94th Academy Awards – Live Trivia Updates!

It’s that time again; despite all the Academy’s efforts to dissuade me, I’m going to stay up to the wee small hours again this year to watch the 94th Academy Awards on British Summer Time. Who knows if I will ever get back to my original mission on this blog, but I can at least drop in a couple times a year to comment on the current Oscars race. As ever, I enter the ceremony with great hopes and dreams that will surely be dashed as the evening progresses.

Still waiting for that sponsorship from Bulleit.

Before the ceremony begins, you can check out my predictions on this episode of my podcast, Categorically Oscars (on Twitter @CategoricallyO)…or, if you’re lazy, here they are, along with what I think should win:

Will Win

Best Picture: The Power of the Dog

Should Win

The Power of the Dog

Best Director: Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog

Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog

Best Actor: Will Smith, King Richard

Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog

Best Actress: Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers

Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers

Best Supporting Actor: Troy Kotsur, CODA

Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog

Best Supporting Actress: Ariana DeBose, West Side Story

Ariana DeBose, West Side Story

Best Original Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza

Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza

Best Adapted Screenplay: Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter

Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe, Drive My Car

Best Animated Feature: Encanto

Flee

Best International Feature Film: Drive My Car, Japan

Drive My Car, Japan

Best Documentary Feature: Flee

Flee

Best Documentary Short Subject: Audible

Audible

Best Live Action Short: Ala Kachuu — Take and Run

Ala Kachuu — Take and Run

Best Animated Short: Bestia

Bestia

Best Original Score: The Power of the Dog

The Power of the Dog

Best Original Song: “Somehow You Do”, Four Good Days

“Somehow You Do”, Four Good Days

Best Sound: Dune

Dune

Best Production Design: The Tragedy of Macbeth

The Tragedy of Macbeth

Best Cinematography: The Power of the Dog

The Power of the Dog

Best Costume Design: Dune

Dune

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Dune

Dune

Best Film Editing: The Power of the Dog

The Power of the Dog

Best Visual Effects: Dune

Dune

We’ll see how that goes! I’ve definitely erred more on the side of my own choices than what will probably win in most categories, so I’m likely wrong on a lot of this. For example, most people think CODA is a lock for Best Adapted Screenplay, but I just refuse to predict such a limp, derivative script.

All timestamps below are in British Summer Time, where I am.

22:00: I’m planning to stay off social media until the ceremony actually starts, to avoid the pre-Oscars spoiling of the eight categories the Academy is relegating to pre-show taping. It’s a disgusting act that will reverberate for years and thoroughly ruin the Academy’s already tenuous reputation, but it has happened, and hopefully the ceremony will be the disaster the Academy deserves and convince them to abandon such idiotic notions in 2023. I’ll still write short updates, and also my thoughts on the nine Best Picture nominees I’ve seen, so stay tuned for that, as well as trivia and reactions throughout the night.

23:18: I’ve not yet seen Dune, alas, so here is my ranking of the other nine Best Picture nominees:

#1 – Drive My Car

It’s difficult to adapt Haruki Murakami, one of my favorite authors, but Ryusuke Hamaguchi took a short novella and turned it into a three-hour meditation on grief and the power of art that is just captivating. Hamaguchi keeps the best Murakami elements while avoiding some “Murakami Bingo” pitfalls that sometimes plague his books. In a perfect world, Hidetoshi Nishijima would be winning Best Actor tonight.

#2 – The Power of the Dog

Jane Campion is already the only woman to be nominated twice for Best Director, and she’s on the cusp of winning it. It’s well-earned, and this film is outstanding in all respects. Benedict Cumberbatch is mesmerizing as Phil, and the supporting cast is equally phenomenal; while it is somewhat on-the-nose at times, I’m willing to forgive it for its storytelling and cinematic majesty.One of the best revisionist Westerns I’ve seen in a long, long time, this and Drive My Car will be discussed and analyzed for years to come…unlike what’s coming below.

#3 – Licorice Pizza

The wheels start to come off early on the list, and while I still think Licorice Pizza is a four-star film, it’s got a whole mess of weaknesses that make me think my opinion of it will sour over time. I don’t mind its episodic nature and meandering plot, and Alana Haim was a huge snub for Best Actress this year, but the relationship at the heart of the film is not enough to sustain its runtime or anchor it emotionally, so it keeps wandering off and halfheartedly limping back to the center. Both Haim and Cooper Hoffman have great acting careers ahead of them, but maybe not with PTA.

#4 – Nightmare Alley

From here on out, the films are middling at best. Nightmare Alley is ahead of the pack for its beautiful pastiche of noir sensibilities and tropes, from the antihero to the femme fatale to the seedy characters and downbeat ending. Bradley Cooper is great as conman Stan Carlisle and would have been a worthy addition to the Best Actor lineup, but the film drags a ton and would have benefitted from some serious trimming. A noir should be short and sweet.

#5 – West Side Story

I don’t even like this film very much, but it ranks higher than others I don’t care for simply because of the improvements it made over the original film, and Steven Spielberg’s enthusiastic direction. The songs are more imaginatively staged and benefit from the bigger budget, particularly “America”, and the performances of Ariana DeBose as Anita and Mike Faist as Riff (inexcusably snubbed for Best Supporting Actor) elevate the film beyond its maudlin plot and unbelievably pathetic lead actor. “Romeo and Juliet” is just a bad story and should be put to bed once and for all now that we have this film.

