90: The Oscars

Every year I get a little mad about the horse race of awards season and ranked end-of-year lists, and every year I get sucked into Oscars speculation. The Duality of Sarah. It feels good to have my opinions validated when something I like gets nominated, and it's fun to get mad whenever the Academy nominates something I dislike, because then I can pretend that I have superior taste. Every year my husband and I have an Oscar predictions competition, where the loser has to buy the winner tickets to a movie of the winner's choice; every year I lose this competition, because I get too caught up in what I think should win, rather than what the Academy is likely to choose. It's a game, just as the Oscars are a game, albeit with the high stakes of reinforcing someone's place in the canon (if they're already established) or potentially opening new doors for them (if they're new).

This past year's movie landscape was so rich that I really can't get mad about movies that were left off the nominations, because there were so many good movies out there that they couldn't possibly all get nominated. I'm not going to do a rundown of everything, because no one wants to read that; instead, here's a small list of the things I'm happy to see nominated, the things I'm intrigued by, and a few personal favorites that didn't get the nod but that will have a special place in my heart.

I'm happy to see these nominees:

• Sandra Hüller for Lead Actress; her nomination is for Anatomy of a Fall, but she's also a lead in The Zone of Interest, and both performances are carefully pitched. They're also very different from each other; she has range, and I want to go back and watch more of her work now.
• Oppenheimer (Jennifer Lame) for Best Editing. I don't want to hear complaints about the length of the movie; it's well-paced and it needs to be as long as it is.
• Perfect Days (dir. Wim Wenders) for Best International Feature. It will be released in the U.S. in two weeks; if you're near a theater that's playing it, go see it.
• The Creator (Jay Cooper, Ian Comley, Andrew Roberts and Neil Corbould) for Best Visual Effects. The movie as a whole didn't cohere, but it looks amazing, and deserves to be recognized for it.
• May December (written by Samy Burch) for Best Original Screenplay. What a debut!

I'm intrigued by:

• The Society of the Snow (a variety of awards, but most prominent is Best International Feature).
• El Conde (Edward Lachman) for Best Cinematography. Pinochet as a vampire in black & white? I'm curious!
• Four Daughters (dir. Kaouther Ben Hania and Nadim Cheikhrouha) for Best Documentary.

I would have loved to see:

• Joe Hisaishi for Best Original Score for The Boy and the Heron. Hisaishi's a wonderfully expressive composer, and The Boy and the Heron is one of my favorites of his. He's never been recognized by the Academy.
• Donnie Yen for Best Supporting Actor for John Wick Chapter 4. The Johns Wick were starting to feel a little stale and dour after the third installment; they're still dour, but Yen brought a new fun dimension to the story and it was a delight to watch him on screen.
• Acting, makeup, production design, and costume design nominations for Priscilla. What a lovely movie! If you haven't seen it, please seek it out.

What I wrote about:

For Seeing & Believing, I wrote about Ava DuVernay's Origin. It's a messy movie, and I wish it weren't so!

What I'm playing:

A few weeks ago I realized that I was burned out on watching awards-season movies that I didn't really want to watch, so I picked up the Switch controller and finally started playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The game is a master class in teaching you how to play it as you go along, and it encourages creativity and lateral thinking; I especially like that the game gives you a chance to practice a new skill a few minutes after learning it so you can both solve a new puzzle and reinforce what you've already learned. Since I'm someone who likes investigating every little nook and cranny in an open-world game, TOTK is like catnip. My one complaint so far is that the game feels like it was written for the player to encounter certain parts of the plot in a specific order, which runs counter to the game's design openly inviting the player to explore whatever interests them in whichever direction they choose. So far this has only led to a little light confusion when I hit an encounter that references something I probably should have learned earlier. I've already logged something like 10-15 hours with the game, and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface; here's hoping the game stays fresh for the entire runtime.