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This is a strong year for theAcademy Awards.
There are honestly only two movies on this list that I thoroughly dislike.
Does a movie with lesser ambitions that succeeds more consistently outrank a daring but uneven movie?
Does Hayao Miyazakis master status outrank a dog and a robot who are in love?
The answers are: sometimes, maybe, and no.
Remember: this ranking is subjective and based on nothing but my own personal, whimsical evaluation.
53.War Is Over!
Wouldnt it be nice if people were pen pals instead of opposing soldiers?
Thats about as much thought as went into this, the worst Oscar-nominated film of 2023.
ButElementalmakes it impossible not to!
bubble (???)
you spend the whole movie lowkey stressed out.
However, not much great happens either.
This low ranking probably tips my hand here.
Meanwhile, theater great George C. Wolfe isnt able to give the flat script any dimension.
And the grandmothers do, in fact, seem like a hoot.
Stop making your grandparents do stuff for TikTok, everybody.
That sensitivity does cause this film to fade within the context of 53 movies all vying for awards.
Lined up against its competition,Island in Betweenis perhaps too delicate for its own good.
Ultimately, the film doesnt offer nearly enough insight into Marc to justify such an approach.
It evokes nostalgia but with a slight undercurrent that something else is going on.
Clement is so delicate with his revelations to that point, that the audience might struggle to receive them.
As a sensitive story about two lovers battling through a pitiless diagnosis, its effective.
As both, the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
That bar proved to be too high to clear.
For a story where the symbol of the pig keeps shifting meaning does it represent salvation?
The inhumanity in man?
the animation also asks you to constantly reconsider the visual storytelling as well.
Its the most thrillingly constructed animation of the nominees.
and has fallen prey to the usual real-life bugaboos (Diana Nyad, liar!).
Annette Bening has definitely delivered more subtle, skillful performances in her career.
A prolific and revered musical talent who we see making music maybe twice?
The omnipresence of Snoopy in our cultural conversations?
Portrait of an Artist as a Try-Hard.
The Academy has nominated worse things for far more awards.
At first, he seems like a regular old coot (did you know smartphones are ruining our eyesight?
), until the story pulls a reveal and recontextualizes the story.
Tim Blake Nelson voices the old man, lending his story spark and texture.
Five different teams of animators worked on the film, each taking up a different sense-based segment.
The beauty ofThe Barber of Little Rockis that it shows how exhilarating small victories in this battle can be.
The film examines People Trust, the only Black-owned community development financial institution in Arkansas.
A testament to testing the limits of creativity when it comes to depicting superhero stories.
The visuals are dizzying, impressionistic, and playful.
If only movies didnt also need stories.
One of the years biggest letdowns.
That said … this is pretty good.
The live-action short category hasnt had it this good in a while.
There was a not-insignificant strain of complaint aboutGuardians 3trading in its fun irreverence for goopy emotionalism and melodrama.
This time, he takes that task literally.
The voters in the short-film categories love those morality tales.
21.Society of the Snow
Directed by:J.A.
That element remains inSociety of the Snow, but Bayona is determined to cast his net wider.
Bayona is perhaps unsettlingly good at this kind of thing, having injected similar visceral trauma intoThe Impossible.
Its a hard watch but undeniably skillful in bonding the audience to these survivors.
Its also about a heron that wont leave him alone.
Or is the heron a goblin-like man in a heron suit?
Or is the movie about parakeet hordes and bubble-like spirits or a wizard stacking stones?
The films strongest message concerns whose responsibility it is to build a better world.
The film exists as two things simultaneously.
14.Robot Dreams
Directed by:Pablo BergerNominations:(1) Best Animated Feature
Surprise!
At 102 minutes, its long and episodic, but thats all in service to its bittersweet ending.
to make it all go away.
(Local custom would have the girl married to one of her rapists.)
There is a fierce specificity to this story that nonetheless radiates outward, across cultures and oceans.
What elevatesFour Daughtersto elite status is that by introducing these actresses, Ben Hania also introduces their perspectives.
On a human level, this is by leaps and bounds the best Godzilla story in decades.
And the visual effects aint too shabby either, evoking menace and terror without feeling like a video game.
And yet!The Holdoversjust works.
Rounding out the films central trio were a wise-ass Dominic Sessa and a warm but soul-battered DaVine Joy Randolph.
It really does feel like these characters and this film have been with us for decades.
back into the cultural consciousness via instrumental steel-drum repetition, that Palme dOr would still have been richly deserved.
Thats the kind of creative-arts-as-existential-battlefield drama out of which Justine Triet could make a hell of a movie.
Two things elevate this particular logline.
I dont think I would, but Id flick the switch a few times.
The second thing that elevates the movie is the performance of Koji Yakusho in the films central role.
This is a movie that deserved a bigger platform than this relatively overlooked nomination has afforded it.
But they might have simply been dazzled by all the costumes (same goes forFar From Heaven).
The meme accounts are onboard, Academy members!
What exactly are you waiting for?
fanbases, all while getting crumbs from Academy voters around Oscar season.
A cinematography nomination here or there; a highly controversial Best Picture snub forThe Dark Knight.
The movies kept getting bigger.
The Best Picture category expanded, withInceptioncracking the category in 2010.
No Best Director nomination, though.
The movies got even bigger.
How he and the world got to that point is told in thrilling detail.
Its just so huge, so overwhelmingly massive.
Its hard to imagine anyone but Nolan pulling this off.
Slather your face with goop, put on your goggles, and take it all in.
