Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

In Best Original Screenplay:

The biggest flaw of all of these films is on a writing level. Belfast doesn't get consideration from me. It's just a pointless scribble of a film. Don't Look Up wears out its welcome, never figures what it's trying to say, and just plain isn't funny. King Richard is perfectly competent but would take an even worse field to come out on top, leaving two films standing: Licorice Pizza and The Worst Person in the World. Mister Tee almost convinces me of the merits of the second half of Paul Thomas Anderson's occasionally quite funny coming-of-age rom com. To its credit, it has very funny scenes. But I'm going to cast my vote for The Worst Person in the World, which is flawed (it never figures out who Julie is) but gave me the fullest experience and fresh enjoyment of my favorite genre.

In Best Adapted Screenplay:

It's between Drive My Car and The Power of the Dog, the latter could've used a little more meat on the bone (especially at the end) while the former perhaps could've used a bit less. Because Jane Campion has my vote for Best Director, I'll give Drive My Car its due here. Besides, it's a richer, more writerly achievement.

We didn't do this one pre-Oscar. Finally, all the films nominated in the writing categories have become accessible to everyone via home video release or streaming, so hopefully we can get more participation in this one than we would have before.

The other polls (Picture, Directing, Acting) are still open so if you haven't voted in them or have changed your opinion, you can still vote in them.

These are both interesting races. What seemed cut and dry to me earlier on, no longer does so.

In original, of the three biographical or semi-biographical films, Oscar winner Belfast is the one that seems truest to its place and time with Licorice Pizza coming in as a close second. King Richard, though well written, has a central character that although well played never rang true for me.

Don't Look Up has its moments but it's mostly an overly broad farce that ends up just being plain silly.

The gem of the nominees is the one contemporary film, Norway's The Worst Person in the World, which features three perfectly drawn principal characters. But it's this 11th hour speech from the oldest of the three, a man in his 40s that got me:

"I grew up in an age without Internet and mobile phones. I sound like an old fart. But I think about it a lot. The world that I knew... has disappeared. For me it was all about going to stores. Record stores. I'd take the tram to Voices in Grünerløkka. Leaf through used comics at Pretty Price. I can close my eyes and see the aisles at Video Nova in Majorstua. I grew up in a time when culture was passed along through objects. They were interesting because... we could live among them. We could pick them up. Hold them in our hands. Compare them. That's all I have. I spent my life doing that. Collecting all that stuff, comics, books... And I just continued, even when it stopped giving me the powerful emotions I felt in my early 20s I continued anyway. And now it's all I have left. Knowledge and memories of stupid, futile things nobody cares about."

It gets my vote.

In adapted, the love for the Oscar winning CODA eludes me. Aside from the fact that it features criminally underused deaf actors in prominent roles, it's nothing special. Maybe that's the point. I don't know.

The Lost Daughter and Dune are perfectly fine adaptations, but The Power of the Dog and Drive My Car are easily the cream of the crop. I find it really difficult to choose between them, but with The Power of the Dog getting my votes for Picture and Director, I think I'll give someone other than Jane Campion this one. So, for the first time ever, my final choices in the writing categories go to two forgein language films.

My vote goes to Drive My Car.