​The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held their 94th Annual Awards ceremony on Sunday night, honoring the best in film from the year 2021, and what a night it was. Before diving into the winners list, as well as the ceremony itself, let’s start with the one thing everyone is talking about, because it can’t not be addressed, the most infamous Oscars moment since the La La Land/Moonlight switcheroo: Will Smith slapping Chris Rock across the face after Rock made a poor-taste jab at Jada Pinkett-Smith’s health condition, a moment which stunned audiences and spawned every conceivable form of meme. Was this justified? Did Chris Rock deserve it? Did Will Smith go too far? My answer to all of this is that I have no definitive answer. I can condemn Smith for reacting in a violent manner towards words that I also recognize were deeply insensitive, but Black men have always been condemned for even the smallest of violent altercations when white men have been making movies about and celebrating those things for as long as the Academy has been around. Then again, far worse “jokes” have been made at the expense of Academy members and Oscars attendees (largely by white men), and none of the people who made those got slapped at all, even if they deserved to be (we don’t need to go into the Ricky Gervais or Seth McFarlane conversations here though). Unprofessional though it may have been, the Will Smith moment was seemingly fueled by a need to “protect” and “stand up for the honor” of someone who didn’t need defending (even as, in many ways, the Black woman in the United States is often the one most denied defense or protection), and many victims of domestic violence hear the same justifications for the heinous things that happen to them. The truth is, it’s not for me to say whether it should have happened or not. It did. And there’s nothing that can change the fact that it happened, live, and now it overshadows everything that the night was supposed to be about. Smith himself has apologized for the incident to Chris Rock and the Academy, as one can read about in this IndieWire article, and noted that it soiled the journey of the evening, but the damage is done and there is no changing the fact that what could have been a night about the Oscars turned into a night about a beef between attendees.

​Now, I’d like to take a (brief) moment to discuss the Academy’s insinuation that they may ask Will Smith for his Oscar back, given what transpired, as well as its condemnation of “violence in any form”: this is bullshit. No, it’s not bullshit that the Academy has opened a review into an incident of assault on their stage, or that they condemned Smith’s actions – that makes sense for them to do, given the circumstances. What’s bullshit is the “in any form” part; how often did this body celebrate and recognize films which promoted violent racists in heroic fashion? American Sniper was nominated for six Oscars and nearly won some of them. And it's not as if the Academy genuinely has much of a problem with scandal tarnishing a film industry worker’s brand; Harvey Weinstein, Roman Polanski, Casey Affleck, and Mel Gibson all still have their Oscars, and some of those were won quite recently, Polanski’s (who drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl) as recently as 2002 (Polanski won Best Director for The Pianist). If the Academy is genuinely attempting to get better at recognizing unprofessionalism at inopportune moments, then fine, but it is ridiculous to claim that the Will Smith moment was the awards’ darkest – as many online have been doing – when Native American Sacheen Littlefeather was publicly booed by Academy members in 1973 (as John Wayne was attempting to assault her with six security guards holding him back) after deigning to ask that the film industry not portray her people in brutalist fashions and the publicly mocked at the same ceremony and the following year by Clint Eastwood on the same stage. If the Will Smith moment is truly the Academy’s darkest, they must take a good look at why they’re considering that, and not the bevvy of darker moments staining their history, as their top choice. And Smith, unprofessional behavior or not, should not have to give his Oscar back. Now, let’s all please move on.

