We are back for a third year in a row proving that Rachel and Dakota have better taste than Oscar voters. We made our own list of nominees and winners for each category and added a little commentary for each of our picks. Enjoy some gentle teasing and ruthless evisceration! Who would you have picked for the Oscars?
Best Supporting Actress
Dakota – We start things off on a similar boat with having three names on both our ballots. Hong Chau got nominated for the wrong movie this year!
Rachel – Completely agree — not to say she isn’t fantastic in The Whale, but she was a scene stealer in The Menu. Also, the Academy needs more love for vocal performances in animated movies!
Dakota – “Tortillas”.
Best Supporting Actor
Dakota – Aaron Pierre gang rise up! No one probably has seen Brother, but here we are both naming him Best Supporting Actor. Hopefully the Canadian Screen Awards do him justice and give him the Performance in a Supporting Role award.
Rachel – Few performances made me take notice of an actor more than Pierre’s did. Can’t wait to see what else he gets up to. Also, I love your Broker love.
Best Actress
Rachel – Not to say the Academy was a little boring in this category, but yea, they were a little boring. There were some really great performances even beyond Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh, glad we captured a few.
Dakota – Considering we combined only named two of the actual nominees, I’d completely agree with the boring comment. It was nice to see a great comeback performance from J-Law. Also good on you for following up on your voice acting comment with a second vocal performance getting a nod.
Best Actor
Dakota – You did the thing I didn’t have the courage too, you gave Colin Farrell three nominations. After Yang, The Banshees of Inisherin and The Batman. As we talked about on our predictions podcast, it was the year of Colin.
Rachel – Colin Farrell had one of the best years I can remember in recent years from an actor. Not just great performances, but incredibly varied, too — especially if you include Thirteen Lives.
Dakota – ambuLAnce huh?
Rachel – Put some respect on Michael Bay’s ambuLAnce.
Best Original Score
Rachel – Babylon’s score was truly something else this year and it’s great to see Justin Hurwitz continue to get recognition for his work. Also, I love the Stars at Noon inclusion from you.
Dakota – Thanks! I loved the free form loose jazz from Stars at Noon. It was both relaxing and unnerving. I think it will take a long time for that three note motif from All Quiet to leave my head.
Best Original Song
Dakota – If I didn’t know any better I’d swear you only watched one movie with songs all year.
Rachel – Listen, when Kid Cudi puts out a record and a movie, you fill out your ballot accordingly.
Dakota – Fine!
Best Original Screenplay
Rachel – Ashgrove is such a great shout in this category. A tight and organized screenplay in a movie that could’ve gone the way of tedious explanation.
Dakota – Had to give love to that Canadian flick. While Decision to Leave didn’t quite work for me, I respect its audaciousness. The Menu just missed my cut.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Rachel – I think this is a strong year for this category, almost more so than original. There were some really great new interpretations of text. Also, I’m glad neither of us chose screenplays that were just sequels. Always feels like a cop out from the Academy.
Dakota – I didn’t even know we didn’t put up any sequels, nice call out! Yeah, it was a really stacked category. Our picks also run the gamut of source materials. We have books, plays, short stories and even a previous film, but no sequels!
Rachel – We’re cultured swine.
Best Cinematography
Dakota – We talked about it on the predictions podcast, but we teased that we had far superior picks for this category. I’m a fan of the slow, deliberately paced films and my picks all have lots of long takes.
Rachel – I don’t think Decision to Leave is a particularly excellent movie, but the cinematography is incredible and I don’t know how it’s gotten so overlooked in this category.
Dakota – Park was doing some really inventive things to tell a story. Also I think this is the first category we have no overlap (other than your interesting Song picks).
Best Sound
Dakota – I love that all our picks are from actually good films! This is your justice for The Menu.
Rachel – I very rarely pay mind to a movie’s sound if I’m honest but The Menu is one that I noticed straight away. Even though I put All Quiet as my pick, I’d argue The Menu’s sound crew had a more difficult job bringing everything together.
Dakota – I also want to highlight my pick of Topology of Sirens. It was a pretty tiny film I saw during a fest last year and its whole premise is based around a sonic design. Great indie flick.
Best Costumes
Rachel – I think we both have great picks for this, but I’m realising now how easy it is to pick movies not set in contemporary times for this category. (Yes, EEAAO is technically contemporary, but it’s a multi-verse so it doesn’t count.) Take this as my official declaration that next year I’m going to focus on movies set in the present for one.
Dakota – Ya, it’s tricky. I wish to honour contemporary movies too, but you basically have to have huge colour pops like La La Land just to break through.
Best Hair and Makeup
Rachel – I just want to say that my EEAAO pick here is simply because of this look on Stephanie Hsu by Michelle Chung.
