I find myself having a bit more time this Oscar season, so I’m dusting off an old regular feature I used to write. Every year I break down the Best Picture contenders on the podcast, but I used to complement these pods with blogs writing about films that weren’t nominated for Best Picture, but show up elsewhere. This was something I did for several years back on Live in Limbo, where the podcast originally started at. Twice a week (if my schedule allows it) I will break down the odds that three or so films have to win their categories. Each nomination will be given a Frontrunner, Darkhorse, Longshot or Just Happy To Be There (JHTBT) designation.
Click HERE to read more entries. In this edition I will be talking about The Wild Robot, Alien: Romulus and A Different Man.
The Wild Robot dir. Chris Sanders
The film has three nominations.
- Best Animated Film Frontrunner
- Best Original Score – Kris Bowers, Randy Thom JHTBT
- Best Sound – Randy Thom, Brian Chumney, Gary A. Rizzo, Leff Lefferts JHTBT
The Wild Robot is the baby of Chris Sanders, a man who quickly rose through the ranks at Disney where his crowning achievements were writing The Beauty and The Beast (the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture), The Lion King and directing Lilo & Stitch before becoming apart of the braintrust at Dreamworks. He co-directed How To Train Your Dragon and solo directed The Croods. The Wild Robot is his latest film pushing CGI to stunning new highs combining picturesque realism with a film that still has a watercolour charm. The simple story is based on a children’s book of a helper robot who accidentally is delivered to an uninhabited island where it must find its supposed owner and complete all assigned tasks. The robot named ROZ (Lupita Nyong’o) learns the languages of the animals who live on the island, adopts an orphaned baby goose Brightbill (Kit Connor) and decides that its mission is to teach it to fly and be accepted by the rest of the flock.
The animation is sublime, even if I have a preference for something where the animator’s hand is more visible (hand drawn, claymation, stop motion etc). While there is a Pixar film in this category (Inside Out 2), for the first time in what feels like a while, the most popular films aren’t dominating this category, even if Dreamworks is one of the major studios. With three nominations total, it’s hard not to look at this film as a frontrunner in the category, if not for the fact that it’s biggest competition also has a nomination outside the Best Animated Film category. So co-frontrunners I suppose it is!
Kris Bowers is a two time nominee, winning one of them before being the composer of note for The Wild Robot. Except his previous two nods came for co-directing documentary short films, albeit ones about music, winning last year for The Last Repair Shop. He’s been steadily working in film and television for over fifteen years now composing for the likes of Bridgerton, The Color Purple and Green Book. He combines a playfulness with lush intensity suitable for a family friendly film. When much of the emotional heavy lifting is required from the music, Bowers is up to the challenge. It isn’t genre bending and he isn’t experimenting with how to create sonic palates, but it is perfectly cromulent for the film, serving its purpose. It likely is coming in near the bottom of ballots, possibly due to an animation bias since it is seen as a kids movie and partly due to the phenomenal work ahead of it, so this is just happy to be here.
The sound design in this film mixes high tech robotic sound effects with the soothing sounds of nature. From the wind blowing in the trees to wings flapping to deer running across the plains and the call of every animal that can be found in rural Canada (I’m going to assume the film takes place here since one of the main characters is a Canadian goose). Unfortunately the film is up against three musicals and a futuristic sci-fi film means it has an extraordinary uphill route to climb, placing this squarely in the just happy to be there category.
I expect The Wild Robot to go home with 0-1 wins.
Alien: Romulus dir. Fede Alvarez
The film has one nomination.
- Best Visual Effects – Eric Barba, Nelson Sepulveda, Daniel Macarin, Shane Mahan JHTBT
This is the seventh film in the Alien franchise (9th if you count the Predator crossovers) that began in 1979 with the Ridley Scott film. Since then such esteemed directors as James Cameron, David Fincher and Jean-Pierre Jeunet have all directed entries with the latest coming from horror filmmaker Fede Alvarez, best known for rebooting the Evil Dead franchise in 2013 and making Don’t Breathe. The Alien series started out as a pure horror film that relied mostly on suspense before transitioning hard into action then trying to find a balance between the two styles. Romulus has the most scares since the original, with Alvarez leaning hard into jump scares and uncomfortable creature interactions.
By now movie fans know what a Xenomorph looks like, albeit each film gives them a unique twist. Here we get the best look at a Facehugger in the franchise as there is a room full of the creature that attaches to a host’s face to implant what will become a Chestburster as the main characters must cross a section of a space station to get to safety. There is then of course the final creature that is a cross between a human and a Xenmorph when one of the characters gives birth to it, creating a monstrosity never before seen in the Alien world. The film uses a mix of practical and CGI effects to add realness as opposed to just slickness.
You can’t talk about the film without mentioning the use of the Rook character, which is an android played by Ian Holm. Except Holm passed away back in 2020. Rook is modeled to look like him circa 1979 (it is only the upper half of his body anyways) with another actor voicing him. The issue arose when it was revealed that AI was used to animate Rook’s face and match the voice actor to sound more like Holm. The film does a pretty decent job with its special effects but frankly it feels off putting to reward a film that used AI like this with an Oscar. The film has very stiff competition from Dune: Part Two, which goes for more seamless integration of the special effects and two movies that push forward the use of motion capture performances to really give Alien: Romulus a shot at winning. Frankly it’s at the bottom of the pile this year.
I expect Alien: Romulus to go home with 0 wins.
A Different Man dir. Aaron Schimberg
The film has one nomination.
- Best Makeup and Hairstyling – Michael Marino, David Presto, Crystal Jurado Darkhorse
A Different Man is a unique film. It’s a comedy, it’s a horror, it’s a romance, it’s a drama, it’s hard to pin down. Sebastian Stan plays a man who suffers from neurofibromatosis, a condition where non-cancerous tumours grow on the nervous system which manifest in different ways. In the case of Edward it is facial deformities that cause him undue stress and loneliness due to looking different from other people. He wants to be an actor and writer but his self confidence won’t allow it. He signs up for an experimental procedure which will remove the tumours. It works and voila, suddenly Edward goes from someone who gets stared at in every room because of his condition, to looking like Sebastian Stan and gets stared at for being so handsome. He had a crush on his neighbour, the beautiful Ingrid (Renate Reinsve) who vowed to one day write a play about him, but after his transformation he pretends that Edward has died and lives his life as “Guy”.
For about a third of the film, we see the world through Edward, how he is treated and his inner loneliness. After the transformation “Guy” meets and befriends Oswald (Adam Pearson) who also has neurofibromatosis, but isn’t suffering from it, he’s thriving in spite of the condition. He is everything Edward never was, confident with ladies, vulnerable, willing to meet new people and more. Pearson actually has neurofibromatosis and getting to compare his real face to the makeup work done on Stan is incredible. They have the same texture and movement and add in Stan’s remarkable performance it is easy to assume a different man was actually playing Edward. This film is a case of makeup being done for one specific person so well that it gained the nomination.
While I haven’t seen The Apprentice yet, another film that features a lot of hair and makeup, this was the performance I wish Stan was nominated for. While the ending goes a little too bonkers for my liking, it’s very much worth a watch still. The makeup in my opinion is top notch, but the Academy often likes to award quantity over singular quality so sadly it is a Darkhorse with a very hard hill to climb.
I expect A Different Man to go home with 0 wins.