​Several months ago, the Academy made the decision to cut eight of their categories for time, deciding instead to present them during the red carpet segment of the night, record the footage, and stitch them into the broadcast later on, edited for time. (Those categories were: Best Production Design, Best Original Score, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Sound, Best Live-Action Short, Best Animated Short, and Best Documentary Short.) This, for many reasons, didn’t work at all, and was a terrible move by Academy President David Rubin in a bid to get the show to end by 11 p.m., which we all know did not happen. Compounding the issue further was the fact that this Oscars attempted to bring a more populist audience to its viewership and boost its record-low ratings by including things like Fan Favorite Twitter campaigns which immediately became jokes in and of themselves, a frankly bizarre performance of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” – which was not nominated for Best Original Song nor submitted by Lin Manuel-Miranda, who wrote the music for eventual Best Animated Feature winner Encanto – and some three-host bit segments that became even less successful as the night wore on. This move was supposedly brought on by pressure from ABC (which Disney owns), a move I’ve already talked about the ickiness of, which feels even ickier when one considers the only real movie-related advertisement viewers got – beyond James Bond and Godfather tributes and a second awkward In Memoriam segment – was for Lightyear, which Chris Evans was asked to present. Lightyear, notably, is Disney and Pixar’s next release. (Side note: the ad was just the second trailer for the film, which had already been released.)

​More importantly, however, the move meant that viewers were robbed of seeing Dune win the first four of its eventual six Oscar victories (Best Film Editing, Best Production Design, Best Original Score, and Best Sound) during this time, and the most unnecessary category in the whole affair – Best Original Song – took up most of the ceremony’s time again, even if seeing Billi Eilish be excited about winning was one of the night’s more adorable moments. We waited decades to see Hans Zimmer win a second Oscar, and he had to accept it in a bathrobe from across the ocean because it didn’t matter if he was there or not! Searchlight’s The Eyes of Tammy Faye also won in the Makeup & Hairstyling category, during which ABC bizarrely tried to convince people that she was being interviewed on the red carpet live, despite the fact that Chastain herself said she would be in the Dolby theater as her team was being celebrated. And of course, the shorts were presented during this time, the winners of which were The Long Goodbye for Live-Action Short, The Queen of Basketball for Documentary Short, and The Windshield Wiper for Animated Short, the only shortfall on my Oscars ballot. (Humble brag, I went 22 for 23. But it was also one of the most predictable years ever, so maybe it’s not that impressive.)

​Moving on to the live portion of the show, some bits worked and some definitely did not. The opener of Beyonce singing her great song “Be Alive” live from Compton with all the costuming involved was great, and the show was going well for the first ten minutes or so…until it wasn’t. Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes, and Regina Hall didn’t seem to work very well together as Oscar hosts, although it was also by no means a disaster when they presented as a group, even if the movie costumes bit started strong but just got worse as it went on (the Spider-Man Schumer moment was amusing but didn’t make much sense). In all truth, Schumer ended up being the funniest and most successful of the hosts in her individual bits relative to the laughs she got and the lightness of her comedy (the ridiculous Kirsten Dunst bit and needless disrespect of animated films notwithstanding). I mean, come on, the movie flops joke? The “Melissa McCarthy said no” moment? The “Being the Ricardos wasn’t funny” material? Hilarious! Then the night turned straight-up weird when Regina Hall wouldn’t stop talking about how horny she was, even for men as young as Jacob Elordi and John David Washington, even going so far as to ask Denzel where his son was, which was gross and uncomfortable. Wanda Sykes had a few zingers like The Last Duel flop joke and her pretty good Academy Museum bit, but largely seemed there only for bits after a while, which wore thin about halfway through. West Side Story star Rachel Zegler’s joke about not having been invited to the Oscars initially was great, though, so you win some, you lose some. And, as noted, the cutting in of the pre-taped awards wasn’t a total disaster, but didn’t help the show in any meaningful way either (apparently the transcribed nominees’ speeches on the Academy’s website are, in fact, the edited versions cut together for broadcast and not the full thing).

