With more than a few 2024 films under my belt, I have tried to play catch-up with a few of the Academy Award Nominees, finding some surprises, some good, some bad, some really interesting and some a drag. Then I bet on a few and try to make some cash!

Best Animated Film Nominees

Having seen Inside Out 2 and The Wild Robot making it to #3 on my Best of 2024 list (and my pick out of all the nominees), there were still three animated nominees to catch up on. They’re all really good but, honestly, the excellent Transformers One should have gotten in there, probably in place of the very good but somewhat thematically repetitive Inside Out 2.

Flow

A unique and very lush, animated film about animals in a flooded land, with no dialogue and no humans in sight. All that is left are buildings overgrown by nature and scattered remnants of humanity. While focusing on the journey of one cat that is often in danger of drowning, the lack of people needles at the back of the viewer’s brain. It is never stated, but it seems to be post-apocalyptic while humanity has probably wiped itself out and all that will be left is flooded lands and animals. The visuals are great, even the rendering of the water is very pretty, and you cheer for this lone cat, and the various animals that join along the way, to make it to safety. At least they don’t have to worry about running into people anymore.

Memoir of a Snail

This stop-motion film has quite a lot of sadness in it, following Grace (Sarah Snook) as she grows up with her father and twin brother, Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Eventually, their father dies, leaving the kids alone and eventually separated from each other. Grace ends up with a wacky couple that she can’t relate to, and her brother is sent to a crazy Christian fundamentalist family. The movie follows Grace as she grows up quite lonely, only making friends with a very fun older lady and her snails. There are little moments of love for her but a lot of it is Grace just trying to get by and reconnect with her lost brother. Some heartwarming and heartbreaking moments occur while the stop-motion look gives it a palatable darkness and sadness, although when things turn out good, the film is quite joyful.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

Another stop-motion film, but this is downright fun and wacky. Another entry in the Wallace and Gromit series, Wallace is the inventor and Gromit is his dog, featuring a criminal mastermind Penguin who is bitter at Wallce and Gromit for sending him to jail. The Penguin manages to hack Wallace’s inventions and sets his robotic garden gnome attendant to evil. There is just a string of really funny and very corny jokes which are a blast (one Claymation guy asking, “Where are my glasses” and then noticing they’re on his head). Gromit is always trying to last minute save Wallace who is often oblivious to the danger. The robotic gnome army that slowly grows and causes mayhem is hilarious and it all flies along with the fun animation that gives this a quirky, and very British, charm.

Best Picture Nominees

Dune: Part Two was my #1 movie of last year, and Anora was at #4 on my Best Of. It seems Anora is a frontrunner to win, which it deserves because it is great (it has distinct Disney Princess vibes but with more sex and drug use and kidnapping). I was unable to catch I’m Still Here in theatres, the only Best Picture nominee I didn’t see, and it wasn’t available on digital before the Oscars, which is a bit of a miss because if it loses then a big reason to purchase it will go away. Also, this is a Sony Pictures Classics release and Sony puts some movies on video like Madame Web 30 days after in theatres, but I’m Still Here was not. In a fair, just and sane world, Dune: Part Two should run away with everything but Emilia Pérez somehow got some of the most nominees of all time. Figures. 

The Substance

This film cracked my Top 20 Best Of but in my Top 10 for a horror movie I put in Nosferatu, which is a fantastic gothic horror experience. But this is totally worthwhile, as a body horror gross out that is also a satire of Hollywood’s pursuit of perfection, featuring lots of monster stuff. Aging actor Elizabeth (Demi Moore) can’t deal with the loss of her beauty and career, so she enrolls in a special system that will make a younger, prettier clone, Sue (Margaret Qualley) take over for her life. Now they must always swap every few days but when Sue starts to spend more time out, there are horrific things that happen to Elizabeth’s body. The finale is blood splattering pure metal (the guitar riffs are loud and crazy) featuring one of the best final shots of 2024. This is not for the faint of heart, owes quite a lot to gore horror classics like Evil Dead 2, and a fantastic performance by Moore as a star who can’t let go of their beauty, and things turn out messy when she can’t.

Conclave

A movie involving Cardinals at the Vatican choosing a new Pope that has a bunch of awesome monologues, twists and backstabbing between priests. Ralph Fiennes is Cardinal Lawrence, in charge of the Conclave, and keeping the various Cardinal conspiracies and in-fighting in line. Repeated votes land nowhere until a clear winner can emerge as the new Pope. There are a lot of hushed and dramatic tones in here, but all the actors nail it, even though it is a lot of whisper acting, it is very compelling. As each new leader emerges the story delves deeper into their own story as Lawrence even sees himself becoming Pope. The third act features a couple of crazy twists, and the finale twist is a real doozy. But this does offer up a different take on Catholic dogma that is an interesting look into the process and also catty Catholics arguing.

