academy-awards – Skye Collacott Williamson

Best Picture

One Battle After Another, director Paul Thomas Anderson.
Sinners, director Ryan Coogler.
Hamnet, director Chloé Zhao.
No Other Choice, director Park Chan-wook.
Avatar: Fire and Ash, director James Cameron.

Q: Why do you feel that some genres like comedy, horror, and action really struggle to break into Best Picture?

A: I think there’s this stigma out there that these movies are seen as lesser.

He goes on to discuss Martin Scorsese, whom we can both agree is one of the greatest filmmakers, and remarks that comic book movies are roller coaster rides.

Scorsese has been a consistent critic of the genre, from his op-ed feature in The New York Times from 2019 entitled “Martin Scorsese: I said Marvel Movies Aren’t Cinema. Let Me Explain.”

William Howells believes that if the Academy were brave enough, it would nominate Liam Neeson for Best Actor.

If we look at horror, Sinners broke theatre records, and it should be nominated for Best Picture.

Our long shot for the category would be 28 Years Later, or Warfare.

With Warfare, it simply presents the situation of war; it starts in the war and it ends in the war. There is no real space for character development, because Warfare is 90 minutes of real-time war.

Best Actor

Dwayne The Rock Johnson, for The Smashing Machine.
Leonardo DiCaprio, for One Battle After Another.
Daniel Day-Lewis, for Anemone.
Paul Mescal, for Hamnet.

Best Supporting Actor

David Johnson, for The Long Walk.

Last year, the Oscars had The Substance, where an actor could come in and be like, “Yeah, I’ve done stupid movies, got the paycheque, but I can act.” This year, we may have Dwayne The Rock Johnson.

David Johnson should sweep the Best Supporting Actor awards this season with his magnetic and heartcrushingly raw performance in The Long Walk. His only downside may be the popularity of the Stephen King film and the Thriller/Horror genre. If it were possible for a full cast to earn Oscars, it should either go to Warfare or The Long Walk.

I, for one, would like to include Cooper Hoffman for Best Actor, but the competition this year may be too high; however, between The Long Walk and Liquorice Pizza, he has proven his father proud.

Best Actress

Ariana Grande, for Wicked: For Good.
Emily Blunt, for The Smashing Machine.
Emma Stone, for Bugonia.

Emma Stone is the Christphor Nolan for the Actress category, with two Oscars under her belt: La La Land in 2017 and Poor Things in 2024. The Best Actress category is always the hardest to predict. Male actors start their Oscar runs early; their performances have always been centred on the Oscars, and women can be pushed aside.

The most likely highest-grossing film, Wicked: For Good, with a leading female cast of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, may be dismissed in these categories for their previous nominations in Wicked.

Technical Categories

F1 for editing and sound.
Superman for visual effects and score.

But perhaps, the more interesting awards this film season are the BAFTAs. Leading with Warfare, with a full British cast and British filmmaker, Hamnet, starring Irish actor Paul Mescal, The Roses, starring Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch.

My personal “long shots”

The Materialists for Cinemateography, or directing.
Die, My Love for either Jennifer Lawrence or Robert Pattinson.

The month of February has been buzzing with the awards season, leaving many to question who will take home the Oscar. Adrien Brody has taken home the BAFTAs and Critics Choice, all for his lead role in The Brutalist.

It seemed all neatly tied together for Brody to take home his second Oscar win until Timothée Chalamet won the SAG award, becoming the youngest male to win.

Chalamet’s possible Oscar win would set him as the youngest male actor to receive an Oscar in this category, and Adrien Brody would set a record of 100 per cent Oscar nominations to win if he takes home the Oscar.

A Complete Unknown, directed by James Mangold, has been in the works for almost six years, the same amount of time Brady Corbet has been working for free on The Brutalist.

Chalamet has absorbed himself into the character of Bob Dylan and encapsulated his singing voices.

Brody spent over a year learning Hungarian for a fictional architect, rebuilding his life post-World War Two.

The Brutalist has received backlash for using Generative AI to draw inspiration from Brutalism architecture and for using AI to enhance the Hungarian spoken by Adrian Body and Felicity Jones.

Film Editor, Dávid Jancsó defended the actors on Deadline: “Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own”.

The actors worked alongside a dialect coach, Tonera Marshall, to learn the language and perfect the accent as much as possible within one year.

Some audiences have suggested the film should not be nominated for the Oscars, as it not only allows for the use of AI but celebrates it.

It is standard practice within Hollywood and the Music Industry to clean up audio post-production, and it has never received backlash before.

Jancsó said, “We should have a very open discussion about what tools AI can provide us with.”

While the film has received academy awards from the BAFTAs, the SAG Awards, and ten nominations from the Oscars, it was not produced by Hollywood.

Corbet had a budget of ten million dollars for the film.

Jancsó and the rest of the production partnered with Respeecher, a Ukrainian software company which used AI software to save the film’s budget.

The AI did not change the actors’ performances; the software made minor sound changes to specific letters to make them sound like native speakers.

A film critic, William Howells, said: “I don’t agree with any AI used in any film, but in this case, it was not used to take away anybody’s job, so I am okay with it”.

The editor also confirmed that human illustrators were used to draw and create the architecture seen in the film.

When asking an AI bot a very simple and basic prompt, “Can you please draw illustrations of architecture based on the brutalism style that emerged in the 1950s among the reconstruction of the post-war era?” The brutalism style is known for its exposed concrete, monochrome colour palette, and angular geometric shape. THIS IS IMPORTANT.”

ChatGPT:

Gemini:

FLUX-1:

AI bots can be used as a starting point to draw inspiration, not design the entire architecture in a film.

The Brutalist represents the combination of new and old that should no longer be feared or dismissed.

It was filmed on a 35mm VistaVision that has been previously used in films such as Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock and has been almost obsolete since the 1960s.

The film also brought back the cinema experience by having a fifteen-minute intermission.

AI was a building tool in the film project to save money and time when both were restricted.

The arts are an expensive career path and usually unrewarding to film directors.

If the Academy considers AI not a tool but a reason not to reward the film, it is cementing the economics that underlay Hollywood.

On Sunday, Adrien Brody won the Oscar in the Best Actor category.

During his speech, he said, “I pray for a healthier, happier, and more inclusive world. “

The Brutalist won a key category in Best Cinematography, and British Score Writer Daniel Blumberg won for Best Original Score.

Blumberg won the BAFTA last month for the score.

The Brutalist mixes piano, saxophone, brass, and percussion to convey Adrien Brody’s character’s inner torment.

With no wins for the young actor Timothee Chalamet, one can only hope next year will be his season, even after great films like A Complete Unknown and Dune: Part Two.