It’s that time of year again, again! The last couple of years have been such a bummer for, well, the entire planet, so it’s hard to include “missing the Oscars” in the list of all the things that have gone incredibly crappily for us all.
But with the 94th Academy Awards just a few hours away, it’s time to get real and share my ballot picks, live from the fantasy land I live in, where The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gives a flying fart what I think (It’s like LA, but with more LGBTQ+ rom-coms starring Channing Tatum).
It’s going to be an interesting one, because Kiwi Jane Campion (sod off Australia, she’s ours) and her film The Power Of The Dog leads the nominations with 12. She also leads the current list of white people who say stupid stuff after comparing herself to the Williams sisters. That won’t make for an awkward night, when King Richard, the film about the Williams sisters and their father-mentor is also in the running for the big awards.
Finally, the Hollywood Reporter‘s annual journey into the en-feebled mind of some old Oscar voter or other, the Brutal Ballot (every year the opinions get worse and worse), dropped too, so if you want a good laugh, read that after my picks.
I have to own up and say I am still staying away from the cinemas, because I don’t want to die gasping for breath, so I’ve seen fewer films in this list than I usually would have, but I’ve never once shied away from giving my half baked opinion on the flicks, whether I knew what I was talking about or not, so here we go…
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ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
JESSICA CHASTAIN – The Eyes of Tammy Faye My pick.
OLIVIA COLMAN – The Lost Daughter Should win
PENÉLOPE CRUZ – Parallel Mothers
NICOLE KIDMAN – Being the Ricardos Will Win
KRISTEN STEWART – Spencer
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
JESSIE BUCKLEY – The Lost Daughter
ARIANA DEBOSE – West Side Story
JUDI DENCH – Belfast Should Win
KIRSTEN DUNST – The Power of the Dog My pick
AUNJANUE ELLIS – King Richard Will win
ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
JAVIER BARDEM – Being the Ricardos
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH – The Power of the Dog My pick
ANDREW GARFIELD – tick, tick…BOOM! Should win
WILL SMITH – King Richard Will win
DENZEL WASHINGTON – The Tragedy of Macbeth
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
CIARÁN HINDS – Belfast
TROY KOTSUR – CODA Should win
JESSE PLEMONS – The Power of the Dog
J.K. SIMMONS – Being the Ricardos My pick, will win
KODI SMIT-MCPHEE – The Power of the Dog
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
ENCANTO – Jared Bush, Byron Howard, Yvett Merino and Clark Spencer My pick, will win, should win
FLEE – Jonas Poher Rasmussen, Monica Hellström, Signe Byrge Sørensen and Charlotte De La Gournerie
LUCA – Enrico Casarosa and Andrea Warren
THE MITCHELLS VS. THE MACHINES – Mike Rianda, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Kurt Albrecht (
RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON – Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada, Osnat Shurer and Peter Del Vecho
CINEMATOGRAPHY
DUNE – Greig Fraser My pick
NIGHTMARE ALLEY – Dan Laustsen
THE POWER OF THE DOG – Ari Wegner Should win
THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH – Bruno Delbonnel
WEST SIDE STORY – Janusz Kaminski Will win
Have you watched the doco about the lighting in Dune? What they achieved is insane.
COSTUME DESIGN
CRUELLA – Jenny Beavan
CYRANO – Massimo Cantini Parrini and Jacqueline Durran
DUNE – Jacqueline West and Robert Morgan My pick, should win
NIGHTMARE ALLEY – Luis Sequeira
WEST SIDE STORY – Paul Tazewell Will win
Another tough one! In Dune, however, the clothes, uniforms and armour are a crucial part of the story telling in this film – how these characters dress tells you everything you need to know about their status, and there is nothing more important than status in the Padishaw Empire. I’d love this to win, but I think Cruella will take it out.
DIRECTING
BELFAST – Kenneth Branagh
DRIVE MY CAR – Ryusuke Hamaguchi
LICORICE PIZZA – Paul Thomas Anderson
THE POWER OF THE DOG – Jane Campion My pick
WEST SIDE STORY – Steven Spielberg Will win, should win
FILM EDITING
DON’T LOOK UP – Hank Corwin My pick, should win
DUNE – Joe Walker
KING RICHARD – Pamela Martin
THE POWER OF THE DOG – Peter Sciberras
TICK, TICK…BOOM! – Myron Kerstein and Andrew Weisblum Will win
MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
COMING 2 AMERICA – Mike Marino, Stacey Morris and Carla Farmer
CRUELLA – Nadia Stacey, Naomi Donne and Julia Vernon My pick
DUNE – Donald Mowat, Love Larson and Eva von Bahr Should win
THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE – Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram and Justin Raleigh
HOUSE OF GUCCI – Göran Lundström, Anna Carin Lock and Frederic Aspiras Will win
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
DON’T LOOK UP – Nicholas Britell
DUNE – Hans Zimmer My pick
ENCANTO – Germaine Franco Will win
PARALLEL MOTHERS – Alberto Iglesias
THE POWER OF THE DOG – Jonny Greenwood Should win
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)
BE ALIVE – from King Richard; Music and Lyric by DIXSON and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter Will win
DOS ORUGUITAS – from Encanto; Music and Lyric by Lin-Manuel Miranda My pick, should win
DOWN TO JOY – from Belfast; Music and Lyric by Van Morrison (Van morrison is a Conspiracy Theory nutter and does not deserve an Oscar)
NO TIME TO DIE – from No Time to Die; Music and Lyric by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell
SOMEHOW YOU DO – from Four Good Days; Music and Lyric by Diane Warren
BEST PICTURE
BELFAST – Laura Berwick, Kenneth Branagh, Becca Kovacik and Tamar Thomas, Producers
CODA – Philippe Rousselet, Fabrice Gianfermi and Patrick Wachsberger, Producers
DON’T LOOK UP – Adam McKay and Kevin Messick, Producers
DRIVE MY CAR – Teruhisa Yamamoto, Producer
DUNE – Mary Parent, Denis Villeneuve and Cale Boyter, Producers My pick
KING RICHARD – Tim White, Trevor White and Will Smith, Producers
LICORICE PIZZA – Sara Murphy, Adam Somner and Paul Thomas Anderson, Producers
NIGHTMARE ALLEY – Guillermo del Toro, J. Miles Dale and Bradley Cooper, Producers
THE POWER OF THE DOG – Jane Campion, Tanya Seghatchian, Emile Sherman, Iain Canning and Roger Frappier, Producers Should win
WEST SIDE STORY – Steven Spielberg and Kristie Macosko Krieger, Producers Will win
PRODUCTION DESIGN
DUNE – Production Design: Patrice Vermette; Set Decoration: Zsuzsanna Sipos My pick
NIGHTMARE ALLEY – Production Design: Tamara Deverell; Set Decoration: Shane Vieau
THE POWER OF THE DOG – Production Design: Grant Major; Set Decoration: Amber Richards Should win
THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH – Production Design: Stefan Dechant; Set Decoration: Nancy Haigh
WEST SIDE STORY – Production Design: Adam Stockhausen; Set Decoration: Rena DeAngelo Will win
(Not being funny, but how can you even choose between these films? They should just chop Oscar into five equal pieces here, because it’s too hard. Every one of them was an absolute honor to put in front of my eyes. In fact, I felt like I should only watch through slits at some points because my eyes were not worthy of how bloody good these films looked. Each one of them transported me to another place and time, and yet never over whelmed or confused. These films were the art of production design taken to its highest level and I refuse, point blank to pick between them.)
SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
ALA KACHUU – TAKE AND RUN – Maria Brendle and Nadine Lüchinger
THE DRESS – Tadeusz Łysiak and Maciej Ślesicki
THE LONG GOODBYE – Aneil Karia and Riz Ahmed My pick, will win, should win
ON MY MIND – Martin Strange-Hansen and Kim Magnusson
PLEASE HOLD – K.D. Dávila and Levin Menekse
VISUAL EFFECTS
DUNE – Paul Lambert, Tristan Myles, Brian Connor and Gerd Nefzer My pick, should win, will win
FREE GUY – Swen Gillberg, Bryan Grill, Nikos Kalaitzidis and Dan Sudick
NO TIME TO DIE – Charlie Noble, Joel Green, Jonathan Fawkner and Chris Corbould
SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS – Christopher Townsend, Joe Farrell, Sean Noel Walker and Dan Oliver
SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME – Kelly Port, Chris Waegner, Scott Edelstein and Dan Sudick
OK, let’s talk about this, because I reckon we’ve all been a little… messed up by SPFX, we can’t tell what’s good and what’s spectacle anymore. So, FREE GUY is great, but it’s literally the last word in spectacle, it makes a spectacle of spectacle, so I think it will win this one, but it’s not the best. No Time To Die is in with a good chance because it’s Bond, and Bond never makes it to Oscars. It’s also Craig’s last turn, so.. people might feel like a win here should be a nod to him, but… I thought the VFX were balls in this film, not gonna lie. There were CBBs everywhere. Shang-Chi was great! The Dragon was everything my dragon loving heart could desire, but… it was also cartoonish, because that’s what Marvel – love them though I do – do. Ditto Spidey. You can’t forget the VFX are happening because they don’t really want you to? Which means the only winner should be DUNE, because You. Cannot. See. The. VFX. You can’t. There are no VFX, there is only folded space, sand planets, helicopters that look like lacewing flies and giant worms that ooze spice. The attack on Arakeen, where Josh Brolin runs – outdoors, mind you – in and out of the shadows and light of massive, exploding spaceships that DO NOT EXIST IN REAL LIFE, is the single greatest VFX scene of all time, because you didn’t think twice about it. That was just Josh Brolin running through exploding spaceships. It was REAL. That’s VFX. Here ends my rant.
WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
CODA – Screenplay by Siân Heder Will win
DRIVE MY CAR – Screenplay by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Takamasa Oe
DUNE – Screenplay by Jon Spaihts and Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth
THE LOST DAUGHTER – Written by Maggie Gyllenhaal Should win
THE POWER OF THE DOG – Written by Jane Campion My pick
For me, it’s a toss up between the last two, because I loved them both a lot, and they both moved me. I loved Dune, and I felt it was very close to the source, but it did a really good job of circumventing some aspects of that novel that would be a hard sell these days. I haven’t seen Drive My Car, but I’m going with Dog, because the script was lean, but did everything it was meant to.
Lost Daughter fucked me up a bit. I was haunted by that for days afterwards.
WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
BELFAST – Written by Kenneth Branagh
DON’T LOOK UP – Screenplay by Adam McKay; Story by Adam McKay & David Sirota My pick, should win
KING RICHARD – Written by Zach Baylin Will win
LICORICE PIZZA – Written by Paul Thomas Anderson
THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD – Written by Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier
And that’s it! Join me at Stuff.co.nz where I’ll be live blogging the entire event from 1pm with Stuff reviwer James Croot, and if you’re looking for where to watch the best picture nominees, checkout this list.
the girl in row k 