The Film Experience

The Oscars are TONIGHT. To end the volleys, Cláudio Alves and Nathaniel Rogers are here to cover all the categories the team hadn't yet discussed…

THE BRUTALIST | © A24

CLÁUDIO: As much as we try to cover every Oscar race at The Film Experience, it isn't always easy to get conversations going for all of them. So, here we are, Nathaniel, dealing with the last slew of races before the big night. Since last time, we focused so much on the eye candy trifecta, we could give the place of privilege to the aural achievements now. Or Best Editing since that's so strongly correlated to Best Picture. And let me tell you, I am quite lost when it comes to that particular lineup. I could see all five of the nominees winning. Though I presume The Brutalist has the least chance since it is my favorite, and I've learned, over the years, to predict pessimistically to avoid disappointments. It's a good method - everyone should try it.

NATHANIEL: Predicting pessimistically has cost me at times for overall punditry scores (not that I care to much about those stats) but the amount of emotional armor it provides is helpful…

Editing is indeed a puzzlement. Since Anora has taken the lead in the Best Picture race (how much of a lead is debatable) I should probably rethink my opinion that it absolutely wasn't going to win here. Now, however I could see a scenario where Sean Baker wins here but loses Best Director to Brady Corbet. I have loved Sean Baker hard for 12 years or so and I still can't quite believe that he could be a quadruple Oscar winner by Sunday night (Picture, Director, Editing, Screenplay). As much as I love him, though, I don't want him to win all four. Spread the f***ing wealth. If he does win all four I hope he makes like Ani and strut exits with vulgar gestures towards his envious fellow nominees- "I'll just be hanging out in my mansion or whatever!' Kidding. but damn, I love Ani and Anora.

Editing is the invisible art so it's always debatable as to where a movie is drawing its storytelling potency from.(aside from acting which is always easiest to track - a very visible art). My take -- I could be wrong! -- is that in the case of Anora, it's happening more from the direction than it is from screenplay or the editing. I think The Brutalist by contrast is more balanced in where its drawing power from and I do think the editing achieves greatness as the movie just flies by for its length and it also doesn't feel like its repeating itself in its scene choices / rhythms while still feeling like a cohesive vision. Anora, which is considerably shorter, does feel like its running in place or circles a few times. It could have used another trim as much as I love it..

ANORA | © NEON Rated

While I no longer think that Emilia Pérez or Wicked are possible as winners here, nothing else would feel surprising. The history of the Oscars suggests that voters don't think much about what category they're voting on (unless something is absolutely undeniably doing THAT -- like oh Bram Stoker's Dracula winning Costume Design) but instead just vote for the movie they love the most in most of its categories. That's also why Best Pictures nominees always have too many nominations as well. So Conclave, Anora, and The Brutalist all feel like threats to win here -- and they're all well-edited (Conclave feels perpetually tense and exciting, which is a neat trick given that it's a bunch of people in robes standing around and fretting for two hours).My guess is that whoever wins this category will also take Best Picture (by contrast, even if Best Director was early in the night, I don't think I'd feel confident about a Best Picture guess based on a win there... at least this year).

CLÁUDIO: I've been a fan of Sean Baker for years, too, but I can't quite bring myself to love Anora. It's still good, like The Florida Project. But, like that other Oscar-nominated title, it feels less interesting than the director's other work and a tad limited in the choices it makes along the way. Why couldn't award voters get this excited about Starlet? I hope it doesn't win editing because, more even than the writing, it's where the project fails its protagonist. The moment Ivan flies out the door, there's a granular but important shift in perspective as far as cutting priorities are concerned. From then on, scenes feel anchored to Yura Borisov's reactions, even when shots ostensibly center Ani's demonstrative emotions, her anger, and, later, her helplessness. It's small, but it shifts the movie just enough that I lose grasp of the titular character as a person rather than a type around which the script spins its tragicomic follies.

By contrast, I love The Brutalist's cutting. Not because it makes the film manageable despite its length, but because it's so often inspired within scenes and glad to eager structuralist games in moments of transition and montage. The first meal shared between the freshly reunited Tóths and the Van Burens is a masterclass on when to cut, when to linger, how to establish power dynamics and diverging individual perspectives without calling attention to itself. On the other hand, Emilia Pérez, Wicked, and Conclave do call a lot of attention to their rhythms. It's why I want to say one of them will come out victorious, but I'm inclined to say Conclave after its SAG Ensemble win.

