Oppenheimer Squashes Barbie At 96th Oscars

The bomb obliterated the toy. The doll with the blonde hair might have made more money back in the summer but that didn’t mean anything to the motion picture academy.

The three-hour historical drama Oppenheimer was the big winner at the 96th annual Academy Awards taking home seven golden gongs in total including the big one. Although disheveled Best Picture presenter Al Pacino seemed a little loopy during his unnecessarily oddball appearance at the end of the night, at least he was given the right envelope and said the correct title, a genuine worry since the La La Land/Moonlight debacle of 2017. (Where was Warren Beatty?)

As expected, Christopher Nolan was named Best Director. He thanked his wife Emma Thomas for not only producing all his films but all of their children as well. Oppenheimer also won for its cinematography, its original score and for film editing.

“Proud Irishman” Cillian Murphy was named Best Actor who was the first winner to actually acknowledge his fellow nominees (“I’m in awe of you.”), a practice that used to be routine but was rarely employed this time for some reason. Noting how we’re all living in the world that his title character unfortunately created, he dedicated this prize “to the peacemakers everywhere”.

His co-star Robert Downey Jr. was easily the funniest recipient as he collected his golden naked man for Best Supporting Actor. Already making me laugh when he tapped his once coke-filled nose during host Jimmy Kimmel’s typically uneven monologue, he facetiously thanked his “terrible childhood” and even got a solid dig in at co-presenter Tim Robbins who had a Freudian slip while kissing up to nominee Robert De Niro during the presentation. (He said “Oscar-winning” instead of “Oscar-worthy” which was funny in its own right.) Downey thanked his second wife and dedicated his win to his kids.

Yes, instead of showcasing clips from their respective movies, the Oscars brought back the ass-kissing gimmick that Roger Ebert would’ve loved but for me instantly inspires ridicule, although the delightfully weird Nicolas Cage didn’t disappoint. I mean I was amazed none of the acting nominees were thanked for their extraordinary farts and courageous dumps. Retire the sucking up and bring back the clips.

It was a surprise to me that Emma Stone secured her second Oscar for her lead role in Poor Things but not for those who were paying much closer attention to industry insiders. Briefly overwhelmed and concerned about a possible wardrobe malfunction, she was gracious in thanking her family and her fellow cast and crew members, correctly noting it takes a team to make a movie. Besides Murphy, she was the only other winner to acknowledge her fellow nominees, even going so far as to “share” her prize with Lily Gladstone who didn’t get to make history herself. Hollywood must still be pissed at Sacheen Littlefeather.

Poor Things won three additional technical Oscars for its costumes, its make-up & hairstyling and for its production design, taking away two more possible gongs from Barbie.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph was named Best Supporting Actress, the only award handed to The Holdovers which lost Best Original Screenplay to the critically acclaimed Anatomy Of A Fall, its only trinket. “God is so good,” she exclaimed multiple times as she went on to thank her mom for convincing her to be more than a singer and give theatre a try. Gracious and emotional, she once “wanted to be different” but ultimately realized “I just needed to be myself.” She also thanked her publicist which led to a couple of other winners, including Downey, making tongue-in-cheek references to this moment during their own promos. (Downey thanked his stylist and the guy who tried to get him insured during his darker days.)

The Holocaust drama The Zone Of Interest was named Best International Feature and inspired the only direct acknowledgment of the ongoing genocide in Gaza as the film’s director actually mentioned the word “occupation” in his acceptance speech which was slightly undermined by him also seemingly knocking the resistance’s successful October 7 attack that caught an arrogant white supremacist army sleeping at the wheel. Both-sidesing a lopsided massacre just to make a point about dehumanization misses the point entirely. The film also won Best Sound over Oppenheimer.

The lone win for Barbie was for its hit song What Was I Made For?, the second songwriting Oscar for its creators, the whorephobic Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell. They previously won for penning the Bond theme No Time To Die a couple of years ago.

Speaking of good nights for double winners, the Japanese anime legend Hayao Miyazaki, who wasn’t in attendance, received his second Best Animated Feature Oscar for The Boy And The Heron, 21 years after first winning for Spirited Away beating the likes of Elemental and Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse.

Cord Jefferson, the Best Adapted Screenplay winner for American Fiction, its only prize, made a good point about the “risk-averse” nature of Hollywood, how they’ll easily spend 200 million on a supposedly surefire smash (which lately hasn’t worked out so well) when they could make many more smaller budgeted films that would generate far more buzz and ultimately more profit. I don’t expect anyone to listen to him.

As for the broadcast itself, there were genuine moments of hilarity like Danny DeVito calling out Michael Keaton, his Batman Returns co-star, who responded with a perfectly stern deadpan; John Cena getting into an otherwise uneven argument with Kimmel over whether he should go through with a 50th Anniversary tribute to the infamous streaking incident and then slowly walking across the stage with a giant envelope across his crotch while humourously presenting Best Costume Design (not to mention him wearing a makeshift dress and then shaking hands with The Rock backstage); Steven Spielberg paying off a Kate MacKinnon joke about being sent “tasteful nudes” by simply nodding as well as selling a Kimmel reference to The Fabelmans with just a bemused look; and The Fall Guy co-stars Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt roasting each other and their respective movies over the whole Barbieheimer phenomenon.

I also enjoyed the fact that some presenters did two awards at once which greatly saved time. But what was with the In Memoriam segment? Because they never went to full screen, you had to strain your eyes to see some of the names. The camera was too far away, there were no close-ups at all. It was aggravating and insulting.

While it was wonderful that there will finally be a best casting director Oscar next year (MAY 5 CORRECTION: Actually, the award will be presented for the first time in 2026.), the best the academy could do for long suffering stuntmen was a clip package? Where’s their fucking Oscar category, you heartless assholes?

The complete list of winners:

BEST PICTURE – OPPENHEIMER

BEST DIRECTOR – Christopher Nolan (OPPENHEIMER)

BEST ACTRESS – Emma Stone (POOR THINGS)

BEST ACTOR – Cillian Murphy (OPPENHEIMER)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – Da’Vine Joy Randolph (THE HANGOVERS)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – Robert Downey Jr. (OPPENHEIMER)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE – THE BOY AND THE HERON

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE – THE ZONE OF INTEREST

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE – 20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS – GODZILLA MINUS ONE

BEST SOUND – THE ZONE OF INTEREST

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – OPPENHEIMER

BEST FILM EDITING – OPPENHEIMER

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY – OPPENHEIMER

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – What Was I Made For? (BARBIE)

BEST COSTUME DESIGN – POOR THINGS

BEST MAKE-UP & HAIRSTYLING – POOR THINGS

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN – POOR THINGS

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – ANATOMY OF A FALL

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY – AMERICAN FICTION

BEST ANIMATED SHORT – WAR IS OVER! INSPIRED BY THE MUSIC OF JOHN & YOKO

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT – THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT – THE LAST REPAIR SHOP

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Monday, March 11, 2024
4:05 a.m.

2024 Oscar Predictions

BEST PICTURE – OPPENHEIMER

A failing novelist with an unexpectedly ironic success. A Hitchcockian murder plot involving a wrongfully accused innocent. The life of a famous big-nosed conductor. The rise and fall of the father of the atomic bomb. A 20th Century massacre against Indigenous Americans. A couple living near a concentration camp. A grumpy teacher babysitting some stranded students at Christmas. Two old friends, once close, now drifting apart. A bunch of different girls named Barbie. Emma Stone with bad eyebrows.

These are the ten nominees in the race for Best Picture this year. But let’s be clear. There isn’t a race. It’s a foregone conclusion.

That means you can easily forget about American Fiction, Anatomy Of A Fall, The Holdovers, Killers Of The Flower Moon, The Zone Of Interest, Past Lives, Maestro and Poor Things. As Michael Cole would say, thanks for coming. The producers of these films ain’t getting called up to the stage.

Since July, the only two movies that generated any kind of significant Oscar buzz were Barbie and Oppenheimer. The shrewd marketing campaign of plugging both titles simultaneously with a single word brought large audiences back to the theatres, and not a moment too soon. COVID-19 shut down the business off and on for a significant amount of months starting four years ago as studios overly relied on streaming at times to try to make up for lost profits which ultimately didn’t work. (DVDs and Blu-rays are better, you knobs.)

With life more or less back to normal now despite the continued threat of these constantly evolving variants, few films in 2023 matched their cultural and financial impact. While the toy movie made more money, the three-hour black and white history lesson is the more traditional favourite. The Oscars are notoriously snobby towards comedies and that tradition will undoubtedly continue on March 10.

Director Christopher Nolan has been waiting for this moment his entire career. Now in his early 50s, although I haven’t seen all of his movies, I’ve yet to see him release a bad one. I liked Interstellar, really enjoyed his remake of Insomnia, marvelled at the inventive Inception and consider his Dark Knight Trilogy to be the best comic book franchise of all time.

Much like Steven Spielberg, the academy has been waiting to honour him with something outside the realm of fantasy. With Oppenheimer, they now have their opportunity.

