar nomination, and Stephanie Hsu ended up with a surprise Oscar nomination. And this, of course, is how Andrea Riseborough got one. There's one in every category, actually. The fifth slot ends up working exactly the opposite of how you'd expect it to. Rather than it being a consensus vote – where the eventual nominee would be the person everyone sort of likes but no one is obsessed with – it is a passion vote. The eventual fifth nominee in each category is mostly unexpected; it represents a surge of affection within (in this case) the acting branch of the Academy. You can see this in other categories too: for the writers with Glass Onion (the film's only nomination), for example, or for Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris in the costume category.
This year's nominees:
1 Nomination
- Actress: Andrea Riseborough
Director: Michael Morris
Cast: Riseborough, Marc Maron, Allison Janney, André Royo, Owen Teague, Stephen Root, James Landry Hébert, Catfish Jean, Marc Brandt, Matt Lauria
I think it's a generally good thing that a bunch of celebrities figured out how to beat the bushes – avoiding all of the usual campaigning – in order to get a film with no powerful distributor this surprise nomination. I refer to nomination morning my Christmas morning because I'm in it for the surprises. This was an enormous surprise, and the whole thing is very interesting. As it turns out, Riseborough is great in To Leslie – she's great in almost everything she does – and the movie itself is pretty good too. It's a story of addiction and potential redemption that I felt managed actually to work despite the clichéd pitfalls surrounding this narrative. The "scandal" of her nomination will be one for the Oscar history books, but it isn't really a scandal at all. The scandal, it seems to me, is that usually the Academy just sees a handful of about 30 movies all year (if that), and they're the movies the big studios tell them to watch. They send them screeners and campaign to get them to watch them, and then the critics groups and other awards organizations fall in line and nominate around 20 films for everything. It becomes boring and predictable, and it just goes to show how few movies these experts are actually watching. The To Leslie campaign tried something else, and what do you know? It worked! I guess I find it pretty remarkable. And the movie's actually good.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #29 out of 66
1 Nomination
- Actress: Ana de Armas
Director: Andrew Dominik
Cast: Armas, Bobby Cannavale, Adrien Brody, Xavier Samuel, Evan Williams, Julianne Nicholson, Dan Butler
I can't believe this movie got made. Well, of course, I guess I can, but it's one of the most sexist, offensive pieces of shit I've seen in a while. This movie purports to be a kind of inside-the-mind version of Marilyn Monroe, where we see much more from her perspective. It isn't that. Instead, we watch Marilyn from the perspective of the many men in her life. One early example is when she auditions for a part and then leaves the room, and we sit with the men while they talk about how great her ass is. It's outrageous. There's another sequence where we sit at the bar with DiMaggio, who has been given naked pictures of Marilyn. He becomes enraged and we sit with him while he gets angry, then we follow him home, he slams the car door – the camera is following his perspective – and he comes home, finds Marilyn in her bedroom, surprises her, and slaps her so hard he knocks her off the bed. How can this film justify showing us all of that from this man's point of view? In a movie purporting to be from hers! I was enraged; I'm getting enraged all over again just thinking about it. Add to that the truly absurd talking fetus (what the fuck was that?), Ana de Armas's inaccurate accent, and the fact that this abomination is three hours long, and I wanted to rip my eyes out. I'll say two positive things about this movie: Adrien Brody is excellently cast as Arthur Miller, and Blonde did actually try something – it failed, but it tried something, and this makes it just slightly better than The Whale.