​As far as the winners are concerned, the night went largely as expected, with the safest and occasionally most boring choices winning the night. Dune added Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects to its total of six wins for the night (all of which it deserved and all the recipients of which made sure to single out Denis Villeneuve’s iconic direction of the film), and the two least interesting winners in both Screenplay categories took home their Oscars too, those being Belfast in Original Screenplay – its only win of the night – and CODA in Adapted Screenplay. Will Smith and Jessica Chastain won their first Oscars for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively, and Ariana DeBose finished her clean sweep in Best Supporting Actress by winning for playing Anita in West Side Story, making her the first openly queer Black woman to win an Oscar and the third person to win an Oscar for playing an updated version of a character which had won an Oscar before (those being Don Vito in The Godfather/The Godfather Part II and the Joker in The Dark Knight/Joker). Troy Kotsur became the first deaf man to win an acting Oscar by taking home the award for Best Supporting Actor, and the film for which he won – CODA – succeeded in a clean sweep, going three for three on winning all its nominations to be crowned Best Picture at the end of the night, which it achieved without a Best Director or Best Editing nomination, breaking decades worth of tried-and-true Oscars stats (no film has done this since Grand Hotel in 1933). Unfortunately, The Power of the Dog­ – my #1 film of the year and the more deserving Best Picture winner – went one for twelve on its nomination-to-win translations, with its only win going to Best Director victor Jane Campion, making it the second-worst win streak in Oscars history. That said, I did really love CODA, so its win here is more of an underdog’s tale I’m happy to root for than a genuinely bad choice (it’s no Green Book over Roma, that’s for sure).

​To wrap things up on the recap, Questlove won an Oscar for his great documentary Summer of Soul (that’s the moment the whole Will Smith thing overshadowed), Encanto won for Best Animated Feature (a good movie, but not better than Flee or The Mitchells vs. the Machines), “No Time to Die” won Best Original Song (Billi Eilish is an Oscar winner y’all!), and Jenny Beavan won her third Costume Design Oscar for her stellar work on Cruella (Beavan had previously won for A Room with a View and Mad Max: Fury Road), with The Eyes of Tammy Faye taking home the award for Makeup and Hairstyling. 

​It certainly was a night to remember, but given everything that transpired, how it was all put together, and frankly how dull the whole affair was in retrospect (minus that one moment), it probably should be one of the most forgettable. To cap it all off, I’m afraid the Academy will learn all the wrong lessons from their miniscule ratings uptick and try to do the dumb Fan Favorite Twitter polls again (which themselves got hilariously and embarrassingly gamed by the chronically online Snyder-Heads), thinking that’s the cause of increased viewership instead of the fact that people just saw way more movies in 2021 – with available vaccinations, moderately increased theater attendance, more streaming options for viewers at home, and mask mandates/revamped cleaning protocols – than they did in 2020 when the pandemic era was still just getting started and theaters were shut down for several months at a time. Hopefully, that doesn’t happen, and movies are in a better spot next year, but the next time I see Ryan Reynolds at the Academy Awards, it better not be for Free Guy 2’s Fan Favorite Awards campaign.

​A full list of the night’s winners (and nominees) is below.

So, what did you think of the Oscars this past weekend? Are you excited by any of these wins? How well did you do on your ballot? Let me know in the comments section below, and thanks for reading!
 
- The Friendly Film Fan

​Well, the 2022 Oscar Nominations are here and boy oh boy, is there a…decent amount to talk about. There certainly were some snubs and surprises, which we’ll get to in a second, but first let’s talk about the bulk of nominations which were largely expected and predicted. Does being expected make a nominations list boring? Not to me, but to some, it certainly may seem that way. After all, it’s not as if anyone thought Belfast was going to miss a Best Picture nomination, but think of what would’ve happened if it did, and something like The Worst Person in the World showed up in the category. In any case, this year’s crop of nominees, while certainly largely deserving and unsurprising, seems to be one of the less compelling entries in the history of the Academy. Some of this may be due to this year’s crop of films being fairly spread out and left over from 2020 (some 2020 releases still haven’t come out), but another reason may be that the Academy is sticking to tradition where innovation must abound. That’s not to say that innovation isn’t present here – well, okay, visual effects has like one nominee that’s actually all that innovative but whatever – it’s simply that the majority of selections in categories that need to embrace change…haven’t. Almost all of the Best Picture nominees received a theatrical release in a year where many people still aren’t going back to movie theaters, and there’s very little experimentation present in a number of major categories (looking at you, Animated Feature). If the Academy wants to be relevant to the cultural conversation again – apart from when your drunk uncle complains about them being “too political” – they need to embrace change and find a way to both nominate great films and embrace the direction that movies are heading in, for better or worse. Let’s talk the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good/Surprises
Hey, look at that, Kristen Stewart made it into Best Actress after all! In fact, the whole category is a huge shakeup from the expected five. Gone is Lady Gaga, with Penélope Cruz scoring a nomination for her brilliant work in Parallel Mothers, with the rest of the expected five also absent of Alana Haim, whose momentum has been building in recent weeks. Also, hello Academy Award Nominees Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons, finally recognized for their work in The Lost Daughter and The Power of the Dog respectively, after both turning in career-bests in Charlie Kaufman’s i’m thinking of ending things in 2020.