Emilia Pérez

Emilia Pérez is, honestly, just terrible. And 13 nominations for terrible, some of the most in Oscar history! This isn’t the only musical nominated, there’s A Complete Unknown which works as it’s a lot of performances and Wicked, the singing in that world and characters make sense. But like Joker Sings, in Emilia Pérez none of the songs fit, it’s just really bad and each song is progressively worse than the last (the song about gender surgery is so bad it’s become a meme). Also, Emilia is a terrible person who you want to see horrible things happen to which isn’t making her watchable. A story about a Mexican gangster transitioning to becoming a woman hits about every single wrong note, both sonically and thematically, as Emilia tries to make up for her past life but then still becomes a terrible person. And when a majority of characters explode in a car fire at the end it’s basically a relief, although there is another terrible song at the end when random citizens memorialize her. But yah, bad songs, bad movie. Zoe Saldaña, as the lawyer forced into helping Emilia, brings her A game in a bad script but with tons of awesome little beats. Though it shouldn’t be a surprise as she always brings the A game. A game Saldaña! That’s her!

Wicked

The origin of the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz is a crackerjack adaptation of the musical that is a fun take on the mythos with a few unexpected twists. Both leads, Ariana Grande as the fussy Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as the powerful and very green Elphaba, are entertaining to watch with each having a standout moment. The film is a lot of fun, but it has some small faults; revelations about the dark history of the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) does sort of weirdly retcon Dorthy and company as patsies doing his dark bidding, the movie does a whole lot of unnecessary prequel-izing (Origin of the witch’s hat! Origin of the flying monkeys), it’s probably too long with a few superfluous musical numbers, and sometimes it is a bit visually murky, Wicked overall is a joyful buzz to watch when things start singing, like in the gangbusters closer “Defying Gravity”.

A Complete Unknown

A very earnest, but very well made, biopic about Bob Dylan when he was first starting out. Sometimes musical biopics can feel interminable, following the artist from the cradle to the grave with all the stops in between, but Unknown smartly focuses on a small and very interesting chunk with Dylan at the start of his career and all the way until he went electric at the Newport Folk Festival that totally ticked off the audience. Timothée Chalamet does a great impression of Dylan and he also shows off his easily irritated side as the artist tries to branch out. Edward Norton as Pete Seeger is a guy who feels a very heartfelt connection to folk music and seeing his friend Dylan turn away from folk freaks him out. The movie is incredibly heavy on musical performances, which may get a bit draggy at times, but there are great moments where the musical performance works as character, like a snarky back and forth on stage between Dylan and Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) or when Dylan goes electric and has to fend off an angry crowd but also, finally, fully come into his own as a unique artist.

The Brutalist

Ok, way too long. Three hours and 20 minutes, on video the Intermission is just abbreviated to 1 minute (it was nice for them to include an intermission in theatres), and honestly the main plot doesn’t really kick in until like an hour in. But it looks spectacular, with some great camera work and fantastic and unique frame arrangements, like the striking upside-down image of the Statue of Liberty as immigrants arrive in the US. During the late 1940s, Jewish architect László (Adrien Brody) escapes persecution in Europe to head to America and eventually works for a very rich and very mean Harrison (Guy Pearce). László wants to save up enough money to bring over his wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), and Harrison wants László to build a spectacular multipurpose site as a monument to his own ego. There is a lot of Brody looking super intense as he gets passionate about architecture and doing drugs, and then some weird bits like Jones’ character giving her husband a handy while she mumbles about visions. Then there are some really off-putting developments near the end that seem mostly for shock value to substitute as thematic depth. But the movie does look consistently spectacular and even in its long running time there’s great bits of cinema.

Nickel Boys

Another film that has a very distinctive style, in this case it is almost entirely shot from First Person POV literally putting the audience in the scenes, making it feel more intense. And this is an intense film about two teens, Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson) at an abusive school for kids that is basically a prison where some people never emerge. The first person POV sort of feels like a gimmick with the actor staring right down the barrel of the camera, but is a good way to get the point across of how intense and terrible being in that situation would be. There are more than a few harrowing turns where things just get worse for the teens, and little moments of hope and grace where their lives seem like not everything is horrible. There are some interesting flashforwards to a character played by Daveed Diggs that serves as an emotional bookend to the harrowing journey about old crimes that haunt people for decades to come.

My Betslip!

Okay now, I had a bit leftover on FanDuel after the SuperBowl so went in on Oscar bets. The 95 cents on The Wild Robot was just because I had 95 cents leftover and that was my #3 movie and it’s great and it’s already the front runner. 16 dollars on Conclave is mostly because it seems the most likely after Anora and $54.40 payout is great. 10 dollars on Emilia Pérez pays out 21 dollars with it winning under 2.5 Oscars (that means it can’t win more than two), mostly as hoping that sanity and good taste prevails and it doesn’t win anything (or at least Saldaña can win one). At least 2 actors in the female supporting category are leads but the supporting category always lies. Ariana Grande isn’t the frontrunner, but she is great in the film and the payout is amazing, 10 dollar bet wins 110 dollars. I kinda had to!

Anyway, I was wrong last year that the show didn’t go over time, Jimmy Kimmel had to mug for five minutes, but this feels like it’ll go long but Conan will probably have some decent bits.