BEST DIRECTOR – Christopher Nolan (OPPENHEIMER)

As Roger Ebert wisely advised year after year, the strongest indicator is the Directors Guild of America award. If you win that prize, nine times out of ten you’ll go on to win the Oscar, that is as long as you’re nominated for one, of course. (Ben Affleck won the DGA in 2013 for Argo, but curiously did not make the shortlist for an Academy Award.) This year, Christopher Nolan won for helming Oppenheimer. There is no need to discuss anyone else. It’s his gong to lose.

BEST ACTRESS – Lily Gladstone (KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON)

It’s the usual mix of newcomers and veterans vying for the top acting prize for women. Annette Bening’s been here five times since 1991. She left quite the impression in The Grifters, so much in fact that Warren Beatty cast her in Bugsy which left another but curiously did not result in another nomination. That wouldn’t come until another memorable turn as the dysfunctional, oblivious mom in American Beauty. After her nomination in the average Being Julia, she was also shortlisted playing one of the gay moms in The Kids Are All Right.

Which leads us to her lead role in Nyad about the famous open water marathon swimmer. Could she be a spoiler here? My guess is it’ll be 0 for 5 on Oscar night.

Carey Mulligan’s had a couple of shots herself. She struck out for An Education, her breakthrough performance, almost 15 years ago. She was last singled out for the controversial Promising Young Woman where her whining about one critic’s review of her may have cost her a golden trinket. Despite having no such heat this time around, her ongoing slump will still continue as well.

Emma Stone’s already won for La La Land and Sandra Huller will have to treasure being part of this rarefied company for what will probably be the only time in her career.

There have long been complaints about actors of colour not getting regular pushes at the Academy Awards. Lily Gladstone’s acclaimed performance in Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon has been cleaning up on the awards circuit since the season began. Better leave some room on the mantle for the biggest prize of them all.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – Da’Vine Joy Randolph (THE HOLDOVERS)

Speaking of that, here’s another opportunity to give someone, in this case a big Black woman, a significant mega push. Da’Vine Joy Randolph has been given award after award after award for her highly praised role as a grieving cook in The Holdovers.

Originally successful on Broadway where she was nominated for a Tony after playing the Oscar-winning Whoopi Goldberg role in the musical version of Ghost, she’s been in a bunch of films over the past decade including The Angriest Man In Brooklyn, which featured one of the last appearances of Robin Williams, the unfortunately awful Office Christmas Party, a couple of high-profile animated sequels and the recent Rustin where she plays the pioneering gospel legend Mahalia Jackson.

Emily Blunt, who plays Oppenheimer’s wife, could play a spoiler here but I’m thinking the academy will reward her for something else down the road. Jodie Foster has already won two lead Oscars for The Accused and The Silence Of The Lambs, and while it’s been a while since she was last handed a golden gong, her chance of a third is highly unlikely. First-time nominees America Ferrera and Danielle Brooks, also longshots, will cancel each other out.

It’s Miss Randolph all the way for Best Supporting Actress.

BEST ACTOR – Cillian Murphy (OPPENHEIMER)

The real and the fictional battle it out in the race for Best Actor this year. On the one side, you have the desperately mischievous author in American Fiction played by Jeffrey Wright who I first saw as the heel in the so-so 2000 Shaft remake, and Pig Vomit himself Paul Giamatti playing a teacher in 1970s New England in The Holdovers.

On the other, you have the famed New York conductor Leonard Bernstein as portrayed by frequent nominee Bradley Cooper, the Black closeted gay MLK confidant turned neoconservative Zionist Bayard Rustin as inhabited by Colman Domingo and the conflicted inventor of a horrific weapon J. Robert Oppenheimer, an assignment given to the Irish actor Cillian Murphy.

While Domingo is probably the one nominee who would get the most from an academy push since he’s the only one most viewers have never heard of (despite a long list of credits including a couple of Tony-nominated stints on Broadway), all signs are pointing to just one likely winner on March 10, one who has already had an equally busy high-profile career in the business.

I’ve been a Cillian Murphy supporter since I first saw him in Red Eye, a thrilling, tightly wound Wes Craven thriller mostly set on an airplane. As he delivers the heat in such a cold, detached manner for much of its running time, he meets his match in Rachel McAdams, his resilient hostage who knows how to think quickly and effectively in a crisis. The scene where she stabs him so hard in the throat he can’t speak inspired me to jump off my couch and shout, “Yes!” If only every movie villain left such a mark.

A longtime favourite of Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer marks Murphy’s sixth collaboration with him. (Rejected as a possible Bruce Wayne, he played Scarecrow in all three Dark Knight movies.) More than 20 years after he appeared as a survivor in the overrated apocalyptic zombie thriller 28 Days Later, his Oscar night will feel far more triumphant. In the recent past, there was another Colman who ended up taking Best Actress by surprise, but in this case, the result will be far more predictable.

Murphy’s got it.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – Robert Downey Jr. (OPPENHEIMER)

Right away you can remove Sterling K. Brown and perennial nominee Mark Ruffalo from serious contention, the latter having already lost on three previous occasions. Another academy favourite, the great Ryan Gosling, whose best work in Blade Runner 2049 and First Man were both criminally overlooked, has also swung and missed twice before. His casting as Ken in Barbie was divisive which I suspect will be reflected in the voting.

Crotchety Robert De Niro, who recently lost a lawsuit to a former disgruntled employee he tortured and has been mostly wasting away as hardheaded fathers and creepy grandpas in one terrible comedy after another, is already a two-time winner. His latest Scorsese collaboration a rare critically acclaimed detour from his usual laughless fare. Although it’s been more than 40 years since he snagged a gong for Raging Bull, he ain’t winning a third.

Everyone loves a redemption story, how one falls from grace only to rise from the ashes and scale even bigger heights of success, if you’ll forgive my trifecta of cliches there. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Robert Downey Jr. was a mess. Despite a very fine supporting performance as Michael Douglas’s agent in the excellent Wonder Boys and strong reviews for his brief run on TV’s Ally McBeal, his addictions were killing him. Had he not finally cleaned up his act, who knows how long he would’ve carried on.

I wasn’t a big fan of the uneven Chaplin but he deserved that first nomination for playing the influential silent comedian. 15 years later, he had an incredible 2008, first playing Iron Man which became his signature role and getting a second nomination for playing an actor so desperate to win awards he employs blackface in Tropic Thunder.

Looking impossibly boyish while approaching 60 as he continues to be one of the most well liked stars in the modern era, Downey has disproved Fitzgerald’s famous theory. He has survived long enough to thoroughly enjoy a second act. And it will be capped off with an Oscar for Oppenheimer.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – THE HOLDOVERS

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY – AMERICAN FICTION

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE – THE BOY AND THE HERON

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE – 20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE – THE ZONE OF INTEREST

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – What Was I Made For? (BARBIE)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN – BARBIE

BEST COSTUME DESIGN – POOR THINGS

BEST FILM EDITING – OPPENHEIMER

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS – MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING PART ONE

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY – OPPENHEIMER

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT – RED, WHITE & BLUE

BEST ANIMATED SHORT – WAR IS OVER! INSPIRED BY THE MUSIC OF JOHN & YOKO

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT – THE ABCS OF BOOK BANNING

BEST SOUND – OPPENHEIMER

BEST MAKE-UP & HAIRSTYLING – POOR THINGS

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, March 6, 2024
4:09 a.m.

How To See All The 2024 Oscar-Nominated Feature Films

Poor White Feminists. They didn’t get everything they wanted.

The nominees for the 96th Annual Academy Awards were announced this week and Barbie fans are pissed. Why isn’t Greta Gerwig nominated for Best Director, they whine? (She made the cut for the Director’s Guild Awards!) And why wasn’t there room for Margot Robbie for Best Actress?

You’d think they’d be happy that Robbie is up for Best Picture (since she’s one of the producers) and that Gerwig is one of the nominated screenwriters. But no, they had to be nominated for everything!

The monster success of Barbie and its fellow summer blockbuster Oppenheimer gave Hollywood a huge sigh of relief after the COVID-19 pandemic greatly reduced box office returns at the start of this awful decade. And while we’re not out of the woods yet, despite the media’s collective disinterest in offering regular updates on the health crisis, although everything has changed, there has been some return to normalcy, whatever that means in this modern, depressing context.

And that means it’s time to seek out all the other nominated feature films, before the March 10 ceremony, that didn’t all have a brilliant marketing campaign guaranteeing wide accessibility. As I have done since 2009, I’ve put together a list of the nominated movies and how you can see them either right now or down the road. In this age of streaming, those who are inclined (and I am adamantly not), you can see many of these titles at the click of a subscribed button this very second. For everybody else who prefer physical media, we have DVDs and Blu-rays to look forward to. And of course, you can still catch some of these flicks in theatres including Barbie which is getting a brief rerelease.

With the exception of the Animated Feature Robot Dreams, which remains unreleased in North America but is expected to hit theatres soon according to Polygon, here is how and when you can watch this latest crop of Oscar-nominated feature films:

American Fiction – February 6 on Amazon Prime/iTunes
American Symphony – Now streaming on Netflix
Anatomy Of A Fall – Now streaming on Prime Video
Barbie – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray
Bobi Wine: The People’s President – Now streaming on Disney+
The Boy And The Heron – Now playing in theatres
The Creator – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray
The Color Purple – Now playing in theatres/March 12 on DVD & Blu-ray
El Conde – Now streaming on Netflix
Elemental – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray
The Eternal Memory – Now streaming on Paramount+
Flamin’ Hot – Now streaming on Hulu and Disney+
Four Daughters – Now available on DVD
Godzilla Minus One – Now playing in theatres
Golda – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray
Guardians Of The Galaxy, Vol. 3 – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray
The Holdovers – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray
Indiana Jones & The Dial Of Destiny – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray
Io Capitano – Coming to theatres February 23
Killers Of The Flower Moon – Now streaming on Apple TV+
Maestro – Now streaming on Netflix
May December – Now streaming on Netflix
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray
Napoleon – Now streaming on Prime Video & Apple TV+
Nimona – Now streaming on Netflix
Nyad – Now streaming on Netflix
Oppenheimer – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray
Past Lives – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray
Perfect Days – Now streaming on Apple TV+
Poor Things – Now playing in theatres
Robot Dreams – To be determined
Rustin – Now streaming on Netflix
Society Of The Snow – Now streaming on Netflix
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray
The Teacher’s Lounge – Now playing in theatres
To Kill A Tiger – Now streaming on YouTube and TVO.org
20 Days In Mariupol – Now streaming on YouTube and Google Play
The Zone Of Interest – Now playing in theatres

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Saturday, January 27, 2024
12:56 p.m.

2023 Academy Awards Wrap-Up

At the end of the 95th annual Academy Awards, there was a funny concluding sight gag. Host Jimmy Kimmel, having just wrapped the three and a half hour ceremony, calmly walked off-stage and as he passed by a woman with a donkey and someone in a bear costume, he made a slight change to a sign. It’s now been one year since an “incident” happened at the Oscars.

Judging by how dull the show was this year, that wasn’t a good thing. Maybe Will Smith and Chris Rock should’ve opened with a Falls Count Anywhere match. (The booking possibilities would be endless.) Although Kimmel, who was typically hit-and-miss as MC, did manage to squeeze some good zingers in, some of which were at the expense of Smith himself, perhaps it’s a sign of serious institutional decline when the funniest moment involves Hugh Grant comparing himself to a ball sack.

As for the awards themselves, as expected, it was a big night for Everything Everywhere All At Once. Released exactly a year ago this month, the sci-fi ensemble snagged seven golden gongs including the big one, Best Picture. With Harrison Ford booked to present that final award, I’m sure some were thinking, uh oh, are we gonna see an upset like Shakespeare In Love? But that did not materialize.

The two Daniels were collectively named Best Director and also won for collaborating on the film’s original screenplay. The movie also won for Best Film Editing.

Even more impressive were the three acting victories it claimed. In the best speech of the night, Ke Huy Quan was named Best Supporting Actor. Abandoning the profession to focus on work behind the camera, the ever boyish middle-aged man was grateful for having a second chance at following his dream which became a major theme of his promo. “Keep your dream alive,” he joyously exclaimed at one point. His excited reactions to seeing and reuniting with his Temple Of Doom co-star Ford were delightfully amusing, all but assuring his cheerful face will forever be an Internet meme.

Michelle Yeoh was named Best Actress and in a major surprise for me, Jamie Lee Curtis won for Best Supporting Actress. I liked how she thanked her first and most loyal fanbase, the horror community, for putting her over during her early years. Acknowledging her late Oscar-nominated parents in a tearful conclusion was the closest she came to admitting she’s a Nepo Baby.

Brendan Fraser was his usual blubbering mess as he accepted his Oscar for Best Actor. The Whale also won for its make-up and hairstyling. Not bad for a film that wasn’t a critical fave.

Speaking of unloved films, how in the hell did All Quiet On The Western Front win four Oscars? The German production snatched trophies for Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Original Score and for Best International Film.

Those hoping for some viral moments this year, like The Slap or the streaker, probably tuned out long before the broadcast ended, unless they decided to endure that weird David Byrne performance. With ratings in serious decline during the COVID era, I’ll be surprised if the number is 15 million.

With the news media and politicians long over keeping us continually informed about the ongoing spread of a terrible death virus, there was Oscar winner Jessica Chastain, the only one in the audience wearing a goddamn mask. Pandemic denial will doom us all. At least Robert Blake wasn’t forgotten. But as Entertainment Weekly pointed out, why no love for Anne Heche or Tom Sizemore?

The complete list of winners:

BEST PICTURE – EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

BEST DIRECTOR – Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE)

BEST ACTRESS – Michelle Yeoh (EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – Jamie Lee Curtis (EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – Ke Huy Quan (EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE)

BEST ACTOR – Brendan Fraser (THE WHALE)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY – WOMEN TALKING

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE – GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE – NAVALNY

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE – ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

BEST FILM EDITING – EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

BEST COSTUME DESIGN – BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – Naatu Naatu (RRR)

BEST SOUND – TOP GUN: MAVERICK

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS – AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN – ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

BEST MAKE-UP & HAIRSTYLING – THE WHALE

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY – ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

BEST ANIMATED SHORT – THE BOY, THE MOLE, THE FOX & THE HORSE

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT – AN IRISH GOOD-BYE

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT – THE ELEPHANT WHISPERERS

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Monday, March 13, 2023
3:50 a.m.

2023 Oscar Predictions

BEST PICTURE – EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

Populism vs. the art house. Major moneymakers competing with smaller scale dramas. This year’s Best Picture category is packed with enough audience pleasers and critical faves to quiet down the usual grumbles about too many unseen nominees. In the annoying age of streaming, anyone with a decent service and time can now get caught up without even leaving their house.

As someone just recovering from a terrible flu bug, who is also currently caring for two parents with cancer, movie screenings have not been a priority in quite some time. Signing up with a streamer would not change that. (Strictly DVDs and Blu-rays for me, thank you very much.) And so I haven’t seen any of the ten films singled out for recognition.

That said, I think we can pretty much eliminate 80% of the contenders. The original Avatar was defeated by The Hurt Locker 13 years ago. Its follow-up, The Way Of Water, is not going to fare much better. The second Top Gun received far stronger reviews than its entertaining predecessor but it’s not going to win, either.

The European war remake All Quiet On The Western Front is this year’s Don’t Look Up, a film too divisive to generate substantial Academy support. Character pieces like Tar, Women Talking, Triangle Of Sadness and The Banshees Of Inisherin each have the Herculean task of trying to not cancel each other out while somehow individually rising to the top of the list in a very crowded category. Strong reviews won’t be enough to pull any of them ahead. In the case of Banshees, there’s been some very public tut-tutting about its supposed lack of authentic Irishness. The Weinstein smear campaign legacy never dies, does it?

I would also cross out Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis as a potential spoiler. Despite raves from reviewers and audiences, I just don’t see it happening.

When the nominations were first announced, only one title came to mine as a potential winner. And it wasn’t The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg’s attempt to recreate the origins of his young burgeoning love for filmmaking in the midst of his parents’ disintegrating marriage, although there was a brief period where I wondered if maybe it would belatedly rise in stature.

Unfortunately, despite mostly positive notices, the film was a commercial flop which doesn’t help its prospects.

Since its release a full year ago, Everything Everywhere All At Once has been literally everywhere. Movie theatres, film festivals, streaming services, the Internet, DVD & Blu-ray, year-end Top 10 lists, award shows. Making three times as much money as The Fabelmans but a 20th of Avatar 2’s two billion take, it continues a remarkable recent trend of Asian-oriented films with widespread appeal that the Academy can’t say no to. When the envelope is opened, Everything Everywhere All At Once will be read off the card.

BEST DIRECTOR – Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE)

I haven’t been as consistent on this in the past. But it only takes one burn to wise up.

The year The King’s Speech beat out The Social Network for Best Director, I had forgotten Roger Ebert’s edict. If you win the Director’s Guild Of America award, nine times out of ten you go on to win the Oscar. David Fincher didn’t win the DGA so I fucked up.

You’ll note I haven’t really made that mistake since. This year’s shortlist is all-male with Spielberg being the only previous winner. It’s been almost 25 years since he last snagged the golden gong for Saving Private Ryan. His drought will continue Sunday night.

Forget about everybody else. Because the two Daniels won the DGA for helming Everything Everywhere All At Once, hearing any other name being called out would be a genuine shock. Don’t expect it to happen.

BEST ACTOR – Brendan Fraser (THE WHALE)

A mix of familiar and unknown faces make up this year’s race for Best Actor.

I don’t hear a lot of outright enthusiasm for Paul Mescal securing his first big win. The same goes for longtime character vet Bill Nighy and one of my personal faves, Colin Farrell, still a lovable rascal after all these years. They’re just happy to be invited to the party.

From the beginning, this has been strictly a two-actor competition. Austin Butler has his fans being the latest young man to portray The King Of Rock & Roll on the big screen. Even the late Lisa Marie Presley vouched for him.

But look at those tearful speeches Brendan Fraser’s been making for his lead performance in The Whale. They always bring the house down. On Sunday night expect more of the same for the Canadian star who’s come a long way from the egregious Encino Man.

