Maxxine is the culmination of a weird little trilogy made by Ti West and starring Mia Goth, one which we’re missing a catchy name for but which regardless consists of X, Pearl and now this. If I’m completely honest, neither of the first two films properly clicked for me like they did for others. I knew people who argued that X was some kind of subversive genius but I found it at its most satisfying when eschewing subversion for gory kills. Pearl I found even more hard work, a formless piece that hinges entirely on the threat of something cool happening and then also Mia Goth’s performance. Both I enjoyed overall but neither felt special. I expected the same from Maxxxine. I got something much more interesting, by which I mean worse.
The story here follows on directly from X, with Maxine working in the adult film industry in LA and auditioning for horror films. She gets a big part in an exciting horror sequel and we follow her getting ready for that. A series of murders is happening at the same time, targeting those around Maxine, all in the shadow of this satanic panic stuff that actually was a big thing in the eighties. Into that realm is also thrown a private detective who is chasing down Maxine and putting pressure on her about the events at the farm in X. The thing is, the plot does feel like the way I’m describing it, disparate strands just floating around until eventually there’s a big sloppy mess at the end. I could forgive the plot being a bit of a mess for a while as it was just a vehicle for set pieces, but once the end slaps us in the face with narrative, you can’t help but feel insulted.
[Kevin Bacon is] channelling Foghorn Leghorn by way of Jake Gittes from Chinatown if he was the human villain in a Muppet movie.
A big sloppy mess of plots requires a big sloppy mess of casts, all of whom seem to be from different films. We have the ever elegant Elizabeth Debicki playing a tough but fair director, Lily Collins showing a misunderstanding of the Yorkshire accent that is usually only reserved for Americans and Michele Monaghan getting to play a hard boiled cop for her two scenes. Two rise above the crop though. Naturally, having been in all three of these now, Mia Goth is getting pretty good at this thing. She has a wonderfully cinematic face, full of weird angles that you can’t look away from and given absolutely nothing, she is able to spin something. My favourite performance though, for some reason, is Kevin Bacon. He gets to play the private investigator, channelling Foghorn Leghorn by way of Jake Gittes from Chinatown if he was the human villain in a Muppet movie. I don’t understand what he’s doing or why, but when he crawls into a scene, his stench of corruption briefly turning the film into a 4D experience, I sat up. In this big confusing gumbo of a film, Bacon is a gift.
And now we get into my real beef with Maxxxine. The film, to its genuine credit, looks and sounds amazing. All of the people who worked on the production, visual effects and sound work for the film have knocked it out the park recreating the scuzzy feel of the world. Obviously, I didn’t spend a lot of time in LA during the eighties due to reasons involving my birth and lack thereof, but the important thing is that it feels authentic. It reminds me of other films made in that time, drenched in the stench of the time, like a good and nasty Brian De Palma film. Unfortunately, this is the root of the issue. Maxxxine is not a Brian De Palma film but it really believes it is.
[Maxxxine] will satisfy those who are vaguely familiar with the films of the time but if you’ve seen even one De Palma film […] you’re going to find the film empty.
For those who haven’t trawled the dusty shelves of eighties erotic thrillers, Brian De Palma is the mind behind such trash as Dressed to Kill, Phantom of the Paradise and most importantly for this review, Body Double. His films are full of nudity, violence and a general feeling that you wouldn’t want to watch this with your mother. I know for a fact that Ti West is trying to make a De Palma film because of how much he cribs from Body Double, whether it’s the focus on Hollywood, the gloved killer (which De Palma himself took from giallo films) or most egregious of all, a sequence soundtracked by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. West plays “Welcome to the Pleasuredome” over a disco scene in a move that pales when compared to the excessive brilliance of De Palma taking five minutes out of Body Double to walk onto the music video of “Relax.” It’s the kind of pointless yet intoxicating move that even a lower budget film like Maxxxine would get test-screened out of it, and it’s also the kind of thing that means we still talk about Body Double decades later. Maxxxine has no such scene and it’s making me worry if posting the review a week or two after release is delivering the review into a world where this film is already irrelevant.
I don’t know if Maxxxine is terrible, that’s what makes this review tricky. Weirdly, the film I keep comparing it to in my head, more than any Brian De Palma film, more than any 80s slasher, more than even the previous two films in the trilogy, is Joker. Very specifically, the reason I kept thinking about Joker was the reliance that Maxxxine has on reference points, to the point of almost parody. Cast your mind back five years, remember how the conversation with Joker was mainly “you’ll like this if you haven’t seen The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver.” I think Maxxxine is the same. It will satisfy those who are vaguely familiar with the films of the time but if you’ve seen even one De Palma film, one giallo film, one straight to video slasher, you’re going to find the film empty. This quote from David Schmader rattled around my head in the aftermath of my viewing, where he says of Showgirls “the subtext is stunning until you realise there is no subtext.” That is Maxxxine. It wears the clothes of a film that’s about something but underneath is merely cheap thrills that are neither cheap enough nor thrilling enough to disguise from the lack of aboutness. And again, the film insists upon itself constantly. It opens with a Bette Davis quote and then closes with “Bette Davis Eyes”, it is desperately trying to seem to be about something when it is deeply and genuinely hollow.
My final question is one that is for the people who have already seen the film, because it’s a point that confounds me; how are we supposed to feel about Maxine as a character? Are we meant to like her? Feel sorry for her? Are we meant to think she’s a great actress? That last question in particular was in my head the whole time because of the opening audition scene. Maxine does a great performance in that audition, but it’s clearly for a film that is terrible, hence them asking to see her breasts and the script having the line “she addresses the camera through her trauma”, a clunker of a line so clunky that even Ti West couldn’t have put that in by accident. Is she meant to be some lost talent forced to work in low rent horror sequels? Or are we meant to be judgemental of her past? She seems ashamed of it and is trying very hard to erase any trace of what happened in Texas, so is she an evil figure? Pearl complicates the conundrum because is that West trying to draw parallels between a murderer and a survivor? Are the two one and the same? Is he spending so long with his head in the sand of subtext that he has failed to include any actual text? It all feels like a mess, one of those trilogies that, when the three films are taken as a whole, weakens each individual product.
So yeah, Maxxxine! It’s pretty rubbish! If you want a handful of wacky performances and a few cool gore scenes and literally nothing else, this will sort you out. However, in the time it took for me to write this review, Longlegs came out and showed that it’s not as hard to make a good horror film as Ti West makes it seem. If you saw the other two in the trilogy, sure, I guess watch this one. If you didn’t, the homework is not worth it and your time would be better spent getting a copy of Body Double and feeling authentic eighties sleaze, not this off brand, sugar-free, “Professor Peppy” knock-off of a film.
Last week, I asked people on my Instagram, you people, what you wanted to see me review next. Did you want to see me review The Beast, a complicated and heady movie that immediately became my favourite of the year? Or did you want me to review the fourth Bad Boys movie? By now, the answer is probably obvious, but I have the last laugh here, because I think you all expected this to be a rant. You expected me to get so worked up at this silly action movie and start swearing and doing all that nonsense. My friends, the joke is on you, as I have found myself with an inexplicable fondness for the new Bad Boys films.
Let me explain. I think the first two Bad Boys films are pretty repulsive, films that have a great deal of unearned swagger and show all the worst instincts of Michael Bay. Bay has done great work away from these films (for whatever reason, I am infatuated with The Rock and Ambulance), but everything I don’t like about him is on very full display. That’s what made the third film, Bad Boys for Life a surprise for me. Directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah took the reigns and injected a surprising amount of life into the franchise, while stripping away the worst urges that tainted the franchise before. Adding to the fondness is the fact that I saw this film in Florida with my housemate Maysam, a genuine Florida man, minus all the negative connotations of the label. I couldn’t say for sure whether the swaying factor was that these new directors knew what they were doing or that I was getting into that Florida spirit, but I found myself enjoying it, as did Maysam who described it as “almost as good as Uncut Gems.” The point being, you thought I had no love for these films, when in actual fact, I have a little bit. Looks like you just got out played by the player.
Anyway. That was four years ago and it would be an understatement to say that things are different now than they were in January 2020. I’m no longer in Florida, Arbi and Fallah had the Batgirl movie ripped from their hands in the cruellest way imaginable and Will Smith… Well, he did a thing that if nothing else, is responsible for the funniest thing Judd Apatow has ever written. We’ve all had a few setbacks. But when you find yourself in bad times, you know which specific type of boy to call… Bad.
I had to start a new paragraph because I had no idea how to recover from that joke and there was no smooth and easy way to segue into telling you the plot of Bad Boys: Ride or Die. Instead, I’m just placing it down in front of you, blatant as can be. The plot is, not what you’re here for. Mike and Marcus both find themselves thinking about their place in the world, whether from brushes with death or the arrival of some holy matrimony. However, it all goes awry when some terrible plot is revealed to frame their former captain and send the two men on the run. As I said, plot isn’t crucial, though some credit is due. This film leans a lot on plot points from the previous film and when those are coming, it does remind the audience of crucial details. Some might call that lazy writing, I call that helpful, because I forgot who most of these people are. Ultimately, the film understands that you’re not here for narrative depth and that all double crosses can be predicted from the second an actor walks on-screen, so it does just enough to hang everything else off.
To which we may ask: what is hanging off that flimsy plot thread? The main response is, charisma from our two leads, the thing that brings many people into these films yet conversely makes a very good attempt at pushing me away. I should be transparent: I don’t like Will Smith or Martin Lawrence. It’s nothing personal against the two of them and it has always been this way, I just don’t enjoy either of their star personas and have never seen a film that proved me wrong hard enough to not be a fluke. That feeling remains in this, the fourth Bad Boys film. Smith and Lawrence do nothing you haven’t seen from them before, but by design. Fans want this. Fans like this. I see Martin Lawrence gurning his way through every scene and roll my eyes, I see Will Smith posing all tough like with a gun in each hand and my heartbeat drops a BPM or two. This is fine. Lots of laughs and indeed lmaos were had in my screening and good for them. This is just not a dynamic I’m invested in, whether they’re wittily trading barbs or wistfully staring at that sweet Miami skyline.
In this void, one would hope a strong supporting cast would jump in to save the day for me, but alas Smith and Lawrence try their best to strong arm them out the way as well. Rhea Seehorn is cruelly wasted in a gruff turn, Tiffany Haddish turns up to do her shouty thing for a scene and our old friend DJ Khaled returns to atone for his crimes. Two actors do get to shine though. Dennis McDonald returns as Reggie, the quiet boyfriend of Lawrence’s daughter, and he gets a genuine stand out scene that is a culmination of all the bullying the franchise has handed him. Clear runaway though is Joe Pantoliano, who does the best acting in the film despite his character dying in the last entry. He keeps popping up, whether in old videos or hallucinations, and serves as a reminder of how much we all love Joe Pantoliano. Wasn’t he great in The Matrix? Didn’t you enjoy trying to work him out in Memento? Isn’t it fun to point at the screen whenever he appears and go “hey look it’s Joe Pantolinao?” The answer to all of those is yes. He’s a veteran character actor who never seems to get enough flowers and if he appears in every Bad Boys film as a ghost for the rest of his life, I’ll be happy.
I was saying earlier that this new era of Bad Boys is one that I find less repellent than the old one and while the lack of leering is welcome, we still find energy and personality through the cinematography. Again, this isn’t me dunking on Bay, you don’t make a film like Ambulance while resting on your laurels, but Adil and Bilall have a real dynamism to the way they throw their camera around that Bay’s BB films just didn’t have. Think of the smoothness of the fight scenes in a film like John Wick: Chapter Four. Think about how precise the camerawork and blocking is in those, how we’re neatly led to the action at all moments. Now think about what it would look like if the camera operators had downed two cans of Red Bull and started lobbing the camera between each other. Congratulations, you’re now picturing Bad Boys: Ride or Die. It’s not quite as slick or masterful as any of my beloved Wick flicks, but the energy is certainly infectious and while messy, I can’t say I wasn’t entertained. I had to reach for my pocket ibuprofen once or twice, sure, but I was giggling regardless.
The big issue though, and the thing that stops me enjoying these new films any more than I do, is that there are only ever three things happening on screen. Either there is action, there are quips or there is wistful staring at that sweet Miami skyline. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, there is more than one of these things happening, but never all three. I had this realisation about half an hour into the film (which to be fair, is close to seven hours into the franchise) and it coloured everything I saw after. Oh, this is an action scene. Oh great, now they’re quipping. Oh cool, some quips and some shooting. Oh well, now time to look at that sweet Miami skyline. You become entirely detached from the film and just start losing yourself in the concept of a Bad Boys film. Is this a universal complaint? No, almost certainly not. However it was something that just ate and ate at me, through decent action scene and decent quip scene and decent staring at that sweet Miami skyline scene. By the end, cinema itself felt deconstructed. Maybe this is the Bad Boys film that the late Jean-Luc Godard would have vibed with.
All in all, it’s alright! If you like the Bad Boys films, you won’t be let down. If you haven’t liked any of the last three, you won’t be converted. And if you haven’t seen any Bad Boys films, why on Earth are you starting with this one? It has enough energy to whittle away an evening, but not enough to lodge firmly in your brain. That said, if there is a fifth one, trust and believe that I will be there again, opening weekend, ready to savour that sweet Miami skyline.
By this point, Luca Guadagnino being attached to a project is enough to have it skyrocket to the top of my Must Watch list. Since that first time seeing Call Me By Your Name on New Years Eve, I knew I had encountered a director who created special worlds. The release the following year of his polarising (but ultimately marvellous) Suspiria remake confirmed it and in 2022, Bones and All truly sealed the deal. Wherever Guadagnino went, I would follow (eventually follow, my unwatched copies of I Am Love and We Are Who We Are still look at me with very sad eyes.) The point I’m getting at is, whatever film Guadagnino made next I would watch, even if it was about something I don’t care about like, say, sports. Lo and behold, his next movie is about tennis. But, in a brave and Italian twist, Guadagnino asks us: what if tennis was sexy?
Challengers is the story of “what if tennis was sexy” but also unfurls into a great deal more. We follow a triptych through a 13 year period in which they fall in love, play tennis, fall out of love, stop playing tennis and eventually, find themselves playing tennis. I’m being glib but the impressive thing of the story isn’t necessarily the events of the story but the way they play out. From the opening five minutes, we get the basic idea of the plot. Two close friends fall in love with the same girl (who is forced out of playing tennis into coaching it by an injury), she ends up with one of them as he becomes a professional tennis player while the other fades into obscurity, but the two are reunited at a pivotal match for both their careers. Real simple set-up. But, the skill of the film is in its structure and how it bounces between its timelines like a ball in a tennis match (I am the first person to notice this, thank you for appreciating how smart I am.) While I was initially worried that it would get tiresome returning to the same tennis match and bouncing forwards and back from the past, what the structure actually does is layer meaning upon the initial premise. A simple tennis match becomes a fraught battle in which two former friends may be about to finally destroy each others lives, powered by lust, capitalism and pride. It’s a structure that I think will lend really well to multiple viewings but even on a first viewing, the constant build of narrative information creates a whirlwind of emotional meaning.
Obviously, that emotional connection with the narrative is only really possible because the characters that the narrative is built around are so strong, as individual units and as combinations. In fact, usually with these sorts of reviews I start by talking about the main character, an attribution that Challengers proudly rejects. These are three characters given equal weight and so I guess I’ll just run through the cast in the order they’re credited. Zendaya plays Tashi Donaldson, former tennis pro and current tennis manager/expert/wife. She is the catalyst for this passionate friendship implosion and gets two separate and magical introductions. In the modern day section of the film she’s a cold and steely figure who stands out as much in a crowded stand as she would if the crowd were disappeared, but then in the past she is a force of nature, bursting onto the court and into men’s hearts with a casual fury that bewitches. Having not seen Euphoria, I’m not that familiar with Zendaya as an actress, basically knowing her exclusively from sandy movies with large worms and spice lords. Clearly though, she has gotten good at picking the right directors to work with, because her star power and weapons grade “it girl” charisma are neatly fitted into the world of a rising tennis starlet who no one can look away from.
Speaking of our lookers, let me introduce you to Mike Faist as Art Donaldson. He caught my eye in West Side Story and was my favourite part of it, this tortured dream-boat of a boy who seemed destined for something magical. And now, here he is, making magic on screen yet again. Because we first meet Art as a professional tennis player, he has an easy power and swagger that you see with pro-sports people, but whenever we flash back, he’s still believable as a lanky loser with the possibility of doing something greater. He’s paired with Josh O’Connor as Patrick Zweig, also getting to play both against type and into fun. In real life and most of his other roles, O’Connor is a stone cold sweetie. He’s shy in interviews, talks about how much he loves Ratatouille and for all intents and purposes seems to have escaped from Pixar’s film. Here however, Patrick gets to be a real dog. There’s a grin O’Connor gives him that is a dirty, cocky, real arrogant kind of confidence that is also absolutely magnetic. Part of you wants to hate him, the rest of you is disappearing from your body in that long strand of drool hanging out your mouth. We really once again find ourselves up against the kinds of performances whose magnetism, charisma and sheer watchability are beyond analysis. Considering these are three actors I was familiar with before the film, I was astounded by how much they all disappeared into character.
If we’re talking about any of the technical elements of this film, we have to immediately talk about the musical score of Challengers, provided by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Reznor comes from the band Nine Inch Nails and Ross is a producer who has been rolled into the NiN fold, but the two have become most famous for their film composition. Their most beloved work by film nerds at large (including yours truly) was for The Social Network, for which the pair won an Oscar, though they certainly haven’t been slacking since then. Four more collaborations with David Fincher, one more with Guadagnino and working on my ultimate soft spot Empire of Light come to mind as highlights, all before we even mention their second Oscar win for Soul. The two have range and Challengers proves it again. They take us to Gone Girl by way of Troye Sivan, Charli XCX and Sufjan Stevens all before getting lost in the mosh pit of the gay club. In lieu of breathlessly explaining the film to my partner after sprinting home from the cinema, I just played her the first track on the soundtrack and she instantly knew what this movie is. What is especially impressive about that fact is that while the score tells you what movie you’re in, it also delicately wrong foots you emotionally. Music theory was never my strong suit so indulge me here, but these delicate piano notes that sound initially mournful ascend in ways you weren’t expecting, leading to this bizarre euphoria rising from the dust. Those tracks then pair up with a central motif which returns across the film, layering in noise and meaning like butter in a lovely flaky pastry. At this point, I wouldn’t be too shocked if it’s my album of the year, such bangers does it contain.
And that would all be enough. I promise, I would really be happy with a film if that was everything I got from it. But there’s so much more, which I promise I won’t linger on too long because I know brevity isn’t my speciality. The cinematography is beautiful, getting right up into the faces of characters in very sensual ways and then doing bonkers stuff. Challengers is one of those movies where every shot is the best possible way of visually telling the story and oh lord was I hooting and hollering. There is a POV shot near the end of the film which sounds like the kind of thing that should cause motion sickness, yet is actually a case of absolutely sick visual brilliance. These are weaved together with an editing that allows the pace to never let up. As I said earlier, the structure could threaten to slow the film but the way everything slots together in the final piece is magic. We slowly get to know everyone and as the film moves along, the pace keeps quickening. There’s a brief moment where we slow down for a stormer of a storm and then bam, a frenetic final act that will make you want to scream with joy. For a film that isn’t particularly short, I could have immediately gone into a second screening and left that too with as much energy as the first round.
You’re probably not shocked after all that to hear that I think Challengers is one of the best films of the year. With the way UK distribution works, we’ve had an excellent start to the year and with a potential drought of films coming up, this is the kind of heart pumping, chest bashing, serotonin overload of a film to keep us sustained. Try and catch it while it’s still in cinemas but otherwise, just pre-order that blu-ray now, you are gonna want to come back to this forever and savour an ace movie.
Hello! I am here to talk about the Oscars, because they’re dumb and pointless and don’t matter, which is why they’re so exciting and fun and feel like they matter. I usually do a predictions list before the nominations come out and sometimes I’ll pair that with a final one that predicts the ultimate winners. This time though, I figured I’d skip the first part and just try to go all in on these final predictions, giving a shot at predicting every category! What a weird and pointless endeavour! Still, what better way to celebrate the Oscars than with a time consuming and pointless venture? Each category will have my prediction for what will win and we’ll slowly add onto that. For a category like Best Documentary Short, I will probably struggle to find all the nominees, but in categories I’ve seen all the entries for, expect to see both “Should Win” and “Should Have Been Nominated” along with maybe some written words! We’re gonna have a lovely little mix of some speculation and some unasked for opinions, so buckle in and just scroll to wherever is most interesting for you!
Best Documentary Short Film
Will Win: The ABCs of Book Burning
Best Live Action Short Film
Will Win: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
The other films are going to struggle to compete against a name as high profile as Wes Anderson and while I’d have preferred a different short from this anthology, it would be a nice win and a funny little way for Wes Anderson to finally get an Oscar.
Best Animated Short Film
Will Win: Letter to a Pig
Best Documentary
Will Win: 20 Days in Mariupol
Should Have Been Nominated: Kokomo City
For a category in which so many great films can be made, I always despair a little at Best Documentary for choosing to reward the topic more than the film. Take last year, in which Navalny won over All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, a move that clearly only happened because no one saw either film. By that same merit, 20 Days in Mariupol is a slam dunk for the win, a look at the Russian invasion of Ukraine which is a conflict that us snobbish Westerners can all agree on and not one of those “complicated” ones. I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen any of the films in this category, documentaries often take longer to make it to UK shores than other categories do, so my snobbishness could well be unfounded. 20 Days seems like some genuinely good journalism and documenting of an ongoing and very real issue, it’s just not the kind of documentary I’m usually interested in. The kind of thing I’m interested in is Kokomo City. It’s a documentary that is a series of interviews with transgender sex workers, which gives an in depth and compassionate look at an underground scene but does so with a sense of levity and a genuine artistry. If you didn’t see it, seek it out, it’s the kind of film that an award like this should point attention towards!
Best Visual Effects
Will Win: The Creator
Should Win: Godzilla Minus One
Should Have Been Nominated: Oppenheimer
Even though I think The Creator is the worst film of the selection, its visuals are stupendous. On a budget that’s impressively low, the VFX crew created a world you fully believed in, even if its storytelling let it down. My choice though would be Godzilla Minus One, an even cheaper movie that is a magical thing to behold. Godzilla looks just as good as (and often better than) the American interpretations and you believe every second he’s on screen. Easily the most baffling omission though is Oppenheimer. I guess because they emphasised how many of the effects were practical, people believed it didn’t fit the category. But, a practical effect is still a visual effect! It’s a weird reverse of that thing where the original Tron was ineligible because they used computers for the effects. Bonkers! More impressive, it’s one of the few categories where Oppenheimer didn’t have a presence and yet it still feels like it was done dirty.
Best Film Editing
Will Win: Jennifer Lame for Oppenheimer
Should Win: Thelma Schoonmaker for Killers of the Flower Moon
Should Have Been Nominated: Johnathan Alberts for All of Us Strangers
Controversially, editing films that are really long is really impressive! Anyone can snip away at a film to get it to 100 minutes, but it takes a true master to make a long film flow with the ease of a film half its length. Both Jennifer Lame and Thelma Schoonmaker have done some of the best editing work I’ve ever seen, in ways both really big and really small. Truthfully, either of them could win and either of them would really deserve to win, I just wanted an excuse to mention them both in conversation. They edited films made by cinematic visionaries but those visions would have been nothing without the editors. Similarly, the ghostly power of All of Us Strangers comes from its editing. We slip between faces and images of faces in ways that blur time and identity and all ultimately come together to form this powerful emotional core. Intangibility of all kinds powers the film and a huge portion of that comes in how the editing slots together these intangible little things into a big thing that is coherent despite being ephemeral. What I’m saying sounds like nonsense but it’s editing that is almost impossible to describe, such is its inherently brilliant and cinematic nature.
Best Costume Design
Will Win and Should Win: Holly Waddington for Poor Things
Should Have Been Nominated: Stacey Battat for Priscilla
Three of the films in this category are the obligatory period drama picks, in which artists very successfully recreate looks from the past. I don’t mean to diminish their work but again, it’s not the kind of thing I get excited for. Barbie is a more interesting shout, in which everything has to look like something that a doll would wear, but Poor Things is an undeniably perfect choice here. Not only is there a period element in the Victorian setting, but there is this little bonkers thread that makes every dress, every suit, every weird pair of shoes pop. It’s a slam dunk choice. I would have enjoyed some love for Priscilla though, it is a film so precisely constructed in that way that all Sofia Coppola films are. With Priscilla’s outfits being an important part of the confinement of the film, they have to be perfect for the film to work and they truly are perfect. It could never surmount Poor Things but a nomination would have been appreciated.
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Will Win: Maestro
Should Win: Poor Things
Should Have Been Nominated: Talk to Me
CHAOS WIN: Golda
So, this is a weird little category. As an award, it usually goes to one of two things; either a superhero movie or a biopic with a “transformative performance.” This year, it will be the latter, for weird and controversial reasons. Bradley Cooper is unrecognisable in Maestro, sure, but it hinges on this weird issue of a very pronounced fake nose. Much of the work is subtle, but that nose draws attention and it may just win the statue. The much worse version of this and my easy chaos pick is Golda, in which Helen Mirren wears a fake nose to play a political figure in the Israeli government. It is everything Maestro was criticised for and worse, just a terrible terrible film to talk about at a time when Israel are committing the crimes they’re committing. Fingers crossed it doesn’t become an awful footnote in Oscar history. What would deserve this is Poor Things, a film which has the perfect blend of obvious and squelchy effects (god bless Willem Dafoe’s face) and tasteful makeup work on Bella that evolves as she does. It seems like it and Oppenheimer will split the technical categories so my fingers are crossed here. A little recognition though for Talk To Me would have been a treat. Squishy monster effects never seem to get the appreciation they deserve and oh, what squishes we were gifted.
Best Cinematography
Will Win and Should Win: Hoyte van Hoytema for Oppenheimer
Should Have Been Nominated: Dan Laustsen for John Wick: Chapter Four
I don’t know how the hell El Conde got nominated, but at least that weird film with a blood sucking Margaret Thatcher gets some notoriety for the rest of time. I also don’t know why Maestro is in this category. Is it because it’s black and white? That’s pathetic. Killers of the Flower Moon is very pretty in places and Poor Things uses great cinematography to show off sensational production design (more on that soon) but this is absolutely an award that Oppenheimer has to take. Whenever I think of Hoyte can Hoytema, I think about him lugging around these huge IMAX cameras on these shoulders, a physical endeavour that he overcomes for the sake of creating some of the most beautiful images ever seen. And yeah, it’s easy to make space stuff look pretty, but making guys in rooms talking look engaging? That is an art and one that he will certainly be rewarded for. It wouldn’t beat Oppenheimer because there is clearly no better cinematography this year, but a nomination for John Wick: Chapter Four would have been a treat. These set pieces are stunning and succeed in looking beautiful while still keeping the action visible and coherent. Again, that sounds simple but I cannot imagine the logistics or planning that go into one of these sequences, let alone ten of them in a single film. Stunning stuff that still isn’t as exciting as blokes in rooms talking bombs.
