hunter albert

The only people who annoy me more than people who love the Oscars, are the people who hate the Oscars. On one hand, I find the people on the Oscar Race subreddit to be completely insufferable–it is filled with stans (obsessive fans of certain celebrities) that champion their respective actors pedigree while tearing down others. I do not know who has the time or energy to spend their time like that.

Me? I have a website to run!

On the flipside, we have the high brow people of society who claim they’re better than the Awards show. “How can the Academy know what the best film is? There have been several films that never won an Oscar!” And they have a point. Some of the greatest films of all time whiffed on winning any major awards. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Citizen Kane, The Shawshank Redemption, Psycho, and Pulp Fiction, to name a few, are just some of the movies that did not win Best Picture. But these are all films that are frequent in discussions around the greatest films of all time. Sometimes the Academy gets it right, but boy, has the Academy awarded some absolute stinkers: Green Book, Crash, Shakespeare in Love, and Argo are some of the recent films to take home the nights biggest prize that have less than stellar reception from critics and movie goers alike. But their high-brow attitude just rubs me the wrong way. If you do not care, that’s cool. But you should not care that other people like watching it either.

With all that being said, I still find myself being apathetic towards Hollywood’s biggest night. It circles back around to the idea that this is an industry event for industry people. I will be watching some of the ceremony this weekend, but it should be telling that the biggest reason I am doing so is because of host Conan O’Brien–whose content I consume at a religious level. And it is not to say that I do not enjoy watching the show, for it does produce some great moments. Watching Parasite win Best Picture was a historic moment. I was happy to see Cillian Murphy take home Best Actor for Oppenheimer. Or Ke Huy Quan for Best Supporting Actor for Everything Everywhere All At Once. It is cool to see certain individuals or pieces of art get recognized. I cannot argue that winning an Oscar does not mean anything. For the people who win, it can be a life changing. For the aforementioned actors, they will always be introduced as “Oscar winner…” for the rest of their lives. There is weight to that achievement that my spelling contest win from the third grade does not carry.

I believe that Oscar nominated films can bring awareness and attention to more arthouse style films. My number one movie of the year, Nickel Boys, did not exactly light the world on fire at the box office–bringing in a paltry three million dollars against its twenty million plus budget. At this point, any additional word of mouth or free marketing would do that movie good. The Brazilian film I’m Still Here earned a nod for Best Picture, Best International Film and Best Actress. I had not planned on seeing the movie at all until it picked up these nominations. Oscar nominated films The Zone of Interest, Tar, Drive My Car, and Minari are just a handful of movies from the past few years that earned a Best Picture nod that are all wonderful–and if the Oscars can put more eyeballs on them, then I call that a win.

In the spirit of having fun, then, here is who I would vote for if I had an Oscar ballot:

Best Visual Effects: Dune: Part Two
Best Film Editing: The Brutalist
Best Costume Design: Nosferatu
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: The Substance
Best Cinematography: The Brutalist
Best Production Design: Wicked
Best Sound: Dune: Part Two
Best Original Score: The Brutalist
Best International Film: The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Best Adapted Screenplay: Nickel Boys
Best Original Screenplay: The Brutalist
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Ariana Grande — Wicked
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Guy Pearce — The Brutalist
Best Actress: Demi Moore — The Substance
Best Actor: Adrien Brody — The Brutalist
Best Director: Brady Corbet — The Brutalist
Best Picture: Nickel Boys

I do not anticipate that many of my picks will align with what happens on Oscar night, but I would love to be wrong. If you want to believe who the oddsmakers have favored on Sunday, then I expect to differ in a couple of key categories. Anora seems to be the slight favorite for Best Picture. In the acting categories there only seem to be two locks: Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain and Zoe Saldana for Emilia Perez. I’ve made my thoughts clear on Emilia Perez, but the biggest reason I would not vote for Culkin is because I found his performance to be very reminiscent of his character in Succession. Guy Pearce in The Brutalist is unlike anything I have seen from him in the past. Ariana Grande shocked me in Wicked and is the biggest reason I loved the movie as much as I did. This is about as much as I am willing to write on the Awards night, sorry to disappoint.

Good luck to all the nominees and may Emilia Perez not win a single award.