The friends who we defingered along the way*
When we left the theater, my wife said “This movie isn’t going to win any awards. It’s too early in the year. Everyone will forget about it by the Oscars.” And I said, “It’s going to win ALL THE AWARDS!”
I’m surprised that EEAAO showed up on the Best Costume list. It wasn’t on the shortlist before nominations, so I have no idea what changed. Anyway, I hope it wins!
I came here to say that. I suspect Yeoh is a lock, even if you consider that there might be better movies or performances, there’s a strong lean of her deserving it after such a lengthy and great career. Best movie, Everything was probably the freshest and consistently surprised as it managed to tick every box. Banshees will probably live in my head longer, but it was an unpleasant, brilliant experience where Everything was raucous, loving, somehow tight despite being pure chaos, etc. It won’t live in the top twenty a decade down the line and Banshees probably will, for what that’s worth. Actor, don’t know.
This weekend, I watched The Fablemans, Triangle of Sadness and Avatar 2. All really excellent bits of filmmaking, and all for different reasons.
The Fablemans is Spielberg at full-flex: camera dolly shots, daddy issues, lens flares, complex human characters, etc. Fantastic performances from all the actors, and I won’t be surprised if Michelle Williams takes home Best Actress.
Triangle of Sadness didn’t really hook me through the first act, but once we got to The Yacht… hoo boy. I loved this film. A bit heavy-handed with the messaging, but sometimes people need to be smacked in the back of the head with a rock to really get it, y’know what I mean?
I saw Avatar 2 in IMAX 3D, the way god… er, Cameron intended. Absolutely breathtaking example of moviemaking, with a director in full command of the magic tools at his disposal. Some of the story is a bit hand-wavy sci-fi nonsense (“recombinants?” WTF?), but it all works and the final battle sequence is masterful. It won’t win any of the major awards, but with all those zeroes in the bank, who cares really?
Hey, one of The Eternals got an Academy Award nomination! Gratz to Barry “Druig” Keoghan!
I’m surprised to see “The Batman” nominated for visual effects, as opposed to Raimi’s Dr Strange Multiverse movie, for example, which I thought had really fantastic visual effects.
Greig Fraser (Dune, Foxcatcher, Zero Dark Thirty) was robbed for not getting nominated for Batman’s cinematography. I really hated The Batman, but it was easily one of the most gorgeously shot movies I saw from last year. Visual effects, my foot. It was all Fraser’s eye.
Let’s not forget Bryan “Phastos” Tyree Henry.
We just got back from seeing the nominated foreign film from Belgium called Close. I thought it was sensitive and beautifully done. The two boys who played the leads were remarkable.
The writer/director Lukas Dhont was there for a Q&A afterwards and it was fun to see him on a very momentous day for him, his cast, and all of Belgium. He said the boys were in school when the nominees were announced so they all watched on TV and when they announced the nomination, the whole school erupted in cheers.
Maverick being nominated for best picture suggests to me that 2022 was a really bad year for movies. I mean, seriously Academy?
Devotion was a far better movie about airplanes. And Jonathan Majors deserved an actor nom for his performance.
We’ve seen a number of the films this year and similar to last year we are trying to catch up on a few we’ve missed.
@Rock8man thank you GREATLY for this list. If I could give you a reward for this I would.
At this point we’re both pulling for EEAAO here. We laughed, we cried, we rallied around the characters … an amazing story and so well done.
The point of increasing the number of nominations for Best Picture was so that popular movies could get recognized. It’s very unlikely to win.
Maverick made over a billion dollars and basically brought people back to movie theaters again.
Academy is gonna reward that with a nomination, especially with the field expanded to 10.
I feel like I’m the only person that, despite finding Tom Cruise’s movies to be generally enjoyable, and having an interest in military aviation, still has no desire to see either Top Gun film.
As for the Oscars, I’d like to see more slapping. Every presenter and recipient doing a whole Three Stooges routine for every award.
Hold on there…I’d actually watch that and I haven’t watched the ceremony in 25years.
I couldn’t disagree more. Banshees of Inisherin will become a forgotten arthouse film over time, eclipsed even by the director’s own output. (In Bruges will be the film he’s remembered for.)
Everything Everywhere All at Once, on the other hand, will endure as the spiritual successor to The Matrix we always wanted, as a landmark for Asian stories in Hollywood, and as a cultural sensation that integrated itself into the popular mythology thru several major memes and themes. I haven’t seen a movie land with such critical and grassroots impact since Fury Road, which is still celebrated with as much fervor, if less ubiquity, as the year it came out. If anything, I expect a more enduring legacy for EEAAO.
I read things like this about EEAaO and I wonder if I saw the same movie. I just don’t get it.
I agree, the comparisons with The Matrix and Fury Road are very apt. EEAAO shows us things (many things) we haven’t seen anywhere else, it effectively explains the rules of a different universe, it has something substantial to say about life in its time, and it does all that with distinctive flair.
“Top twenty a decade from now” is a VERY high bar. I may feel that way about EEAAO, but I understand if not everyone does. I’d settle for it being a film that people still talk about in 20 years, like the Matrix or Silence of the Lambs or The Royal Tenenbaums, to arbitrarily pick a few films that feel firmly established in 2020s discourse.