​In other categories, Flee managed to score all 3 of its best-chance nominations in International, Documentary, and Animated Feature, a first for any production, let alone an international film, and that makes Riz Ahmed – a producer on the movie – a now four-time Oscar nominee in the span of two years. The Worst Person in the World also managed a surprise nomination in the Original Screenplay category, besting longtime Oscar veteran Aaron Sorkin’s script for Being the Ricardos in a huge upset. The Worst Person in the World is a brilliant movie with a brilliant script, so naturally, I’m very happy about that. And, like a chump, I ignored my instincts about the Academy and took Nightmare Alley out of Best Picture at the last minute, instead of believing as I originally did that filmmakers and craftspeople loved Del Toro enough to nominated his work and not have to give Netflix three Best Picture slots (R.I.P. Tick, Tick…Boom!). There are some smaller surprises, like The French Dispatch going nomination-less and A Hero being left out of International Feature, but the rest of the nominations are mostly good…now let’s get into the other stuff.

The Bad/Surprises
Not that his performance isn’t good in the movie or that he doesn’t deserve the world otherwise, but why is J.K. Simmons here? Why not Jason Isaacs or Anders Danielsen Lie or Bradley Cooper or Mike Faist? Simmons’ nod is not a bad nomination on its face, it’s just an inherently boring one in a year chock-full of spectacular supporting male performances that could have otherwise filled that spot.
​
In other negative news, National Geographic’s The Rescue was snubbed in Documentary Feature, though the nomination for Attica is certainly not offensive by any stretch (it’s a fantastic documentary). It’s simply that The Rescue was able to re-create an event so vividly that planned sequences became indistinguishable from raw footage, a feat few documentaries manage to actually achieve to the trained eye. Plus Free Guy made a visual effects nomination with little-to-no actual innovation in the effects-making, and C’mon C’mon and Mass went nomination-less. Not unexpected for any of these candidates, but it still sucks.

​The Ugly (The SNUB)
And of course, there is one snub everyone is talking about that will go down in history as one of the worst trades in Best Director history. Denis Villeneuve, a visionary with a control over Dune that you cannot watch that movie without feeling, was passed over for Best Director in favor of Kenneth Branagh for his largely respectable but off-hand approach to the pretty good Belfast. This is a mistake on par with not nominating Amy Adams for Best Actress in Arrival (ironically, a Denis Villeneuve movie), and now the Academy has done both. There was bound to be a shake-up in this category, but that was meant to be Ryûsuke Hamaguchi knocking out Branagh, not one of the expected top 3 contenders. Of course, it doesn’t get under my skin the way it did when they outright ignored Bradley Cooper in 2018 for A Star Is Born – Branagh was still a dark horse candidate in this category – but it is easily the worst snub of the year for the Oscars to have made.

​Best Picture:

• Belfast
• CODA
• Don’t Look Up
• Drive My Car
• Dune
• King Richard
• Licorice Pizza
• Nightmare Alley
• The Power of the Dog
• West Side Story

Best Director:

• Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
• Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Drive My Car
• Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza
• Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
• Steven Spielberg, West Side Story

Best Actress:

• Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye
• Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
• Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
• Nicole Kidman, Being the Ricardos
• Kristen Stewart, Spencer

Best Actor:

• Javier Bardem, Being the Ricardos
• Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog
• Andrew Garfield, tick, tick…Boom!
• Will Smith, King Richard
• Denzel Washington, The Tragedy of Macbeth

