Oscar Nominations 2024: 4 of 11

 Three nominations apiece for our next three movies:

Ainda Estou Aqui (I'm Still Here)

3 nominations

• Picture
• Actress: Fernanda Torres (1st time nominee)
• International Feature: Brazil (Central Station, Four Days in September, O Qu4trilho, O Pagador de Promessas)

Director: Walter Salles

Cast: Torres, Selton Mello, Valentina Herszage, Luiza Kosovski, Barbara Luz, Guilherme Silveira, Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha, Marjorie Estiano, Antonio Saboia, Cora Mora, Fernanda Montenegro, Olivia Torres

This movie received a surprise Best Picture nomination that I still can't believe! Will I'm Still Here actually win International Feature? It might! Smart money two weeks ago would have said that no movie could beat Emilia Pérez for the International Feature Oscar, but here we are in mid-February, and it's beginning to look like the tables have turned. I'm actually going to switch my prediction. As more and more people see I'm Still Here, they're going to appreciate how good Walter Salles's drama is. There's something reassuring, too, about a film that is actually based in historical fact and that sticks much better to generic conventions. I'm Still Here is a taut historical thriller about a family living under a military dictatorship that is pretending to be a democracy. The movie documents many of the terrors of living through the two decades of Brazilian military dictatorship, and the whole thing is rooted in the true story of survivor Eunice Paiva who became a lawyer fighting for human rights and Indigenous sovereignty. The movie is impeccably made. Somehow I wound up seeing this movie in a theatre filled with fifteen to twenty Brazilian college students. At the end of the movie there was not a dry eye in this theatre. 

Will win: International Feature

Could win: Actress

My rating: #33 out of 97

Sing Sing

3 nominations

• Actor: Colman Domingo (Rustin)
• Adapted Screenplay: Greg Kwedar & Clarence Maclin & John "Divine G" Whitfield (all 1st time nominees)
• Original Song – "Like a Bird": Abraham Alexander & Adrian Quesada (1st time nominees)

Director: Kwedar

Cast: Domingo, Maclin, Sean San José, Paul Raci, David "Dap" Giraudy, Patrick "Preme" Griffin, James "Big E" Williams, Mosi Eagle, Sean Dino Johnson, Sharon Washington

The trailer makes Sing Sing look like some Sundance bullshit, but Greg Kwedar's movie is so much better than that. Sing Sing does have structural problems, but this is because the film is interested in telling us true stories about incarcerated men and their lives more than it is interested in narrative structure per se. I didn’t mind this. I think the stories of these men are more important than a storyline that works well. I was really into this movie, and I forgive every one of its shortcomings; it (like I'm Still Here) is a true story. This one is about incarcerated men finally being granted freedom, and it tells true stories of these men in a way that is respectful and that I appreciated a great deal. I am very glad this movie doesn't hit any of us over the head with, like, messages about the healing power of theatre or anything like that, because that would cheapen the real value of arts in the prison. It isn't magic. It's practical: it gives focus, it helps with teamwork, it demands responsibility, and it creates empathy. This is a very good movie, and it moved me deeply.

Will win: N/A

Could win: N/A

My rating: #32 out of 97

The Wild Robot

3 nominations

• Original Score: Kris Bowers (1st time nominee)
• Sound
• Animated Feature
  

Director: Chris Sanders

Cast: Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Matt Berry, Ving Rhames, Mark Hamill, Catherine O'Hara

This has a couple of heart-tugging moments and a few fabulous visuals. But The Wild Robot has no surprises in its programming. It’s generic and cheesy and—like seemingly every single well-made children’s movie—it isn’t about kids at all; it’s about parenting! (This won’t surprise you if you’ve seen Inside Out 2 or Toy Story or nearly any other animated movie from one of the big studios.) Mostly The Wild Robot is here for the cheese, though. Use your heart and not your head. You can do it if you just try hard enough and work at it. Even though you don’t like others, you have to work together to save your home, etc., etc. You already know all these things, actually. This movie repeats them all with pretty music behind the sententiousness and pretends to be improvising when it’s really just running through a whole litany of pre-programmed platitudes. The actors—who are all doing amazing work—deserved better. I did appreciate the charming little nod to Karl Čapek’s 1938 play Rossum’s Universal Robots in the name of this movie’s robot but this is a warmed-over set of clichés. The Academy disagrees with me, nominating the movie's saccharine score, and even the film's sound! Trust and believe that the Academy will also give this movie the Oscar for Animated Feature come March.

Will win: Animated Feature

Could win: N/A

My rating: #71 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

5. Nickel Boys, The Apprentice, A Real Pain

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

Oscar Nominees 2014: Part 13 of 14

The Wind Rises (風立ちぬ)

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Hayao Miyazaki

Cast: Hideaki Anno, Miori Takimoto, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Masahiko Nishimura, Stephen Alpert, Keiko Takeshita, Mirai Shida, Jun Kunimura, Shinobu Otake, Nomura Mansai (except that they all spoke English when I saw it, so: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Martin Short, Stanley Tucci, Werner Herzog, William H. Macy, Jennifer Grey)

This is apparently not going to be (as has been reported) Miyazaki's final film. We should all breathe a sigh of relief at this. The subject matter of The Wind Rises is not Miyazaki's usual fanciful content, so I was sort of worried that The Wind Rises wouldn't be as magical as his previous films. I oughtn't to have worried one bit. This is a film about an artist, and his visions of what he can create are told through beautiful, fanciful dreams that feel like nothing but magic. It is gorgeous. The score is beautiful (and really should've taken Philomena's spot – who remembers that score?), but what's really on show here are Miyazaki's beautiful vistas, intriguing ways of looking at things, memorable quirky characters, and fanciful storytelling. This is a director who tells us that a couple is falling in love by having them fly paper airplanes to one another from the ground to a third-story window. The planes in flight are breathtaking, and the film itself becomes about what it is like to love something, to dedicate your life to something only to have it destroyed by something else (the military, illness). This is beautiful stuff and is easily my favorite in the Animated Feature category, not that that means it's going to win; it hasn't a prayer.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win:N/A

