98th Academy Awards Recap
What a year.
We kinda knew where this one was going early, with two films getting 13 and 16 nominations. It also seemed very early on that it was gonna be a relative One Battle After Another sweep. And for anyone holding out hope it was gonna end up about even, that Casting win sure put to bed any possibilities of a change in that. And other than that, we got mostly chalk. No real major surprises. A tie, but even those two were the two choices most people were figuring. Nothing out of the ordinary happened.
Brief notes on the ceremony — Conan was great. That opening was fantastic and he landed a couple of really great jokes throughout. The performances were great too. Probably not the best idea to put “Golden” on so late. There’s nothing that says Song can’t be given out early. It’s a TV show. If you cared about the flow of the show, you’d have made wholesale changes years ago. Also, Javier Bardem is a real one. Respect to him forever.
Otherwise, I think the right film won, and most of the right stuff won. There’s nothing that happened that made me upset. It’s rare you get through an awards season like that. (more…)
The B+ Oscar Ballot: Guide to the 98th Academy Awards
We broke a lot of barriers this year — multiple foreign Best Picture nominees, the overall nominations mark, a brand new category for casting, the highest concentration of nominations among top films. This year has six films with 8+ nominations. I don’t even have to look to know that’s the most there’s ever been.
Which tells me that, ultimately, we’re probably gonna settle into what’s been happening the past few years, which is sweeps at the top, and then a couple of categories that could go in surprising ways near the bottom of the ballot. So… mostly the same as always.
Though this year feels more fun because it feels like at least two acting categories (if not three) can legitimately go multiple ways. Normally we have three locked acting categories and one that feels open. There’s only one locked acting category at the moment. But then, below the line looks fairly locked. So it balances.
This is a year where I revel in focusing on a scorecard than straight winners and losers, because it’s pretty clear what the contenders are. So I don’t really have a horse in the race for what’s gonna win. I’m just gonna let them do what they do and see if I can figure it out. I’m also fortunate that a lot of things I like are going to win, so there’s very little room for disappointment and mostly I’ll just be happy for what wins. (more…)
2025: The Lists
(Some) Hidden/Underseen Films from 2025
- The Ballad of Wallis Island
- The Baltimorons
- Black Bag
- Blue Moon
- Drop
- Dust Bunny
- Eephus
- Eternity
- Fackham Hall
- Fight or Flight
- Good Boy
- The Luckiest Man in America
- The Mastermind
- Novocaine
- Nouvelle Vague
- The Plague
- Relay
- Rental Family
- Roofman
- The Roses
- Sirât
- Splitsville
- The Surfer
- The Testament of Ann Lee
- The Threesome
And the Nominees Are… (2025)
We have our heading.
He said, having seen way to many intro videos from the DVDs of his youth.
It’s a shame physical media is a thing of the past.
Anyway, we’ve got nominees. What an interesting outcome. Just straight up nominated stuff across the board. That’s one way to do it.
I haven’t really looked at things on a macro level yet. Just sort of looked at each individual category. So I’m curious how this is going to look to me now from the perspective of, “So okay… what’s going to win now?” Also very fascinated to come back to this in a week once we have all the precursors we didn’t have to see what would have changed had we known them ahead of time. (more…)
Oscars 2025: The B+ Nominations Ballot
’bout that time again. Gonna do the thing.
It tickles me to no end that the Academy looks to be doubling down on non-mainstream choices at the top. They did all this stuff to try to expand the field to get higher profile stuff in to placate those looking to watch the show for entertainment value and the voters are simply putting in more foreign films instead because the American studio system is committed to putting out garbage most of the time. So now there’s even less for the people who only watch a couple of movies a year and nothing out of the realm of the conventional. I love it. I love it the way Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw loves Black girls.
This also means that the deliberate expansion of the voting body the Academy began however many years ago has bore fruit in that people are legitimately picking the movies they liked best and aren’t just falling in line with what studio PR teams tell them are the best (and also reflects that a younger overall demographic is going to have broader tastes than the old guard). Some still will still always get through, but the notion that it is highly likely we’ll have a Best Picture list with multiple foreign nominees on it this year and not Avatar or Wicked absolutely thrills me.
Anyway, time to pick nominees. (more…)
Oscars 2025: My Nominations Ballot
Best Picture
Hamnet
It Was Just an Accident
Marty Supreme
Nouvelle Vague
One Battle After Another
The Phoenician Scheme
The Secret Agent
Sentimental Value
Sinners
Train Dreams (more…)
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