Best Supporting Actress:

• Jessie Buckley, The Lost Daughter
• Ariana DeBose, West Side Story
• Judi Dench, Belfast
• Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog
• Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard

Best Supporting Actor:

• Ciarán Hinds, Belfast
• Troy Kotsur, CODA
• Jesse Plemons, The Power of the Dog
• J.K. Simmons, Being the Ricardos
• Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog

Best Animated Feature:

• Encanto
• Flee
• Luca
• The Mitchells vs. the Machines
• Raya and the Last Dragon

Best International Feature Film:

• Drive My Car (Japan)
• Flee (Denmark)
• The Hand of God (Italy)
• Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (Bhutan)
• The Worst Person in the World (Norway)

Best Documentary Feature:

• Ascension
• Attica
• Flee
• Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
• Writing With Fire

Best Cinematography:

• Greig Fraser, Dune
• Dan Laustsen, Nightmare Alley
• Ari Wegner, The Power of the Dog
• Bruno Delbonnel, The Tragedy of Macbeth
• Janusz Kaminski, West Side Story

Best Film Editing:

• Hank Corwin, Don’t Look Up
• Joe Walker, Dune
• Pamela Martin, King Richard
• Peter Sciberras, The Power of the Dog
• Myron Kerstein and Andrew Weisblum, tick, tick...Boom!

Best Production Design:

• Patrice Vermette, Dune
• Tamara Deverell, Nightmare Alley
• Stefan Dechant, The Tragedy of Macbeth
• Grant Major, The Power of the Dog
• Adam Stockhausen, West Side Story

Best Costume Design:

• Jenny Beavan, Cruella
• Massimo Cantini Parrini, Cyrano
• Jacqueline West and Bob Morgan, Dune
• Luis Sequeira, Nightmare Alley
• Paul Tazewell, West Side Story

Best Makeup & Hairstyling:

• Coming 2 America
• Cruella
• Dune
• The Eyes of Tammy Faye
• House of Gucci

Best Original Score:

• Nicholas Britell, Don’t Look Up
• Hans Zimmer, Dune
• Germaine Franco, Encanto
• Alberto Iglesias, Parallel Mothers
• Jonny Greenwood, The Power of the Dog

Best Original Song:

• “Be Alive,” King Richard
• “Dos Orguitas,” Encanto
• “Down to Joy,” Belfast
• “No Time to Die,” No Time to Die
• “Somehow You Do,” Four Good Days

Best Adapted Screenplay:

• Siân Heder, CODA
• Denis Villeneuve, Dune
• Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Drive My Car
• Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter
• Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog

Best Original Screenplay:

• Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
• Adam McKay, Don’t Look Up
• Zach Baylin, King Richard
• Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza
• Joachim Trier, The Worst Person in the World

Best Visual Effects:

• Dune
• Free Guy
• No Time to Die
• Spider-Man: No Way Home
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Best Sound:

• Belfast
• Dune
• No Time to Die
• The Power of the Dog
• West Side Story

Best Live-Action Short:

• Ala Kachuu – Take and Run
• The Dress
• The Long Goodbye
• On My Mind
• Please Hold

Best Animated Short:

• Affairs of the Art
• Beast
• Boxballet
• Robin Robin
• The Windshield Wiper

Best Documentary Short:

• Audible
• Lead Me Home
• The Queen of Basketball
• Three Songs for Benazir
• When We Were Bullies

Obviously there were some unexpected surprises and definite snubs, but overall, this list of nominees is about what I expected, and I’m largely in favor of it. Regardless of what happens in the winners circle, it’s always fun to see what gets close enough to taste victory. What do you think of these nominations? Are there some surprises you’re ecstatic about? Snubs that pissed you off? Let me know in the comments section below. Thanks for reading!
 
The Oscars will take place on Sunday, March 27th.
 
- The Friendly Film Fan

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have revealed their annual shortlists in 10 categories for the 2022 Oscars.
​

​Hello, everyone, and welcome back to The Friendly Film Fan! Boy, it has been a crazy time in the movie world recently. Spider-Man: No Way Home shattered both pandemic and pre-pandemic box office records to become the #2 highest-grossing opening weekend earner of all time at the domestic box office, with a whopping total of $260 million (you can read our review here). No matter how one feels about the film itself, that is a staggering achievement, unlikely to be surpassed by anyone any time soon. But Spidey’s web-bound success wasn’t the only news that dropped in the movie world over the past few days; as you may have guessed by the title, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences also revealed their shortlists for the 2022 Oscar nominations in 10 categories.
 
The reveal of these shortlists is an annual tradition that film critics and Oscar fans the world over anticipate highly at the start of every awards season, and now the 2022 version has arrived. All three Short Film categories are given shortlists as part of the announcement, but most of the time, people are really looking for the more obvious categories. This year, those categories are “International Feature Film,” “Documentary Feature Film,” “Makeup & Hairstyling,” “Original Score,” “Original Song,” “Sound,” and “Visual Effects.” These shortlists provide a guide to where the Oscar nominations might be heading by revealing not just what made the cut, but what didn’t.
 
The most egregious absence amongst all shortlists is the absence of Julia Ducournau’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner Titane, not only one of the best movies of the year but one of the boldest in its narrative and its direction. This could mean, giving the risk it was to submit the film, that France sees the lack of a nomination as an excuse to only submit the safer films they have available as future entries for the International Feature race. And although it was always an up-in-the-air question as to whether Titane could actually pull off a nomination in this field, its absence from the shortlist entirely feels like a gross misstep on the part of AMPAS.
 
There are a few absences from other lists that are also notable, however (though none as boneheaded as that one). The Harder They Fall, despite being a sleeper hit in the predictions surrounding the Sound category, has missed that category entirely, although the Netflix western did nab two other shortlist spots in Original Score and Original Song. Edgar Wright’s Sparks Brothers documentary, as well as Morgan Neville’s Anthony Bourdain film, Roadrunner, both missed the cut in Documentary Feature, The Green Knight missed the Makeup & Hairstyling category, and as tough as it is to sit with, James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad did not make it to the shortlist for Visual Effects.
 
Apart from that, there were also a few pleasant surprises. Scores for Candyman, Encanto, The Green Knight, and The Harder They Fall all cracked the list, and not just one or two but all four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films released this year made the cut for Visual Effects (Spider-Man even made it into Sound as well). Other than those, the rest of these shortlists are filled with most of the expected material, and at the unexpected material in some categories does make sense given how those competitions look. For a full rundown of all the 2022 Oscars shortlists, see below.

Best International Feature Film:

• Compartment No. 6 (Finland)
• Drive My Car (Japan)
• Flee (Denmark)
• The Good Boss (Spain)
• Great Freedom (Austria)
• The Hand of God (Italy)
• A Hero (Iran)
• Hive (Kosovo)
• I’m Your Man (Germany)
• Lamb (Iceland)
• Playground (Belgium)
• Plaza Catedral (Panama)
• Prayers for the Stolen (Mexico)
• The Worst Person in the World (Norway)
• Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (Bhutan)

 
Best Documentary Feature:

• Ascension
• Attica
• Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry
• Faya Dayi
• The First Wave
• Flee
• In the Same Breath
• Julia
• President
• Procession
• The Rescue
• Simple as Water
• Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
• The Velvet Underground
• Writing With Fire

 
Best Makeup & Hairstyling:

• Coming 2 America
• Cruella
• Cyrano
• Dune
• The Eyes of Tammy Faye
• House of Gucci
• Nightmare Alley
• No Time to Die
• The Suicide Squad
• West Side Story

 
Best Original Score:

• Daniel Pemberton, Being the Ricardos
• Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Candyman
• Nicholas Britell, Don’t Look Up
• Hans Zimmer, Dune
• Germaine Franco, Encanto
• Alexandre Desplat, The French Dispatch
• Daniel Hart, The Green Knight
• Jeymes Samuel, The Harder They Fall
• Kris Bowers, King Richard
• Harry Gregson-Williams, The Last Duel
• Hans Zimmer, No Time to Die
• Alberto Iglesias, Parallel Mothers
• Jonny Greenwood, The Power of the Dog
• Jonny Greenwood, Spencer
• Carter Burwell, The Tragedy of Macbeth

 
Best Original Song:

• “The Anonymous Ones,” Dear Evan Hansen
• “Automatic Woman.” Bruised
• “Be Alive,” King Richard
• “Beyond the Shore,” CODA
• “Dos Orguitas,” Encanto
• “Down to Joy,” Belfast
• “Dream Girl,” Cinderella
• “Guns Go Bang,” The Harder They Fall
• “Here I Am (Singing My Way Home),” Respect
• “Just Look Up,” Don’t Look Up
• “No Time to Die,” No Time to Die
• “Right Where I Belong,” Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road
• “So May We Start,” Annette
• “Somehow You Do,” Four Good Days
• “Your Song Saved My Life,” Sing 2

 
Best Visual Effects:

• Black Widow
• Dune
• Eternals
• Free Guy
• Ghostbusters: Afterlife
• Godzilla vs. Kong
• The Matrix Resurrections
• No Time to Die
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
• Spider-Man: No Way Home

 
Best Sound:

• Belfast
• Dune
• Last Night in Soho
• The Matrix Resurrections
• No Time to Die
• The Power of the Dog
• A Quiet Place: Part II
• Spider-Man: No Way Home
• tick, tick…Boom!
• West Side Story

 
Best Live-Action Short:

• Ala Kachuu – Take and Run
• Censor of Dreams
• The Criminals
• Distances
• The Dress
• Frimas
• Les Grandes Claques
• The Long Goodbye
• On My Mind
• Please Hold
• Stenofonen
• Tala’vision
• Under the Heavens
• When the Sun Sets
• You’re Dead Helen

 
Best Animated Short:

• Affairs of the Art
• Angakusajaujuq: The Shaman’s Apprentice
• Bad Seeds
• Bestia
• Boxballet
• Flowing Home
• Mum Is Pouring Rain
• The Musician
• Namoo
• Only a Child
• Robin Robin
• Souvenir Souvenir
• Step Into the River
• Us Again
• The Windshield Wiper

 
Best Documentary Short:

• Águilas
• Audible
• A Broken House
• Camp Confidential: America’s Secret Nazis
• Coded: The Hidden Love of J. C. Leyendecker
• Day of Rage
• The Facility
• Lead Me Home
• Lynching Postcards: “Token of a Great Day”
• The Queen of Basketball
• Sophie & the Baron
• Takeover
• Terror Contagion
• Three Songs for Benazir
• When We Were Bullies

So, what do you think of these new 2022 Oscars shortlists? Do you see anything that surprised you? Frustrated you? Do any of these change what your predictions are now going to look like? Let me know in the comments section below, and thanks for reading!
 
- The Friendly Film Fan

​Hello, all, and welcome back to The Friendly Film Fan! Well, the Oscars have finally happened, and the winners have been announced in what I can only describe as the most baffling and anti-climactic finish to an Oscars show that I have ever seen in my lifetime, one that made me angry, upset, and flabbergasted in its production choices and deliberate messiness, the only reason for which did not end up happening at all. To get it right out of the way up front, Chadwick Boseman lost what would have been a posthumous win in the Best Actor category for his career-best work in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom to Anthony Hopkins for his equally brilliant performance in The Father. Hopkins gave a short speech this morning thanking the Academy, as well as paying tribute to the late Boseman, because Hopkins is a class act all the way around and a genuinely good human being. The win itself was not something with which I took issue; in fact, I somewhat hoped Hopkins could pull off the upset, as his was my favorite of all the performances given in 2020. But the way the moment was handled was nothing short of infuriating. For those who did not watch the ceremony live, the Oscars (of which Steven Soderbergh was a co-producer) decided to give out the award for Best Picture (which went to Nomadland) before giving out Best Actress, and then finally Best Actor, presumably so that when Boseman won, they would be able to honor him with the final award of the night. Except Boseman then lost, and Joaquin Phoenix – who announced the award and seemed very uncomfortable with it – peaced-out immediately, as Hopkins was not there to receive the statuette. I’m also learning after the fact that Olivia Colman, who was also nominated in Best Supporting Actress for her work in The Father, was meant to accept the award on Hopkins’ behalf, but was unable to because the ceremony was cut short so quickly after the announcement. Dragging Boseman’s widow into a live awards show during a pandemic, changing the awards order to chase some big dramatic finish with his posthumous win, playing soul music as Phoenix walked out to announce the category, only for Boseman to lose to someone who wasn’t there (through no fault of his own) will forever be remembered as not just one of the most dramatic endings the Oscars has ever had, but one of the worst endings it ever will. The production decisions made in the last 15 minutes of the ceremony were atrocious, and I desperately hope that the Oscars never tries to put Best Picture in any place but last ever again, especially because of how that switch of orders played out.

