Welcome readers to the 2nd Annual ILTBTA Oscars Preview Post, hosted by yours truly. With the 96th Annual Academy Awards (otherwise known as The Oscars, though no one definitively knows why) coming up this Sunday at 7 PM Eastern1, we wanted to take a break from all those crusty old nominees and turn our spotlight onto the current crop of Best Picture nominees. Since chances are you’re not weirdos like us who have the list memorized, here’s a quick reminder of who those nominees are:
American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest
Let’s get to the content!
Oh Sheeeeeeeet!
A peek behind the ILTBTA curtain to see our Spreadsheet comments.
American Fiction
Ellen: I enjoyed the tone and each narrative thread presented, but there were a couple of points where I wish it would have stitched them a little more; I love Jeffrey Wright and the score
Tyler: It grew on me as it went on and made me laugh more than I expected
Anatomy of a Fall
Tyler: Like an onion that effortlessly switches between French and English, this movie has layers upon layers
Ellen: So tense, so well-acted, so linguistically varied! Like Marriage Story uncovered in court
Barbie
Tyler: Worth every bit of attention it received, the leads, production design, music, and jokes were all spot-on
Ellen: Seems fun and frothy but has a rock solid core of writing, acting, and freaking production design!!
The Holdovers
Ellen: It's cozy and emotional and funny, you fall in love with the characters as they're creating connections with each other.
Tyler: Dynamite casting and writing, it's a specific vibe but is still done very well
Killers of the Flower Moon
Tyler: More engaging than I expected given the runtime and slower pacing, clean uncut Scorsese
Ellen: Would not be moved from a consistent pace with spikes of adrenaline, just incredibly well-crafted. If someone outside the community is going to tell your story, make it Scorsese.
Maestro
Tyler: Once you accept that it's not your typical biopic and focuses more on their marriage, it's a fantastic movie; Carey Mulligan crushes it
Ellen: The style changes as Leonard changes, but it's so subtle. Carey is a star.
Oppenheimer
Tyler: The most gripping and downright watchable three-hour biopic ... ever? Well-paced, well-shot, well-scored, well-acted, well-everything
Ellen: So well-made you forget the structure is a bit formulaic2; the dedication to practical effects absolutely makes it
Past Lives
Ellen: A modern immigrant tale, a modern romance, an overall lovely film and oh hey you know what: it's Korean Brooklyn!
Tyler: "Korean Brooklyn" really says it all; complex yet surprisingly relatable
Poor Things
Tyler: The story and production design were intriguing but it ultimately fell on the wrong side of the "weird Lanthimos" scale for me
Ellen: Some really great performances but it was icky, okay?? Like Roald Dahl dark whimsy turned way way up
The Zone of Interest
Tyler: It took some additional research to fully "get" some of the choices, but it achieves its goal of lulling you into their lives; popular critics' phrases "banality of evil" and "two movies in one" (based on sound design) are extremely apt
Ellen: For such an intentionally flat and dispassionate movie in visuals, to get me to think "holy shit" as many times as I did via sound design is an incredible achievement
A reminder that you can follow along with your very own version of The Spreadsheet! Simply follow this link, download a copy, and dive in!
Class Superlatives
What if the Oscars had a yearbook?
Most Languages Spoken by an Actress in a Lead Role: Sandra Hüller in Anatomy of a Fall (English and French) and The Zone of Interest (German)
Best Actor Pretending They Can’t Act: Jeffrey Wright as Monk Ellison as Stagg R. Leigh in American Fiction
Most Disturbing Visuals: Poor Things
Most Disturbing Sound/Lack of Visuals: The Zone of Interest
Most Chain Smoking by a Single Actor: Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein in Maestro
Most Likely to Succeed (at the Oscars): Oppenheimer
Most Likely to Succeed (at the Box Office): Barbie
Dumbest Dumb Guy Making Dumb Choices That Hurt Everyone Including Himself: Leonard DiCaprio as Ernest Burkhart in Killers of the Flower Moon
Best Christmas Movie: The Holdovers
Most Likely to Convince You to Text Your Ex3: Past Lives
Oscar NomNomNomz
Need some ceremony snacks? We’ve got you covered.