1 Nomination
- Adapted Screenplay: Rian Johnson (Knives Out)
Director: Johnson
Cast: Daniel Craig, Janelle Monáe, Edward Norton, Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, Madelyn Cline, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Hugh Grant
This was a very boring movie. I know a lot of people liked it, but I just was very bored the whole time. It's weird: I used to really like Rian Johnson, and I've always thought he was good at mysteries (I was very into Brick in my twenties). But for me these new mysteries he's doing are not interesting. They feel too formulaic and glossy to be of any actual interest. That said, I think it'll probably win the adapted screenplay Oscar. What I want to talk about is how this is an adapted screenplay. In short, Glass Onion isn't an adapted screenplay. You know what else isn't an adapted screenplay? Top Gun: Maverick. Both of these films, instead, involve characters who have appeared in other places. But their storylines, their dialogue, and a majority of their characters are original. These scripts are actually not adapted from another document the way Living or All Quiet on the Western Front or The Whale or Blonde are. (I've already made known my feelings about Triangle of Sadness being considered "original".) This is a very odd policy in regard to writing that the Academy has had in place since around 2004, and I think it makes no actual sense. It has meant "adapted" nominations for completely original scripts such as Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Before Midnight, and most insanely, Toy Story 3. It makes no sense. How are these scripts that remix characters and do new things with them any different from scripts considered "original" that use old characters like Midnight in Paris or The King's Speech or The Trial of the Chicago 7. That last film had to be adapted from actual transcripts from the actual trial, for example, with the screenwriter adapting some speeches wholesale from historical documents. Yet that is an "original" screenplay and Glass Onion, which is literally not based on anything; it merely repurposes a single character from a different film to follow a new, convoluted story with original dialogue, an original scenario, and a dozen original characters. It's nonsense.
Will Win: Adapted Screenplay
This was a very boring movie. I know a lot of people liked it, but I just was very bored the whole time. It's weird: I used to really like Rian Johnson, and I've always thought he was good at mysteries (I was very into Brick in my twenties). But for me these new mysteries he's doing are not interesting. They feel too formulaic and glossy to be of any actual interest. That said, I think it'll probably win the adapted screenplay Oscar. What I want to talk about is how this is an adapted screenplay. In short, Glass Onion isn't an adapted screenplay. You know what else isn't an adapted screenplay? Top Gun: Maverick. Both of these films, instead, involve characters who have appeared in other places. But their storylines, their dialogue, and a majority of their characters are original. These scripts are actually not adapted from another document the way Living or All Quiet on the Western Front or The Whale or Blonde are. (I've already made known my feelings about Triangle of Sadness being considered "original".) This is a very odd policy in regard to writing that the Academy has had in place since around 2004, and I think it makes no actual sense. It has meant "adapted" nominations for completely original scripts such as Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Before Midnight, and most insanely, Toy Story 3. It makes no sense. How are these scripts that remix characters and do new things with them any different from scripts considered "original" that use old characters like Midnight in Paris or The King's Speech or The Trial of the Chicago 7. That last film had to be adapted from actual transcripts from the actual trial, for example, with the screenwriter adapting some speeches wholesale from historical documents. Yet that is an "original" screenplay and Glass Onion, which is literally not based on anything; it merely repurposes a single character from a different film to follow a new, convoluted story with original dialogue, an original scenario, and a dozen original characters. It's nonsense.
Will Win: Adapted Screenplay
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #61 out of 66
Causeway
1 Nomination
- Supporting Actor: Brian Tyree Henry
Director: Lila Neugebauer
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Henry, Linda Emond, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Jayne Houdyshell, Russell Harvard
This is pretty good! I liked this even though I don't really like Jennifer Lawrence. But she's perfectly cast in this, and Linda Emond and Brian Tyree Henry are great. This surprise nomination for him is really excellent, and I'm glad he snagged it. The movie is a small thing – the story of two people but mostly Jennifer Lawrence's character. It might have been a better movie if it had been the story of two people but mostly Brian Tyree Henry's character, but this is how this filmmaker decided to go about things. Anyway, this is worth a watch. The acting is very good, and if there's not much of a story here or any kind of real takeaway or conclusion, it's an intriguing double character study with some excellent sequences (I won't spoil it, but the scene at the prison is a highlight). P.S. As far as I can tell, the title makes no sense whatsoever.
More posts coming soon:
Bonus post about the animated shorts
6. Argentina, 1985, Close, Eo, and The Quiet Girl
7. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Pinocchio, Puss in Boots: the Last Wish, Turning Red, and The Sea Beast
8. Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, Empire of Light, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, RRR, and Tell It like a Woman
7. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Pinocchio, Puss in Boots: the Last Wish, Turning Red, and The Sea Beast
8. Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, Empire of Light, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, RRR, and Tell It like a Woman
I'd love it if you checked out my new book Love Is Love Is Love – out March 24!