The same logic follows us into Best Sound. While you're right that voters pick the movie they love most, they also respond to achievements that are overt about their grandiosity and the effort put into them. Which is why this category is so often won by action, war, and music-focused pictures. I don't know about you, but I think this is between Wicked and A Complete Unknown, with Dune: Part Two as a potential spoiler. Basically, what we've seen so far in the guilds.

DUNE: PART TWO | © Warner Bros.

NATHANIEL: "Overt about their grandiosity"... yes, this is a finer point that my umbrella "undeniable" callback to Bram Stoker's Dracula as the undeniability is sometimes not qualitative but MOST or both of those things (in the case of my callback)! I do actually think that Dune: Part Two will repeat in sound. In a lot of ways I believe we're seeing a close mirror to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

LOTR 1
13 nominations / 4 wins
(pic, dir, supp actor, screenplay, cinematography*, prod design, costume design, editing, makeup*, score*, song, sound, vfx*)

DUNE 1
10 noms / 6 wins
(pic, screenplay, cinematography*, prod design*, editing*, costume design, makeup, score*, sound*, vfx*)

The only reason that Fellowship didn't was as many Oscars as Part One of Dune was that it was contending with an 'Overt About Its Grandiosity' contender in Moulin Rouge! and Dune had no such rival.

LOTR 2
6 nominations / 2 wins
(pic, editing, prod design, sound, sound editing*, vfx*)

DUNE 2
5 nominations / ??? wins
(pic, cinematography, prod design, sound, vfx)

So, I think Dune: Part Two will win two this round: Sound and VFX , mirroring the fate of The Two Towers.

LOTR 3
11 noms / 11 wins
(pic*, dir*, screenplay*, prod design*, editing*, costume design*, makeup*, score*, song*, sound*, vfx*)

I am not suggesting that Dune: Messiah will make a clean sweep at the Oscars. Or am I? But the similiarities are quite apparent apart aside from the noticeable fact that the Director's branch have clearly not been booking their tickets to Arrakis like they did to Middle Earth.

As caveat, I agree that A Complete Unknown is a very real threat to win Sound. It would be an easy way to reward a film they clearly like a lot but which won't be able to lineup wins elsewhere (Best Actor maybe but the rest would be surprises) and because musicals do have an advantage here. I don't think Wicked will win (the fever has dissipated) but the question is which movie will it siphon votes from in this category?

CLÁUDIO: Oh, that's a great point about Lord of the Rings. The parallels make me second-guess my own predictions of two wins for Dune: Part Two. Because while we agree on Visual Effects, I have it winning Cinematography instead of Sound, making Greig Fraser a two-time Academy Award winner. Then again, no sequel to a past Best Cinematography winner has ever taken the prize, too, so precedent is not on my side.

NOSFERATU | © Focus Features

Truth be told, I could see The Brutalist or Nosferatu taking the prize just as well, though the vampire flick has the disadvantage of no Best Picture nomination to sweeten the deal for potential voters. They're the two frontrunners as far as regional critics groups are concerned, and Maria got the guild prize, but Dune is so showy I can't quite imagine it losing. Also, this category has had a predilection for movies that mix color and black-and-white footage as of late, giving the sci-fi epic an advantage. That Giedi Prime sequence is something else, alright.

But am I betting on the wrong repeat win for Dune? Could it take Best Production Design, instead? I don't think so, feeling that it's between The Brutalist and Wicked. The latter is the favorite in most pundits' opinion - Nathan Crowley an Oscar winner at long last surely sounds nice - but I think the former might pull it on the basis of thematic resonance. The Academy likes to honor crafts whose importance is baked into the text itself, and a movie about an architect fits the bill. Then again, could Nosferatu pull an upset or maybe even Conclave now that the news cycle is full of images from the Vatican, calling attention to what a feat of reproduction that picture sets are? No nominee is out of the running, but I might be overthinking it. Maybe I'm still reeling from that Lincoln surprise in 2012 and wanting to get ahead of a shocker result.

