I'd Like to Help the Academy
The movies that should be nominated for an Oscar — but probably won't be
Back in the before times, I wrote an LA Weekly column called We’d Like to Help the Academy in which I made a case for actors and filmmakers who had no realistic chance of nabbing an Oscar nomination — but would if we lived in a just world (by which I mean one dictated by my own flights of fancy, natch). With the recent unveiling of the Producers Guild of America nominations suggesting that a truly dire list of Best Picture contenders is about to be loosed upon the world — Being the Ricardos and Don’t Look Up are truly among the worst nominees in recent memory, and I’m old enough to remember when Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close was nominated — I thought I’d offer up my own dream ballot.
I reckon that perhaps two-fifths of my choices have any shot of being nominated in their respective categories tomorrow, which should provide ample opportunity to curse the eventual selections for being inferior to my own — which, as we all know, is the only gratifying part of this whole silly process.
Best Picture
Benedetta
Candyman
The Card Counter
Dune
The Killing of Two Lovers
Memoria
Parallel Mothers
Passing
The Power of the Dog
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
Best Director
Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
Rebecca Hall, Passing
Denis Villeneuve, Dune
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Memoria
Best Actor
Nicolas Cage, Pig
Clayne Crawford, The Killing of Two Lovers
Oscar Isaac, The Card Counter
Hidetoshi Nishijima, Drive My Car
Dev Patel, The Green Knight
Best Actress
Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter
Jodi Comer, The Last Duel
Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
Renate Reinsve, The Worst Person in the World
Kristen Stewart, Spencer
Best Supporting Actor
Ben Affleck, The Tender Bar
Colman Domingo, Candyman
Mike Faist, West Side Story
Anders Danielson Lie, The Worst Person in the World
Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog
Best Supporting Actress
Tiffany Haddish, The Card Counter
Kathryn Hunter, The Tragedy of Macbeth
Ruth Negga, Passing
Park Yoo-rim, Drive My Car
Alicia Vikander, Blue Bayou
Best Original Screenplay
Paul Schrader, The Card Counter
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Memoria
Pedro Almodóvar, Parallel Mothers
Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt, The Worst Person in the World
Best Adapted Screenplay
Jordan Peele, Win Rosenfeld, and Nia DaCosta, Candyman
Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe, Drive My Car
Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter
Rebecca Hall, Passing
Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog