This director is voting for a range of contenders, from “Dune” and “Nightmare Alley” to “Licorice Pizza” and “The Worst Person in the World.”
With final Oscar ballots in Academy voters’ hands as of March 17, we’re continuing with our fifth annual series of interviews with Academy voters from different branches for their honest takes on what got picked, overlooked, and overvalued in the 2022 award season. Interview edited for brevity.
Best Picture
I’m not sure what’s going to win. The consensus of critics and pundits is “The Power of the Dog,” but I’m not sure it’s backed up with favorable response from absolutely everyone. It’s very well made. Jane Campion is a great director. I wouldn’t be mad if it won, but I find it difficult to find people who really love it. I admire it, but it left me a little cold.
If there’s any pushback, it might be because it’s massively overhyped with print ads in the L.A. Times and Variety, advertisements on every site, and all the billboards. Everywhere you drive in L.A. you are faced with a billboard saying it’s “The Best Film of the Year.” If anyone is to blame for pushback it’s Netflix themselves for pushing really hard on the movie. In any other year it would be the dark horse contender, like Jane Campion’s “The Piano,” a classic that really holds up. I didn’t like this one as much as “The Piano” and I didn’t like it as much as “Brokeback Mountain” either. For me, it didn’t quite succeed on its own terms. I read the reviews. I wish I’d seen the movie described in the reviews. They say it’s a revisionist western. But all westerns in the last 60 years have been revisionist.
I don’t dislike “The Power of the Dog.” It will likely win the big one and deservedly win best cinematography, but on the whole I was left unmoved. It’s not my personal best picture of the year.
I liked “Drive My Car” better, “Licorice Pizza,” and “West Side Story,” too. “Dune” even, but that won’t win because it is very much a Part One. I don’t think it quite works as a film in its own right. I’ll probably vote for “Licorice Pizza.” But I don’t think it will win.
“CODA” and “Belfast” both have a chance. I wouldn’t be surprised if “CODA” won. It’s good little movie, maybe a bit too small. I also found “Licorice Pizza” and “King Richard” heartwarming. I was lucky to get to see “King Richard” at a festival screening with a crowd. It killed and everybody loved it. It’s sad that it never found that audience in theaters. It just works. It has a great ending.
“West Side Story” also won’t win. But it was terrific; I was floored by it. I was surprised it was not nominated for one category: Best Adapted Screenplay. Tony Kushner made interesting changes; it was well done; even the reordering of the songs was clever. It’s not about whether it’s better or worse than the original. They made improvements on the original film.
I didn’t care for “Don’t Look Up.” It had its moments but it was the same joke hammered in your face for 2 1/2 hours, and to rub salt in the wound, [writer-director Adam McKay] said that anybody who doesn’t like the movie doesn’t care about climate change! I could have done without that.
Actor in a Leading Role
Will Smith will be a popular winner. He’s good in “King Richard.” The other person I liked a lot was Andrew Garfield in “Tick, Tick, Boom.” This part was tailor made for him. In a film that’s a maybe too inside baseball, Garfield manages to makes it work. We are totally with him on the journey, even as he gets enveloped in his ego and hubris, then realization dawns that it’s not going to happen for him.
Iglesias Más/Sony Pictures Classics
Actress in a Leading Role
Penelope Cruz is undeniable in that performance. She’s an actress…
Read More: Anonymous Oscar Ballot: Director Isn’t Voting for The Power of the Dog