Oscar Quest 2023

For the first year, I actually was able to watch every single Academy Award-nominated film. Partially it was the extra time, and partially it was the advent of streaming. Bless.

I'm not doing individual category writeups this year, but here are my picks.

Sound

My fav: All Quiet on the Western Front

My bet: Top Gun: Maverick

Visual Effects

My fav: Top Gun: Maverick

My bet: Avatar: The Way of Water



Makeup and Hairstyling

My fav: Elvis

My bet: Elvis

Costume Design

My fav: Babylon

My bet: Elvis

Production Design

My fav: Babylon

My bet: Avatar: The Way of Water

Editing:
My fav: Top Gun: Maverick

My bet: Top Gun: Maverick

Cinematography
My fav: Tár

My bet: All Quiet on the Western Front

Original Song
My fav: Naatu Naatu, RRR

My bet: Naatu Naatu, RRR

Original Score

My fav: TBD

My bet: All Quiet on the Western Front

Adapted Screenplay

My fav: Women Talking

My bet: Women Talking

Original Screenplay

My fav: Tár

My bet: Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

Supporting Actor

My fav: Ke Huy Quan, Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

My bet: Ke Huy Quan, Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

Supporting Actress
My fav: Hong Chau, The Whale

My bet: Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

Actor
My fav: Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin

My bet: Brendan Fraser, The Whale

Actress
My fav: Cate Blanchett, Tár

My bet: Michelle Yeah, Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

Director
My fav: Dan Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once

My bet: Dan Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once

Documentary Short
My fav: The Elephant Whisperers

My bet: Stranger at the Gate


Documentary Feature
My fav: Fire of Love

My bet: Fire of Love

Animated Short

My fav: Ice Merchants

My bet: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

Animated Feature
My fav: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

My bet: Pinocchio

Live Action Short

My fav: The Red Suitcase

My bet: Le Pupil

International Feature
My fav: The Quiet Girl

My bet: All Quiet on the Western Front



Best Picture
My fav: Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

My bet: Everything, Everywhere, All At Once



Best Donkey

Jenny, Banshees of Inisherin



Best Movie about Movies

Fire of Love

Personal Fav Films (no order)
Everything, Everywhere, All At Once
Tár
Women Talking
The Banshees of Inisherin
Aftersun
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
Fire of Love
The Quiet Girl
Ice Merchants
Ivalu
The Red Suitcase

Oscar Quest 2019

I've been out of the Oscar fun for a couple years, but I'm going to try to give it another go despite a full, but not hectic schedule. To try to make things more manageable in the 34 days I have, I'm going to cut the Animated Feature Film and Documentary Feature categories from my to-watch list. Only two of those are up for awards outside their categories. RBG is up for for Original Song and Isle of Dogs is up for Original score; neither of these categories really beg a viewing of their films. That leaves me with twenty-seven films instead of thirty-seven. I think I can do that in 34 days 🤞

Oscar Quest 2017 is Cancelled

When I first saw the slate for this year, I was a bit worried about finishing all the films. I decided that, even with my vacation, if I cut a few categories, I could make a strong push at it.

Unfortunately, two things have happened since then in addition to the fuller vacation schedule than anticipated. Perhaps the biggest blockade is that the failing graphics chip on my laptop seems to crash much more frequently in warm weather, and thus, outside of late nights and early mornings, my computer has a tendency to crash every few minutes. It has crashed nearly a dozen times writing this article (often a few times in a row). Secondly, en route to Mexico, the TSA took one of my bags aside for a "HAZMAT threat," and by the time I received it, everything valuable had been stolen including, most pertinently, my hard drive with all nominated films.

Thanks for tuning in, but I'm signing off to enjoy myself without so much tethering me.

Oscar Quest 2017

Like every year, I swear to myself I am going to watch more film and be better prepared than the last year, but come nominee announcement time, I've only ever watched a few. To be fair, I spent my time in film in December catching up on Academy Award nominated films that I never got around to in 2013 and 2014. Mostly they've been documentaries, and that's my most viewed category (at all of two) headed into this year. There are forty-seven films, and I have thirty-two days with a seven film head start. I am going to be out of country during almost this entire project, though, so that presents a two-fold challenge. Firstly, I will likely be able to access far fewer films. Secondly, I don't want to spend a vacation to Mexico inside a theater. I am almost certainly going to cut the original song category which, unfortunately, only saves me two films this year. Expect this year to be less formidable than my past couple of years, but hopefully, I can still get through a fair amount and have fun with it. Primarily, though, I'm on vacation, so we'll see.

Recap

Today's the day! The Academy Awards will be presented starting at 8:30, but, of course, there is the fashion pre-show that is more important to many. My second mom knows all the fashion, and I know all the movies. As is becoming tradition, I'm going to go hang out with her so we can let each other know what's going on. If you're not up to the Oscars, black movie directors (who were all snubbed) are hosting a fundraiser in Flint! It's almost the same thing!

So that I have a handy reference sheet, and so that you can more easily make fun of me, here is a list with my picks in every category. Let the wrongness commence!

Best Picture

I know what you want to be doing on a Saturday night is to read this blog. You're all anxiously waiting at your social media accounts with bated breath waiting for me to post, refreshing obsessively. Well, wait no longer. Here's the big reveal! I might actually keep this article rather short [ed: lol] since I have written so extensively about these films already. Good gravy, I might have two thousand words on just The Revenant. That's basically an eight page paper, which is as long as anything I wrote in college. Speaking of, I finally deleted all my college papers about a month ago since I haven't looked at them since. Of course, today I really want to know how long my longest college paper actually was but cannot. It was about social views on sexual and gender variance in pre-Meiji era Japanese literature. Some things never change. Oh, right. This is a film blog. We can revisit that when there's a film adaptation of The Changelings. No. Not The Changeling. No. Not Changeling. Torikaebaya Monogatari.

Documentary Feature Film

Foreign film isn't happening. At least not before the Oscars air. I'm probably not even getting to snubs. Blame my dating life and my inability to learn how to use an alarm clock.

Documentary (Feature):

• Amy
• Cartel Land
• Senyap (The Look of Silence)
• What Happened, Miss Simone?
• Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom