93rd Academy Awards: A Post-Oscars Review
photo courtesy of @theacademy Instagram
So this year was different for the Academy Awards. There wasn’t another La La Land Best Picture fiasco, but believe me when I say that there was plenty to talk about.
Best Original Screenplay: Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell)
Nominees:
Judas and the Black Messiah (Screenplay by Will Berson & Shaka King; Story by Will Berson & Shaka King and Kenny Lucas & Keith Lucas)
Minari (Lee Isaac Chung)
Sound of Metal (Screenplay by Darius Marder & Abraham Marder; Story by Darius Marder & Derek Cianfrance)
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin)
Emerald Fennell was definitely the frontrunner to win Best Original Screenplay, so this is valid. Promising Young Woman was gripping and fresh with a lot of extraordinary character development. Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 was the weak link of the bunch, and he probably only got a nomination because of his track record with The Social Network and A Few Good Men. If the Oscars had a 2nd and 3rd place it would go to Sound of Metal and Minari, respectively.
Best Animated Feature Film: Soul (Pete Doctor and Dan Murray)
Nominees:
Onward (Dan Scanlon and Kori Rae)
Over the Moon (Glen Keane, Gennie Rim, and Peilin Chou)
Wolfwalkers (Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart, Paul Young and Stéphan Roelants)
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (Richard Phelan, Will Becher, and Paul Kewley)
Pixar won another Academy Award. Shocker. You know the drill, they had groundbreaking animation and a lot of hype. But that’s to be expected when you’re Pixar and you’re in the same category as A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon.
Best Directing: Nomadland (Chloé Zhao)
Nominees:
Another Round (Thomas Winterberg)
Mank (David Fincher)
Minari (Lee Isaac Chung)
Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell)
Chloé Zhao did a great job with Nomadland. The movie is light on story, so the strength of it really has to fall on the experience the film puts the audience through. Minari could’ve made this a closer contest if A24 wasn’t so stingy about where people could watch the movie. You can’t build hype for your director if people have to pay $20 dollars to stream the damn thing.
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Yuh-Jung Youn (Minari)
Nominees:
Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan)
Glen Close (Hillbilly Elegy)
Olivia Coleman (The Father)
Amanda Seyfried (Mank)
Yuh-Jung Youn’s performance was fantastic in Minari. As the unconventional grandmother of the family, she was incredibly endearing and really pulled on the heartstrings, especially when the scenes called for subtlety instead of over-the-top emotion. Amanda Seyfried was very charming in Mank, and Olivia Coleman really tore through her role in The Father, but neither had the wow factor of it being their first performance in an American production.
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah)
Nominees:
Sacha Baron Cohen (Trial of the Chicago 7)
Leslie Odom, Jr. (One Night in Miami)
Paul Raci (Sound of Metal)
Lakeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah)
I will never understand why Lakeith Stanfield and Daniel Kaluuya got put in the same category for their roles. “But the movie was clearly written to be both about Fred Hampton and William O’Neal!” Bullshit. Lakeith Stanfield’s character was the focus of the movie. His actions affected the outcome of all the characters, not to mention that the story begins and ends with William O’Neal. But whatever. Kudos to Daniel Kaluuya for his well-deserved win, and mad respect for shouting out his parents’ sex lives in his acceptance speech.
Best Actress in a Leading Role: Frances McDormand (Nomadland)
Nominees:
Viola Davis (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)
Andra Day (The United States vs. Billie Holiday)
Vanessa Kirby (Pieces of a Woman)
Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman)
Firstly, Frances McDormand did a great job. She captured the free-spirited subtleties of being a nomad very well. But, honestly, the Oscar might have only gone her way because of all the momentum Nomadland was building up in the media. Chloé Zao was making big waves in the awards swimming pool, so it only seemed fitting that her star caught some of those waves too.
It’s not a bad win, but no one seemed to want to talk about Vanessa Kirby in Pieces of a Woman, who did a fantastic job. Another sensible choice would’ve been Viola Davis. Especially since she only has one Oscar to her name over a twenty-year career.
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Anthony Hopkins (The Father)
Nominees:
Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal)
Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)
Gary Oldman (Mank)
Steven Yeun (Minari)
There’s a lot to unpack with this category. Firstly, it’s completely stacked. Not a single nomination doesn’t belong here and the weakest performance of the bunch is Gary Oldman, which really speaks to the stiff competition in this category. Anthony Hopkins deserves the win, he was phenomenal and the role was literally written with him in mind. Riz Ahmed and Steven Yeun can’t be mad at their loss. But holy shit. The Academy used Chadwick Boseman’s death as a draw in for their show to boost ratings, made an NFT out of his likeness, and even went so far as to putting Best Actor as the last award of the night— only to give him nothing. Anthony Hopkins is a class act for honoring Boseman in his acceptance speech because apparently, the Academy thought they could bait the audience and get out of Dodge with the money from their Chadwick Boseman virtual trading cards.
Best Picture: Nomadland (Frances McDormand, Peter Spears, Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey and Chloé Zhao, Producers)
Nominees:
The Father (David Parfitt, Jean-Louis Livi, and Philippe Carcassonne, Producers)
Judas and the Black Messiah (Shaka King, Charles D. King, and Ryan Coogler, Producers)
Mank (Ceán Chaffin, Eric Roth, and Douglas Urbanski, Producers)
Minari (Christina Oh, Producer)
Promising Young Woman (Ben Browning, Ashley Fox, Emerald Fennell, and Josey McNamara, Producers)
Sound of Metal (Bert Hamelinck and Sacha Ben Harroche, Producers)
Trial of the Chicago 7 (Marc Platt and Stuart Besser, Producers)
This one was expected. Nomadland had a ton of hype behind it going into the BAFTAs. Nomadland was cleaning house at every critic’s award’s show from Washington, DC to San Francisco. Chloé Zao and the other producers did a fantastic job in making a film that conveys what it’s like to go from place to place. It’s a film more concerned with the experience rather than the story, and in doing so we see the joys and hardships of being connected with the land in a way that’s unique to the van dwellers of the American west.