Oscar Nominations 2024: 5 of 11

This next group includes two of my favorite movies of the year:

Nickel Boys

2 nominations

• Picture
• Adapted Screenplay: Joslyn Barnes & RaMell Ross (1st time nominees)

Director: Ross

Cast: Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jimmie Fails, Daveed Diggs, Craig Tate, Najah Bradley, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Luke Tennie, Bryant Tardy, Trey Perkins, Sean Tyrik, Gralen Bryant Banks

RaMell Ross’s film takes a little getting used to. It’s shot from a first-person perspective, and it also jumps around in time. Which is to say that I spent the first second or two of each shot—a good deal of the film—figuring out what I was watching. The overall effect is unsettling and mysterious—one just isn’t used to watching a film this way—and eventually this all had a hypnotic effect on me. The cinematography works like a spell on the viewer, and I began to feel a bit like I was in a dream or as if I was in the way it feels to remember something that one only half-remembers or wants to forget. Nickel Boys is emotionally powerful and smart. The sequences, especially, with the men long after they’ve left the prison, are deeply moving, and I thought Craig Tate gave us a wonderful performance in Older Chickie Pete. I fell hard for this and have moved it to my #1 for the year. It's just so ambitious and exciting and intriguing while also being smart and emotionally moving. The fact that this got nominated for Best Picture is a real win. I think it speaks very well of the Academy, honestly. I must admit that I am surprised that this isn't nominated in the Cinematography category, but who knows what those guys were thinking. I am also very, very puzzled that Nickel Boys is not on the Best Picture list for the Image Awards, which seems really strange. But this movie has run a very strange campaign, and the movie was only wide in theatres in late January. It feels to me like this should have done better in awards season all around. But, hey, a good movie is its own award, and this movie is great.

Will win: N/A

Could win: Adapted Screenplay

My rating: #1 out of 97

The Apprentice

2 nominations

• Actor: Sebastian Stan (1st time nominee)
• Supporting Actor: Jeremy Strong (1st time nominee)

Director: Ali Abassi

Cast: Stan, Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan, Catherine McNally, Charlie Carrick, Mark Rendal, Ben Sullivan

This is a really strange movie. Like Ali Abassi’s previous movie, Holy Spider, The Apprentice mainly follows a person whom we are supposed to understand as reprehensible. In this case it is a young Donald J. Trump, who will learn how to be evil, selfish, and petty from the American Republican bureaucrat and lawyer Roy Cohn. Well, no, DJT doesn’t learn how to be selfish and petty from Cohn, but he does learn some very important tactics related to blackmail and other villainies. He also adopts wholesale Cohn's three rules for life—attack attack attack, never admit wrongdoing, always claim victory. Sebastian Stan is honestly quite good in this, offering us a very human portrayal of a rather soulless individual, while the film goes about its business critiquing him. I was less impressed with Jeremy Strong’s Roy Cohn, which is much more subdued than the men played by James Woods in Citizen Cohn or Al Pacino in Angels in America, but who knows: maybe Strong’s Cohn is the more realistic of the three. (I haven’t seen either of the two famous Roy Cohn documentaries, Where's My Roy Cohn? or Bully. Coward. Victim., because I don’t like documentaries and I hate Roy Cohn.) Either way Cohn was an evil, horrible man. And The Apprentice outlines just how much of an influence he was on DJT. And overall I think this is actually an interesting film despite its awful subject matter and occasionally strange tone.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #60 out of 97

A Real Pain

2 nominations

• Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin (1st time nominee)
• Original Screenplay: Jesse Eisenberg (1st time nominee in this category)
  

Director: Eisenberg

Cast: Eisenberg, Culkin, Liza Sadovy, Daniel Oreskes, Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Ellora Torchia

This is simple and sweet and very funny. I also found this deeply, profoundly moving with some really excellent performances. Kieran Culkin gives a great lead actor performance, for which he will win a supporting actor Oscar, but the acting is wonderful all around, and the movie is one of the best of the year. It's in my top ten, and it really ought to have made it into the Academy's top ten, too. Still, I'm glad Eisenberg got a screenplay nomination at least. It's well deserved. This movie is absolutely great.

Will win: Supporting Actor

Could win: N/A

My rating: #7 out of 97

More 2024 posts:

1. Emilia Pérez, The Brutalist, Wicked

2. A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Anora

3. The Substance, Dune: Part Two, Nosferatu

4. I'm Still Here, Sing Sing, The Wild Robot

6. Flow, September 5, Maria

7. The Seed of the Sacred Fig, The Girl with the Needle, Gladiator II

8. Inside Out 2, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Memoir of a Snail

9. Animated Short Films

10. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Alien: Romulus, Better Man

11. A Different Man, Elton John: Never Too Late, The Six Triple Eight

Holy Spider

It's really too bad about Ali Abbasi's Holy Spider (عنکبوت مقدس). The premise is very interesting, and the underlying idea of the religious serial killer doing the god's work because the god wants people to behave a certain way and if you don't behave that way you deserve to die is certainly worth exploring. But this film doesn't quite know what it's doing, keeps changing focus, and finally wears out any welcome it had.

In the first place, Holy Spider begins by following one of the killer's victims. After he brutally murders her (something we see in gruesome detail), then he begins to alternate between the killer trying to hide the fact that he's a murderer from his family and a journalist attempting to stop him. This is not a bad premise, though it has its pitfalls – chief among which is the way the audience will naturally begin to root for the killer to escape simply because of how suspense works.