Best Production Design
Will Win: Barbie
Should Win: Poor Things
Should Have Been Nominated: Asteroid City
Very good stuff going on in the category this year. Barbie is naturally the headline, which I think is helped by that whole “the world ran out of pink paint” thing that went on for a while. It is obviously brilliantly constructed, but I think it struggles to compete with Poor Things. A lot of its behind the scenes stills have shown a lot of green screens, but they’ve also shown unspeakably lavish sets, built with intricacy and care. Barbie would deserve the award but the world of Poor Things is such an alien world (especially compared to the world of dolls) that you have to fully believe in the world to let anything get in. Speaking of aliens though, show a little love for Asteroid City! I know it’s a cliché to say that Wes Anderson films are beautiful but God, this is a stunner. Plus, it’s entirely about construction and storytelling, so thematically it has to be on point! Anyway, a robbed film, we all treated it too harshly.
Best Sound
Will Winand Should Win: The Zone of Interest
Should Have Been Nominated: John Wick: Chapter Four
At one point, Oppenheimer had a shot with this award but the tide has turned. The sound is immaculate and again, it has to work for the film to work, but The Zone of Interest is an all timer. The sound of the film has to tell a separate story to the visual component of the film, which is so much more complicated than it sounds. Words are not strong enough to talk about what has been achieved so all I can recommend is that you check it out for yourself and feel absolutely terrible for a week! To go lighter though, I would have loved some appreciation for John Wick: Chapter Four. Action films are great because of how satisfying and cool the sounds of people being punched or shot or kicked in the face are and few films feature as much punching or shooting or kicking as John Wick. You can listen to the film and truly believe that you heard a man roll down two flights of stairs and that is the kind of movie magic I believe we should celebrate.
Best Original Song
Will Win: “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie
Should Win: “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie
Should Have Been Nominated: “Dear Alien (Who Art in Heaven)” from Asteroid City
CHAOS WIN: “The Fire Inside” from Flamin’ Hot
The nominees in this category mean that a film about the creation of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos is now an Oscar nominee. Wild. If it wins, anarchy. In reality though, it’s a Barbie competition. The Academy love Billie Eilish so they’re very likely to reward her again for her (admittedly great) song that soundtracks the big emotional moment at the end of the film as well as the credits. While the film ends, it’s the song that sticks with you. However, I and many others love the deeply silly “I’m Just Ken”, a song which channels the melodramatic torment at the heart of the silliest man of the year. Somehow it still makes me giggle after all this overexposure, which is a marvel in and of itself. Call me a broken record, but I think Asteroid City should have been nominated. The “Dear Alien” song is a catchy and silly ditty which, unlike many nominations that often appear in this category, actually exists in the world of the film. I would always so much rather have that than just a song to play over the credits.
Best Original Score
Will Win and Should Win: Ludwig Göransson for Oppenheimer
Should Have Been Nominated: kwes. for Rye Lane
Again, this is one of those categories where there are a few nice options, where Poor Things could be a really cool winner… But nothing can stand in the way of Oppenheimer. I obviously love Ludwig Göransson for his work on Community and the fact that he has gone from this little sitcom that was always on the edge of cancellation to a colossal blockbuster without missing a beat remains genuinely impressive. It’s also a propulsive score that powers the audience through what could so easily be a challenging film and yet isn’t. I can’t imagine Oppenheimer without it. Another score that is a part of the films personality is the one for Rye Lane by kwes. Rye Lane is a film that is fun, such a breeze and very (without sounding completely cringe) cool, which the score amplifies. It is the perfect music for walking around and chatting and again, Rye Lane doesn’t exist in as perfect a form it does without that score.
Best International Feature Film
Will Win: The Zone of Interest
Should Have Been Nominated: The Taste of Things
I feel bad because I haven’t really done my dues with this category. It’s always tricky to catch the international films before the ceremony and so to be frank, I haven’t. To counteract that, I won’t say what I would pick, because I’ve only seen one of the films. That film though, The Zone of Interest, seems set to take the category. It is, after all, the only film in this category that is also nominated for Best Picture, its odds not hurt by the fact that it is also excellent. It will also be the first time that the UK picks up the prize in this category, enjoy that trivia nerds. I would have loved to see a nomination for The Taste of Things though. For those who don’t know, countries can only nominate one film to represent themselves and France chose Taste over Anatomy of a Fall, which also got nominated for Best Picture. This has resulted in a huge and slightly messy war in which Taste has been an unfortunate casualty, doubly unfortunate because it’s an incredible film! It’s this beautiful and meditative study on food and love and the space where those two blend into a tasty sauce, which I have been raving about since October. Please, I urge you to give it a chance, as long as you don’t do it on an empty stomach. It is such an underappreciated treat that is at risk of being lost to the footnotes of film history.
Best Animated Feature
Will Win and Should Win: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
This will be a quick one because I also haven’t seen much of the category, but that’s not going to slow me down too much because the two I have seen are the two that make up the competition here. It is coming down to either The Boy and the Heron or Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Boy has a chance because Ghibli have never won this award before and with what is allegedly Miyazaki’s last film for the company, this would be the perfect time to reward him and Ghibli. However, the film is very abstract and requires you to work for it and I don’t know if all the people voting will appreciate that. Spider-Verse is the much easier film and a film which, admittedly, I prefered. It has its frustrating cliffhanger ending and the animators weren’t well treated, but God, what a picture. If you want to celebrate how far we can push animation, this is the most interesting case Hollywood has made for the medium since… Well, the last Spider-Verse film.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Will Win: Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach for Barbie
Should Win: Tony McNamara for Poor Things
Should Have Been Nominated: Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon
After all the hubub about Gerwig not getting a Best Director nomination for Barbie, expect her to take Adapted Screenplay. I’m saying this like it’s a foregone conclusion but actually, this is a pretty competitive category, full of worthy winners. Poor Things, American Fiction, Oppenheimer and The Zone of Interest would all deserve the win, with Poor Things just barely edging out the competition for me for the simple reason that I find the dialogue very funny. But man, would it have been so hard to nominate Killers of the Flower Moon? This is such a large and complicated story which is somehow wrangled into a film that is not just watchable but compellingly so. I think it is witchcraft on all fronts and should be rewarded for that magic.
Best Original Screenplay
Will Win: Celine Song for Past Lives
Should Win: Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik for May December
Should Have Been Nominated: Ari Aster for Beau is Afraid
Past Lives only got two nominations but has this warm feeling behind it, where the people who love it just absolutely adore it. I wasn’t quite as infatuated but also I had the feeling that this was a film I could return to and constantly pick up more from. Many are rooting for either Anatomy of a Fall or The Holdovers, but I just have this gut feeling that Past Lives could take it. What will not win though is May December, a film that is nominated by basically a miracle. It is such a tricky story and very emotionally complicated and I cannot even fathom how you go about making a film about this topic that works. And while it never stood a chance, Beau is Afraid being nominated would have been incredible. Ari Aster poured his weird little heart out onto the page and created a film that is, without question, an Ari Aster film. It did not work for most people but it really worked for me and to be honest, I think how much it didn’t work for a people is a sign that this film had real impact. It’s a bonkers mess but weirdly works. Sue me, I would put it here.
Best Supporting Actress
Will Win and Should Win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph for The Holdovers
Should Have Been Nominated: Rachel McAdams for Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Of all the categories this year, this is the one which is least likely for an upset. For the entire awards season, Da’Vine Joy Randolph has been clearing up and you know what? Totally deserved. Her role is amazing, she elevates the film and all her speeches have been awesome. I look forward to her winning this, it won’t be a shock but it’ll be a lovely moment. Apologies to the other nominees, no one else is coming close. Someone who could have come close though would have been Rachel McAdams for Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. I believe this film is really going to stand the test of time and man, if America Ferrara is getting nominated almost solely on the back of that speech in the middle of Barbie, McAdams has a version of the speech which is so much smarter and more heartbreaking and has these beautiful layers going on that people of all ages and genders will gravitate to. She’s ace, should have snuck in here and then also lost to Da’Vine Joy Randolph.
Best Supporting Actor
Will Win: Robert Downey Jr. for Oppenheimer
Should Win: Mark Ruffalo for Poor Things
Should Have Been Nominated: Charles Melton for May December
I find this a slightly weird category to write about because for me, I just can’t understand how Charles Melton is not only not the frontrunner for this award but isn’t even nominated. Not only is his performance better than any of the other ones in this category but it is also my favourite performance of the year full stop. You watch him on screen with this sick feeling in your stomach and see a boy trapped in a man’s body, failing to get out or even be fully seen. If you haven’t seen May December, watch it just for Melton’s performance, it is that good. Anyway, everything after that is quite underwhelming. By now, Robert Downey Jr. has the award in the bag, but some silly little guys could stand to cause an upset. Ryan Gosling was great as Ken and Mark Ruffalo plays a version of that character, turned up to a brilliantly nauseating level. Ruffalo would be my pick, but Gosling is more likely to come in with the upset if for some reason Downey Jr. doesn’t take the trophy.
Best Actress
Will Winand Should Win: Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon
Should Have Been Nominated: Vivian Oparah for Rye Lane
Best Actress is maybe the most competitive of the big five categories this year, coming down to two absolutely brilliant performers giving some of the best performances we’ve seen this decade. This two horse race isn’t to diminish the other actresses in competition, the other three are all great performers who did pretty great work across their careers, but imagine trying to beat Lily Gladstone or Emma Stone. The two have been handing the baton between each other since November and about a month ago, Stone seemed like the one to beat. Her role in Poor Things is a very strange one, but it’s a strangeness she’s allowed to lean into and make really funny. A role this comedic is rarely celebrated this much and that’s awesome! But, Gladstone has been my choice since the moment I saw Killers of the Flower Moon. It’s a more typically dramatic role, but one that she nails. Her eyes contain emotions that her face isn’t allowed to process and her body carries generations of weight that can never be off loaded. I am bad at talking about why acting works, I just think she’s amazing and this would be an amazing win for the Native American community, topped with what would be a very emotional speech from Gladstone. Indulge me though (you know, for a change), Vivian Oparah should have been nominated for Rye Lane. She got a surprise nom at the BAFTAs, but clearly no Americans saw the most gleefully romantic movie of this year or most other years. Both our leads deserve props for what they do, but Oparah gets the more dramatic arc and is hiding her emotions for much of the time, letting them all build into a really joyous finale. She’s ace, keep an eye out for her in the future!
Best Actor
Will Win and Should Win: Cillian Murphy for Oppenheimer
Should Have Been Nominated: Andrew Scott for All of Us Strangers
CHAOS WIN: Bradley Cooper for Maestro
Can we all agree that it would be hysterical if Bradley Cooper wins this? It feels like Cooper basically handpicked the role for himself to win an Oscar and everyone could smell it and has refused to give him a single award this year. But if he does sneak in? I will piss myself with laughter, it would make the Oscars such a farce. Anyway, this was another two horse race for a while, but Paul Giamatti has since lost steam with his performance in The Holdovers. He’s lovely and warm, but he cannot compete with Cillian Murphy. IMAX as a camera format is almost exclusively used for big landscapes and spectacular action, not close ups, but in Christopher Nolan’s hands he make’s Murphy’s face the biggest face you have ever seen. In that face though, magnitudes. You read the world in his face, from ambition to terror to anguish. He’s fab and those terrible people with Peaky Blinders tattoos will enjoy an extra large can of lager to celebrate his win. Someone I thought genuinely could have had a chance getting nominated was Andrews Scott for All of Us Strangers. He gives one of those wonderful performances that blossoms as the film continues, where every new scene reveals something about his emotional state that you hadn’t considered before. By the time the film wraps up, you realise quite how much was on Scott’s shoulders (which is even after you realise he only has three co-stars) and also he’s great because he made me cry. A big omission here, but one that I think would still lose to Cillian Murphy.
Best Director
Will Win: Christopher Nolan for Oppenheimer
Should Win: Martin Scorsese for Killers of the Flower Moon
Should Have Been Nominated: Raine Allen-Miller for Rye Lane
After 25 years as a filmmaker with a track record that makes his contemporaries blush, Christopher Nolan seems primed to finally take home his first Best Director Oscar. For Oppenheimer, it’s fully worth it, a film which required an untold amount of wrangling to make coherent, let alone compelling. In what is an incredibly strong category (one in which I genuinely don’t think you could or should squeeze anyone out to make room for someone like Greta Gerwig), Nolan is the clear favourite for once. I would love to see Scorsese take it though. He has still only won this award once after ten nominations and Killers of the Flower Moon feels like the apex of a career already full of highlights. I feel similarly about it as I do Twin Peaks: The Return, in that I hope it isn’t the last thing we get from a legendary director, but it would be a phenomenal final note to end on. Say it with me though, justice for Rye Lane! I am a broken record and refuse to be fixed! Raine Allen-Miller has created a film that appears deceptively simple, but is such a gentle balancing act to perfect that she deserves immense credit. In the same way that Richard Linklater rarely gets the credit he’s due for choreographing the Before trilogy, Allen-Miller makes it look easy. Crucially, she also makes it feel new, a film that is indebted to the Before trilogy but not some mere imitator. It feels like in every scene, she picked the most interesting way to visually tell the story and never once made the wrong choice. I cannot wait for what she does next, but I also am forever grateful to her for giving us Rye Lane.
Best Picture
Will Win: Oppenheimer
Should Win: Killers of the Flower Moon
Should Have Been Nominated: The Taste of Things and Rye Lane
CHAOS WIN: Maestro
Alright, finally here. You have scrolled all the way down to read this one, past hours of work I spent writing, just to get my thoughts on Best Picture and to that I say: yeah, fair enough, let’s not waste anymore time then, eh? Maestro is by far the worst film on this list and while I would struggle to actively call it bad, it is a film that has no vision, no perspective and no real reason to exist outside of winning an Oscar. It would be an unbelievably funny win, a historic “how did that happen” moment and part of me almost wants it for the surprise. With that discounted though, we’re left with nine really solid nominees. American Fiction is a funny drama that’s about prejudice but also how that competes with how to actually live a life and then also a bunch of great jokes about being a writer. Anatomy of a Fall is an incredibly smart courtroom drama that’s less about whodunnit and more about what goes into what we believe about whodunnit. Barbie is a blockbuster that had no right being as great as it was, sneaking subversiveness into an impressive corporate product. The Holdovers is one of those “movies they don’t make anymore” movies that is warm and lovely while never sugarcoating the dark bits, more fit to be a holiday classic than it is a major contender in this category. Past Lives is a gorgeous and complex drama about two people and their feelings, the kind of thing that is set to resonate deeply with quite a few but also bounce off just as many people. Poor Things is far too weird and far too excellent to be a contender at this ceremony and somehow is. What a miracle it is, though your parents would do well to watch it when you’re not around. Finally, The Zone of Interest is a film that we are destined to talk for decades and is in real conversation with what the future of cinema could look like, of course it won’t win because it is too good for that.
Which leaves us with two. As I’ve been saying throughout this post and in my best of the year list, Killers of the Flower Moon is a masterpiece. It is a sprawling western epic about a true American evil, in which traces of joy are slowly infected by a darkness that has left neither me, nor America. In the process of doing so, it is also a display of some of our great film artists working at the top of their game, across editing, cinematography and acting to name but three. In every single way, it is the greatest film of the year and my favourite. Unfortunately, it seems to be about 26 minutes too long for most people, so to Oppenheimer it goes. To be fair to it, it really does feel like the movie of 2023. Not only did it gross an obscene amount of money at the box office, but it was beloved by critics across the globe, got audiences back into cinemas and showed the importance of large format cinema projection. It’s quite wonderful and deserves the win, which is good because I can’t see anything beating it to the finish line. Get this prediction in to all your friends to sound smart and then hey, boot up your lovely pristine TV and rewatch it, to absolutely blow the tits off your neighbours once the bomb drops and decimates your speakers. That’s the true magic of cinema.
You may have noticed, we’ve skipped over best album and best TV show this year. That’s my bad, I’ve been in a writing slump and for those interested, I’ll have my rundown of some of my favourite of both at the end of the list. I know it’s mainly me who beats myself up over that but considering I don’t often share my opinions on those things, I wanted to just throw them out somewhere. ANYWAY! Movies! Aren’t they rad? It has genuinely been an excellent year for films, especially if we go by the UK release calendar. Like sure, films like Poor Things and Evil Does Not Exist are worthy of the list but when you see what made the cut, you won’t be so mournful. As I said, we’re doing UK release dates, feature films only and for obvious reasons, only films I’ve seen. I saw over 100 so we have a good pack (and the full list is here for anyone who wants to get angry over nothing) and I’m even allowing myself some extra honourable mentions because of how many films I loved this year. That is it for introductions, let’s rock and roll!
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
The thing about Guardians is that it is so much bigger than a swansong for a trilogy of lovable rogues, because it manages to also be an accidental swansong for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was the only success for the company this year and also the only one that deserved to succeed.
Eileen
Big controversial choice for me, because no one else seemed to fall under Eileen‘s spell. However, this thriller on a road to nowhere had me totally under its seductive spell for the whole breezy runtime.
All The Beauty and The Bloodshed
There are very few documentaries as profoundly moving as this one, a dual tale of Nan Goldin’s life and her battle against the Sackler family, in which the personal and political are inextricably connected. The telling of the tale doesn’t slack though, demanding the audience watch at every moment.
The Killer
David Fincher proves again that he has a wickedly dry sense of humour, in this hitman tale that doesn’t sacrifice thrills for a chance to wryly play The Smiths. Again, not a popular choice, but I’m very happy to see Fincher having fun again.
May December
Kudos to Todd Haynes for a balancing act that few others could complete, in which comedy and media satire are balanced with a heart-breaking tale of abuse. Charles Melton should be winning awards for this role every year for as long as we do awards.
Talk to Me
For a horror film, this is basically everything I could ever ask for. Thrills are paired with proper scares, complimented by some deliciously and realistically unlikable characters, all of which absolutely barrel towards an ending as bone crunching as it is inevitable.
Blackberry
Matt Johnson has made his most mainstream film yet, without losing any of his personality. Blackberry could so easily just be a Canadian riff on The Social Network but it has much more fun and is clearly a film that is so excited to simply exist.
Asteroid City
Justice for Asteroid City! Both this and The French Dispatch have been criticised for being “just Wes Anderson doing his thing again,” which is brutally unfair. No Anderson film before has made me cry which Asteroid manages while creating some of the most beautiful artifice we’ve ever had on screen. He is an artist at the height of his powers and Asteroid City is yet more proof of that.
Beau is Afraid
Love it or hate it, good luck forgetting Beau is Afraid. From the opening scenes in which we meet “Birthday Boy Stab Man,” through to the… I suppose testicular is the best way to describe the ending. Either way, Aster got a blank cheque and God bless him for running with it into hell.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
I feel hesitant to give a film which is so blatantly half of a story a higher placement, but Across the Spider-Verse was one of those truly exciting cinema experiences that worked on every technical level (once it was sound mixed properly.) Fingers crossed part two comes out, doesn’t disappoint and is made with minimal employee exploitation.
John Wick: Chapter Four
This is one of the best action films I’ve ever seen and still just barely misses out on the top seven of the year, that’s how good a year this is! Where I usually love a film with a bit of restraint, John Wick: Chapter Four is a three hour buffet of action that never stops and never once becomes less than captivating.
Anyway, huge selection of honourable mentions done, it’s time to get to the actual Top 7! If you thought those films were good, wait until you see these.
7. Rye Lane
Romcoms are, broadly speaking, one of my least favourite genres of film. Favourites stand out but generally, if Richard Curtis has been near it, I’m unlikely to warm even slightly to it. Rye Lane though is special. It exists within that mould that Curtis laid, but makes it feel modern, fresh, like an actual film about actual people! Obviously, there’s the part of that which relocates the action from the rich realm into the slowly gentrifying area surrounding Brixton, yet relocates in a way which still maintains the feeling of love for location. That’s not the only updating though because, at risk of sounded both pretentious and vague, Rye Lane just feels so well built. Scenes are presented in abstract form to create the most exciting presentation, music gently tinkles behind conversations that are about everything and nothing and the setups are paid off in ways to make you hoot and holler. Oh, it’s also 82 minutes long. There are six films I ended up loving more than Rye Lane but there were none that made me love love as much. Everything in my life felt better each time I saw it and it is the very easiest recommendation on this list. If you only come away from here with one new film on your watchlist, make it Rye Lane.
6. Oppenheimer
Judging by the box office, you almost definitely saw Oppenheimer. To be very honest with you, I do regret my time with Oppenheimer, because I only saw it once. It feels like such a rewardingly dense film that one viewing seems like a bit of an insult. Even in that fleeting three hour encounter though, what is on display is stunning. Nolan has made many absolutely brilliant films before and while Oppenheimer is a continuation of that craft, it feels distinct. What seems on the surface to be a telling of one man’s life story blossoms out into a grander tale of politics, science and ethics, in which there is no black and white. Again, you probably saw it! And that’s amazing, that an obtuse but well crafted and serious drama managed to draw in almost a billion dollars at the box office (and may yet make it there.) It is a rare instance of one of the greatest films of the year also being the most successful.
5. Barbie
Speaking of! You definitely saw Barbie, which made eight Barbillion dollars. Even more of an achievement than that though, Barbie was actually a really great film! I’ve loved all three of Gerwig’s solo directorial films and what is so great about them is that all three feel like films made by the same person. Admittedly, I think Barbie is the weakest of the three but considering that Lady Bird and Little Women are not just films I love but are also cornerstones of who I am as a person, third place can still be great. And it is! Barbie is so so much fun and one of the films on this list that I rewatched very soon after first watching, because it filled me with this absolute lightness. We can talk around it or try and be snobbish about it, but that gleeful lightness isn’t an easy thing to create and kudos to Gerwig for doing it in a way that seems effortless (if you ask the Academy Awards, it maybe seemed too effortless.) It’s hard to know what else to say. It’s Barbie! It was everything, or it was just Ken, but it has rightfully defined cinemagoing for many people this year.
4.The Royal Hotel
When I first saw The Royal Hotel, I didn’t realise that it wasn’t really going to have much of a ripple out in the world. I saw it at Cambridge Film Festival and was so electrified that I assumed on release, it would just be an absolute hit. It then… just kind of wasn’t, I can only assume because no one saw it. Because if you did see The Royal Hotel, I can’t imagine feeling anything other than exhiliration. It’s the story of two young American women who, while on holiday in Australia, find themselves working in an outback pub to make up a bit of extra cash. Stuck in the middle of nowhere though, they’re at the mercy of a murder of men, all of whom have an element of sketchiness to them. The rest of the film plays out as a queasy thriller with this pulpy edge, in which very little happens all while a sick feeling builds. The women may not be actively threatened but there is a lingering air of bad. Something bad could happen. Something bad might happen. Surely, something bad is about to happen. That feeling never really disappears, despite moments of respite, and the film delivers on that by having an incredibly satisfying finale that left me breathless as the credits rolled. If The Royal Hotel somehow escaped you, I really recommend a trip. It’s thrilling and a little bit pulpy, but always the right side of good taste and with this lingering dread that I absolutely loved.
3. Tár
The best film about a composer from the last year and it’s not even close! Tár is an absolutely swaggering work that is immediately imposing. It’s a long film about classical music that starts by making you sit through the entire credits and then listen to the lead character literally lecture you on music. This is all some wicked foreplay though, as Todd Field slowly ratchets his film up to pace. What you’re actually watching is the study of a woman who is falling apart because of things she may or may not have done, but is definitely capable of. Calling it a dissection of cancel culture way undersells the final product, which while included is just a fraction of what we’re going to explore. Lydia Tár is such an intricately drawn character, both from Field’s screenplay and an all timer performance by Cate Blanchett. Together, these two create someone who is repellent yet enticing, despicable yet admirable, awesome yet very much not awesome. The momentum of Tár comes from our fascination with Lydia Tár and watching her spiral into… Something, even after all this time it’s not worth spoiling the ending. Needless to say, it is an ending that is already pretty legendary and reveals a wicked glimmer of comedy that was hiding throughout the film. For such a dense work, that tease of humour at the end sent me back to the film very quickly and I absolutely adored my second viewing, even more than the first one. Maybe on the surface, Tár seems like this big serious film about classical music and cancel culture, but once you step inside you will be rewarded for your patience by a ghostly atmosphere that crumbles into mania. It it a riot. The best film about a composer from the last year and it’s not even close, it bears repeating!
2. Babylon
Hehe. Damien Chazelle does it again, at least for me. Since his second film Whiplash, I’ve been an adorer of Chazelle’s films. La La Land made me realise I can love a musical, First Man was the kind of unconventional biopic that I’m perpetually thirsty for and the aforementioned Whiplash remains one of the best films I’ve ever seen. Fair to say then, my anticipation is always high for a new Chazelle film and when that film is a three hour ejaculation that celebrates some of the best (and worst) years of Hollywood, anticipation grows yet higher. Unlike most of the viewing public though, Babylon easily met those expectations. Sure, its flagship party scenes really are special, these festivals of debauchery that (while not especially shocking) are a hell of a lot of fun, but there’s something greater going on. There are these warring emotions happening, in which we are both eulogising what the film industry was and also not shying away from how horrible a time it was for pretty much everyone. Scenes become a dialogue between grief and celebration and the audience is pulled in uncomfortable ways that have stayed with me for the year since I saw Babylon. Crucially, the film does all this while also being incredibly funny. One scene in which a battle is filmed is an absolute riot and features the best Spike Jonze cameo outside of Jackass. I know that the three hour runtime and the 18 BBFC rating both seem daunting, but they’re only in play because we have so much to do here. We have to laugh, we have to cry, we have to write a powerful eulogy to cinema as we know it. All of this is to be done before we get to the most divisive ending on this list where brilliant endings are something of a speciality. For me? It’s a home run, an ending so brazenly sincere as to fly past cringe and into genuinely amazing. Put it on tonight, gather round the family and make up your own mind (please don’t get the family together for this, lol, I cannot be responsible for that again.) I hope you love it as much as I do but I can’t expect everyone to be capable of this much love for something this wonderfully stupid.
1. Killers of the Flower Moon
We find ourselves now at a number one entry that surprises even myself. Don’t get me wrong, I was very excited for a big new Scorsese film, but how can someone who made classics like Goodfellas and modern bangers like The Wolf of Wall Street be expected to top himself? Like this! Again, Killers of the Flower Moon hasn’t made itself an easy pitch by being three and a half hours long and about (depressingly real) atrocities committed upon the Osage Nation in Oklahoma, but fortunately what they did to balance that out is make the best film of the year. It is this absolutely incredible sweep of a story, which begins as a man falling in love with an Osage woman and descends into this wretched court case about whether an act of genocide has been committed or not. It is basically the ultimate in feel bad film, tempered only by the joy you feel in getting to watch some of the best filmmaking you’ve ever seen. Scorsese is working on levels that are both immediately impressive and also basically subliminal, making me start to physically shake in my seat as the evil on screen starts to course through my veins.
All of this manages not to overshadow all the stuff on the surface that is immediately and undeniably excellent. The performances range from merely great to absolutely iconic, where actors with great faces get to play on the greatest canvas there is. Robert De Niro gets to capitalise on the last decade of friendly granddad roles by twisting benevolence into evil, Leonardo DiCaprio gets to play a level of dumb where you’re constantly guessing if he doesn’t know or doesn’t care what’s happening, and then there’s Lily Gladstone. Her eyes contain a beauty and a pain that should never have to coexist, but which speak to a darker truth about the intertwined nature of both. She shouldn’t have to but her face speaks to an entire fading culture of people in ways that have haunted me mercilessly. Even a cameo at the end of the film is a performance that brought me to tears, bringing together the narrative of the film while also dissecting true crime as a genre and our complicity in it. Again, in a year of amazing endings, this was one that appeared out of nowhere and somehow summarised with grace the three and a half hour movie I’d just seen, as well as the great American project. People who are much smarter than me have struggled to appropriately appraise Killers of the Flower Moon, so I won’t keep you here any longer, other than to say that this is an absolutely major work from an artist who has made a habit of creating an absolutely major work at least once a decade since the 1970s. Do not miss it.
Favourite TV Shows
Physical 100 – A great format for a reality TV show, made all the better by competitors who were committed to the love of the game and of each other. The greatest sportsmanship you could ask for.
Drag Race (US15, All Stars 8, Sweden, France 2, Down Under 3, UK 5, Canada 4) – I think I might do a longer post on all things Drag Race soon but as the franchise gets bigger, it has often gotten better too. Of all the seasons, I’ve been so happy with the fourth season from Canada, it’s a version of the show that deserves so much more love.
Taskmaster – Sam Campbell from series 16 won my heart, but series 15 of the perennially perfect Taskmaster has been one of the best yet, with a cast that would fight for every single pointless point.
Beef – I love a good limited series, and so while I’m obviously annoyed at the possibility of a second series, what we got of Beef was ace. Complicated character dynamics built to an unexpected place, where I only hope we remain.
Black Mirror – I think I’m the one person left who will still defend Black Mirror, but I must do it, like clockwork! This season, the big standout was “Loch Henry,” a profoundly upsetting episode that feels like Brooker pointing the biggest middle finger possible at Netflix.
Succession – For many, the obvious choice of best of the year, a consensus which I’m hard pressed to disagree with. “Connor’s Wedding” hits hard for all the obvious reasons but “America Decides” was the episode I kept coming back to, a nauseating crash to Earth as the Roy siblings meet the consequence of their actions.
Favourite Albums
10,000 gecs by 100 gecs – For a while, this was the album I would play when I started work at 9am. If you know the album, you know why that is insane, but I am very comfortable in that insanity.
the record by boygenius – Three artists in their prime, coming together to make an album where the best of every artist is fused into something beautiful. Whether you’re screaming in pain or ecstasy, this was the album for you.
Fantasy by M83 – I am always so glad to be in a world where M83 are making more music. Their soundscapes make me so happy and their testament is always in their endurance.
The Last Rotation of Earth by BC Camplight – BC Camplight is basically the only cool taste in music I have, so I like to shout his name nice and loud when I can. He’s awesome! Listen to him, this is the best one yet!
The Age of Pleasure by Janelle Monae – Going back and listening to this album in December was bleak, but The Age of Pleasure makes complete sense when the sun shines and a drink is in your hand. I can’t wait to go back.
The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We by Mitski – I cannot believe that in a world where I have a girlfriend (humble brag), Mitski is still capable of making an album that caters to my emotional needs, gentle and sublime it is.
The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess by Chappell Roan – If we’re talking just sheer weight of bangers, no album has been as great a heavyweight champion as this, god bless girly pop music.
Something to Give Each Other by Troye Sivan – The biggest shock this year for me was Troye Sivan not only making an album this good, but also filling it with samples this outrageous that all (without exception) work completely.
Guts by Olivia Rodrigo – After an album as good as Sour, Olivia Rodrigo had plenty to live up to. In many ways, Guts is superior and even in the ways it isn’t, it’s so impressive that complaints are totally pointless.
Desire, I Want to Turn Into You by Caroline Polachek – I discovered this album just as the year ended and it consumed me for a week. These are songs that are laced with something beautiful and have the addictive qualities of something evil. Going back in almost feels dangerous.
So, this is a tricky review to write. I was very excited for Typist Artist Pirate King. I like Carol Morley’s most recent films, she’s got a solid little cast full of talented British actors assembled here and hey, a film about outsider artists who went underappreciated in their time is exactly my kind of bullshit. Even having heard negative reviews from people, it couldn’t deter me from seeing Typist. In hindsight, I should have let myself be deterred.
For those, presumably many of you, who don’t know what this film even is, let me do that thing we’re meant to do at the start of reviews and spell out the facts of what the film is. Our lead character is Audrey Amiss, a real life artist who suffered with what I believe the film states is paranoid schizophrenia. The exact details are unfortunately unimportant, as they only amount to the background detail of Audrey having been in and out of institutions for her whole life, and to the ongoing detail of her having schizophrenic episodes in which she mistakes people in front of her for people in her past. The story surrounding her is completely fictional however, a story in which she and her ex-carer take a road trip to Sunderland to enter Audrey’s work in a gallery.
Theoretically, good idea! The road movie is this mythical genre that doesn’t get many entries and it gets even fewer British ones (Radio On and The Trip feeling like the only major examples unless you want to be generous and chuck in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), so yeah, let’s throw another film into the mix! The problem with a bad road movie though is exactly the same as a bad road trip; it can start well but soon you start to realise you don’t know where the destination is. I’ve seen quite a few “aimless” movies recently which create a delightful aura to luxuriate in but Typist is a film that unfortunately deserves the title of aimless with all the negative connotations it encompasses. Though you know early on that the goal is Sunderland (and Lord, what a miserable goal to have), the hijinks that ensue become tiresome and you start to wonder what the point is.
I think part of this is deliberate? Throughout, there are numerous Don Quixote references (Kelly Macdonald’s character is literally credited as “Sandra Panza”), but they’re numerous to the point that even I, someone who hasn’t read or even seen an adaptation of Quixote, felt like I was being hit over the head. And again, even as a layman (with an English degree, to be fair) I understand why it’s a parallel you’d draw. Both are stories about individuals with rocky mental health, in which said individual is the head strong one leading a largely unwilling companion across the country, but I don’t think Morley has created the British Don Quixote here. That’s a stupidly large bar to set yourself, especially when your previous films have been “good, but…” It’s not an ambition I resent but it’s one that I think kneecaps a film that would have been well served with less references that seem placed largely to justify extended flights of fantasy.
If we want to chuck another positive in, I really like this cast! I don’t love what they’re doing but they’re all actors I am happy to see more of! Playing Audrey is Monica Dolan, one of our country’s most underrated actresses. She had a haunting turn in the Black Mirror episode Loch Henry earlier this year, got to play in one of the most interesting Inside No. 9 episodes and was great in Pride. She’s one of those “it’s them! From that!” actors, a crop that keep getting work because they are chameleonic in their approach and damn good at what they do. I think Audrey is a very difficult character to inhabit though. She has to be irrational and somewhat unlikable by design, while still being empathetic enough to root the emotional core of the film. To be blunt, I don’t know if it’s possible with this script but Dolan gives it her all. It’s not a performance that’s likely to be talked about long into the future, but you can’t deny that one of the best and hardest working actresses in Britain is once again giving it her all, even when she could get away with a fraction of her best.
Supporting Dolan on screen is Kelly Macdonald, another actress who has kept working and working hard over the last thirty years. Many (myself included) will have never forgotten her turn in Trainspotting but Macdonald has never rested on that laurel and starred in plenty of other iconic films, delivering in her roles the exact tone that the film requires of her. This will not be one of those. She is warm and certainly not doing bad work here, but it’s absolutely nothing remarkable. Sandra only has the levels of frustrated, pleased and the uninteresting zone between the two, which Macdonald hits easily, almost seeming annoyed that the film isn’t asking more of her. At least she spends the entire film in sweat pants and was therefore probably really comfortable while filming. The rest of the cast flit in and out, including a weirdly underutilised Gina McKee, and then the film ends. That’s it. People turned up, did something for a day or two and then got paid. Cool.
My big issue with the film boils down to its tone. Broadly speaking, the film is a comedy, I think. Obviously I didn’t make the film so I don’t know what the intent was but I did watch the film and in my humble opinion, that counts for something. Early on in the film, this light plinky plonk music and bemused looks from characters encourage the audience to laugh at Audrey, which extends into encouraging the audience to laugh at her during her psychotic episodes. They start relatively light but get much darker, except because the audience has already been conditioned to laugh they kept laughing as these moments got darker. To me, that feels wildly insensitive and makes light of a character who the film also seemingly wants us to be sympathetic for. I’m finding it genuinely hard to put into words the bizarre feeling I had in the cinema, where I was becoming really concerned for Audrey as everyone around me was laughing at her. Whatever balance Morley was trying to aim for here, I think she missed wildly and it completely tanks the film.
I can tell that there is a well meaning spirit behind Typist Artist Pirate King, which is why I find it difficult to tear it down. I’ve seen plenty of worse films this year but they were all soulless and hollow. It’s not as easy tearing down a film that was made with heart but completely missed the mark, especially when its budget is much lower and they clearly didn’t have as much to work with. This isn’t a film that makes me completely write Morley off as a filmmaker but as someone who had liked her other films, it starts to make me question those feelings. I hope she does something better next time and that this blip is something we can all just look over and forget exists.
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Thanks for popping back, I know I’ve been gone for longer than I have before. It has been, in a word, busy. I’ve left the job that has drained my time and energy and enthusiasm and moved across the country to be with someone who restores all of those. I’m going to keep trying to write bits and pieces like this because it keeps me writing and even if the bigger pieces take a back seat for a while, it’s only so I remember how to make these words appear from my brain through my keyboard and onto your screen. Regardless, I appreciate y’all, especially if you read reviews like this, for films no one has heard of. It’s very nice and I think you’re cool. Anyway, that’s it, this is the end, bye!
At long last, we are here. My favourite films of 2022. There were a lot of films I watched last year (at time of writing, 110 films) and a lot of them were really great! I feel like there was maybe a slightly higher level of excellence last year, but that doesn’t stop there being a lot of brilliance to see at the cinema or at home this year. Notably, I think there’s also a lot of films that are at the top of other peoples lists that I only thought were great and not masterpieces. We’ll see some of them soon. In the meantime, here is the rest of the stuff I have to say before we see a poster. My full list of films I saw from 2022 is here, feel free to browse my best and worst at your leisure. These are all 2022 releases as by UK dates. That means they have to have come out proper in the UK in 2022, previews or film festivals don’t count. Finally, there are also still lots of films I missed, even at 110. Forgive me, I am only mortal. All these lil things out the way, let’s move into honourable mentions!
Nope
All the problems I have with Nope and all the things that stop it from being a masterpiece are exactly the things that I think could make it seen as a masterpiece someday. It was exhilarating big screen entertainment that still makes me think, all these months later.
Aftersun
Aside from having the most gorgeous poster of the year, Aftersun also has a very gentle power that has kept working. It’s a film about time and its effects, so I think it’s only fitting that time is the very thing that is so kind to the strength of this film. A killer ending scene doesn’t hurt though.
Nightmare Alley
I love film noir. Can’t help it, won’t help it. So, when a film is as deliberately and deliciously indebted to that genre as Nightmare Alley is, I can only lay back and submit. I also think it’s one of those perfect examples of a film where seeing the ending coming is an example of great construction, making the story reach its perfect, dark and natural end.
Resurrection
I really liked a lot of Resurrection while I was watching it. Then we hit this long monologue suddenly. Rebecca Hall lays out one of the most bonkers confessions you’ve ever heard in a film. Yet you believe it. Or at least, you believe her. Those aren’t the same thing, and balancing between the two of those is what keeps the fire in the twisted belly of Resurrection.
The Souvenir Part 2
Life rolls into fiction rolls back into life again. Watching The Souvenir Part 2 feels like the sensation of remembering The Souvenir. I know that’s a confusing way to explain it, but there’s a lot going on in this brave sequel. It pushes everything that was subtext in the first film into the full realm of text. And yet again, one of the great endings of the year.
Red Rocket
Red Rocket is about a terrible human being who does terrible things that ultimately hurt decent people. It’s also hysterical. That’s not easy, but Sean Baker makes it look like it is. His dirtbag world is charming and sticky, but you cannot look away, no matter how bad things get.
Glass Onion
I’ve become a little bit hooked on murder mysteries since the first Knives Out and Glass Onion continues that brilliance. If it didn’t have the humour or the social critique or the sheer momentum, it would still be a knotty little thriller. Except it does have all those things, and more. I only mourn that more people didn’t get to see this in a cinema.
We’re done with the honourable mentions, into the big hitters now!
7. Compartment No. 6
I know what you’re thinking. Such a waste to have a film with 6 in the title place at number 7. What can you do though? The list is the list, we carry on regardless. We also need to stop though and really talk about and appreciate the wonder that is Compartment No. 6. Since I saw it at London Film Festival back in 2021, I’ve been a little obsessed. It’s the story of two travellers on a very long train journey across the east of Europe, where their journey is from one frozen town to another frozen town. Stuck with nothing to do and nothing to see, the two get to know each other. Think that first meet cute from Before Sunrise but at feature length and with a true ambiguity as to whether the two leads are actually going to have a romantic connection. Even while that is ambiguous though, the film absolutely sparks off the screen. The dialogue is a treat for the ears, brought into fruition by two stellar leads. The journey may feel ambiguous, but you trust the crew enough to stay to the final station.
6. Hatching
Eraserhead. Annette. Titane. What do all these films have in common? They’re all excellent films about weird little babies. Finally, getting to join those ranks, is Hatching. It’s a Finnish horror movie about a young girl who finds an egg in the woods, looks after it, and then it hatches. Hatches into what, you may ask? So few people have seen Hatching that I’m still really hesitant to actually talk much about what happens after the egg hatches. What I’m not hesitant to talk about is how much I love this weird freak of a movie. From the pitch I’m giving you, you’re probably expecting a very creepy movie that’s very serious. In parts, sure. But there’s also this wicked strain of comedy in the film that injects levity into the creepiness. The mother of the family runs a vlogging channel about her perfect family and their perfect life, while her daughter is still struggling with whether she actually wants to be the gymnast her mother insists on her being. The dad in the family is also brilliant, playing the father of all cucks, an absolutely pathetic loser who would have no idea what to do if his daughter was only going through puberty and not dealing with whatever is in that egg. Quite simply, I had a gleeful ride with Hatching. It was proper fun, playing in horror and comedy with the ease that would suggest a seasoned director, not a first time director. Watch it, because it’s the one on the list you probably didn’t!