BEST ACTRESS – Michelle Yeoh (EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE)

One of the more unusual stories of this year’s Oscars is the nomination of Andrea Riseborough for Best Actress. Her film, To Leslie, went mostly unnoticed by audiences. But her fellow actors, some of the biggest stars in the business, in fact, very publicly gave her a major, collective push resulting in her surprise admission to this exclusive short list.

The academy thought something was up but a very quick investigation, if you can even call it that, didn’t reveal anything that warranted her being rescinded from the category. So she stays. Barring some unforeseen circumstance, I just can’t foresee her winning, though, certainly not when you consider her competition.

The great Cate Blanchet who deserved her gongs for The Aviator and Blue Jasmine could play a spoiler here thanks to her latest acclaimed performance as the troubled real-life conductor who isn’t too pleased with the cinematic version of her story. Blanchet’s been compensated plenty in her career so I don’t think she joins the three-timers club, at least not yet.

Perennial bridesmaid Michelle Williams, now on her fifth acting nomination, probably thought she’d be a shoo-in for playing a thinly disguised version of Steven Spielberg’s mom in The Fabelmans. Honestly, she could still pull off an upset but she’s young and talented enough to give the academy more options to reward her in the future.

The gorgeous Cuban star Ana de Armas, so great as Ryan Gosling’s loyal, paid electronic plaything in Blade Runner 2049, is hoping to do what Williams couldn’t do eleven years ago. Win a golden gong for playing Marilyn Monroe. It would be a stunner if this happens but I highly doubt it.

That leaves Michelle Yeoh who first popped up on my radar in Supercop proving she was as credible an action star as her collaborator Jackie Chan. Those athletic chops paved the way for even better films like Tomorrow Never Dies and of course Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

Seemingly lost in hopeless dreck like Last Christmas, she seemed rejuvenated by taking the lead in Everything Everywhere All At Once. Her Oscar win on Sunday will feel as much a career achievement as a historic milestone.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – Angela Bassett (BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER)

It’s white privilege vs. women of colour in the race for Best Supporting Actress. History’s been overly generous to the former but that won’t mean a damn this year.

2023 marks the 45th Anniversary of the original Halloween, the brilliant indie horror behemoth that sadly birthed far too many inferior sequels including the recently misguided revisionist trilogy. It’s the movie that put Nepo Baby Jamie Lee Curtis on the map and afforded her so many other jobs far less connected performers would kill for if they could get away with it.

It’s the high she’s been chasing every since and while I’ve liked her in other films over the years (including a decent cameo in the Veronica Mars movie), nothing she’s done has ever topped it. Let’s be real, she wouldn’t even be here were it not for Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh.

All that said, despite being nominated in the most decorated film at this year’s Oscars, Curtis can forget about cutting a victorious promo. It ain’t happening. Fellow white lady Kerry Condon doesn’t have a prayer, either.

Curtis’s co-star Stephanie Hsu, who actually plays two roles in Everything Everywhere All At Once, will sadly see her vote split preventing a full fledged triumph. And when it comes to The Whale, who remembers Hong Chau over Brendan Fraser?

Almost 30 years after missing out for her excellent portrayal of Tina Turner in the unflinching What’s Love Got To Do With It, it’s finally Angela Bassett’s moment. After the death of Chadwick Boseman, the future of the Black Panther franchise seemed bleak. But rather than recast the role, the filmmakers came up with a sequel that still managed to mostly satisfy the insatiable Marvel audience. When Boseman was shockingly upset by Anthony Hopkins a couple years ago in a category that should not have been the last one presented, many were irate about the unexpected snub. Here’s a small way to make up for that.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – Ke Huy Quan (EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE)

It’s young vs. old in the competition for Best Supporting Actor. You’ve got longtime character legends like 67-year-old Brendan Gleeson and 87-year-old Judd Hirsch each probably thinking it’s now or never to snag a golden gong after all this time. (Hirsch was last nominated in 1981 for Ordinary People.)

Then there are the much younger first-timers: Barry Keoghan who’s 30 and 40-year-old Atlanta regular Bryan Tyree Henry.

Unfortunately, not one of them will be called to the stage. That’s because the winner will be Ke Huy Quan. I had forgotten until I started looking it up that he was the annoying Short Round in The Temple Of Doom, the least appealing Indiana Jones adventure from the original series. Of course, he was also in The Goonies, which has aged so poorly I’m wondering why I ever liked it as a kid.

Frustrated with the lack of non-stereotypical roles available in his youth, Quan switched to fight choregraphy sometime in the mid-90s. But now in his early 50s, yet still looking impossibly boyish with his trademark glasses and short hair, he’s back working a more regular acting schedule.

Sunday night is looking like a pretty strong night for former cast members of Encino Man.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE – MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE – A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE – ARGENTINA, 1985

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY – TOP GUN: MAVERICK

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – Lift Me Up (BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN

BEST FILM EDITING – EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS – AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER

BEST COSTUME DESIGN – EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

BEST MAKE-UP AND HAIRSTYLING – THE WHALE

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY – ELVIS

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN – ELVIS

BEST SOUND – TOP GUN: MAVERICK

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT – LE PUPILLE

BEST ANIMATED SHORT – MY YEAR OF DICKS

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT – STRANGER AT THE GATE

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Saturday, March 11, 2023
12:46 a.m.

2022 Oscar Predictions

BEST PICTURE – THE POWER OF THE DOG

It’s not often the motion picture academy selects ten films for the biggest prize of the night but here we are. This year, it’s the usual mix of arthouse fare and crowd pleasers along with a foreign title and a couple of remakes thrown in, as well.

These races usually come down to just two or three possible winners with everybody else just happy to be included in such company. Despite making nearly half a billion dollars during an ongoing series of global crises, Denis Villeneuve’s new version of Dune doesn’t seem like such a sure thing to me. Ditto Spielberg’s updated West Side Story which has the burden of competing with the 1961 original and its ten Oscars.

Forget about Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, Belfast, CODA and King Richard. Eyebrows would be raised if any of them snag the top gong.

A possible dark horse is Drive My Car which has garnered widespread acclaim and could pull a Parasite-type spoiler win. Thanks to its wide availability on Netflix and high praise from viewers, Don’t Look Up could also swoop in and pull a major upset despite some loud critical grumbling that’s also been drowned out by appreciative climate scientists.

But my money’s on The Power Of The Dog. It’s been a long while since a western, a once ubiquitous genre, won Best Picture. Placed on numerous Top Ten lists last year and having already secured dozens of awards and critics’ prizes, it’s the one to beat.

BEST DIRECTOR – Jane Campion (THE POWER OF THE DOG)

In the long, ugly history of the Academy Awards, only seven women have ever been nominated for directing. It wasn’t until Kathryn Bigelow’s victory for The Hurt Locker in 2010 that the 71-year winless slump finally ended. Eleven years later, Chloe Zhao took the prize for Nomadland.

Acclaimed New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion has already made history by being the first woman to snag a second nomination. Her first was for The Piano nearly 30 years ago. As Roger Ebert reminded us annually, if you win the Director’s Guild of America prize, nine times out of ten, you go on to win the Oscar. Campion won the DGA for her western adaptation The Power Of The Dog, therefore she’ll be securing the golden naked man come Sunday.

BEST ACTOR – Will Smith (KING RICHARD)

In what is shaping up to be a fairly predictable affair all round, the race for Best Actor also appears to be a foregone conclusion. Denzel Washington has already been handsomely rewarded so he’s out. Previous nominees Javier Bardem, Andrew Garfield and Benedict Cumberbatch are all serious longshots. It would be a genuine shock if any of them pulled off an upset. (Then again, who thought Tony Hopkins would unseat Chadwick Boseman last year?)

Once dismissed as as a fluffy, squeaky clean rapper who parlayed his TV-friendly persona into a cushy six-year sitcom gig, Will Smith would ultimately and seamlessly transition into the more lucrative world of feature films. This year marks the 30th anniversary of his first foray into the cinema, the homeless ensemble drama Where The Day Takes You.

Striking out on his two prior trips to the Oscars – first for Ali, the second for The Pursuit Of Happyness – Smith will finally take home the prize for playing the patriarch of Serena & Venus Williams in King Richard. If only Uncle Phil were alive to see it.

BEST ACTRESS – Jessica Chastain (THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE)

Even before the nominations were first announced, my money was on Kristen Stewart based purely on a TV ad. In Spencer, a film about Princess Diana, she transforms into the Princess of Wales not just through a hairstyle change but also vocally. Stewart looks and sounds uncannily like the blond beauty.

But for whatever reason, she’s not seen as the favourite in this category. Neither is Olivia Colman, a surprise winner a few years ago nominated again for the third time in less than five years, the last two consecutively. Penelope Cruz already has a gong herself, as does Nicole Kidman, making all three of them unlikely spoilers.

