…David Poland‘s Best Picture spitball roster would be an object of partial ridicule.
Forget Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein in this context.
Pleased and throttled as I was with F1, it doesn’t sufficiently sink in to primal undercurrents —- too super-mechanized and hyper-edited — to qualify as a Best Picture contender.
Is there anyone who’s looking forward to Wicked: For Good, much less anticipating a wowser blowout?
The second half of Sinners is vampire schlock, and it’s really, REALLY time to hit the brakes on identity campaigns.
Lanthimos’s Bugonia is minor.
I would love it if Weapons could somehow elbow its way into Best Picture contention, but the notion of Materialists having even half of a chance…please.
HE’s Likely Keepers (10)
Joachim Trier ‘s Sentimental Value (a high-pedigree family drama that really stirs and churns and delivers the whole soul package)
Paul Thomas Anderson‘s One Battle After Another (haven’t seen it, having just returned from Milan a few hours ago, but almost all the formidable critics are panting and wagging their tails)
Richard Linklater Nouvelle Vague (an affectionate, close-to-perfect, time-travel valentine to Jean–Luc Godard‘s late ‘50s cinematic game changer)
Luca Guadagnino‘s After The Hunt (so much more and so much better than what the woke scolds at the Venice Film Festival were stating in lockstep fashion…the measured, drip-drip, low key atmospherics are fascinating…the first major Hollywood prestige film to say “okay but wait a minute” about #MeToo theology)
Chloe Zhao‘s Hamnet (haven’t seen it but the wings of the Telluride creamolas have certainly generated the right kind of cool Academy breeze)
Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? (nobody’s seen it)
Noah Baumbach Jay Kelly (a smooth, 60ish movie star gets called on his bullshit, lets his guard down, tries to grapple…very industry-accurate, very Academy friendly)
Zach‘s Cregger Weapons (HE-approved elevated horror and a box-office smash)
Kaouther ben Hania‘s The Voice of Hind Rajab (devastating, ultra-topical Gaza gutslammer that indicts Israel and then some)
Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite (rousing, Fail Safe-adjacent nuclear thriller that warns how technologically underserved this country is, how vulnerable our key strategists and leaders are under the surface, and how generally tinderbox-y things are out there).