5. The Worst Person in the World
Describing a film by saying “it’s everything” is a phrase that is completely useless at describing the film and also makes you think that the critic in question has absolutely no useful phrases in their dictionary to break down cinematic power. The problem is, sometimes films don’t give you many other options. The Worst Person in the World has been described as many things, but is, for me, mainly a romance movie. It’s about Julie, a Norwegian woman in her twenties, trying to fall in love with herself and the people around her. It also uses those stories to explore a sort of existential crisis that Julie is having. As the narrator says in the prologue, “this used to be easy”. It no longer is. It’s complicated and it’s messy and it’s falling in love with the wrong people at the right time. It’s also pretty heart-breaking at the right moments. Director Joachim Trier manages to wrong foot the audience by playing the first half of the film with such a light comedic touch that when more serious moments appear, they devastate. I saw the film with three people from work and we were all absolute wrecks afterwards, but all watched the film again after that screening. If a film can tear you apart that much and still pull you back in, something incredible has happened. To describe the film in two words; it’s everything.
4. Decision to Leave
Park Chan-Wook has made a career out of violent movies about dark people doing horrible things. Even films like The Handmaiden, notably lighter than films like Oldboy by the sole virtue of their lack of [REDACTED], are still full of very graphic sex and violence. Immediately, that makes Decision to Leave stand out. Though there is death and there is romance, it lacks the full on frenzy of director Park’s most notorious films. I mention all of this only because it seems to be the sticking point for so many people in not falling in love with this film. It was very much not my sticking point. For two and a half hours, we watch a master craftsman get to riff on Vertigo, make two people fall in love and tell every single shot in the most exciting way possible. It’s hard to explain it fully, but every single shot has been done in the most breathtaking way possible. A scene where a character is spying on another character? Time to abandon the literal and place the snooper in the room. Time for a chase? Make the shot extremely wide and launch our characters across it. Oh, there’s a mirror in this shot? Time to surprise the audience with which silhouettes are in focus. Nothing is taken for granted and everything is pushed to the limit, while carrying an air of classiness that evokes classic thrillers. It was a cinematic experience whose sheer cinematic qualities made me want to stand up and holler at the screen. That, is what the magic of the movies are for me.
3. Bones and All
I love Luca Guadagnino’s recent films. Call Me By Your Name is a sensuous love story about young people finding their hearts and Suspiria (2018) is a horror film that takes its time approaching its destination and treats you to all the pleasures of the new flesh. So, consider me delighted when I feasted upon Bones and All and discovered it existed as the middle of this Venn diagram of films I already treasure. We follow Maren, a wanderer who discovers a dark side to her at a sleepover (a scene which is such a dark treat) and goes on the run after her father abandons her. While running, she discovers others like her. One is Sully, a brilliant Mark Rylance, who slithers on and off screen with ease. He teaches Maren about herself, but also while demanding she learn about him. Another wanderer she meets is Lee, played by the already legendary Timothée Chalamet. Chalamet is an actor who changes on film. He’s compelling in photos or on the red carpet, but in films I cannot look away from him. There’s an attraction he carries that feeds into his dangerousness here, such a brilliant utilisation of star persona. We know his need for Maren is physical, but in what way? Throw in a score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, properly sensuous cinematography by Arseni Khachaturan and an absolute knock-out, one scene performance from Michael Stuhlbarg, you have a film that leaves a mark. It has not been for everyone (and for God’s sake, please make sure people you recommend this film to know what it is), but it is so far up my street that I should be concerned about my confidential information being linked. I was, in short, very well-fed.
2. Everything Everywhere All At Once
Well, here we are . It’s the one everyone has on their 2022 list. In my defence… No, actually I have no defence. I think Everything Everywhere All At Once is just as good as all its fans say. It is everything. Everywhere. Quite a lot of the time. It is also, in weirdly reductive terms, a success story. I’ve been a fan of Daniels since their bonkers debut Swiss Army Man. A story of a suicidal man and a farting corpse (played by Daniel Radcliffe) going on adventures together was not for everyone but it worked wonders for me. That made me both very excited and very nervous about their follow up film. The logline didn’t make me excited. A woman, doing her taxes? Yeah, no thanks. Except, obviously, it’s more than that. It’s an examination of the multiverse, but crucially through the lens of a single verse. We see universes of martial arts, pixar charm, sausage madness, in a matter of seconds, extended over hours that stay with you for years. That multiversal attitude to genre extends to tone. The film begins very funny, becomes very strange and eventually becomes very emotional. I’ve seen the film twice and I’ve also failed to see the ending twice, because of something in my eye, could be anything, dunno what. No film this year (or in years) has pushed and pulled me in the way that EEAAO has, over and over again.
1. The Northman
When I left The Northman, I felt ready to flip a table. It turns out, I mean this as a compliment. With just three feature films, Robert Eggers has marked himself out as a creative force unlike any other. And though you can trace similarities through his films in their exquisitely detailed period settings, the feeling you get from them is completely different. The Witch was a creepy horror film, The Lighthouse was a full tilt breakdown, so the fact that The Northman is an action epic fits in with that pattern of these films not fitting in with each other at all. It’s the story of Amleth, a prince who loses his future kingdom after watching his uncle murder his father and kidnap his mother. This sends the boy (soon a man) onto a relentless quest for vengeance, first as a mercenary and later as a slave. You’re probably already doing the math and going “hmm, Amleth, that feels like an anagram of a famous play about a Danish prince” and I will stop you right there to say that this is based on the legend that Hamlet was based on. No ripping off and pretending it didn’t happen, the influences are worn on the sleeves here. Not that there’s a lot of sleeves to go around, but the point stands.
As you’d hope from a film about vengeance, the action absolutely rips. An early scene where a village is stormed by warriors perfectly sets the tone when it begins with a spear being thrown at Amleth, him catching it and then throwing it straight back at the attacker. There is a confidence to the presentation of this film, a swinging bravado that Eggers has earned. From this early scene and right up until the climactic battle (which, friends and lovers, is a hot treat), you feel safe in the hands of a man who knows how to ruin his characters days. If that were all that The Northman offered, it could probably still be my favourite of the year, but it’s the layers beneath this seemingly simple vengeance quest that keep the tale under my skin. All is not quite what it seems, and while some of that delves into spoilers (and oh, the scene where the true nature of the quest snaps open is delicious), some of it I can still talk about. Like with his previous films, Eggers engages with myths in ways that remain enigmatic, even as you watch your hero wrestle a dead warrior. You can take it as literal or as a refraction of Amleth’s brain, weighed down by the curse of prophecy. Either way fits satisfyingly into the narrative, a flexible little number that appears deceptively simple. Eggers has come out and said that he wasn’t happy with the final product of The Northman. That baffles me. I adore The Northman and think it is yet another singular work from a genius filmmaker who seems set to reshape cinema for decades to come.
Like that rash you have, awards season is back! It is time to boil down works of art to their likelihoods at getting little golden trophies because that’s what we like doing once a year. And I do like doing it! Genuinely! It’s fun and I like feeling validated when I get stuff right, but then also I get stuff wrong a lot and that’s fun too. And if nothing else, good to get the numbers up, right? So lets get right into it. Just five categories for these predictions, then the final predictions will be way more in depth because I’ll have done more prep. So it goes and all that. Then after this post I’ll finally get to my best of 2022 posts. They are coming, I promise. Before that though, wild prediction time, with three bets that will prove I can guess things and one bet that shows I think I have taste.
Best Supporting Actor
Likely Bets:
Ke Huy Quan for Everything Everywhere All At Once
Brendan Gleeson for The Banshees of Inisherin
Paul Dano for The Fabelmans
Unlikely But Worthy:
Mark Rylance for Bones and All
We’re starting by celebrating the men whose performances aren’t always designed to be showy, but elevate their films when delivered as well as these three are. I’ll start by predicting the actor who, amazingly, seems to be the frontrunner. That is of course the man above us, Ke Huy Quan. When Everything Everywhere All At Once released way back in the spring of last year, many (myself included) went wild for Huy Quan’s performance. He is at the heart of a scene which is one of the very greatest in this very great film full of very great scenes, in which he professes his love for Evelyn, across every universe. Plus, he has charmed on every stage he has appeared on this year, of course you want him at your ceremony. Also likely to be seen is Brendan Gleeson for The Banshees of Inisherin. That’s one of those films we’ll hear from a lot, but it’s because its sparse cast and crew are all at the top of their game. This includes Gleeson, who turns his typical gruffness into something complexly layered. It’s a great part that he never takes for granted. And finally, we’ll probably see a nomination for Paul Dano in The Fabelmans, another highly nominated film. Dano has had a great year, having earlier played The Riddler in The Batman, but I’m told he’s great here too. The UK release is later this month, but Dano has never let me down before, I don’t expect it now. As a little choice for me though, I am picking Mark Rylance for Bones and All. I can’t believe I just wrote that. Rylance has never been a screen presence I’ve been a fan of, always playing weird little guys with weird little accents. Sure, that’s what he does here too, but here it’s with an unpredictable energy that powers the film even when he isn’t on screen. It is an actor taking something that should feel stale but creating a freshness in it and that’s what I love about acting. However, Bones and All will be completely shut out because it is far too weird for anything close to the mainstream. Their loss.
Best Supporting Actress
Likely Bets:
Angela Bassett for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Kerry Condon for The Banshees of Inisherin
Hong Chau for The Whale
Unlikely But Worthy:
Jessie Buckley for Women Talking
I find myself interested by this category which, for so much of the year, appeared to have no strong frontrunner and not even really more than a few fringe possibilities. That’s why I think the current frontrunner feels like such a rogue choice. Don’t get me wrong, Angela Bassett is sensational in pretty much everything she’s in, and is by no means below that bar in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. I just feel that by being the strongest part of a mediocre film, it makes her performance seem mightier than it is. Perhaps it’s the narrative of this being “her time”. Bassett has only been nominated once before for an Oscar and seems the kind of actress who should have one. In lieu of a more obvious answer, here she is. As far as less obvious choices though, I think Kerry Condon is a fantastic choice for her work in The Banshees of Inisherin. It’s such a masculine film, heavy with the weight of male conflict, but she adds something different to the film. It’s not merely that she is a female presence, it’s the versatility of her presence. She is gentle and furious and ultimately willing to do what she hopes is for the best. Condon has the least showy role of the three leads, but it’s still a strong one. I am also reliably told that Hong Chau’s work in The Whale falls into this too. I’m yet to see the film but it is a film that is so strongly focussed on performances that rewarding them feels a clear choice. Plus, I know she was great in The Menu, I trust her strength as an actress. Speaking of trusting an actresses’ strength, Jessie Buckley! Last year she secured her first (of many, I assume) Oscar nomination and while the hype on Women Talking has muted, she is my favourite part of it. Her nomination isn’t likely, but it would be recognition for an actress who is yet to put a foot wrong and who is consistently underpraised. I just think she’s neat.
Best Actor
Likely Bets:
Colin Farrell for The Banshees of Inisherin
Brendan Fraser for The Whale
Austin Butler for Elvis
Unlikely But Worthy:
Paul Mescal for Aftersun
Predicting this category was the easiest of the bunch, because three frontrunners have emerged and that’s all my format requires me to predict. Colin Farrell is slowly carving a very impressive winning streak this season and I have a sneaking suspicion that he may end up taking the trophy at the end of this all (but we can check back on that in March). For the time being, his work in The Banshees of Inisherin is brilliant and subtle work, well deserving of all its praise. He goes on a subtle emotional journey and it is credit to Farrell’s acting that we’re not entirely sure where we find ourselves by the end of the film. Also in an apparently equal ball park in Brendan Fraser for The Whale. He has been a fan favourite for this award since well before anyone had actually seen the film, because it’s a success story. Fraser was unofficially blacklisted from Hollywood and this marks a grand return for him. Hollywood rewarding themselves for welcoming him back after kicking him out? Sure, it’s hypocritical, but it’s the Oscars, we expect nothing less. What we also expect is Austin Butler to be nominated for his work in Elvis. I did not care for Elvis, but it certainly ticks the box for Best Actor contention. For two and a half hours, Butler is in almost every scene and transforms himself into a well known persona. That is pure awards catnip. We saw how Bohemian Rhapsody went, some of us even remember Judy. Butler is all but guaranteed a nomination, and we’ll track the rest from there. As I said at the start of this paragraph, there is ambiguity mainly around the two other places in this category. One who stands an outside chance is Paul Mescal for Aftersun. Aftersun is a very delicate film that says a lot without really talking about the things it says. As a film, it can get away with that because of the performances, chiefly the work of Mescal. His quiet collapse powers the film and gives a sense of dread whose origin we can barely place. Though Aftersun is a smaller film than others in competition, it is one whose power could (and should) see recognition.
