Oscars 2024 Best Picture Nominations

"​On March 10th, the 96th Oscars went live, once again hosted by Jimmy Kimmel."--Alex Stullman, 8th Grade

On March 10th, the 96th Oscars went live, once again hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, the only non-problematic man left in Hollywood. Overall, it was a good show, considering no one got slapped, and the jokes were on the better side of painful. However, the pool of movies that won was very small. All I really remember from the winners were the presenters saying over and over, Poor Things and Oppenheimer. Plus, the Best Picture category had ten absolutely incredible films, most of which got either little to no recognition, or way too much. Although the ceremony has already passed, a lot of these films went unnoticed and I believe they ought to get some love (and hate where it’s deserved).

Maestro, dir. Bradley Cooper

Maestro told the story of Leonard Bernstein, one of the greatest American composers of the 20th century. It was directed by Bradley Cooper, who also starred in the main role of Bernstein alongside Carey Mulligan as his wife, Felicia.

As always happens with biopics, the story focused more on one element of Bernstein’s life than others. In this case, Bernstein’s relationship with his wife was the center of the plot, and what pulled it along. A large factor of this as well was the fact that Bernstein was gay, though the movie was never clear on that subject. You would think a story about a marriage in which one person was gay would make more of an effort to portray that, but nope. The subject was largely left unattended, though it clearly put a strain on Bernstein and Felicia’s relationship.

As well as this, the subject of Bernstein’s career wasn’t seen as all that important. The very beginning of the film, Bernstein got the call that he was going to sub for a conductor, with no background information on how he got to be a conductor, how he got to be a sub, any of that nonsense. The entire factor of his role in the music industry was pretty much ignored, despite the fact that that’s what made him iconic enough to have a whole movie made about him. In a way, it could be said that the focus on his marriage versus his career was an “interesting” take on this cultural icon, but it just felt strange.

In addition to this, Bradley Cooper seemed unsure about who his character was. He could go from a young, vivacious man to a cold one in the blink of an eye, be loyal to his wife one moment and cheat the next, etc. Something to be said, however, was Cooper’s insistence to learn to conduct, and his conducting scenes. There was such a raw intensity to his performance when he was doing Bernstein’s work that it made me wish there was more of it in the film. 

The woman who stole the show (and saved it) was Carey Mulligan, who starred alongside Cooper as Mrs. Felicia Montealegre, the strong-willed wife of Bernstein. Watching Mulligan work was truly incredible. It stopped being about an actress on the screen as Mulligan became Montealegre in all her little expressions and tics. There was such a realness to her performance that it was difficult to tear my eyes away from her anytime she was on screen. 

The overly-stylized format of Maestro seemed pretentious to me. This was a big problem I had with a lot of the nominated films this year. They all seemed to be trying to be something more than they were, trying a bit too hard, maybe. There were definitely really cool bits in Maestro, like the On The Town reminiscent dream dance scene, and of course the big conducting scene, but the rest felt a bit disjointed and strangely-timed, with random time jumps and not enough time building Bernstein’s and Montealegre’s relationship. The unnecessary fake nose only made it more uncomfortable, though praise should go where it’s earned - the prosthetics used in Maestro were out of this world.

​Oppenheimer, dir. Christopher Nolan

I was a Barbie loyalist for a very long time, and firmly believed it could win any award it was nominated for. Then I watched Oppenheimer. Christopher Nolan’s explosive summer film was nominated for 13 Oscars, and though it was a good film on the surface, it takes very little critical thinking to expose this movie. 

The plot of Oppenheimer was anything but straightforward. Throughout its near 3-hour runtime, the scenes jumped from past to present to future, without (seemingly) any rhyme or reason. The story followed J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), a brilliant theoretical physicist on his journey to becoming, well, one of the most famous men in America. In general, Oppenheimer is a good movie, but once you layer in historical context, actual facts, and critique, it loses a lot of its luster. For example, lots of parts of the movie are in black and white, but the placement of this fancy coloring is seemingly unrelated to timelines. (Usually black and white is used in films to simulate the past or future.) I had to look up what it meant, and in the end, it’s not even that important. I firmly believe that you should never have to look up something in a movie, especially if it was something the movie didn’t make clear. The whole thing came off as confusing and unnecessary, and a little pretentious. 
 