NATHANIEL: Not to sidetrack your subtle segue to Production Design, but I think Dune and Wicked should both be grateful that their final installments are not competing with each other (not that Wicked will have the 2025/26 Oscar season all to itself but no Dune will certainly help!). This way, if both Chu & Villeneuve stick the landings, the Academy could deign to shower both of their franchises with naked gold men... at least in the craft departments. [drag race voice] If you stay <strike>ready</strike> competitive you don't have to get competitive!

I suppose it wouldn't shock me to see Nosferatu win one Oscar, but I see cinematography as a far more likely place for a vampiric win than production design. What's more I have trouble believing that Wicked won't exit Oscar season without the Moulin Rouge! double. Still, it's hilarious you name-checked Lincoln's win because this is always the kind of win that encourages we Oscar fanatics to overanalyze everything to death. You want to be able to see those things coming BUT if you try to see them coming, the mental gymnastics will make virtually any outcome will feel possible, however far-fetched it may be.

For instance, I keep trying to talk myself into believing that Ralph Fiennes could surprise in Best Actor or that there's such a groundswell write-in vote that they chuck all the Best Original Song contenders and give it to Miley Cyrus's song from The Last Showgirl or Kristen Wiig's song from Will & Harper both of which run circles around the actual nominees and are nominated for my my personal awards. God, I hate the music branch!

That's a segue into Score/Song! Hard to spot I know. I'm so subtle.

EMILIA PÉREZ | © Netflix

CLÁUDIO: While my vote would go to Sing Sing's "Like a Bird," I have a sick desire to see the Academy finally give it to Diane Warren. "The Journey" isn't even one of her worst nominations, and you know how much I despise Emilia Pérez. The controversy seems to have hit it hard at the songwriters' guild where it lost, but Warren triumphed in her own category. So, maybe we could see the end of this longstanding nightmare that is Warren's permanent spot in the Oscar lineup. As a completist, I've put myself through so much nonsense because of that woman. Will the branch stop nominating her if she wins a competitive statuette? I can only hope so.

But maybe the controversy and vote-splitting won't be enough, giving Emilia Pérez another win to add to its surefire Best Supporting Actress prize and less secure International Film honor. There was a time when I thought the French musical would also run away with Best Original Score, but I think that's over now. Instead, I believe Conclave will take it for its memorable - if awfully repetitive - compositions. Either that or The Wild Robot, whose "I Could Use a Boost" music cue is maybe the most tear-jerking track of the cinematic year? I want The Brutalist to win, and that BAFTA result gives me hope, but I don't feel too optimistic about its chances. What about you?

NATHANIEL: Cláudio, wishing for Warren to win to stop the nonsense is akin to assuming that the nonsense would stop after the Honorary Oscar. It emphatically did not and is has cost good songs nominations each year since! I firmly believe that only Diane Warren's retirement will save us from her mandatory nominations. (Either that or reinstating the problematic rules where they graded the songs which meant, in practice, that people could vote against certain songs by scoring them poorly. I don't understand why they don't care about their legacy at all the way some branches do. Don't they want to honor exciting compositions or cool or lauded movies that actually exist that people like or are they the single most hermetically sealed Oscar bubble. Maybe they only ever think and talk about movie songs with each other over karaoke parties at Diane Warren's mansion.

All I know is that in the year of 2019 when Wild Rose was in the mix with a ravishing song that got the climax of the movie all to itself, co-written by an Oscar winning actress, they STILL defaulted to lame songs (and Diane Warren) in their nominations. I remember being horrified at an Oscar party pre-voting when I was chatting up a member of the music branch and they stared at me blankly when I mentioned Mary Steenburgen's amazing song from that film as if they didn't know that the song OR the film OR even Mary Steenburgen existed!

I myself am totally okay with "El Mal" winning (if it does). Emilia Pérez doesn't really have any great songs but "El Mal" is memorably and successfully staged and is a setpiece highlight within the film; that's really the best you can hope for in a category as dire as this one often is! The music branch should be forced to sit through all the songs as they're heard in the context of their film before they're allowed to vote if you ask me. This way maybe we might get strong movie sequences nominated over end credit trifles since they'd be staring at screens with scrolling names before voting?

