March 10, 2022

Since the Academy Awards increased the number of movies nominated for Best Picture from five to ten (around 2009), this is the first time I have seen all the nominees.

So, here’s what I think of all ten movies.

Unfortunately, I believe The Power of the Dog will win the best picture; not my favorite film, but a well-written and executed story. In a perfect world, my favorite film, Belfast, wins.

A three-hour movie, can and does take 40 minutes of introduction before the opening credits run. The long introduction establishes the central relationship to better understand and experience Kafuku’s loss. Kafuku’s driver, the somber Misaki, does spend a lot of time driving Kafuku around in his red Saab 900. While driving, he is practicing lines for the Chekov play he is directing, and they both spend a lot of time learning about life through stories so they can then spend a lot of time processing their grief. It is a quiet and complex story with several branches showing how people deal with life, suffering, and the past. The other long slough, The Power of the Dog, at least had beautiful scenery.

This is the type of movie that ends, and half the people say, what happened? Did anything happen? After some thought, the sexual repression and revenge dawn on you, and you say, “Oh yeah, cool.” It is such a subtle film – you must pay close attention – which is difficult when it is a slowly unwinding story. The Power of the Dog is the favorite to win Best Picture. Frank Movie Reviews also thinks it will win Best Picture. The ceiling-breaker Jane Campion wrote a superb screenplay and directed the film. In 1994, she won a Best Screenplay Oscar and a nomination for Best Director. This year is the 94^th year for the Oscars, and only two women have ever been nominated for Best Director. It is time Jane Campion wins Best Director and Best Picture. Cinematography, also by a woman (Ari Wegner), may win the Best Cinematography Oscar.

My favorite to win the Oscar for Best Picture, not just because I enjoyed the ride, but it contained the best acting throughout. Ciarán Hinds, Judy Dench, Caitríona Balfe, and the little kid Buddy, Jude Hill, are excellent. Ciarán Hinds should win for Best Supporting Actor. Depicts the pain and suffering of a family in Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the beginning of the low-grade war, The Troubles, that continued in Northern Ireland for thirty years.

If you enjoy musicals, West Side Story is a perfect movie. This film would win the Oscar for Best Picture if it were a new movie. But even an excellent remake of the 1961 original movie probably will not be picked. Spielberg kept all the original songs but reimagined a few songs and added new dialogue, making West Side Story even better than the original. For example, my least favorite song in the original is “Cool” (Boy, boy, crazy boy, get cool, boy). Cool’s choreography is changed in the Spielberg version, improving the song, and turning Cool into a pivotal scene in the movie.

This film is another well-done remake. However, it is just another remake, better technically than the 1984 movie, but the same story. I also think the sandworms are too large; the sandworms are plausible on a green screen but not credible in the “real” world.

Child of Deaf Adults is the most heartwarming film of the ten nominees. However, a few laughs, goosebumps, and happy tears do not win an Oscar. Several films this year aroused those same emotions, and CODA is not original or different enough to win an Oscar. It may win a people’s favorite award.

Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, is a slightly quirky, charming movie. Paul Thomas appears to have fallen in love with the Haim family, so he has the three Haim sisters and the parents in the film. But the star of Licorice Pizza is the youngest of the sisters, Alana Haim. Licorice Pizza is the first movie for Alana Haim and her co-star Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. Using vignettes of various situations, Licorice Pizza tells the story of two young people looking for a future. Charming won’t get an Oscar; I wonder if Alana Haim is awarded for her excellent natural performance.

I believe, is nominated as a political statement, as a final slap against the previous Administration. The premise is not original, since half the country is already doing what they did in the movie, ignoring major problems. It is a good film, but not a great piece of filmmaking.

A biography about Selena and Venus’s father and their upbringing. Will Smith was good, but the film bored me a bit. I’m not a fan of sports films, so maybe I’m not giving the movie my full attention.

A film by another well-respected Director, Guillermo del Toro. But del Toro won recently for Shape of Water, so he does not deserve another Best Picture for Nightmare Alley. Nightmare Alley is an interesting story, an excellent period piece, but it is a letdown at the end, sort of a sad meh ending.