The Oscars are tonight and this is my annual post reflecting my personal ranking of the nominees in each category. Caveat: I have not yet seen many of the films or performances. Since I typically watch most of these films and performances eventually, I will make future edits with changes (additions) reflected in yellow highlighting.
Note that I'm not making predictions here. You can look elsewhere for those.
I have work to do here too. Both these films were fine, but Drive My Car was kind of slow and The Hand of God isn't particularly memorable. However, The Worst Person in the World is excellent and I highly recommend it. The young woman playing the main character has star appeal.
I haven't seen any of these movies yet, but intend to see Flee and The Mitchells vs. The Machines. It just hasn't happened yet.
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Best Picture
Belfast
The Power of the Dog
Licorice Pizza
Nightmare Alley
CODA
Dune
Drive My Car
King Richard
Don’t Look Up
Belfast is a great film, while the others are very, very good for the most part. Don't Look Up was actually kind of disappointing, but I feel like I should see it again. It may have been my expectations that caused me to react as I did.
West Side Story
Best Director
Kenneth Branagh, “Belfast”
Jane Campion, “The Power of the Dog”
Paul Thomas Anderson, “Licorice Pizza”
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, “Drive My Car”
I always find this difficult to separate from Best Picture.
Steven Spielberg, “West Side Story”
Best Actor
Benedict Cumberbatch, “The Power of the Dog”
Will Smith, “King Richard”
Denzel Washington, “The Tragedy of Macbeth”
These were all very solid performances and I could make a case (or ordering) for any of them. So I left them in alphabetical order.
Javier Bardem, “Being the Ricardos”
Andrew Garfield, “Tick, Tick … Boom!”
Best Actress
Olivia Colman, “The Lost Daughter”
Kristen Stewart, “Spencer”
Both of these films involved somewhat unsympathetic main characters. Colman is always very good, but Stewart might also be deserving. She was very good.
Jessica Chastain, “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”
Penélope Cruz, “Parallel Mothers”
Nicole Kidman, “Being the Ricardos”
Best Supporting Actor
Troy Kotsur, “CODA”
Jesse Plemons, “The Power of the Dog”
Ciaran Hinds, “Belfast”
Kodi Smit-McPhee, “The Power of the Dog”
I'm not sure these would actually be my nominees in this category.
J.K. Simmons, “Being the Ricardos”
Best Supporting Actress
Jessie Buckley, “The Lost Daughter”
Aunjanue Ellis, “King Richard”
Judi Dench, “Belfast”
Kirsten Dunst, “The Power of the Dog”
I'm a big fan of Jessie Buckley. Dench was great, in all honesty, and could win this category.
Ariana DeBose, “West Side Story”
Documentary Feature
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Flee
I need to see other nominees, but Summer of Soul was a terrific film. Maybe my favorite of 2021.
Ascension
Attica
Writing With Fire
International Feature
The Worst Person in the World, Norway
The Hand of God, Italy
Flee, Denmark
Drive My Car, Japan
Part of the problem here (and above) is that Hulu started showing commercials during films whereas our plan used to mean commercials were only placed at the beginning -- but during TV shows (when breaks are typically already in the editing). Thus, we hardly use the free Hulu we get with our mobile phone plan. That's why I haven't seen Flee yet, basically.
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom, Bhutan
Animated Feature
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Flee
The Mitchells vs. the Machines is not all that original, but it is funny. Flee was a very serious film about an important topic.
Encanto
Luka
Raya and the Last Dragon
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