WICKED | © Universal Pictures

Best Score is more exciting but not by much since this same music branch still has issues following their own rules. I have yet to hear a convincing explanation of why Emilia Pérez or Wicked were not declared ineligible by the rules that govern these categories. Yet, here they are as nominees. I want The Brutalist to win and frankly I think it's a toss-up and any of the five could win. But nominating the score to Wicked, which barely exists beyond stitching together a 20-year-old song-score not written for film is as nonsensical as that time when the Emmys nominated the Hamilton cast for various acting awards for recorded performances of the stage show for which they had already received Tony nominations and wins years prior. If we're just throwing all rules and category essences and calendars to the wind, why not hand RuPaul's Drag Race the Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for season 11 or something? Sorry to The Substance!

CLÁUDIO: On a re-watch, I've grown a bit fonder of Emilia Pérez's instrumental score, especially its use of wordless vocalizations. It makes the film feel a bit more expansive than its often-myopic focus allows. Though, then again, broadening the scope of the piece to be about the people of this land, this culture, this reality, does the piece no favors, so maybe the score is a liability. At least, it's pleasant to the ear unlike the majority of its songs. All in all, I can almost see why it was nominated and allowed to compete here. Can't say the same about Wicked. I'm as flummoxed as you are. How do they disqualify Hans Zimmer's work in Dune but not this? The music branch is nothing if not bizarre and inconsistent but this still feels like a new low. At least, they should be more transparent in their rulings and assessments.

Since we're both so dissatisfied with these musical nominations, may I suggest a small celebration of the titles we would have liked to see represented instead?

In Song, I think the priority should always be tunes that are integral to their film. So, no aural ornamentations or end-credit songs. That's why I'd have voted for stuff from I Saw the TV Glow, Trap, Smile 2, The Idea of You, and Kneecap - all movies that use their original compositions as an extension of their storytelling mechanisms. I also have a soft spot for "Huele a Fraude" from my beloved Problemista, and "My Pledge" Megalopolis. Or even the two originals from Blitz, so beautifully performed in a wartorn landscape, scenes that shine like beacons of hope, a comfort and reprieve from pain. Any of those would have also made for a smashing live performance at the Oscar ceremony, which is something we won't get this year. And honestly, if you take that factor out, why have the category at all?

BLITZ | © Apple TV+

For Score, my heart beats hardest for the thrumming techno of Challengers, Hans Zimmer's most beautiful score in years for Blitz, and the lush orchestrations of The End. Throw in Rumours for good measure, a touch of comedy and pastiche that features original tracks as part of its satirical tools. Sadly, the best score of the year wasn't eligible but, in my dream world, Eiko Ishibashi is an Oscar winner for Evil Does Not Exist. C'mon, Academy, how often do you see a film made from its score rather than the other way around?

NATHANIEL: In Original Song my dream lineup was "Sick in the Head" from Kneecap, "Beautiful That Way" from The Last Showgirl, "Harper and Will Go West" from Will & Harper, "Better The Devil" from Strange Darling, and "Winter Coat" from Blitz, all for the reasons you suggest, compositions that are part of the storytelling, or culminations and reflections as is the case with the Will & Harper ditty (Kristen Wiig forever!) or The Last Showgirl, which proves a sort of dreamy utopian rumination on a subject that The Last Showgirl is melancholy about since Vegas and the larger world are sure no utopias! For score I'm all about the feral breathy inventive Babygirl score which at least made the Oscar finals.

I would disqualify The End score at the Oscars for the same reason I would the Emilia Pérez score. If your score is significantly diluted by / or essentially is songs, it's not supposed to be eligible! Songs are not Scores, they're 'Song Scores' or 'Adapted Scores' both of which Oscar used to recognize in other formats but not as "Original Score". Maybe they need an Adapted Score category if they're going to keep ruling that non-original musicals like The Color Purple (2023 - which thankfully missed the nod after making the finals) and Wicked (2024 - which received the nomination) can compete in "Original".

