With a spatula
“Everything everywhere at the same time”, a crazy science fiction production that brings together universes, sex toys and sausage fingers, arrives this Sunday at the Oscars as a favorite to win the award for best film.
Academy organizers hope the audience will follow the gala to see if this $100 million box office film wins the coveted statuette, and also to put an end to Will Smith’s infamous slap that overshadowed the gala on last year.
“Everything Everywhere at the Same Time,” about a Chinese immigrant laundromat owner who battles an interdimensional villain who turns out to be her own daughter, leads Hollywood’s night with eleven nominations.
The film and its largely Asian cast have swept almost every award this season in Hollywood.
“This is a very nice group of people who you can’t not be happy for,” Scott Feinberg, a columnist for the Hollywood Reporter, told AFP.
The film is expected to dominate Oscar night, but it may face difficulties for best picture as the Academy members who decide the winner vote all nominees from best to worst.
A voter who asked to remain anonymous said some of his fellow Academy members, especially the older ones, are “more divided” on the tape.
“It’s daring and unique, but it’s not a traditional movie (…) it could be low on many’s lists.”
They can benefit from this “All Quiet on the Front”, Netflix’s German-language World War I film that dominated Britain’s BAFTAs, and “Top Gun: Maverick”, the acclaimed sequel to the classic starring Tom Cruise.
“It was a movie that brought audiences back to the movies,” said the Academy member.
close ties
On the other hand, the competition in the acting categories is pretty tight.
“I can’t remember a year, at least since I’ve been doing this, where three of the four acting categories were tied,” Feinberg said.
For best actress, Cate Blanchett (“Tár”) is the overwhelming favorite, but “Everything Everywhere at the Same Time” could boost Michelle Yeoh into the first Asian to win in this category.
The award for best actor will be defined between Austin Butler (“Elvis”), Brendan Fraser (“The Whale”) and Colin Farrell (“The Spirits of the Island”).
The statuette for best supporting actress seems to be between Angela Bassett, the first Marvel superhero star to be nominated for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”, Jamie Lee Curtis, for “Everything everywhere at the same time” and Kerry Condon, for “The spirits of the island”.
But the category for best supporting actor seems to be resolved with Ke Huy Quan. The former child star of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” won all the best supporting actor awards for the season, which seems to be the preface of a fantastic comeback.
latin bet
Although the competition is tough, Cuban Ana de Armas, nominated for her lauded performance as Marilyn Monroe in the biopic “Rubia,” could become the first Latina to win an Academy Award for best actress.
Latin American cinema also returns to compete for the best international film, after a few years of absence, with “Argentina, 1985”, the window to the historic trial of the military juntas after the dictatorship that controlled the country between 1976 and 1983.
Directed by Santiago Mitre, and starring Ricardo Darín and Peter Lanzani, the film can award the third statuette to Argentina, a country that won this award in 1986 and 2010 with productions that also speak of the years of military terror.
The Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, who has already accumulated two Oscars at home, has a chance to increase the collection with “Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro”, nominated for best animated film.
The Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón, with four statuettes for “Roma” and “Gravedad”, is competing for the best short film with “Le pupille”, of which he is one of the producers.
the slap
Hanging over the ceremony for this edition is the ghost of the slap Will Smith gave Chris Rock onstage last year after the comedian made a joke about the actor’s wife’s hair loss.
“We’re going to acknowledge it, and then we’re going to move on to something else,” Oscars executive producer Molly McNearney told reporters this week.
The Academy banned Smith’s participation in the gala for ten years, so it does not comply with the tradition of presenting the award for best actress this Sunday.
For the first time, a “crisis team” will be behind the scenes to respond in case something unscripted happens, and their goal, as well as that of the host, Jimmy Kimmel, is to “keep the ceremony entertaining.”
Whether people will stay in front of the screen is another matter.
Thanks in part to “the slap,” viewership ratings improved last year after record declines, but they’re far from the golden age.
Organizers hope that nominations for blockbuster movies like “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Avatar: The Waterway” will draw viewers back.
AFP