The nominations for Oscars from The Academy of Motion Pictures were released Tuesday, January 24. Buffalo Rising’s Five Cent Cine (2 Film Critics—William Graebner and Dianne Bennett) pondered the list and give our thoughts below on the nominees in several major categories from films reviewed this year.
Six of the films we reviewed this past year are among the 10 nominated for Best Picture.
Of those, we gave 3.5 stars (no film rated 4.0—our highest rating—this past year) to 4 (The Fabelmans and Top Gun: Maverick received 3 stars from us):
Everything Everywhere All at Once
We would give Everything Everywhere the Oscar – that’s not our prediction of the Academy’s vote; it’s simply our vote, based on its creativity (that said, one of us almost walked out and the other had to explain it to her after the fact).
In the Best Actor field, we had praised in our reviews Colin Farrell in Banshees, Paul Mescal in Aftersun, and Bill Nighy in Living. One of us would give the Oscar to Mescal, the other to Nighy (and, for once, we don’t have to agree). And, with regard to the Elvis nomination, we are not fans of acting-as-impersonation.
Among Best Actresses, we were among those impressed with Cate Blanchett in Tár. Michelle Yeoh was excellent in Everything Everywhere, and while we enjoyed Michelle Williams in The Fabelmans, we did not think it was her most complex performance nor as good as the other 2. Our choice: Blanchett.
For Actor in a Supporting Role, the Academy nominated two men from Banshees—Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan. They also nominated the long-suffering husband in Everything Everywhere, Ke Huy Quan, and Judd Hirsch in The Fabelmans. Hirsch fits the over-acting, hammy-type performances we generally don’t see as award-worthy. We are no doubt outliers, but we’d pick Keoghan among these, for his poignant portrayal of an odd young man in Banshees.
Among the Actresses in a Supporting Role, Oscar nominations went to Kerry Condon in Banshees, and two women from Everything Everywhere, Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu. We thought Condon and especially Curtis were very good, they had roles too small to warrant an Oscar. Hsu’s performance is more nuanced, since she plays a two-sided person.
Under Directing, we saw all the nominees except Triangle of Sadness, and were least impressed with Stephen Spielberg for The Fabelmans. Of the other 3—Martin McDonagh (Banshees), Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert – aka The Daniels – (Everything Everywhere), and Todd Field (Tár), we would select McDonagh. These directors were the writers for the same 5 films nominated for Best Original Screenplay, the only variation being Spielberg who enlisted Tony Kushner as co-writer for The Fabelmans. For us, that Oscar should go The Daniels, primarily because of the astounding creativity of their script
For Best Adapted Screenplay, we reviewed 4 of the 5, which include Rian Johnson (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery), Kazuo Ishiguro (Living), Sarah Polley (Women Talking), and Top Gun: Maverick—too many to list! Of these, we’d give the Oscar to Polley, but again, we are no doubt outliers.
Unusually for us, we have not yet seen any of the Best International Feature Films, but three are on our short list to view soon: All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany; also nominated for Best Picture), Argentina, 1985 (Argentina), and The Quiet Girl (Ireland).
The televised Oscar presentations will be March 12.
Lead image: Our pick for Best Picture – Everything Everywhere All At Once. Here are 4 actors nominated in various categories. With just a portion of her back showing, Jamie Lee Curtis, at left front, for Best Actress in a Supporting Role; then left to right, Stephanie Hsu for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (our pick too), Ke Huy Quan, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and Michelle Yeoh, Best Actress. We also selected The Daniels, who wrote the script, for Best Original Screenplay. The film received the most nominations of any film in 2022, with 11.