CLÁUDIO: Since I love the instrumental parts of The End more than the songs themselves, I feel compelled to defend it in Score. Then again, it'd be wonderful to get that old category back, especially since it'd give more opportunity to reward musicals, a genre very close to my heart even if my dislike of Emilia Pérez might suggest otherwise. I wonder what the nominees for Best Adapted or Song Score would have been in 2024 and how taking Wicked and Emilia Pérez out of Best Original Score would have reshaped that race. I imagine Challengers would have secured a lone nomination, and maybe the last slot could have been filled by Nosferatu. I'd like to think Blitz or The Room Next Door would have had a chance but AMPAS seems to have been utterly uninterested in either, even in other categories where they appeared like stronger contenders.

For that hypothetical Best Adapted or Song Score, Wicked and Emilia Pérez are a given, but what else? A Complete Unknown would have likely made it, adding another feather to its cap. The same goes for the other Chalamet vehicle since Hans Zimmer would have likely been rewarded here instead of Original for his Dune score, whose new love theme is better than anything in the first movie. Am I crazy for thinking Better Man might have been our other nominee? And is this my clumsy way to take us to Best Visual Effects, one of the last categories we haven't properly discussed? Yes to both of them.

BETTER MAN | © Paramount Pictures

NATHANIEL: Haha. We're all about the segueways here but there are a LOT of categories to discuss. I have to admit that I found Better Man such a slog even though I was curious and somewhat excited about its cheeky central gimmick and also liked The Greatest Showman (an underrated pleasure for all its flaws) from the same director. I was quite disappointed to realize super quickly into the interminable 135 minutes that the self-loathing 'i'm an animal!' gimmick was a flimsy disguise; underneath the monkey suit, this is in every other conceivable way a shockingly generic music biopic (rags to riches, difficult relationship to familiy, substance abuse and self-destruction... then wrap it up with redemption, teary family forgiveness, and a comeback!). If you've seen one, you've truly seen them all.

Though I loathe the fact that the Oscars are in danger of becoming the Emmys in our franchise landscape of modern cinema, I would hand this Oscar to Dune for a second time in a heartbeat. It just looks like it cost a gazillion dollars at all times while never being showy for the sake of being showy but rather to hold you completely captive in its otherworldly spell. Oddly enough I believe the second worthiest film in the category is easily Better Man, even though most of the others are better movies. The rest of the nominees have their visual moments but they would not make good winners in this category since they are either no better than they need to be (Wicked) or retreads (Alien: Romulus and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes) that aren't really upping their game. Weak year for the category! But perhaps you feel differently.

CLÁUDIO: Honestly, I'm not sure I'd nominate any of these films, with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes as a potential exception. Unlike you, I don't see its work as a retread but rather a worthwhile expansion of what was done before. I'm forever fascinated by how this franchise keeps taking its simian protagonists up in the anthropomorphizing scale without denying their nature as non-humans. The performances we get through the motion-capture technology are spellbinding enough, but Kingdom looked especially virtuosic in how it showed them interact with an increasingly CGI-ed world. The hometown of our new protagonist is, in my eyes, an achievement on par with most of what we see in Dune: Part Two, though less monumental by design.

But I confess I am disappointed. Not so much with AMPAS' choices but the limits we - filmmakers, film critics, film lovers - have built for ourselves when appreciating visual and special effects. Why is realism always the metric we use to judge what's good work and what isn't? It drives me nuts, similarly to how I can't help but revolt against those for whom the only kind of valid acting styles are those that approximate reality. Mimesis has its place, but it shouldn't be the only option. Moreover, I feel that, when discussing the quality of effects, folks tend to get too wrapped up in technical proficiency, missing the artistry or even the possibility of artistry.

THE WILD ROBOT | © Universal Pictures

So, if made to pick the effects work that most excited me in 2024, I'd have to go with those works that eschewed the rules and precepts put in place, the standards and status quo. Give me the de-materialized irreality of such green screen cinema as The People's Joker and Hundreds of Beavers, a crafty zine and a retro video game given film form, respectively. Give me the obnoxious madness of Megalopolis with its declared falsities, the painterly particle effects of The Wild Robot that render fire into pink ruby flakes, or the puppetry of The Vourdalak. Hell, give me the low-fi experimentation of something like The Human Surge 3. I don't even care if it's polished anymore, just give me new visual ideas, messy as they may come - Yvie Oddly over Brooke Lynn Hytes all the way.

