The 97th Academy Awards take place on March 2nd, so what do you make of this year's nominees for Best Picture and the other primary categories? Given this is the Oscars, no doubt it's equal parts agree and disagree – after all, what are awards without a little bit of controversy?
Still, it stings to see so many of our favourite movies and actors being shut out of the nominations. That's why we've devised our own Alternative Oscars to honour those brilliantly talented creatives who have been overlooked.
Remember, you can see several of the Oscar Best Picture nominees back on the big screen at Cineworld for just £5 (plus an online booking fee).
In the meantime, scroll down to discover our categories and elected winners.
1. Best Fourth-Wall Break
Awarded to Deadpool (who else?) in Deadpool & Wolverine
Ryan Reynolds' master of snark Deadpool loves a meta joke or 10. Given that Deadpool & Wolverine is the character's Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) debut, he goes especially hard on the puns, to the extent that one questions if they're even more lethal than the katanas he uses to slice up the myriad TVA goons and Deadpool alternates.
The best moment comes before the final battle in which Deadpool and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, sporting the character's classic yellow comics get-up) prepare to go one-on-one with the onslaught of Deadpool variations. But first, there's a polite request for the extras to clear the set before carnage ensues.
The movie returns to Cineworld screens this March for our IMAX Film Fest so book your tickets below.
BOOK DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE IMAX FILM FEST TICKETS
2. Best 1990s Comeback
Awarded to Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl
Those of a certain vintage have recently been questioning what era we're living in. That's because we've seen the triumphant resurgence of Demi Moore, Oscar-nominated for Best Actress in The Substance, and an increasingly impressive Hugh Grant who chilled us to the core in the thriller Heretic.
What connects the two? Well, these two performers were everywhere in the 1990s before suffering a downturn ahead of a wholesale career revival. The same could be said of Pamela Anderson's recent arc: a 1990s symbol thanks to her role in Baywatch, Anderson has now received the best reviews of her career (alas, no Oscar nomination) for her moving performance in The Last Showgirl.
BOOK THE LAST SHOWGIRL UNLIMITED SCREENING TICKETS
3. The Scene that Got Us Ugly Crying
Awarded to Almut's diagnosis in We Live in Time
There was no Oscar love for this star-led, non-linear weepie so shame on the Academy. Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh demonstrate the kind of naturalistic on-screen chemistry that only comes around every so often, playing devoted lovers and parents beset by the unpredictable nature of life's tragedies.
The moment when Pugh's aspiring fusion chef Almut is terminally diagnosed strikes an especially raw note thanks to Pugh's performance. The film commendably refuses to pretend that everything will be tidied into a box after this moment, with arguments ensuing about dreams lost and love compromised that many viewers will undoubtedly recognise.
4. Best On-Screen Alter-Ego
Awarded to Margaret Qualley in The Substance
Demi Moore's comeback narrative secured an Oscar nomination for Coralie Fargeat's outrageously provocative body horror The Substance, but sadly there was no love for her co-star Margaret Qualley. This is ironic given the actors play the divided halves of the same soul. Moore plays the written-off, 50-something actress Elisabeth Sparkle and Qualley is Sue, the younger, more sellable yet increasingly more venal iteration of Elisabeth whom the latter spawns out of her body after taking the titular Substance.
As the two characters are continually reminded, they must respect the balance. Abuse of one body (which has to go comatose while the other is active) will be reflected in the other. Qualley's vicious brio in demonstrating Sue's hunger for fame is remarkable, likely a career-best performance, and this propels the movie toward its jaw-dropping, blood-splattered end game.
5. Best On-Screen Rant
Awarded to Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Hard Truths
Marianne Jean-Baptiste first collaborated with director Mike Leigh on Leigh's seminal 1996 drama Secrets & Lies. We've had to wait nearly 30 years for them to reunite, and reunite they did in the filmmaker's typically naturalistic and piercing slice-of-life drama, Hard Truths.
In sharp contrast to her reserved role in Secrets & Lies, the brilliant Jean-Baptiste is all splenetic venom here. She plays the vituperative Pansy whose relentless anger is at first played for humour before Leigh and Jean-Baptiste (who lost out on an Oscar nomination) carefully peel back the curtain to examine how damaged souls are created, not born. That doesn't mean we can't laugh at Pansy's cathartic eruption of irritation at all those around her, particularly in the following clip where charity workers, dog walkers and parents get both barrels.
