Joaquín Aldeguer
White guilt pervades the current Oscar films, from Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (a sweeping look at physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, “the father of the atomic bomb,” and America’s decision to drop his apocalyptic creation on two Japanese cities) to Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, featuring a redneck ex-soldier who simply adores his Osage Nation wife, though he finds himself killing off her relatives for money. Both films, while infused with artistic radioactivity, could have been significantly cut to be tighter and tauter, but with a combination of 23 nominations, these works have clearly benefited from Oscar’s ongoing love affair with auteur bloat. Some smaller art films have also copped multiple nominations — such as Past Lives, The Zone of Interest, and Anatomy of a Fall — making for a potentially brooding and high-toned Oscars on March 10. But, for balance, Barbie — which topples the patriarchy with panache — has nabbed eight noms, a thank you to its mixed salad of plasticine style and sociopolitical issues, and also to its $1.446 billion worldwide box office. The film got an extra boost when theaters realized they could double-bill it with Oppenheimer, resulting in a lot of straight guys pretending they were going to see the nuclear bomb movie. The overall result helps to make this year’s Oscar batch a heady mashup of pastiche and poetry.
•• BEST PICTURE ••
The nominees are …
American Fiction
A biting satire of Black stereotypes, it unfortunately includes a couple of gay ones.
Anatomy of a Fall
A woman fights with her husband and he falls to his death. Did she do it? You don’t necessarily find out, though you do learn extraordinary things about the way people leap to conclusions.
Barbie
The neon-colored phenomenon managed to upset the right wing with its satirical jabs at machismo, while pleasing almost everyone else on earth. Hi, Barbie! (By the way, the lack of nominations for director Greta Gerwig and star Margot Robbie were not snubs. They simply weren’t nominated! Best Actress is a very tight field and Robbie herself told a journalist friend of mine she didn’t expect to be nominated. And in place of Gerwig they picked Justine Triet, for the brilliant Anatomy of a Fall, also a feminist film. Meanwhile, Gerwig and Noah Baumbach are up for Best Screenplay and Robbie is up as co-producer for Best Film. Not snubbed!)
The Holdovers
I didn’t go for this calculated road trip of three cracked figures learning to be better people, but awards groups have embraced it as if auteur director Alexander Payne had also written it, as he did with his better films. (He didn’t.)
Killers of the Flower Moon
Someone is knocking off Osage Nation members for financial reward, but apparently no one was editing this Martin Scorsese epic, which is paced like the checkout line at D’Agostino’s. Fortunately, about halfway through it kicks in, and throughout it’s beautifully produced, with a great, mournful score by the late Robbie Robertson.
This is a rare nomination for a gay actor playing a gay person. Usually, Oscar stubbornly refuses to think that’s acting, preferring the “bravery” of straights playing gay.
Maestro
Did you know that philandering, bisexual conductor Leonard Bernstein had a wife? Well, neither did he, it seems. This glimpse at his rocky marriage — directed by star Bradley Cooper — is as edgy and flamboyant as Bernstein was, with two particularly magical sequences for the ages (a dream dance and a fiery symphony performance).
Past Lives
Celine Song’s quiet film following two South Korean childhood friends into adulthood is very Sundance/Angelika/off-Broadway, but totally hypnotic in its exploration of bonds and choices.
Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite, The Lobster) goes off the deep end with this dazzling story of a re-animated female who romps freely, with no sense of the conventions of the world around her. No need to take drugs with this one. Just sit back and go with it.
The Zone of Interest
The commandant of Auschwitz and his striving wife live over the fence from the death camp, and pretend to have an idyllic life of gardening and child-rearing. Putting a face on the banality of evil makes this a work of chilling genius.
THE WINNER WILL BE:
Oppenheimer
Not a floppenheimer, it’s a high-minded look at the ethics of nuclear warfare, complete with Congressional hearings that have a distinctly topical feel to them. Honoring the film that has already won five Golden Globes rewards top-drawer risk taking — and length — and like last year’s winner (Everything Everywhere All At Once), people have actually seen it! PS: Christopher Nolan will win for Best Director, and probably for Best Adapted Screenplay too.
•• BEST ACTRESS ••
The nominees are …
Annette Bening, Nyad
Bening gives a towering performance as abrasive swimmer Diana Nyad, determined to perform some major strokes in her 60s. Bening’s achievement seems as fearless as Nyad’s. She richly deserves to win, though she seems destined to be the new Deborah Kerr/Glenn Close/Amy Adams — always the bridesmaid.
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
The revered winner of three German Film Awards, Hüller is riveting as the high-strung woman being investigated for her husband’s death. Any chance that this could come off as a standard courtroom drama is obliterated by her detailed performance. (And she also sends chills as the acquisitive Nazi wife in The Zone of Interest.)
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Mulligan gets top billing as Leonard Bernstein’s wife, Felicia Montealegre, who knew what she was getting into, but still! She’s gotten raves, though her best scene with Cooper is weirdly presented in a fuzzy long shot.
Emma Stone, Poor Things
A previous winner for La La Land, Stone darts around as a sort of loony, flatulent combination of the Bride of Frankenstein and Eliza Doolittle. Her unselfconscious zest for the material makes for a real tour de farce. But she’s already got an Oscar — and a TV show — and the Academy will pat itself on the back for “diversifying” with a different choice.
THE WINNER WILL BE:
Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
As the wife in jeopardy, Gladstone comes off more like a fine presence than a great actress, and, to me, she seems very directed. But awards groups have taken to her performance, which has an austere beauty to it. Ironically, as one of the least-known people involved in the movie — until now — she will probably end up being Killers’ sole Oscar winner. She will also be the first Native American to get a competitive acting Oscar.
•• BEST ACTOR ••
The nominees are …
Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Prosthetics and bisexuality certainly helped Brendan Fraser win last year, for The Whale. But while Cooper plays Bernstein with aplomb — and he even conducts a Mahler symphony, which we’re told he spent no fewer than six years preparing for — he won’t win, by a “nose,” mainly because the movie has divided people into lovers and loathers. “Not gay enough!” “Too gay!”
Colman Domingo, Rustin
This is a rare nomination for a gay actor playing a gay person. Usually, Oscar stubbornly refuses to think that’s acting, preferring the “bravery” of straights playing gay. But he’s definitely acting! The longtime character actor vividly captures civil rights activist Bayard Rustin’s double oppression — as a queer and a Black man.
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Giamatti was famously denied a nomination for 2004’s Sideways, though he picked up a supporting nod for Cinderella Man a year later. But Oscar generally doesn’t care about making up for yesterday’s disses. (Ask Deborah Kerr, Glenn Close, and Amy Adams.) What they do care about is honoring the fact that without Giamatti — who’s effortlessly good as a gruff professor who learns to bend — The Holdovers would be leftovers. Still, the SAG awards are a great indicator for Oscar, and he didn’t happen to go home with one of those.
Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction
Wright’s wry acuity (playing the pseudonymous author of a scam bestseller) anchors this sardonic tale about the exploitation of clichés surrounding Black life. Shockingly, this was his first film lead in many years.
THE WINNER WILL BE:
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
In the title role, Murphy exudes a cerebral weirdness that’s hauntingly effective. I’m glad he’s finally been nominated, and though it would normally have required a few more showy scenes to lock in a win, Murphy will ride the Oppenheimer sweep to glory and add an Oscar to his Golden Globe, BAFTA, and SAG awards.
•• BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS ••
The nominees are …
Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
After 16 cumulative nominations for Golden Globe, BAFTA, and SAG awards (and one win for a SAG), Blunt finally got noticed by Oscar! She earned it in her scene where — as Oppenheimer’s flinty wife, Kitty — she’s unshakeable under investigation by the United States Atomic Energy Commission.
Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
Brooks recreates her Broadway role of the fiery Sophia, who screams “Hell, no!” at the mere suggestion of abuse and in the process practically walks away with the movie. Oprah Winfrey — who played Sophia in the original Color Purple film and who co-produced this musical version — must be kvelling.
America Ferrera, Barbie
Barbie was the victim of viciously misogynistic snubs, remember? Except that they nominated Ferrera, who few pundits predicted would get noticed. And she got it for a blazingly feminist monologue detailing the horrors women have to go through.
Jodie Foster, Nyad
Two-time winner Jodie brings a lived-in realness to the part of Nyad’s devoted friend and coach. And she’s a lesbian playing a lesbian. Thank you, Oscars!
THE WINNER WILL BE:
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
The talented Randolph holds her own as the third in a trio of damaged but sympathetic people. (She plays the school cook, who’s testily mourning her son’s death). But I don’t get the ecstatic raves, especially since her character, with her random explosions and niceties, doesn’t ring true. Still, she’s won a slew of awards already, and Oscar voters have made up their minds.
Joaquín Aldeguer
•• BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR ••
The nominees are …
Sterling K. Brown, American Fiction
Playing Jeffrey Wright’s gay brother, Brown helps round out a character who seems at odds with the film’s mission to savage pandering fictional narratives. I mean, the brother was on the down-low and now hangs out with Speedo-wearing tricks and snorts coke? Fortunately, the character shows signs of evolving.
Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
De Niro is expectedly slick and savvy as his smarmy character puts the murderous plot into motion. It’s not his fault that some of his scenes go on too long — or that he doesn’t need another Oscar.
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Typical patriarchal bull! Ken gets nominated and not Barbie! (Kidding.)
Mark Ruffalo, Poor Things
The four-time nominee brings wicked wit to the part of the lawyer who befriends bawdy Bella (Emma Stone) and tries to alternately help and manipulate her.
THE WINNER WILL BE:
Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
The talented quirk-server long ago cleaned up and got back on track. Oscar loves that kind of trajectory, plus — as Oppenheimer’s political rival, Lewis Strauss — he’s not initially recognizable and is devilishly good, at least until he starts trying to get the Oscar toward the end. He’ll get it anyway.
And I will no doubt cop an honorary award for the person who had tremendous insight into the race yet got so much wrong. ❖
Michael Musto has written for the Voice since 1984, best known for his outspoken column “La Dolce Musto.” He has penned four books, and is streaming in docs on Netflix, Hulu, Vice, and Showtime.
R.C. Baker
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