A bit of background - in the 1930s and 1940s, when Oppenheimer takes place, everyone was very wary of communists, the Communist Party, and who was or wasn’t affiliated with it. Despite the fact that the U.S. was allies with Russia at the time, everyone was afraid of infiltrations and the like. This little subplot was actually a huge part of Oppenheimer, seeing as one of his lovers, one Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), is a strong supporter of Communist ideals, as well as many of his close friends and family. People start speculating about whether Oppenheimer himself is a communist, then perhaps if he was a spy for Russia or the Nazis. For much of the film, Oppenheimer, his wife, and his colleagues are being interviewed in a drab room, and it’s unknown why or what for.  It’s later revealed that the men doing the interviewing are attempting to make it seem like Oppenheimer is a communist, and therefore destroy his reputation, and any chance he has at a future career in politics. 

The actual atomic bomb part of the story is by far the creepiest. To ensure that the whole project is kept top secret, Oppenheimer creates a literal town in the desert of Los Alamos where only the best scientists can work with him. Personally, I don’t understand one bit of the science they go on about, but the film made it extremely clear how important it all was. Once the bomb is finally built, and successfully exploded in a test run, it’s set to be dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. This is when Oppenheimer’s guilt starts to kick in. It’s finally catching up to him that maybe this isn’t for the greater good. The best scene of the movie, in my opinion, is when Oppenheimer is giving his victory speech to a small crowd, and he is suddenly struck by the vision of the atom bomb, and the crowd transforms into its victims, the dead of Hiroshima. It was a really cool scene, but it felt a little strange that Oppenheimer was ashamed… a town and a bomb too late.

Overall, this movie is very much directed to filmbros. (A filmbro is a guy who pretends to be a movie connoisseur while knowing very little about movies. Chances are their favorite film is The Godfather or Pulp Fiction.) A movie humanizing the creator of one of the worst inventions ever? Perfect. Amelia Whitcomb (she/her), a screenwriter and teacher at OSA, put it in such eloquent words, saying Oppenheimer was “A real bro movie, for filmbros, and about a sort of bro topic. Bombs and being conflicted about it, only after you’ve already done it.”

To literally no one’s surprise, Oppenheimer won for Best Picture.

​The Holdovers, dir. Alexander Payne

I truly did enjoy The Holdovers, but after watching the rest of the nominated films, it settles somewhere in the back of my memory. In the basic premise, Angus (Dominic Sessa) is a rich brat at a boarding school full of rich brats. Once winter break rolls around, his mother calls him with the not-so-festive news that she will be spending the two-week vacation on her honeymoon with her new husband instead of relieving him from school. This news puts him in a small group of other boys who are also held over during the break, supervised by the grumpy and strict Mr. Hunham (Paul Giamatti). 

At first glance, I thought this would be a found family sort of coming-of-age film, where Angus and Teddy (Brady Hepner), an overall bully at the school, would find out when confined together that they both had their own home problems and would then form an  alliance. I could not have been more wrong. A couple days after winter break starts, Teddy is only established as even more of a jerk, and one of the other holdover boys gets a call from his father, saying he and the rest of them can come to his big, fancy ski house. One problem - Angus’s mom won’t pick up the phone to give him permission to go. So, while everyone else is freed to enjoy their winter break, Angus is left alone at school with Mr. Hunham and the school lunch lady, Ms. Mary Lamb, (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) each of whom have their own sob stories.

The Holdovers is a very quiet and reflective movie. It’s not about the end of the world, or a giant threat; it’s just three people learning to love again. Mary lost her son in Vietnam, Angus lost his dad to mental illness, and Hunham lost a once-bright future to his bad temper. 

The three, over the break, learn a lot about each other as their characters become apparent to the audience, and begin to build more empathy with each other. That’s the nice thing about The Holdovers: it’s a very character-centered story, something that often can resonate emotionally with audiences versus, say… a film about a bomb. 

The biggest problem I had with The Holdovers wasn’t even really a problem. It was more just confusing the way Angus ended up being the only student left at the school. Once winter break started and there were these four other boys with him, I thought it was going to be a very different movie. I kept thinking they were going to return to the school after they left, but they never did. Another thing - when we’re introduced in the beginning to all these delinquent boys, Angus doesn’t seem the most interesting or troubled at a first glance. Going into the movie blind, I was most interested in the sadistic bully, Teddy. He was clearly not well, but we as the audience never learned anything about it. He didn’t even get any comeuppance, unless you count a sunburn. 