6. Big-Screen Kiss of the Year
Awarded to Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist in Challengers
Luca Guadgnino's sweatily sexy volley of tennis, temptation and trust (or lack thereof) received not a single Oscar nomination. That's all the more surprising given the filmmaker has past form at the Oscars: 2017's Call Me By Your Name scored a Best Original Screenplay Oscar. Oh well, at least Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross won the Golden Globe for their pounding score for Challengers.
We're here to salute the film's most intimate moment, which cements the palpably convincing and tactile chemistry between main players Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist. It's a microcosm of the wider power play as Zendaya's Tasha initiates a moment of intimacy between her husband (Faist) and her ex-lover (O'Connor), reminding us that this isn't a film about tennis, despite the dynamically filmed courtside action.
7. Best Dance Sequence
Awarded to Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga in Joker: Folie a Deux
The Joker sequel didn't exactly triumph at the box office and in sharp contrast to its predecessor, was also left out in the cold as far as awards were concerned. However, there's still much to recommend Todd Phillips' brazenly nihilistic and melancholy sequel in which Joaquin Phoenix's incarcerated clown Arthur Fleck shies away from his Joker persona to bond with his seemingly infatuated fellow inmate Harlene 'Lee' Quinzel (Lady Gaga).
Joker: Folie a Deux erupts into stylised musical reveries a la The Umbrellas of Cherbourg to highlight the growing intimacy between the central characters. The moment when they slow waltz to the tune of 'If My Friends Could See Me Now', all the while backlit by the raging fires of a prison riot, is arresting for how it depicts a stylistically vivid form of interpersonal madness.
8. Best Stunt That Had Us Holding Our Breath
Awarded to The final fight in Monkey Man
It's one thing to direct your first movie. It's quite another to star in it as well. And it's another thing entirely to direct oneself in said film with a busted hand following a bout of fight training.
There's no denying Dev Patel's ambition with his fierce and politically charged action thriller Monkey Man, a sort of John Wick goes to Mumbai affair where saucepans and fireworks become inventive weapons of destruction. The climactic fight, in which Patel's long-suffering Kid is joined by the all-fighting members of Mumbai's outcast trans community, is explosively exciting, earmarking the filmmaker as a talent to watch in the future.
9. Best Physical Transformation
Awarded to Bill Skarsgard in Nosferatu
It's often said that actors disappear into a role, but Nosferatu actor Bill Skarsgard surely takes it to the next level with his portrayal of the festering vampire Count Orlok. Skarsgard has played monsters before, most famously in the Stephen King IT adaptations, but there's barely a trace of him left here, and the effect is horribly compelling.
Under the gaze of director Robert Eggers and clad in Linda Muir's imposing Transvylanian costumes, Skarsgard looms over the narrative in every possible sense. The real kicker is the voice: the actor dropped an entire octave to emanate a thunderous blast of pure undead evil. The effect is absolute: vampires are once again utterly terrifying, as opposed to romantic.
10. Best Big-Screen Parent of the Year
Awarded to Roz in The Wild Robot
The Wild Robot scored a much-deserved nod for Best Animated Feature, but it can't be just us who were holding out for a Best Picture nod. That's how good Chris Sanders' film is: adapted from Peter Brown's book, it's no infantile affair but a lusciously mounted, funny and deeply affecting study of surrogate parenthood across the species divide.
The titular Roz is sensitively voiced by Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong'o and the actor conveys every facet of nascent humanity behind the metallic facade. Her scenes with orphaned gosling Brightbill (Kit Connor) eventually yield complex stirrings of motherhood that would otherwise be beyond Roz's programming, and her journey as she steps into this important role had us all crying and cheering for joy.
Experience the emotion all over again as The Wild Robot returns to Cineworld in March for the IMAX Film Fest.
BOOK THE WILD ROBOT IMAX FILM FEST TICKETS
Visit the following link to find out more about our Oscars coverage.
.jpg)
.png)
