dougo | Oscar 2022 picks

For the second year in a row, I managed to see every film nominated for an Academy Award: 39 features and 15 shorts. Here's my ranking within each category:

Best Picture

The Banshees of Inisherin, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin and Martin McDonagh, Producers
Women Talking, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Frances McDormand, Producers
All Quiet on the Western Front, Malte Grunert, Producer
Tár, Todd Field, Alexandra Milchan and Scott Lambert, Producers
Avatar: The Way of Water, James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers
Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie, David Ellison and Jerry Bruckheimer, Producers
Triangle of Sadness, Erik Hemmendorff and Philippe Bober, Producers
The Fabelmans, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner, Producers
Elvis, Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Martin, Gail Berman, Patrick McCormick and Schuyler Weiss, Producers
Everything Everywhere All at Once, Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert and Jonathan Wang, Producers

See my thoughts in the previous post.

Best Director

Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Todd Field (Tár)
Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness)
Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans)
Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once)

I feel like I don't really understand how to judge good or bad direction of a film, so these are basically in the same order as my total ranking.

Best Lead Actor

Brendan Fraser (The Whale)
Bill Nighy (Living)
Paul Mescal (Aftersun)
Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Austin Butler (Elvis)

This is a surprisingly tight category. I liked all these performances a lot; even Austin Butler did a decent job in a mess of a movie. But it's the hardest to imagine The Whale working as well with anyone else in Fraser's role. The fat-acceptance discourse around his fat-suit costume and outlandish bingeing has been a bit poisonous; I see and respect where it's coming from, but I think it misses the point of what the movie is actually conveying.

Best Lead Actress

Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie)
Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans)
Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Cate Blanchett (Tár)
Ana de Armas (Blonde)

This is sort of the opposite of the Best Lead Actor category for me: Riseborough's performance was the only one I didn't have complaints about. I've already written about my issues with Blanchett's performance, but one thing I forgot is a minor pet peeve: she just doesn't quite nail the American accent, and I feel like that should be a disqualifier in most cases. Same issue with de Armas, although that's the pickiest of nits compared to the rest of what's wrong with Blonde. I love Yeoh, from her Hong Kong action days to her Bond film to Crouching Tiger to her fantastic recurring role as Captain/Emperor Georgiou in Star Trek: Discovery. But, one thing I distinctly remember while watching EEAAO is at some point thinking "oh, bummer, this role as written is just a bit out of sync with her acting strengths". Sometimes it's good to see an actor stretch out of their comfort zone, but in this case it didn't succeed in a way that I could call the Best of the year.

Best Supporting Actor

Judd Hirsch (The Fabelmans)
Brendan Gleeson (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Brian Tyree Henry (Causeway)
Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once)

All decent picks, but Hirsch absolutely deserves this just for his delivery of the phrase "muck out the pachyderms!"

Best Supporting Actress

Hong Chau (The Whale)
Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin)
Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)
Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All at Once)

Chau's delicious turn in The Menu bleeds into this pick, but she was also stellar as the not-quite-moral center in The Whale. Curtis was nearly unrecognizable in EEAAO, which is often a good thing, but here it just added to the pile of things that repelled me.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Living, Written by Kazuo Ishiguro
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Written by Rian Johnson
Women Talking, Screenplay by Sarah Polley
All Quiet on the Western Front, Screenplay by Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson & Ian Stokell
Top Gun: Maverick, Screenplay by Ehren Kruger and Eric Warren Singer and Christopher McQuarrie; Story by Peter Craig and Justin Marks

I really don't understand what anyone thinks is award-worthy about the Maverick screenplay. Was it just for the Val Kilmer cameo? Or the concept of "dogfight football"?? Anyway, I never saw Ikiru so I guess I can't judge Living as an adaptation (though from what I understand it's both very faithful and a clever transposition from Tokyo to London), but Nighy's dialog is impeccably crisp and the story is both delightful and sad.

Best Original Screenplay

The Banshees of Inisherin, Written by Martin McDonagh
Tár, Written by Todd Field
Triangle of Sadness, Written by Ruben Östlund
The Fabelmans, Written by Steven Spielberg & Tony Kushner
Everything Everywhere All at Once, Written by Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert

Banshees is the clear standout here, for reasons I discussed in my Best Picture thoughts.

Best Cinematography

Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, Darius Khondji
Tár, Florian Hoffmeister
All Quiet on the Western Front, James Friend
Empire of Light, Roger Deakins
Elvis, Mandy Walker

A good group, but I absolutely loved Bardo and the cinematography was a large part of it. I don't really understand why Iñárritu is so polarizing, but it's not surprising for this film. But Khondji's prowess is hard to argue with here. Usually I'd say the same for Deakins, and I liked Empire of Light a lot more than most people seemed to, but I wasn't wowed by the visuals.

Best Documentary Feature Film

Fire of Love, Sara Dosa, Shane Boris and Ina Fichman
All That Breathes, Shaunak Sen, Aman Mann and Teddy Leifer
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Laura Poitras, Howard Gertler, John Lyons, Nan Goldin and Yoni Golijov
A House Made of Splinters, Simon Lereng Wilmont and Monica Hellström
Navalny, Daniel Roher, Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, Melanie Miller and Shane Boris

Fire of Love was the only one of these that I saw before the nominees were announced, because I had a feeling it would end up there, and it didn't disappoint. All That Breathes had a compelling style, with many quiet but stirring long, slow panning shots of the interconnection between wildlife and human life in the dirty megacity of New Delhi, but as a narrative it was a bit too thin. Navalny will probably win, given its surprisingly near-universal praise, but I thought the only negative review on Rotten Tomatoes was spot on. I have a feeling this award won't age well.

Best Documentary Short Film

How Do You Measure a Year? Jay Rosenblatt
The Elephant Whisperers, Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga
Haulout, Evgenia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev
The Martha Mitchell Effect, Anne Alvergue and Beth Levison
Stranger at the Gate, Joshua Seftel and Conall Jones

Tough choice, these were all pretty good. It was weird to watch a 40-minute doc about Martha Mitchell soon after having seen the eight-episode dramatization of her story in Gaslit. It was weirder to watch Stranger at the Gate, a not-entirely-unsuccessful attempt to get you to empathize with a white-supremacist-turned-Muslim almost-terrorist. The Elephant Whisperers and Haulout are two very different approaches to illustrate the impact of climate change on wildlife. But ultimately I was totally charmed and moved by How Do You Measure a Year's 16-year-long elegantly simple project of documenting a girlhood.

Best Film Editing

Tár, Monika Willi
The Banshees of Inisherin, Mikkel E.G. Nielsen
Top Gun: Maverick, Eddie Hamilton
Everything Everywhere All at Once, Paul Rogers
Elvis, Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond

I don't remember anything special about the editing in Banshees, so I'm not sure what it's doing here, but it certainly didn't annoy me like the next three below it.

Best International Feature Film

All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany)
EO (Poland)
The Quiet Girl (Ireland)
Close (Belgium)
Argentina, 1985 (Argentina)

All great entries, except Argentina, 1985 felt the most like homework of any of the nominees on this whole list. I think in retrospect I put All Quiet way too low on my ranking because it's otherwise hard to justify picking it here, but it seems like the right choice. My main quibble with Close is that the midpoint reveal is somehow both telegraphed and abrupt in a way that felt manipulative, taking me out of what otherwise is a beautiful, endearing film.

Best Original Song

"Naatu Naatu" from RRR, Music by M.M. Keeravaani; Lyric by Chandrabose
"Hold My Hand" from Top Gun: Maverick, Music and Lyric by Lady Gaga and BloodPop
"This Is a Life" from Everything Everywhere All at Once, Music by Ryan Lott, David Byrne and Mitski; Lyric by Ryan Lott and David Byrne
"Lift Me Up" from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Music by Tems, Rihanna, Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Goransson; Lyric by Tems and Ryan Coogler
"Applause" from Tell It Like a Woman, Music and Lyric by Diane Warren

I barely remember what any of these songs sound like, so I'll use this space to say that Tell It Like a Woman is worth tracking down: it's like a mini film festival, seven short indie-ish films by and about women, spanning a wide variety of topics, tones, and quality. The song is certainly the worst thing about it (sorry, Diane Warren). As for RRR, it's quite a goofy spectacle, and the dance scene for this song fits that description too; neither did much for me, but I could respect if voters picked it for that. I wish the Peter Bjorn & John ripoff song from the aforementioned dogfight football scene had been nominated over the schmaltzy Lady Gaga ballad because I'd definitely have wanted that to win. As it is I'm dreading having to sit through all these live performances during the ceremony.

Best Production Design

All Quiet on the Western Front, Production Design: Christian M. Goldbeck; Set Decoration: Ernestine Hipper
Avatar: The Way of Water, Production Design: Dylan Cole and Ben Procter; Set Decoration: Vanessa Cole
Babylon, Production Design: Florencia Martin; Set Decoration: Anthony Carlino
Elvis, Production Design: Catherine Martin and Karen Murphy; Set Decoration: Bev Dunn
The Fabelmans, Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Karen O’Hara

Ugh! Tár should have been the obvious winner here. What are we doing??