It’s finally here, the number one snacking day of the year: the Big Game Oscars! But before you settle in to watch three hours of pre-ceremony red carpet coverage, you find yourself in need of sustenance for what is infamously a looooooong show. Let us help you with some cinematic snackage suggestions, themed to each of the Best Picture nominees.
Start off with a warming Anato-miso soup featuring some Fall-inspired spices. While you wait for the main courses to come out, pick at a veggie tray to hold you over. For you seafood fans, dig into some shrimp tem-Poor-a things.
Need a little pick-me-up? Try a caffè Americano Fiction for some caffeine. Looking for something a little stronger? Enter Ellen’s Zone of Gin-terest for a nice cocktail, or have a sip of some killer elder-flower moonshine. Want to just stick to beer? We understand, we’ve got a nice tall Leonard Bern-stein of beer for you.
Ah, the main courses have arrived! There are several meat-centric dishes this year, from the Barbie-que ribs to the beef Maestro-gonoff to the Mae-stromboli to the lamb chop-penheimer-s (I hear they’re the bomb!). If you’re looking for a vegetarian option, there’s also the Past-a and O-lives and the veggie cal-zone of Interest.
Dig in!
Best of the Rest
In which we stray from our Best Picture specialty and praise some other categories.
Production Design (Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer) and Costume Design (Jacqueline Durran) for Barbie
Tyler: In her awesome and informative book Talking Pictures, film critic Ann Hornaday (via paraphrasing Elia Kazan) describes production design as such: “... the difference between new background and great production design is the difference between watching a story play out against a static backdrop and living inside a dynamic, palpable world. The question isn't whether that world is always pretty, but whether it rings true enough to believe and enter completely." Simply put, Barbieland came to life.
Ellen: This is a movie you just want to climb into. It feels like a vintage musical and a magical paradise and a closet you’re dying to borrow from.
Makeup for Maestro (Kazu Hiro, Kay Georgiou and Lori McCoy-Bell)
Tyler: I won’t wade into the stupid nose “controversy” that even Bernstein’s children thought was silly, but I’ll just say that making Bradley Cooper look like Leonard Berstein over the course of his entire adulthood was an impressive feat.
Sound for The Zone of Interest (Tarn Willers and Johnnie Burn)
Ellen: It’s more important to me that ZoI wins this than any other race for any other category. The sound is the whole thing. Otherwise it’s a movie about a German family tending their garden.
Tyler: For those who don’t know, ZoI is technically a Holocaust movie set outside a concentration camp, but does not show you much of anything going on inside, instead relying on the sounds the family hears from the other side of their walled paradise. It’s a risky but ultimately extremely effective approach that creates a harrowing dichotomy between what you see and what you hear.
Original Song for Barbie (“I’m Just Ken” - Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt)
Tyler: I mean, aside from the incredible visuals that accompany it, the song is a straight up earworm.
Ellen: One might say it didn’t have to go that hard!
Visual Effects for The Creator (Jay Cooper, Ian Comley, Andrew Roberts and Neil Corbould)
This movie had some amazing VFX throughout to get a techno-futuristic feel, particularly the creation of humanoid robots.
*Casting for The Holdovers (Susan Shopmaker)
While Best Casting won’t officially be a category for a couple more years, we wanted to give a shout out to the casting in The Holdovers because not only were Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph perfectly cast, but the actor who plays the third main character (Dominic Sessa as an understandably moody teen) was discovered by Shopmaker after she held auditions at the prep school they were filming at, which Sessa was a senior at.
Ten in Ten!
In which we list our ten favorite non-Spreadsheet movies that we saw in theatres last year and so far this year, and comment on them in ten words or less.
