2021's Oscar Nominees

i found these quotes interesting from hamaguchis wiki:

[i](On the ending of Drive My Car) "Once I talked with a big fan of Drive My Car who said that it really would have been perfect without that ending. (Laugh) Well, I think maybe the reason I ended that way is to make it a bit imperfect." "In terms of the final staging of the play in applause, if I had ended the movie at that point, presumably the audience would want to do a round of applause, and it would almost be like closing of a full circle. But for me that didn't really feel like a satisfying ending. I wanted to do something a bit more disruptive, to leave some sort of break."

(On the ending of Drive My Car) "I have no any plans of making a sequel, but I was just sort of playing around with things at the end there. One other thing I'd like to say is that the title itself also might give a clue to how you can interpret the ending."[i]

thought the ending was perfect

wow, drive my car

I liked that Drive My Car had the lattice of the staging of Uncle Vanya - the agreement to direct the play, the settling in, the international casting, the rehearsals and performance - and then also had the parallel story of infatuation, grief, confrontation and eventual acceptance that was layered over it and that reflected on it

the last scene of the performance of Uncle Vanya shown in Drive My Car was memorable

from AO Scott:

““Uncle Vanya” ends with a middle-aged man and a younger woman coming to realize that they are bound by a love that isn’t romantic or sexual, but in some way spiritual…

You don’t have to know the play to feel the power of the scene. You don’t even have to read the subtitles. A deaf Korean actress, played by the extraordinary Park Yurim, is Sonya, and her final monologue is delivered in Korean Sign Language. Vanya is seated at a table, and Sonya leans over him, her face hovering behind and alongside his as her hands glide and flutter in front of his eyes…

The feeling of two people joined in an experience that surpasses language and transcends physicality has a power that I have rarely encountered in theater or film.”

an excellent prism

the film was also presented in four acts, like Chekhov’s plays

Seen 6/10, and the others wont reach me before Oscar night, so here’s my ranking:

The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
Don’t Look Up
Dune
Nightmare Alley
CODA

Drive My Car has stuck with me more than I expected. A lot going on in that movie.

Welp, no turning back now. We predict CODA will only win one of its three: https://www.slantmagazine.com/awards/oscar-winner-predictions-2022/

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Accepting votes for:

Drive My Car
Licorice Pizza
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story

The rest can GTFO.

ultimately voted for drive my car. that conversation in the backseat made my stomach lurch in the best way

it had a surreal and dreamlike effect in a movie where nothing is particularly surreal or dreamlike (beyond the stories the people in the movie are constantly telling), the heightened state of tension, broken by the sudden turn into honesty and vulnerability (which had an unusually sinister aspect because of the character who delivers most of it and his unbroken, camera-directed stare), just took you there

Having watched it twice, I'm impressed as hell how Hamaguchi maintains a serene tone that doesn't threaten to turn clammy. The discrete parts fit together.

Descending order:

Drive My Car
The Power of the Dog
Licorice Pizza
Dune
West Side Story
Don't Look Now
Belfast
King Richard
Nightmare Alley
Coda

Watching Denis Villeneuve's coherent, meticulous, and probably faithful version of Dune over the weekend finally helped me come to a realization that I never got from Lynch's unhinged camp spectacle: I just do not care about Dune.

There's no world in which I care about Dune, in any form.

I don't care about Dune but the thing at least moved.

it made me care about dune!!!! i thought i was just taken with the disasters of the lynch film, but with villeneuve i got hooked into the dumbass storyline! also ugh it was so pretty. and so little happened (a good thing)

i mean obv things happened but little happened compared to other sci fi properties expected to make money?

Not being at all invested in the story, I spent much of the running time admiring the architecture and wondering if Paul/Duncan was a popular slash pairing in Dune fanfic. If it wasn't already, Chalamet and Momoa should've fixed that.

drive my car/power of the dog (close 1 & 2, both are excellent and would be deserving winners)
dune (i liked it a lot, don't think it'll win but i'd be ok with it just to have a genre movie as best picture)
...
licorice pizza (i was amused but baffled by this when i saw it and it has aged poorly in my memory since then)

i started west side story but only got like a half-hour in before i realized i wasn't in the right frame of mind for it, and i haven't gone back to it. elgort seemed very bad though, even worse than beymer in the original

i haven't seen the others and don't feel any need to.

Thread:

Here are some great alternative posters and illustrations of the Best Picture nominees, courtesy of @SG_Posters, @edgar_ascensao, @nunosarnadas and @OllyGibbs! 🧵

BELFAST pic.twitter.com/CAA37X7hTA

— And the Runner-Up Is (@OscarRunnerUp) March 24, 2022

and so little happened (a good thing)

otm, appreciate a sci fi movie thats mostly about looking at cool buildings. rewatching it last weekend it also made me appreciate how when showing off said buildings villeneuve has enough sense to hold long enough to let you actually fucking look at it, instead of cutting around like a maniac.

although i also admire the commitment of sci fi master steven spielberg in actually casting an almost-fully-functioning android as tony in WSS. once they finish downloading all his patches and updates it should be a good performance.

Ah damn I didn't know Eiko did the music for Drive My Car I will absolutely watch it!

Obv I want Power Of The Dog to win this tho

Finally saw all the movies (finished Drive My Car) last night. Enjoyed The Lost Daughter more than any of them.

Saw Ascension and I want to vote for it as best picture since Summer Of Soul will win best doc.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Good job ILX!

Brutally Honest Oscar voter returns!

You know, like the classic movies of the past? And this year, the answer was none. I didn’t even rank six of them. I hated the [The Power of the] Dog movie, except for its cinematography. It was so predictable and not subtle — you knew right away that Benedict Cumberbatch was a latent homosexual, the brother was a wimp, and the son was a little demented — unlike Brokeback Mountain, where the characters were so finely developed and interesting. In a way, I understood what Sam Elliott meant. I didn’t like West Side Story, which I call “Woke Side Story.” Individual pieces of the puzzle worked — I don’t think there was a bad performance — but the puzzle pieces don’t connect together.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/brutally-honest-oscars-ballot-4-1235117325/

also:

Talking to Oscar folks at the Governors Awards and the buzz for a Penelope Cruz best-actress win is very real…

— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) March 26, 2022

I didn’t like West Side Story, which I call “Woke Side Story.”

is this person 100 years old

Yes.

car dog story pizza king nightmare coda dune don't belfast imo

we didn't start the fire

Don’t dune your licorice pizza in Belfast while you’re driving your car in the dog, or whatever

lmao @ NV

of the ones i've seen

drive my car > dune > power of the dog > don't look up

still wanna see licorice pizza but not interested in the rest

Really hope the last-minute Penelope Cruz buzz (which I've heard the VF crew also talk about) comes true.

KIng Richard is basically the same shit as CODA, but at least CODA isn't a hagiography that expects the audience to applaud every reckless and irresponsible decision its hero makes on behalf of his family, secure in the knowledge that it all works out in the end.

Fuck, CODA really is gonna win BP, isn’t it?

no one even cared enough this year to start a new thread, huh

this telecast is a fucking shitshow, so bad, and it's aboslutely the fault of the direction. The sound is beyond bad, there is so much ambient noise you can barely hear anyone on stage. the set is awful. deciding to cut out Elaine May and Sam Jackson and do that on Friday, give some awards off screen then edit them into the livecast, but make us suffer through some of the idiotic shit they are doing....wtf.

Yeah this is like a perfect storm of everything I find annoying about the oscars

Wait nm it just got good

Did everyone’s sound cut out?

Holy shit!

Turned into the On Cinema Oscar special there for a minute