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 past entries. In this edition I will be talking about The Apprentice, Porcelain War and Better Man.
The Apprentice dir. Ali Abbasi
The film has two nominations.
- Best Actor – Sebastian Stan JHTBT
- Best Supporting Actor – Jeremy Strong JHTBT
I’m going to be honest. I had zero intention of ever watching this movie. Not that I believed it was bad by any means, quite the opposite actually. I’m just so sick of hearing about this asshole that I didn’t want to spend two hours living with him on screen and in my mind. When it got nominated for two Oscars I resigned myself to watching it. And just as I expected, this film is incredible. I already have Sebastian Stan as my personal Best Actor for his turn in A Different Man, but what a year he had.
The film follows some asshole from New York (Sebastian Stan) as he is trying to rebuild the Commodore Hotel in his own gilden image while at the same time the family business is being sued for discriminating against black people. That asshole meets another asshole named Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), who helps him with the case and mentors him to become the even bigger asshole he became.
Sebastian Stan is a revelation. The hair and makeup departments make him look like this asshole, but his impression differs from those that are performed on Saturday Night Live and other late night talk shows. It’s subtle and meticulous. He knows when to just do a Queens accent and when to put on the mannerisms. As the film progresses we see more and more of “the personality” come to the forefront, so much so that if you take a scene from the start and end of the film and compare them it would be like Stan was playing two different people. You hate his guts, but you understand the motivations he has and how his raging ego must always be satiated. It was a surprise that he was nominated considering how toxic this movie has become with the re-election of that asshole. He likely is in fifth place and is just happy to be there, even though I probably have him second on my own ballot of the five nominees.
Jeremy Strong is in a very similar boat to Stan. He turns in an incredible performance and has next to no chance to win. I’m not familiar with the mannerisms of Cohn, but from what I’ve read, he also nails the impression. At every chance you see the cogs in his head turning to figure out how to make a situation beneficial to himself. His voice and affectations will leave their mark on viewers, as he continues his hot streak post Succession. Strong is also solidly in fifth place, but unlike Stan there is a defined frontrunner for Supporting Actor, and it is Roman Roy.
I expect The Apprentice to go home with 0 wins.
Read Jeff Bulmer’s review of The Apprentice.
Porcelain War dir. Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev
The film has one nomination.
- Best Documentary Longshot
As Russia’s invasion into Ukraine still sadly rages on, we continue to get more documentaries about the atrocities and toll it is taking on Ukrainians. For the past two years the Best Documentary has gone to a film about the conflict, with 20 Days in Mariupol showing the first few weeks from the frontlines in Ukraine and Navalny a portrait of the now-deceased official opposition leader to Putin in Russia. Porcelain War continues this tradition by looking at a unit in the Ukrainian army that is run by an artist who uses porcelain to make sculptures, with his wife painting them, and the people he commands are either fellow artists or tradespeople. The film is about how these people would rather be working in their chosen fields instead of figuring out how to jerry rig a drone to drop mortars on Russian tanks or become sharpshooters.
The Best Documentary award often goes to the most politically relevant film as it is the pulse of the Oscars. In years where things appear more hopeful you get winners like My Octopus Teacher, Free Solo and Amy. In years where certain aspects of society are under a microscope you get winners like 20 Days in Mariupol, Summer of Soul and Citizenfour. This year the most relevant topic is the conflict in Gaza and systemic violence Palestinians are facing. That said, No Other Land might be too politically charged of a film. The fact that the past two winners have been about Russia and its actions, hurts Porcelain War as the Academy may wish to go in another direction. That makes this film a longshot, likely in the 3-4 range of the group.
I expect Porcelain War to go home with 0 wins.
Better Man dir. Michael Gracey
The film has one nomination.
- Best Visual Effects Longshot
The surprise of this year’s crop of Oscar nominated movies might be just how great Better Man is. No one ever gets excited about biopics these days, and when they feature Robbie Williams being played by a CGI chimpanzee who’s solo albums and records with Take That never even charted in America, it was bound for disaster. Except the movie turned out to be excellent. Highlights include the Rock DJ sequence and anytime where the Gallagher brothers from Oasis are on screen. It’s a fun ride that has a surprising amount of heart to it.
Obviously the VFX nomination is mostly for making Williams a monkey, we see him as a young boy, a scrawny teen, bleaching his hair as a young man and as a mature adult post bad boy era. It all fits in pretty seamlessly, and as it is being advertised that you won’t even think it is weird after the first few minutes of the movie is accurate. In my opinion it features the second best VFX of the category, but because of the obscure subject matter (a thing that has been memed too hard now) and the box office disaster it was, ensures this film will not win. It’s a really long longshot with its only hope being that people appreciate its originality.
I expect Better Man to go home with 0 wins.