Of the nearly 30 non-Best Picture nominated movies we saw in theatres since the last Oscars (Ellen saw a few more than Tyler), these are our favorites:
Ellen
Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse → incredible animation and I cackled and cried
Theater Camp → a delightful surprise, goofy and heartfelt
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves → funny, silly, action-packed, hottie-packed
Bottoms → an offbeat high school comedy with surprises
The Blackening → cabin-in-the-woods4 slasher tropes as white people have never seen them!
A Haunting in Venice → 🎶 spooky, scary, mysteries send shivers down your spine 🎶
Air → how dare you make me root for corporate giant Nike
Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part I → my favorite action sequel this year, OSCAR FOR STUNTS
The Marvels → the most fun Marvel flick since Thanos (outside Loki)
I.S.S. → a biased, personal pick for work-based absurdity; I LOVED IT5
Notable Mention: I wanted to be more into M3GAN than I was - I saw it by myself and snuck in Shake Shack (a recipe for a good time), but I felt like the movie was caught between two edits: one going full bloody camp and the other trying for mainstream horror
Tyler
Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse → visually stunning again, the best multiverse saga around
The Creator → finally an action movie with some nuance around artificial intelligence
Next Goal Wins → Taika and soccer is a perfect recipe for me
The Blackening → movies don’t have to be “for you” to be enjoyable!
Bottoms → see above, one of the funniest movies of the year
Theater Camp → see #5 (
Taylor’sDrama Geek’s Version)Joy Ride → see #5 (Asian Woman’s Version)
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny → this movie is fun, don’t listen to the internet
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part I → HE DROVE A MOTORCYCLE OFF A CLIFF THEN BASE JUMPED!
A Haunting in Venice → nothing like the book, but still spooky mustachioed fun!
Honorable Mentions: Air, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Knock at the Cabin, The Hunger Games: A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, The Marvels, The Meg 2: The Trench
Basil’s Best
Our social media intern picks her favorite Oscars animals.
Greetings humans! This is Basil, the objectively cutest ILTBTA contributor. While I haven’t seen all of these Best Picture nominees6, I’ve done extensive research on all of them and have been very impressed by the animal representation! So in honor of those fantastic fauna, I’ll be presenting the ILTBTA Award for Best Animal. And the nominees are:
Snoop the dog from Anatomy of a Fall
The owl (AKA the harbinger of death7) from Killers of the Flower Moon
Dilla the dog from The Zone of Interest
Goose Willis (the goose-bulldog combination creature) from Poor Things
Bark Wahlberg (the bulldog-goose combination creature) from Poor Things
Bill The Kid (the duck-goat combination creature) from Poor Things
Goosebumps (the goose-Basset Hound combination creature) from Poor Things
SixSox (the pig-shaggy dog combination creature) from Poor Things
Sirius Quack (the duck-shaggy dog combination creature) from Poor Things
David Eggham (the pig-chicken combination creature) from Poor Things
And my ILTBTA Award goes to … Dilla the dog from The Zone of Interest! I really related to her need to be wherever her humans are and her overall interest in people food. Fun fact: the black Weimaraner is actress Sandra Hüller’s family dog!
*A note from the humans: shout out to this IndieWire article for helping compile the names of the animals from Poor Things.
Final Rankings
Who’s the best of the Best?
Without further ado …
Ellen: This was so hard, and I’m so grateful. Last year, we had some pretty clear tiers that the movies fell into without much effort. This time around, I scrapped and scraped to find a difference between my top 9. I think for me, #1 through 5 are movies where I’d cheer enthusiastically if they won, and my ranking is just my personal preference. They’re all so different, but exceptional in their own ways. Anatomy of a Fall was a movie that I kept thinking about for long after it was over, and I was completely captivated. Movies #6 through 9 are, in my opinion, longshots to win but certainly deserving of their nominations; they just hit a little less hard for me in the moment. Poor Things was also nominated.
Tyler: This year’s group of nominees is absolutely stacked, which makes for wonderful movie-watching experiences but also makes our (self-appointed) job of ranking them darn near impossible. Unlike years past, there’s not one movie where I thought to myself “How the hell did this get nominated?” Even though there seems to be an obvious frontrunner, I would completely understand if any of these won Best Picture.
That being said, Oppenheimer has been my clear #1 ever since we saw it, and nothing else made a strong enough case to top that for me. At the other end of my ranking, I understand and appreciate what Poor Things was going for, but I largely just didn’t connect with it nearly as much as others clearly have. But #2-9??? There is NOT a lot of daylight between those. Each are well-made and/or beautiful and/or devastating in their own ways and I can’t wait to write an ILTBTA post about them all one day.
Share your thoughts on our rankings by commenting below or replying to the email!
Let The Credits Roll
Thanks for reading! Some quick housekeeping as you exit the theatre:
If you liked reading this: tell your friends! If you hated reading this: tell your friends how much you hated it by forwarding it to them!
If you’re a weirdo like Tyler and use Twitter, feel free to follow us there @BlankTheAcademy for ILTBTA updates, rejected jokes, and other random movie-related musings. Once we reach a million followers, we’ll offer to purchase the @ILTBTA handle from the butthead who snagged it before us.
ILTBTA is also on Letterboxd, the social networking site for movie fans. Follow us there to read our Spreadsheet comments of our ILTBTA movies, plus our ratings of other movies we watch!
If you’d like to start a wild Best Picture journey of your own, feel free to download a copy of The Spreadsheet. Bonus: checking off the boxes is oddly satisfying.
Post-Credits Scene
Get a sneak peek at the next ILTBTA installment.
To kick off the New Movie Year, our next post on March 26th will cover the epic Stephen King adaptation The Green Mile. Starring Tom Hanks as a prison guard and Michael Clarke Duncan as a death row inmate, The Green Mile is available to rent from all the major streaming marketplaces. As with other ILTBTA Epics, its 3-hour runtime compared to its $3.99 price provides you a nice bang-for-your-buck investment!
Until then, enjoy the show!
Extra Credit
Who wants to read even more?!
We know that ILTBTA is everyone’s one and only media source for all things Oscars, but should you choose to dip a toe in the waters of other outlets, here are some Oscars articles we’ve enjoyed lately:
Ever wonder how the Oscars are voted on? Check out this article and see if the answer is “A cabal of Hollywood elites in a secret meeting room.” Bonus points if this makes you a convert to ranked-choice voting like Tyler.
Now that the ballots are cast, read about how four anonymous voters made up their minds. Warning: lots of snark.
Need some science to go with your art? Check out author Ben Zauzmer’s math-based predictions for this year’s major Oscar categories.
Upset that Basil didn’t pick the dog from Anatomy of a Fall for her ILTBTA Award? Drown your sorrows with these articles from The Guardian and The Daily Beast and learn all about Messi.
Whew that was a lot of reading. Take in some creative Oscar statuette illustrations based on this year’s Best Picture nominees by the wonderful Olly Gibbs, and check out his website for some others.
A bold new take on the beloved timeslot, as ABC keeps telling us during The Bachelor.
Tyler: I’m not sure I agree that the structure is all that formulaic. It bounces around in time (because Nolan can’t help himself) and arguably the climax of the movie isn’t even the bomb test, it’s the Congressional hearing afterwards.
Ellen: I mean following a biopic formula: rise to power, The Big Moment, fall from grace. But there were deviations, I’ll grant!
Such as, you know: your ex-wife!
Tyler: I see you with that dash loophole
Ellen: Unless you work at Johnson Space Center or otherwise have a deep knowledge and/or affection for the ISS Program, I cannot in good conscience recommend you actually see this movie. Certainly don’t pay money for it, as I conned a dozen of my coworkers into doing (and consequently regret nothing).
Tyler: And the ones she has seen she’s largely slept through.
Basil: Same.