That leaves Jessica Chastain. Previously recognized without winning as one of the racist housewives in The Help and for the reprehensible Zero Dark Thirty a decade ago, I would not have figured her portrayal of Tammy Faye to be the one to beat. But she did win the SAG. Only seven of those 27 winners failed to go on to win the Oscar. Stewart, my initial guess, could still pull off a victory but it feels very slim at this point. It’s Chastain all the way.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – Ariana DeBose (WEST SIDE STORY)

Some performers don’t need academy recognition to become big stars or at least assure themselves a long career in the business. But a relatively unknown first-time nominee, no matter their age, getting a major push on Oscar night certainly doesn’t hurt their future prospects.

In the competition for Best Supporting Actress, this applies to three of the four first-timers vying for such a breakthrough. That means 87-year-old Judi Dench can sit this one out. She has her gong.

39-year-old Kirsten Dunst has already been a star for nearly 30 years having had the good fortune of starting her career by landing key child roles in Interview With The Vampire and Little Women. A win for her work in The Power Of The Dog would really be just icing on her ever rising cake. But she doesn’t need it.

53-year-old Aunjanue Ellis, who appears in King Richard, already has an extensive list of credits dating back to the mid-90s. But I don’t see her winning here, either. The odds also look slim for 32-year-old Jessie Buckley who will still benefit for making Oscar’s shortlist.

That leaves the youngest nominee, Ariana DeBose, from Spielberg’s West Side Story. Now 31, for the past decade she’s been busy warbling and hoofing it up on Broadway, most notably in Hamilton, after trying out for So You Think You Can Dance, as noted by the always revealing Wikipedia. Reprising the Rita Moreno role from the 1961 original, this will mark the rare occurrence of two actors winning an Oscar for the same part in different eras.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – Troy Kotsur (CODA)

J.K. Simmons is the only nominee this year to have won this category in a previous ceremony. It’s doubtful he’ll repeat for playing the actor who played Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy. Everybody else is up for their own first golden naked man.

I don’t see Ciaran Hinds taking it. Meanwhile, The Power Of The Dog’s Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee will both cancel each other out. That leaves Troy Kotsur. In recent years, no one film has really dominated the Oscars. Instead, the prizes are generously spread around. Most, if not all, of the nominated Best Pictures get some kind of token trinket. Kotsur’s acclaimed performance in CODA, a production mostly featuring deaf performers, will be its sole reward.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE – ENCANTO

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE – SUMMER OF SOUL

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE – DRIVE MY CAR

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – DON’T LOOK UP

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY – THE POWER OF THE DOG

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – Dos Oruguitas (ENCANTO)

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS – SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME

BEST MAKE-UP & HAIRSTYLING – THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE

BEST COSTUME DESIGN – DUNE

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY – THE POWER OF THE DOG

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – THE POWER OF THE DOG

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT – THE DRESS

BEST ANIMATED SHORT – BESTIA

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT – THE QUEEN OF BASKETBALL

BEST FILM EDITING – KING RICHARD

BEST SOUND – DUNE

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN – DUNE

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Saturday, March 26, 2022
2:21 a.m.

CORRECTION: CODA is not an all-deaf production as I erroneously asserted. That line has been rewritten for the sake of accuracy. I regret the error.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Saturday, March 26, 2022
7:06 p.m.

How To Watch All The 2022 Oscar-Nominated Feature Films

The nominations for the 94th annual Academy Awards have been unveiled and, as always, there’s the usual amount of grumbling and delight over those who were included and those who were shut out.

Not much Oscar love for House Of Gucci or the hugely popular Spider-Man: No Way Home, who were both excluded from the major categories, while the less popular (but more critically acclaimed) hit Dos Oruguitas from Encanto is likely a major favourite to snag Best Original Song since the number one smash We Don’t Talk About Bruno wasn’t even submitted for consideration.

For the second year in a row, streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime are the major beneficiaries of an industry struggling to cope with on-again/off-again cinema closings in the frustrating midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. A whole slew of titles from their ever expanding libraries are up for numerous gongs in almost every category including Best Picture.

Having not seen any of the nominated films, I have nothing to contribute to that part of the international conversation. But what I do have is the complete list of recognized features and how you can see them either now or down the road.

Dates, unless otherwise indicted, are strictly for upcoming DVD & Blu-ray releases. As always, if any new information comes down the pike, I’ll be sure to update this list.

In the meantime, happy screenings.

Attica – February 22

Ascension – Now playing on Paramount+

Being The Ricardos – Now playing on Amazon Prime

Belfast – Now playing in theatres/DVD & Blu-ray: March 1

CODA – Now playing on AppleTV+

Coming 2 America – Now playing on Amazon Prime/DVD & Blu-ray: March 8

Cruella – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray

Cyrano – Opening in theatres on February 25

Don’t Look Up – Now playing in theatres & on Netflix

Drive My Car – Now playing on Netflix

Dune – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray

Encanto – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray

The Eyes Of Tammy Faye – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray

Flee – Now playing in theatres

Four Good Days – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray

Free Guy – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray

The Hand Of God – Now playing on Netflix

House Of Gucci – February 22

King Richard – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray

Licorice Pizza – Opening wide in theatres on February 11

Luca – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray

Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom – Now playing in theatres

The Lost Daughter – Now playing on Netflix

The Mitchells Vs. The Machines – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray

Nightmare Alley – Now playing in theatres/DVD & Blu-ray: March 22

No Time To Die – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray

Parallel Mothers – Now playing in theatres

The Power Of The Dog – Now playing on Netflix

Raya & The Lost Dragon – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray

Shang-Chi & The Legend Of The Ten Rings – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray

Spencer – Now available on DVD & Blu-ray

Spider-Man: No Way Home – Now playing in theatres/DVD & Blu-ray: March 15

Summer Of Soul – Now playing on Hulu & Disney+ and available on DVD

tick, tick…BOOM! – Now playing on Netflix

The Tragedy Of MacBeth – Now playing on AppleTV+

West Side Story – Disney+/HBO Max: March 2/DVD & Blu-ray: March 15

The Worst Person In The World – Now playing in theatres

Writing With Fire – Now playing in theatres & VOD

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Thursday, February 10, 2022
3:32 a.m.

UPDATE: After a long run on Amazon Prime, Coming 2 America is finally hitting video March 8. One week later, Steven Spielberg’s modernized version of West Side Story arrives. And one week after that comes the digital debut of Guillermo Del Toro’s Nightmare Alley.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, March 2, 2022
3:41 a.m.

UPDATE 2: As noted by The Los Angeles Times, which beat me to the punch two days before this piece was first posted (although they’ve updated today just like me), the documentary Ascension can be seen on the streaming service Paramount+, International Feature nominee The Hand Of God is available on Netflix, Parallel Mothers is now playing in theatres, and another doc Writing With Fire (also exhibiting) can be viewed through Video On Demand. Meanwhile, Summer Of Soul has been available on DVD since February 8 which I didn’t realize until now. Every feature film on this list is now accounted for.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Friday, March 25, 2022
8:38 p.m.

The History Of The Mystery Track – Lauryn Hill Covers Frankie Valli

On August 8, 1997, a new film opened in theatres. Released by Warner Bros., Conspiracy Theory is a comic thriller about a paranoid cabbie who produces a regular newsletter filled with his outlandish ideas about government malfeasance. One such theory, however, turns out to be dead-on accurate suddenly putting his life in danger.

Early on in the film there’s a scene where he’s sitting in his cab. With tiny binoculars he watches a young woman through her window in her apartment building singing along while running on a treadmill. He figures she’s listening to the radio so he flips through the stations in his car hoping to match what he’s hearing to what she’s singing.

In the original script written by Brian Helgeland, the song was supposed to be Blue Moon, an old Rodgers & Hart number from 1934. Instead of securing the rights to the original recording, Helgeland wanted the song covered by Annie Lennox who conveniently was riding high at the time with her hit covers album Medusa. (The screenplay was completed in 1995.)

But by the time Conspiracy Theory had reached the post-production stage of completion in mid-1997, producers ultimately wanted a younger, hotter talent to cover a different song from a more contemporary era.

In February 1996, The Fugees released their second album, The Score. One of the big singles was Killing Me Softly, an uptempo cover of an old Roberta Flack ballad, vocalized by the charismatic 21-year-old Lauryn Hill. Along with other original hits like Fu-Gee-La and Ready Or Not, The Score would go to sell more than 20 million copies worldwide.

But complicated personal entanglements and internal struggles for outside creative freedom involving two members of the trio would ultimately derail the band just as they finally figured out how to get over with a mass audience.

Hill was having an affair with Jean and they were both cheating on each other. Jean actually married his other lover while Hill was having what would become a longterm common law relationship with one of Bob Marley’s sons, the father of their eventual five children.

The final straw was Jean’s refusal to support Hill’s desire to work on her own music outside the group, an idea she had openly expressed internally for a while but denied publicly to the press. At one point, probably realizing this might be the end of the band, Jean then offered to produce her but she refused. By 1997, Hill, Jean and their bandmate Pras would all focus exclusively on their own separate solo projects. Despite occasional live reunions in the 2000s and at least one single, there would be no collective follow-up to The Score.

By the time the producers of Conspiracy Theory came calling, Hill was in the third trimester of her first pregnancy and already working on her first batch of individual songs.

“The recording took about a year and a half,” Commissioner Gordon Williams, the engineer of that eventual solo debut told Rolling Stone magazine in 2008. “Sony never wanted her to make a solo record; they wanted her to make another Fugees record.”

In the midst of all of this, Hill agreed to record a cover for Conspiracy Theory. With Blue Moon discarded as the possible song that Julia Roberts sings along to while Mel Gibson spies on her, producers had cleared another tune that had already been redone by countless artists before.

In 1966, Bob Crewe had suggested a title to his songwriting partner Bob Gaudio. From there, the two worked out a musical scenario, based very loosely on various real-life situations Gaudio knew about and personally experienced, involving a guy madly in love with a woman so beautiful he cannot look away, he is completely transfixed. Rather than record this new song with his vocal quartet The Four Seasons (which included Gaudio as a founding member), the song was constructed strictly for lead singer Frankie Valli who released it under his own name.

Delayed for a full year, after a slow start, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You would go on to become a legitimate smash in 1967, peaking at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. Eleven years later, cast members of The Deer Hunter would sing along to its famous chorus in a scene before they get shipped off to Vietnam, a moment which eventually inspired the Broadway musical Jersey Boys.

Unfortunately, Lauryn Hill had a big problem as the deadline to complete the sessions for her album was fast approaching.

“She called me and said she was behind and had to get it done.” Commissioner Gordon told Rolling Stone. “She didn’t know how the arrangement of the song went, so we went and got a copy from Coconuts or Sam Goody.”

From there, Hill and her creative team quickly put together their own version of the song, updating the arrangement with a more consistent, hip-swiveling gallop without losing any of its heart or soul. The famous horn and string sections from the Motown-inspired original may be gone (although that sure sounds like a slight sample of the former before the first chorus) but in its place is a funky contemporary take on the basic framework. There’s imitative Bobby McFerrinesque instrumentation, beatboxing, an old-timey organ and a smooth, laidback vocal from Hill who name checks the Warner Bros. film that commissioned this performance.

Commissioner Gordon “had a little one-room 16-track studio in my apartment in Jersey. Lauryn was eight months pregnant, laying on her back on the floor, half asleep, holding a handheld mike. She did all of those vocals off the top of her head pretty much in one take, with the beat box and all of that. That blew me away.”

When the song was completed, it was sent to Warner Bros. and quickly forgotten about. Hill gave birth to her son Zion four days after Conspiracy Theory began its late summer theatrical run.

Around the same time of the film’s cinematic debut, the soundtrack was released. Curiously, Hill’s new cover was not included. In fact, there are no pop songs on the album, just 40 minutes or so of composer Carter Burwell’s classical score. Whether Sony, Hill’s label, played any role in Can’t Take My Eyes Off You being left off the record is unclear.

Regardless, Hill told Muse magazine in 1998 that it was “a song that was never intended for radio play or even release.” With a new baby in her life and a solo album still to complete, Hill was too preoccupied with more important matters.

Five months after Conspiracy Theory’s disappointing stint in North American theatres (it didn’t even make back its 80 million dollar budget), the movie debuted on home video and in February 1998, it started playing on pay-per-view and became available on satellite channels like DirecTV.

It had been nearly two years since the arrival of The Score. At the tail end of 1997, Wyclef Jean was the first ex-Fugee out of the gate with a solo album. The Carnival would spawn the Top 10 hit Gone Til November and ultimately go double platinum.

But fans were starved for more. Pras’ Ghetto Supastar album (the title song would get a huge boost from its association with Warren Beatty’s political satire Bulworth in the summer of 1998) wouldn’t be available until the autumn.

Lauryn Hill’s debut was still many months away at the start of the new year. But some of her more enterprising supporters were so impatient for this collection of new music to arrive, realizing there already was something out there in the public domain, they took matters into their own hands.

In the May 9, 1998 edition of Billboard Magazine, writer Datu Faison had a small entry in his regular Rhythm Section column under the header Bootleggers.

“There’s a new recording from Fugees diva Lauryn Hill titled ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ that has everyone scratching their heads. The single was not serviced to radio by Ruffhouse/Columbia [Hill’s label which is owned by Sony], yet managed to garner 188 R&B spins according to Broadcast Data Systems (BDS).” BDS is the official Neilsen ratings system for radio.

According to the brief report, some unknown parties had managed to tape the song as it plays during the middle of Conspiracy Theory’s closing credits. (It begins right after a snipped reprise of Frankie Valli’s original starts to fade at exactly two hours and eleven minutes.)

“[S]omehow a pirate recording was made that was pressed onto CD and DAT [Digital Audio Tape]. It is also possible that someone who had access to the recording and/or master tapes could have also made pirate copies,” Faison speculated not unreasonably in Billboard since the full song is presented through the rest of the remaining end titles.

According to BDS employee Lana Goodman, somehow, a bootleg copy of the song first ended up at KMEL, a San Francisco station. This was confirmed by another industry insider in the May 29, 1998 issue of Entertainment Weekly:

“According to Michelle Santosuosso, program director at Los Angeles’ KKBT, some enterprising soul(s) taped it from the satellite dish when the movie made its pay-per-view television premiere recently and got the bootleg into the hands of deejays, who jumped at the chance to play the phantom single.”

Once KMEL started playing this cover of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, it created a gradual domino effect. According to Faison’s Billboard column, “The song was aired again in April on top 40/rhythm [station] KUBE Seattle, and additional patterns were assigned.”

Southern outlets like WBHJ in Birmingham, Alabama and Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s KTBT ended up playing the song far more than the California stations on the west coast: 140 spins altogether compared to the measly 48 accumulated in San Francisco and Los Angeles. And that was just the beginning. Within a short period of time, the song was added to more and more playlists across the country and even on stations in neighbouring Canada. When all was said and done, the track modestly peaked at #35 on Billboard’s Hot 100 Radio Airplay chart but reached a far more impressive #2 on its Rhythmic chart.

This unexpected development greatly concerned Sony who had already drawn up big plans for Hill’s solo album. It had already been decided that Doo Wop (That Thing) was going to be the first single. (It would drop in June.) They feared it would be overshadowed by Can’t Take My Eyes Off You and therefore not as popular, a silly fear in retrospect since Doo Wop debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and would be the biggest of all the singles from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

Hill, on the other hand, had a different reaction. She told Entertainment Weekly in their May 29, 1998 issue that it was “flattering that they’re playing [the song]…” She told Muse that same year, “I thought it was kind of funny, another cover version taking off like that.” (According to the official Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons website, there are at least 200 remakes in existence.)

Uncertain at first about how to proceed, Sony was left with few options. They could ignore the whole situation and let the bootleg airings continue until the hoopla died down which was ridiculous considering how popular the song was getting. They could demand radio stations stop playing the song altogether which would have resulted in bad publicity and a fan backlash. As a reasonable alternative, they could simply release an official version as a CD single.

With The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill scheduled for an August release in the United States (September in Canada), Sony ultimately came to an obvious conclusion. With expectations growing to a fever pitch, that damn Conspiracy Theory track had to go on the album. (There would be no single release after all (although Sony would send promo copies to radio stations all over the world), hence its absence from the Hot 100 which only counted physical commercial releases at the time.) It had unwittingly become an effective marketing tool.

With the artwork and packaging already completed, and far too expensive to replace, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You would become a Stickered Bonus Track. (It would otherwise go completely unmentioned in the liner notes and track listing.) Even print ads would prominently promote the song making note of its unlisted status. (You’ll find it on track 15. It actually runs six seconds shorter than the movie version and rather than fading out, it ends cold.) As she later told Muse Magazine, Hill was far from happy about the decision:

“I hadn’t intended to have a cover on the album at all…Naturally there was some record company pressure, but if I had my way it wouldn’t be on it at all.”

By this point, Hill was in the middle trimester of her second pregnancy and probably not in any real condition to put up a significant fight. (She would give birth to her second child, a daughter, that November.)

In early January 1999, the nominations for the 41st annual Grammy Awards were announced. Lauryn Hill would make history by securing ten, the most ever for an individual woman. One of those nominations was for Best Pop Vocal Female Performance. Her version of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, a song that was only supposed to be heard during the end titles of a bad movie, was now in contention for a major prize. It had marked the first time a mystery track had secured a nomination since the full version of I’ll Be There For You by The Rembrandts just a few years earlier.

A month later at the actual ceremony, Hill would bat .500 overall. Besides taking the golden gramophone for Best R&B Album, The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill was also named Album Of The Year beating out the likes of Garbage and Madonna. Hill would also win Best New Artist over The Backstreet Boys and The Dixie Chicks. Despite being denied nominations for Song and Single Of The Year, Doo Wop still managed to win Best R&B Song and Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.

Interestingly, Hill found herself competing with her ex-boyfriend and bandmate in the Best Rap Solo Performance category. It was Wyclef Jean’s Gone Til November vs. her diss track of him, Lost Ones, another Miseducation song that initially got an unauthorized pre-album release. In the end, Will Smith’s Gettin’ Jiggy With It proved too irresistible for Grammy voters to deny.

When the winner was announced for Best Pop Vocal Female Performance, Hill’s Can’t Take My Eyes Off You was beaten by Celine Dion’s unstoppable Titanic anthem, My Heart Will Go On, already an Oscar winner from the previous year. Still, five for ten was a very good night for the former member of The Fugees.

Five months later, the song would find its way in an episode of the short-lived NBC daytime soap opera Sunset Beach. In the final quarter of its July 6, 1999 noon hour broadcast, journalist Vanessa (Sherri Saum) and her rescuer Michael (Jason Winston George) have a romantic picnic while Hill’s cover plays throughout. There’s no dialogue as the couple make out and walk around. On the final episode of the series, which aired on New Year’s Eve that same year, they were married.

Two months before that at the 26th Annual Daytime Emmys in May, Hill’s version of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You played in the background throughout a clip montage showcasing past winners of the Best Actor and Best Actress in a Dramatic Series categories. At the 27th ceremony in 2000, a taped bit involving Susan Lucci spending the day with her long sought after Emmy (she had famously lost eighteen times in a row before winning in 1999) was scored curiously to Frankie Valli’s original.

In 2008, ten years after its official release on The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill, an unauthorized remix started circulating exclusively in Europe.

In 2016, Hill’s cover would re-appear in the romantic comedy How To Be Single, albeit for a mere 75 seconds. It pops up at the 99-minute mark near the end of the scene when Dakota Johnson visits “best friend” Rebel Wilson and realizes she’s “super rich”. (If you listen closely, you can hear the shout-out to Conspiracy Theory when the girls sit down on the floor to eat.) Four members of the film’s cast, including Johnson, sing the song a cappella in a couple of scenes. (Damon Wayans Jr.’s on-screen daughter refers to it as the “Eyes Of You” song.) Hill’s Grammy-nominated version, however, was curiously left off the soundtrack. Conspicuously absent from the film, another remake by Walk Off The Earth, replaced it on the CD. (In the movie, an instrumental organ version chimes in just as the Hill version fades out.) In 2020, Hill’s take popped up again in the straight-to-streaming Disney+ sports feature Safety.

With the definitive Valli classic already a standard for more than 30 years and Hill’s song reviving interest near the end of the millennium, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You would continue to be covered in the decades to come and sometimes by the most unlikely people.

The late Heath Ledger would woo bitchy Julia Stiles with an a cappella version in the 1999 romantic comedy 10 Things I Hate About You, a modernized take on Shakespeare’s Taming Of The Shrew. The late Andy Williams, best known for singing the Christmas staple It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year, covered the song in 1968 and many years later it found its way in Bridget Jones’s Diary in 2001. He re-recorded it as a duet with Broadway star Denise Van Outen (Chicago) the following year.

In a deleted scene from the 2002 live action Scooby Doo remake, Linda Cardellini’s Velma has a go Michelle Pfeiffer-style while the bald-headed villain tickles the ivories. In the 2005 sequel Son Of The Mask, there are multiple genre versions (rap, disco, country) heard during the Halloween party sequence, most of them sung by Jamie Kennedy.

Even Howard Stern favourite Mr. Methane, the gonzo comedian who can fart on command, has attempted his own unique spin on Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.

On a March 2021 episode of her self-named daytime talk show, the first American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson covered Hill’s version as part of her regular Kellyoke segment where she performs famous remakes with a backing band. In 96 seconds, she more than holds her own as she confidentally rolls through the first verse and chorus in this shortened version. Her back-up singers even recreate the “bah dah” bit near the end.

Interestingly, this is not the first time Clarkson has performed Hill’s R&B recreation. During a live gig in February 2019, before performing a complete version of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, she dedicated the song to her then-husband. Nineteen months later, after seven years of marriage, they would be divorced.

While it’s not exactly clear what Frankie Valli thinks of Hill’s rendition (his official website only acknowledges its “hip-hop makeover”, although in the very next sentence, which offers celebrity testimonials, she appears to be obliquely referenced as one of the “many other great recording artists” his band “influenced”), co-writer and former bandmate Bob Gaudio is most definitely a fan. When asked by Songfacts.com for his opinion, he offered the following:

“I love the record, it’s one of my favorite versions.”

And although initially disappointed by the absence of the famous horn section, Gaudio realized Hill’s version didn’t really need it to succeed:

“But when I first heard it I thought she had the audacity to do this song without the horns. How dare she? [Laughing]

Songfacts: That’s such a big part of the song, right?

Gaudio: I thought it was when I first wrote it. That was my big assignment: take the verse, which was soft and sweet and melodic, and then kick into the drums of the chorus. How do I bridge that gap? And the horns was the filler. I thought building with the horns to get to the chorus was the setup. And she comes along and doesn’t use the horns. But it still worked. So it was quite an interesting lesson for me.”

Why are there so many versions of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You? Valli offered his theory to Songfacts:

“It’s a very, very tough song to do badly. When the song is that strong to start off with, that’s the kind of song you look for.”

Lauryn Hill proved him right.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Thursday, May 27, 2021
3:41 a.m.

Wit Sorely Missed At Bizarro 2021 Oscars

Anthony Hopkins over Chadwick Boseman? Frances McDormand howling like a wolf? Glenn Close dancing to Da Butt?

What the fuck happened to the Oscars this year? In the midst of the ongoing Covid pandemic the show had to go on. But did it have to go on quite like this?

Taking place at the Union Station in Los Angeles, a spacious environment once redressed for Blade Runner and Catch Me If You Can decades earlier, the 93rd annual Academy Awards felt like a more stripped down, subdued and deeply glum Golden Globes. You had to treasure levity when it appeared. And it did not appear nearly enough.

As expected, Nomadland took home Best Picture. What wasn’t expected was that it wasn’t the last award of the evening. It was third to last, the first time this has happened in 50 years. Equally weird was how early Best Director was announced. Out of the 23 competitive Oscars handed out tonight, it was presented 7th. The Chinese-born Chloe Zhao made history as the second woman (after Kathryn Bigelow in 2010) but the first woman of colour to collect the golden naked man in this category.

Wacky Frances McDormand kept it short and odd when she collected her third Best Actress gong for playing the lead which Variety and Vulture correctly called and I completely botched. With the academy spreading out the awards, it was the big winner with a mere three.

While fellow Best Picture nominees Mank, Sound Of Metal and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom all took home two technical trinkets apiece, Judas And The Black Messiah won Best Original Song for Fight For You, the only worthy nominee with its catchy, understated uptempo soul, and Best Supporting Actor for the appreciative Brit Daniel Kaluuya who appeared to embarrass his sister and confuse his mom with a very funny acknowledgement of how he came to be. He also paid gracious tribute to Fred Hampton Sr., the civil rights icon he immortalizes on film.

Speaking of Soul, it won Best Animated Feature as expected and took home Best Original Score, making Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross two-time winners. They previously won for their terrific techno work on The Social Network. Checking their white privilege, they let first-time winner Jon Batiste, Stephen Colbert’s Black late night musical director, cut an acceptance promo all on his own. Umm, we all know about the 12 notes, dude. Or is it 13?

I don’t know what Glenn Close has to do to win a fucking Oscar but she’s now 0 for 8. The good news is she didn’t lose to Olivia Colman. Charmingly funny Yuh-Jung Youn (Minari) was named Best Supporting Actress which everybody except my family anticipated. The first ever Korean acting winner, she seemed as pleased to finally meet Brad Pitt as she was to be called up onstage. With funny quips about her sons and how she really feels about award competitions (she said she doesn’t believe in them, then zinged, in reference to her fellow nominees, “I’m luckier than you.”), she thankfully brought to life if just for a moment a very quiet room that seemed confused about whether to applaud at all during any of the presentations.

But the biggest stunner of the night would come at the very end.

In the past, the previous year’s Best Actor winner would present the current year’s Best Actress award and vice versa. Not at this bizarro Oscars. Men honoured men and women honoured women, not that that’s such a big deal, honestly.

Following McDormand’s win for Best Actress (looks like Carey Mulligan got punished after all), the final award was for Best Actor. Let’s face it. We were all thinking it. They saved this category for last so they could give the late Chadwick Boseman, who was acknowledged in the quick-paced, Stevie Wonder-soundtracked In Memoriam, a gracious farewell.

But no. When Joaquin Phoenix opened the envelope, he announced Anthony Hopkins (The Father) as the winner for Best Actor. (Variety wisely suggested he could be a spoiler (like me, they picked Boseman to take it) and they were right.) Hopkins was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t even on Zoom. Considering how well Black talent performed this year, what a slap in the face to Boseman. And what a sour note to end a very strange ceremony.

The Father was also named Best Adapted Screenplay, another upset victory over the expected recipient Nomadland. As for Promising Young Woman, it had to settle for Best Original Screenplay, its only reward. The only Best Picture nominee to be completely snubbed was The Trial Of The Chicago 7.

Because all the Best Original Song nominees were performed during the typically asskissy and overlong pre-show, there was far less filler during the actual ceremony, although what was the point of Name That Tune other than to make Black people look stupid on camera? Not sure if Glenn Close really knew that song from Spike Lee’s School Daze (it felt like a scripted moment) but I did appreciate her twerking. And thank God for Harrison Ford reading those humourously brutal notes an unnamed Warner Bros. studio exec gave the classic Blade Runner.

