9 alternative Oscar picks that you should watch
It’s becoming increasingly clear that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has lost the plot on the Oscars as it struggles to decide who the awards are for and what they should reward. This year, the Academy is facing two self-created debacles as it grasps at relevancy, both alienating filmmakers and film lovers by cutting awards from the show and making a mockery of the awards with a pair of Twitter-polled consolation prizes.
Amid the crisis, the Academy managed, as always, to put together a slate of nominees that mix sure-things with surprises and snubs. With a better, more well-rounded group of films to choose from than the first pandemic year, it isn’t all bad. Heavyweights Power of the Dog, Dune, and Licorice Pizza got their fair share of noms; Drive My Car and The Worst Person in the World outperformed previous international stunners.
So why does the list of nominations feel so flat and formulaic? Even with a more diverse voting base, the Academy still can’t get enough Oscar bait. Personally, I saw more than 60 films that would be eligible this year, but only 4 of the 10 Best Picture nominees, and I’m not rushing out to see the ones I missed.
That’s not to say there weren’t amazing films and performances that should be honored — maybe just ones that could make things more interesting, for film fans and the telecast. With that in mind, here are 9 alternative Oscar nominations, with all but one from films that weren’t recognized by the Academy at all.
Best Supporting Actor: Ben Affleck, The Last Duel [HBO Max]
The Academy can cut as many categories from the broadcast that they want, but the show is going to continue hemorrhaging viewers. So instead of trying to shoehorn in what average filmgoers want, why don’t they double down on tradition and make a play for Hollywood stars? This would be the perfect category with which to do that.
Forget The Tender Bar: Affleck shines in The Last Duel as a carousing, cock-swinging nobleman that spends the movie either about to start or finish an orgy. His character is the only one to have any fun in an otherwise dour, if well-constructed, Rashomon-style take on a medieval rape accusation. Even if the award ultimately goes to someone with a better story or gets rolled up in a Power of the Dog sweep, you could have gotten Affleck (and J. Lo!) in the good seats.
Best Supporting Actress: Ruth Negga, Passing [Netflix]
Passing was one of the best and most underseen films of the year, and while Rebecca Hall was deserving of a nomination for either her directing or (more likely) for her adaptation of Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel of the same name, the huge snub in this category is Ruth Negga.
Negga’s Clare instigates the action of Passing, disrupting the staid, precise life that Tessa Thompson’s Irene and André Holland’s Brian have constructed for themselves in Harlem. Negga modulates her performance as a Black woman who can pass for white depending on the race (and class) of her scene partners. She embraces what can be believed to be her “true” self in Black spaces, while code-switching in white ones, like in a scene that plays like a horror film in miniature when Clare introduces Irene to her racist husband Alexander Skarsgård.
The Academy likes showy performances and films that Say Something Important; a nomination here would have let them satisfy those needs while highlighting one of the best performances of the year. But I guess Judi Dench needed an eighth nomination as they try to justify that 8-minute-winner all these years later…
Best Adapted Screenplay: Zola [VOD]
Zola not being nominated here is the biggest snub in this category since Adaptation didn’t win the prize back in 2003. Like Charlie (and Donald) Kaufman’s work before it, the Zola screenplay adapts unorthodox material and turns the act of adaptation — both the turning of text into film, and characters adjusting to change — into the focus of the entire work.
Not only did Janicza Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris flip David Kushner’s story about Aziah “Zola” King’s tweets into a darkly hysterical fever dream of a road movie, but they transformed Twitter, texting and the social code of thumb-based technology into an audio-visual system that started on the page.
Want the Oscar ceremony to trend on Twitter? Nominate the movie that began there.
Best Original Screenplay: The Souvenir: Part II [VOD]
The Souvenir devastated audiences in 2019 and Part II continued the emotional toll in 2021. The second part of Joanna Hogg’s loosely autobiographical coming-of-age tale has the same nuance and lived-in quality as the first, but places Honor Swinton Byrne’s Julie in a new world with new obstacles. Rather than embracing the mystery and intrigue of a tragic love story, this film finds Julie processing grief through art in a Matryoshka-like construction that is both difficult to watch and absolutely enveloping.
When I saw it in theaters, I kept checking my watch, not because I wanted it to be over, but because I wanted to see what Hogg could get away with in just over 100 minutes. Maybe the Academy will get it right next time.
