Categories One-by-One: Visual Effects

[Mister Tee]

We're 13 days out, and not even halfway through this year's categories. Let's fly through an easy one:

The nominees:

All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: the Way of Water
The Batman
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Top Gun: Maverick

First, a thank you to the branch, for not making me sit through any pointless atrocities this year. I needed to see most of these nominees regardless, for above-the-line categories -- and the one exception, The Batman 1) I'd seen last Spring and 2) it has two additional nominations. No one-and-dones like Kong: Skull Island or Solo: A Star Wars Story, for once.

A weird story going around suggested people at the bake-off were super-impressed with Thirteen Lives, and thought it might make the final list. When people responded that the film's effects didn't seem all that special, the rejoinder was, But, at the bake-off, they showed us that what seemed like mundane sets were actually all CGI-d. Which raises the question: who besides a studio accountant would care or be impressed that you can use computer imagery to save money on building normal sets?

Of the films that did make the list: what might have won had Avatar not come along to answer the question? All the other films look fine, but few have the visual wow one associates with this category. Top Gun was just a bunch of flight simulations, the kind of thing that used to win this category in the 1940s, but hasn't prevailed in the post-Star Wars era. Maybe Wakanda Forever would have taken the trophy (a weird counterpart to its predecessor not even being nominated)? It at least had a lot of flying around to justify the nomination.

But, moot point. Cameron stuffed the screen with enough effects to win (in an old Pauline Kael phrase) a whole row of Oscars. This is one of very few categories this year I'm convinced is set in stone. The more interesting question: How many Avatars will win this category before we're all finished?