As for Laura Dern’s hideous feather dress, bring back Bjork’s dead, wraparound swan. All is forgiven.

The complete list of winners:

BEST PICTURE – NOMADLAND

BEST DIRECTOR – Chloe Zhao (NOMADLAND)

BEST ACTRESS – Frances McDormand (NOMADLAND)

BEST ACTOR – Anthony Hopkins (THE FATHER)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – Yuh-Jung Youn (MINARI)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – Daniel Kaluuya (JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE – SOUL

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE – ANOTHER ROUND

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE – MY OCTOPUS TEACHER

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – Fight For You (JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – SOUL

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY – THE FATHER

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS – TENET

BEST FILM EDITING – SOUND OF METAL

BEST SOUND – SOUND OF METAL

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY – MANK

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN – MANK

BEST MAKE-UP & HAIRSTYLING – MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM

BEST COSTUME DESIGN – MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM

BEST ANIMATED SHORT – IF ANYTHING HAPPENS I LOVE YOU

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT – TWO DISTANT STRANGERS

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT – COLETTE

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Monday, April 26, 2021
2:40 a.m.

2021 Oscar Predictions

BEST PICTURE – NOMADLAND

Should we even being having an Oscar ceremony this year? It’s the question many film lovers have asked themselves over the past several months as the air date for the 93th edition kept getting pushed back. Now arriving on April 25th, we have a firm night and time to look forward to golden gongs being handed out to movies most of us haven’t seen, let alone pontificate for even a moment as we all shelter in place.

Back in the early 1990s, when I was an aspiring teenage film critic in high school armed with more enthusiastic pluck than experience and literary skill, I had seen most of the nominated feature films well before the ceremony thanks to frequent and often solitary trips to various multiplexes and, of course, home video. But in recent years, I’ve found myself always playing catch-up, lucky to see even one nominee. In 2021, none of these films are familiar to me.

The nine nominated films for Best Picture this year were lucky to get any kind of theatrical release considering the sheer amount of time cinemas across North America were boarded up and closed due to the plague of Covid. Europe was a bit better in terms of containment which is why some Hollywood studios opted to go wider overseas where it was most likely for certain tent pole titles to recoup some of their exorbitant expenses.

Although some of these nominated entries got a limited cinematic release here during brief reprieves from lockdowns, all of them were mostly available for consumption on streaming services like Netflix, Apple and Amazon. But how many of you took the time to watch even one nominated film? Realizing the inevitable, the academy loosened some of its eligibility rules to reflect this hopefully temporary change in distribution.

Yes, you’re right. I’m stalling with my prediction. So let’s get on with it.

This year’s race for me is really between two films which means Judas & The Black Messiah, Mank, Minari, Sound Of Metal, The Trial Of The Chicago 7 and The Father are all long shots to snag the golden naked man. No need to waste any more time talking about their chances.

That leaves the rape revenge thriller Promising Young Woman and the travelogue drama Nomadland. Both films in fact have their fans and their harsh critics. I’ll reserve my own judgment until I finally watch them. Considering the make-up of the academy (still mostly old white guys), I’d be surprised if Promising Young Woman gets the duke although ironically it has a stronger shot than most of the other titles.

But since the nominations were announced a couple of months ago, Nomadland was already talked about as the front runner. Barring an upset from PYW, the only possible alternative scenario I see (unless somehow upon reflection Aaron Sorkin’s Chicago 7 swoops in for the steal), it’ll be Nomadland picking up the trophy.

BEST DIRECTOR – Chloe Zhao (NOMADLAND)

I’ve said this before but it bares repeating. As Roger Ebert pointed out many times, if you win the Director’s Guild of America award, nine times out of ten you repeat the honour at the Oscars. Chloe Zhao, the director of Nomadland, won the DGA this year. She will win the Academy Award. Case closed.

BEST ACTRESS – Carey Mulligan (PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN)

The usual mix of newbies and academy favourites fill this year’s Best Actress category.

The highly regarded Viola Davis has already won for Fences a few years ago. Some have pegged her for a second on Sunday for playing Ma Rainey but I’m not so convinced. Frances McDormand is so well liked and respected she has two of these golden gongs, one for the overrated Fargo and the other, more recently, for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Could she pull a Daniel Day-Lewis and make it a trio of golden naked men? Maybe but I don’t think so. She really doesn’t need it. She already has a fully honoured legacy.

The pop singer Andra Day won good notices for playing the jazz legend Billie Holiday and could very well snag a trinket. That seems unlikely to me, though. Ditto fellow first-time nominee Vanessa Kirby, a Brit who I’m sure is already happy enough getting high profile gigs in the lucrative Mission: Impossible and Fast & Furious franchises.

No other performance in this category has been as buzzed about as Carey Mulligan’s in Promising Young Woman. And while she didn’t do herself any favours by fundamentally misunderstanding the role of a critic (panning unsexy acting is part of the job description) and publicly whining about a positive review from Variety, a review that had been available online for a year before it suddenly got any criticism from her or anybody else, I don’t think that’s going to hurt her in the long run. Previously nominated for An Education over a decade ago, the Oscar is hers on Sunday.

BEST ACTOR – Chadwick Boseman (MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM)

Why even bother talking about anybody else in this category? Ok, if we must.

Anthony Hopkins already has his prestigious gong for The Silence Of The Lambs. Gary Oldman snagged his for playing Churchill in Darkest Hour a few years ago. Meanwhile, first-time nominees Steven Yeun (Minari) and Riz Ahmed (Sound Of Metal) have literally zero shot at winning this thing. They’ll have to be satisfied with just being invited to the party.

Long before the nominations were even announced, the late Chadwick Boseman was already seen as the guy to beat here. Tragically felled by cancer at age 43, his career was just starting to flourish in the last few years. He managed to play James Brown, Thurgood Marshall and Black Panther, the latter two parts while quietly suffering with what must’ve been terrible pain and fatigue.

His performance in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom won plaudits from critics and audiences who managed to see it. Winning the Oscar posthumously will be a way for the industry to acknowledge not just his work in this film but his entire body of work. I’ll be very surprised if his name isn’t called on Sunday.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – Glenn Close (HILLBILLY ELEGY)

In 2019, perennial bridesmaid Glenn Close was the overwhelming favourite to win Best Actress for her lead performance in The Wife. So, when Olivia Colman’s name was announced as the actual winner, it was a genuine shock, most especially because she won for being in a movie literally called The Favourite.

Two years later, a surprising rematch is shaping up in the Best Supporting Actress category. Colman, who plays Anthony Hopkins’ daughter in The Father, is competing against Close’s unrecognizable redneck mama in Hillbilly Elegy. Is history going to repeat itself?

No. Colman’s not going to win a second gong. As for their competitors, lovely Amanda Seyfried (Mank), a possible dark horse, could come up from behind and slip in undetected, but I don’t think so. First-time nominees Maria Bakalova (Borat 2) and Youn Yuh-Yung (Minari) are unlikely recipients in their own right.

Even though Ron Howard’s Hillbilly Elegy received much critical scorn when it came out last fall, Close’s performance, also curiously nominated for a Razzie, actually impressed many critics. Nominated eight times throughout the last 40 years, surely, this is the year she finally breaks through on Oscar night.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – Daniel Kaluuya (JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH)

After years of justifiable complaints about the lack of Black talent in the acting categories, 2021 has proven to be an exceptional year. Just look at the diverse nominees for Best Supporting Actor, three of whom aren’t white.

Even better, one of them is going to win and get a major push as a result of that win.

That means Sasha Baron Cohen (Borat 2) and longtime character actor Paul Raci (Sound Of Metal) will remain seated.

But it also means that Leslie Odom Jr. (One Night In Miami) and Lakeith Stanfield (Judas And The Black Messiah) are also unlikely to be called up on stage, if in fact they’ll even be in the audience at all this year.

Much like Best Actor, the Best Supporting Actor favourite emerged upon the announcement of the nominations. Stanfield’s co-star Daniel Kaluuya has been singled out ever since reviewers had a look at his portrayal of the legendary civil rights activist Fred Hampton. With renewed interest in the struggle for Black liberation in the wake of so many needless police shootings in the last decade alone, the release of the acclaimed Judas And The Black Messiah has been timely. A win for Kaluuya will not only be a boost for him. It will mean belated legitimization of a growing global movement Hampton played a major role in creating.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE – SOUL

BEST SOUND – SOUND OF METAL

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS – TENET

BEST COSTUME DESIGN – MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM

BEST MAKE-UP & HAIRSTYLING – MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN – MANK

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY – NOMADLAND

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT – TWO DISTANT STRANGERS

BEST ANIMATED SHORT – IF ANYTHING HAPPENS I LOVE YOU

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT – HUNGER WARD

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE – CRIP CAMP

BEST ORIGINAL SONG – Fight For You (JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – MINARI

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY – NOMADLAND

BEST FILM EDITING – NOMADLAND

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE – BETTER DAYS

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Friday, April 23, 2021
6:23 p.m.