Oscar's Best Picture 2022

I've now seen all 10 of this year's Oscar best picture nominees. Here is my ranking of them, based on my personal preference:

1. CODA
2. West Side Story
3. Dune
4. Nightmare Alley
5. King Richard
6. Don't Look Up
7. Belfast
8. Licorice Pizza
9. The Power of the Dog
10. Drive My Car

Here is my ranking based on how likely they are to win best picture:

1. The Power of the Dog
2. Belfast
3. West Side Story
4. Dune
5. King Richard
6. CODA
7. Drive My Car
8. Licorice Pizza
9. Don't Look Up
10. Nightmare Alley

OK. just watched Drive My Car, so I have now seen 9 out of the 10 nominees. I have not seen Dune and probably won't be seeing it before the ceremony. I tried to read the book when I was in high school and couldn't get through it, so I know I'll never get through the movie. As for Drive My Car, I was just as under-impressed with it as I was with Licorice Pizza...I think I had a birthday while watching this movie.

I am already on record that I believe the stage is set for a big CODA upset for Best Picture (and another Picture/Director split). The Producers Guild of America made that potential upset slightly less shocking when they named CODA their Best Picture last night.

The Producers Guild of America (PGA) started bestowing their own year-end awards in 1990 and their Best Theatrical Motion Picture became an obvious analog to the Oscar’s Best Picture. That first year both awards matched: Driving Miss Daisy. In the thirty-one awards seasons since they only missed matching ten times. That is 69% accuracy in predicting Best Picture. Not the strongest predictor you can find but still too consistent to completely ignore. There were three misses in the ‘90s (The Crying Game/Unforgiven, Apollo 13/Braveheart, and Saving Private Ryan/Shakespeare in Love), four in the 2000s (Moulin Rouge!/A Beautiful Mind, The Aviator/Million Dollar Baby, Brokeback Mountain/Crash, and Little Miss Sunshine/The Departed), and three in the 2010s (The Big Short/Spotlight, La La Land/Moonlight, and 1917/Parasite).

We are one week away from finding out.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

I loved CODA, but the stats are against it winning. It missed too many key nominations. It didn’t get nominated for director or editing and didn’t get nominated for DGA or BAFTA best picture. It could theoretically win best picture, but it would be overcoming a lot of stats and decades of Academy history.

Well if CODA does win, it will be the second best pic in a row I haven't seen. I won't get to it by Oscars either.

Noted.

I still think it is gonna happen. The backlash against The Power of the Dog is real and CODA is extremely likeable. I for sure hope it happens. But more and more I actually think it could. The PGA win was a biggie. A late surge.

Next Sunday we will find out!

I read today that 'Drive my Car' is the first Japanese film to ever be nominated for best picture. Surely that is not right is it?

Embarrassingly, yes.

Here are the movies in contention I've seen, ranked


1) Licorice Pizza
2) Don't Look Up


The only other two I have much interest in watching are Power of the Dog and Drive My Car. But, that said, I've never even heard of CODA or King Richard. And a lot of the other stuff just seems pretty middling. I do imagine Dune is alright though, and will probably eventually seek it out. Shit like Nightmare Alley or West Side Story...er...probably not.



As for what I did watch, Licorice Pizza continues the trend of PT Anderson only making great movies (well, Hard 8 might not be great, but it's still a great debut). I don't know where I'd rank it in his filmography, but all of his films are pretty tightly bundled together in regards to quality for me. He's the best modern American filmmaker. At least in the mainstream. By miles.


As for Don't Look Up, I am happy was nominated. As flawed as it might be, it is considerably better than most of the dreck that gets nominated for Best Picture Oscar. It's an original. It dares to be something and say something. And it annoyed a lot of people who annoy me. And these are all good things.

Good grief, that is shocking.

Did they look at Kurosawa's 'Ran' and think 'No, Kelly MGillis in 'Witness' is more deserving, throw Kurosawa a costume design nod, cinematography and best director to make up for it.

I imagine that's to do with the Academy's whole thing about how most nominations are chosen by members in their respective branches (e.g writers nominate Original and Adapted Screenplay) but the Best Picture nominees are chosen by every member so their picks are bound to seem like more of a compromise. Makes sense that a Harrison Ford thriller could get in under these circumstances.

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Out of these, I've only seen Dune. Licorice Pizza and Drive My Car are on my list of films to sit down and watch, however.

4 out of 10 films being remakes seems like a lot (although fairly reflective of the general trend of movies right now I suppose). However, I googled it and according to the NYTimes, in 1936 there were 8 remakes out pf 12 nominees, so not the most. (Their definition of remake seems a little sketchy at points in the article, though.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/m...e-remakes.html

Make sure you take nap before you watch Drive My Car

Finally managed to see CODA so now my personal ranking of the nominees from favourite to least...

Drive My Car
Dune
West Side Story
Licorice Pizza
The Power of the Dog
King RIchard
CODA
Nightmare Alley
Belfast
Don't Look Up

As for what I think will win, hard to say. I guess CODA is looking like a surprisingly likely underdog nowadays, but I still remain skeptical that it could actually pull it off. I guess you never know.

85 might have been the Oscars worst year ever for Oscar picks...

Back to the Future
Brazil
The Breakfast Club
The Goonies
Kiss of the Spider-woman
Mishima
My Life as a Dog
Prizzi's Honor
The Purple Rose of Cairo
A Room with a View
Ran
To Live and Die in LA

The Color Purple and Out of Africa don't even stack up to all the classics that came out that year. Back to the Future defined the 80's and the snobs in the Academy didn't give it a BP nom. Now when it came to Witness a lot of it was trying to right the wrongs they did with Harrison Ford and Peter Weir

Harrison Ford
80 - Empire Strikes Back
81 - Raiders of the Lost Ark
82 - Blade Runner
83 - Return of the Jedi

Peter Weir
75 - Picnic at Hanging Rock
77 - The Last Wave
81 - Gallipoli
82- The Year of Living Dangerously


Also if Zeckmis wins for Back to the Future (the best of his films) he likely doesn't win for Forrest Gump...which means Pulp Fiction or Shawshank Redemption ends up winning. So yeah 85 terrible year for the Oscars.

I don't know, as much as I may have been meh on most of that year's Best Picture nominees (I think Kiss of the Spider Woman would've been my pick and even then that's still just pretty good as opposed to an indisputable classic), I question whether going all poptimist and nominating something like Back to the Future (much less awarding it) is really that much better. Ran or Mishima I definitely get, but The Goonies?

Kiss of the Spiderwoman is the only one I hadn’t seen of that years BP nominations, but I actually love The Color Purple and Witness, so I’m fine with those. Out of Africa, not as much. Prizzi’s Honor was 25 years ago when I saw it so I would need to rewatch it, but I seem to remember I didn’t agree with its nomination either, although I did like it.
Definitely could have done better. But I don’t agree The Breakfast Club or The Goonies warranted one of those slots.

Having now seen Don't Look Up, while it's not my favourite of the nominees I've bothered to see, I hope it ends up winning, if only to piss off the most obnoxious, indignant people on the internet.

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