I don’t think The Holdovers is Best Picture material, but it was enjoyable, if not mind blowing.

Past Lives, dir. Celine Song

No joke, watching Past Lives for the first time altered my brain chemistry and changed my life forever. It was a bit of an immigrant story, a bit of a love story, a bit of a coming-of-age story, and a bit of a life lesson. It followed Nora, (Greta Lee) throughout her life and her relationship with one Hae Sung, (Teo Yoo) her first real love. 

Nora and Hae Sung meet when they’re very young, around twelve years old. The film starts out with the two of them walking (or rather, trekking, considering the hilly landscape) home together from school in Seoul, and it’s obvious in seconds they have a sort of unspoken chemistry. They can be in total silence and still convey that, even as kids. It’s incredible. After Nora tells her mom her feelings for Hae Sung, her mother allows her to go on a date with him to the park, since they’re immigrating soon and it may be her last chance. 

Fast forward to 12 years later, and the two haven’t spoken in years. They’re going through college and young adult life, and Nora is living alone in New York. She’s an aspiring writer. We are introduced to this new Nora while she’s on call with her mother, looking up people on FaceBook for fun. Her mother suggests Hae Sung, and when they find him, he’s posted asking if anyone knew a Na-Young (Nora’s original Korean name she left behind when she immigrated) and where to find her. This basically kickstarts their adult relationship - she reaches out to him and they develop a relationship based on Skype calls, which is a little difficult, because the time-difference between Seoul and New York is 14 hours. I absolutely love the way the two communicate. There’s a lot of silence when they talk, and it can be pretty awkward, but there’s never anything bad about it. It’s a sort of comfortable awkwardness that neither of them mind. There’s a wonderful flow to it, and it’s easy to imagine that these two people really have known each other their whole lives. That much chemistry is incredibly rare to see on a screen, but it seems natural that the two are meant to be. 

Twelve years after that, they haven’t even Skyped for most of that time. Nora is married to an author she met at a retreat. Hae-Sung has his life more or less figured out. His girlfriend recently broke up with him. He takes a “vacation” to New York, but everyone, including himself, knows it’s to see Nora in person again. They have their own little reunion, bringing back their wonderful little way of talking to each other, filled with gaps. 

The biggest part of Past Lives was the idea of, well, past lives, or inyeon. The idea that anyone who ever comes in contact with each other has had some sort of connection or relationship in a past life. There was a lot of symbolism with that, seeing as Nora quite literally left her life in Seoul behind to start a new one in America, and in that, became a bit of a different person. She changed with her surroundings and her life, even if it meant leaving everything behind. 

The cinematography in Past Lives was one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time. The whole movie was quiet and pensive, with coloring and calm music to match. There wasn’t a whole lot of dialogue, but since it was so spare, almost everything they said felt like a new revelation. Past Lives is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, without a doubt. I wholeheartedly believe it was the best movie out of all the nominations, and think it should win every single Oscar, all of them, but sadly, it didn’t. These types of quiet, character-driven films often never win, especially if they’re love stories. They’re often overlooked and overwritten, which is extremely irritating.

​Poor Things, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

In the complete and total definition of the phrase, Poor Things is a cinematic masterpiece. Based on the novel by Alasdair Gray, it’s a new take on the classic story of Frankenstein’s Monster, a creature created for experiment that yearns to live a life. In this case, we focus on one Bella Baxter, (Emma Stone) previously a woman named Victoria, who’s dead body was found by a bit of a mad scientist, Godwin Baxter (Willam Dafoe), or as they refer to him throughout the movie, God.

The details of Poor Things can be pretty disturbing to many, but putting it simply, Bella has the body of a full-grown woman, and the mind of a baby. She starts out childish and incomprehending of the generality of society and life, but grows into herself throughout the movie, maturing and exploring and adventuring with another grown toddler, Mr. Duncan (Mark Ruffalo). Well, not really a toddler in Bella’s literal sense, but he’s a very fragile man, a playboy, if you will, who is used to women falling at his feet. So when Bella sees him as a method of experimentation and not as a lover, he becomes obsessed with her. It’s such an un-Mark Ruffalo role, and I find that wonderful.