Best Actress
Likely Bets:
Cate Blanchett for Tár
Danielle Deadwyler for Till
Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere All At Once
Unlikely But Worthy:
Rebecca Hall for Resurrection
Cate Blanchett for Tár. That’s it. Everyone else go home. That diagnosis maybe doesn’t feel fair in a category with plenty of other worthy winners, but awards season has never been about fair. However, awards season also usually doesn’t recognise performances as good as Blanchett’s. She doesn’t play an existing character, she is largely subdued and the film itself is one that many have bounced right off. But holy hell, she is incredible. Nuance isn’t a nuanced enough word for what she is capable of in Tár. Admittedly, she isn’t the only powerhouse vying for attention. I hadn’t heard of Danielle Deadwyler before I watched Till, but she made me remember her name after watching it. It is a more obviously powerful performance, in which she has to portray the rawest kind of grief any human can ever experience. But also, Mamie is not a character who makes the obvious move and because of Deadwyler’s attention to emotional detail, we get to understand her decisions. A weaker actress would have made this a role that, while moving, could feel surface level, but that is not what Deadwyler is here for. My final choice of this bunch is Michelle Yeoh, the beating heart of Everything Everywhere All At Once. I don’t actually know how to describe what she does in this film, other than commit herself to its silliness. If any frame of EEAAO lacked sincerity, the audience would reject it. We didn’t though, did we? Yeoh is physically dominating the screen, pulling off the action moves that made her famous almost two decades ago and doing so with what seems to be a complete ease. She’s awesome. But if I may, let me push a complete wild card, who has no chance of a nomination. I talk of Rebecca Hall for Resurrection. To start, Resurrection is not a well known film and even many of the people who know about it haven’t seen it. What a shame. Horror is always on the back foot at the Oscars, which means a performance like the one Hall gives goes totally ignored. There is a monologue at the heart of this film, which exposes all the craziness to come and reliably lets audiences know where we’re going. The monologue is one unbroken shot of Hall talking. A single slip up would ruin the moment and she doesn’t dare. Were she terrible in the rest of the film and amazing here, she would deserve the nomination. The fact that she is this good for the whole film is criminal, which maybe explains why no awards jury have paid her the slightest bit of attention.
Best Picture
Likely Bets:
The Fabelmans
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Tár
Top Gun: Maverick
Women Talking
Unlikely But Worthy:
Bones and All
The Northman
We have made it to the biggie! Did you skim read the other categories to get here? Probably, but that’s none of my business. It’s nice to have you around even just a little. This is also the biggest predictions list, because there will be twice as many nominations, so I need to predict twice as many champions. I’ll get straight into it, The Fabelmans feels a dead cert for a nomination. It is Spielberg talking about his childhood and the magic of the movies. Even having not seen it, that feels like a slam dunk for a nomination. Everyone is also expecting The Banshees of Inisherin to do well. It hit big out of the autumn film festivals and Martin McDonagh’s last film was very handsomely rewarded back in 2018. Good for it, weirder films deserve recognition. Speaking of, the prince of 2022 weirdness, let’s give it up for Everything Everywhere All At Once. Back when it came out, it was the box office story that could, a little miracle whose mere existence was cause for celebration. Now, all these months later, something bigger seems to be in its future. It was the film that everyone kept talking about and buzz is currency for the Oscars, which I hope A24 cash in on big time. Then, expect to see a showing from Tár. From the outside, it seems exactly the kind of awards-baity nonsense that is destined to get an Oscar, but it is far better than that. Sure, it is an almost three hour film about a composer who becomes embroiled in cancel culture, though it isn’t until you watch the film that you realise how much grander it is than that. And even then, it isn’t until the second viewing that it opens up even further.
These next two predictions are slightly less certain, but I think their odds are still good. Despite my disbelief in it as a possibility on its release, there seems to be a genuine chance that Top Gun: Maverick could get nominated for Best Picture. I thought that it was an outside chance because broadly speaking, the way you reward blockbusters is with huge box office returns. As the famous Mad Men quote goes “That’s what the money is for!” However, it has been such a crossover hit for every demographic and one that has endured in the public consciousness. If the Academy want to get public interest, nominating this will draw people in. What may not draw people in is Women Talking. Despite a positive response from every festival it played at, it has bombed at the US box office and has been fairly quiet at other awards shows. So where does it stand with the Oscars? I think it’s too impressive a piece to not garner interest, even if it won’t win anything. And, in a year when women aren’t going to be very present in the creative categories, it would look especially bad if Women Talking gets shut out of a category that had ten spots up for the taking.
My turn now though, to be wild and crazy. Crazy enough to suggest something like, maybe the Academy should nominate a horror film for Best Picture? I know, wild. Bones and All is bonkers and another knockout from Luca Guadagnino, who was once upon a time a contender for Best Picture. Maybe the difference is that with Call Me By Your Name, he cast a cannibal and didn’t make a film about them. Don’t blame me, I needed to get that joke out one more time before this film disappears from public consciousness. Anyway, the point is, this is a lush and sensual horror film that is about love and otherness and learning how to truly find yourself. I fully loved it, from my marrow to my nails. What I also loved was The Northman. We’ll chat more about it on the best of 2022 list but damn, what a feat of moviemaking. It is a muscular epic and the Oscars have never been shy of those before. But I think there is this weird edge to The Northman that will stop people quite digging into it. Not me though. It was technically the most impressive film I saw all year but also has the thematic and emotional depth to back it up. Words cannot describe how special this film is and apparently awards won’t describe it either.
I want to take you back to a simpler time; 2019. It was an amazing year for films and sent two stars into the stratosphere of success. One of them was actor turned first time director Olivia Wilde, who directed Booksmart, one of my favourite coming of age comedies. The other was Florence Pugh. Having previously impressed in Outlaw King, The Little Drummer Girl and Lady Macbeth, she spent 2019 releasing three films in which she delivered yet more incredible performances. After the streak of Fighting With My Family, Midsommar and Little Women (for which she became Academy Award nominee Florence Pugh), how could you not be ecstatic about what she was going to do next?
As it turns out, what came next was a collaboration between the two, a collaboration I was obviously immediately excited for. The form it was going to take was a thriller called Don’t Worry Darling, based on an existing screenplay that Wilde’s Booksmart co-writer Katie Silberman was to tinker with to better fit their sensibilities. So sure, we’re leaving the zone of comedy that Wilde proved so profficient in, but I was cautiously optimistic. I just had to sit put and wait for my trust in these two creative forces to be rewarded. So I did. I waited. And waited. And tried to ignore the stuff that started to come out. Rumours of rifts on set. Of affairs with pop star co-leads. The rumours grew faster and more furious, from (alleged) shouting matches to (alleged) spitting contests, putting more and more cracks in my faith. It was as if I was being taunted by Hollywood, the title itself staring back at me and daring me to still believe. Don’t worry, darling. Everything will turn out all right.
And so now Don’t Worry Darling is here. It actually exists, you can actually go see it in the cinema. But I haven’t told you what it is yet, or if it’s any good. So let’s do that. Our story is one that feels very familiar. Alice is a housewife living in a picture perfect fifties suburbia, being a docile housewife to Jack. In the morning, Jack goes off to work at “the Victory Project”, while Alice stays at home cooking, cleaning and chatting with the other housewives. Everyone is pretty happy with their lot, but told not to question what the men do at work. We, as the audience, have alarm bells ringing at this immediately. Alice takes a little longer to twig that actually, maybe, everything in Victory isn’t virtually perfect.
But that brings me to my first big issue with Darling, which is the structure. The first five minutes paint a very content picture of domesticity, until Alice realises that something here isn’t right. We spend THE REST OF THE MOVIE in this state of not-rightness, which gets exhausting at the length the film insists on. As the audience, we’re expecting this world to not be as it seems. Once Alice is also onboard, we’re ready to discover what is going down, but we are given almost no hints towards the true purpose of Victory until the very moment where the rug is rudely pulled out from under us. I have plenty to say about what is hidden under that rug, but we’ll save that for a little bit later. The point is, there needs to be a sense of escalation and its absence makes the majority of the film feel aimless. We’re just sitting here, waiting, hoping that soon Alice will find the thing that reboots the momentum of this film into something tastily watchable.
Speaking of tasty and watchable, it’s a very hot cast that Wilde has gathered here! But can they act? Hmm. Well. Tricky question that. I’m going to start by saying that for the most part, the cast are all doing solid work here. Throughout the film there are moments or casting choices that feel a little like missteps, but those are generally justified retroactively by things that are being hidden from us. For example, Nick Kroll feels like a bit of a rogue choice to play a charming fifties househusband, and his performance confirms that feeling. There are some moments where he shouts that are the wrong side of funny (God, we’re really skating around spoilers here) and then there are some moments where the charm he’s meant to ooze is just… Not quite there? It’s not a bad performance per se, just one that needs the justification that the end is going to deliver. Similarly hard done by the twist are basically all the female performers. Whether it’s Gemma Chan or Kate Berlant, the wives of Victory feel slightly too hollow. And again, from the outset, it’s clear that something isn’t right. We can tell that they are not as they should be, but it doesn’t justify these women occupying the role of hollow Fabergé eggs. Unlike the men of this world though, the twist doesn’t quite redeem their performances. You can feel these talented actors pushing at the seams to let their talent flow freely, but not quite reaching it. Ironically, the men are all justified by the awful end, the women are left in the lurch.
Still, there are three main performances I want to focus on. First, and probably most notable, is Harry Styles. You are probably familiar with Harry Styles, probably not as an actor though. There is a reason for this, which is that he isn’t a great actor. Is he as bad as I expected? No. That viral clip of him shouting really is as bad as his performance gets, the rest of the time IT IS FINE! And yet, he is the draw for the film. To be honest, I have very little to add to the discourse on him. Plenty of better actors could have done great with this role, but he is fine and is bringing people in. I think Styles especially struggles though when compared to the good performers around him, because they are so particularly talented. Chris Pine (a very underrated Chris) is great in the role of the leader of Victory. The role itself is not that interesting, but he does what he can with it, being charismatic and just a little dangerous. He has a tasty little dinner scene, you’ll know it when you see it, it’s a treat of OTT slimebag acting. You all know who I think the best actor in this film is though, it’s obviously Florence Pugh. She is my wife, I love her and those close to me are willing to forgive me if I someday drop everything to follow her around the globe. She is a damn great actor and while she’s so much better when the material is good (see Little Women), she can still elevate pretty crappy material. That’s what this situation is. As Alice, Pugh is always completely believable and empathetic, even when the narrative is not, and she is the thing about Darling that I can most enthusiastically praise. Pugh never does no wrong, we love her! All of us! No exceptions, total adoration!
I’m gonna dip into spoilers soon but before we do, some loose technical praise! My big problems with this film are structural and narrative based, so there’s actually a lot else that I do like. The look of the film has to be convincing to sell the later subversion and it is! Matthew Libatique does the cinematography and you get that sense of beautiful chaos that he lends to Darren Aronofsky’s films, but more composed than usual (apart from the moments where it isn’t composed, obviously). I’m also a big fan of the score from John Powell. There are a lot of tortured voices polluting and permeating the soundscape and that works for me. Music that sounds weird is my thing, sue me. Honestly, whenever I praise specific technical elements, I find myself a bit at a loss for who to praise. Do I praise production design, costume design or cinematography for this specific look? As someone who has never made a film, it’s tough to know, but I think I can just say across the board, good job! If you worked on this film, a film made during the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic, you did a great job just to successfully make the film. The fact that it looks or sounds good is a miracle. Well done, sincerely.
This is the spoiler paragraph. If you don’t want spoilers, just skip it! But this film has been out almost a month, and I just have to talk about the insane and frustrating ending. Essentially, it turns out that the thing that’s going on is that we’re not in the real world, but a virtual world in which all the women are subservient captives and the men get to keep living their outside lives. It’s an incel thing, they’re upset that they don’t get enough attention from the women in their lives, so they kidnap them and put them into a world where they have no choice but to love them. Again, I knew that there would be something up, but the moment where this got revealed caused me to audibly mutter “oh no”. It makes no sense, compared to a version of this story where it’s all in Alice’s head, or one where we are in a real cult-like setting out in the desert. All the unexplained bits in this scenario are I guess glitches in the computer? That answer isn’t satisfying, but something has to try and fill the logic hole. It’s never explained, because the twist comes too late in the film to get any accompanying explanation aside from a handful of throwaway lines, which include my favourite line from the whole film, “when a man dies in here, he also dies in the real world”. Mainly, I think I hate this as a twist because it feels unnecessary. Why add that digital aspect unless you want to cheaply update this kind of narrative for the 21st century? Oh! It’s exactly because it’s a cheap and easy way to make your story feel relevant, because the villain is a podcast host. I hate it, but I’m almost tired of hating it now. Almost.
So it isn’t very good! I find the Don’t Worry Darling experience frustrating because it’s not without merit, but it is so essentially hobbled. The core of what this film is is broken. That means that no matter how pretty it looks, no matter how delightfully dense the soundscape is, even no matter how great Florence Pugh is, the film sinks. Once that twist hits, I defy you to start defending this mess. And yet it’s not even the worst film I’ve seen this year! Not even close! Not even the worst film of the month! I just think that it’s broken in interesting ways, which I’ve enjoyed discussing with friends and coworkers. So if you’re still tempted, sure! Go see it! You will have loads of things to talk about, which you might not get from a better movie like Mrs Harris Goes to Paris. But also, you should watch Mrs Harris Goes to Paris while you’re at the cinema. A tasty double bill, as a treat. Something sweet to wash away the taste of disappointment that Don’t Worry Darling still leaves me with.
⭐⭐
Rating: 1.5 out of 5.
Thank you all for bearing with me, as I crawl out of my accidental hiatus. I’ve just been very busy and not able to control my time quite as well as before, plus I’m doing more hours than ever at my work. I still enjoy writing but I struggle to both make the time and to get myself excited enough to write about anything. As such, some projects have fallen to the side. There was the second Twin Peaks: The Return post, a post about Kurt Vonnegut in film and something about Robert Eggers’ films, all of which may one day manifest themselves fully. But really, I will just continue to write the stuff that I’m passionate about. I’d like to do more pitching and paid writing, though again that’s about seizing the moment and writing the right thing at the right time. Thank you again for all still reading these. When someone sends me a message or says to me in person that they like my writing, it makes my day. It’s the motivation that keeps me writing and I’m genuinely fine about very few people reading my words, because what matters is when one of those people (one of you guys) enjoys my silly little ramblings.