Dakota – I don’t have a ton to add here, other than I like to consider both hair and makeup equally, something I feel like the Academy doesn’t. Crimes of the Future was actually long listed for this award, it would have been cool to see Ear Man dancing at the Oscars!
Best Animated Feature
Dakota – I’m still fuming that Richard Linklater’s Apollo 10 ½ didn’t make the cut and the Academy went as far to try to claim that because it was rotoscoped, it wasn’t “animated”. I personally don’t consider Marcel the Shell With Shoes On to be animated, but since other groups call it one, it shows up on my list.
Rachel – The Academy was just ridiculous in this category, though, I’m glad they did eventually come to their senses with Apollo 10 1/2. Also, more people need to see Entergalactic and Charlotte.
Dakota – Know any good songs from Entergalactic?
Rachel – Why do you hate Kid Cudi?
Best Documentary
Rachel – These five docs are five of my favourite things that I watched last year across all types of movies. Funny enough, I saw all five of these earlier in 2022 and each of those stories stuck with me as the year went on.
Dakota – A couple of my docs were from earlier in the year too! Nice shout out for Come Back Anytime, I had it on my 2021 list but I’m still happy to see it here. Listen to my interview with the director John Daschbach.
Rachel – And read mine 😬
Best International Film
Dakota – Well there is no denying what was the best international film of the last year. Glad we could agree on that! I haven’t seen your last two picks, but Return to Seoul does look really interesting. I need to show some love for one of the funniest movies from last year in Viking, a French-Canadian delight about people who are forced to pretend to be astronauts to help solve actual astronaut problems.
Rachel – Viking was an excellent movie, good choice. My first four picks have been pretty well spoken about but #LookAtMe gets a nod simply because I think it’s an important movie for Singapore, and countries like Singapore. (So forgive me for going a little long here.) The film touches on homosexuality, censorship, abuse by the police, as well as grief and family. I saw the movie during the New York Asian Film Festival and given my familiarity with Singapore, I was shocked that a movie this raw and honest was made in Singapore. As of late 2022, the film was barred from being shown in Singapore, which isn’t surprising in the slightest, and was also my motivation for wanting to shine a spotlight on it. (If you’re interested, here’s my review for the film I wrote for That Shelf: #LookAtMe Review: A Fearless Portrait of Surveillance in Singapore.)
Best Visual Effects
Rachel – How much did it hurt you to have to type Avatar in AND put it in first?
Dakota – More than you’ll ever know. I didn’t care for Nope, but the alien design and the cloud work was pretty incredible. We almost had the exact same picks!
Best Production Design
Rachel – I didn’t want to shit on any of your picks but Glass Onion for production design? There was something so generic and bland about that set to me.
Dakota – Yeah, well All Quiet on the Western Front was just a bunch of trenches!
Rachel – The way my eyes just rolled out of my head.
Best Film Editing
Rachel – There are no correct answers for an exercise like this, but truly anyone would be flat out wrong to not pick Everything Everywhere All At Once in this category.
Dakota – This year Most Editing and Best Editing are the same thing. Tension is probably the aspect I value the most in this award.
Best Director
Dakota – My Best Director picks aren’t just from my one through five Best Picture choices. I value originality, uniqueness and overall control over tone. I think my five picks all exemplify those traits. I think your picks fit the same category. Also Kogonada almost made my list.
Rachel – For me it’s mostly about control and command over their craft. Decision to Leave is a good example of that where, as I said before, I don’t think the movie is particularly excellent, but, Park is so in command that I’m in awe. I like the Kosinski shout out — I wish we had a glimpse at the #6-10 nominees from the Academy; I feel like Kosinski got in there.
Best Picture
Rachel – When I watched Brother I thought you would like it, but I never in a million years would have thought you’d love it as much as you do. Love that it made it as your BP pick. I won’t lie, I struggled a bit to fill this category. With a few exceptions, I wonder how many films from this year will be remembered for their filmmaking. Lots of movies with solid social impact (EEAAO, Top Gun, The Batman), but when thinking about “the best,” I don’t know how many movies from 2022 will stand the test of time.
Dakota – Overall I thought this year was much better than last year’s but you might be onto something. I feel like some films like After Yang, Decision to Leave, Broker and even Babylon will likely be re-evaluated and help people think of 2022 as a special year. Brother is exactly the type of movie I fall hard for. Strong quiet performances, methodical camera work, a bit of a twisty no sequential plot and of course a director making a triumphant comeback! I’m happily surprised that Close made your list and shocked that Puss in Boots did. Any comments on those?
Rachel – Close really moved me. I thought I had my top 10 of the year sewn up and then I watched Close and had to re-evaluate. There was something about the story and performances that were really soft and vulnerable that got to me. As for Puss in Boots, I can’t defend it for being a good story but the animation really blew me away, and I’m a sucker for some great animation — consider it my Avatar entry.