The general world of Poor Things is absolutely breathtaking. There’s something about it, something I can’t put my finger on, that makes it so unique and new, that really sets this movie apart from the others. It’s sort of steampunk, with the elements of an old world colliding with a futuristic one, but almost foreign and alien at the same time. Much of the set feels like a moving painting, especially when Bella and Duncan are on the cruise on the water: the water looks like somebody took a rough, almost sketchy painting of the ocean waves and animated it. Same with the sky and backdrops - it looks like the way that  old films just had huge paintings for the backdrops, since they were without a green screen. Not sure if that’s how Poor Things was shot, but that’s what it looked like.

Bella’s journey felt like two hours and twenty minutes of enlightenment, if enlightenment came with unnerving violin, strange fisheye camera shots, and lots of nudity. And that’s another thing - the shameless explicitness of Poor Things gave it something most of the other contenders don’t have - fearlessness. Poor Things was so brash, so in-your-face, so unflinching, but somehow, it pulled it off without a hitch. The character of Bella was not afraid to tell people what she thought of them, to tell the truth as it was to her, and the tone of the film followed suit with gusto. Poor Things knew what it wanted to be from the start, and became that. It didn’t feel like it was trying too hard (AHEM, Oppenheimer) to be something it wasn’t. And I think that’s what makes it so attractive to people. It’s like it’s daring us to dislike it. 

Also, I’ve never really been much of an Emma Stone or Mark Ruffalo fan up until now. I mean, I could respect them as actors and whatnot, but now I’m pretty ride-or-die. Both actors strayed so incredibly far from their usual types of roles to bring forth something completely new.

I really, really, truly in my bones, believe Poor Things should have taken home the Oscar this year. And out of all the lineup, it was probably the closest to taking the almost sure win from Oppenheimer. Anyone who’s seen it will most likely have a rough time finding a movie more original or bizarre. That’s pretty cool.

​Anatomy Of A Fall, dir. Justine Tiret

Anatomy Of A Fall was a good movie. It really was. However, pretty much all of it was lost on me. It was suspenseful, deep, sorrowful, and I am a teenager. I don’t exactly have much experience with marriage or the stress of having children, but I can understand, on a logical level, why this is such a good movie.
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Sandra (Sandra Huller) is a German writer who lives in some snowy French mountains with her husband and blind son. The very first scene of the film, Sandra is being interviewed by a young fan in her house when really, really loud music begins playing from upstairs. And get this - it’s a steel pan cover of 50 Cent’s P.I.M.P. It’s obvious both Sandra and the young woman are uncomfortable about it, but neither addresses it until it restarts and becomes too loud to hear each other. The tension could pollute the ocean. And even now, I think if I heard that song one more time, I would go insane myself. The woman leaves and Sandra goes upstairs, possibly to confront her husband. That part isn’t shown.

What is shown is Sandra’s son, Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner) taking a walk with his seeing-eye dog, Snoop (Messi, the dog). When he returns to the cabin, he finds his father in the snow, dead, having fallen. The rest of the film is constant uncertainty - did Sandra kill her husband? It ends with her winning her court case, but the question remains long after the runtime is over. That’s what’s so interesting about Anatomy of a Fall. It leaves you with more questions than answers. It drills into your head and keeps you up. 

Also, someone who deserved SO MUCH recognition but never got any - Daniel? Hello? This kid was so amazing. Like many characters of the movie, you could never tell whether he was lying or telling the truth, plus the fact that he was playing a blind character - I don’t know if that’s controversial, but he did a hell of a job. This kid was crying, and I mean sobbing, with such sorrow, it’s insane. Also kudos to the dog for being a really cute dog.

In addition, the writing of the film was phenomenal. Sandra Huller has a monologue in which she’s yelling at her husband, pre-death, and, dear lord, that woman can act. Every word she said felt like a punch to the stomach. 

Anatomy of a Fall was not an “Oscar movie,” but it was truly chilling and thought-provoking. Perfect in nearly every element, even if it’s confusing in some parts (to kids.)

Barbie, dir. Greta Gerwig

Barbie was possibly the most anticipated film of 2023. It was Greta Gerwig’s follow-up to the widely-acclaimed Little Women, and was filled to the brim with self-conscious camp. If you haven’t heard of it, I can only assume the rock you’ve been living under is extremely comfortable. It’s the coming-of-age story of everybody’s favorite woman, Barbie, and her journey to self-discovery and the reality of being human.