NATHANIEL: While I hear you and you know I agree in terms of acting, I do personally have some resistance to the idea of embracing anything that isn't polished just because it's scrappy or clever. For example, I loved all the visual fun and inventive makeshift effects of Hundreds of Beavers but I draw the line at celebrating The People's Joker in vfx. The latter is quite an achievement on multiple levels but the visuals are often ugly and scattershot. Inventive, yes, but successfully cohesive or aesthetically pleasing? Nope! I appreciate it intellectually but I also want to appreciate it aesthetically if I'm voting for it in a visual category. So if we're going to celebrate effects that aren't after realism as an end goal, my preferred addition alongside Beavers is Beetlejuice Beetlejuice which is never after realism but embracing the ooky-comic-gothic Burtonesque aesthetic, only re-energized.

CLÁUDIO: I would argue that, though the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice effects are designed with anti-naturalism in mind, their textures and rendering are still aiming for realistic plausibility. Same with something like Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and its cartoon creations with extremely detailed fur textures. Considering your comments on The People's Joker, I can't help but wonder what you'd make of Nobuhiko Obayashi's cinema, especially the late works. You might hate them. Then again, you might not.

All this talk of CGI styles is good for more than one category. After all, since most animated films nowadays eschew traditional handmade techniques, most of the animation branch's picks are computer-generated. We already discussed Best Animated Feature Film on a separate volley, but not its short sister category. It's a shame because, as it happens every year, cartoons put the documentary and live-action short lineups to shame.

MAGIC CANDIES | © Toei Animation

Magic Candies, my favorite of the bunch, is especially fascinating from a CGI technical perspective since it's made to look like stop-motion without the materiality of that practice. It's not just a shortcut since it allows director Daisuke Nishio to stretch the medium's possibilities and even fold some manga-like graphics into his cinematic recipe. The moment when the lead hears (or sees) the final thoughts of leaves falling off the branch is genuinely ravishing, words erupting across the screen in an echo of the autumnal cascade, juxtaposed with it. I loved this thing, even if it's a tad too long and weirdly structured - not sure why the scene with the father, a moment of intergenerational understanding through magical means, happens in the middle rather than the end. Indeed, I'm so taken by this short that I can't bring myself to predict it.

Instead, I'm going with my tried-and-true strategy of predicting the nominee I like the least. In this case, it's Beautiful Men, a Dutch stop-motion piece on a crisis of middle-aged masculinity starring three balding brothers traveling to Turkey for hair transplants. The concept is fine, and the animation itself works well with the text. However, it's morose to a fault and weirdly rushed regarding characterization. It's the one short here that works better as a feature where each of the brothers could be more consistently fleshed out, their personalities something other than a hollow echo of each other.

NATHANIEL: Whereas I think the moroseness makes it hilarious and the personalities being indistinct is part of the charm, though charm is a strange word for that Dutch short. I recognize that some people will dislike it -- especially since it's not charming! --but I really enjoyed its stripped down aesthetic including stop motion weiners. I thought the surreal fogginess of the steam room and hotel streets was a particular strong touch and while the punchline was more than expected, it still works. I probably would have nominated it from the finals with the caveat that the only finalist I didn't manage to see was Me from Don Hertzfeldt whose shorts are usually incredible... so maybe not.

My least favourite, which I'm not predicting, is In the Shadow of the Cypress. I think it's beautifully designed but I just couldn't vibe with what it was trying to say. What was it trying to say? The French and comic Yuck, is the slightest of the bunch, but it's cute so I suppose it has a shot at the gold. Still I think the winner is going to be Wander to Wonder since people really seem to thrill to its lord of the flies savagery as miniature "stars" of a cheaply produced children's program are abandoned in a disintegrating studio after their director's sudden death. It's certainly memorable and embraces a raw kind of desperation with its ugly and grimy sets and unraveling mental health. Speaking of, is this the first time 40% of the nominees have featured animated penises?

The star of the category is indeed Magic Candies. It feels both tactile (even without stop motion!) and keenly aware of the sensation of tactility, if you know what I mean. And other senses, too. I almost felt the sticky residue on my fingers and the taste of each treat on my tongue while I was watching it. And the spell of the candies catapulted me back to childhood fantasies. I think I loved it even more than you did since I didn't want it to end!