Oscar week is here and if you’re anything like me, it snuck up on you! This year I was really hoping to do a big old write up of all sorts of categories, but I am running up against quite a few deadlines and still trying to do the obligations that no one expects from me but me. So here we are! Six big categories to run through, my amateur opinion to run through them with. As ever, I am not responsible for you using my advice in any sweepstakes you may be involved in, especially because my own predictions have changed since I submitted my predictions at my work sweepstakes. But this is all a bit of fun, awards are pointless and nothing matters, especially because Belfast will win and ruin any good will I had for the ceremony. So hell to it, let’s predict wildly! And while we’re at it, let’s lament those potential better winners! Oscars!
Best Supporting Actress
Will Win: Kirsten Dunst for The Power of the Dog
Should Win:Jessie Buckley for The Lost Daughter
Setting the trend early, the Best Supporting Actress category is filled with some incredibly worthy nominees and some that, while not necessarily bad, feel puzzling. Chief of these examples is Judi Dench for Belfast. Dench is a filler vote, someone for voters to choose because they know who she is and not because she actually gave one of the five best supporting performances of the year. There was room for so many other incredible nominees to break through, but instead Dench’s wobbly accent and Cats-PTSD inducing monologue made it. She’s a great actor, but that doesn’t mean all of her performances deserve recognition. I also don’t feel strongly about Aunjanue Ellis in King Richard, though that may be because the film itself leaves me so cold. She has one great monologue in a kitchen, it will be the clip they show at the ceremony, I don’t want to besmirch a performance from a film I barely remember.
Now we get to three amazing performances from three actors who I think may stand a chance at taking the trophy. Ariana DeBose seems to be the bookies favourite at the moment, for her joyous performance as Anita in West Side Story. She was a totally new actor to me when I saw the film, but her and (the cruelly snubbed) Mike Faist have been my strongest impressions since seeing West. DeBose completely lit up the screen and has frankly earnt her place here for the “America” number alone. Something in my gut though says that Kirsten Dunst will pip her to the post, for The Power of the Dog. I feel like I am way overestimating the winning power of the Dog (classic me, betting on losing dogs), but this feels like the right time for Dunst. After decades in the industry, she has finally secured her first Oscar nomination and it’s for a great role. What should be the cliched “housewife turns to substance abuse” type role is lent a delicate fading of hope by Dunst, in what is my favourite turn from her since Fargo. Speaking of Fargo, the season four star Jessie Buckley is my favourite performer of the bunch for her work in The Lost Daughter. I think Buckley is one of the greatest working actors today and she finally gets Oscar recognition for a character who has to be understandable to the audience despite also making irrational and unlikable decisions. Despite being unlikable though, there is something in Buckley that draws us deep into the character and her work lends the film an anchor from which Colman can work in the present day sections. Her win here seems unlikely, but I can live with that because Buckley will almost certainly be back again to pick up that trophy some other year.
Best Supporting Actor
Will Win: Troy Kotsur for CODA
Should Win: Kodi Smit-McPhee for The Power of the Dog
This is a weird category, in that I think that every actor in the category is a really great actor, but not all are giving particularly great performances in their nominated films. Case in point, Ciarán Hinds for Belfast. Hinds is an actor who has had a wide and brilliant career, even giving good performances in delightful trash like Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. However, he is in Belfast. We’ll talk more about the film itself later, but his role is kind of thankless, just off to the side. I guess he’s one of the best things in the film, but that is low praise. Similarly, Being the Ricardos is a bad movie, yet the brilliant J.K. Simmons is in it. He got nominated because his character appears one note and yet opens up to show another side. But also, he’s incredibly watchable, because he’s an actor who can string bronze out of hay. Again, he is one of the best parts of a film that is not good.
The other three actors however are all very worthy nominees for the roles they’ve played. Two of those three are from The Power of the Dog. Jesse Plemons has never given a performance I didn’t like and this is no exception. He’s a great counter balance to Cumberbatch’s lead, offering a genuine loveliness. One line delivery from him properly warmed my heart, in ways you wouldn’t expect from a film like this. Also not being what is expected is Kodi Smit-McPhee, an actor who has never wowed me but has a knack for choosing films I like (one day Dawn of the Planet of the Apes will get the acclaim it deserves). In Power, his character is a coiled spring, slowly unravelling until he pops. It’s a treat to watch and his performance is my favourite one of this category. For a while, Smit-McPhee was the frontrunner but at the last minute, it seems like Troy Kotsur will take it for CODA. This is no crime. CODA is not a film I am crazy on, but Kotsur is absolutely brilliant. His brutish presence hides a softness and while it’s hardly a big secret, it’s one that made me smile to see appear. He is funny and gross and has the biggest emotional moments of the whole film. If CODA deserves recognition for anything, it’s for Troy Kotsur.
Best Actress
Will Win: Nicole Kidman for Being the Ricardos
Should Win: Olivia Colman for The Lost Daughter
I am not exactly enamoured with this field of nominees. Again, it’s a selection of very talented actors but absent of any career best roles. I will get it out of the way now, I haven’t seen The Eyes of Tammy Faye, so have no idea if Jessica Chastain is any good in it. She wears a lot of prosthetics, plays a real person and has been playing the awards season game well. I have a manager who thinks she’ll take the prize but I’m doubtful personally. I’m also going to be controversial, I don’t think Kristen Stewart is that great in Spencer. It hurts me to say that because the film has not seen the love it deserves, but I found Stewart’s performance (the sole Oscar nomination for the film) alienating in all the wrong ways. She has also not been getting much recognition this season, so I don’t think a win is on the cards, but her performance of Diana is one that will attract many voters regardless. Penelope Cruz is deserving of her place here though, for great work in Parallel Mothers. The film is a rollercoaster of melodramatic emotions and without someone to latch onto, many audiences would feel lost. Cruz is exactly that figure though, someone who the audience can latch onto with ease. There is something about her in Spanish speaking roles where she suddenly is an amazing actress (especially her collaborations with Almodovar), which is a trend Parallel Mothers thankfully falls into.
It is a toss up about who my favourite actress of the race is, between Cruz and Olivia Colman in The Lost Daughter, but I think I settle on Colman. She plays the same character as Jessie Buckley (talked about a little earlier up the page), yet does so in a way that feels totally unique. I think it’s a credit to the two actors to say that they make the same character feel totally separate and of course, Colman brings her best with her interpretation. She bubbles under the surface, being hard to read and yet paradoxically never too hard to understand. She’s not as great as in The Favourite, but she’s still the best of this bunch. Unfortunately though, I have a gut feeling that Nicole Kidman will win for Being the Ricardos. I can’t put into words why I think she’ll win, but I just feel it. That’s a special shame because her performance is terrible and exactly the kind of performance I hate. She plays an existing (and beloved) figure, looks unrecognisable and has multiple showy monologues. It hits you over the head with capital a Acting and I never believed it for a second. Yet I still feel like it’s where the Academy will lean. Let that show you how low my estimations of that strange little group are.
Best Actor
Will Win: Will Smith for King Richard
Should Win: Benedict Cumberbatch for The Power of the Dog
In most years, the Best Actress category is the one with the performances I like the best whereas Best Actor is just men being gruff and playing historical figures. In a move of progressiveness though, this year the Best Actress category is uninteresting and Best Actor is full of some genuine gold. Not among that genuine gold is Javier Bardem for Being the Ricardos. Again, I don’t like this film and its reliance on big Acting, that abandons subtlety or grace for long monologues about old actors. I’m happy Bardem is getting a chance to play roles other than weird bad guys, but this is not the direction I want him to move in. We’ll brush over this briefly, I have not seen The Tragedy of Macbeth yet. I’ll try and see it before the actual ceremony but it has me intrigued. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have captured the attention of the Academy, as Denzel Washington is one of very few nominations for the film. I wish him luck, but he’s another actor who is here so often that a loss won’t be a big blow.
Big three time. Isn’t Andrew Garfield great? Just, in everything. He’s done stuff I liked more than Tick Tick Boom but this remains an impressive display of his talent. It is literally all singing, all dancing and so while it’s showy, what it shows is that Garfield is very talented indeed. He’d be a great outsider winner. That almost certainly won’t happen though, as one of these two gentlemen will take it. Current favourite is Will Smith for King Richard. I don’t like this film and I’m also not crazy on Smith as an actor (apologies to anyone offended). This is certainly some of his best work, but from me that’s low praise. But, he’s overdue an Oscar, maybe this is his year, before I Am Legend 2 or Bright 2 obliterates the actors existing good will. I’d personally go with the early frontrunner Benedict Cumberbatch for The Power of the Dog. He’s an actor who I’ve liked before but never been that crazy on, yet in this role I was totally absorbed by him. His character has this rough exterior and it fades through the film, allowing you to glimpse through at the layers crafted underneath. I have no doubts that another watch would reveal even more to this great performance, but I’ll just appreciate it this much for now.
Best Director
Will Win: Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog
Should Win: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi for Drive My Car
I wouldn’t always talk about Best Director in my Oscar predictions, but this year I feel like there’s actually decent reason to discuss this category as well as Best Picture. As ever, I should clarify that as an observer it’s always hard to break down what makes a great director, but I’ll do my best to justify why these directors do or don’t stand a chance in the running. We’ll start with everyone’s favourite menace to society Kenneth Branagh, nominated for Belfast. He is nominated alongside four complete titans in the field and for a film that feels almost accidentally made. The only reason he could win is because it does feel very much like a personal film from him, but I wouldn’t write that acceptance speech if I were Ken. Similarly, a win for Steven Spielberg seems unlikely, despite him being Steven Spielberg. Don’t get me wrong, West Side Story is a cracking little film, but it has been very underseen and is Spielberg being the usual brilliant Spielberg. He’s great, but that’s no surprise. Similarly low in the odds for running is Paul Thomas Anderson for Licorice Pizza. It’s a film that has been really well loved by many and one that demonstrates the trademark attention to detail that PTA brings to all of his films. However, it feels like a lot of the hype has died down, we’ll see how well it does at the actual ceremony.
All but guaranteed to walk away with Best Director is Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog. There’s a lot of cynical reasons for this. Her name has been front and centre for the marketing of the film, it’s a way of celebrating a Netflix film without letting it win Best Picture and it looks progressive having a woman win Best Director two years in a row. There is also an uncynical reason for Campion winning and that is that she has crafted a brilliant film. She has wrangled in top tier editing, cinematography and performances, all in a film that feels incredibly controlled. It’s hard as an outsider to know what else to credit directors for other than that. However, Campion is not my choice. Instead, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi is my choice for the miraculous Drive My Car. Like Campion’s film, control is the word. This film is three hours long, yet somehow feels perfectly balanced. The longer a film is, the more it has to justify every minute and yet justify Hamaguchi does. I would not cut a single scene. I love Drive My Car and am backing it in every race this year, but this is one category where its loss would not feel a tragedy. Four titans (and one Branagh) enter the thunderdome, only one can leave.
Best Picture
Will Win: Belfast
Should Win: Drive My Car
It is the one everyone scrolls down to read every year, because it’s the only one that matters! Unfortunately, it’s not exactly a selection to set my soul on fire. There’s some good stuff, sure, but we have to shovel our way through the shit before we get to it, and even then we may discover yet more shit. Speaking of, Don’t Look Up! I don’t like this film and I don’t really know anyone who does. Yet, it seems to have some swell of support behind it. If it won, it would be pretty much the funniest possible outcome, causing an immense shitstorm through all sections of the internet. I am almost rooting for it. Not as bad but more unlikely a winner, King Richard is nominated for Best Picture. How? Moving on. CODA is being touted by many as the current favourite, but I am prepared to once again underestimate this film and its odds. It does nothing for me aside from a few nice scenes and some great performances, yet many like it. There’s a chance of victory, I’d rather something else win though, a win would seriously damage the films legacy when much greater films are in contention.
We now start to move more towards worthy nominees, but ones that also don’t stand a chance. Case in point, West Side Story. It’s gorgeous, an entertaining watch and a take on material that has previously won Oscars. However, it stands no chance. Dune also stands no chance. It’s a brilliant blockbuster made with genuine craft, yet it is big space nonsense. Maybe when Dune: Part Two comes out it will pull a Return of the King and get enough awards for the whole franchise, but this first entry will have to be happy with some technical awards through the night. Licorice Pizza is also a really well made and really likable movie, but it is rocking around with too many controversies in its boat to be a slam dunk of a choice. I liked it quite a lot when I first saw it, but I haven’t thought about the film much since, probably a bad omen. Elsewhere, we find Nightmare Alley, an excellent film made by an Oscar winner that no one saw and that most people who did see thought was too dark or too long. I, however, loved it. It’s big and indulgent, sure, but it’s a true craftsman getting to indulge so I was happy to be there. It also has no chance. So it goes.
Big three time! For most of this season, The Power of the Dog has been the Best Picture frontrunner, and why shouldn’t it be? It has big themes, it looks amazing and it just gives more and more to you as you continue to think about it. There are two reasons I don’t think it’ll get Best Picture though. First, its heat has faded. Awards season is all about riding the rollercoaster for as long as you can, but it seems like Power hasn’t quite got there. Second, it’s a Netflix film. That still feels like a big bridge for the Academy to cross, I don’t think we’re quite there yet. No, I think we’re at Belfast. I hate Belfast. The last three months have allowed a bad impression to only further sour, letting this poorly made film fester under the spotlight of my brain. But it’s in black and white, it plays songs people know and it has “crowd pleaser” written all over it in big gold font. With the way Best Picture is voted on, it is exactly the middle of the road kind of rubbish that could Green Book its way to a win. Exactly the kind of win that would shut out a worthy competitor like Drive My Car. It is the film in this race I am most in love with by a large margin, a patient ode to the transformative power of love, grief and art. The fact it could even be nominated here is honestly enough of a win for me, because it stands no chance of winning. But man, if it won, I would almost certainly throw my back out again celebrating, like I did with Parasite. It seems like my spine may be safe though, sadly.
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