I absolutely loved Barbie the first time around. I mean, a hyper-feminine, feminist story about the meaning of life? Where do I sign? But over time, as TikTok and the opinionated peoples of the internet got their filthy hands all over Gerwig's film, it has been warped from its original message. It’s a Halloween costume and a comedy, not the satirical commentary on masculinity it was meant to be. Barbie has lost much of the vigor with which it hit the screens, leaving me to review a shell of what it once was.

You see, in Barbieland, everything is run by women, and the Kens (men) are cheerleaders and accessories. A lot of filmbros were OUTRAGED by this, (their poor egos!) declaring Barbie to be anti-men. I don’t even feel like explaining why that’s dumb, because if you can’t see it, that’s your problem. Anyway, the main Barbie of the film is Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie), the Barbie people think of when someone says, “Think of a Barbie.” That’s her. Robbie absolutely steals the show, something difficult to do as a main character. The fact that she was excluded from the Best Actress nomination was absolutely criminal, and honestly uncalled for. All the other nominees in the category were all phenomenal (can’t say for Annette Bening, because I didn’t see Nyad). In addition to being the greatest Depression Barbie of all time, Robbie produced the film and got Greta Gerwig on board, another woman who got completely snubbed in the Best Director category.

In the end, I knew it was futile, but I was still rooting for Barbie wherever it was nominated. Everybody is different, but Barbie was the film out of the ten I genuinely enjoyed most. It was a movie I could see myself in. It was a movie that made me laugh and cry and was just really fun to watch, especially in the theater. I felt it resonated in the way Legally Blonde is just such a perfect movie. Unless I really tried, there was nothing I really disliked about it. 

The nearly all-practical set was absolute eye-candy. The whole movie was. Every minute there was new color, new outfits, new hairdos, new eras they were basing the Barbies off of. It was feminist in the way Marilyn Monroe was. Barbie is super political and critical, but all of that is hidden underneath this pink, camp musical. Even guys who might not love America Ferrera’s feminist monologue would forget about it by the time “I’m Just Ken” came around. That, in my opinion, was the genius of Barbie. It was coyly politically educational, batting mascara-covered eyelashes as they exposed the whole patriarchy. 

Greta Gerwig should have won Best Director. I will stand by that until the day I die.

​Killers of the Flower Moon, dir. Martin Scorsese

Killers of the Flower Moon was the huge, three-hour dramatic extravaganza to end all dramatic extravaganzas. It followed the true story of the killings of the oil-rich Osage Native Americans set in the dry, barren American South. 

Obviously, this is an important tale to be told, but that’s all the movie seemed intent on doing - telling the story. The plot came first before anything else - like worldbuilding or (god forbid) making coherent characters. The whole movie felt like Martin Scorsese playing with dolls for three and a half hours, but never giving them any personalities.

These are the basic movie characters - the good guys, the Osage and their allies, and the bad guys, who are basically everybody else. For a good portion of the movie, we see many, many Osage die in brutal ways, murdered by this group of men determined to get their money and their land. The townsfolk of this village seem undisturbed by it, even glad. The whole premise is horrendously messed up, but one of the worst aspects, I think, is that these men are marrying into the Osage families, in particular that of Mollie’s, and literally killing their wives for money. Wives who they have children with, I might add. 

However, you never learn much about the Osage. Yes, it’s understood that the bloodshed is unnecessary and cruel, but the people who are killed are never given any humanity. They’re just innocent people. Opposed to this, the film goes out of its way to make sure Leonardo Dicaprio’s character, Ernest, is thoroughly humanized, despite the fact that he’s a part of this murderous mafia, and is killing the family of his wife, Mollie, as well as nearly killing Mollie herself. And yet he’s never made out to be a bad guy.

Killers of the Flower Moon was an important story to tell, I just wish it had been told differently, or by somebody else. However, Lily Gladstone as Mollie joins the group of women starring in mediocre movies, only to completely steal the show and save the film. She did such a great job, lying in bed and groaning in pain for two hours. And I don’t mean that sarcastically. She did what many established actors fail to do, and brought dimension and depth to a character that had pretty much nothing to do and made her incredibly rich and interesting.

​American Fiction, dir. Cord Jefferson

American Fiction was one of the best satires I’ve seen in a really long time. It was Cord Jefferson’s first film, which was definitely something that surprised me when I found it out, since he can clearly direct. He created a cynical, sarcastic, and most importantly smart film criticizing the book industry and the film and television industries for the way they handle creators and artists who are Black.

The story centers around “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), a guy struggling in pretty much all aspects of life - his books don’t sell, his family hardly talks to him, and he’s fallen into depression. 

On a tour to promote his newest book, Monk finds himself walking into another interview with bestselling author, Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), who’s promoting her book, a book that is (according to Monk) poorly written and leaning into Black stereotypes, a book that’s only popular because it satisfies white guilt. As well as this, Monk’s producers call him back to tell him his book isn’t “Black enough,” leaving Monk confused and irritated. In his annoyance, he actually does write a “Black” book, one about gangsters and “the hood.” He leans into stereotypes just as Sintara did with her books. He tells his agent to send it to the producers as an act of defiance… and they eat it up. The book gets a multi-thousand dollar deal AND a movie deal, and suddenly, Monk is thrust into the world of hypocrisy he hates. 

With all this pressure weighing him down, it seems like Monk’s life can’t get any harder. Wrong! Turns out his mom is slowly getting Alzheimers and his brother has come out as queer, has divorced his wife and is now regularly doing drugs. And then his sister dies. Like he doesn’t have enough to deal with already. 

American Fiction is a very smart movie. It exposes the system in a way that feels so nonchalant. This was a film that didn’t care if people liked it or not. It was just a big way of showing how stupid and hypocritical everything and everyone is. It's actually very ironic that it got nominated for Best Picture.

There isn’t anything inherently special about the movie visually, however. That’s something I especially love in movies - when something catches your eye, or there’s a specific tone that really makes the movie pop. American Fiction had amazing writing, acting, what have you. But visually, it wasn’t anything special. And that’s what a movie is - it’s visual. As a filmmaker, you have to make that element of it interesting.

American Fiction hardly got any recognition at the Oscars, and while I do think the one Oscar they got was deserved, it is still Cord Jefferson’s first film. He has a lot to learn, and a lot of area to grow, but American Fiction is still a major win. I’m excited to see what he does in the future.

The Zone Of Interest, dir. Jonathan Glazer

The Zone of Interest was one of the most disturbing movies I’ve ever seen. It’s been a week or so since I first watched it, and it still lingers in my mind and occasionally sends a shiver down my back, and the Oscars commemorated that with its win in the Best Sound category. The Zone of Interest is about the family of the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoss (Christian Freidel), and their attempt to live normally next to the camp. Without the historical context, the family would seem normal at first glance, but as the movie progresses, their relationships devolve and the true sociopathic nature of the Hosses is revealed.

Overall, this film is extremely uncomfortable to watch. I think that was the intention, but it’s something I never want to do again. Seeing these people go about everyday life, building a garden, caring for children, while less than 50 feet away, thousands of people are dying… It makes me want to scream. In many scenes, if you listen carefully, you can actively hear people screaming, yelling, gunshots and the sound of the heat being released from the chimneys. It’s insanely unfathomable to me how people can be so cruel, having civil meetings about the murder of innocent people. 

I don’t watch too many foreign films, but so far, The Zone of Interest is similar to Anatomy of a Fall in many ways. Both have a general lack of background music, Sandra Huller as a main actress, and long, far off shots. Rarely does the audience see a close up of the characters’ faces. In Anatomy Of A Fall, this conveyed how we never really knew what the characters were thinking, but in Zone of Interest, it gave them an element of inhumanity, making them less like coherent people and more like the monsters they really were.

The whole film was extremely well made, with contrasting visuals and audios, but it is not for the faint-hearted (me). Watching it made me physically ill and mentally unstable. Not to mention, I’m pretty sure the credits song was autotuned screaming. At least Oppenheimer, he was ashamed of his actions. Hoss consistently makes it clear he’s proud of his work in genocide. Though the depictions of Auschwitz were anything but glorifying, the coldness and uncaringness in which it was shown was definitely hard to watch. 

The win for Best Sound was one hundred percent deserved, seeing as it was thoroughly disturbing, but I don’t think I will ever watch this movie again. It’s going to take a lot of therapy to get it out of my brain, and I never want to even think about it again. Good job Jonathan Glazer.

Overall, I really wish Past Lives, or even Barbie, had won. Both were insanely good movies that were so fun and cathartic to watch, but alas, our world is run by superficial men, so we were stuck with ole Oppenheimer, and there’s really nothing to do about it except complain.