BEAUTIFUL MEN | © Miyu Distribution

CLÁUDIO: Love what you wrote about Beautiful Men, even if I couldn't vibe with it. Your words about the foggy liminality of its setting made me appreciate some of its staging choices. You're also right that Yuck! is slight, though a tad too long for its slightness, if that makes sense. Unlike with Beautiful Men, I might have actually liked if there was less character here, with the speaking roles reduced to maybe none whatsoever. Let this be just a collection of observations about childhood antics, all behavior with no conflict.

In the Shadow of the Cypress is more interesting to me as an intellectual exercise than anything. There's a radical disconnect between the smooth style of digital swaths of color and a tale of how trauma can change people, turn a loved one into a monster, and excoriate one's sense of self. Even the pace feels like it's working on those disconnections, being extremely stagnant until something happens, almost as if it were trying to test rhythmic variations divorced from the character-based storytelling it chose for itself. It's one of those films that's more interesting to discuss than to watch.

Wander to Wonder is a real possibility for the win, especially after its BAFTA victory. Being a story of actors probably helps. There's also a lot to be said about its haptic appeal. The mixture of the fuzzy stop-motion with the gnarliness of some scenes is rather striking, materializing the story's sense of obsolescence in a scenographic reality that looks ravaged by time, tarnished, just as neglected as its characters. I guess I felt some of what you did with Beautiful Men, for these miseries made it rather funny to me, beckoning a dark amusement that I couldn't get from the Dutch flick.

Finally, we have Best Adapted Screenplay, which might be one of the year's most predictable races. Is there any way Conclave loses this? I guess I could see Nickel Boys taking it in an upset. Or I could before the Vatican-set drama won BAFTA and SAG, becoming a Best Picture frontrunner alongside Anora. It's wild to think that, a month ago, I might have considered an Emilia Pérez win, but it seems Jacques Audiard will have to settle for the Best Writing César he just won.

NATHANIEL: I'm not sure what there is to discuss in Best Adapted Screenplay since it's surely the night's biggest lock.

Anyway, it's prediction time! Going over the many categories we discussed in this convo, I'm going with...

Best Adapted Screenplay: CONCLAVE
Alternative: NICKEL BOYS

Best Editing: CONCLAVE
Alternative: ANORA

Best Cinematography: THE BRUTALIST
Alternative: NOSFERATU

Best Production Design: WICKED
Alternative: THE BRUTALIST

Best Visual Effects: DUNE: PART TWO
Alternative: BETTER MAN

Best Original Score: THE WILD ROBOT
Alternative: CONCLAVE

Best Original Song: "El Mal"
Alternative: "The Journey"

Best Sound: DUNE PART TWO
Alternative: A COMPLETE UNKNOWN

Best Animated Short: WANDER TO WONDER
Alternative: BEAUTIFUL MEN

CLÁUDIO: Among these same categories, I'm going with...

Best Editing: CONCLAVE
Alternative: WICKED

Best Cinematography: DUNE: PART TWO
Alternative: THE BRUTALIST

Best Production Design: THE BRUTALIST
Alternative: WICKED

Best Visual Effects: DUNE: PART TWO
Alternative: BETTER MAN

Best Original Score: CONCLAVE
Alternative: THE WILD ROBOT

Best Original Song: "The Journey"
Alternative: "El Mal"

Best Sound: A COMPLETE UNKNOWN
Alternative: WICKED - though you almost convinced me to sub in DUNE: PART TWO here.

Best Animated Short: BEAUTIFUL MEN
Alternative: WANDER TO WONDER

NATHANIEL: This is how crazy the season has been going. During the conversation I kept changing my predictions (not just in these previously un-volleyed categories but the other ones too). I'll want to change my predictions up until the red carpet tonight! I've gone through iterations where no film is going to win more than two Oscars (unheard of) and ones where the only films to win three Oscars will be Dune: Part Two and Emilia Pérez which will be so strange since the former is maybe the least discussed in terms of the Oscar race (since it's old news) and the latter is the most embattled. So I think I'm now going with a scenario in which The Brutalist wins the most Oscars (only 3) and Emilia Pérez surprisingly loses in Best International Film.

Now watch Conclave sweep or Sean Baker win four Oscars.

Previous Oscar Volleys: