Like most Americans, 17+ of my Sundays each year revolve around football–Eagles football, to be exact. While no Super Bowl Sunday has ever brought me the kind of joy that the 2018 Eagles triumph over the Patriots did, it’s always a fun day to enjoy the overtly-capitalist festivities with chicken wings or something. I, however, tend to have what feels like another Super Bowl Sunday within the following few weeks: Oscars Night.
I get it. It’s a dumb night where a bunch of famous people wear expensive clothes and congratulate themselves on doing their jobs in a ceremony that a bunch of old white people vote to decide on (where a whole lot of the best movies of the year will not be recognized,) but it’s a tradition for me. It’s one of the best parts of the year.
Rather than get into some of the films that were rewarded with those 9 pound golden statuettes, I’d like to take the time to go through a few of the times when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences might have gotten it wrong. It’s a weird amalgamation of years, and I’m probably going to miss a lot of movies of the 70s and 80s, but it is my list, and you should check these out. I am almost never wrong when it comes to movies (unless I am recommending movies to my dad. That’s usually 50/50. Actually, 50/50 might be generous. It is probably closer to 75/25, but I digress.)
THE FAREWELL (2019)
One of a number of A24 films appearing on my list, The Farewell, written and directed by Lulu Wang, chronicles Billi (Awkwafina) as she travels back to China to secretly say goodbye to her dying grandmother. The rest of the family is hiding the grandmother’s condition even from the grandmother herself. Billi wrestles with a professional setback while simultaneously doing her best to juggle the morality with leaving without telling her grandmother the truth. It’s based on Lulu Wang’s own story, and you spend these moments laughing waiting for the next scene that makes you cry. It’s so devastating, but it’s one that keeps you coming back for more. The Academy really missed out on lovely writing, performances, direction, and a lot more.
HUSTLERS (2019)
The best performance of a Jennnifer Lopez acting career laden with romantic comedies and also Gigli, Hustlers is one of the first definitive reflections on the 2000s and the financial crisis that we’ve had yet on film. A group of strippers turning the tables on their asshole Wall Street clients? Sign me right up. The film as a whole might not be the greatest movie to ever hit a theater, but it should have at least seen a Supporting Actress nomination for JLo. It certainly deserved that much.
CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? (2018)
(This is one of those movies I recommended to my dad that he did not like. I loved it. Let’s carry on.) Melissa McCarthy is going to win an Oscar one day. I don’t know why, and I don’t know what for, but I love her performance as author-turned-forger Lee Israel is as memorable as her chemistry with my favorite Supporting Actor in last year’s race for the statuette, Richard E. Grant. The film chronicles Israel’s financial struggles which led her to begin forging letters from famous writers to make a few bucks after her biography writing begins to take a turn for the worse. Grant should have won his trophy, and if the Best Actress race had not been as strong as it was (Olivia Colman, Glenn Close, Lady fucking Gaga, Yalitza Aparizio in her debut film,) McCarthy would have had a shot.
LADY BIRD (2017)
I am biased here, as this is my favorite movie ever in my actual real life. Like, shit. This movie is just beautiful, and it means a lot of things to me. Greta Gerwig’s semi-autobiographical film centered on Saoirse Ronan’s Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson is sort of a masterpiece. It’s a coming of age story that doesn’t rely on some cliche metaphor you’ve heard a million times before. Laurie Metcalf’s distraught mother should’ve taken it home in favor of Alison Janney’s turn as Tonya Harding’s abusive mother in I, Tonya. She brings this sort of exasperation in opposition to Lady Bird’s personality which is just like her own. They’re deeply bonded one moment and screaming at each other the next. Just its opening moments bring it home for me. The first time I saw it, I cried for 40 minutes. Maybe I need help. Maybe I need to see this movie 10 more times.
CAKE (2014)
It might have finally been Julianne Moore’s year to win after a career-defining turn in the film Still Alice, but Jennifer Aniston delivered a career-definer all of her own, proving that she can actually carry a drama on the back of a stunning performance. She plays a woman suffering from chronic pain dealing with her own suffering while trying to understand the mindset of another woman from her support group who recently committed suicide. Aniston wasn’t even nominated, which is a shame all around. Cake relies on a performance Aniston is rarely tasked to give in a lot of her roles: vulnerable and sad. The rest of the movie is just fine, but it opened up a door for Aniston that we don’t see often.
GONE GIRL (2015)
Gillain Flynn’s film adaptation of her most famous novel received a single nomination for the titular Gone Girl herself in Rosamund Pike, but the David Fincher-directed flick was largely ignored other than that. Flynn’s adaptation to the screen profiles Amy, who goes missing on her wedding anniversary, leaving her husband, Nick, as the prime suspect in her case. I won’t get further into it because the twists and turns are what makes it so wonderful, but Flynn’s adaptation is awesome, and it should have been recognized here, especially after a Critic’s Choice win.
DOUBT (2008)
Hello, another Amy Adams movie, I know. John Patrick Shanley’s period drama takes place in a Catholic school, where the nun who runs that school (played by Meryl Streep, who received her 15th Oscar nomination for the role) has deep rooted suspicions concerning a popular priest, portrayed by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. He’s got a very close relationship with one young boy–the school’s only black student. Viola Davis is in, like, a single scene, and should have been awarded the Supporting Actress Oscar. She’s incredible, she’s vulnerable, she ruins your life in this one moment. I know Davis has one now, but it should have come around much earlier than it did.
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (2011)
This movie is horribly disturbing and is the kind of movie you should see when you don’t know anything about it, just because it makes it that much better. Tilda Swinton’s Eva gives up quite a career in hopes of becoming a mother, but she has a hard time finding common ground with her son when she finally gives birth. He’s a bad baby who becomes an even worse teen, and the rest should remain a mystery if you’ve never seen it. Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller both give captivating performances, and they should have at least seen a few nominations thrown their way.
JUNEBUG (2005)
Amy Adams is a 6-time Oscar nominee, and she’s one nomination away from the record for most acting nominations without a single win (Hey, Glenn Close.) She’s the only nominee from 2005’s Junebug, and it’s one of her greatest performances. Art dealer Madeleine travels with her brand new husband George to track down a recluse painter in his hometown, and when she insists upon meeting his family, hell seems to break loose in the quiet family kind of way. Adams plays Ashley, George’s young sister-in-law who married his brother before the pair even graduated high school, now pregnant with his baby that she seems to believe will solve all of the family’s problems. It’s not an Amy Adams performance without a moment of vulnerable sobbing, and the moment in this film is jarring and beautiful, to say the least. It’s one to check out.
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (2002)
This is maybe, for me, the definitive Leonardo DiCaprio performance, and he wasn’t even nominated. The film was nominated twice and received no trophies, but it’s a memorable one. Leo plays Frank Abagnale Jr., who managed to scam quite literally everyone he ever met and stole about $5M before he turned 19 while posing as a PanAm pilot, a pediatric surgeon, and a lawyer. It’s a well written (and well directed) adaptation of someone’s very real life with a handful of great performances from Tom Hanks and Christopher Walken to boot. Stephen Spielberg made a great movie, but I guess that isn’t surprising.
PUNCH DRUNK LOVE (2002)
I’m a closet Adam Sandler fan, and I am certainly a sucker for his more serious, dramatic, or emotional roles. Here he plays a socially anxious businessman who falls in love with his sister’s coworker. It’s a performance that should have received more recognition, not just because Sandler stepped out of the comfort zone with which we are all very familiar, but because he actually does it well. Everybody’s seen their favorite comic actors try to take a dramatic role and fall absolutely flat on their faces (and vice versa.) Sandler just has the talent and barely gets to put it out there in the films he makes, except recently (hi, Uncut Gems.) I’m also a sucker for a Paul Thomas Anderson film, and here is one that received not a moment of the Academy recognition that it deserved.
MEMENTO (2000)
This movie is kind of awesome. It’s Christopher Nolan-directed, which doesn’t automatically mean “great movie,” but it certainly contributes here. Our protagonist, played by Guy Pearce, is suffering from a completely untreatable form of memory loss as he tracks down the man who assaulted and murdered his wife. It’s so well put together, and it was nominated in Original Screenplay and Film Editing, where it probably should have won in the latter category. It feels nonsensical and could be completely hard to follow, but the editing (and its writing) keep it in the realm of understanding. It’s also a great Guy Pearce performance.
POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE (1990)
(Biased once again, as this film was adapted from one of my all-time favorite books, so I’m exposing myself here a little bit.) I don’t need to sit here and toot Meryl Streep’s horn for her, as her much-awarded acting career speaks all on its own, and Shirley MacLaine doesn’t really need my help either, but this is one of those times where they probably both should have been recognized. Adapted from the novel based on a dramatized version of the mother-daughter relationship between Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, Streep and MacLaine do the source material justice and leave you with a lot of feelings you end up thinking about for a long time.
EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (1990)
This is probably a moment of my own nostalgia, but I won’t dive the entire way into the story. Tim Burton’s fantasy film starring Johnny Depp (surprise) in the titular role was nominated only in the Best Makeup category, and it somehow doesn’t win? He had… scissors… for hands… and they don’t look like a Halloween costume? It’s also well-scored, and it should have been recognized there too. It’s also a marvel that Johnny Depp has never won an Academy Award, but he’s also gross, so I’m not all the way mad about that.
REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955)
We’re jumping way back a bit, but it was the first thing that came to mind. This is, without a doubt, James Dean’s most famous performance and the one that defines a short but incredibly well acted career. I’m not necessarily a sucker for Old Hollywood, but this movie sort of takes the cake when it comes to the sort of film that would probably be widely celebrated at the Oscars in 2020. To not even nominate Dean seems crazy in retrospect, but even some of the best aren’t awarded for the career highs.
REAR WINDOW (1954)
I might have just said that Old Hollywood is not necessarily my style, but this movie is really an exception, and its lack of Academy Awards is sort of a shocker, considering everything that went into making it. It’s really everything you’d think would make an Oscar winner: Hitchcock, Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly, Grace Kelly’s beautiful gowns, a broken leg, a long lens camera. It’s a movie with everything, and the direction and performances really leave a lasting impression.
