Thanks!
Thanks! Excellent!
The big surprise for me was F1. We’ve been skipping past it on Apple TV for a month or more because we heard it was awful (on this board, in fact.) We’ll probably watch it now. Sinners was fantastic but I never imagined it would break any Academy records. I like Weapons even more, but I’m not disappointed with it’s one nomination. That’s one more than I expect for any Horror film. 16 is just flabbergasting.
Ditto in all respects.
I’ve only seen 4: OBAA, Train Dreams, Sinners, and Marty Supreme. I’d categorize them all as “liked, but didn’t love”. I’d probably put Train Dreams ahead of the others.
I did not like F1 at all. I guess I’m in the minority on that one.
I mean, that’s as much a function of what you’re eligible for as it is for quality. No Country For Old Men is the best movie of the century but there’s no soundtrack, so that’s multiple categories right out.
Every year some crowd-pleaaer is going to get in, that’s a major reason they expanded the nomination count for Best Picture.
F1: The Movie has a decent IMDb score at 7.7, and made good box office. And my wife says it was better than that Maverick film that was nominated a couple of years ago, so there’s that
Even though there’s always an In Memoriam segment during the televised ceremonies, I think there’s often a separate extended tribute to someone who died the previous year, and I think this year it might be for Rob and Michele Reiner. That might be particularly emotional, given that Conan O’Brien is hosting the ceremonies and he was hosting a Christmas party the night before they were killed.
If I were in the Academy and basing only on the noms we got, I would vote Hamnet as best picture.
It’s an astonishingly creative and assured physical production of a phenomenally stupid script. It is possible to watch it and be impressed by how it was made while simultaneously rolling your eyes at what they spent so much effort making.
It’s also a Dad Movie Supreme, and Academy voters definitely tend to the older side.
No further explanation is required.
With all due respect to the Reiners, Robert Redford, Gene Hackman and Diane Keaton all died this year. I’d put any of them first.
(About F1)
Well, don’t go with high expectations. F1 was okay-decent, but IMO not worthy of a Best Picture nomination.
That’s the only one I’ve seen of the Best Picture nominations. I’ll start bringing the wife to see the 5 Best Director nominated films:
⏵ Paul Thomas Anderson — One Battle After Another
⏵ Ryan Coogler — Sinners
⏵ Josh Safdie — Marty Supreme
⏵ Joachim Trier — Sentimental Value
⏵ Chloé Zhao — Hamnet
Of these, to me One Battle After Another seems the most interesting.
I’ve now seen 6 of the 10 nominees for Best Picture and I’m surprised by One Battle After Another getting such acclaim. I’m less surprised by Sinners because it was a great movie, but jeebus – more Oscar nominations than any movie in history? Come on! It was just an entertaining movie.
My vote is for Hamnet because that’s true art, filmmaking at its finest. So of course it probably won’t get anything – the Oscars often disappoint me. But it’s up for Best Picture, Best Director (Chloe Zhao), Best Actress (Jessie Buckner) and also nominations for casting, production values, costume, and music. It’s up against stiff competition but most of all, the way Sinners seems poised to sweep the Oscars.
The more I look over the list, I am becoming more inclined to think best picture should go to"
Hamnet
Jesse Buckley is the heavy favorite to win Best Actress. It will be a huge upset if anyone else wins.
I liked Hamnet but it’s not even in my top 20 of the year. I thought it was fine.
I haven’t been tracking the odds but I’m glad to hear that. She absolutely deserves it. (And sorry for spelling her last name wrong – but you misspelled her first – it’s Jessie Buckley – a beautiful Irish actress who’s already won the Critics’ Choice Best Actress award for Hamnet.)
I hope the movie wins more major accolades but typically it’s unusual for Best Picture and Best Director to go to different films, so it looks like those two are likely going to Sinners. Not my choice, but I don’t vote in the AMPAA.
I’ve only seen 3 of them - Sinners, Bugonia, and F1. IMO, F1 was the only entertaining movie. Of course when I observed to my daughter that I did not find Bugonia entertaining, she said, “It’s not intended to be entertainment, it’s ART!” 
You can keep your art.
Actually One Battle After Another is the far and away favorite for both those categories. It’s definitely possible for Sinners to pull an upset and win there (and would be really cool if it did!), but right now it’s OBAA way on top.
So far for the Best Picture nominees I’ve seen:
⏵ F1 (155 minutes) — surprisingly I found this entertaining, but I’m a car guy and I do like racing (although more Indy Car and less so F1)
⏵ Marty Supreme (150 minutes) — meh. Just, meh. I was a bit surprised to learn that Marty Reisman is a true historical figure and that the movie was loosely based on him. Very loosely. Still, just meh.
⏵ One Battle After Another (162 minutes) — while I typically like the works of DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Benicio del Toro, I didn’t care for the plot in this one.
I include the film lengths (as per wiki) because these films are on the long side. Not a judgment, just an observation.
Today I saw Sinners and Train Dreams. Train Dreams was boring as all getout. Nothing inspiring or enlightening about it. Sinners was, okay entertaining and somewhat interesting, but I laughed to myself while watching it and said that I can’t believe this is up for Best Picture.
5 down, 5 to go. I may rewatch F1 because I saw that in the theaters way back in July. At least it’s available now on YouTube.