Best Visual Effects

The Batman, Dan Lemmon, Russell Earl, Anders Langlands and Dominic Tuohy
All Quiet on the Western Front, Frank Petzold, Viktor Müller, Markus Frank and Kamil Jafar
Avatar: The Way of Water, Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon and Daniel Barrett
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Geoffrey Baumann, Craig Hammack, R. Christopher White and Dan Sudick
Top Gun: Maverick, Ryan Tudhope, Seth Hill, Bryan Litson and Scott R. Fisher

What can I say, I really liked The Batman. Not really for its visual effects, but I can't see giving it to any of the others.

Best Animated Feature Film

The Sea Beast, Chris Williams and Jed Schlanger
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson, Gary Ungar and Alex Bulkley
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, Dean Fleischer Camp, Elisabeth Holm, Andrew Goldman, Caroline Kaplan and Paul Mezey
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Joel Crawford and Mark Swift
Turning Red, Domee Shi and Lindsey Collins

I didn't hate any of these, like I was somewhat dreading, but I didn't love them either. I respect del Toro for really going for it with many WTF?-seriously-WTF?? moments, but all of the musical numbers were just abysmal. I didn't like the character design of the titular Sea Beast, but otherwise I was pretty won over.

Best Animated Short Film

Ice Merchants, João Gonzalez and Bruno Caetano
An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It, Lachlan Pendragon
My Year of Dicks, Sara Gunnarsdóttir and Pamela Ribon
The Flying Sailor, Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, Charlie Mackesy and Matthew Freud

This is probably the easiest category to sort, with big gaps in between every pick. Ice Merchants was sneakily moving, as the lingering questions get resolved in turn to make a beautiful sad reveal. An Ostrich... is delightfully meta, and Dicks is delightfully Gen-X-nostalgic. The Flying Sailor has an intriguing backstory, but is kind of a nothing of a short. Finally, The Boy, the Mole... is by far the most beautiful, with a stellar voice cast, but every line of dialogue made me cringe hard; it felt like this film (or the book it was adapted from) might have been designed for a specific therapeutic need, which is fine, but outside of that context it was painfully jarring.

Best Costume Design

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ruth Carter
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, Jenny Beavan
Babylon, Mary Zophres
Everything Everywhere All at Once, Shirley Kurata
Elvis, Catherine Martin

Mrs. Harris was mostly delightful, but felt a bit empty-calories by the end. Certainly costuming was essential to the plot, but the midcentury dresses can't really compare to the finery of Wakanda and Talokan. Jean Smart's feathered-headdress-and-cigarette-holder look was easily the best thing about Babylon.

Best Live Action Short

An Irish Goodbye, Tom Berkeley and Ross White
Night Ride, Eirik Tveiten and Gaute Lid Larssen
Le Pupille, Alice Rohrwacher and Alfonso Cuarón
The Red Suitcase, Cyrus Neshvad
Ivalu, Anders Walter and Rebecca Pruzan

Another tough choice, these were all delightful and moving. I'm going with Irish Goodbye because I always appreciate a checklist story. Curious, though, why no American nominees? We used to be a proper country...

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Camille Friend and Joel Harlow
The Batman, Naomi Donne, Mike Marino and Mike Fontaine
The Whale, Adrien Morot, Judy Chin and Anne Marie Bradley
All Quiet on the Western Front, Heike Merker and Linda Eisenhamerová
Elvis, Mark Coulier, Jason Baird and Aldo Signoretti

The Penguin nose beats out the Whale jowls, but again it's hard to argue against the various stylings of Wakanda and Talokan.

Best Original Score

All Quiet on the Western Front, Volker Bertelmann
The Banshees of Inisherin, Carter Burwell
The Fabelmans, John Williams
Everything Everywhere All at Once, Son Lux
Babylon, Justin Hurwitz

The Babylon score started out pretty good, but after three hours of repetition it was utterly played out. I always love Burwell and Williams, but the bass synths were a crucial part of the gestalt of All Quiet.

Best Sound

The Batman, Stuart Wilson, William Files, Douglas Murray and Andy Nelson
All Quiet on the Western Front, Viktor Prášil, Frank Kruse, Markus Stemler, Lars Ginzel and Stefan Korte
Avatar: The Way of Water, Julian Howarth, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Dick Bernstein, Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers and Michael Hedges
Top Gun: Maverick, Mark Weingarten, James H. Mather, Al Nelson, Chris Burdon and Mark Taylor
Elvis, David Lee, Wayne Pashley, Andy Nelson and Michael Keller

I don't remember anything particularly standout about the sound design in The Batman, but I guess I'm just glad it was remembered for the technical categories.

...Okay I just googled for "the batman sound design" and learned from a video essay that the sound of the Batmobile was inspired by the 800% slower version of a Justin Bieber song. Dang that's awesome!

Doug Orleans's Journal

Oscar 2022 picks