But after about an hour, the whole thing loses steam completely. It is unclear to Abbasi why he's showing these murders in such scopophilic detail. It's unclear why he's trying to understand the psychopath at the story's center. And it's unclear why the movie continues even after the killer is caught. The whole thing is a muddled mess made no less muddled by the fact that Abbasi clearly has a "message" for us all to take home with us. This was quite disappointing, especially because I was crazy about his film Border.

Oscar Nominations 2019: Part 11 of 11 & Final Predictions

Part 1: Roma, The Favourite, Vice, A Star Is Born.
Part 2: Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody.
Part 3: Mary Poppins Returns, First Man, Cold War.
Part 4: Can You Ever Forgive Me?, If Beale Street Could Talk, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.
Part 5: Never Look Away, Mary Queen of Scots, Isle of Dogs, The Wife.
Part 6: Detainment, Marguerite, Skin, Madre, Fauve.
Part 7: At Eternity's Gate, First Reformed, Shoplifters, Capernaum.
Part 8: Spider man: into the Spider-verse, Incredibles 2, Mirai, Ralph Breaks the Internet.
Part 9: Bao, Animal Behaviour, One Small Step, Late Afternoon, Weekends.
Part 10: Avengers: Infinity War, Solo: a Star Wars Story, Ready Player One, Christopher Robin.
Part 11:

A Quiet Place

1 Nomination

• Sound Editing

Director: John Krasinski

Cast: Emily Blunt, Krasinksi, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Cade Woodward, Evil Aliens

This is harmless and tight, but it is certainly not a reinvention of the genre. In fact, A Quiet Place is quite the opposite of a reinvention, referencing numerous films as it goes along. This film would not have been possible without the genre it supposedly reinvents. I found this to be more of a set of quotations than a real movie, if I'm honest, and it contains some really serious plot holes and clunky exposition. Still, I love monsters in movies, and this one has a really cool-looking bunch of monsters. I was into that, and rather enjoyed myself.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #41 out of 71

Gräns (Border)

1 Nomination

• Makeup & Hairstyling

Director: Ali Abbasi

Cast: Eva Melander, Eero Milonoff, Jörgen Thorsson, Ann Petrén, Stan Ljunggren, Kjell Wilhelmsen, Rakel Wärmländer, Andreas Kundler, Matti Boustedt, Tomas Åhnstrand, Josefin Neldén, Henrik Johansson, Ibrahim Faal

This is an audacious, exciting movie that I completely loved. It was Sweden's submission for the Foreign Language Picture Oscar, but it didn't make the shortlist, and it was not nominated in that category. There are lots of reasons for this, one of them being the explicit sexuality of this film and the true discomfort that this film has the ability to generate. I cannot wait to talk about this film with other people who have seen it. It's a weird, weird movie, and you would do well to go into it completely blind, knowing nothing more than that I'm telling you I loved it. (Of course, me telling you that it is super weird and that I loved it should mean for many of you that you ought to stay away.) This is a really, really smart film, despite its ostensible generic trappings. Oh, did I mention that this movie is also really sexy? It's really sexy, although after you see it you'll probably think I'm very strange for saying so.
Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: #10 out of 71

RBG

1 Nomination

• Song – "I'll Fight": Diane Warren (Marshall, The Hunting Ground, Beyond the Lights, Pearl Harbor, Music of the Heart, Armageddon, Con Air, Up Close & Personal, Mannequin)

Director: Julie Cohen, Betsy West

This was a sweet little piece of hagiography, and I am inclined to believe in Ginsburg's sainthood. As a film this isn't really interesting, but it was nice to learn more about Ginsburg's early years of marriage and the way she put her husband through law school while he was battling cancer while also doing her own work in law school. What an impressive human being! As for Diane Warren, she had about 15 years where she was not nominated all, after being nominated year after year in the 1990s. Well, now she's back and she gets nominated almost every year. She will have to lose yet again (her 10th nomination without a win) this year because her old writing partner from The Hunting Ground, Lady Gaga, is going to win. Maybe next year, Diane.

Will Win: N/A
Could Win: N/A
My Rating: Not Ranked

Final Predictions:
Actor in a Leading Role: Christian Bale, Vice
Actor in a Supporting Role: Mahershala Ali, Green Book
Actress in a Leading Role: Glenn Close, The Wife
Actress in a Supporting Role: Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk
Animated Feature Film: Spider-man: into the Spider-verse
Animated Short Film: Bao
Cinematography: Alfonso Cuarón, Roma
Costume Design: Sandy Powell, The Favourite
Director: Alfonso Cuarón, Roma 
Documentary Feature Film: Minding the Gap
Documentary Short Subject: End Game
Film Editing: Barry Alexander Brown, BlacKkKlansman
Foreign Language Film: Mexico, Roma
Live-action Short Film: Detainment
Makeup & Hairstyling: Vice
Music - Original Song: Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando & Andrew Wyatt, A Star Is Born
Music - Original Score: Marc Shaiman, Mary Poppins Returns
Production Design: Eugenio Caballero & Bárbara Enríquez, Roma
Sound Editing: Black Panther
Sound Mixing: A Star Is Born
Visual Effects: First Man
Writing - Adapted Screenplay: Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk
Writing - Original Screenplay: Deborah David, Tony McNamara, The Favourite
Picture: Roma