My Rating: #21 out of 82

Ernest et Célestine (Ernest & Celestine)

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar, Benjamin Renner

Cast: Lambert Wilson, Pauline Brunner, Dominique Maurin, Anne-Marie Loop

I don't get to see this before the Academy Awards, and my bet is that most people won't have seen it. It, frankly, looks adorable, and captures the look of the children's books on which it is based (the books are by Gabrielle Vincent and you can see them – some are even translated into English – here). French animation has soared in this category recently, and it has become a safe bet for a nomination almost every single year, though (it would appear) not for the win. Films like Une Vie de Chat, Persepolis, and Sylvain Chomet's superb L'Illusionniste and Les Triplettes de Belleville have all gotten nominations, but none has gone on to the win (despite L'Illusionniste's superiority to almost all of the films – animated or not – that were released in 2010). Ernest et Célestine is released in the U.S. today, so if you live in a city bigger than mine you may have better luck than I catching this picture. 
Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: Not ranked

The Croods

1 Nomination

• Animated Feature

Director: Kirk DeMicco, Chris Sanders

Cast:Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Cloris Leachman

I liked this film more than most of my friends did, and I liked it mostly for the kinds of lovely visuals you can see in the image above. The Croods is a silly little story, with characters who are, for the most part, unattractive (they are cro-magnons, after all). The plot covers a family who are running away from the splitting of the supercontinent Pangaea. It is, more importantly a story of learning new things – adapting to new technologies and new ideas. It is about parents learning to listen to their kids and kids learning to listen to their parents. In the ideology of this film, the parents don't know the best way to do things, but they have much bigger hearts than the children. All of this is sort of sweet, and the tone is tongue-in-cheek enough that it didn't make me groan too heavily at any point. And then there is the art design! It is gorgeous. There are millions of bizarre little creatures and plants that look like something out of a prettified Hieronymus Bosch or Pieter Bruegel painting. The Croods is worth watching for these inventive visuals alone.

Will Win: N/A

Could Win: N/A

My Rating: #60 out of 82

2011's Nominees: Part 5 of 12

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON

2 Nominations:

  · Best Animated Feature

  · Best Score: John Powell

Director: Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders
Cast: Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig, T.J. Miller

 
So much fun. Also, this film swept at the Annie awards this year, and though it is expected that Toy Story 3 will win the Animated Feature Oscar (you will recall that TS3 is nominated for five Oscars), the Annie sweep had to feel good for the HtTYD team. Good for them. I liked this film more than TS3 too, so I am with them, although, truth be told, I pretty much love dragons and see all movies with dragons in them, so if you make a movie about different varieties of dragons and that involves a dragon that is basically a giant pet cat, you can bet I am in. I love that this got nominated in the Score category, by the way. John Powell has never been nominated before.

Will Win: N/A
Might Win: N/A
My Rating: #17 out of 50

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1

2 Nominations:

  · Best Art Direction: Stuart Craig (The Elephant Man, Gandhi, The Mission, Dangerous Liaisons, Chaplin, The English Patient, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and Stephenie McMillan (The English Patient, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

  · Best Visual Effects

Director: David Yates
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Bill Nighy, Fiona Shaw, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Ralph Fiennes

 
After a couple of stinkers, David Yates hits one out of the park with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. It is not only filled with thrilling sequences and plenty of suspense, but the sensitive moments avoid being cloying, and Yates manages to hit all the right emotional notes. The Potter films continue to be contrived in terms of plot – there is one near-escape after another, and the possibility of magical things happening is always present and a little predictable after a while, but this is rather a good film, and if the plot feels contrived the characters and their feelings do not. HP7 is satisfying, exciting, and surprising. And I never thought I'd say this, but I actually think it deserves both of the Oscars for which it is nominated and also deserved a nomination for Original Score – now that they've moved completely away from Williamsesque composition and down darker paths, the music has become both intriguing and beautiful.

Will Win: N/A
Might Win: N/A
My Rating: #19 out of 50

ANOTHER YEAR

1 Nomination:

  · Best Original Screenplay: Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies, Topsy-Turvy, Vera Drake, Happy-Go-Lucky)

Director: Leigh
Cast: Jim Broadbent, Lesley Manville, Ruth Sheen, Peter Wight, Oliver Maltman, David Bradley, Martin Savage, Michele Austin, Imelda Staunton, Karina Fernandez

 
To say this movie is good is a vast understatement. This is a film by a master filmmaker at the top of his game—it is his fifth nomination for writing. The film is extraordinary: subtle, sensitive, filled with tiny insights about people, and I found it ultimately devastating in a  quiet, disturbing, middlebrow way. It is also filled with fabulous performances and if it had been released in, say, October, it probably would have racked up a few more nominations. Lesley Manville gives the performance of a lifetime here (she is this year's Kristin Scott-Thomas in I've Loved You So Long

) and Ruth Sheen and Jim Broadbent are great as usual. Imelda Staunton, in a smaller role, gives a rich, captivating performance. I also really loved seeing Karina Fernandez in a bigger part when she was so brilliant in Leigh's last movie. 

Will Win: N/A
Might Win: N/A
My Rating: #6 out of 50