#6 – CODA

There’s nothing in particular wrong with CODA, just nothing particularly right, either. It’s so by-the-book and uninspired, feel-good in a way we’ve seen and heard a million times before, filling in the blanks on the “teenager in a immigrants ethnic minorities Deaf family struggles to break free, but ultimately realizes the love was there all along” template and hitting all the necessary scenes at exactly the point Syd Field recommends. The performances are good to great (Troy Kotsur is the favorite to win Best Supporting Actor, and that’s really wonderful), but the material is dull and uninspired. I understand why people like it and will continue to like it whatever happens tonight, but I do not get its inclusion here at all.

#7 – Belfast

Kenneth Branagh’s love letter to the city of his youth that manages to take the Troubles and reduce them to, at worst, an annoying problem that keeps interrupting a family’s petty squabbles. The main question at the center of the film (“Hm, should we leave an active war zone for an amazing career opportunity that will set us up for life, if some English kid might make fun of our son’s accent?”) is such a fucking no-brainer, and watching it get spun out for two hours is a drag. Imagine a film about the Troubles in which nothing feels at stake, and you have Belfast.

#8 – King Richard

The title suggests a deeper character examination than anything we get here: a two-and-a-half hour vanity project about Richard Williams, portrayed here as a barely-flawed saint who lifts his family (or, at least, his two biological daughters) out of poverty and into tennis superstardom, quelling the haters and doubters by pure will and always being right about everything, all the time.

#9 – Don’t Look Up

This was the only film on the slate this year that actually made me angry, a pathetic attempt at satire that takes potshots at the most obvious targets, utterly ignores or misses the more important ones, and struts around like a fucking peacock, its stars oozing self-righteousness with every line and movement. Jokes crash and burn while attempts at insight reveal the filmmakers’ grade school understanding of social and climate issues, all while confident they are making a Great Political Stand. Utter trash.

00:50: Ten minutes to go! The bourbon is poured, I’ve managed to avoid finding out who won the eight non-live awards…so far, so good. As ever, I await the announcement of the winners with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Some things that will bother me include:

• CODA winning Best Picture or Best Adapted Screenplay
• Don’t Look Up winning Best Original Screenplay
• Van Morrison winning an Oscar
• When We Were Bullies winning Best Documentary Short Subject

And, things that would make me very happy:

• Drive My Car winning Best Picture and/or Best Adapted Screenplay
• The Power of the Dog winning Best Picture and/or Best Adapted Screenplay (and Campion as Director, of course)
• Benedict Cumberbatch and Penélope Cruz, acting winners
• Flee winning Best Documentary Feature and/or Best Animated Feature Film

01:06: So, there’s no time for eight awards to be broadcast live, but they open the “live” portion with a pre-recorded music video? That’s…a choice, I guess.

1:22: Crazy as it may seem, Ariana DeBose is only the third performer, and first actress, to win for a performance directed by Steven Spielberg.

Now, she and Rita Moreno are the first pair of actresses to win Academy Awards for playing the same role in different films: Anita in West Side Story.

1:34: Oh yes, “seamlessly” edited in.

1:37: Alright! First missed pick of the night. I was really pulling for The Power of the Dog, not only because it is a fucking gorgeous film but because Ari Wegner would have been the first woman to win Best Cinematography (she’s only the second female nominee of all time!!).

1:45: The Queen of Basketball was great, not sorry it won, but definitely go see Audible. So much better, to represent the Deaf community, than CODA.

2:01: This seems like a good time in the evening to mention that the record for most Oscars for a film not nominated for Best Director is five, by The Bad and the Beautiful (1952).

2:20: First Deaf actor to win an Oscar! And only second Deaf performer overall, after Marlee Matlin way back in 1986 (Children of a Lesser God).

I’ve never cried during an Oscars speech before…this did it! Kotsur is incredible.

2:33: YES! Knew it was coming, but this is great. This is Japan’s second win since Best International Feature Film became a competitive category, and fifth overall. It also marks the fourth straight year that the Best International Feature Film winner was nominated for Best Director.

3:00: Well there’s Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar! He’s been nominated for producing, acting, and directing, as well as for writing.

3:06: CODA is the first film to win Adapted Screenplay written solely by a woman since 1995 (Sense and Sensibility, written by Emma Thompson).

3:22: Fifth win for Dune…that ties the record! Can it beat The Bad and the Beautiful?

3:51: It’s official! With its win for Best Production Design, Dune has won six Oscars, a new record for a film not nominated for Best Director.

4:02: YES. Finally something for The Power of the Dog. If Jane Campion is the only winner for this film, it will be the first film since The Graduate to win Director and nothing else, and tie the record for most Oscar losses…11!!!

4:20: Well, Will Smith won an Oscar a few minutes after what was either a) an unhinged outburst, or b) a disastrously poorly-executed gag. Either way, just awful.

4:35: Well, okay. CODA sweeps, 3 for 3. This is…

The first Best Picture without directing or editing nominations since the introduction of Editing in 1934.

The first time that a film with the fewest nominations amongst Best Picture nominees won since GRAND HOTEL.

The sixth time a film not nominated for Best Director has won Best Picture.

The first time in Academy history that films directed by women have won Best Picture two years in a row.