​All that being said, there were plenty of other pleasant surprises in store for this Oscars, some historic wins, and some close races that came down to the wire, where I think the right decision was made (even if it significantly messed up my ballot). Chloé Zhao’s brilliant, humanistic Nomadland ultimately took home 3 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director for Zhao – who is the first-ever woman of color to receive the award and only the second woman ever – and a semi-surprise win for Best Actress Frances McDormand, cementing her in the elite club of people who now have 3 acting Oscars to their names (McDormand also won a Best Picture Oscar as a producer on the film). The only other actress to win as many Best Lead Actress Oscars or more is Kathrine Hepburn, whose count numbers 4. In other news, The Father also secured a win for Best Adapted Screenplay following a surge of momentum, and the wonderful Sound of Metal managed to best The Trial of the Chicago 7 in Best Editing (it also won Best Sound), rendering the latter film completely Oscar-less by the close of the ceremony. Erik Messerschmidt pulled off the upset to double Mank’s Oscar take by giving it Best Cinematography in addition to the expected Best Production Design, and “Fight for You” from Judas and the Black Messiah pulled off a dark horse triumph winning Best Original Song. The documentary short film, Collette, also managed to pull off an upset win, making this one of the most unpredictable Oscars in quite some time, with only one movie (Nomadland) winning more than 2 Oscars total. I won’t speak on every single winner, but it is also important to note that two thirds of the makeup team for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson), recognized for the first time in any category, are the first pair of Black stylists to win that award, which they shared with fellow nominee Sergio Lopez-Rivera. As well, Yuh-Jung Youn, who pulled off a win for Best Supporting Actress in the achingly beautiful Minari, is the first Asian actor to win a performance Oscar since The Killing Fields in 1984. In truth, every winner selection – even the upsets and unexpected ones – were great choices. It’s just unfortunate that the ceremony itself turned so sour so quickly, practically snuffing out in seconds any real excitement one could have felt at the prospect of any remaining upset wins. That being said, it is just one show, and I’m sure next year will seem a drastic improvement in the aftermath. Here is your full list of winners for the 93rd Annual Academy Awards! 

Best Director: Chloé Zhao, Nomadland

Best Actor: Anthony Hopkins, The Father

Best Actress: Frances McDormand, Nomadland

Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Supporting Actress: Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari

Best Cinematography: Erik Messerschmidt, Mank

Best Film Editing: Mikkel E.G. Nielsen, Sound of Metal

Best Production Design: Donald Graham Burt and Jan Pascale, Mank

Best Costume Design: Ann Roth, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Best Makeup & Hairstyling: Sergio Lopez-Rivera, Mia Neal, and Jamika Wilson, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Best Original Score: Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor, and Atticus Ross, Soul

Best Original Song: “Fight for You,” Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Adapted Screenplay: Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller, The Father

Best Original Screenplay: Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman

Best Documentary Short: Collette

What did you think of the Academy Awards this year? Did you predict any of the upsets correctly? How well did you do down the ballot? Let me know in the comments section below. Thanks for reading!
 
- The Friendly Film Fan