Best Actor: Simon Rex, Red Rocket [VOD]
In Tangerine and The Florida Project, Sean Baker proved himself to be a master of casting, typically finding first-time performers who totally embodied their characters and occasionally putting familiar faces in pitch-perfect places. Red Rocket does both, and while the supporting cast is absolutely loaded (watch for Suzanna Son to be on this type of list one day), there’s no film without Simon Rex as Mikey “Saber” Davies.
Playing off his public persona and his background (porn actor, model, MTV VJ and comedy rapper), Rex makes Mikey into one of the most magnetic scumbags ever captured on film. A bullshitter who believes his own rap and a would-be lady’s man reliant on drugs to perform, Mikey has an absolutely carcinogenic effect on anyone he comes into contact with. His ex-wife and sad sack neighbor take some hits as he tries to get back on his feet, but when he gets his suitcase pimp hooks into Son’s Strawberry, it’s Mikey’s dirtbag charisma that keeps us transfixed. As he watches Strawberry cover “Bye Bye Bye,” we watch Mikey grapple with the innocence he’s about to destroy, knowing full-well what he’ll end up doing — and we still watch until the end anyway.
Best Actress: Lady Gaga, House of Gucci [VOD]
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride; if trailers were films, House of Gucci would be one of the best of the year. Unfortunately, Ridley Scott’s second feature of the year never quite comes together as the campy, coke-y farce it could have been. Still, that’s not a good enough reason for Lady Gaga to not be on the nominee list.
Her campaign trail antics aside, Gaga brings her considerable star quality to the rise-and-fall story of Patrizia Reggiani, making every turn — from an office manager pursuing a fashion scion to a scorned woman taking out a hit — entertaining in a film that was too often not. Gaga is 2 for 2 since embracing Hollywood; maybe they should embrace her back (she was half-responsible for one of the most memorable moments in recent Oscar history, after all).
Best International Film: Titane [Hulu]
“Once you overcome the one inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” So said director Bong Joon-ho when receiving his Best Foreign Film Oscar back in 2019. Apparently, that barrier is easier to scale than the one that prevented the Academy from considering Julia Ducournau’s Palme d’Or-winning freakout.
Despite what the trailer would have you believe, this is more Claire Denis’ Beau Travail than David Cronenberg’s Crash, but it’s too difficult to compare Ducournau’s kitchen sink approach to any one film. Titane is a baroque, pyscho-sexual, serial-killing, body-horror, found-family love story that somehow outdoes her comparatively understated Raw, a horror film that made cannibalism sexy.
Best Director: Paul Verhoeven, Benedetta [Hulu]
So often, the Academy doles out Oscars like lifetime achievement awards or make-dos for previously unrecognized excellence. That’s how Scorsese wins not for Raging Bull or Goodfellas but for The Departed, and that’s how always-a-bridesmaid Kenneth Branagh could finally win one this year. But if we’re handing out Oscars to old white dudes, why not Paul Verhoeven?
The Dutch master of maximalism hasn’t been nominated in nearly 50 years, and might not get many more bites at the apple. The time is now to celebrate a director who can do both violent sci-fi satires like RoboCop, and Total Recall and over-sexed freak-outs like Basic Instinct and Showgirls. Benedetta is in the second camp, with its lesbian nuns, crucifix sex toys and thinly veiled pandemic metaphors demonstrating that the 83-year-old pervert still has it.
Best Picture: The French Dispatch [HBO Max]
Filling the full 10 slots, this year’s Best Picture category is from a diverse group of filmmakers. Unfortunately, that same diversity doesn’t extend to the actual films, which count among them elevated genre pictures, schmaltzy crowd-pleasers and a self-satisfied satire. About half would make fine winners, if not as exciting as some of the entries in this piece would have been.
Among the nominees are West Side Story, Licorice Pizza and Nightmare Alley, a trio of less-than-peak productions from Hollywood royalty. While the Academy was at it, they could have easily slotted in Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” alongside films by the other Anderson, Spielberg and the rest.
The French Dispatch might not have the emotional impact as his earlier highlights, but Anderson’s meticulous touch is on full display in an anthology that lets him flex different styles, techniques and cast configurations. Along with more than a dozen players from his repertory company, Benicio del Toro and Jeffrey Wright bring a fresh boldness to their segments. This is certainly a film that will benefit from repeat viewings — several of which you can do while skipping some of the tamer Best Picture nominees.
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